The MRA hissy fit over Facebook continues. Over on A Voice for (Human) Men, our old friend John “The Other” Hembling offers up his take on the whole controversy, which has roused the usually torpid MRAs to “activism,” and somehow manages to be even more overheated and incoherent than even Paul Elam before him — and at times nearly as ponderous as the legendarily ponderous Fidelbogen as well.
His argument, if it can be called that, is as follows: by demanding that Facebook remove violent images of rape and abuse posted as “jokes,” the coalition of feminists who recently got Facebook to agree to ban violently misogynistic images are therefore endorsing what Hembling has decided is the “strongest signifier of fascism” — censorship.
Now, censorship is not actually the “strongest signifier” of fascism, merely one of many ingredients in the fascist souffle — alongside such things as, you know, authoritarian rule under a powerful dictator, nationalism, racism, etc. (Also they tend to have a thing about uniforms.)
And Facebook’s removal of rape “meme” pictures and the like is not exactly akin to a one-party dictatorship taking over the media and orchestrating massive book burnings. (Heck, I’m not exactly sure what exactly is supposed to make Facebook’s “censorship” any different from A Voice for Men’s recent announcement that it was clamping down on comments that Paul Elam thinks are too “distracting.”)
But even setting all this aside, Hembling’s charges against “Laura Bates, Soraya Chemaly, Jaclyn Friedman, and every their [sic] signatory to their open letter” don’t make a lot of sense. Here’s his grand summing-up of his would-be indictment:
It is a letter calling on the largest social networking site in the world to institute a program of demographically selective censorship; to institute the practice that is the strongest signifier of fascism.
Bates, Chemaly, and Friedman are not merely endorsing violence against those most impacted by it.
Um, how exactly does asking Facebook to take down pictures depicting violence make someone a proponent of violence?
Hembling doesn’t bother to explain this, and blathers on ahead to his melodramatic conclusion:
They are not merely ignorant or indifferent to the foundational nature of free speech to the establishment of all other human rights. They are not merely content to propagate false, fraudulent models of domestic violence which continue the conditions and causes of domestic violence. They are not simply adherents of an ideology of hatred and violence, wrapping itself in the increasingly transparent veneer of false and pious humanism.
Dude, you’re sounding like a stuck record here. You’ve already accused them of promoting hatred and violence — heck, you accused them of promoting violence at the start of this very paragraph!
Hembling — recently hired on to a paid position as AVFM’s Editor in Chief — desperately needs an editor himself. (Not to mention a proofreader.)
Laura Bates, Soraya Chemaly, Jaclyn Friedman are successfully promoting the signifying feature of fascism. They are fascists, and if you support their cause, that of censorship, you may be a fascist as well.
*looks at self*
No, I’m good. Pretty sure I’m not a fascist.
Hembling ends with a surreal:
Thank you for your kind attention.
Dear readers: let me just ask you to ponder the question I find myself pondering every time I read something by Mr. Hembling: Can there really anyone who reads posts like this from him and says to themself, “this makes sense!” Because his posts all seem like histrionic grandstanding to me, filled with startling leaps of illogic I think would be even too much for dedicated MRAs to make.
I can only imagine that Hembling’s MRA fans really only pay attention to the invective, and don’t bother with the (lack of ) logic, and that for them this whole post basically comes down to: feminists are fascists, feminists support violence, feminists hate men, these three ladies are bad.
They certainly aren’t checking his facts — indeed, Hembling’s piece includes numbered footnotes in the text, but he left out the actual footnotes, and links, that were supposed to run at the end of the piece, as is AVFM custom; his post has been up for several days, and no one there seeems to have even noticed the missing footnotes.
Also, Mr. Hembling, if you’re reading this, here’s a little PROTIP for you: if you want to pretend that you guys are, you know, actually against violence, you might want to think about removing that terrorist manifesto from your “activism” section — you know, the one that calls on MRAs to literally firebomb courthouses and police stations. Not really good PR for an alleged “human rights” movement, that!
This isn’t exactly relevant to the post, so I’m sorry if this isn’t an appropriate comment to make here, but I just wanted to let you all know that I really appreciate you. I’m really glad that this blog exists. I only discovered the men’s rights movement a little over a month ago and I was completely appalled at pretty much everything the MRAs I came across said. They are some of the most sexist people I’ve EVER met. Most of the sexism I’ve seen (until recently) was more insidious than anything…rarely have I ever come across anyone with explicit hatred for another gender. It was a huge shock for me to come across an entire group of these people. I should note that at the time I didn’t even identify as a feminist…I was one of those “I believe in equality, but I’m not a feminist” people. Anyway, the only reason why I’m mentioning that is because the ones I encountered believe that anyone who doesn’t like them must be a “feminazi”. That is not the case, or at least it wasn’t for me at the time. (I’m still learning about feminism, btw. I decided to learn more about it after coming across MRAs).
Like I said, I really appreciate the existence of this blog. I’ve had problems with depression and anxiety for my entire life and I’ve been struggling with it a lot lately in particular…I was hospitalized for suicidal reasons earlier this year. Running into such a hateful group of people made my depression and anxiety 10x worse. I don’t have any friends right now, so I’m alone most of the time…I just hang out with my cat. I don’t get a lot of human interaction because of my fear of getting close to others. However, my crutch has always been ‘this is all in my head. The negativity is all in you, not most other people.’ Various counselors and psychiatrists have tried convincing me of this too. But after reading so much negativity towards 50% of the world’s population from multiple people, my crutch disappeared for awhile and left me feeling extremely hopeless, even moreso than before. The thing that really did it for me was reading an article on A Voice For Men that tried to defend not helping a woman if she’s being raped. What kind of heartless asshole would actually promote something like that? Is this really the world we live in, where people can just sit back and pretend that nothing’s happening if they see someone being hurt? (…To say the VERY least) I mean, I understand not wanting to put YOURSELF in danger, but they can’t even call the police?! And besides, is it just limited to rape???? When I was hit by a car, should no one have helped me or called the ambulance just because I’m a woman? I mean really…
It’s a HUGE relief to come across people who not only criticize these people, but mock them. It makes them seem a lot less scary to me. It makes people in general seem less scary. I wish I knew some of you in real life.
