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my tumblr, they found a twitter acct that I don’t even use, they even found an old [dating site] profile of mine with outdated info …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.
Also Fibinachi,
Sorry I misspelled your handle! 🙂
Brz is still forgetting to be French, what a surprise.
Clint, PEMTRA, give it up.
It’s not like there is a shortage of Internet spaces where anything goes, with no trigger warnings and codes of conduct. If you want to act like an asshole with no repercussions, that’s what encyclopedia dramatica and 4chan are for. Why can’t other feminists carve out our own spaces where people don’t have to encounter all that?
And I agree with the rest of you all. I think Creepytown would be about as successful and happy as the Jamestown settlement, or the 1978 winter at Valley Forge.
So glad I finally went to bed last night. PEMRA never did figure out nuance, context, irony or perspective; Clint’s still lying, and pretending he doesn’t know that he’s been caught out lying.
Clinty: If being against lying to build a narrative on top of something that didn’t happen is being an asshole in your book, then I am fine with being an asshole in your book
That’s what you are doing, lying to build a narrative about something that didn’t happen.
You are an asshole in any book.
It was the intent of Channity to deny the group their right to listen to the speakers they invited and were approved by the university; therefore someone can’t possibly both say they have a 0 tolerance for harassment and also be in favor of Chanity’s actions.
I dispute it.
I don’t think breaking up a meeting = harassment.
I think protesting people one disagrees with is morally acceptable.
I think threatening someone who protested a meeting of people they disagree with is morally unacceptable.
You are refuted.
There, now you can go home.
Clinty: That’s the thing. We’ll never know now what the hell they were going to say
Cry me a river.
It’s not as if her views aren’t known. It’s not as if she hasn’t been published on that subject. It’s not as if the views of the MRA aren’t known.
Are you trying to tell us there was going to be some grand reveal of a change in tone/opinion/goals? Are you further trying to argue that this single event stopped them from ever being able to speak again?
Because if it didn’t, then they didn’t lose their right to free speech (even under the different freedoms guaranteed under the Charter of Rights).
What happened was an event was disrupted. In response a woman has been targetted; her life is being disrupted. She is being used as an example to other women, “step out of line, speak up for yourself, fail to be deferent to men and you will have to live in fear”.
That, son, is and attempt to deny her rights, and more fundamental rights than speech. That is what you are trying to make equivalent.
It’s why you fail at human decency.
Clinty: We have a saying here in the states, your right to swing your fist stops where my face starts.
And… this didn’t happen in the States. It happened in Canada. So… you are still full of shit. And (again) I don’t see you going off on the assholes attacking her. Nope. You are upset at us for not condemning her.
pulling a fire alarm when there is no fire is a felony in the US, also I said incitement to commit felony
So, if this had happened in a US State where this is a felony (and this isn’t a given in all US jurisdictions, just saying) and if she had a: pulled the fire alarm, or b: told someone to pull a fire alarm, the C: she should be prosecuted.
But… it’s not the States, and you can’t show either of those things to be true.
So you are, as you keep pretending is the case about the OP, not telling the entire truth. Worse, you are knowingly telling untruths, to try and show a false equality to the MRM and this protest.
It’s almost as if what the MRM is doing is something you know to be wrong, and you need to manufacture a reason to make it less wrong.
LOL, sorry I meant 1778 winter at Valley Forge, not 1978! Big difference.
I’m several hundred comments behind in reading this thread, and I’m about to go to bed (yes I have a weird schedule), so if anyone here is acting bannably awful send me an email right quick.
Also, in case anyone is wondering, this thread has made it into the top ten longest threads in MB history. (It’s #8.)
Owen: Let’s look at the meaning of Mr Warren, “great person” Farrel. First the quotation:
Now what does that mean? The takeaway seems to be in the concept of “date fraud”.
Fraud:
Colloquially fraud means to do something misleading. So “date fraud” would mean what? She went on a date with false pretense? What does that mean? The implicit meaning is that if a woman goes on a date she is obliged to put out.
That’s not “wonderful”. It’s not feminist. Hell, it’s morally bankrupt to say person ‘x’ (no matter the gender) is required to fuck person ‘y’) for any reason.
Next we have to look at the basis for this claim of fraud.
Yes with her body, but no with he voice.
