Over on the Men’s Rights subreddit, the regulars are discussing the case of a Japanese man who set himself and his nine-year-old son on fire on a playground in an attempted murder-suicide; the man died, but his son, while severely burned, managed to survive.
The discussion amongst the Men’s Rightsers is actually less awful than one might expect, with only a few commenters making excuses for the man, or blaming his ex-wife. Many of the regulars are actually condemning his actions straightforwardly.
And then there’s TyphonBlue, the highly inventive female Men’s Rights activist who is one of A Voice for Men’s self-proclaimed “Honey Badgers.” She thinks the fact that the man tried to kill himself along with his son is a point in his favor and, more than that, a sign that men are better than women.
No, really. She blames “pedestalization” for it all.
![typhonblue -12 points 1 day ago (18|30) He didn't kill his son. Unlike mothers, fathers don't scrimp on the suicide part of the suicide-murder. permalink source parent save give gold hide child comments [–]osbe 11 points 22 hours ago (15|4) He didn't kill his son What the fuck are you trying to say? The son didn't die (yet) so this is not "as bad" as what women do? permalink source save parent give gold [–]typhonblue -1 points 8 hours ago (2|3) Little more time today. Am I puncturing your vision of women as the "more moral gender"? How about this, when you give a group of people an automatic "more moral than thou" card, they become worse human beings. The pedestal creates the monster.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/typhonmurdersuicide.png?resize=496%2C407&ssl=1)
You see, if you didn’t put women on a pedestal, they’d kill themselves along with their kids, and all would be well in the world. I guess? I really don’t see why this would be better.
Later in the thread, TB tries to explain her peculiar logic further:
I think it’s time to pull out the old Don Draper “what?!” gif again.
I will grant her one point: she’s correct that, while fathers and mothers are roughly equally likely to kill their children, men are much more likely to kill themselves as well. Why this would be a sign of moral superiority I don’t know.
I should also note that this doesn’t mean that the men and women kill children equally: while 57 percent of those who kill children under 5 are parents, the non-parents who kill children are mostly men.
In any case, “pedestalization” has pretty much nothing to do with it — unless you’re talking about the tendency of fathers who kill themseves and their children to overrate their own indispensablility.
So why do parents kill their children? Not surprisingly, mothers and fathers tend to have wildly different motivations. In Slate, Dahlia Lithwick summarizes what we know:
Researchers, building on the work of Phillip Resnick, have shown that women tend to kill their own offspring for one of several reasons: because the child is unwanted; out of mercy; as a result of some mental illness in the mother; in retaliation against a spouse; as a result of abuse.
It may be hard to understand how a mother can come to believe that killing her children would be an act of mercy, but that’s what postpartum psychosis can do to your brain.
The motivations for fathers tend to be rather different:
Most frequently … they kill because they feel they have lost control over their finances, or their families, or the relationship, or out of revenge for a perceived slight or infidelity. … more often than not, men kill their children to get back at a woman—to take away what she most cherishes.
As Charles Patrick Ewing, a University of Buffalo law professor and psychologist, told Elizabeth Fernandez of the San Francisco Chronicle
“These are narcissistic, self-centered guys who see themselves as the glue of the family. They feel they have to take their own life, but first, they have to kill the children. To them, it seems rational. They think they can’t manage and the family can’t manage without them.”
It’s also worth pointing out that when you look at murder-suicide in general — and not just when children are among the victims — it is almost exclusively (roughly 90%) a male crime, with the victims almost always female, generally the man’s wife, girlfriend, or ex. Not surprisingly, disproportionate number of those responsible for murder-suicides involving intimate partners were also domestic abusers. (As was, reportedly, the Japanese man who set himself and his son ablaze.)
The only heartening thing here is that TyphonBlue actually got downvoted in the Men’s Rights subreddit for spouting her toxic nonsense.
EDITED TO ADD, 12/30/13: The son, who had been in critical condition since the incident, has now died.
