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my tumblr, they found a twitter acct that I don’t even use, they even found an old [dating site] profile of mine with outdated info …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.
What reasonable talking points might these be?
Ooh, look, I found more problematic things feminists believe!
See? Feminists believe that you can’t be religious and be feminist! Simply isn’t possible. That one person I know that is both? Imaginary, I’m sure. Yup, ideas don’t change over time at all, and people couldn’t possibly hold problematic views while still being influencial in a movement.
Because all feminists must be perfect, otherwise they reflect badly on all other feminists. Funny how that works.
/somuchsarcasm
@kirbywarp
That’s a weird thing you quoted O_o I also did not realize feminism was a religion. What is the official hive mind status on this?
*clarifying that I was snarking what you quoted.
Kirby: Unfortunately, the MRM’s ideas don’t change, unless it’s to get worse. They don’t believe in change.
@Pro-Equality MRA:
Your name is currently a contradiction.
Also, the sad fact is that the MRM is not gaining traction, or growing. It’s simply becoming louder, and it is reinforcing misogynistic attitudes that have already existed. It isn’t exploring new territory, and it isn’t changing minds and hearts. It’s simply validating sexism, and providing an echo chamber for folks to repeat bad statistics and bad rhetoric.
The MRM is a reactionary movement. The more feminism pushes, the more misogynists will push back. The fact that they call themselves a movement now changes nothing.
@Marie:
I forgot to source it, here ya go: source
I was going for something that could be well intentioned and well believed, but is clearly a product of its time. Unfortunately I don’t have a date, but I guess the publishing time of the book works (1986). Actually, that’s more recent that I thought. Ah well, makes the point stronger I guess.
“The MRM is a reactionary movement. The more feminism pushes, the more misogynists will push back. The fact that they call themselves a movement now changes nothing.”
Well, no. I suppose you can think that if you want, but the more moderate elements of the MRM are attracting people based on the validity of our points. I think there are some extremists in the MRM, but there are also excellent discussion spaces like Reddit Men’s Rights.
You can regurgitate the feminist talking points all you want, it doesn’t change anything.
cite. moderate. mras.
@kirbywarp
Thanks for linky 🙂 (though I was just trusting you on it, but links are always helpful.)
Too tired to think if there’s anything else I should say, so I’m going to bed. Didn’t get to stay around long enough to see if mr. pro equality could pretend to live up to his name, but whatever. G’night manboobzers! 😀
“I don’t suppose you’d be able to help anyone find a site or two of these more reasonable mras?”
– Glenn Sacks
– Reddit Men’s Rights
Uh, thanks for playing. NEXT!
And list these oh-so-valid points. But please don’t say paper abortions. We’ve been through that twice.
lol
is there more than one reddit mra subforum? Because if there’s only one, i have never heard a good thing about them.
…did he just say reddit was a good place for discussion?
Also, troll boy, you can’t just say things and expect everyone to believe you, you probably should I don’t know, quote, or send a link, or find a citation or something for your moderate mras
So much stupid, since the last time I was here. Jesus H. Christ on a cracker, where did all these self-entitled, angry little boys come from? That kid who posted a list of occupations that men are allegedly blocked from? That was hilarious! Hairdressers, dental assistants….what the flying fuck? Blocked? Blocked from having those jobs? In a way that could be considered systemic? *chuckles*
Shit lording across the universe, only going forward ’cause they can’t find reverse.
Between all the false equivalency, assuming a woman who gives some lip should be threatened with rape and murder, excepting misandry without first understanding the origin of the word, it’s fucking re-god damn-diculous.
And why do women have to talk about men’s issues if they want to talk about women’s issues? Do people barge into NAACP websites and accuse the hosts of hating everyone else because they’re not discussing issues that pertain to whites? I mean, I’m sure there are assholes who do this, but to most people, It looks ridiculous. What if I went into a space designed for deaf people and starting going off about my repetitive stress injury? I mean, that would be weird, wouldn’t it?
A Voice for Men is a mixed bag… Elam has been justly mocked on occasion… but there are also some reasonable editors.
Beyond that, well- what do you want? There aren’t that many more MRM hubs. It’s a movement in its infancy.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA no
I did look up glen sacks enough to see his critique of feminist domestic violence claims, but he was only critiquing the straw feminists.
So I guess I didn’t see anything super horrible from the 1 article I opened, which is maybe more than you cna say for most mras. still, not good either
Ok, who are the reasonable ones?
heck, cite moderate MRA talking points. That’d be fun. No points for you if they reduce to things that feminists already believe and are working towards.
Also, chuckling at citing anything on reddit as an excellent discussion space, especially r/mensrights. Read r/shitredditsays for a bit. They do a great job at exposing all the shitty stuff people on reddit say and get karma for. They also consider r/mensrights to be so full of shitty stuff that they don’t bother citing things from there anymore (calling it “low-hanging fruit”).
HAHAHAHAHA, AVfM is reasonable. Tell me another one, son. You’re funny.
Shiraz: I loved “Shit lording across the universe, only going forward ’cause they can’t find reverse.”
Glenn Sacks is, I’d argue, the most “mainstream” Men’s Rights Activists. He engages in real-world activism, while the majority of the MRM remains online (for now).
Of course, since they face harassment and buillying whenever they try to convene (as seen by the protestors), it’s hard to blame them.
Why must all the trolls I want to poke come at bedtime? /mope
Well, you’re right, the MRM is a bunch of babies.