I never feel like I have anything to add to the conversation, so I’ll probably continue to mostly lurk around here, but I felt the need to say this. Thanks again =)
All the internet hugs, sakurabelle, and thank you for saying that! You’re very welcome here and as far as I’m concerned it was fine to post that in this thread (especially since the Open Thread seems to have fallen asleep, lol).
Important question! Did you get your Welcome Package when you first delurked? My memory, it is a sieve.
Hey Sakurabella, my memory is also a sieve, thanks to Ativan. Feel free to wander around here poking us internet people as friends, you aren’t the only one of the depressed anxious sort (lol, hey guys? Gender binary issues psych wants to add a 5th pill to my diet of crazy pills! As long as I don’t end up sputtering about how no I don’t want to pick boy or girl, again, I’m cool with this)
In random things, I just spent two hours transferring fish eggs after my maybe-a-girl cory made her debut into adulthood in a big way. I really hope I get offspring this time!
@sakurabelle, I’m sorry you’re having a hard time. Don’t let the MRA groups get you down, too, though – for all that they’re loud, obnoxious, and scary, there really aren’t that many of them. The AVfM Facebook back only has something like 3800 likes – that’s a pathetically tiny amount of people, considering Facebook currently has about 1.11 BILLION users, worldwide. And most sexist guys actually would help someone being attacked, male or female, because they may be sexist, but they aren’t heartless. I’ve met plenty of incredibly sexist men who would have given me the shirt off their backs if I needed it.
I hope you’re getting the help and support you need. I know depression isn’t something you can just turn off. But the people here are incredibly kind and supportive, and very funny and witty. It’s a nice place to hang out.
About the whole umlaut thing, I’ve just been copying and pasting Dvärghundspossen’s name whenever need be. Just highlight the text, control+c/command+c for copy, control+v/command+v for paste, in case anybody doesn’t know how to do that.
Argenti, at this rate, if you shake you’ll rattle, having so many pills! 😛
Fingers crossed with cory babies. Have you cleared the velvet and ich infestations from the big tank?
Howard, if you see this, most of my math got collected here — http://manboobz.com/2013/05/05/thread-for-hostile-visitors-to-endlessly-rehash-the-issues-they-have-with-feminist-research-or-whatever/comment-page-1/
That’s got like, multiple sets of math done in it, a few links to other math, one of which is links to yet more math.
I don’t know where the prison rape math is at though, but if you meant rapists going to prison, try here — http://manboobz.com/2013/03/14/the-nice-guy-who-raped-and-strangled-a-young-irish-woman/comment-page-6/
Sorry I can’t be more specific, but I’m fucking exhausted.
Amnesia – that’s how I do it, too. Plus, no typos! 🙂
Kitteh — um…sort of? In the sense that my 6 remaining fish in there made it. That was one for nature apparently, not medicine, much to my dismay. Supposedly fish who survive velvet build an immune response, so here’s hoping!
I sure hope so!
I did get a welcome package, but I forgot to make a kitty avatar…hopefully it’ll work now!
And thank you everyone! You’re all very kind =D @ellex24, that’s a good point. They’re just loud so it seems like there’s more of them than that. I’ll have to keep reminding myself of that number, haha.
Me too!
Re: collecting my math — dropping the math on homeless people here: http://manboobz.com/2013/06/03/homophobia-totally-the-fault-of-straight-women-according-to-mens-rights-redditors/comment-page-7/#comment-311393
It ends up links to links because it’s easier for me to find shit that way, but I’m too goddamned spent to dig through it for the specific math Howard asked for (like, this spelling thing is working thanks to autocorrect)
“I wish I knew some of you in real life.”
By far, the sweetest thing I’ve heard in a while. Sakurabelle, I agree; a lot of the posters here would defintely enhance daily “real life.” I’ve had problems with anxiety and depression too. Good company always helps.
Thirding that! I wish I were within travel distance too.
I wish I knew some of your pets in real life…and I suppose you people too. ;p
Cloudiah
Belated fritter review!
I made them with coconut flour and cornmeal instead of wheat flour (gluten intolerant guest), and I made a homemade mayonnaise with lots of garlic for dipping.
It was great! I’ll keep that one in my repertoire. I also bookmarked smitten kitchen, I wasn’t familiar with the site.
🙂
“I wish I knew some of you in real life.”
Seconding this. Just by hanging out here I’ve received so much help. You folks are awesome. ^_^
Fourthing* =P
Love it! 😀
@sakurabelle, Internet hugs.
@Man Boobz, Internet hugs.
@Man Boobz Pets, internet cuddles. 😉
**hugs**
D’aww, cuddle puddle <3
@sakurabelle
I’m so sorry to hear about your experiences; I’ve also felt horrible after reading the shit MRAs say. I’ve argued with MRAs who tell me that I’m misandric just because I’m male-bodied and don’t identity as male.
They are seriously awful. Hugs if you want them!