Last night, a regular commenter in the Men’s Rights subreddit — inspired by a thread on 4chan — posted a link to an online form on r/mensrights under the headline “Feminists at Occidental College created an online form to anonymously report rape/sexual assault. You just fill out a form and the person is called into the office on a rape charge. The “victim” never has to prove anything or reveal their identity.”
This headline is not only inflammatory but untrue: Yes, Occidental College has an online form that allows victims of or witnesses to sexual assault to report the incidents to the school. But, as a statement at the top of the form makes clear, the point is to collect data on how much sexual violence there is at the school, who the victims are, and so on.
If the person reporting the crime names the alleged perpetrator,
a member of the Dean of Students Office will meet with that person to share that the person was named in an anonymous report, review the Sexual Misconduct Policy, and inform the person that if the allegations are true, the behavior needs to cease immediately. Information shared in this form alone will not result in anyone going through the grievance process.
I’ve put the last bit in bold to emphasize a point: No one will be charged with anything based only on information gathered using this form. As would be clear to anyone who thought about the matter for more than a few seconds, it’s rather difficult to investigate, much less prove, a rape if you don’t actually know who the victim is.
Somehow this rather elementary fact eluded the OP, and virtually all of those who left the hundreds of comments on the popular post.
Indeed, a host of Men’s Rights Redditors were so convinced of the innate evil of the online form they all had the same bright idea: let’s flood the school with false reports of rape and break the form. Here are some of their comments. (There are more in the thread.) Note the number of upvotes each of these suggestions got. (Click the images to see the comments in context on Reddit.)
While a few commenters stood up to point out that in fact the school will not charge anyone with anything as a result of anonymous information gathered by the form, they were outnumbered by Men’s Rightsers gleefully reporting that they in fact had reported false information. Among them:
![froggymorning 46 points 15 hours ago (59|13) I've already filled one out. permalink source parent save give gold hide child comments [–]Muffinizer1 6 points 7 hours ago (9|4) Was kind of fun. I swear to god though, if they track us down it would be terribly ironic, however it's mildly likely.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/froggy.png?resize=546%2C171&ssl=1)
It’s one thing to criticize an anonymous reporting system because of its potential for abuse; this is something else entirely.
The post has been up for 17 hours at this point, with more than 700 net upvotes, and some of the calls for “breaking” the form have been up for nearly as long. The moderators of Men’s Rights have done nothing to stop their subreddit being used to interfere with a school’s attempt to assist rape survivors — including men.
“Breaking” a school’s rape reporting mechanism is apparently a form of Men’s Rights activism.
(By doubled down I just mean they’re not deleting the post or the calls to make false rape accusations. They are semi-critical of the off-site brigading, though.)
The mensrights subreddit has been out of control for a long time.
First the mods decided to go ahead and let posts to doxxing sites be posted, ignoring the obvious corollary that they were implicitly inviting stalking and harassment of the people doxxed,
Then when the admins shut that down, they continued to look for people and things to destroy. The whole schtick is to knock women down and keep them down. There’s nothing positive going on.
The mods are masters at sounding confused and looking the other way when MRAs defame, plot, and destroy people’s lives. They continue to let a voice for men run riot through their sub, stickying their programs, putting them in the sidebar, and letting them link any hate post they choose. The sub is full of avfm sockpuppets. Avfm is a viciously misogynistic site that they should keep out of the subreddit altogether.
The Admins should shut the damn site down, and soon, because it’s getting more dangerous by the day.
Cloudiah, that mod post is hilarious.
“Don’t knee jerk like the feminists do. Do you want to be seen like Big Red?”
Look at those cuties, pretending like their whole “movement” isn’t based off of jerking their knees and thinking everybody else doesn’t think of them as being way worse than ‘Big Red’.
DeutschundMusik – That’s never going to happen, though. Reddit has this thing about “free speech, no matter how hateful or terrible it is!”, and would never shut r/mensrights down. Remember how long it took to get r/jailbait down, and what it took to do it? And don’t forget, we still have subreddits such as r/beatingwomen *shudder*, and other hate reddits.
If anything, they’d probably whine about “FEMINAZI CENSORSHIPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!11!” if we dared to do that.
It’s their knees they’re jerking?
The only mod around has removed the post, with the unsupported speculation that it was all troll doings. No evidence of that, and too little too late. No suggestion as to how to make right what the sub has done to Occidental College. Damage, and move on.
I like how the mod used “Big Red”, a feminist woman who was rude and possibly insensitive towards some MRAs, as an example of someone who MRAs shouldn’t emulate. As if the worst MRAs are only as reprehensible as “Big Red” and none of the worst MRAs are raging misogynists who condone or support patriarchal violence.
