Men’s Rights, er, activists are waving their arms frantically in the air over what they see as a dire new threat to men and manhood: Facebook’s recent annoucement that it was going to try to do a better job of taking down violent images mocking victims of rape and domestic violence, and other kinds of misogynistic hate speech.
Last week, as many of you no doubt already know, a coalition of feminist groups launched a campaign targeting Facebook and its advertisers for tolerating this sort of content on Facebook — in many cases even after it was reported to Facebook moderators as clearly violating the site’s already existing policies against hate speech and graphic violence. (For many truly disgusting and possibly TRIGGERING examples, see here.)
Well, Facebook actually listened, and announced it would be making efforts to better handle “gender-based” hate speech, and would be “solicit[ing] feedback from legal experts and others, including representatives of the women’s coalition and other groups that have historically faced discrimination” — among them some of the groups involved in the protest. While Facebook’s promises remain vague, those behind the protest are hailing this, correctly I think, as a victory.
A lot of Men’s Rights activists, by contrast, seem to think Facebook’s new policy means the beginning of the end for free speech for men on the internet. And no one seems more worked up about it than A Voice for Men’s Supreme Commander Paul Elam.
In a posting he declared “probably the most important article I have ever written” — not that this is saying much — Elam attempted to rally the troops to fight against what he called “the greatest challenge the M(H)RM has faced so far.” Elam claimed that taking down images of brutalized women with captions like “women deserve equal rights — and lefts” isn’t the real goal here. No, he charged,
feminist ideologues are co-opting Facebook, and they will root out any and all opposition to their worldview.
But instead of lamenting this terrible alleged threat to the spirit of the First Amendment and Free Speech, Elam moves on — immediately, in the very next sentence — to an even more important issue:
That will include, at some point, the AVFM Facebook page and its nearly 3,500 fans (2,000 of which have come in the past two months).
How important this is? In a word, very.
Facebook accounts for roughly 10-13% of our traffic on most days, and with a rapidly growing fan base that promises to represent a continually increasing number of actual visitors to the site.
That’s right: FACEBOOK’S NEW POLICIES MAY REDUCE A VOICE FOR MEN’S TRAFFIC BY TEN TO THIRTEEN PERCENT.
And if feminists succeed in their dastardly plan to root out all non-feminist thought on Facebook — a plan which so far exists only in Elam’s paranoid imagination– then what?
Where do you imagine, if they are successful at eliminating men’s rights discussion from Facebook, they will go next? Reddit? YouTube?
How about Google?
Do you think they are above trying to have men’s rights websites de-listed from Google search returns?
If any of this actually happens, outside of Elam’s fever dreams of persecution, I pledge to literally eat my kitties. Or, at the very least, one of Werner Herzog’s shoes.
Of course, if Facebook simply does what it says it will do, and not what Elam imagines it will do, A Voice for Men’s Facebook page may find itself in a bit of trouble. Because a lot of what appears on AVFM — which continues to post an open call to firebomb courthouses and police stations on its activism page — can only be described as gender-based hate speech. (TRIGGER WARNING for what follows.)
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It was Elam, after all, who asked, about women who are date raped after drinking with men at bars:
[A]re these women asking to get raped?…
NO, THEY ARE NOT ASKING TO GET RAPED.
They are freaking begging for it.
Damn near demanding it. …
[T]here are a lot of women who get pummeled and pumped because they are stupid (and often arrogant) enough to walk though life with the equivalent of a I’M A STUPID, CONNIVING BITCH – PLEASE RAPE ME neon sign glowing above their empty little narcissistic heads.
And Elam — like a lot of the misogynistic “humorists” on Facebook — is not above using a picture of a brutalized woman to illustrate one of his little “jokes.” Here is a screenshot from one of his posts; the text is his, as is the caption to the picture. (He has since removed the picture from the post, though the hateful text remains.)
Of course, even as AVFM tries to whip up outrage over the alleged feminist/Facebook plan to silence the menz, the regulars there are having a hard time even pretending to be bothered by the violent images of rape and brutality that the feminist protesters have pointed to on Facebook. (You’d think, at least for PR purposes, they’d want to position themselves against violent rape “jokes.”)
Indeed, in an earlier AVFM post on the Facebook fracas, someone called Victor Zen seemed to argue that glorifying or even promoting rape is fine so long as you don’t actually go and do it. See if you can make sense of this word salad:
Rape, it’s glorification? My experience has been that people who post images, videos and text that promote rape and violence are doing it because they know the value of shock. If you conflate their intention to deceive with their presentation of an untruthful reality you rob yourself of the truth. It is tempting for some to believe as they say, but in the end those that do are denied what is actually real. I doubt real rapists are publicly announcing their desire to rape. I want numbers because I am curious.
How many examples of hate speech that WAM! and affiliates moan about lead to proven incidences of rape or domestic violence?
I don’t even … what?
The Men’s Rights movement: Fighting for the right to shout rape jokes on a crowded Facebook.
Pecunium, I am a Democrat. Although many here think that you can’t be a Democrat if you don’t support bodily autonomy because it’s antifeminist to support bodily autonomy, even though women themselves are split on the issue, I am in fact a registered and voting Democrat. I was not saying that I personally think a right-wing should tame you; I was sharing someone else’s opinion.
