[TRIGGER WARNING: RAPE THREATS]
The Men’s Rights movement has been described by some as “the abusers’ lobby.” I don’t think that’s fair, but there are certainly those within the movement that fit the bill – not necessarily because they themselves are abusers, but because, among other things, they lionize abusers and advocate on their behalf.
In the case of hate site A Voice for Men, there is another way in which the term applies: the “activism” of the site and its followers, insofar as it consists of anything more than self-promotion, often mirrors the actions of abusers – AVFM is known for harassing individuals, usually women, and exposing (or threatening to expose) personal information that could be used to stalk and harm them, in an attempt to intimidate them and other feminists and shut them up. Indeed, the site on several occasions has offered $1000 “bounties” on the personal information of its foes.
Now AVFM has another individual in its sights: a young woman, presumably a student, who participated in a recent demonstration against Men’s Rights author Warren Farrell at the University of Toronto. Men’s Rights activists have been promoting a video depicting the protest, in which a group of feminist activists blockaded the building at which Farrell was speaking, until they were forcibly removed by police. The carefully-edited video pays particular attention to one of the activists, the woman in question, as she confronts supporters of Farrell, calling one of them “fucking scum.” (See here for an even-more-manipulatively propagandistic video that focuses even more intently on the woman; and here for one that more clearly depicts the police pulling, shoving, and knocking non-violent protestors to the ground.)
I don’t personally support blocking speeches by opponents; I think it’s bad both in principle and as a political tactic. But Warren Farrell certainly deserves criticism; demonstrators certainly have the right to demonstrate; and as anyone who has ever been to a demonstration knows, sometimes people on opposite sides shout at another.
Apparently the politically inexperienced “activists” at AVFM are unaware of this. And so the site has responded to the demonstration with a campaign to uncover and publicize this woman’s personal information – for the “crime” of using angry language at a protest. In one of the several posts on the subject now up on AVFM, the MRA known as JohnTheOther describes her as, among other things
her own generation’s brown shirt, and she knows it. …
She is clearly sadistic, unable and unwilling to recognize the humanity of anyone who does not slavishly and blindly agree with her own religion of hate.
There is more, much more; if you have the stomach for it, I suggest you read the full post to see JtO’s extended attack on the woman. As is often the case with MRA writings, the full quotes in context are worse than the excerpts I quote here.
A later post from site founder and head Paul Elam includes a picture of the woman, with the caption “Seeking this undesirable’s identity.”
Elam warns that
We have her image and know her general location. We will identify her and profile her activity and name for public view.
We will not stop there, or just with her. And while we will not publish our complete intent, we are dogged in our efforts.
Again, this quote is if anything worse in context; see the entire post here, filled with vituperative, thuggish, threatening language and illustrated with a picture of a violent storm, evidently intended to represent what AVFM is threatening to rain down upon its opponents.
In still another post, with the inflammatory title “Yanking Off the Hood,” Elam defends his site’s “doxxing” policy, writing
AVfM is conducting outreach and investigation into the identities of the persons involved in the violent protest against the rights of men and boys orchestrated and conducted by the University of Toronto Student Union and other antisocial elements within that institution.
To that end, one individual has already been identified, and you will be seeing a story on her here in the near future. Our search for the woman highlighted in the video of the protest continues, with some leads. …
Gender ideologues absolutely hate the light of day. They hate it shining on their ideas and on their lies. Many of them also don’t want it shining on their identities. They seek anonymity for the same reason Klansmen wear hoods.
Even beyond the vicious nature of AVFM’s language and tactics, the hypocrisy here is off the charts: most of AVFM’s writers – gender ideologues all – hide their identities behind pseudonyms, including of course JohnTheOther, who launched AVFM’s campaign against the still-unknown protester.
