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.
Re: “tribal” — definitely the wrong word, and tainted with racism and imperialism. Tribes can still have complex internal politics and a certain degree of sophistication. They also can evolve over centuries or even millennia, which I’d say warrants considerable respect.
I think the word you’re looking for may be “cliquey”, or “cliquish”…as in the high-school sense, where there was this insular world of silly little in-groups: stoners, jocks, etc.
In the case of the MRAsshats and their female camp followers, I’d say these ones are definitely from the clique I knew as the obnoxious little shits who sat at the back of the bus, just plaguing the life out of everyone they could pick on, because their own lives were so devoid of interest or achievement.
Urgh, what a prize.
And good on you for finding the wherewithal to criticize her awful writing, too. I find it telling that she slunk off shortly thereafter, never to return. She sounds like a classic case of cowardly self-aggrandizement.
More brain bleach, because holy god does this post need it. This is a manakin bird doing its mating dance, which is quite possibly the most awesome courtship display in the history of ever.
Well, there’s ‘tribal’ and ‘Tribal’, at least from an anthropological viewpoint. The technical term ‘tribal’ doesn’t necessarily require the same characteristics as the social categorization ‘Tribal’. Groups thought of as ‘tribal’ may not have shared lineage (that’s more the domain of ‘Tribal’) but they do share behavioral traits, typically an ideology, hierarchy, culture and language, all of which are standardized and policed by the group. In this particular usage, ‘tribal’ is perfectly neutral. It’s descriptive of a group having certain organizational characteristics, but not necessarily having particularly negative attitudes about other groups.
Cliques are necessarily hostile to those who are not in the ‘in group’ and necessarily resistant to new members (by definition). Members of a tribe tend to have a means to recognize and accept newcomers if they share the ideology and are willing to adopt the other elements.
I don’t have the patience for anthropology as a practice or career, but I did enjoy the coursework.
Am I the only one who finds it heartening (if a bit sad and pathetic) that posters in the forums where TB is spewing her bile seem to be rejecting her pretty soundly? Heartening in that they seem to be rejecting her contentions more often than not, though sad in that they seem to be rejecting and sometimes savaging her personally. Maybe it’s the bourbon talking, but I find myself feeling just a bit sorry for someone who is so soundly mocked and rejected by people whose acceptance she so very much seems to crave.
Seconding what Bina said about actual tribes. Also, “this insular world of silly little in-groups”…insular may be the word we need here. It’s got the in group connotation without making people chuckle about high school.
I’ve been trying to think of how you’d describe the theatre kids, besides that, since we’re not talking about teens here, and I’d accept that we were an insular group. Clique didn’t really work, as getting in was simple, but spending So Much Time Together we were a close bunch by opening night (and I mean CLOSE, like, sitting on laps and walking around half naked is sexual? Nope, just convinent)
Clique implies notable out group, keeping people out, whereas insular seems to more imply close knit in group. Idk, maybe just my impression of things. Either way, neither word carries the thousands+ years of history that some tribes have.
Lol, theatre! We had a joke, never want to see your kid again? Enroll them in theatre. Senior year I was at school the standard 7:30-2:30, ’till 3:30 most days, and then 4~ hours of theatre daily, plus 6 hour Saturdays, for two months. I have no idea when I slept, thank gods for insomnia? When you spend that much time together, you end up close knit even if you’re totally welcoming of newbs.
Clique might be best for MRAs, they aren’t that sort of close knit nor welcoming, but in general, where fans or group doesn’t fit, insular might?
hidradenitis-suppurativa, 57% of those who kill children under 5 are the parents. Among the parents, it is an equal split between mothers and fathers.
Of the remaining 43% of those who kill children under 5 — that is, those who aren’t the parents — most of the killers are men.
@argenti aertheri
You guys made a feministborg site? And I didn’t hear about it? ::activates oh-look-a-shiny-face:: I’ve got to check this out! 😀
@shaun darthbatman bay
Ugh that’s terrible 🙁 Good to hear she survived though, but still.
@kleptonetic
::offers internet hugs:: Depression fucking sucks. I hope you start feeling better soon.
@bina
Seconding.
