So the self-described “human rights activists” at A Voice for Men have found three more women to harass. Here’s the story, which for many of you will have a depressingly familiar ring:
Members of Men’s Rights Edmonton, a small group that is for all intents and purposes a local chapter of A Voice for Men, has been putting up pictures targeting Lise Gotell, the chair of women’s and gender studies at the University of Alberta. The pictures, which seem inspired by “Wanted” posters of yore, feature a large portrait of Gotell and the caption:
Theft isn’t black. Bank fraud isn’t Jewish. And rape isn’t male.
“Just because you’re paid to demonize men doesn’t mean rape is gendered. Don’t be that bigot.
Gotell’s crime? She was involved in what appears to have been a remarkably effective rape awareness campaign focusing on date rape and featuring the slogan “Don’t Be That Guy.”
A Voice for Men took exception to the campaign because, even thought it did deal with the male victims of rape, it didn’t devote equal time to the problem of evil, false-accusing “girls.” No, really. Men’s Rights Edmonton Activists put up “satirical” versions of the campaign’s posters with the slogan “Don’t Be that Girl.” Now, MR-E and AVFM, at least according to the “argument” advanced on their new poster, seem to be upset that the campaign didn’t devote equal time to the problem of female rapists. [Note: this paragraph has been corrected; see note at end of piece.]
Gotell spoke out against the posters, and now Men’s Rights Edmonton and AVFM are doing their best to smear her as a “bigot.” Because she doesn’t believe that women are responsible for half of all rapes.
Since this is not actually true — more on this in a later post — it’s hard to see how this makes her a bigot.
As a rule, I don’t support tearing down the posters of one’s ideological enemies. Free speech and all that. But these posters are different: they’re slanderous personal attacks designed to harass an individual. Were they posted in my neighborhood I would tear them down.
And evidently that’s what some people in Edmonton have been doing.
Indeed, one recent night, several members of Men’s Rights Edmonton claim to have caught two women doing just that. While they don’t seem to have video footage of the women tearing down the posters, the MRAs filmed themselves following the women down the street and angrily confronting them for this alleged crime.
They posted the video to YouTube, and AVFM posted it as well, under the typically overheated title “Men’s Rights Edmonton confronts fascists.” They screencapped images of both women from the video and announced their intention to uncover their personal information:
MR-E would like to know the names of these two women so that charges of destruction of property can be laid against them. Also, the world should know the identities of those who seek to silence and censor messages advocating for human rights.
Of course, this is ridiculous. Tearing down a poster that was almost certainly posted illegally in the first place isn’t “destruction of property.” No one is going to be prosecuted for this. The police have better things to do.
But of course that’s not the real intent here. The real intent here is to scare the shit out of these women and other feminists by exposing them to harassment online — like the woman labeled “Big Red” and countless other women who have been targeted by AVFM and other MRAs (sometimes completely erroneously).
AVFM’s Paul Elam gave the game away with an “editor’s note” added to the post:
[A] woman who vandalizes man’s property and then flips him off when he confronts her about it on a dark street at night only acts in this manner because she is certain she has absolutely nothing to fear. Feminists terrified of MHRAs? My ass.
Elam could not have made it any clearer: the main point of this kind of “activism” — which has become AVFM’s bread and butter — is all about intimidating women, not helping men.
AVFM, where terrifying individual women is “human rights activism.”
Here’s the appropriate response to that:
CORRECTION/CLARIFICATION: I rewrote the paragraph starting with “A Voice for Men took exception,” which confused AVRM/MR-E’s current objection to Gotell’s views with its original “argument” against the “Don’t Be That Guy” campaign.
Poor Jason. His bro tears taste so salty sweet. Yum yum.
As many as 772 of ’em, according to the survey.
Jason –
Because women don’t choose to be miners, fishermen, police officers, firefighters, and many more similar occupations?
I don’t know if you know this, but “women and children first” isn’t really a thing outside two maritime disasters, the Titanic and one other. It’s not part of maritime law.
[citation needed]
[citation needed]
Uh, yeah, those examples are non-existent.
Saying you’re a loser isn’t the same as threatening women with rape and death threats. Or doxxing women who dare to disagree with you. Or putting women you don’t like on Register-Her and insinuating that feminist activists are as bad as murderers.
I don’t know if you know this, but women are called losers all the time. It’s a gender-neutral thing. Also, calling a spade a spade isn’t misogyny/misandry/what have you.
You realize that “man up” exists because patriarchy presumes that women are incapable of doing anything other than making sandwiches in the kitchen, right?
Women coal miners.
Woman sanitation worker.
0/10, try harder.
>>>I want men and women to be equal in all things. That includes marrying down.
Actually, *I* want men and women to be equal in all things. This involves smashing hierarchies and a classless society.
U r doin it wrung.
@jason
I really, really don’t buy you want men and women to be equal. Either that or you need a dictionary, to refresh your definition of equality.
Ps, what’s with Jason’s obsession with “marrying down”?
Please keep embarrassing yourself. You are an exquisite dipshit.
