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.
mmn101: you’re just whining the same old whine about “why won’t the feminists do all the work for us?” Get up off your asses and make something happen, titty-baby. All you sound like is a dude that’s pissed because mommy is no longer catering to your every whim.
The MRM really is that friend who only pretends to lift their part of the couch when moving it.
Seems like almost part of the definition – if you do anything productive to help anyone besides yourself, you can’t be an MRA. If you weren’t repulsed by them, they’d kick you out for being a mangina.
First things first… who is Jared Leto?
Second… mmn101 seems to have so many excuses. It reminds me of when I asked a 5 year old to clean her room, and she just kept coming up with stuff about why I should do it for her. I never knew a kid so injured by an invisible booboo that her clothes would kill her to pick up from the floor. Anyway, the solution is simple: Have men give 50% of the power and wealth to women. That would involve men giving up power, and giving away money, because the mythical power of boobies doesn’t count here. Then approach women about helping men, as women will have the resources to divert and the power to enact laws to protect men.
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Now I contribute my two cents to the sexuality conversation! (agree, it is much more interesting).
I couldn’t put my finger on what I was for a long time, although certain family members made sure I felt wrong about how I was for not having a boyfriend (my parents on the other hand just supported me, no matter what). I was pressured to ‘admit’ to being a lesbian or psychologically damaged, among other things. I’ve had 3 crushes my entire life, all of them friends, and all of them people I felt very platonically attached to initially.
My celebrity/fictional character fantasy movie theatre in my head more often than not end in BFFs, not sex. It takes months of the same fantasy crush before I finally strip them down in my head. In real life, I can appreciate the aesthetics of certain body types, but feel absolutely no inclination to have sex with them.
But I also have a high libido. My third crush is now my boyfriend. He has had casual sex before, but won’t talk about it, because he thinks I might react badly as my number of partners is 1, and his is greater than 1. I don’t think he realises that it’s just a foreign concept to me; I’m not against the principle of casual sex, but I would just end up laughing my butt off and suggest other activities if anyone tried to get casually naked with me. It’s just a completely unsexy situation for me, and the mechanics of sex are hilarious. But I love sex, and have the higher sex drive, and he is sexy to me.
Gender roles benefit men who conform in relation to women and other men. Privilege is a toxic thing; it’s hard to let go of it, because to eschew privilege does feel like you’re losing something (the loss is an illusion but the feeling is there).
The LGBT and feminist movements have an extensive track record of fighting against rigid gender roles. The MRM has an extensive track record of defending those same roles in order to antagonize feminists.
Women have not been emancipated, but the gains that women have made have been achieved through largely their own efforts, despite not being in a vacuum. In fact, contrary to popular belief, it was a trans woman of color, Marsha P. Johnson, who started the Stonewall riots. Women are capable of resistance even as an oppressed class. While certainly genuine male allies are appreciated and can even be helpful, they are not the life of the movement nor are they integral to it.
And yes, I do think it’s right to lay the burden of men’s rights at the feet of men. They have their own issues, and they need to tackle them. Feminism focuses on women, not men. You can’t expect it to focus on both men and women just because you want to. This doesn’t mean that feminists can’t focus on men – I certainly don’t mind focusing on men myself – just that they aren’t obligated to in the slightest.
Misandry doesn’t exist as oppression, whereas misogyny does. That’s why even the most misandric radical feminist isn’t even close to being as oppressive as the misogynistic MRA who thinks that rape via emotional manipulation isn’t real rape.
Personally, while I don’t hate all men, I don’t trust many of them. That’s because I have a history of interacting with highly abusive men who have very little remorse for their actions. Is my distrust of many men as oppressive as a man telling women that, say, they enjoy being abused by men? Am I suddenly an oppressor of men when I say that I’m afraid of men angrily yelling at me due to past experiences of emotional abuse at their hands? Bullshit.
No, your premise is flawed. You assume that the MRAs are interested in helping men. I do not buy that. From what I’ve read about them (in their own words, quoted on this very site as a matter of fact!), they are not interested in helping men at all. They do not even have a united platform on any of the issues facing men in our society. I have dug up some examples for you (from this very site!), because I’m such a nice person:
On the one hand, men having to conform to traditional gender roles is misandry (and totally the fault of women/feminism). On the other hand, it’s also misandry (and totally the fault of women/feminism) to expect men to stop being so-called ”real men”.
On the one hand, men having to bear the majority of the financial burden is misandry (and totally the fault of women/feminism). On the other hand, women who have jobs and are not dependent on men for financial support is also misandry (and totally the fault of women/feminism).
On the one hand, there are more men working in dangerous conditions than women, and also more men in the military. This is misandry (and totally the fault of women/feminism). On the other hand, women trying to get into these professions is misandry (and totally the fault of… come on, you know the drill), because they’re trying to emasculate these professions or some shit. Also, insert biotruths about upper body strength and mammoth hunting here.
