And so the MRAs have found yet another woman to hate.
Earlier this month, as many of you no doubt know, a Men’s Rights group sponsored a lecture at the University of Toronto. The event drew protesters, and the protesters drew MRAs with video cameras. One of the MRAs filmed a confrontation between a red-haired feminist activist and a number of MRAs who continually interrupted her as she tried to read a brief statement.
Her crime? She wasn’t exactly polite in responding to the interrupters. And so, after video of the confrontation was uploaded to YouTube, and linked to on the Men’s Rights subreddit and elsewhere, she became a virtual punching bag for the angry misogynists of the internet.
A Voice for Men, naturally, led the charge, running an article by Canadian MRA Dan Perrins labeling her “Little red frothing fornication mouth” and commenting on her breasts. The Amazing Atheist weighed in with a video I couldn’t bring myself to even watch.
Since being targeted by angry YouTube misogynists and MRAs, the red-haired activist has received death threats, rape threats and literally hundreds of other hateful and harassing messages. She’s also been “doxxed” — that is, she’s had her personal information plastered all over the internet, including on A Voice for Men’s forum. Ten days after being uploaded to YouTube, the video of her faceoff against the MRAs has garnered more than 300,000 views, and YouTubers are still leaving threats and insults and crude sexual comments.
This, apparently, is what “Men’s Human Rights Activism” consists of: the doxxing and harassment of individual women.
Several days ago, she contacted me to tell me about the harassment she’s endured. Here’s some of what she wrote:
I’m the red-head. I’m sure by now, you’re one of the 260,000 people who have seen the video of me … .
Because I had the audacity to tell a dude to stfu, an MRA no less, I have since been the target of not only just online misogyny (as if that’s a surprise) but cyber stalking, rape and death threats. They somehow found my facebook, they found my tumblr, they found a twitter acct that I don’t even use, they even found an old [dating site] profile of mine with outdated info …
I also got an anonymous message on tumblr that specifically said “[name deleted] would be disappointed”. [Name deleted] is my dog that died 1.5 years ago, I don’t talk about him on tumblr, nor fb, so they would have had to reaaaaalllly dig to find this info. …
In about 12-24hours, I got about400-500 new messages on my blog, most of them hate, which included rape and death threats, also people wishing death upon me or the typical troll “kill yourself” message. They made a meme of me.
I dunno how many haters I have, and I don’t know where they are. I can’t be sure at any given second, if I’m ever outside my house … if anyone is going to recognize me and try to hurt me.
With her permission, I am reposting screenshots she sent me documenting some of the harassment she’s endured. Even though her personal information has already been widely disseminated online, I don’t want to contribute to that, so I’ve whited out any information that might reveal her identity.
TRIGGER WARNING for what follows, for threatening language and crude sexual remarks.
Here’s a death threat she received from someone claiming to represent the “Islamic Brotherhood.”
Here are some sample comments from her Tumblr inbox. I’ve whited out comments and parts of comments that consist of her contact info, which being sent to her in an attempt to intimidate and frighten her by letting her know they “know where she lives.”
Here’s another threatening comment sent to her via Tumblr:
Here are some comments sent to her via her YouTube account. You’ll notice that the second comment comes from AVFM’s Dan Perrins, who is clearly relishing the attacks on her.
And another glimpse into her YouTube inbox:
Here’s a screenshot from a Men’s Rights forum revealing her personal information.
Meanwhile, over on YouTube, the hateful comments continue to pile up. Here are some of the nastiest ones I’ve collected. I am deliberately posting a lot of them in an attempt to convey something of the relentless nature of the attacks on teh red-haired activist — though I should note I’ve only gone through a small portion of the total comments there and this doesn’t even reflect all of the awful ones I found. These are not in any particular order. I threw in a few non-threatening ones that struck me as a tad ironic or otherwise revealing.
Again, this is only a small fraction of the abuse she’s gotten on YouTube.
This is what happens when MRAs and other misogynists target a woman online. The only thing that’s surprising here is the sheer amount of the hateful comments.
I’ve seen no serious attempts from any MRAs to rein in this sort of hatred. A Voice for Men has tried to distance itself in a superficial way from some of the harassment it has played a central role in unleashing, with an official announcement asking readers to refrain from posting the personal information of the red-haired activist in the comments. Meanwhile, in the AVFM forum, comments linking to her defunct dating profiles remain up.
This is what MRA “activism” looks like.
