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my tumblr, they found a twitter acct that I don’t even use, they even found an old [dating site] profile of mine with outdated info …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.
Still a non sequitur, since the disproportion of the reaction and this woman’s “predicament” are the exact topics of this post.
Haha, Mark thinks WE’RE the ones who don’t understand words. The MRM has the market cornered on that.
“No Mark, only you have trouble understanding the English language.’
Haha, that makes sense.
What a rage-filled little community you have going on here, like a bunch of little Rumplestiltskins dancing around a fire about to tear themselves in half. You should all learn some breathing exercises.
No, seriously, where are those BINGO cards?
Listen Marky, you came on to here to derail about what about the menxzz to try to shut us up and now you’re being condescending with “oh, you should calm down with breathing exercises.
Do you need attention? Because I’m sure I’ve got some doggy biscuits left over I can throw on the neighbors yard to get you out of ours.
Right, Mark, the problem is us. Fuck off.
Bagryanova:
A “feminist” who openly mocks male issues, concept like “misandry” and is acting as priviledged b-word… do you really want to white knight her?
I am a feminist, but our movement will lose any support and credibility when people start to act as she “had a point”
We only will lose with “activists” like her… or cynics who promote her blatant hate-speech.
If that’s your idea of feminism (i.e. blaming her for being attacked), you can leave, we don’t need you.
We sure as fuck don’t need you making apologia for people who are engaging in terrorism, and saying she should be raped and killed for telling someone to shut the fuck up.
Those are the people you want to white knight? Those are the shitbords you are throwing a woman under the bus to defend? That’s a response you think not unreasonable?
Because I think it’s fucking unreasonable, and you are telling me I’m wrong, ergo you are telling me they are right.
Go sleep on an anthill
Dave – Count me as another vote of support for the Red-Haired Feminist.
I know Mark, the only reasonable response to her is to harass her endlessly, I realize that you are going to double down on that.
Do you even understand how ravening and horrible the MRM looks right now? I don’t think you do. I don’t think you are even capable of understanding how horrible this makes the MRM look.
@Doug:
“Very funny, your honour. She knew she was being videotaped as she stated her opinion. Irregardless of what that opinion was or is, she had also stated her opinion before! In another event that was likewise videotaped, a whole year ago. Consequently, she almost surely knew or at least had to anticipate that she was going to get death threats, have her house and address located, the name of her old dog dug up and used against her, her tumblr invaded, her twitter, even vacant as it was, spammed. Surely she must have known that merely be having an opinion, others were allowed to post her pictures online with inflammatory remarks, calls for death by black penis, that some people would take great pleasure in watching her lifeless carcass strewn across the street.
Little bitch was totally asking for it, is all I’m saying, your honour. That ain’t no lie”
No.
You are wrong.
Having an opinion, no matter how reprehensible, is not sufficient grounds for others to call upon your body to be destroyed, especially in conjunction with the release of your private information.
People here often say “Step on a lego”, because it is painful but never fatal, and would do no lasting harm.
Notice how, despite oh say, the Spearhead literally calling for single mothers to serve time in whore camps or aVFM running editorials wherein they call for someone to savagely, so that the crepscules splatter, beat someone up for being snarky, no one here wants the MRA to “Fucking die”. No one calls for them to “have their insides strewn out along the street”.
Do you not find the response out of proportion? Do you not find the sheer malice involved staggering? Tell me, mate, if you don’t find this a typical example of angry thinking, when some of the first thing people jump to shout as insults is they “They let the redhead out of the kitchen again, fellas! Gotta control your bitches!”.
Doesn’t it make you wonder where there are some accidental mechanisms in place that help foster aggression towards women? Whether or whether not some language and some ideas when used to express dismay neccesarily inform a stereotype? How some backlashes bear more a mark surprise at the “Bitchiness” of the speaker, rather than any factual remark against her statements?
What people here jump to ain’t “Your opinion on male suicide is kinda out of sync with basic empathy for other people”. What people here jump to is “Bitch, go choke and die”.
And why is that?
… You tell me 🙂
http://cheezburger.com/7168694272
Look, our Kirby was in a basket!
See, this is the proper way to derail-with cutery instead of assholery.
Speaking of rage filled communities, take a look a the MRM! Nothing but rage, rape and death threats.
Actual activism? MISANDRY! How dare anyone suggest men do something to help other men!
Feel free to leave then, Mark. It’s not like you’re doing anything but wasting everybody’s time by being here, after all. You can even tell your nasty little friends how you left us feminazis all stumped and speechless. Since it’s what they want to believe anyway, they probably won’t check.
