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!
I have to say I love the community here too – if nothing else, comment threads usually provide me with interesting reading while I knit 😉 I’m kinda sad I don’t post more, but usually by the time I get to a thread, everyone’s said what I would say. And trolls always ignore me.
And yes, the internet is just as much RL as anything else – with the added advantage of being able to turn it off when you don’t want to deal. It’s like RL 2.0 – new and improved!
I got in a… kind of argument with my parents before my trip to Europe last summer. For the first leg of the trip my lady-love and I were going to be staying with two friends who not only had we never met in person, but with whom we’d only ever communicated with via email, IM and plurk. Mom especially was convinced we were going to be raped and murdered or something, never mind that one of the people we were staying with was someone I’ve been friends with for eight or so years by that point and her girlfriend. But no, because we only knew each other online, it was going to end terribly.
I managed to assage their fears, mostly, and it was truly a wonderful trip.
Which is my overly long way of saying manboobz is <3
@snore: Um, considering how many anti-feminist FB pages are still up and running, that’s kind of a huge lie. If loads of MRA pages are being removed, MAYBE consider what they had on them that was so terrible that a site that for so long considered pro-rape groups “humour” felt they had to remove it. I know I can’t think of a single MRA group (or even individual MRA) that hasn’t at least occasionally promoted or justified violence and harassment against women. And, you know, feminist causes are still being inexplicably censored. So not quite the conspiracy you seem to think it is.
I haven’t got time to run through all the comments (it’s past midnight and I have work in the morning), so apologies if this has been addressed already; however, I needed to comment on this claim by the Otter:
Leaving aside the dubious grammar, this is deeply flawed. “Free speech” doesn’t feed the starving. “Free speech” doesn’t clothe the threadbare. “Free speech” doesn’t shelter one from the wind and cold. “Free speech” doesn’t heal illness and injury. “Free speech” is useless to the dead.
Free speech is an important aspect of liberty, but it is not sufficient on its own. True liberty requires material security. To quote from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
The Otter is also wrong to assume that free speech includes freedom for hate speech. A quick perusal of the history of genocide, ethnic cleansing, segregation and apartheid shows clearly the role that hate speech had in facilitating those crimes, particularly through dehumanising the victims. Hate speech does cause harm to other people, and may thus be validly restricted in the name of protecting their rights.
snore (how apt): But feminism is opposed by many men and women of all faiths (or none) and all political viewpoints. It’s clearly a political philosophy and opposing feminism itself is no more hate speech than opposing republicanism. See the various AVFM posts for yourself.
We have (check the sidebar/tags), looked at the AVfM posts. While it’s debatable (see the comments here) that the MRM is a hate movement that AVfM is a site which is more than, “political” is apparent from the things they host (See Manifesto, Thomas Ball).
Moreover, the Argument ad populem (that many people, from many groups) are opposed to treating women as fully-fledged people is meaningless. Lots of people (of all faiths, or none) opposed civil rights for blacks; and oppose them for LGBT people.
Numbers don’t = validity (6 million frenchmen can be wrong).
2. AVFM does not purport to be a website for all of humanity, FB essentially does.
1: Immaterial. 2: FB is in the business of making money. The law requires them to look after shareholder interest; not to kowtow to rape apologists.
Elam’s new policy annoys me, but it is not nearly the same as FB arbitrarily removing any post critical of Feminism from a site with an almost unique monopoly across the planet.
You’re right, FB is doing it to make money, Elam is doing it to suppress dissent; that’s so much better.
Mind you, there is a lot you’ve glossed, and ignored. FB removes a lot of perfectly acceptable content, because someone, somewhere, might be offended. Breastfeeding? Banned. Nudity, banned. Sex ed information, often censored.
All a feminist plot, I’m sure.
John the otter writes with such passion. I wonder if he’s considered writing fiction. Given his problems with logic and reasoning, probably not a mystery. Maybe a gothic novel, all blood and thunder?
@Guit
Okay, I was ignoring Guit, cuz 1) got on here later and everyone else seems to have said what needed to be said, and 2) zir english was actually hard for me to understand, but:
The reason people are telling you to go away, Guit, is because you don’t actually seem to be understanding what you’re linking to. It’s not like you’re ‘just asking for directions’. You’re trying to make a conversation with something (assuming you aren’t a troll) you didn’t seem to read very well…
@amandajane
This is off topic (what i”m going to say) except for languages, but I have suuuchhh a hard time understanding a castillano accent. I finally can mostly understand (ie get the meaning) if someone’s not talking fast, but otherwise it flies straight over my head. I speak with a Venezuelan accent, because that’s where my first teacher was from, but my vocabulary/ slang is all over the place. I’d be pretty hard to understand… /rambling.
@sakurabelle
Welcome 😀 (and love your kitty avatar.) I don’t think off topic is usually a problem here, don’t worry 🙂
🙁 All the jedi hugs if you want them.
