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.
Ah fuck, he said lifetime, not year, one second to fix that math, Fibinachi’s 1 in 313 is right, my apologies.
Ok, I loathe working with ratios. Please ignore everything related to his “stat”, Fibinachi is right and I apologize. He said annual, not lifetime, and I fucking hate ratios, so yeah, what Fibinachi said. Mostly. The add two decades part still applies, as does the part about the numbers from the survey (971 cis women). Gives us about half what Fibinachi said.
Except idiot is wrong and using legit stats, and factoring for age and gender, at least 10% of us have already been raped.
So kindly fuck off if either of you assholes is still lurking.
I have a busy day on the allotment & miss two repulsive trolls. Hugs to anyone who’d like them.
Witchy kitty is unimpressed by the angry troll-boys.
http://instagram.com/p/eiB0mSl-_x/
Witchy-kitty’s friend is similarly unimpressed.
http://instagram.com/p/eiB8Zll-wC/#
Okay, I was going to refrain from commenting on what Jason said, since Fade already told me he got banned, but I am a horrible planner and also love rambling, so, without farther ado:
So much wrongness. I’ll try to do a bullet list.
-they aren’t for only women, they’re for anyone
-feminism isn’t about women being strong. It’s about women being people.
-there’s nothing wrong with people being weak (if we are equating wanting trigger warnings with weakness, which I don’t think is true). We just don’t like the men=strong and women= weak.
-Unless you’ve had experience with what the tw is for (though that one was vague, but still good to know) shut the fuck up. You don’t get to tell women how to react to sexism, trans* people how to react to transphobia, rape victims how to react to whether they want a damn trigger warning for something that might trigger them. You don’t. It’s so easy for some cishet white dude to say “well I don’t need trigger warnings so all those who do are wusses”. No. You aren’t in their shoes.
-and still the most privileged person in the world can’t want trigger warnings and there’s nothing the fuck wrong with putting warnings up about things that might disturb people. ffs, if you don’t need it, ignore it. It’s a damn common courtesy. Get the fuck over it.
/My rant. .
The mask and rose is boring. All they do is call the article stupid with 0 critique.
::Sigh:: Like right after he claimed no one here had been raped so he doesn’t need to worry about triggering them? Self awareness is wut?
@melody
you aren’t being rude. ::also,offers internet hugs if you want them::
@fade
Only because my computer died and I had to use my potential-undergarment funds on getting a new one! drats! Foiled again!
ps, I”ve got some links bookmarked about finding a good fit/ other info if you want them.
@malitia
::squueeeeee:: another artist manboobzer! Imma totally go follow you now if you don’t mind 😀
Question: would my photocomps fit at all on DevianArt, and in the Manboobz group? Or would the fact they’re rehashed internet pics bring up copyright issues and so on? I am a member, but just to be able to follow links and stuff.
Well frankly, am I ever wrong?
I mean, I’m needlessly verbose and I natter on and I’m not particularly entertaining and I have opinions about metaphysics, but I’m never wrong. 😛
I liked the part where Jason tried to frame trigger warnings as somehow opposed to a “free society”. Because putting a trigger warning before your content is just like not sharing the content at all.
@kittehs
No frickin clue. I’ve seen photomanips/comps on deviant art, but I don’t know about copyright issues.
But you are entertaining; ergo, you are sometimes wrong! 😛
Oh no! I’ve been logic’ed! It burns, it burns like a rational arrow through my meandering blubbery.
Is this how trolls feel? I do not like this feeling!
q:
Kittehserf wins.
My first and prolly last win at teh logic! 😀
@emilygoddess, you clearly don’t understand what free means! In order to put trigger warnings before your comments, you need to think about other people, and thinking about other people is slavery!
I’m still laughing at the part where he wants to vigorously defend laws that don’t exist, such as the “don’t tear down posters that were posted illegally in the first place, because that’s vandalism (and putting the posters up wasn’t)” law.
I’m glad for the banning; maskandrose in particular BEAUTIFULLY illustrated what I said earlier about how I don’t feel the MRM has any interest in helping me as a male rape survivor.
Just… YECH.
Also, I’m a guy who appreciates trigger warnings–if I want to read something nice and fluffy to wind down with after a long day, I’d rather know beforehand if there was rape or child-killing in it.
Wow, this was epic.
Everybody tore the trolls apart beautifully.
I will only say this re: Awful Art Troll: CONSTRUCTION, PEOPLE!! PROPORTIONS! C’MON, THESE ARE CONCEPTS THOUGHT UP BY THE ANCIENT GREEKS, DON’T YOU WORSHIP THE GROUND THEY PATRIARCHED ON?
Sure.
(In our group: As far as I’m concerned, it’s up to the individual to decide what’s Manboobz-related.)
Oh man, I have so much angsty poetry to upload then.
Maybe I should put my John the Otter pics in there. 😀
Otherwise, it’s all gonna be Sir with or without Furrinati, which is stretching even my definition of being Manboobz-related.
Here’s a thing I’m wondering about and I’ll put it here because it has to do with one of those MRAbot things Jason spouted: are there any known MRAs who are or who have ever actually mined coal?
But of course! All MRAs are coal miners and working in conditions totally like this guy.
grumpycatisagirl: I don’t know if they’ve ever been coal miners, but we used to have our very own MRA milking machine technician.
If MRAs were working in coal mines, they’d probably be too tired to be MRAs, So there’s that.
>>>>Meanwhile father’s rights activists have proudly defaced works of art in a museum…
Good action (defacing the fucking monarchy’s propaganda), wrong cause.
Now that you mention it I’ve noticed a distinct lack of actual hardship in their backstories. Which would need to be the case in order for someone to believe that a partner leaving them or a random woman they want to fuck saying no is the worst thing that could possibly happen.