So if you’ve ever wondered what sort of activism that Men’s Rights, er, Activists do when they do do activism, take a look at this little ACTION ALERT from A Voice for Men.
You may recall Paul Elam getting all worked up the other day because Facebook, responding to a campaign launched by a coalition of feminist activists and groups, announced it was going to try to do a better job removing “gender-based” hate speech from its site. You know, like this [TRIGGER WARNING] sort of thing.
Naturally, Elam and other MRAs interpreted Facebook’s announcement as the first step in the End of Male Speech on the Internet, or something.
Anyway, now the MRAs are ACTIVATING! AVFM has announced that it’s going after the groups that signed onto the feminist Facebook protest. Because, well, I’m not sure I get why exactly.
Here’s their explanation:
It’s time for action. The AVFM community has scrambled to look beyond the fine print of WAM!’s ultimatum to Facebook and into the signatories. We are finding that some of them are tax-exempt, and even government funded. We now know that government funded institutions have endorsed a harmful double standard that results in the censorship of men.
But, if we discover that even one cent of government money touched WAM!’s campaign, we will be exposing a whole new dimension of hypocrisy.
Uh, ok. I’m just really having a hard time finding the hypocrisy here. If you look at the names of the groups that signed onto the open letter, you’ll find a number of general feminist groups, groups concerned with the representation of women/gender in the media, and groups organized against sexual assault and other forms of violence.
They didn’t sign a petition demanding that all men posting on the internet be banned or, I dunno, kicked in the balls. They signed onto an open letter demanding that Facebook remove
groups, pages and images that explicitly condone or encourage rape or domestic violence or suggest that they are something to laugh or boast about.
That doesn’t seem hypocritical to me. It seems rather in line with what these groups promote.
And the only men who will be censored will be men posting this sort of hateful shit. If women post this sort of shit, they’ll be banned too.
Apparently, AVFM and its “activist” fans are so divorced from reality that they think they’re going to be able to publicly embarrass rape survivor support groups … for standing up against crude, hateful rape jokes on Facebook featuring images of brutalized victims.
Still, at least this sort of surreal, self-defeating activism is better than firebombing courthouses and police stations, as that infamous manifesto posted in AVFM’s activism section so enthusiastically recommends.
EDIT: I forgot the link to the AVFM alert; added it inthe first graf.
It could be that teenagers from 4chan put that crap on facebook to shock people. It’s still awful, and facebook did the right thing taking it down. Why are the MRA’s making such a huge fuss over it if they have nothing to do with it? Why are they making this the hill they want to die on? Seriously, I want to know.
The feminist groups used their own FREE SPEECH to tell facebook they don’t like pictures glorifying rape and domestic violence. Facebook listened to their concerns and made a policy about it. That’s it, there is no male silencing conspiracy, unless you consider graphic pictures of battered women with jokes about stairs to be helpful to men. And if you think most men need to make those jokes to express themselves, then it’s you who is the misandrist because the men I know and love think that’s disgusting.
Awesome! It won’t be long until polio is eradicated just like smallpox was. Then, the next challenge will be deciding which disease to eradicate next.
I saw all of those examples of the nasty images that were put on Facebook in that above article link. No words can express how horrible they are. For those who are wondering: There’s photos of women with busted up faces. There’s a little girl (who’s got to be 5 or 6 years old) getting her knee stomped on by a grown man. There are pics of adorable little sloths marred by ugly pro-rape texts (I hate how all that cuteness was corrupted). There’s a few crime-scene photos of bloodied dead women & girls. There’s snarky nasty commentary on anti-violence pics & messages. There’s passed out girls (many who appear to be rape survivors) with stupid “roofie jokes” as text. It’s all really awful.
Those images are horrific. I recognize one as a self-portrait of Nan Goldin, who almost lost her life to a savage beating inflicted on her by her ex. Can’t the photographers sue for copyright violation?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nan_Goldin
Hell, even if they had no previous association, they’d be getting a bad reputation just from this guy. Like imagine if some other random person showed up and said they were a milking machine technician.
Guinea worm, natch.
@Maude LL
something tells me it will have to be a different group of mens rights activists… /obvious statement.
@Neuroticbeagle
Okay, not sure where my brain is going with this, but the text is just striking me as ableist. (the text was ‘some babies were dropped on their heads but you were clearly thrown at a wall’). I mean, just the way it comes off to me is ‘someones acting x way b/c of brain injury as a child which is not okay. Idk if I’m misinterpreting it though, but :/
Okay, I was going to ignore black fedora, since he’s boring, but:
Plz enlighten me as to where feminists are trying to incite violence against men.
@SpukiKitty
Fuck 🙁 I hate people.