And the thing we are supposed to listen to is her, “body language”, as interpreted by whom? Ah.. the dude who feels entitled to bone her because she agreed to go on a date. Her actual decistion (as expressed by her conscious choice to say, “no”) is voided by what he thinks her body was telling him.
If anything, I think the treatment Farrell’s quotation gets is too kind, he didn’t say date rape is, “exciting”, he said any woman who goes on a date has to put out. Women have no agency; because what a male claims to think her body says is more important than what the woman actually says.
Trollin, trollin,trollin. Keep that bullshit rollin…
“SRS hates straight white men!”
Way to disappear every not straight white or male person SRS has mocked. I’ll give you a hint: SRS doesn’t like the following a)misogyny b) racism c) heteronormitivity d) cissexism. All of these things are not restricted solely to white men (with the exception of racism in white dominated areas). So just like here, its entirely possible that other groups of people are going to be mocked when they say stupid shit. That white men as a class have a larger portion of their group saying repulsive shit is on that portion of men to fix, not for every other group to make disappear by pretending not to notice the impact the bullshit has.
Also, I’m pretty sure a significant percentage of SRSers are in fact straight white men.
PE MRA: 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.
r/mensrights is your idea of moderate?
Beyond that, well- what do you want? There aren’t that many more MRM hubs. It’s a movement in its infancy.
And one which is doing not much more than throw tantrums. But the question wasn’t, “how big is it”, but where are the moderates. You are admitting there are none, and then trying to excuse the reactionary assholes by saying “but they are just starting”.
Bullshit. Just because they are “just starting (and by just starting you mean, “fighting against feminism for at least 30 years: because that is when I first saw shit like, “paper abortions” and the like, which are still at the core of the MRM), doesn’t mean they have to accpet the Elams, and Sacks, and Berges of the world.
But they don’t just, “accept” them. They (as you demonstrate) lionise them.
I am, actually, a bit cheered by this comment stream, in a bitter and cynical way.
This is the hill they are willing to die on. Look at the number of MRAs who have come in here to defend this. It’s more, in one place, than we ever get. That tells me this is what motivates them. This is the thing they care about.
It’s why they, as a rule, fail. There is no moral core to their movement. It’s all about being mean and nasty, and shouting down the opposition. It’s horrible. It’s really horrible that they can have the successes they are having now.
But it’s not sustainable. It works because these are, relatively, infrequent events. If they were to become more frequent, if the root lust to terrorism becomes more visible, then whatever sliver of merit some of the things they want to talk about have, will be wasted (well not wasted, because feminism addresses them too. Sadly the MRM is shit at making those things more widely dealth with; and so working in concert with feminists make the world a better place; in a more timely manner).
If they keep it up, they will run afoul of hate speech laws, and find themselves to be actually denied the right to speak (as opposed to this event where they were frustrated in getting the opportunity; That, Clinty, is why your attempt to equate these two events is wrong, and what makes you the filling in a sack of fetid weasel turds).
PE MRA: First of all, their motives are irrelevant to the fact that, by definition, they operate on the principles of a hate group… ergo, they are one, however they justify their hate group’s existence.
Then, applying this reasoning, you have to admit the MRM is a hate group. As proof I offer this post; and the actions the MRM is not condemning, and is taking part in.
You have called the MRM a hate-group, Q. E., fucking, D.
Pecunium, I wondered about that, because the first thing I had to think about were the people in front of abortion clinics, protesting people they disagree with. Do you think this is morally acceptable, or where would you draw the line?
I just wondered because I think protesting is not only acceptable, but can even be necessary, and am wondering about the implications.
A lot of wondering.
*clarification
I don’t think these are equal circumstances. I was just generally wondering about it.
A friend of mine’s comment regarding CAFE’s website: “It’s like tasting milk that’s about to go off, and may have already, a sensory dissonance that’s hard to immediately place. Everything in a sentence will be reasonable and welcoming but for a word here or there, a slight shift in the tone of a paragraph. Then you re-read it and realize that there is something in the list that is way off base.”