Uhm, Mark Jones, ignoring everything else: Her not caring about male suicide victims(assuming that is even the case), makes it okay for you to dismiss everything else?
So your own empathy is dependent on hers?
And that accomplishes…?
@Bostonian, implying that commenting on a blog isn’t activism is MISANDRY
Dougie: Apparently your commentary on Men’s Human Rights Activism consists of just looking at part of the picture so you can mock the Men’s Human Rights Movement. It must be so nice to get so many readers for doing so little work! I envy you, Mr. Futrelle, you’re my hero in commenting on the Men’s Human Rights Movement, because you’ve got such a big audience!!!!
Ah… the “cherry-picking” claim.
Ok, show us the rational/reasonable/moderate MRM.
I dare ya.
And… why, if this is such a big issue, don’t they have the readership/traction Manboobz does? Why, if this is such a big deal is the face of, “The Movement” Paul Elam, Eivind Berge, Peter-Nolan and their ilk?
Why can’t the “moderates” drown the extremists out?
I’ll tell you why, those guys are what passes for moderate.
Again, that she might get doxxed also comes as reasonable to anticipate, given the doxxing of people at the Warren Farrell protest in November.
So terrorism and intimidation are standard operating procedure. Thanks for confessing.
Your “movement” is fucked.
More seriously, the National Coalition for Men has recently sued the U. S. Selective Service System:
Ah… so they have Joined the National Organization for Women. Welcome to The Ranks of Feminism, dude.
Fade: Oy… every time something like this pops up I get a “i don’t want to live in this world” feeling.
It makes me angry. It makes me feel the way I did in Iraq, only now I don’t have license to kill people I think are threatening me, or people I work with.
“I know Mark, the only reasonable response to her is to harass her endlessly, I realize that you are going to double down on that.
Do you even understand how ravening and horrible the MRM looks right now? I don’t think you do. I don’t think you are even capable of understanding how horrible this makes the MRM look.”
I’m not sure what you mean by “double down”.I haven’t commented on what I think about the response to her, I stated that I don’t care about her predicament. Putting words in someone’s mouth (or building a strawman by attributing an opinion to someone who hasn’t stated it) is pretty weak, but then again this is manboobz, I wouldn’t have expected less.
Judging by the thousands of comments on the handful of videos I’ve seen of the event (I was also there in person), it’s not the MRM who’s coming off as looking bad.
To the MRM, everything is misandry.
VEGETABLES ARE MISANDRY
NAIL POLISH IS MISANDRY
THINKING MEN SHOULD GET OFF THEIR ASSES AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT THINGS THAT ARE IMPORTANT TO THEM IS MISANDRY
Mark, you seem to have missed my question: what are you, personally, doing about the male suicide rate?
Did we ever clarify whether or not unscented candles are misandry? What if they’re unscented but bright pink?
So out of a huge long page of hateful, violent and nasty crap someone says “right on girl!” and that is the proof the PROOF I TELLS YA that Feminists are evil.
Mark, what’s the weather like in your reality? I may take my next vacation there.
How could anything look worse than death and rape threats from the MRM, idiot?
Obviously someone who says she was correct Hellkell.
Anytime someone agrees with a woman it is Misandry!!!!Eleventy!
Marky: This is a non sequitur. I never justified or defended any of the responses or threats, nor did I comment on whether I felt the response was out of proportion, I merely stated my indifference towards her predicament, a similar indifference she feels towards males who commit suicide.
Bullshit.
Accepting, arguendo, the claim you make (i.e. that in response to a question about male suicide, she said, “cry me a river”) the two are not equivalent.
1: She was addressing a more global concern; one which is attenutated.
2: You made a direct response to a specific action.
So, that’s the first failure.
Secondly, even if she had been told of a specific suicide, and shown zero empathy for that person, or that person’s family, such an action is not equivalent to a hate campaign meant to terrorise someone.
And you, by dismissing it with a claim of equivalence are saying it acceptable. You are arguing that because of what she did the reaction is of not worthy of notice, nor disdain.
You thus are saying you agree with it.
In short, you are encouraging it, not even with the tacit assent of silence, but by actively saying you don’t care if members of the MRM engage in terrorism.
What a rage-filled little community you have going on here,
So unlike the MRM, what with the measured and reasoned response to someone who said something they disagreed with, and which you don’t have any problem with.
As to the rage here, don’t you worry your pretty little head about it (nor the big head, either).