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my tumblr, they found a twitter acct that I don’t even use, they even found an old [dating site] profile of mine with outdated info …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.
Kirbywarp, like I’ve said I don’t necessarily have a problem with mocking dumb “jokes” on Reddit. Maybe I worded my previous post badly. But I do have a problem with SRS condoning and even tacitly encouraging hatred. I think that makes them a hate group, and will continue to think of them as such. I feel very comfortable at SRSsucks… no one prejudges anyone else for being straight white men or anything else, and no one is hated for traits they can’t control. In SRSsucks Prime, we mock a group who does ridicule people based on those things. There are also other subs to just hang out. Anyway I have work tomorrow, so I have to get some sleep.
I am 100% sure this is true.
I am 0% sure this is true.
The first dog I ever knew as a pet was named Pemra since that was my sister, mine and my mom’s initials. Pemra was a sweet patient dog who put up with my toddling around and nomming on her.
You disgrace her memory
ProAnti-Equality MRA.I’m going to sleep. Keep our trolls company, manboobzers, you hate group/organization/whatever you!
Ugh… Goodbye PEMRA. It been fun talking to myself.
Why do I even bother…
“I am aware that the SPLC monitors black supremacist groups, yes. I think that some of them have some pretty awful ideologies, most of them are pretty reasonable reactions to a white supremacist society, and all of them are probably harmless. ”
Actually, I think most of these groups have been connected to violence. Many of them are also virulently anti-Semitic. So much for this fantasy idea that only members of “dominant groups” can hurt people.
… Whose fantasy is this, exactly?
So. Far. Behind!
Fade, re: Emilie Autumn’s Fight Like a Girl — *rat claws* 😀 SQUEEE!
Hey lookie, I’m only 4 hours behind! (My mother watched all of Torchwood’s Children of Earth in two days, on my mac — Captain Jack Harkness does not promote keeping up on threads!)
Careful examination of my posts will reveal I never claimed that members of marginalized groups are incapable of committing acts of violence. That would be ridiculous. But that’s because anyone can commit acts of violence – haberdashers might be violent, but they are not empowered in their violence by virtue of their haberdashery.
In contrast, privileged groups routinely receive support, both tacit and explicit, in brutalizing marginalized communities. Witness the way the media is describing the recent bombing as the first terror attack in the U.S. since 9/11, conveniently disappearing the many, many terror attacks committed since (mostly by white men, and mostly against abortion clinics or people of colour). Witness the way police forces regularly terrorize communities of colour – just the other day, a story broke about the local police in my hometown carrying out a “training exercise” with live ammunition and explosives right next to a residential area without warning.
So, yeah, sometimes black people can be violent, just like every kind of person is sometimes violent. No shit. I stand by my assertion that black supremacist groups are pretty much harmless, because they’re not reinforcing a dominant American narrative the way white supremacist groups are.
(That doesn’t mean I agree with black supremacist groups – a quick scan of the SPLC list shows that the vast majority are Nation of Islam chapters, and the Nation has been involved in some seriously shady shit.)
Appropriating the civil rights movement on the 50th anniversary of Letter from a Birmingham Jail? Not cool, man. Not cool.
@gametime:
Also look at high-profile rape cases, where entire communities leap up in support of the accused, saying they were “such good boys” that couldn’t possibly be guilty, or fearing that the rapists’ lives would be forever ruined by the mere accusation, meanwhile the victims were asking for it, putting themselves in danger, or deliberately entrapping the rapists.
Witness police stopping POCs far more often on suspicion of drug charges, while white folks are more likely to have drugs found on them when they are stopped. Should white people be profiled for drugs? Don’t be silly, it’d be crazy to stop white people just because of their skin.
@Kirby: Yup. But on the other hand, Louis Farrakhan hates Jews! CASE CLOSED, RACISM OVER. [/PEMRA]
@Gametime:
More like OLD RACISM OVER, NEW RACISM (against white people) ONLY JUST BEGUN!
Random – glad to see you’re OK, kirbywarp.
Thanks, CassandraSays. 🙂
Hey, Kirbywarp, good to see ya!
Also, is anyone up for a little slightly tedious, but possibly intermittently amusing, research project? For, like, the next hour or so? It will require nothing more complicated than a little bit of googling. Email me at my last name at well.com if you’re interested.
Hey David, good to be back. 🙂
I sent you an e-mail, hopefully I got the right address. I can’t promise I’ll be helpful, but I’m interested in knowing what the project is about.
I’m only 2 hours behind now!
“Nekora, don’t think I said Hi and welcome before! Argenti should be around sometime to give you the welcome package if you haven’t already had it.”
And that’s my cue!
