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.
I figured the whole point to eff joes mandatory paternity testing of all children was to prevent embarrassment for assholes who make false accusations of adultery against their partners.
Gods, all that prolonged two/three troll explosion over the idea that all women are lying whores with a yen to force poor menz into raising someone else’s child.
Sad to be someone so repulsive you can’t even imagine someone loving you and having no interest in anyone else, in fact being repelled by the idea.
LBT, congrats, that sounds great! I hope it happens.
Another Minor but Satisfying (which I’ll put here ‘cos the open thread seems to have died off): the Salamanderess dress from Secret Lentil.
“@Nitram – Utopia. It does not exist. No need to discuss the fairness or otherwise of non-existent state.”
Um, you were perfectly fine discussing Joe-topia with the whole child support as gift thing. But dodging the obvious horrible results that would lead to is pretty convenient. Nice work!
I lolled at Joe’s claim of how important it is for children to know their biological parents. Yes, it can be medically very important, but it’s rubbish to assume everyone adopted wants to know for other reasons. It’s simply not the case. I know I wouldn’t give a damn if my old man wasn’t my biological father (it’d be more like “ha, you owed the cheating teenager-chasing mongrel that one, Mum!”) because whoever the real father was wasn’t around anyway, and fifty years on is a tad late to be bothering about it, for me.
cloudiah – “Also sending free, forced paternity tests to any manboobzers who want them or who don’t want them, because forced medical testing is the soul of libertarianism apparently!”
Yanno, it seems the mandatory paternity tests just don’t go far enough. I mean, how does a man know his
propertywoman is cheating on him if she doesn’t get pregnant? I mean, Joe’s made it so clear that most if not all women are lying liars just waiting to CUCKOLD men. Surely there must be some sort of medical test the teeny tinsy ideal gummint can mandate so men can be warned and ready to walk out as soon as the inevitable happens?More math!
Assumptions // facts
4,000,000 births
5% false paternity
$550 cost per test
No births without a father on the birth cert.
Total gov’n budget is ~3 trillion ($3,000,000,000,000)
4,000,000 * $550 = $2,200,000 * 95% = $1,985,500,000 spent on paternity tests that come back as expected, wasted money in other words
1,985,500,500 / 3,000,000,000,000 = 0.00066 // 0.066%
If that seems so small as to not make a dent in the fiscal budget, it’s more than we spend on homelessness assistance, housing for the elderly, housing for the disabled, or the rental assistance program. Fuck did I have plenty of agencies tell me their funding was already up for the year, sorry…that was in early June of last year. Funding. Used. Up. By. June. and you want to spend more than that on mandatory tests that will tell people their assumptions regarding paternity are correct.
Perspective man! Get some!
“Also sending free, forced paternity tests to any manboobzers who want them…”
My mother insists he’s my father, but given my desire to disavow myself of his assholery, I’ll totally take one!
That 30 percent quote of Joes is total bullshit. That study showed that of MEN WHO SUSPECTED THEIR WIVES OF CHEATING AND THAT A GIVEN CHILD WAS NOT THEIRS (so a small subset of men) thirty percent found their suspicions confirmed. Hospitals which perform genetic testing for people who come down with something serious, have found that between eight and eleven percent of parentages were incorrect. And that’s been the case for generations. And its not always that women were cheating. Other reasons for incorrect claims of paternity include: incest or rapes being covered up, shotgun weddings where the men knew they weren’t the bio father but wanted to protect the child and mother, adoptions where the children were never told they were adopted, children who were passed on to other family members to be raised (to prevent shaming an unwed mother and her parents).
So yes, I think that finding out your partner may have deliberately decieved you is devastating, it is not however a particularly widespread phenomenon. Especially not when you consider the amount of money to set up mandatory testing. It would however, give the police force a nation wide dna bank. I think that if women are going to be presumed guilty of fraud and or infidelity and lying, that perhaps a fair trade off would be in having that oh so available database used to match up dna from rape kit tests. What do you think joe? Rape is a far more prevalent, and actually a criminal offence.
I know this was a while back but I can’t resist.
Yep, what happened to the Titanic was caused by women. It was us. We put the iceberg there on purpose just to sink the ship.
Uncle Joe
You know what inurashii owes you?
Not a damned thing.
Glad I could clear that up for you.