@Amnesia
*Squees* So glad I’m not the only one who does that! 😀 I do it a lot with other people’s names, too, when I’m just learning how to spell them (me and spelling are not friends…)
@kittehs
Me too. A manboobz meet up would be the coolest thing ever!
Yes. I probably say this a lot, but you guys seriously restore my faith in humanity. Especially my faith in being able to realize all men are not sexist jerks… anyway, sending manboobzers all the love.
I’m going to post this before it gets even more rambly than it already is….
Five Stupid Things About the Men’s Rights Movement – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCniWzjVIv4
Have all y’all seen this? Despite the slightly confrontational title, it’s a beautifully-worded, very logical take-down. A little pleasant break for earlier in the day.
(note: adding a link to a youtube video? I may be out of my depth but it is easily searchable by title. Also, my go to word for groups of people is “guys” as in “Hey guys! Look! Pics of kittehs!!” It’s a tad problematic. Suggestions?)
mayimoktoo, have you seen the second part?
Oh shit, I didn’t know how I did that!
aruba, plain youtube links embed.
Just to add to the Manboobz group hug – you guys are great! The threads provided me with lots of laughs, fun reading, and music! (seriously, one of my favorite artists was discovered via reading conversations here)
I think, if memory serves me right, BionicMommy and I are in the same state, but I don’t think I’m close to anyone else…
Also, Oskar Kockoschka the Cat is very fluffy and cute; I challenge anyone to deny his cuteness! But, he’s not the friendliest dude. Best to ignore and admire from afar with him, especially if you’re a guy.
@titian
I see him as a steamy BDSM romance novelist. 50 shades of misandry for hardcore masochists. He’s gotta quit hembling so much though if he wants to really make it.
[Argh! I can’t find last night’s definition of the word ‘hembling’ to link. Maybe Cloudiah (who came up with it) or Kitteh remembers? It was kind of awesome, and I vote for it to become official feminist language (soon to be of mandatory use on FB, of course. Yay, fascism!)]
Pecunium: “aruba, plain youtube links embed.”
ok, now I feel kinda silly
Aruba – almost 30 more minutes? It’s like Christmas came early.
@mayimoktoo
🙂
I missed the love-in last night! Damn you, time zones! Internet hugs to fellow Boobzers. 🙂 If anything ever brings you to Nebraska for whatever godforsaken reason, look me up!
Well hello, fellow Midwesterner!
@Briznecko
Hello 🙂 We should discuss our friendliness, work ethic, and non-existent accents sometime!
::squees::
Midwest people, I”m in Indiana! 😀
I’m not saying what state I live in on the internet! But I will note that the thing in public buildings that emits cold drinking water is a “bubbler”.
I’m off on the East coast. In the part with all the trees Kittehserf likes, deep in the woods, far enough that I’ll drive for half an hour to get to a store.
Trufax: up here we measure distance in time.
Oh man, non-existent accents! After I moved to my Midwestern city family members in my home state INSIST that I’ve developed some kind of a midwestern accent. What?
…and by midwester city I mean the one right on the border between Kansas and Missouri. I live in Missouri but Kansas is just three blocks away!
flaunce # 3
@ pecuniumIt
“doesn’t say men are less affected, but differently affected; and that the social context means women are more, socially, affected (because the violence against women is more prevalent, and more tolerated)”
I have problems writing english but I can prefectly understand what articles and politicians say. I’m not stupid and higly scholarized.
The problem has a double point of view: one individual and one social. I do not want enter the social issue here and start a flame on who is more or less affected by violence, you say women are more affected? ok. More means that in any case there are also affectedm men. I instead am looking to the other side of the problem: the individual one.
On one side they are banning anti-feminism content that is hard to reconduct to violence incitement.
On the other side if I report a page saying castration is good, men are stupid, bit you boyfriend and so on, they respond me it does not violate fb guidelines. At least in italy, women’s violence is increasing. So media attention should be in all directions. Waiting the day women’s perpetration will overtake men’s perpetration is stupid and incompatible with a ‘bona fide’ egualitarian practice.
This said, it is *personally* offending, and offending all men that in their lives were victims of gender violence. Argumenting how many they are, more or less, is a vicious cycle, a pindaric flight, basically ideological, to reject a hate speech stigmatization on the basis of genital sex of the reporter. This can be intepreted as intentional double standard, since it is possible to apply hate speech contrast rules for both men and women. But *you* do not want this and always shift the topic to social evidence, until the day social evidence will support you. The day after, once exhausted the social fuel, *you* will resort to a new demagogy in order to support your pet unidirectional anti sexism agenda.
I’ll really try not to write here anymore, sometimes it’s easy to say and hard to do.
Bye.
absit injuria verbis
Pics or it didn’t happen.