This just in: Men’s Rights Activists are some of the most gullible nincompoops in the history of ever.
The latest evidence of this? The regulars on the Men’s Rights subreddit were fooled by an obviously fake “screenshot” of an article from Jezebel that had been altered to make it look like a Jezebel staff writer thinks that paternity fraud is justifiable as a way to fight patriarchy.
No, seriously, the Reddit MRAs actually thought that Anna North of Jezebel had written that “the ability to lie about your children’s parentage is one way to break the rule of fathers.”
Here’s the “screenshot.” And here’s the original thread, which has been deleted from the Men’s Rights subreddit but which is still up, just not reachable from the subreddit.
The irony in many of the comments is off the charts. “It’s Jezebel, of course they think this way,” writes Riesea. “Wow,” says actorsspace. “If Jezebel had a sense of humor, I would suspect them of trolling.”
Blueoak9 — what happened to the original eight? — is stunned that even the evil feminists would sink so low:
There are, of course, a few teensy clues that North’s supposed quote about “break[ing] the rule of fathers” is a big fat fake (as are some of the others in that “screenshot”).
One is that nobody at Jezebel writes or thinks like that.
And second, there’s the tiny fact THAT THE REAL ARTICLE IS UP ON JEZEBEL AND IT DOESN’T SAY ANY OF THAT SHIT AND ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS GO READ IT FOR FUCK’S SAKE IT’S RIGHT HERE.
In fact, Anna North, the author of the Jezebel article, makes an argument that’s the exact opposite of the one attributed to her in the “screenshot.” Challenging a writer in the London Times who had argued that “the ability to pass a child off on a man was a potent female weapon,” North countered that such a stance was not only morally questionable but also pretty antifeminist:
I’d rather “make male claims to omnipotence absurd” by, say, being economically and politically equal to men — not by making them raise babies that aren’t theirs.
Now, you might wonder why exactly the Men’s Rights crowd on Reddit was reading a screenshot of a Jezebel article and not an actual Jezebel article. Well, that’s because the Men’s Rights subreddit has banned all direct links to Jezebel and other Gawker media sites because the MRAs are still mad about that Violentacrez thing.
Yes, the subreddit that links in its sidebar to a site — A Voice for Men — that not only has offered thousand dollar bounties for the personal information of its feminist enemies but that also carries an open call to firebomb courthouses and police stations in its “activism section” is still pig-biting mad about Gawker’s “doxing” of the man who helped to ruin the lives of countless teenage girls by founding and protecting Reddit’s Jailbait subreddit and dozens of other noxious subreddits.
And so someone was able to use this fact to exploit MRA ignorance and paranoia about feminism and make the inhabitants of the Men’s Rights subreddit look like fools.
Again.
Or some MRA with zero ethics wanted to make feminists look bad and failed utterly. I think this is less likely, but with MRAs, anything is possible.
When you’re done reading the original discussion of the fake article on the Men’s Rights subreddit, you can read the discussion there about how they were trolled. Including the comments from this person who thinks that “even if it’s a troll… so what? It’s still presenting an opinion that many a feminist has held.” Straw feminism is REAL! And this person (with dozens of upvotes) who thinks they should just ban all links to all feminist blogs because, hey, what’s the point in knowing anything at all about something you talk about constantly?
EDIT: Thanks to the AgainstMensRights subreddit, I was able to find the link to the original banned post, and so I’ve put the link (and some comments from the discussion) into the post above.
Again with the goalpost shifts.
(also, total misunderstanding of what the word mitigate means? That or apologism. One or the other)
Zie’ll probably engage w/ me until they figure out I think they’re full of shit, then they’ll whine about how I’m a five year old or w/e using toddler language
Here’s what makes me honestly mad
The troll is whining about how hard it is for (presumably cis) men to be childless in society. But if I get pregnant by accident, there are laws in my state trying to force me to keep the fetus. There are no laws like that for men.
A (cis) man can walk away. The worst thing that happens: mother wants child support, which is based on income.
A cis woman cannot just walk away, because the potential-child is INSIDE HER BODY
And I posted earlier about how a third of child support orders are in arrears/unpaid. Even if you do file for child support there’s a pretty good chance the man finds a way to evade it.
It is a great blog, but the comment section is just a club for the hive of dumb bitches. Just ignore it, they will make you hate feminism with their stupidity.
…
*sigh*
“bitches”?
I… I honestly don’t know where to start with this.
When we disagree on things the trolls laugh at our hivemind falling apart, when we agree on things we’re a hive of bitches. I guess there’s no pleasing some people.
PS, you’d better be a woman, because my opinions of men using “bitches” is “I hate it”
Hi Catwoman! So not good to see you again!
“Dumb bitches?” That the best you got?