JtO, who now wishes to conceal his identity, used to write under his own name, and has linked his name with his pseudonym on YouTube and on Men’s Rights sites he has written for. Though his real name is fairly widely known, and can be uncovered with the simplest of web searches, JtO has now decided to try to get that cat back in the bag, and at one point demanded that I remove all mentions of his real name on this site so that he would not – irony alert — face harassment. As much as I don’t respect John, I respected this wish of his, and did so; he may want to take this issue up with his friend Elam, as a post by the AVFM head still up on the site identifies JohnTheOther by both name and pseudonym.
There is no question that the student activist targeted by JtO and AVFM will face harassment when and if her personal information is exposed. Indeed, she is already being singled out for abuse now. On YouTube, videos featuring her have inspired numerous threatening comments. Here are a sampling of comments I’ve found there:
Here you can find even more, sent to me by someone who was at the protest.
If AVFM releases the personal information of the student now being attacked online they are giving a green light for this sort of harassment online and off. They are aiding and abetting those who wish this woman to come to real physical harm.
That’s why I think it is fair to call AVFM a hate site, and a member of the abusers’ lobby.
(Meanwhile, JohnTheOther seems to be undergoing some sort of meltdown on Reddit; more on this in my next post.)
I love it when trolls attempt the Socratic method. It’s proof positive that they have absolutely no idea how people think, because people never answer the way they’re expecting.
So doxxing is now linking to someone’s twitter with their real name attached?
Would that mean that if I linked to this site, called Manboobz, on another site with people contrary to the opinion voiced here and said it’s run by someone called David Futrelle, I’d be doxxing, even though it says as much in the “about” section on the sidebar? Seriously, I’m genuinely confused. Linking to a public account with her real full name is violating her personal information? *blink* Her home address hasn’t been revealed, only her name has, which she on twitter reveals with no pseudonym. She hasn’t been contacted, she hasn’t received any threats directly to her home. Doxxing?
By the way, if you want to have any moral high ground, it’s usually a good idea to keep the “gets sexual release” memes out of the way, unless you wish to be deemed a hypocrite. Also, I’m not sure if you realise, but whenever anyone of you says “what about the menz?” sarcastically, while I’m sure you think it’s clever, it’s actually a reverse “Dear Muslima” and, again, a tad hypocritical. Besides, this woman clearly had some gears to grind and I don’t think it’s fair to say she’s being harassed when in the video she’s the aggressor. The irony is that if this was in the reverse, you absolutely would want to know the identity of the man deriding a woman for merely wanting to attend a speech. And there is no indication what so ever that they’re looking to reveal the home address or other such crucial information in the blog posts you link to, that’s sensationalist nonsense – and that linking to her twitter page would threaten her safety is ridiculous. Grow up.
AVFM have posted her name and twitter account name. They have not posted her address.
gateman: that means it’s okey-dokey?
This from a movement that makes requests to have their names removed from posts because, “I will be harrasssed”?
This is the moral high ground of the MRM?
And that’s the appropriate place to draw the line because?
Tulgery that is all bullshit quote-mining and you know it.
Pecunium, there’s a world of difference between someone posting comments online and those conducting criminal activity which is what the blockade was.
http://www.avoiceformen.com/mens-rights/false-rape-culture/challenging-the-etiology-of-rape/
gateman, you can bullshit yourself all you want, but you can’t bullshit me.
How dare anyone call him a misogynist!
Nope, actually, a blockade is not “criminal activity”.
Yeah it’s true, words are never illegal and actions are always illegal. Sharp points, whatsisface.
Wasn’t the blockade already dealt with by, y’know, the police?
You can’t leave something as important as harassment and intimidation to the police, Bodsy. That calls for an angry vigilante mob.
/sarcasm
Luckily no one has ever figured out someone’s address given their name, and no resources exist to make that possible, so it’s all OK.
And I don’t see anyone in the MRM having the know-how to be a hacker. Being hacks is more their line.
@ katz – let’s just add ‘plausible deniability’ to the list of things that the MRM just does not get.
