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my tumblr, they found a twitter acct that I don’t even use, they even found an old [dating site] profile of mine with outdated info …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.
Courts take a person’s income into account when deciding how much child support someone pays. So someone like Britney Spears had to pay $20 K a month to her ex, Kevin Federline. (Sorry for a celebrity reference, but I like how it shows women can pay child support to dads, too.) Then a friend of mine only gets $5 a month from her ex. If someone can’t afford to pay much, they can show their pay checks to the court and have that taken into consideration.
It doesn’t dramatically change a non custodial parent’s life nearly to the extent that it does the custodial parent’s. I don’t think writing a check every month is doing that much. That’s the amount of work it takes to pay the water bill. Would you trade places with a custodial parent and do all of the work of actually raising the child in exchange for $300 a month? Honestly, who do you think has the easier situation?
Lol, i get that all the time. I type or say something longwinded and at the end i”m like… what did I just say?
And somehow other people understand it.
@tomBcat
Well I understood it. 😉 liked it too.
Oh my jeezus A) a fetus is not a child
B) NO HUMAN BEING HAS THE RIGHT TO USE ANOTHER HUMAN BEING’S BODY AGAINST THEIR CONSENT FFS
Sixty percent of abortions performed are for married women, because they and their partner do not want an unplanned child.
It’s almost like, in the real world, men often have a say in abortion already!
@esmnmb
Um, like people have reasons for making decisions. I’m pro choice because if people couldn’t get abortions it’d be violating their bodily autonomy, I don’t actually care why they get them. I mean, I’d like it if people were able to get less abortions, since I doubt they’re enjoyable and probably have some risks, but that’d be a ‘better, more affordable birth control thing.’ So, like, yeah people can get abortions for reasons, and why they do it isn’t my business. The point is that no one can force them to carry a baby. This is kinda rambly but I hope it made sense, at least to non edude people.
A fetus could have exactly the same status and rights as a full-grown human, and abortion should still be legal. A fetus’ rights do not trump the uterus-haver’s rights.
I’m a Kantian. I think it’s wrong to treat anyone as a mere means to an end (i.e. force them to do something), and so I’m against killing in principle. However, the person who is unwillingly pregnant stands as someone deprived of agency, and to regain that agency, that person must be allowed to stop the pregnancy. That this termination of pregnancy involves the death of the fetus is irrelevant.
So no, I don’t believe a child has a right to life at the expense of someone else’s agency.
yes, this. So much better than I tried to say it too…
Here’s my entry on the Kantian defense of abortion.
esmnmb: Please feel free to complain to either God (as you worship him, her, them or zie) or Evolution, as you prefer, about the fact that the woman’s body is where all the impact of pregnancy occurs. When discussing what to do about it, though, we have to deal with reality as it is.
You think an abortion is about the termination of parental rights/responsibilities. It isn’t. It’s about not being pregnant. Often, yes, that’s because of financial reasons. Doesn’t change the fact that abortion is nothing more or less than the termination of an existing pregnancy, a medical condition control of which, in any society which even claims to value bodily autonomy, must be granted to the person who has that condition. (Also, especially in the case of single women, the most serious expenses are those that arise out of the pregnancy–time lost from work, status lost at work, etc, all add up to a lifetime loss of income even if she were to immediately turn around and put the kid up for adoption.)
If a woman has a child, then dumps said child on the father’s doorstep, refusing to provide material care, the father could sue the mother for support, even if he was making more money than she is, because they are both responsible for the child’s well-being, period.
Sometimes people say dumbass things. I still want them to have the right to free speech. Sometimes people get in groups and do dumb stuff. I still want them to have the right to assemble. Sometimes people get ugly tattoos. I still want them to have the right to bodily autonomy.
SOMETIMES I DISAGREE WITH CHOICES, BUT PEOPLE STILL HAVE A RIGHT TO THOSE CHOICES!
Okay guys, I feel weird bringing this into an abortion talk, but it seems kinda relevant.
As y’all know, we’re multiple. Our system, unfortunately, spawns new members for only one reason: overwhelming stress.
A new system member here is NEVER a happy occasion. It’s a very sombre, mourning time, because in the middle of helltime, we now have an unintended brain pregnancy that requires time and energy, just like all people do, and sometimes, those new members are born in excruciating pain, because they’re born out of trauma.
As a result, we often find ourselves in ethical gray areas, because often, the best way to end the new member’s suffering is to take back the traumatic material, which ends their suffering… but also their existence. They die.
We prefer not to do this, so we try to keep from spawning new members whenever possible, because refusing to let one get born isn’t the same as one getting born and then euthanized. There’s also even a gray period where nobody’s certain whether the new member is quite ‘alive’ or not. Sound familiar?
I feel that an actual abortion is like preventing a new system member from getting born, preferably sooner rather than later because that eases everyone’s suffering. A paper abortion would be like us getting this new system member, refusing to have anything to do with it because we’re too overwhelmed, and just leaving it to suffer.
I have taken on new members’ trauma even when it meant losing my job and my home, and completely mentally incapacitating me for days or weeks at a time. In these cases, there is no such thing as being too overwhelmed. If we don’t take care of the new member or ease its suffering, who will? (And we don’t have the option of giving up brain children for adoption.)
I have yet to see a good rationale for paper abortions.
*Sigh*
I am feeling patient enough that, believe it or not, I am actually going to answer this. But this is the last time. If you still stick to your guns, I for one will take that as an indication that you are too reactionary to actually listen to (or understand) what anyone is saying to you and I will stop trying to engage.