^^^Though I’m perfectly fine with people using it in an ironic sense, like when mocking MRAs or something, I should add.
I just don’t like it when it’s an affirmation of male privilege by trying to use it to get women to shut up.
My opinion on women using gendered slurs isn’t that great either, myself. I’ll tolerate reclamative uses, but barely.
And that is not a reclamative use by any stretch.
Somehow I think Catwoman already hates feminism.
@Fade
Yeah, but see, having to PAY for a kid is infinately worse than havin to CARRY or BIRTH the kid because then you have to pay for 18 years and taking money from honest hard-working beta men is just like rape and OH THE POOR MEN!
Howard: I adore you, but you saying you’ll “tolerate” women using words you don’t like reclamatively is not cool.
I would just like to point out how the fact that we have such a child centric society is greatly represented here.
Because of this I have to deal with annoying breeding bitches who tell me how i make a mistake of my life to not have any because this is what the greatness happiness fora woman should be.
And because of this a guy who was lied and spend time caring for a kid he never wanted to is shamed for being upset. Because how could he, the poor single parents here are offended that someone may not be happy having a kid. His feelings/life plans/savings don’t matter its only the kid that counts. Sure it doesn’t happen often, but if it does and can be proven he should be able to sue. fraud is fraud no matter how it is done
Oh i don’t hate feminism, i am a happy feminist without being a brain dead idiot like you
“PS, you’d better be a woman, because my opinions of men using “bitches” is “I hate it””
So it’s okay for women to use the word “bitch” but not okay for a man to use the word “bitch”.
Interesting. So much for gender equality.
“breeding bitches”
You are definitely not a feminist.
Also, you sound like you’re about to do a troll melt down. Anyone getting pell-ish vibes?
Really? Because you sound just like an MR jagoff.
This is one of the things that chaps my ass about being child-free, assholes like you.
Nope. He chose to stay and raise the child, therefore he wanted the child. Being upset that you raised and loved a child who had a different genetic makeup than you, and saying you regret loving that child on account of their geners, is messed up.
Breadmold would also whine about how it’s totally racist that he can’t call black people various racial slurs when they use those words too.
breadmold: I really don’t like anyone using the word “bitch,” but I like it a hundred times less coming from a dude.
Cue whining about the horrible oppression of how white people look racist when they say the n-word.
StarStorm: Breadmold probably wonders out loud why there’s no white History Month.
“When we disagree on things the trolls laugh at our hivemind falling apart, when we agree on things we’re a hive of bitches. I guess there’s no pleasing some people.”
You don’t let people disagree on small details, get hysterical against them together and cry misogyny. this is what makes you a hive.
and yes i am a woman. i don’t like term bitches too because i don’t like to use anything about animals as an insult. but my favorite swearword would not be appreciated here
When a man uses the word “bitch”, he is using centuries of patriarchal domination to assert that women are inferior. Bitch is quick and easy way to insult a woman. It comes with a bunch of negative, sexist implications.
Basically, he’s using his male privilege to shut her up.
Which does not mesh with gender equality.
I don’t like women using it in internalized misogyny circumstances, either. (See: catwoman saying “Breeding bitches” or “hive of bitches”, assuming zir name is saying that zie is a woman).
However, I wouldn’t expect you to understand male privilege, so I guess… well, this comment will be meaningless to you.
breadmold: Paternity fraud is uncommon, and I won’t deny it, but just because it’s uncommon doesn’t mean that we should ignore it.
Other than:
How about you show me those studies and media analyses for paternity fraud.
Ah… the old, Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
As I said, you want to make women = liars the baseline idea.
But there is this. In those court cases where a father asserted a doubt about the paternity of a child, only one in three was found to be actually not his child.
On the surface this looks damning (I mean one in three), but those were the cases where a man had sufficient grounds/evidence to get the court to require the test. There was a strong supposition of deception (or, to use your word, “fraud”). Even with that, 66 percent of the cases were not “fraudulent”.
Yes it happens, but does it happen commonly? Obviously not. But the fact that it does happen once in a while is enough to warrant this to be an important issue to discuss about.*
So it doesn’t happen often, but that means we need to talk about it? Why? If the dude really has doubts he can get a paternity test.
So the real issue seems to be that it needs to be easier. All your examples hinge on how easy/likely it is the woman lied.
That’s what wrong with your argument. It requires a regular assumption of duplicity on the part of women. That’s bullshit.
. But I won’t pretend, not even for one second, that men [don’t] have issues to deal with as well.
Then, in principle, you agree with us.
In practice…
*could you link to some studies which show the prevalence; what with you wanting to make significant changes to society/underwrite cheap, easily available paternity tests
Catwoman: let me guess your favorite swear. It starts with “c” and rhymes with “runt,” right? YOU ARE SO EDGY.