Categories
a voice for men ableism antifeminism I'm totally being sarcastic irony alert misogyny MRA paul elam rape rape culture that's not funny!

Men’s Human Rights Movement fights oppression with new oppression-fighting term “Rapetard.”

The Men's Human Rights Movement: Heading towards inevitable victory.
The Men’s Human Rights Movement: Heading towards inevitable victory.

Our dear friends over at A Voice for Men, the thought-leaders of the Glorious New Men’s Human Rights of The 21st Century Human Rights Movement With Girl Writes What (GNMHROT21CHRMWGWW) have been trying to introduce a new word into the vernacular, as part of their broad-based campaign for the betterment of human rights. That word? Rapetard.

While the portmanteau word has been floating around for some time, with assorted definitions, it took on its modern, human-rightsy definition in mid-April in a little-seen YouTube video by a fellow calling himself “Dick Magnum,” who defined it thusly:

An individual who, for reasons related to intellectual, emotional or moral deficits, cannot distinguish between questioning [the idea of] “rape culture” and supporting rape.

It was picked up in an AVFM post titled “Beware the Rapetard Society” about a week after that. Soon other AFVM writers seemed to forget Mr. Magnum’s careful definition, adopting it as their go-to epithet for feminists they don’t like. Which is pretty much all of them.

In a post having nothing to do with rape or rape culture, Paul Elam talked about “dumbing things down so that even a rapetard could understand.” In the comments to that post, AVFM contributor Dan Perrins joked about “rapetarded quote mining expedition[s].” And in a post yesterday, AVFM’s “Andy Bob” attacked Australian comedian Catherine Deveny for an assortment of alleged offenses against decency  — including using the term “retard” – in a post that referred to her as a “rapetard” four times, including once in the title.

You might think that combining the word “rape” with an ableist slur –“tard” – and applying it liberally to feminist women would be a step backwards in the campaign for human rights, but apparently that’s old-fashioned twentieth century thinking on my part.

180 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
howardbann1ster
11 years ago

Also, Fade, somebody did that math, and, yes, unsuprisingly, the whole ‘men go to prison’ thing is almost entirely about MOC, their actual real-life oppression being co-opted by a bunch of feminist-hating privilege-denying white dudes.

Fade
11 years ago

Yuck. X| MRAs: either making up oppression that doesn’t exist* or trying to appropriate something that’s actually a problem, but not for the reasons they think.

*divorce court rape

Chie Satonaka
Chie Satonaka
11 years ago

IdelogueReview is preggo-punchout, I thought?

Yup.

greendaywantsavatars
greendaywantsavatars
11 years ago

how do you guys keep all the trolls straight? I always keep mixing them up… XD

Chie Satonaka
Chie Satonaka
11 years ago

“Moral deficit.” Not just abelist, but also good old fashioned assholes, to boot.

BabyLawyer
BabyLawyer
11 years ago

Truthy, feminists are only society’s “thought police” if our (not exactly monolithic) ideology is enforceable, which it is not. As I’m sure you’re aware, in our free society, the First Amendment protects free speech from governmental regulation, with the exception of commercial speech, slander/libel, et al.

You seem to have mistaken the traction feminist ideas are gaining as “thought police” when it may in fact be that these ideas are simply marketable. I will grant you that the word feminism carries negative connotations, but if you’ll read the entirety of the link you posted, you’ll notice that people agree with feminism’s main tenet.

But asked if they believe that “men and women should be social, political, and economic equals,” 82 percent of the survey respondents said they did, and just 9 percent said they did not. Equal percentages of men and women said they agreed with that statement, along with 87 percent of Democrats, 81 percent of independents and 76 percent of Republicans.

So frankly, I don’t give a fuck if the public doesn’t like the idea of a feminist boogeyman. Most people don’t hang out in the feminist blogosphere, and like MRAs are fixated on the image of the second wave, hairy armpit, bra burning feminazi. Irritating and reductive, but whatever. The fundamentals are there.

inurashii
inurashii
11 years ago

oh look it’s Choofles here to drop some Truth Logs

I mean bombs

inurashii
inurashii
11 years ago

lol n/m I meant logs.

Aaliyah
11 years ago

An individual who, for reasons related to intellectual, emotional or moral deficits, cannot distinguish between questioning [the idea of] “rape culture” and supporting rape.

Yay, another definition based on an implicit straw man! These guys are so astute.

quantumscale
quantumscale
11 years ago

Ah, men of color: brothers-in-arms if they’re in prison, hypergamy-enabling alpha-male thugs if they’re not.

howardbann1ster
11 years ago

Fade:

how do you guys keep all the trolls straight? I always keep mixing them up… XD

WEllllllll…

(the following is neither song nor poetry, because it doesn’t rhyme nor scan–the meter and beat are all meters and beats of horridness)

(no, seriously)

Owly is NWOSlave, he hasn’t been around.
He thinks that it’s all a plot by the illuminati.
Including those damned prepubescent girls, temping him with their sinful bodies.
Fluoride makes you stupid!
Mammograms cause breast cancer!
And he’s a milking machine technician
(the truest thing about him)

Paul Elam runs a voice for men,
and he’s just swell.
he accuses women without proof
And doubles down

MRAL is Steele
And Torvus Butthorn
And Mikhael Varpole
And many more.
He wants you to know
How much his life is great
A pro!
A schmuck!
His fake girlfriend left him again!
….