You can be bigoted without actually coming out and saying a slur or something. Like even if you don’t say the N-word, if you fly a confederate flag and think we need poll tests in the South, you’re a racist. Got it? Same thing here. You are advocating things that are abhorrent to feminists. Your refusal to understand how and why doesn’t make them less abhorrent. You’ve never shown any indication that you’re anything other than an extremely entitled dude who wants dudes to be able to do whatever they want, regardless of the consequences for other people.
And being polite does not entitle you a polite response. If someone broke into your house and pointed a gun at you and said “Excuse me, I’m so sorry to disturb you, but I’d really appreciate it if you’d just give me a hand loading your TV and electronics into my truck, and could you please also give me any cash you might have around, if it’s not too much trouble?” then you’re not obligated to respond “Yes, certainly, whatever I can do to help” just because he’s being polite!
If, wherever you show up, people start out nice and gradually get pissed off, that would suggest that you’re incredibly obnoxious and should consider amending your own behavior.
Paper abortions are a difficult topic. On the surface it’s an eminently reasonable suggestion. After all, most women cite something along the lines of “not ready” when getting an abortion; men can’t do this. This female privilege is something that could be eliminated with paper abortions.
But I’m still against them, because it must be remembered that it’s for the *child*, not the mother, and definitely not to “stick it” to the father. Children require care, and this trumps the wants of the father. And since in 2013 women still have the babies, as it stands now biology forces us to impose this unjust double standard for the greater good.
bahumbugi, you are a goon and you missed the entire point.
You say you have a 0 tolerance for harassment, but you completely missed the fact that Chantity et al were involved in organized harassment. The people she was representing on camera marched on the campus where the Men’s issues group was meeting, chanted to the point where people with microphones couldn’t be heard, pulled the fire alarms so they had to leave, and generally did anything they could to stop this group from peaceably assembling and having a conversation among themselves.
I consider that harassment. Any attempt to take away rights to free speech and peaceable assembly is harassment. It doesn’t matter if it’s MRAs or the I love Hitler party of fucking Toronto, it’s harassment.
There is a history of harassment at this university. I didn’t make any value judgements about Warren Farrell, I just pointed out his credentials as someone who is aware of feminist arguments by mentioning that he was a 3 time board member of NOW and the only man to ever hold that honor.
I say men are always wrong, because if the genders were reversed, as I said, this would be front page news instead of back page blog material.
We either have free speech or we don’t. There is no such thing as some free speech.
Also you have done nothing to show why it’s not disingenuous to only focus in on online harassment of her, and completely omit the real world harassment and violation of rights committed by the “victim”. I’m not saying that harassing her online was the right thing to do, but I am saying that the story above completely ignores the fact that she was the original harasser, and had she not harassed anyone, no one would know her name. Leaving that out of the story and framing it as misogyny is questionable. The question it raises is did David know. If not why is he commenting on something without research, and if he did, what was his agenda in leaving that out?
You say my blog is a “bucket of hate” yet it’s one article questioning why misogyny is becoming more prevalent in the millennial generation, one about why the gun control debate is poison, one about how Anita Sarkeesian is inconsistent in her ideas about video games, and one about why people should stop using a bigoted twitter hashtag.
The only “bucket of hate” is the person you are defending.
http://www.avoiceformen.com/video/big-red-sings/
Like a boss.
too boring, didn’t read @ clintiskeen
only nitpicking, “if the genders were reversed, it’d be all over the news”
citation needed!
Doesn’t matter one bit. This isn’t about what she did or didn’t do. You are victim blaming. Also, the story ignores your facts because the story isn’t about those facts.
WTF.
If somebody was having an I love Hitler party, IT WOULD BE FUCKING HATE SPEECH! HITLER COMMITED GENOCIDE ON HOW MANY FUCKING PEOPLE!! ANd now you’re saying no one can try to shut down fucking HATE SPEECH without it being harrasment!
Newsflash: Freedom of speech does not protect you from freedom of criticism. Or give you the freedom to talk over people (those guys who kept trying to interrupt her).
If someone interrupts me, I will tell them to shut the fuck up. Especially if they do it repeatedly.
But no, criticising hate groups, not giving hate groups time to speak, is not harrassment. And that’s what the MRM is. A hate group.
I wish a fun thread to everyone, maybe this night is my night for sleeping.
I’m very thankful for this blog tonight, tackling issues that are too much for me right now, but reading all those intelligent comments helps dealing with them.
EPerson, maybe you should go and inform yourself about abortion a little better instead of discussing it on a feminist thread dedicated to mocking misogyny.
Also you should probably watch this.
“Her crime? She wasn’t exactly polite in responding to the interrupters.”
not so much, seriously watch the video after you get done with her singing cry me a river over the issue of male suicide. She’s inside the building just outside the door where they are trying to listen to some published authors speak, ironically the one speaking is someone who published a book about being a religious minority and how to deal with groups who are intolerant.
Does Clintshit have some sort of point? Because right now all he’s doing seems to be not knowing the definition of words and trying to imply that rape and death threats are okay if a woman steps out of line.
RE: clintiskeen
You obviously didn’t read my post.
THAT DOESN’T JUSTIFY HUNDREDS OF DEATH AND RAPE THREATS.
I mean, JESUS. The fuck is wrong with you?
Fade, no one said you aren’t allowed to criticise.
What you’re not allowed to do is break laws, act disorderly, pull fire alarms, block doors, and do all in your power to disallow peaceable assembly.
If you do those things, that is harassment. Taking away someone’s legal rights is an illegal act of force