No long post today. Instead, I urge you to go over to the AgainstMensRights subreddit to read about how several long time Men’s Rights Redditors have doxxed and harassed a college student, with one of the regulars gleefully setting forth a plan to stalk her and ruin her life and another seeming to suggest he might want to pay her a visit to “debate” her.
Some screenshots from the original Men’s Rights subreddit discussion:
The thread (which remained up for many hours) has now been scrubbed by the Men’s Rights mods — I got these screenshots from u/Aceyjuan and u/TraceyMorganFreeman’s respective timelines — but as of right now none of the doxxers have been banned from the subreddit, or from Reddit itself.
The “crimes” of the woman in question? According to her main stalker — who has apparently been harassing her for months — she’s tweeted comments like “white men are like the gum on the bottom of my shoe” and “Jared Leto looks like the kind if guy that gives you herpes.”
Yep. Apparently the second-worst evil misandrist comment she made was … a joke about Jared Leto. For these comments, apparently she deserves to have her life ruined.
Here’s the thing: If you don’t like someone’s comments online, you are certainly well within your rights to quote them and point out why you don’t like what they said. That’s kind of the point of this blog. But it’s one thing to point out these comments, and another thing entirely to track down their identity and stalk them in real life. It’s another thing to whip up a virtual mob against them.
Doxxing by Men’s Rights Activists isn’t an accident; it’s the inevitable result of the peculiar style of Men’s Rights Activism.
MRAs, you see, seem utterly incapable of engaging in any kind of activism that might actually benefit men in the real world in any concrete manner. What they as a group specialize in is demonizing women, and in the case of too many MRAS, nothing gets their activist juices flowing faster than the opportunity to attack an individual woman.
That’s why A Voice for Men “activists” put up “wanted” style posters featuring their favorite feminist villains of the day; it’s why they started Register-Her.com. That’s why a certain red-haired Canadian activist who yelled at some MRAs once at a protest now finds her image splashed everywhere online as a visual representation of an evil feminist. That’s why MRAs show up at protests with cameras and threaten to expose the women they film — even if they’ve done nothing more than stand there with a sign.
And that’s why they doxx.
The Men’s Rights movement isn’t a civil rights movement. As it stands right now, it’s a union of abusers, and their enablers.
EDITED TO ADD: Lest anyone claim that the OP didn’t “really” dox the woman in question because he didn’t literally post all her personal details, he provided enough to allow anyone with even rudimentary Google skills to find out her real name and a great deal of other personal identifying information in less time than it would take to order a pizza online.
@ Lids
Can you explain what that feels like? By which I mean, if you’re not feeling attraction, what’s the motivation to have sex with someone? Or is it more that if the other person seems to want to you might think, OK, that could be fun? Or maybe sort of an extension of some other sort of non-sexual physical affection?
You know, I’d be more interested in arguing with you if it wasn’t completely obvious you are picking and choosing which points you are going to respond to. You clearly came her determined to be vindicated in your belief that you are doing all you can and that feminists are stupid and that the MRM is a legitimate movement that helps men, and nothing anyone says is going to change your mind.
Also, I think it’s pretty obvious that men are to blame for why their gender roles haven’t changed. You want things like that to change then you fucking work for it – women worked for it, and CONTINUE working for it. It sucks that that’s how it is, but that’s what it is. You have to push for people to hear what you are saying and change things. Vitriol and hate doesn’t do anything but make your :”movement” come across as a bunch of hateful whiners. It’s hard to accept that you actually want to do anything about it when you don’t do shit.
Boring troll is trotting out same old boring troll rubbish. Set to ‘ignore’.
Cassandra – that’s interesting, because I can do the whole looking and seeing someone’s attractive, or moves nicely, or whatever (not scent – I don’t like getting that close to people on public transport) but it never goes to any ideas of what it’d be like to get naked with them, or even what they’d look like naked. Possibly that’s as much to do with me really not wanting to be naked with anyone ‘cept himself.
@ cassandrakitty
My motivation is physical pleasure and the fact that I have a libido despite being asexual. If I know that sex feels good and I could get an orgasm out of it, then why not? I mean sure, I could do that by myself but sex is supposed to be fun.
It’s definitely not romantic attraction that pushes me to want to have sex. I’ve never been romantically attracted to someone in my life. I like a lot of people as friends, but that’s about it.
