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.
Argenti – Post done. You can totally spell-check now!
@Marie and Argenti
Ahhhhhh OK thanks to your use of context in a sentence I got it. That does make sense, it would take some time getting used to but in the future correct me if I use them improperly 🙂
as in she/he (the individual) is used for Ze and plural as in hers or his or women or men that kind of thing as in grouping is Zirs..
hey! Hopefully I got it!
@kittehserf…
Thank you and I haven’t been on here long so I don’t know what the whole tribal thing is, I mean I don’t know, tribes are different, it all comes down to morals or ethics of that said tribe, some are really bad and you don’t want to get caught up in and then again some can be very spiritual and very giving sort of people, I guess depending. Tribal is really a broad word to describe a set of practices or beliefs..
However..if we are talking about the MRA side of things, really this is my own opinion, but they are more like a cult in the fact that they don’t allow their members to introspect and they totally indoctrinate people into this thing, everything is kind of like a bad advertisement in a way. Its all so fake, and only people who are outside of it would really notice it, I think the people on this site (manboobz) would know what I was talking about in a heartbeat but others who are vulnerable to that type of movement such as the MRA’s as of present day.. not so much. This makes them a cult in my opinion.
Ha, we had the debate about whether a cult’s an appropriate term a few days back – did you read that one? I think characters like Elam are wannabes in the cult business. Doing it online doesn’t seem to cut the mustard, plus Elam’s really short on that whole charismatic leader stuff. He’s great at screwing money out of chucklefuck MRAs, but that seems to be about it, mercifully.
I keep trying to add “fur” in the middle of your nym. Fauxfurrambo makes me think of a kitty dressed up, or something. 🙂
Tribes in Melbourne? Goths would surely be small beer compared to Geelong supporters, Carlton supporters and the like.
But then the concept breaks down when you get to Collingwood. It’s hardly a “tribe” when it’s the whole of Australia united as one against a single football club and its supporters.
Kitteh — I’m gonna have to argue with your point about it being online, most of Yudcultsky’s shit is online. And he’s earned that nickname — give me all your money to save humanity? Plus the balisk. Elam lacks the force of personality, but it being based online doesn’t inherently mean it’s not cult like.
Still not so sure that a cult MUST have a Charismatic Leader™…just look at the Mormons. Their leaders are all as charismatic as a bologna-and-process-cheese sandwich. On Wonder Bread. And yet, the cult still persists, even though Joseph Smith and Brigham Young are long dead.
A dogma that strongly encourages blind adherence is much more characteristic of a cult…to my mind, anyway. And MRAs most certainly have that.
And in their own minds, they all no doubt fancy themselves as that Charismatic Leader™ which the Greatest Human Rights Movement In The History Of EVAR awaits to carry it over the heads of Evil Feminism and Misandry. Or something like that.
“Would reform of divorce laws have prevented this? Or was he psycho enough to do it anyway? We’ll never know – but it’s in the commente on the original article.”
Immolation is a totally understandable reaction to divorce. Let’s complain about imaginary people abusing this issue right before we jump on it.
I don’t know him, but he must’ve deserved custody of his kid. Feminism did this, case closed.
A few weeks ago? I thought that was decades ago? Isn’t there a thing about Romney having wept over it years back, or was that a different tweak of racism?
Re: online or not: funny, there was considerable disagreement with the suggestion last time we had this debate. As in, it’s an insult to cult survivors to suggest a similarity, etc. (Which I disagree with, because cult, like tribal, has much wider and older meanings than the current one.)
The Fail of MRAs in this context, like all others, is what amuses me.
Say, is that the collective noun for MRAs? A fail?
adelaidy (is that your other nym, mildlymagnificent?) – LOL about bloody awful football tribes. I used to work with an Essendon obsessive who’d pull a sickie every time they lost.