Palmedfire, my version of the patriarchy allows for the fact that there is great diversity among both men and women in regards to their aptitudes, talents and personalities. This will be allowed and even encouraged, as long as it does not lead to the veritable encouragement of sin and debauchery currently taking over in society because of the coalition between feminism and the Pua/game community. Although Christianity should be privileged in the United States, we will attempt to seek consulatations with other religions as well, through a Council of Ecumenical Theological Institutionalization and State Guardianship, which will include both men and women of good character. It will not replace our current constitutional democracy. The statistics about world religions don’t matter, although I do support a global world government in principle. I also support immigration from other countries; it does seem there is something to the fact that many of us American men feel more comfortable with some foreign women.
I meant “anti-feminist to oppose bodily autonomy”
Translating ProPatria…
Wow you mean women and feminist are not synonyms I am so surprised?
I also do not know what ‘patriarchy’ means.
Taking a break from snarking your dumb ideas to ask you why the fuck?
That’s called fetishizing (sp?) btw. Many times this shit goes ‘oh, well, I’ll just go find a good docile foreign woman’ which tends to ignore the fact that women, gasp, in other countries, gasp, are people with a wide fucking rage of emotions and may not hit the one the creepers are obsessing on.
hahahahahahaha
wut
PTT has got to be a poe. The apocalyptic language is off.
Shorter PTT – Look at me, getting them to react! I am so clever!
(Eyeroll)
I still think Father Dougal here is MRAL
‘This will be allowed and even encouraged, as long as it does not lead to the veritable encouragement of sin and debauchery currently taking over in society because of the coalition between feminism and the Pua/game community.’
This sentence is somewhat, Steelesque, no?
I still think Father Dougal here is MRAL
‘This will be allowed and even encouraged, as long as it does not lead to the veritable encouragement of sin and debauchery currently taking over in society because of the coalition between feminism and the Pua/game community.’
This sentence is somewhat, Steelesque, no?
Associating him in even the most vague way with Dougal from The Magic Roundabout makes me sad.
For non-Brits and younger folks.
Yeah, maybe I should have gone with Father Jack. But at least he was concise and to the point.
I’m not MRAL/Steele. There are many of us unconventional and creative minds who seek to serve the will of God through postmaterialist inquiry.
I do not support the objectivication of foreign women. I went through a period of being against American women; I extensively read the site Boycott American Women, which claimed to have lots of writers but probably just had one writer. However I have now recovered from this obsession. I still happen to enjoy the company of many non-American women.
It would be interesting to know if MRAL is reading this, and if so what he thinks about my postings. He probably doesn’t find them all that coherent.
But
Whoever has ears, let them hear.
Also check out the MRA site Great Books for Men, if you really want to mock someone who deserves it. Even MRAs don’t know quite what to make of him.
Oh Christ, let me start with some blasphemy and work from there (though, I’ve discussed that with pecunium, apparently true blasphemy is real hard to commit, anyways).
“Although Christianity should be privileged in the United States”
You can haz first amendment? Please? Cuz see, the very first words of the bill of rights are…
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
You are welcome to exercise your religion as you see fit, barring the breaking of other laws (eg harassment), you are NOT allowed to try making your religion the national religion. Like, holy fuck, the Church of England is exactly why that’s there. This country was founded, on paper anyways, on the principle that an official state religion was a Bad Thing. Get over it.
Second! Abortion views by gender? *queues up some stats*
http://www.gallup.com/poll/127559/education-trumps-gender-predicting-support-abortion.aspx
So you can say women are split on abortion if you mean to say that 78% think it should be legal under some circumstances, with 26% saying legal in all circumstances. Versus 21% saying illegal in all circumstances. Which, btw, as I already tried to demonstrate, is the only truly pro-life option. Check out El Salvador for example, that’s what viewing abortion as murder results in. And more than 3/4ths of women think that’s not a good situation.
More, want to know what percent of pregnancies end in abortion?
“The proportion of pregnancies terminated by abortion peaked in 1983 at about 30%. By 2004, at 23%, it was only slightly higher than in 1974.” (citation, PDF)
You’re arguing against at least a quarter of pregnant people in other words. Surely your fucked up little mind will decide that a full quarter of people who find themselves pregnant should be forced to give birth. But face up to it, that’s what you’re saying — you support forced birth.
——
Speaking of El Salvador, I’ve heard both induced birth and c-section, but they aren’t forcing her to continue the pregnancy.
The statistics show that many women support abortion’s legality in only some circumstances. Showing that women tend to have a good understanding of moderation and balanced thinking.
Way to ignore that you’d support forced birth in a quarter of pregnancies. Nicely done.
Why should any group be privileged anywhere? Why not start at “we’re all humans” and… end there?
All Christians, Mr Ultramontaine?
I say we should privilege Satanists, just as an experiment. They can’t possible fuck things up any worse than the current crop of religiously-motivated politicians.
@ Cassandra
I watched the Magic Roundabout in French as a kid! That flute!
@PTT
I’d love to hear you elaborate on your “postmaterialist inquiry”. It sounds an awful lot like a euphemism for “pulling stuff out of my ass”.
The prolife movement knows that a lot of pregnancies end in abortion. There’s not disagreement about that. It’s just that you see it as showing that abortions are needed because of a lot of unwanted pregnancies, while we see it as the all-encompassing pervasiveness of sexual sin and the culture of death.