Also! I think this is where the assumption that women as a group tend to be asexual as a group is at the root of a lot of PUA stupidity. Since they assume that women don’t really feel sexual attraction in response to physical stuff (looks and so on), then they’re left trying to figure out what motivates us to have sex with guy A. rather than guy B, and from there they come up with all kinds of dumb, ass-backwards theories. If they were able to acknowledge that actually a lot of women really do just look at one guy and think “yep, I’d like to get naked and sweaty with him” and look at another guy and go “nah, not my type because (reasons)” then their theories about how to make women want you would probably be less lulzy.
@ kittehserf
That’s another aspect of the whole attraction thing that I’m finding it hard to put into words. Some people just feel like home to me, on a physical level, as soon as I hug them or get physically close to them, and in situations where I’m getting that feeling I’m much, much more likely to actually act on my attraction than I would be without it.
It requires both genders to allow one gender to emancipate. Women’s emancipation wasn’t something that just women accomplished in a vacuum. Now to just lay it at men’s feet the way you do is never going to help. And helping men emancipate will benefit women so I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want that.
I don’t think you can deny honestly that feminists have engaged in plenty of the same – possibly more. Certainly I haven’t seen MRAs call for killing all women or reducing their population or things like that. It’s not hard to find examples of feminists doing that.
In fact I’d like to challenge David to find me the 3 worst examples of misogynist MRAs and I’ll try to find the 3 worst examples of misandrist feminists. That would be an interesting comparison and I’ll gladly be corrected.
How about it?
LOL! Sure you will, honey.
OK, back to the much more interesting conversation about sexuality.
wordsp1nner:
Exactly! According to the MRM, civilization was built on the backs of male labourers while women sat around eating bonbons. Throughout history, all the innovators, all the inventors, all the entrepeneurs, all the great thinkers and scientists were men. A very popular MRM talking point is that society would collapse if men refused to work, because they do all the building, all the science, all the tech and all the infrastructure while women do silly make-work like shuffling papers and selling jewelry.
But also, men do not have the skills or the resources to set-up a few DV shelter for male victims, or a suicide hotline dedicated to men, or a simple pub-quiz to raise money for one of the many organisations that work on the issues they claim to care about.
I don’t think both those things can be true at once.
Also, as kittehserf points out, even if they want to limit their movement to digital activisim, which is actually perfectly valid and useful, particularly when it comes to building connections and support networks for marginalized people, it is possible to do this without actively stalking, harassing, smearing and threatening individual women who posted a few tweets that hurt your feelings.
I love how he makes the assumption that I don’t care about getting rid of gender roles for both genders. I just happen to actually do stuff to try to remove gender roles and I don’t associate myself with hate groups.
The Civil Rights Movement would have worked so much better if Martin Luther King had focused on sending angry hatemail containing lots of rape and death threats to random white people! Especially if they were in high school or college, we know how influential teenagers and undergrads are in Congress and the Senate.
That’s a perfect description. The sense of comfort and safety are every bit as important as the excitement, for me. It’s emotional intimacy that makes the physical initimacy greater and more pleasurable – I’m comparing earlier days and later days in the one relationship, obvs.
But being physically close to anyone else? Greeting or farewell hugs with close friends are awkward even though they’re welcome, and from anyone else are like trespassing. It’s about as far from inspiring sexual interest as I can imagine.
I wrote once years ago, before Mr K and I even got together, that it’s other men, earthly ones, who’re ghosts to me. They’re not real, not sexually existent, if that makes any sense. It’s not a “men aren’t people” thing, just … they’re not relevant to my life, that way.
@ cassandrakitty
what do you mean? I thought Martin Luther spent all his time sending angry letters to white people threatening to rape them and kill them!
Segregation in the United States was clearly abolished due to minorities circle jerking in their homes and screaming about how shitty white people are! It definitely wasn’t combated by the people who went out and protested and spoke and helped people!
Whereas I love hugs, and I’m pretty touchy-feely in general, but I still get that ew-get-away-from-me feeling if someone who I don’t like tries to get physically intimate with me, and that feeling is strongest if I can tell that they want sex. Even really huggy people have boundaries!
(I know you know this, but for the sake of any lurking misogynists I figured I’d state the obvious.)
But yeah, if I’m not already attracted to someone then them invading my space won’t make me change my mind, it’ll just make me uncomfortable and annoyed.
mmn101, I have a better challenge. Why don’t you go through the 804 posts I’ve done about MRAs already and find me 804 examples of feminists behaving worse? I’m already giving you a big leg up here, as many of my posts quote multiple examples from multiple MRAs.