Coming tomorrow: A more detailed look at AVFM’s role in the harassment.
I’ve had a lot worse in they way of heckling when speaking about torture/interrogation, than just, “shut the fuck up”.
I never felt the need to dox anyone, or say they needed to be gagged, raped and mutilated.
Some movement they’ve got there.
Spoon, your movement showed its ass, and that ass is ugly.
They posted openly without editing themselves, making it easy for anyone to criticize them. Your revisionist interpretation of their venom won’t keep resonable minded people from seeing their posts and being disgusted. That’s why so many of you trolls are showing up in this thread making excuses — you’re actually, on some level, fucking embarrassed, and should be. If you keep saying what followed the protest is normal, you might start to believe it, then you can feel OK with being a proud member of the mra again. Sorry…if you need to be introspective and think things through, you have to do it alone. Picking fights with us (well, straw feminists) as a way to feel comfortable with those ugly death/rape threats is not going to help you.
Those comments that David displayed here are fucked. Those idiots who posted them would never say those thing out loud in mixed company because they know how fucked they are. Murder. Rape. One guy wrote that she should use her mouth to give oral on a “black cock” (extra points for the disgusting racism there). Another said he’d “…cum while cutting that bitch’s throat.” Go ahead, tell us how typical those comments are. Pretend that the authorities could not get involved if those things were said out loud in meatspace.
In short, stop coming here to apologize for those sick, sad dudebros who posted fucked comments while hiding behind anonymous handles. We don’t want to hear it, ’cause we heard it all before.
@Robotarmygeneral
Hi and welcome. ::feels kinda down, but tries to offer half-hearted smile:: (don’t worry, it’s not you, it’s the misogynists, both on this post and trolls in thread.)
@kittehs
Didn’t sound condescending to me. I didn’t know it was less known, but maybe I just have a weird vocabulary, or it’s regional. ::shrugs::
@David Futrelle The links I’ve seen of her on the AVfM forum NO LONGER exist. They also appeared by members of the forum, not so far as I can tell, members of the AVfM staff. They still do have her name up, though… but *only* in the forum and they don’t want it on their main page or in a comments section on the main page.
@hellkell AND DavidFutrelle The picture of that webpage and her image suffices enough to *further* dox her, as she has already gotten doxxed. The image posted has both her online name and, as I understand it, her real name. That’s right here on the main page.
@Fade “I made no such claim, I just implied that it’s the kind of thing people should expect because there’s no law to protect people from violent misogyny.
Nobody cares. She did not act in hateful way. From what Amatyultare said, it sounded like all she did was tell someone who was “what about teh menz?”ing to shut up.
Oh no, a woman told someone to shut up! Call the MRAs! Misandry!
Men send death and rape threats to someone: something to expect.”
What happened was that someone pulled a fire alarm at the Nathanson and Young talk (CAFE IS NOT AN MHRA GROUP). Then she went outside and decided to read part of Lindy West’s screed on Jezebel to the crowd. Some people tried to engage with her in dialogue, and she told them to “shut the fuck up”, called them “fuck face” and such repeatedly. One of the MHRAs, or at least someone trying to engage in dialogue with her was a woman. See about :34 in here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gB0XweIE5s (and you can find that in other videos too) I’m an MHRA, and it might just come as fair to consider that as MISOGYNY.
“Men send death and rape threats to someone: something to expect.”
I didn’t say such. I said *in that sort of context*, such might or probably will come.
@Marie “God forbid people try to change things, they should just be quite if they don’t want to have death threats hurled at them.”
In order to change the context of these events, you have to change the entire context of the internet.
@hellkell
“Why do MRAs think death threats are acceptable, Dougie? Weren’t you assholes raised right?”
I didn’t say they came as morally acceptable. I have NOT heard or read anything by any other MHRAs which implies them as acceptable. However, they do exist. If you don’t think you might or probably get one by acting as the protestor did at such a high-profile event, you’re just naive.
@pillowinhell “Big Red isn’t being doxxed here. None of her personal info is being posted. ”
No, her online name and, as I understand it, her full name is in that link. Anyone who can google search can find the rest.
“This is a space where she will be supported and is safe for her. Much like her social media accounts before misogynistic asshats that should tread on lego decided to attack her.”
I’m going to repeat something that I said above.
“See about :34 in here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gB0XweIE5s (and you can find that in other videos too) I’m an MHRA, and it might just come as fair to consider that as MISOGYNY.”
I thought that was it’s face with a hungry expression.