Well see what makes me think its a cult is that I found a great site, its mostly about PUA’s though I don’t know what everyone’s take is on the pick up artist community, I haven’t known any so I am not sure, and I don’t live in an area where they are at. But its a site dedicated to the cult like behaviors and how to recognize them. Its says PUA/MRAs so it must be talking of a little bit of both. It says both pua groups and MRA groups but not sure if it means something else or if it directly means MRA.
http://gameovernow.wordpress.com/how-many-pua-and-mra-groups-resemble-cults-and-hate-groups/
I don’t know if I can post links here so do correct me if I cant but the beginning is especially interesting.
Fauxrambo,
YES I have seen the indoctrination in action .Every one of them, men who had perceived real or otherwise, to have been treated unjustly by women in their personal lives .Including by their mothers or female caretakers as children. All “victims” of women in their personal lives . I don’t think its likely you will find many MRA activist that had a happy upbringing with loving responsible mothers or ones that have had long term satisfactory marriages in the MRA..
Once inducted they find acceptance which is not a bad thing. But I see what ends up happening is its like a place to BUILD rage ..a rage station to refill ..They are “shown” things (as demonstrated so eloquently by Gray man) that are going on right in front of them but just couldn’t “see it .” Things they never realized .The war on men in “commercials” the feminization of the ‘Church” (for the Christian MRA’s of course) ..they are taught how to look for feminist in their midst by the use of ‘key feminist phrases.” They are fear mongers and rage feeders. Then the new recruits are sent out to indoctrinate another sad lonely disillusioned man . They do not help these men overcome .They TALK about things like divorce aftercare for men only in the sense women have more available .They don’t do anything to remedy it . They think WOMEN should have to be responsible for that. Making the man MORE angry that women DON’T . That’s just a drop in the bucket example.
Next thing you know its become so obscure and bizarre they are trying to hold women to be responsible for their part men have 7 times MORE testosterone than men do !And to work with men to be part of a solution for that . Ya know ? If you are really about equality you would be willing to reach across the table to find a middle ground .Otherwise you’re LYING AGAIN and you don’t REALLY care about equality!
BLAH!!! Anyway yes they go fishing for these men and lure them in . I don’t know if that makes it a cult but ….
Kitteh — I thought the previously mentioned issue with calling MRAs cult like wasn’t that they are online, but that cults have lasting and far reaching effects even after leaving. The way the balisk “thought experiment” apparently caused people serious distress that they’d be brought back and tortured or something like that.
I wasn’t trying to say the MRM is a cult, but that just because something is largely based online doesn’t mean it can’t be a cult.
Auggz, here you go. You’re right, it was just three weeks ago that they announced that they’d been wr-wr-wr. (You know, can’t say that word. Even though it’s just one syllable…)
And whaddya know, that racist dogma dates back to Brigham Young and the pre-Civil War era, when agitation both for and against slavery was really coming to a boil. Funny how it took them until 1978 to get a “revelation” that it was wrong; they were at least ten years behind the rest of the US there (if the Voting Rights Act of the 1960s is considered the yardstick; a few years longer if we’re talking school integration). Speaks to the insularity of the group, for sure.
I think another cult parallel, as far as MRAs go, is the fact that cults slide under the police’s radar for so many years before finally being recognized as a potential menace to society, either due to anti-government agitation, disturbing the peace, or to being a threat to the mental well-being of the public. MRAs are certainly doing all the above. We’ve even seen at least one proto-terrorist incident (who was that dude who immolated himself on the courthouse steps, sparking calls for more assaults from Elam & Co.? Good thing those guys are all still too busy wanking to actually, you know, DO anything…)
I think the MRM can have serious lasting effects on people; it’s just that most of their participants are either cynical attention seekers or just plain wankers and either way aren’t that invested. But for people who really buy into it, we end up with people like GGG. There’s a guy who’s been permanently ruined because of the ideas he’s absorbed about women.
Argenti – that whole discussion went every which way, really. My real disagreement was with the limiting of “cult” to a very specific meaning, and the implication (or was it more than that?) that the word couldn’t be used in any other context or as a comparison to the behaviour of the MRM, because to do so would be disrespectful to people who’ve escaped cults.