I mean, seriously, dude, you come to a blog that is literally filled to overflowing with examples of shitty MRA shit, and I’m supposed to come up with more examples for you? Read what’s here.
If you don’t want to do that, why don’t you come up with 804 examples of MRAs actually doing decent things to help men in the world? Or 804 MRAs who aren’t shitheads. Heck. 84 MRAs who aren’t shitheads. Or, I dunno, 8 prominent MRAs who aren’t shitheads. I’l go down to 8. Can you do that?
(They don’t even have to be that prominent.)
Since when do you have to prove an “is not” statement? Surely the onus would be on you. But okay, let’s prove it: Look at the wage gap. Look how many wen there are in leading political and economical bodies (parliaments, cabinets, boards of corporations etc.) vs how many women. Look at how few prestige jobs typically associated with women (usually in the care area) get in comparison to jobs typically associated with men. Look at how most (not all, but most) gendered insults are aimed at women. Look at how society still tries to put down female sexuality (a sexual active man is a stud, a sexual active woman is a slut)… etc etc etc.
That doesn’t mean all individual men are powerful, of course. Obviously, gender is just one category – race, class etc. also all play into one’s standing. But *all other factors being equal*, men are still socially privileged above women. Men *as a group* are privileged, not marginalized. That this doesn’t translate into extensive privileges for every individual man, well, that is kinda obvious.
Now, all that being said, setting up a men’s support group nowadays might indeed still find less social acceptance than setting a women’s support group. But do you think it was easy at the beginning of the feminist movement? Or at the beginning of the LGBT movement? They all had to content with a lack of a social acceptance. That’s just no argument. Besides, in the case of potential men’s support groups, where does the lack of social acceptance come from? It comes from the notion that men have to be strong, that if they need such groups they are wimps, etc – essentially, it comes from the same patriarchal attitudes feminism fights. The patriarchy hurts men, too.
So… one could say one way to improve the lot of individual men would be to join feminism and help tear down gender roles. Yes, I do think it’s fair to say women have come a longer way into getting rid of their socially expected roles (probably because they had more restrictions on them to begin with), but feminism has also led to a *general* weakening of gender roles which has also benefited men.
A splendid idea! Both genders working towards eliminating gender roles and expectations for both genders!
Unfortunately, this isn’t what the MRA movement is about. Indeed, as David has said, go through the archives here. The MRA movement is mostly about opposing feminism, even though by your logic they should actively support it. Indeed, there have been quite many posts in support of ‘traditional gender roles’ or essential differences between the genders in the manosphere. Or look at their pathetic excuses for theory crafting, like the “hypogamy” crap, which denies women any sexual personal agency. Or really, simply the flat out misogynist attitudes in the entire movement, both the base and the leading figures. Look at the shit Paul Elam has written over the years!
*On paper*, the idea of a men’s right movement that basically compliments feminism sounds great. But *THE* MRA movement as it is simply is not that!
One prominent MRA who’s not a shitlord, even? Minty seems to have chilled out recently so maybe he’ll end up being the first.
(Look, optimism!)
Regarding that other discussion, I dislike the term demisexual. I suppose by the definition of it I would fall under it, but – well, for me, that’s just normal sexual/romantic behaviour. Sure, lots of people look great, but surely you want to get to know them first and see if you like them before you shag them?
Now I know this isn’t in fact how many people approach this, but I do think it is the norm for a great many people. Establishing an own label for this carries the implication that is a derivation from the norm, and I absolutely do not think it is. Plus, how you approach sexual/romantic affairs is simply not a difference as fundamental as hetero-/homo-/bi-/asexual, so in this regard, too, I think it doesn’t “deserve” an own label, so to speak.
Personally, I’m rather averse to body contact. In buses and trains I’d rather sit at the edge of a seat than have legs touching, and even with close friends I don’t go for hugs. At birthday parties of female friends, when everybody else is hugging the person in question, I only give my hand. So, yeah, it takes a lot for me to have this barrier breached. Physical attraction is something that raises attention, basically, and of course it is aesthetically pleasing, but to go beyond just that I also do “require”, so to speak, a good personal “chemistry”.
