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.
So a “rapetard” is someone who refuses to believe intent is magic? Got it.
In related news, it’d be a lot easier to distinguish between “questioning the existence of rape culture” and “supporting rape” if the exact same terms, tropes, and slurs weren’t used in the pursuit of each. PROTIP.
Oh, dear, again with the fascist bit. I think Israel is one of the few places where the Traditional Zionist Right gets to make its case despite the name-calling. And why oh why do people never say “But power will moderate them…”?
Think about it. People cut Hamas more slack than the Zionist Right. Because people feel differently about J*wish Israelis. People always have Schornsteine in mind for us.
…
Hi, Eurosabra. Fancy meeting you and your rapey talk here.
You make your case here.
Still looks and sounds like fascism, though.
@howardbann1ster- Yes, I renounce terrorism.
In related news, it’d be a lot easier to distinguish between “questioning the existence of rape culture” and “supporting rape” if the exact same terms, tropes, and slurs weren’t used in the pursuit of each. PROTIP.
Yeah, I’ll admit I sometimes get confused between “women should stop reporting rape” (rape culture) and “rape is okay” (supporting rape) too. Probably my tiny female brain.
then why are you calling yourself an mra, man?
So, again, Paul Elam and AVFM are hip-deep in it. On their activism page. Fomenting. Etc.
…what are you doing to clean up your so-called ‘pro-equality’ movement?
Well, I for one am quite pleased they document themselves saying this crap. Can you imagine them trying to rep themselves in a mainstream platform? Jesus. A villagers-with-torches scenario comes to mind.
Oh man, check out Dick Magnum’s channel if you want a laugh. “Feminism is Rape” is hilarious. He feels that Feminism is all about feelings; We Hunted the Mammoth; Feminists want to rape men.
@kidwiththereplaceablehead
I… brain broken. Was there even a shred of logic in his arguments? I mean, how… did he get to “feminism is rape”?
Paul Elam calling people “rapetard”: “It’s definitely not a good PR move from Elam, I’ll grant that.”
SRS calls Elam a sexist ableist asshole in response: “HATE SITE!!!!!’
driversuz and judgy bitch are different people.
but isn’t truthy also ideologue review (and the preggo punchout guy?)
I think this thread started the rumor, but I never saw it get any more confirmation, unless I missed something.
Amandajane45 and Kittehserf both seem to agree.
prison is all about people of color (the fastest growing population is black women in us facilities).1 in 9 black men between the ages of 20-35 are behind bars in the united states. about 75-80% of people in ny state prisons are black and/or Latino. since mras are repulsive human beings, and often white supremacists, they obviously don’t care. or think horrible things about the people living in prison.
This is the M-A-N-B-O-O-B-Z T-R-O-L-L song,
The M-A-N-B-O-O-B-Z T-R-O-L-L song,
And if you don’t think that we can sing it faster then you’re wrong
But it would help if you just sing along
(bum bum bum)
Howard, your troll description is most excellent. It almost sounds like haiku. I might get drunk and make haiku out of it, if you don’t mind. (Then again, I’m drinking now, so I might forget I made this comment.)
To the best of my recollection, Ideologue Review and An Inconvenient Truth are the same smug, clueless person. If not, they have absolutely identical commenting styles.
But, oh, is it ask PEMRA questions time? I have a question for PEMRA:
Dear PEMRA: Let’s say some dude Ray liked to hang out at this club and harass people. Eventually, club management said “sorry Ray, we don’t like you and neither do our other customers. We’re going to ban you from the club forever.” Months pass. Ray loses 40 lbs, dyes his hair a very different colour and cuts it short. He’s no longer immediately recognizable to the bouncers. Question 1: Is it okay for Ray to try to sneak back into the club? Question 2: Do his intentions matter when you answer question 1? By which I mean, is it more okay for him to try to sneak back in if he has no intentions of harrassing people the way he used to?
I’m asking you these questions because I’m pretty convinced you’re a sock. If that wasn’t bloody obvious.
Reblogged this on woosterlang87.
“Rape culture”, on the other hand, is such a strong sounding term that it probably shouldn’t be overused or else it’ll have the opposite of the effect intended.
Case in point: a few days ago Ars Technica posted this story about a company that sells spyware hidden inside Firefox to oppressive governments, and how Mozilla is upset about this and is suing to try to stop them from distributing this “bugged” version of Firefox. At the top of the article is a photo of a rather attractive young woman dressed as a Firefox icon, hugging an inflatable globe and smiling at the camera.
As one might expect, there were a number of comments about the sexiness of the model in the photo, of various levels of creepiness. Personally I could do without any such comments, since they’re not professional, and I can see how some readers might find such comments to be sexist or unwelcome, or find the choice of photo to be sexist.
But then there was this comment in response to one of the first comments about the model in the photo, which I really think has got to be an MRA parodying a radical feminist because of how completely over-the-top the response is. After looking at this user’s profile and other comments (and seeing that he’s registered as a male from “Music City, USA”), in fact, I’m pretty sure it’s a troll:
At least they got downvoted into being hidden by default, but it’s kind of a weird situation, sort of a Poe’s Law for feminism, that I had to double-check to confirm that it was a troll trying to mock feminism, and not an actual (humorless, anti-sex) feminist who really believed that “rape culture” applied to that exchange in addition to “objectification of women” (which they actually were doing). So, yeah, that was weird to read.
I’m sorry, Jake Hamby, but you seem to be warning us of the dangers of “overusing” the term rape culture, and then your example is of a troll using the term to … I’m not really sure what. Make fun of it, I guess? So I’m a bit confused about the action items I’m supposed to take from this. Should I not use the term rape culture anymore lest a troll overhear me? Or is it my job to make sure trolls don’t use the term? Or should I not use the term because what with trolls using it too, people are likely to get sick of hearing it?
Didn’t we have a troll recently who said something to the effect of “We shouldn’t call rape that happens to a drunk woman rape because it’s just drunken sluttery and calling drunken sluttery rape devalues ‘real’ rape’?”* Jake wants the same thing as that asshole: to shut us up and move the conversation onto his terms.
* Just realized how general that is to our trolls.
Gods, so much fail.
Give us some examples of these “humourless, anti sex feminists,” please. No quotations from fictional characters in obscure novels, no straw feminists.
If you don’t grasp how objectification of women is part of rape culture, then go and do some more 101 reading. Objectification is part of dehumanising, denying women’s agency, denying our status as humans – and you think that isn’t part of rape culture? The mind boggles.
When someone mentions humorless anti-sex feminists on this blog, I am amazed the universe doesn’t implode from the irony.
I’m also amazed that said person somehow thinks we’re going to take him seriously after he says that.
Oh, look, he’s confusing Jezebel (or wherever) with 1984.