Go watch any number of documentaries made about the emotional turmoil adopted kids go through trying to find their bio-parents
Go get the studies which detail what percentage of adopted children “go through emotional turmoil to find their bio-parents.”
The more manboobzers argue against Paternity Testing the more I am convinced that it’s essential that mandatory testing be put into place.
Because you have such faith in the government.
After all the C!A would NEVER get access to that database. Nope, nothing could possibly go wrong.
Got any studies about “false paternity” in the general population?
I think a paternity test should be added to the manboobz welcome package.
“Together with mandatory testing so that men will not be man-shamed by their partners / feminists / women / society in general into not getting the test done.”
Man-shamed? For serious?
“The more manboobzers argue against Paternity Testing the more I am convinced that it’s essential that mandatory testing be put into place.”
Whew, fighting words from Joey. Except I’m pretty sure government reps don’t come here for ideas about policy, you silly goose.
I wish we could put sigs in our comments, because after the lulz of this thread I want to be Hellkell: MRA Minion and Misogynist.
Joe Could you put this into English, cause I’m confused.
Imagine not only being cuckolded, but being cuckolded by your RAPIST.
Are you saying a woman rapes a man, and pretends he’s the father; the man (who is not happy, hence your use of RAPIST, the implied horror of this situation) sticks around and is rearing… someone else’s kid?
What?
Right, offer the father the chance to pay for telling his wife he thinks she cheated on him.
That’s gonna go over well.
But if you want to do that, no one is stopping you. It’ll cost you about 1,100 USD, and you will have the comfort that comes of both having had the conversation with your partner and the surety the child is yours.
If that leads a divorce (since she wasn’t happy about being accused of cheating on you when she knew she hadn’t), well you have the comfort of knowing she had limits.
Damn son!, but you make bricks look thin.
That is entirely the point of this conversation. We say men can get those tests if they want to. You say the tests need to be mandatory for everyone.
Wait. Ok. Here’s the plan.
So a lot more than 2.2 billion USD per annum (because now each test requires a one on one session. And the paperwork (and attendant record keeping) to prove the interview took place.
And that’s because we know the Gov’t would never (NEVER) abuse access to medical information.
NEVER!
Shorter Joe: The government should stay out of all business, except my pet issues
Ignoring that that does not mesh with reality. IN REALITY, where there is no such thing as mandatory testing, would you cut off a relationship with a kid you helped raise and earlier thought you loved just because they didn’t share fifty percent of your genes?
It’s so cute when trolls try to appropriate SJ lingo. Reminds me of eight year olds misusing a word they heard their parents use.
Earlier, you were harping on how money is EVERYTHING if you’re poor (which it surely is a lot if you are), and now you’re saying all guys should pay 550 dollars for a completely unnecesary test?
Okay, you would gladly pay it. Because it’s your pet issue. I’d gladly pay a small percent of my hypothetical pay check (I am jobless atm) to fund abortion clinics, but I don’t think everyone would.
BECAUSE PEOPLE HAVE DIFFERENT OPINIONS
Most guys are not this… skeevy about forcing paternity tests on EVEN PEOPLE WHO DON’T WANT THEM
70 percent WHEN THE PATERNITY IS IN DOUBT. Christ, can’t you read?
And…. you alone can request a paternity test if a woman thinks you got her pregnant and asks you to be the father.
You’re right to know if you’re paying money towards a biological kid is not being infringed on here…
Trolls are evidently point-resistent. Either that, they think THIS TIME IT WON’T STICK, because they’re just SO RIGHT
So… because we don’t complain about war/ torture/ unjust arrests in this thread means no one cares at all?
How many issues do I have to bring up in this thread? If I don’t, I evidently don’t care about them…
It’s besides the point of the discussion because you said it is. It’s not besides the point to me.
After reading everything you’ve posted, Joe, I highly suggest not getting in any relationships, as you seem to think all women are cheating and manipulative.
There. I just saved you five hundred fifty dollars
Yeah… MRAs care more about their pet issues than literally anyone else.
I love how Joe’s last point boiled down to “If a father can medically consent for a child to have DNA testing, then he should be given the choice to do it.”
Uh yeah, no shit, that’s literally the current system.
Uncle Joe
It’s basically ignored by your executive branch for ooooh, pretty much all the big stuff (war, money creation, torture, arrests, house raids) and I don’t hear a peep out of you about any of that.