Here’s one complementary welcome package consisting of a misandrist hard chair, matching bath towels, SCENTED MOTHERFUCKING CANDLES, flavored bottled water (your choice of brand and flavor) and cupcakes, delivered by female (whore) penguins in spanx.
Oh and for anyone debating if MRAs say horrible things, those are all links to them saying the thing in question is misandrist (I wholeheartedly suggest the one about penguins, that was back when Tom Martin was funny)
1,000 comments and four shots later and I feel like I missed exactly nothing worthwhile. Besides the hate group/organization lunch-in. I will, of course, bring endless welcome baskets if we ever schedule another!
On the current BS topic — are we discussing if some subreddit is a hate group? Can anyone explain how that’s even relevant to the red head in the OP receiving death threats? Forget why it’s important enough to spend pages on, why is it relevant?
Or is this the topic of the day for the most tedious troll ever? Maybe I’m just drunk, but I find it inconceivable! that we could manage so many comments, so much goal post shifting, such bullshit definitions, so goddamned fast, without him making an appearance.
Because fuck, let’s pretend that she pulled the fire alarm and then blocked exits, a total crime right? Would be arrested and tried and that’d be open and shut with all the video footage? How does “guilty of a crime, in the court of public opinion, according to video evidence” justify death threats?
Note that wording — “guilty of a crime, in the court of public opinion, according to video evidence” — now think back all of a month, Stubenville? Did anyone here go “well maybe if they’d done x y and z they’d not be getting death threats”? Hell, did they even get death threats? And they’ve been proven guilty in a court of law, for actual crimes, not merely pissing people off by making it hard to hear the speaker they’re seeing. And yet, death threats wouldn’t be justified. And given the reaction to the mere mention of Ruby, I’d bet real money that anyone saying “they’re rapists, they should be raped in prison” would be shunned, at least in this corner of the internet.
Oh hey…prison rape! A thing that disproportionally affects men! Endorsement of it being shunned by feminists! Holy FSM how’d that ever happen!? Oh yeah, because unlike ever MRA we’ve ever dealt with, we don’t suggest that the solution to any problem, even the problem of violence, is a violent solution.
Which, may I say, is damned hard some times. “I get an erection from the thought of fucking feminism’s shit up” and yet, we don’t go all “gods if I could fuck his shit up” no, we go “eww dude, not cool, that’s violent and threatening and you’re sick”. Note the difference!
…fuck, I’m baiting trolls huh? Oh well, I have more whiskey. I do, however, need to get up at a reasonable hour to visit my grandfather in the hospital. Still don’t know enough to explain, which will be rectified tomorrow. Should I disappear for 3~ days, assume I got thrown in the psych ward for being too confrontational in my quest for answers (ok, unlikely, but walking by the huge steel psych ward doors makes me nervous!)
Oh and I found something that big cranky fishie likes, slices of apple!
“Maybe I’m just drunk, but I find it inconceivable! that we could manage so many comments,”
I hope you weren’t lisping extravagantly when you said that! 😛
Though if it summoned Inigo it’d be worth it …
lol, I didn’t know this group : http://www.reddit.com/r/SRSWomen/
their “dworkins fascist rules” are funny :
lol
Feminists love so much to create rules, guidelines and codes of conduct. It seems that it’s in fact their main purpose : ban always more words and behaviors, put always more trigger warnings everywhere, demarcate always more the boundaries in which they’ll feel finally safe, not triggered, not threatened. It doesn’t really work, so they keep creating more barriers, they keep baning more unsafe words, identifying more offensive behaviors, and on and on.
I don’t want to live in a “safe place”, if there’s just one place where people can trigger and offend each other as much as they want, a place feminists promise to not touch, to not transform in a “safe place”, I’m cool with feminists and I hope they’ll be happy living in their sanatized bubble.
Shorter Brz: Waaah! There are places on the internet where misogynist shitstains aren’t welcome! It’s so unfaaaairr!
@Brz:
You are perfectly capable of creating your own little non-safe space. Those are everywhere. Ever seen the thunderdrome thread over at Pharyngula?
Ya know, I’m willing to put down money that you don’t care about safe spaces because you have no need for them; you don’t have any triggers and aren’t routinely offended in any way that matters. I’m part of a group like that too. Pretending that these are trivial or inconsequential matters just highlights your privilage.
Also, treating triggering as if it were the same as being offended… They are not even close to the same thing. Imagine how you’d feel if there was a soldier in your neighborhood who was suffering from ptsd, and some dipshit loudly declared that it was his constitutionally protected right to set off loud bangs in the house next door, and that the soldier should suck it up and not complain about being triggered.
Good news! There’s a place where you can say whatever you like and no feminists will make boundaries to stop you. It’s called “your own blog”. Have fun!
(Also “your own apartment”, if you live alone.)