Tom Martin hates penguins, they’re wh*res
(which is his favorite word)
And thinks under-aged prostitution’s swell
And hard chairs are misandry

JudgyBitch is a woman
Who hates women
And is a christian
Who tells lies
And bears false witness.

Sunshinemary is the same.

(and driversuz)

Diogenes is a super-genius
About to translate obscure texts
Solving problems in his head.
So boring I pass out.

David K Meller likes dolls
And hates women
And his dolls are creepy as fuck

Pell is a doctor
An astronaut
A physicist
Monty,
Montgomery Clift,
he’s fifty
And fourteen
teaching at princeton
(having sex with his students)
med student
law student
He invented UNIX

And these are just the tip of the iceberg!!!

There’s An Inconvenient Truth,
who wishes pussy upon Heartiste
thinks PUAs are swell
(not rapey at all)

The First Joe lives on a riverboat
And evades the C1A
Don’t spell `em or they’ll find you,
and really make you pay
(ps: you’re a racist
if you mention race)

There’s Ruby!
She’s awful!
But she went away!
(thank the gods I don’t believe in)

B__n must not be named,
Cuz he’ll come back
And he’s boring

Eurosabra is a fascist Zionist
Plus a PUA
(the first part is weird,
but the second is horrible)

Talacaris is a troll!
That is he says he’s a troll
And sometimes worries his friends are rapists
But mostly says he’s trolling for lols

Honestly, how DO We keep them all straight? I’m wicked confused now!! And I haven’t even gotten to some of the under-the-radar trolls!!!

greendaywantsavatars
greendaywantsavatars
11 years ago

@Howardbann1ster

*claps* that was very educational. But I do have a question

Is judgeybitch, driversuz, and sunshinemary the same person, or do they just have similar shticks?

howardbann1ster
11 years ago

Female MRAs. Same schtick. Definitely different people.

AK
AK
11 years ago

I feel like every post I make here is just me marveling at their hypocrisy, but I really just can’t get over an MRA criticizing someone for using the word “retard,” then using the word “rapetard” himself in the same post. Like, dude, how do you not see that you’re doing the EXACT SAME THING you criticized her for? Any use of the suffix “-tard” is pretty much the same as calling someone a retard directly, no matter how clever you think you’re being.

Oh god, “-tard” is going to get to be like “-gate,” isn’t it? Apply to random word, instant derogatory term!

I thought that was already happening. 🙁 In addition to using it with various curse words, I’ve heard kids attach other words to it (one I heard recently was “skatetard” by some skater kids, and I remember nerds calling people “gamertards” in high school). Of course my hometown seems to pick up some really bizarre slang, so maybe it’s a local phenomenon. I hope so…in addition to the ableism, it just sounds stupid.

Also, I guess this puts MRA discourse on the level of particularly immature high schoolers. Seems about right to me.

AK
AK
11 years ago

Ah, I wrote a comment that got stuck in moderation, presumably because I used an ableist slur (as a quote, not something I’d say myself). Didn’t even think of that!

inurashii
inurashii
11 years ago

I’m pretty sure that JB and driversuz aren’t the same people. JB has a much better capacity for argument and actually knows how to push people’s buttons. Driversuz is not very bright and seems to have only a vague awareness of what’s even being said.

greendaywantsavatars
greendaywantsavatars
11 years ago

Is driversuz that one who had the funky article on her son? *shimmers of memory*

CassandraSays
CassandraSays
11 years ago

Did I tell you guys that I ran into Roberta Sandoval (another former troll) on another blog? She was spouting the usual “women lie about rape and even if they’re telling the truth it’s not a big deal and I know this because I’m a cop/lawyer/depends on which day it is” again.

greendaywantsavatars
greendaywantsavatars
11 years ago

@CassandraSays

ARg, forever facepalm/shudders. WTF She sounds awful

CassandraSays
CassandraSays
11 years ago

My favorite part about her is the fact that whether she’s a cop or a lawyer changes depending on who she’s talking to and what she thinks will impress them more. It’s like what would happen if Pell learned to write proper sentences.

Pro-Equality MRA
Pro-Equality MRA
11 years ago

It’s definitely not a good PR move from Elam, I’ll grant that. Sometimes I think the guy just has no common sense…

howardbann1ster
11 years ago

Pemmy, do you renounce terrorism in all forms?

greendaywantsavatars
greendaywantsavatars
11 years ago

@Pemra

generally, misogynistic assholes do not care about PR, unless they are running for office

howardbann1ster
11 years ago

On second thought, renounce is the wrong word. It implies you previously accepted it.

Denounce. Pemmy, do you denounce terrorism in all forms?

(note that now an answer of yes has no implication of previously having accepted it)

howardbann1ster
11 years ago

Hey, Argenti, about the plot point from Dr Who that bothered you…

Other bits bothered other people, and Steven Moffat is not an answer-your-questions kind of guy.