Uh, there could be that many psychopaths. Depending the study, we’re looking at at least 0.5% of the population (and that’ sounding down for easy math). US population over 18? About 209 million. That works out to somewhere around 10,500,000 psychopaths.
Not that all murder-suicides, even of kids, are committed by psychopaths, but with a population in the nine digits, you end up with a lot of people with relatively rare things. (FTR, it isn’t a psych Dx, that figure is from a checklist that’s received a fair amount of critism)
In any case, misogynists still suck at math.
A bit off topic and sometimes SMBC is problematic, but I thought some might like today’s comic. Seems a lot like MGTOW.
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=3219
As far as the topic, I found myself at a loss for words. There was a discussion of cults on an earlier thread and I don’t think the word fits. The MRAs just seem tribal. They feel like they have to show every act, even the most deplorable, fit their persecution narrative. I am glad to see they are alienating people though.
Seriously. They do realize that the vast majority of kids whose parents divorce are totally fine, right? And of the ones who aren’t, it’s usually because the parents are more interested in fighting with each other than in doing what is best for the kid?
But no, divorce is totally the Holocaust and women are literally Nazis trying to raise their children in the modern equivalent of concentration camps, also known as single-parent households.
Um, don’t you mean 1,050,000?
Or did you mean 5.0%?
Or am I just utterly confused?
(the last possibility could coexist with either of the first two)
This is so sad, how can a murder of a child be a ‘moral’ thing or a ‘more moral thing’ to do is beyond me. If you decide to take your life and meanwhile decide to take other people down with you in this case your kids that’s just as evil as any other sick reason you can think off.
TW: suicidal tendencies
As someone who’s currently struggling through the worst bout of suicidal thoughts she’s had since she was a teenager, I’m pretty steamed at TyphonBlue’s comments. Wanting to kill yourself isn’t glamorous or moral, it’s awful and shitty and a terrible state of mind to be in.
Moreover, wanting to kill yourself and your kid to get back at your ex isn’t moral or courageous, it’s awful and terrible, and extremely shitty and demonstrates a clearly abusive streak. I’ll concede that suicidal tendencies can often be correlated with some kinds of mental illnesses (in my case, it’s depression), but that doesn’t give someone a free pass for being a danger to others. Moreover, she’s really playing into the ableist bullshit notion that people with mental illnesses are somehow incurably dangerous. My being suicidal and depressed doesn’t automatically make me an abusive, murderous asshole.
TW off.
Also, isn’t it misandry for men to have higher rates of suicide? Why is TB wishing that on more men by glamorizing it? Where are the MRAs slamming her for encouraging men to kill themselves? (I don’t have the heart to look and see if any are, I don’t need my faith in humanity destroyed anymore than it already is at this point in my life).
Yeah.
I went through a bout of depression and suicidal ideation in college, after my best friend died. And I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.
I hope you’re able to get through this.
Dang. That’s what I get for not appeasing the blockquote monster.
“The MRAs just seem tribal”
I’m gonna have to object to this description (sorry to be nitpicky). Tribal is a rather vaguely defined term, but it is typically applied to groups of people that modern society has deemed “primitive” in some way. I think associating MRAs with the term just further vilifies tribal societies rather than the MRAs.
They’re far more like a hate group than any tribe which actually tries to create a working society of different people (gender, age, abilities, etc.).
Could this scraping-the-bottom-of-the-barrel stuff they indulge in be real? Does this woman honestly believe the crap she spouts, or is she just trying to get notoriety? Either way, she’s scoring points off a dead child. Nice.
@cupisnique
Seconding that!
WORD. I’m sorry you went through that. It’s something I wouldn’t wish on anyone either. Only the shitiest of shitstains like TyphonBlue would. It’s infuriating that she thinks she’s doing anyone a favor by spouting this garbage. I could practically feel the steam coming out my ears reading it.
Thanks, me too.
I just…*flips table*
“Um, don’t you mean 1,050,000?”
Yes, I did, this is what I get for doing math before I’m actually awake.
Thirding cupisnique.