@gillyrosebee
I feel like that whole ‘tribal’ vs ‘Tribal’ thing just makes it way more confusing for me 🙁
@Barb
Considering how she a font of endless misogynistic theories online, I can’t even process how annoying she must have been in a writing group. Her comments about female characters must have been very helpful.
This comment is like a belated Christmas gift, it’s both amusing and fascinating. Feel free to share more. 8)
I have to second that MRAs are best described as a hate group, bitter dudes brought together by their mutual resentments, biases and bigotry. The have little in common with each other beyond their shared hot button issues and communal outrage over anecdotal tales of female malfeasance.
They’re JUST like white supremacists, narcissistic as fuck and easily convinced Jews and black people are being put on as pedestal by the gubmint which is trying to keep the white man down!
Looks like TyphonBlue *is* from Calgary. She gives her name as Alison Tieman on AVFM — though she’s used aliases before. In any case, when I googled that name and “calgary” I found her quoted in the Calgary Herald.
http://www2.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=d03dfed3-bbc0-4fd9-ad1e-dcc81e729f31
Scoring points against women via dead and maimed children, what a perfect poster girl for ‘womenz who geds it.’?
Though incidentally, could all the above discussion about her actual identity be considered doxxing at all? Or is that only if personal details beyond name and city of residence is mentioned?
There’s an interesting idea said in one of the links quoted in this post: women who kill their children receive more lenient sentence than men because society thinks children are women’s property.
Vitae necisque potestas… It was fathers who were supposed to hold this power over their children in a patriarchal society and as there are people out there, “women’s rights activists”, who seriously advocate for “post-natal abortion”, it can looks like we live in an implicit matriarchy.
Ah, and according to my own research, this guy suffered from “postmaritum psychosis”, it’s like “postpartum psychosis”, or the “battered woman syndrom”, you know this kind of psycho-bullshit we use to exonerate people who butcher other people because we have a political agenda.
They’re isolated, in a vacuum, and their ideas are so far removed from Earth that this is the only way they can have such a conversation without any pesky reality intrusions? Just a humble educated guess.
(It definitely speaks to her state of mind. She is certainly that far out of touch with actual human beings.)
I have to wonder what is going on inside Typhon Blue’s head, that she hates her own sex/gender so much. On the other hand I really think that I’m better off not knowing…. That she could regard a father killing himself and his son as a proof of moral superiority is a classic example of how this kind of “idee fixe” can twist a person’s thoughts and ethics. Ironic that most of the sex/gender she longs to impress find her “support”of their so-called moral superiority repellent. What will she come up with next?
I’d feel sorry for her for being so pathetic and so doomed never to get the approval that she craves if she wasn’t prone to saying such repulsive things. Her moral compass is broken.
And MOAR of TB’s “moral superiority” in action.
And to balance that, moar brain bleach:
Sasquatch torbie kitty sends sweet greetings, and
Sasquatch torbie kitty videobombs me as I try to convey the sheer enormity of an icicle.
Yeah, can that comment from brz be scrubbed? Zie keeps dawdling around the line of respectability but suggesting a jealous murderous ex is somehow the same as postpartum psychosis is beyond the fucking pale.
Actually, I’d keep Brz’s inane comment up as evidence of how MRAs actually “think”…and so it can be torn to shreds as it deserves.
It’s nice to see an MRA state their belief that being angry at your ex means that it’s OK to kill her stated so clearly, plus the “see? women make men psychotic! it’s all your fault, ladies!” is a nice bonus.
He just summed up about half of the MRM in one paragraph, all it needs is “because she wouldn’t have sex with him” added to the bit about the marriage to be complete.
Brz is a piece of shit. In other news, water is wet.
It must be very confusing. “I believe raising children is womens work and that men and women have strictly defined roles, MEN ARE SO OPPRESSED BY ALL THESE STRICTLY DEFINED RULES!! Damn you feminists!”
Feminists created patriarchy as part of our devious plan to rule the world. It’s an ancient plot going all the way back to the dark ages, kind of like The DaVince Code but with less Jesus.
DaVinci. Coffee, where art thou?
That’s nice, dear
Also lol @ “postmaritum”. I’d go with “postmatrimonial” for the sake of comprehensibility, but if you must do the faux Greco-Latin thing, I think you want “postgametic”.