@Pitchguest:
That is a lie. We routinely have MRA’s showing up here who deride and insult us, and say that we should be beaten, raped, or murdered for merely wanting to attend a speech/reading books/going to school/having sex without the approval of a male guardian/withholding sex from a sex-starved man/etc. Occasionally, such men get banned. But David has never published any of their names despite the fact that, I am sure, he can find that information, sometimes easily. Never happened.
As for “what about teh menz”, although I sometimes disagree when it’s invoked, in many situations the phrase is apt. Discuss rape in any context, and inevitably someone will derail the conversation with screams about false rape accusations, the idea being that criminalizing rape creates a bigger problem than it solves. Discuss any issue that affects women, like, I don’t know, childbirth, and a good minority of people will be horrified why anyone would worry about anything that affects women when there are men suffering in the world. There is definitely a widely popular belief that women constitute a small minority of humanity (I suppose it’s a belief embraced by people who are really bad at math and biology), and that no one may ever address any bad thing that happens to any woman until every single man on the planet is in a state of perfect happiness.
And sometimes not even then.
@katz
Err. Yeah. I’m pretty sure that with the right determination, anyone could find the personal information of whomever their chagrin lies with at that moment. However, there is no evidence that AVfM is looking to reveal the home address of this woman, nor threaten her. They merely addressed her by name, from a twitter account that has her name on it. And they sure as hell haven’t dropped that bit of information for everyone to see. If someone did drop her docs, and the action did not get reprimanded, then we can talk. Not until then. It would do David Futrelle a world of good if he didn’t make blanket assertions without backing them up, just because he’s chiding MRA’s. The truth is, there are skeletons in the closet in both camps. For instance, I’ve never seen David denouncing the many radical feminist sites that spout similar rhetoric as some MRA’s do, but in reverse. Not in his best interest, I suppose.
In any case, to get back to the “doxxing”, it’s asinine to claim that this woman is being doxxed because they linked to her twitter page. Again, that would mean I’d be doxxing David if I linked to the Manboobz site and asked the question, “Why is David Futrelle so [insert questionable attribute here]?” It doesn’t make any sense. At all. Then cherrypicking the comments on the video to highlight the ones about raping her, as if that’s the extent of what the comments there are like, is dishonest and slimy. Especially since the contention is the video of the protest is “carefully edited” and then he goes ahead and does the same thing, “carefully” picking the comments he wants us to focus on. So much for rising above that shit.
Funny how feminists continue to believe that women have no agency and should never be held accountable for their actions and choices.
Funny how MRAs continue to ignore everything said to them and just reiterate their inane talking points.
Dude, gateman, do you even READ? We are saying that internet vigilantism, rape threats, online or in-person harassment are not “holding someone accountable.” They are terrorism. Holding someone accountable is reporting them to the proper authorities.
THIS IS NOT HARD. THIS IS SOMETHING CHILDREN LEARN FAIRLY EARLY ON. WHY IS IT SO HARD FOR MRAs TO UNDERSTAND?
Yet another MRA providing evidence that “accountability” to them means “arbitrary punishment meted out by men.”
Hm. I thought pitchguest looked familiar. He’s the one with the creepy vendetta against Jen McCreight and Atheism+
David, was pitchguest unbanned?
http://manboobz.com/2012/10/16/reddit-mra-upvote-brigade-to-the-rescue-or-the-battle-of-the-urban-dictionary-atheism-definition/comment-page-3/#comment-214029
Women have no agency in your eyes, since you believe only men should have the right to speak.
As for the subject of accountability, no one should be “held accountable” for how a bunch of thugs and yahoos react to that person’s actions and choices. When someone gets carjacked, I doubt you argue that the carjacking is a way of holding the victim accountable for having a car in the first place. You are making precisely the kind of argument that terrorists make. “If you hadn’t pissed me off, I wouldn’t have bombed you. Accept responsibility for your choices!” Yours is also the argument that rape apologists make — that raping a woman is a way to hold her “accountable” for having the temerity to exist outside the home. Or in the home, even.
You jokers need to come up with new material.