Yeah, I don’t travel from one end of the country to other to talk about how evil torture is, and how offensive it is the gov’t does it.
I didn’t take part in an DOJ interview series on how interrogation ought to work.
I didn’t spend 15 years of my life teaching people how to do effective interrogation without torture.
I’ve not written tens of thousands of words (in dozens of fora), linked to by writers in the Atlantic, etc.
Nope. I don’t care about any of that.
And all of that is so relevant to mocking misogyny.
You know what else is bothering me a small bit? Joe’s repeated insistence that raising a child that isn’t yours genetically counts as 18 years of completely wasted time and money.
Dude, it’s practically a classic story about a family who finds out their child isn’t “theirs,” and they have to come to grips with the fact that they spent so many years in a loving relationship, how do genetics supercede all the memories they made together?
If you really want a child, you have one, and you spend 18 years raising one… It’s nearly impossible for me to imagine how you could just toss it all in the garbage because genes don’t match. Someone who does so puts an invisible trait above 18 years of actual tangible experience and memories.
I dunno… in the situation most in favor for Joe, a wife cheats on her husband without him knowing, and accidentally becomes pregnant. Out of embarassment, she says nothing, and they raise a child together into adulthood. I can imagine various degrees of response once it finally comes out: maybe the husband just doesn’t care, it was so long ago; maybe the husband feels betrayed, and the marriage is ruined.
What I simply can’t see is the husband losing all affection and connection with the child, to the point where he honestly deeply feels that two decades of his life was a complete waste. At least, I can’t imagine him feeling that in the long term, once the shock wears off.
Maybe it’s just me…
Oh right, wasn’t it Tom Martin that last tried to advocate for mandatory paternity tests, or was it someone else?
@Argenti
Wow, that’s just depressing.
‘
WRONG! We can, in fact, test Mr. I Dunno Who The Daddy Is.
We just maintain an ongoing file of all the DNA tests of all men. Mandatory at, say, age 12, and recorded for life in a file. If, after your precious Mandatory Test, it turns out the husband/claimed father is not the bio-father, then the child’s DNA is automatically run through the national database. (Ideally, of course, this would be an international database, possibly run through the UN.)
That way, no child will ever have to put up with the agony of not knowing who his bio-daddy is, which, from your histrionics on this thread, is clearly the Worst. Thing. Ever.
Of course, this will impinge on the rights of men, rather than just working towards the MRA goal of a Peentopia where nothing bad ever happens to someone who has a penis and identifies as male (I don’t believe MRAs give a shit about trans* folks of any gender, thus both qualifiers are necessary for privileged status in Peentopia), so you’ll probably whine about it a lot.
Aaliyah — part of it is that the budget for other things is much higher. Yes, the goddamned defense budget to find our useless wars dwarfs it, but thinks like WIC and SSDI/SSI where much larger. I was referring to each program individually, together they make up about 4 billion of our 4 trillion budget.
…yeah ok, that’s just depressing
This post brought to you by denial of the fact that I could’ve had options besides moving back in with my parents if not for the “welfare queen” and “the unemployed are lazy” shit. (Housing for the disabled requires SSDI/SSI, so no, I wouldn’t have qualified…and my psych apparently still hasn’t written the letter for the atty and I cannot stand another appt that’s her lecturing me on how I won’t get it with this but they don’t decide and spent 6 months saying I was qualified but aren’t sorry or anything no no, I’m just too young to be restrained by the reqs for federal disability *collapses into thread*)
*sigh* please ignore my stream of consciousness meltdown and focus on the first bit about gov’n spending. Thank you.
I shall take my meltdowns to more appropriate locations, like pecunium’s inbox (consider yourself warning!)
Argenti: I’m sorry you’re going through this trying to get disability. My mother who has MS has been turned down twice now. I kept telling her to get a lawyer and fight it.
Go full rad
femMRA — men born men living as men (totally a direct rewording of radfemhub’s comment policy, whenever it was that I checked it…and I wanted to say something totally innocuous about like, music or something that I just happened to see while viewing transphobic shit)Hellkell — sorry to hear about your mother! They’re being assholes about it when there’re tests to prove she has MS? Fuck, maybe I am just screwed, last I checked neither PTSD nor bipolar had objective medical tests.
*waves hands* sorry, return to your regularly scheduled programming. Any math for me to be doing?