I’m so confused why this has elicited such a response and sadly my comment will get lost in a sea of angry people but I’d just like to say this. Harassing a person is -never- morally correct. It doesn’t matter who they are, harassment is purely for the benefit of the person/people doing it. There are many ‘MRAs’ or ‘ERAs’ who are not extremists, the same applies to religious people and those who are ‘FRAs’. Unfortunately, the media coverage of the U of T event has shown up the FRAs as being extremists, as (and I don’t care what some people have said contrary to this) activating a fire alarm falsely -is- a felony and also a means of censoring people’s rights to free speech. Whether it was just a misguided attempt to better the FRA movement or done out of malice, an act like that (to whoever was responsible) is no better than these disgusting death threats and such. We all need to step away from this radicalist behaviour and get back to what really matters, equal rights so that we may co-exist as peacefully as possible.
Clinty: Kittehserf the right to speech and peaceable assembly you horrifically unpleasant thing
Aw… does oo hav a sad?
Newsflash, this was in CANADA: The Charter of Rights is not the same as the Bill of Rights.
Futhermore the “right to peaceably assemeble” is married to, “and petition for redress of grievances”. It’s about being able to protest gov’t injustice, to the gov’t and is a prohibition on the gov’t from interfering.
So, even if this had been the US, she wasn’t wrong. She would have been exercising her right to freely speak.
Also what they were doing wasn’t a lawful protest. It was an attack meant to completely disrupt a lawful assembly and stop discourse.
Neither is what Rosa Parks did. She broke a law, yet you think she was justified. But, because (it seems) you think the MRM is justified (as the racists in the South thought the law Parks broke was justified) you are saying she was wrong.
Which is why you are a disingenous sack of libelous weasel turds.
Clinty: HOWEVER that having been said, comparing someone having two authors come out and speak about men’s issues and men’s health is hardly fucking racially segregated lunch counters you fucking unsane piece of shit
More bruised fee-fees?
It’s exactly the same. The MRM is trying to strip women of rights to personhood. Protesting that is just like protesting segregation because what the are advocating is segregation.
What the MRAs did in response is equivalent to the fire hoses and the dogs, in that it’s an unacceptable, and violent overreaction to the protest.
That you can’t see that, and pretend the stalking, and the rape/death threats, are no worse than what she did (which wasn’t morally wrong, nor illegal) is because your moral compass is defective.
Damn, I toddle off to a conference for a couple of days and miss the troll thread of the year!
Dear Future Fibi:
Please attempt to become as eloquent and coherent as pecunium. This is a worthy goal.
That was wonderful, thank you.
—
@TomBCat:
Isn’t that what this whole thread boils down to, though? Sort of? “You’re allowed to protest anything you disagree, but harasment and blockades should be considered very carefully and is istraight out”
Abortion clinic protests… are terrible, in that I think it’s preying on the emotionally vulnerable, but if people wish to do it because they believe what they believe, then I think it’s fine.
If they block, bomb or bully anyone going into an abortion clinic though? Wrong, stop.
I like to think of it as a chain. “Can I protest what they’re protesting, and still feel safe doing so?” – if the answer is “Yes”, then no one is doing anything wrong.
You could protest abortion protests and still feel safe.
You could try protesting the MRA, and then… this happens.
People are actually allowed to say they disagree with “Redhead” up there. But the way the people go about it in this thread and in general?
That ain’t protests, that’s pilediving. It ain’t discourse, it’s denigration and denial.
But that’s what I believe.
@Nitram:
I can hardly spell my own nick two times out of ten. I keep thinking it’s actually Fibionachi, because of the numbers… but it’s not! Thank you for your kind words 🙂
TomBcat: Pecunium, I wondered about that, because the first thing I had to think about were the people in front of abortion clinics, protesting people they disagree with.
It’s morally acceptable. So too is keeping them from interfering with the people who go to use those services.
The parallel is that it would have been, (I think) unacceptable for the protest ( which led to the terrorism Clint is trying to justify, with his false equivalence) to barge into the room, or block the entrance, or kill the power; just as whoever pulled the fire alarm was wrong. to have done that.
Protest, even loud protest, is acceptable. I have a problem with, “approving” protest, because that (provably) leads to suppression of debate. It’s not what they say, it’s what they do. That this event broke up isn’t a problem, per se, because the event wasn’t in any way critical (and I don’t know that, prior to the fire alarm, it wasn’t going just fine. It may have been hard to hear in the back, but I suspect there weren’t so many people there they couldn’t move down front).
Making it impossible for people to get medical treatment is different, in a fundamental way; but being loud doesn’t do that.