So Jason, just out of curiosity, if someone gets a bag of groceries from their local food bank, what do they owe in return?
I believe that human has something to offer society. Why do you believe they have nothing to offer? That’s a pretty dehumanizing view, to think that someone will be dependent on others’ charity forever and can never return the favor.
@Jason
So, what god do feminists worship then?
“Poor Jason. His bro tears taste so salty sweet. Yum yum.”
This is why feminism can never help men – because you make fun of men for crying, just like the “patriarchy” you claim to be against.
Jason: did you strain anything in your reach to interpret what Katz said in that way?
Way to miss the point, Jason. She* was responding to you saying if a man does stuff for a women she owes him sex (can’t remember your exact words).
*she? I think he’s responding to fade, right?
@chibigodzilla
feminist worship zombie dworkin, duh.
Marie – Hi, I’m an atheist and a feminist. I’m not an asshole (or I try not to).
Also, huh, seven links tripped off the moderation thing. This is going to be hard, I like getting numerous sources for debunking things.
Jason: the straw feminists in your head are acting up again.
I do want men and women to be equal. Let’s start with prison sentences. Maybe then we’ll go on to work-related injuries, suicide rates, and life span.
But the male coal miners will still have a higher body strength and be more suited for those jobs, so they’ll be doing something women can’t do (the job) and thus offering something useful for their complimentary marriage, child, house and cat.
Wait.
Wait hang on no.
men are taught they can’t be loved unless they’re useful.
That’s actually somewhat true, in my experience. A certain general statement that I hear occassionally is, yes, “Be a man”. What is Toxic Masculinity, 50 points? But how do you suggest we fix this issue of MEN BEING TAUGHT THEY CAN’T BE LOVED UNLESS THEY*RE USEFUL, which, in the way you put it, is something they are taught and the implication is then: “Not actually the case, it’s an assumed paradigm, it’s a lie they’re fed”.
Your suggestion to fix this is…
… Start marrying down.
Wait, what hang on no
If men are taught false things that leads them to make false assumptions about the proclivities and desires of other people, it is not the job of those other people to confirm to the reverse. Besides, by saying “start marrying down”, you’re saying: “Women won’t, so this is the case, so men will only ever get married by being useful, because women marry up”.
Wait. Dude.
Jason.
That’s sad as all hell. Are you okay? Do you want a hug? Seriously, man, that’s a very negative world view, and I can assure you, to some extent, as far as my knowledge goes, that’s not the case in reality.
You don’t have to think that way. If you’d like not to.
🙂
Jason had said exactly zero original things in this thread MRAbot must be tired.
“When people think they can silence men by insinuating that they are all losers and that that is a witty retort instead of a blatant display of female privilege, misandry exists.”
It’s a good thing I know men other than Jason, because with only Jason as an example I would think men were losers. Because he isn’t doing a good show of showing that he isn’t one.
“Feminists are atheists the same way a Christian who doesn’t believe in Allah or Thor is a “Christian atheist.””
WTF?
>>>Ps, what’s with Jason’s obsession with “marrying down”?
He’s part of that grand tradition of men who think their problem in getting a girlfriend lies in the fact that somehow every lower/working class woman in existence is marrying into the 1% rather than their “winning” personality which makes every human being, including most men, run away as fast as possible in the opposite direction when they come.
Jason – get more women judges and make the bench more equal gender wise. Women judges are not as lenient as male judges are towards sentencing.
I wonder why…
“Jason had said exactly zero original things in this thread MRAbot must be tired.”
I don’t know. That feminist atheists = Christian atheists thing is a new one to me. But the only new one to me. Too bad I have no idea what the hell kind of sense it makes.
At least he appreciates that any woman who married him would be settling for something way worse than she deserved. That’s a kind of refreshing honesty.
@alice
worry not you’re not an asshole 😛 I assumed there were some (feminists who were atheists) here, but wasn’t one, so couldn’t use myself as an example for Jason
@jason
::le sigh::
Okay, you don’t want women to work dangerous jobs, but you also want same # work related injuries? I am confuse. Suicide rates- women often try to kill themselves in different ways. Who had the link to stats on these, I don’t want to be blabbering more w/o stats?
>>>>This is why feminism can never help men – because you make fun of men for crying,
You’re not a man. You’re a bro. I make fun of bros for crying, because they’re sitting on privilege and complaining about the possibility of losing it.
Also, seriously, atheism is “not believing in a supreme deity”. Feminism has no deities. Nor is feminism a religion. So 0/10, Jason, try harder. And stop redefining terms.
Fibinachi, thanks for a semi-decent response, although I imagine you were being more sarcastic than I’m giving you credit for.
Men want women’s love. Men will do a lot for women’s love. If women made it clear that they loved men who could hop on one foot, there’d be hopping gyms springing up all over America. if women want men to change, they should be willing to love men who don’t perform. Women don’t like being the “damsels in distress” in video games, apparently. If that’s the case, they should be the ones fighting dragons to rescue the prince more often.