Bina – that was Thomas Ball in the courthouse immolation. They had his terrorist manifesto up on their front page for ages after that.
That’s the one. Christ, how could I ever forget that? He’s their Unabomber, for sure.
Kitteh — I don’t recall a specific meaning being given, but my brain is a mess lately, so I won’t swear that one wasn’t explained.
Katz — yeah, I know, but I was thinking that it wasn’t really a core effect of the MRM. Though maybe it is. They do have the whole start all welcoming and then turn sour thing sorta down — the way well meaning men seeking help post-divorce could get sucked in for example.
Somebody needs to find a good academic review of traits of a cult, cuz I tried and got all brain bent and my mind is too scrambled. Fauxrambo’s link, near as I can tell, is about hate groups, and I don’t think any one here disagrees that they’re a hate group.
@katz, I don’t remember the thread, but your niece is adorable.
Cloudiah — the open thread, and yep, THOSE WITTLE FINGERS!
auggz – ah, so that was it. I remembered the bit about him pulling over for a weep; question’s been asked (tongue in cheek? No idea) whether it was tears of joy or tears of sorrow.
Romney’s the sort who would make people wonder which it was …
@emilygoddess
Nah, I don’t want “postgametic” as “gametic” is an English word which has an unrelated meaning. Postmaritum is fine in this context as the purpose isn’t the comprehensibility, but because it sounds so scientific and serious and objective and shit when it’s written in Latin. It’s just like “postpartum psychosis” : when you say that a woman got a slap on the wrist after having stroked her child with a pillow and thrown him in a dumpster because she did it while being kind of crazy because of the pregnancy, it sounds weird, but say “postpartum psychosis” and people will think it must be a thing because it sounds so Latin, so institutional, big white beard and shit.
Ah and concerning the “peer review” thing, as I’d remembered that in my country, until mid ’70s, there was a law which said that the murder of a spouse, or ex-spouse, could be sentenced less harshly, or even excused in certain circumstances (if one caught his spouse in the act of infidelity) if it was considered to be a “crime of passion” which supposed that the person killed his spouse in a moment of madness, so as I was goggleing “crime passionel” I stumbled on this marvelous review/> of a very scientific, objective and absolutely not biased peer reviewed article about the gender disparities in what we still call improperly “crimes passionnels” (spousal murders) :
This is a “peer reviewed” article published in a review linked to one of the most respectable academic institutions of France (CNRS) which consists of pure feminist propaganda crap.
And there are thousands and thousands “peer reviewed” articles like this which consists of nothing but pure feminist propaganda telling us that women are always the victims, that they can do no wrong, even when they kill.
And this is why, as bad as the Mr movement can get, it will never be able to be as harmful as the feminist movement had been to academia, it’s not even sure that the “humanities” will recover one day from the influence of feminism and social justice crap : I mean, one have to see what Harvard is, what a Harvard literature course is, what they say during the lectures, the people they invite as “visiting scholars”, the stupidity, the illegitimacy, the self-righteousness everywhere; it’s not sustainable, there must be some culture, some meaningful debates, a little bit of thinking somewhere in a country.
If someone wants to make a real revolution in America, he should try to burn Harvard, not only because the privileged, the illegitimate upper-class should be attacked, but for aesthetic reasons, as a way to symbolically declare a war against this kind of ugliness, this hypocrite ethics, this lack of elegance in the way they dress, they talk, they think, this ugly narcissism, this entitlement, this intellectual laziness; burn Harvard for the love of culture and subtlety. This person would already have one the real cultural war. Preach.
The article is here :
http://translate.google.fr/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://www.scienceshumaines.com/crime-passionnel-ou-femicide_fr_4695.html&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dcrime%2Bpassionnel%2Bf%25C3%25A9micide%26biw%3D1252%26bih%3D644
Brz is drunk…on his own jenkem.