Doug, you are a weasel word motherfucker who really needs to go the fuck away. Stop defending this shit. You and it are reprehensible.
That. Is. Saying. Such.
So, once again for those who missed it the first time – it is not a standard thing to receive death threats as a result of protesting a speech given at a university. This is not a thing that normally happens.
Btw., how young does one have to be to count as a whippersnapper(what a word, I love it!)
A late hugs to everyone who had it bad today and support to RedHead, I could only lurk today for a while. Still gonna stick with the less serious topics.
@doug asshat
So I guess it’s normal for people to get sent death threats (and so many of them) over the internet. I wonder what the ratio of men/ women this happens to, and if your sad ass thinks it’s a problem. Also, yes people want to change them. It’d be good if they were changed. What problems does your little mind have wrapping itself around that?
Wow, Doug, yes there is. There are very much laws against violent misogyny. Whoever claimed there weren’t? There is no law expressing it in this exact wording, but the parts that make it violent and misogynist are indeed against the law.
(though I’m not even sure whether you were quoting there or if that was your own thought, you seem to use these ” very randomly.
These dudes like Doug are amazing the way they consistently think words don’t mean what they mean.
Um, just to clarify he was quoting me re: the laws about violent misogyny, and I was being sarcastic because I wish the laws would actually stop these guys.
Let’s make a list of words that actually mean things! Our first word is “terrorist”.
Oh, no! Some woman told a man to “shut the fuck up” and called him a “fuckface.” That totes deserves death and rape threats.
Doug: shut up, you fuckface.
There was no internet back in the day when the suffragettes were assaulted for speaking in public. The problem is not the internet.
Oh, okay, hir style of posting quotes is very confusing.
I would have read stupider statements in my life.
The only time I’ve heard of people getting death threats for engaging in legal, peaceful protest have occurred at the hands of racists, homophobes, and MRAs.
Fine company you’re keeping there, Dougie.
The thing is, even if you were to agree with their political position, if you use the threat of violence and/or actual violence to achieve your political aims, you’re a terrorist. That’s what the word means.
(Much like “misogynist” some MRAs seem to think it means “bad meanypants man who should feel bad about being a man”.)
Doug, there’s a link to her dating profiles *still up* on the AVFM forum. If you, as a commenter on those forums, are embarassed by this I suggest you take it up with the mods there. I would do it myself but I’m not a registered member of the AVFM forums, for obvious reasons.
I whited out all references to her name and other identifying info on the images I posted. (I missed a couple of iterations of her name on one image, but have rectified that.)
There is no question that MRAs have doxxed her, as that image you’re complaining about came from an MR forum.
AVFM may not be doxxing her openly on its main site, but it helped to unleash all this by demonizing her in the first place.
And your comments here are not exactly doing your side of the debate any favors.
community:
today has been a sad and trying day. from perusing this i see that most of the community is well, and although i’m a newcomer to posting i am impressed by this community. by the intelligence, courage, wit, and compassion of its members.
terrorism and violence have become so normal in the states that i find my own response to now be a disturbing numbness. i know, morally, this is wrong. it is a coping mechanism for me, but a moral wrong that it is a broader phenomenon: people cannot process this level of frightening violence. if anyone is still feeling triggered and looking for relaxing resources (meditations, chill relaxing music) I spend a lot of my time trying to self-soothe and am happy to share.
@ LBT – I’m glad you had a positive experience from that. I’ve already admitted I’ve had breast reductions on here, and being sexualized from a young age for having breasts was extremely traumatic for me. I don’t know what the open source boob project is, but it sounds like something that would make me really sad. Being new, I’m also not familiar with the work you’re interested in putting out there, but I’d be interested from what I have gathered. Facebook is a pretty scary form of social media. Tumblr might serve some of your interests, perhaps?
BTW, speaking of terrorism, for anyone who’s trying to keep track of what’s been going on in Boston, The Guardian is tracking things.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/15/boston-marathon-explosion-live
New from the “Block that Metaphor” Department:
“The threat narrative clown horn is really looking dog-earred at this point.”
http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1cfdga/apparently_mra_is_now_responsible_for_the_entire/c9g1dxp
I’m having a hard time picturing that. If myoo’s around, maybe we could get an image? 😀
Jesus fuck, that bombing is horrific. So glad to hear you guys and your loved ones are alright. I dunno if it’s just cos I have family all over the world, but it feels like the last few years have just been one disaster after another