@ Octo
I also think that what’s now described as demisexual is really, really, really common. And also very much socially encouraged for women (and for men too in some cultures, though not really in the US/Western Europe).
You know what. I have some time today, so I’m actually going to answer this in good faith. So here is a monster comment.
mmn101:
Probably because there’s no real impetus for it, as long as you’re a straight, white, gender-conforming man. For men, expanding their choices means abandoning narrow structures of traditional masculinity. But those narrow structures also grant men their traditional privileges and power, which is why many men are still reluctant to give them up.
When feminism started the conversation about what it means to be a woman, it also inevitably started the conversation about what it means to be a man. Predictably, a lot of men found this conversation extremely uncomfortable, as they were being asked to confront their own unquestioned privileges, such as being head of their household by default, the right to have sex with their wife whenever they felt like it, (fun fact: marital rape only became a thing in the UK in the 1991), unquestioned dominance in all public discourse, ad infinitum.
As the conversation advanced, many men – particularly marginalised men, queer, trans, of colour, disabled, men who by default were excluded from traditional masculinity – recognised that narrow gender roles are toxic and damaging for men and women, and particularly for anyone who doesn’t fit neatly into the gender binary. They began starting their own conversations about masculinity and there was a lot of overlap with feminist schools of thought. But abandoning traditional masculinity – which is intrinsically bound up in authority, violence, aggression, etc. – also means abandoning some power so that it can be spread more evenly among a more diverse array of people. But if you are one of the men who benefit from traditional masculinity, for whom the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, what’s your motivation for giving that up? Things have always suited you just fine up until now, so why would you want things to change?
Also, if you are a traditionally masculine man who has played the role of a manly provider for your entire life, people questioning the value of traditional masculinity is basically people questioning your entire identity, your reason for being… and that shit has got to be uncomfortable. And so we end up with a crisis of masculinity – “if I’m not a manly man, then what am I?” – which has generated an awful lot of anger and backlash directed at the feminists who started the entire conversation in the first place. (Side note: in popular culture, Breaking Bad is an excellent and nuanced exploration of this crisis of identity.)
Now the MRM, from everything I’ve seen, seems to have no real interest in deconstructing traditional gender roles. They are extremely invested in traditional masculinity and some of them are actively hostile towards gay or effeminate men. Even their favourite word for male feminists – “mangina” – implies that there’s something fundamentally insulting about being associated with the female anatomy. If anything, they are strong advocates for a return to traditional gender roles and the transaction model of heterosexual relationships. Now I can’t say this with absolute clarity because honestly, some MRM messaging is a tad confusing (e.g. women are incapable of doing real useful work, but also women shouldn’t depend on their partners or the government for income?), but overall it seems to be that most prominent MRAs would prefer women to return to their traditional role of cooking, cleaning, performing sexual acts on demand, having babies within a traditional nuclear family structure and deferring to their husband in most things, in addition to maintaining a youthful feminine appearance in keeping with their husband’s expectations and desires. Men, in turn, provide income and protection (and mammoths!) and run civilization on behalf of everyone else.
So the reason men, as a class, have not expanded their choices is that many men don’t really want to expand their choices, because the status quo suits them just fine. Unfortunately, because women and various marginalised groups are now demanding more choice and more freedom (and because, as you said yourself, this stuff doesn’t happen in a vacuum) traditional gender roles have been subject to some serious scrutiny and criticism in the last few decades. Some men want to smash the traditional gender roles that restrict and damage them emotionally, others want a return to a blissful pre-feminist utopia. And there we end up with a fundamental conflict of interests.
mmn101:
Fortunately women have managed to expand their choices a lot in the West at least. Men haven’t. Any idea why that might be?
Because men already had almost all the choices already while women had almost none, you moron! /facepalm
Mutters: All hail the blockquote monster!
mmn101:
Not once did she use the word consensual (or the word consent). The whole mess was a result of Alison Tieman making the vague, inflammatory claim that “95% of abused boys in juvenile facilities reported being attacked/coerced by female staff.” Mercier attempted to break it down as the DOJ report had into victimization with and without force to disprove Tieman’s “attack” statement. In listing the descriptions of what was considered to be sexual activity without force (by the report’s definition), MRAs jumped to the conclusion that she was sanctioning correctional facility staff having sex with juveniles in detention.
… anyone got more to contribute to the sexuality conversation? (Much more interesting imo than the standard MRA talking points.)
@Tinyorc
An excellent comment.