Awww, Black Fedora set me straight. I feel special* that zie addressed me personally.**
As nearly everyone has now asked: who, other than MRAs, says they are going to be the next ‘target’ to be ‘suppressed’? The feminist groups involved have successfully lobbied for Fbook to suppress the posters of some horrendously violent images and words. Job done, right? The feminists will rest dormant until the next land in turmoil cries out for a hero…
*a bit skeeved out
**in entirely too familiar a manner
HA HA! Blockquote monster BEGONE! HA.
I am unreasonably excited, I do see that. I’ve had a lot of caffeine.
So they’re finally admitting that bullying women on the internet (and occasionally offline too) is what their movement is all about, and if Facebook/the government/whatever limits their ability to do that they have no movement at all?
@emilybites: just you wait. You only THINK you have it beaten. It’s going to come back and bite you in the ass, probably in a really snarky, masterful take-down of a total ass-clown.
Hatred of women is a feature, not a bug, of the “men’s rights movement”. Hating women isn’t some incidental thing that happens in the movement, it’s the draw, it’s what attracts guys to it. Strip away the faction of men who just want to complain about women and see them suffer, and there’s really not much left.
I’m back, and whoa what the heck did I miss?!
How unsurprising that these guys want to respond by going after someone. In this case, it’s a good thing that it’s groups who were listed rather than named individuals.
The Good Men Project may be an example of moderate MRA.
I support removing photos of violence against women. However, free speech is important. It’s not just white straight men who are having their freedom of speech repressed these days. In trying to institute a hierarchy of privilege, some ludicrous vagabondes are trying to set up rules about who can criticize whom. Immigrants and gays are both oppressed victims of the westernized patriarchy, but once an immigrant woman criticizes a gay man or a gay man criticizes an immigrant woman, they are eeevilll asshats who don’t understand the new order, as the feminist sage Factcheckme writes about extensively in her deconstruction of people trying to use the privilege argument to suppress discourse.. Feminism is the creation of western white women and they are rightfully losing control of it.
You should all do yourself a favor and check out the site Great Books for Men. If you think I have a strange writing style, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Anyway, as Andrea Dworkin talked about, you need the protection of the traditionalist Christian faction of the MRA movement against the Pua/Game/MGTOW/AVFM cabal.
Dude, not with the free speech stuff again…
Clearly we need protection from the people we mock, we’re just fleeing in terror over here!
Black Fedora, the feminist open letter asked that Facebook remove “groups, pages and images that explicitly condone or encourage rape or domestic violence or suggest that they are something to laugh or boast about.”
This demand applies regardless of whether the victims depicted are male or female.
Feminist anti-rape activists aren’t going around sending each other “hilarious” meme jokes making fun of male rape vicitms.
Patty, Patty, somewhere out there a village misses you.
ProPatty, sorry, dude, I’ve grown tired of your trolling, especially since I’m pretty sure you’re MRAL. Banned.
Aw, but I wanted to hear more about his plan to create a compassionate patriarchy of people who shun divorcees and hate women’s reproductive rights and… er… never mind. Good riddance.
Andrew Johnston
Not surprisingly, this has already happened.
http://www.avoiceformen.com/a-voice-for-men/yeah-but-that-was-then/
haw haw
Also the post where free speech advocate Paul Elam said:
“Dude, not with the free speech stuff again…”
It really gets long in the tooth, doesn’t it? Moreso when it becomes obvious all that “free speech” talk is totally disingenuous. Y’know, as if it only applies to your group and no one else. Like how Christian Fundamentalists talk about “religious freedom” while claiming we should kick all Muslims out of the U.S. (’cause, like, that isn’t bigoted or anything!).
Making threats and doxxing people you disagree with? Free speech!
Said individuals taking issue of that bullshit and pointing out why? CENSORSHIP!
Apparently we live on Bizarro World now…
@thekid
This is really interesting. First, the “feminist plant” accusations came from known MRAs. Anyone writing such comments will be banned. But… that paranoia about plants was totally started by AVfM writers, lately Dean Esmay if I remember well.
Then, the demand that all “feminist” (by feminist, they mean anyone questioning their bullshit) comments be removed by the mods. Yay, free speech!
I personally don’t care what they choose to publish on their own site, it’s just interesting in light of the facebook freak out.
Paul Elam sounds like a total grand master in his post, and you can read the comments tiptoeing to criticize his proposition by fear of getting banned. Censorship! Purge! It reminded me a bit of the whole London kerfuffle.
In the end, I think it’s a positive change that Elam has decided to quit wasting his time and devote his limited resources to activism instead of talk. Obviously a declaration of his shutting down AVfM in favour of volunteering at homeless shelters in memory of Earl Silverman. After years, uh, I mean, days of supporting Silverman’s cause, AVfM will start doing the ‘A’ part of MRA.
::parties::
They already have, Andrew – did you see the post about AVfM chucking out Tom “female penguins are whores/hard chairs are misandry/child prostitutes are victimising men” Martin because he’s “too feminist”?