“I’ll concede that suicidal tendencies can often be correlated with some kinds of mental illnesses…”
That one is supported by science. Somewhere between a third and 90% of people who commit suicides are mentally ill, depending which study you look at. Iirc, 70% is the usually quoted number. The inverse isn’t true though, even among some of the more deadly conditions (suicide rates for us manic depressives are like 20%)
So somewhere between “a fair amount” and “nearly all” suicides are among mentally ill people, but significantly less than a fifth of mentally ill people commit suicide.
/random statistics
In less mathy things, I hope you’re feeling better soon, and if you have your location in your google profile you can just google suicide for your local hotline number.
You have to give TyphonBlue credit. She’s been spectacularly successful in her mission to prove that women can be devoid of morals and human feeling.
I don’t get why she wants to prove this, but, um, well done?
Concerning “tribal”. While it also has the whole “primitive” connotation, it gets used to mean all kinds of specific in-group behaviour, boundary-setting, and identity-signalling. You see it in political analysis and social analysis in particular. if anything, I’d guess that use is more common than using it as a descriptor of tribal societies these days. (But that may easily be a false impression.)
I spent some time looking for another good word to use for that aspect so as to slowly pull it apart from the other uses of “tribe” some time ago, but never found a good one. Would love if someone has a good one.
jesus christ. I’m glad the majority of the comments there are horrified at this (even though some are using it as an excuse to take potshots at the mentally ill). I don’t understand how anyone could use something like this as an example of the innate moral superiority of men. It’s just sickening.
RE: lightcastle
I spent some time looking for another good word to use for that aspect so as to slowly pull it apart from the other uses of “tribe” some time ago, but never found a good one. Would love if someone has a good one.
I believe the obnoxious teenage anarchists call that ‘herdlike.’ Or ‘sheeple.’
It’s obnoxious, but I’ll take that over tribal, which in my opinion is a neutral or positive term.
Sad . That anyone would try and “elevate” for any reason that any gender is “better” because at least they killed themselves after setting another human being on fire let alone a child is sickening.
Im glad (relieved) most that commented had an issue with that.
“Sheeple” is an obnoxious word indeed. Whenever someone uses it my auto-reply in my head is: “dude, if you have such a superior independent mind of your own, you would use more original metaphors.” Same with “drinking Kool Aid.” I really don’t like “drinking Kool Aid.”
Not that I find the phrases personally offensive or anything, just dull. And yeah, better than tribal, I suppose.
I knew a guy (personally) that killed himself by setting himself on fire .Yes he had kids. I babysat them .(no we were not romantically involved I kept them for his ex wife) . He doused him self in gasoline and lit the “match” . in broad daylight in the front yard of his ex’s dads house. My whole family went to see him . I didn’t. (he lived about 12 hours) .They told me what he looked like .What he was going on I couldn’t go . For him to have done that to a child FIRST that would have made him superior to a woman the thought makes me sick.
Oh, my god. Is Typhonblue from Calgary? She looks so much like a person I used to know in my ex-writer’s group. She (the person I knew) was rabidly anti-woman in all things to the point of discomfort the way she could steer any conversation into just how much women suck at life. Any conversation at all.
Worse, though, she was that writer who said she didn’t want anyone to be able to understand her writing. She succeeded each and every time.
‘You have to give TyphonBlue credit. She’s been spectacularly successful in her mission to prove that women can be devoid of morals and human feeling.’
So true, she only has to use herself to prove her point. Internalised misogyny aside it takes a very special talent to see something remotely moral in such kind of a murder of a child.
It is the same woman. I found a link to her real name. I made her my official nemesis in 2006. She was the only woman she knew of who is untainted and her belief that men were so vastly superior was just crippling. I felt sorry for her.
Her writing was so…strange it made her speculative fiction feel literary, so most of the group didn’t call her on her blatant misogyny for fear of the emperor’s new clothing. I tore a story of hers to absolute shreds around it and she stopped coming to the meetings shortly there after.
She definitely had the zealot’s flame in her eye when she talked about how much she loathed women. I had never met anyone that passionate about hate in my entire life.