GUYS LET’S NOT DISCREDIT OUR MOVEMENT PLEASE DON’T DO IT!!
Oh, you said that this will negatively impact victims seeking to report to school authorities? Who cares? Ideological warfare is more important than compassion for victims.
I’m digging all the wishes for things to happen to these guys. I hope that while they’re sitting around with no pants on waiting for their pants to get out of the washer, their cat comes and sits on their lap, and then is suddenly freaked out by a loud noise.
@ Alice S., I don’t know if it will happen (that the sun will be shut down), but it’s interesting. Looking at Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, “The law applies to every aspect of the program, such as admissions, recruitment, academics, employment, athletics, and student services. .. The U.S. Supreme Court held in Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, 526 U.S. 629 (1999), that Title IX requires schools to be responsible for addressing and remedying student-to-student harassment.” http://www.aauw.org/resource/title-ix-of-the-education-amendments-of-1972/
Occidental may have women who were targeted as women for defamation by having false claims filed in their names. The info was passed to the subreddit by a male Occidental student, apparently. That would be student-on-student harassment, seems to me, and that means any woman student so targeted could file a complaint with the feds. And that would bring the feds into looking at the sub and how those false reports were filed and who incited it. I don’t think the Reddit Admins would much appreciate a federal investigation.
If Occidental does nothing here to protect its woman students, the college could find itself defending a woman student’s complaint, also. Seems like filing a false claim of a felony in order to defame a woman student would require disciplinary action against the student who started all this.
But that’s just me.
In my last comment I I said something stupid about the sun. I meant the Subreddit!
Especially if their cat farts like Mamie used to. I had to put my clothes in the wash after she’d, ah, squirt. So, they can have cat claws puncturing their bare legs, and have a top that’s unwearable because of Death Fart, and no washing machine to clean it.
Win.
RE: dlouwe
That’s wonderful.
My work here is done. Pantsless Avenger, AWAAAAY! *flies off, carried upon a gust of nether wind*
RE: Kittehs
Oh, and the fridge they banged their toes on? It breaks down and all their food rots.
Oh dear god no. Have you heard about the infamous Katrina fridges? I wouldn’t wish one of those on HITLER. (Click the link. It’s one of those things that defies comprehension if you weren’t there.)
RE: cloudiah
Yeah, they’re all up in arms over the fact the Gender of Perpetrator section is free-text. It’s rank misandry to not have a set 2 choices in a drop-down menu.
What a trivial thing to whine over.
I don’t know why I find this deliriously funny, but I do. It’s been that kind of a day. I’m sure the sun accepts your apology. The sun does not hold grudges.
But, to respond to your actual comment, I’m thinking it would be great if Occidental could find out who passed the info on to Reddit (or 4chan, as I think that’s where it was originally reported) and call them in for a disciplinary hearing.
An MRA mod removed the post. You know, after it had been up for almost a full day & all the MR regulars could have their fun with it, along with several meta subs linking to the post to ensure it wouldn’t die. Convenient.
Fuckin’ MRAs. May they not only step on all the Legos, but slip on them on a hardwood floor, end up with scratches in the woodwork needing thousands of dollars in repairs, AND land on their knees, on top of more Legos.
Really, that would be the most fitting karma for them.
And you say MRA’s don’t do anything. Really though, fuck those guys.
It’s quite said what the MRA subreddit has become. I wish they would focus on real issues men face like helping male victims of rape and domestic abuse, homeless veterans, and child custody court bias. Instead they choose to apply most of their attention and ” activism” towards vilifying feminism and women in general. Is there a place where men can seek support and advice for some of the real issues they face?
Yes, there are such places.
apparently i am evidence of misandry for supporting the idea of the form. those guys are a bunch of whackjobs. can’t wait for their sub to get nuked and the ringleaders of this shit banned. the drama will rise above us like a golden halo.
chibell1 — I’ve been compiling such resources (in general, not just men’s ones) for the Borg, what’d you need, I’ll grab whatever I have for links.
chibell1, there are some resources listed on the sidebar here (just above the scented candle.)
Honestly, when I wanted to talk about those things, I talked with friends. I don’t have much interest in reaching out; it requires just too much education and 101ing.
Never has the “I don’t want to live on this planet anymore” meme been more appropriate. Fucking hell.
As if Occidental didn’t have enough problems with their anon. form and sexual assault reporting already.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/13/occidental-sexual-assault-reporting_n_4427844.html
But I’m sure that if the repeat rapist had been removed from campus it would be misandry for miles. *sigh*