On the one hand, women who won’t fuck a dude for whatever reason, whether because they’re not interested in this specific man or men in general, are misandry (and totally the fault of you-know-who). On the other hand, women who will fuck dudes are dirty sluts, and that’s misandry, because sexual market value and sloppy seconds and cock carousel and hypergamy and biotruths and the end of Western civilization as we know it. Oh, and it’s also feminism’s fault.
It’s almost like the whole ”movement” is a big mess. Their only unifying factor is the intense hatred of women that’s seeping out through every layer of their writing. It’s almost like the whole movement is primarily based on, I dunno… what’s the opposite of misandry? You know, the institutional phenomenon that’s actually observable on a societal level? The thing that David Futrelle mocks (on this very site!)… Help me out here, will ya?
You have to love how Mr. Disingenuous never bothered to explain precisely what he feels that men need to be emancipated from.
Crap, botched the links. Sorry, I have no clue why it automatically included those extra quotations marks at the end of each link. Here’s the list in order of appearance:
http://manboobz.com/2013/11/13/spearheaders-prison-rape-is-just-fine-if-the-prisoner-is-hugo-schwyzer/
http://manboobz.com/2013/12/28/men-rights-activist-dont-expect-activism-from-us-because-someone-has-to-keep-this-society-running-and-it-damn-sure-aint-going-to-be-the-ladies/
http://manboobz.com/2013/05/26/evil-seven-step-plan-to-destroy-men-uncovered-by-mens-rights-redditor/
http://manboobz.com/2014/01/08/mens-rights-redditors-respond-to-imaginary-plot-to-force-men-to-pee-sitting-down-with-proposals-to-kill-pee-on-feminists/
http://manboobz.com/2013/11/25/mens-rights-redditor-explains-the-mate-choice-process-of-the-human-female-and-also-why-she-wont-pay-for-dinner/
http://manboobz.com/2013/08/05/mens-rights-redditors-wonder-why-nobody-else-realizes-that-the-ladies-arent-oppressed-any-more/
http://manboobz.com/2013/10/14/ladies-what-are-your-favorite-unchecked-feeemale-privileges/
http://manboobz.com/2012/06/01/mras-would-rather-complain-about-male-disposibility-than-work-to-enable-women-to-serve-in-combat/
http://manboobz.com/2013/09/08/mens-rights-redditor-on-gaming-it-would-be-nice-if-womenfeminists-fucked-off-and-created-their-own-thing-rather-than-moving-into-a-mens-space/
http://manboobz.com/2014/01/19/when-you-assume-a-nice-guy-launches-a-pre-emptive-strike/
http://manboobz.com/2013/09/01/red-piller-evil-sluts-not-only-want-to-have-sex-but-actually-want-people-not-to-hate-them-for-it/
http://manboobz.com/2014/01/18/the-apocalypse-of-the-other-jim-how-lorde-and-lena-dunham-are-destroying-western-civilization-allegedly/
@cassandrakitty
I know, right? It’s so vague.
I can’t help but laugh when I hear people say “Women have been emancipated.” Which women were emancipated, and what was the nature of that emancipation? I’m guessing that “women” doesn’t include any woman who isn’t white and cis.
@mmn101
/).<
Wow, dude. So, even granting that feminism is not activism for men, are you really saying that civil rights activists, LQBTQ rights activists and the labour movement don't help men? Civil rights activists help combat racism, like the many black and latino men that are unjustly imprisoned. LGBTQ activist help dismantle gender roles, and helps gay men not be discriminated against because of who they're attracted to. The Labour movement helps create safe work conditions and reduce work accidents that affect a lot of men. How are those not examples, what exactly would be an example to you?
Men didn’t choose to be in positions of gender privilege, but that doesn’t negate the existence of women’s corresponding lack of privilege.
Also, men have historically enjoyed more freedom in gender roles than women have. Men, being an oppressor class, are capable of converting femininity into an acceptable form of masculinity whenever it suits them. For instance, men can’t cry because it’s coded feminine and therefore associated with weakness, but they can cry if they change the language a bit and call it “manly tears”, “bro tears”, or whatever other stupid hypermasculine term out there that denotes the act of crying without connoting anything feminine. Men’s emotions are also taken seriously when they are emotional about things that should matter to them as men. For instance, men in custody battles are often supported because so many people recognize what they see as an example of a man fighting for the right to see his children. You would think that one’s love for children is solely coded feminine, but fortunately for men they are capable of making that concept palatable to even the most hypermasculine men out there. Of course, when the object of emotions is no longer coded masculine, men are shamed and ridiculed and exhorted to not be emotional like women. That’s why men are often shamed for being abuse victims, sexual violence victims, and having mental illnesses like depression.
By contrast, if a woman tries to be stoic and not be emotionally expressive for the sake of men, she faces scorn. No matter what she does, she is doomed to be seen as a woman trying to gain status and cultural appreciation reserved only for men.
Even if this is true (and it’s true only to a certain extent), it doesn’t reflect the marginalization of men. The relative lack of support groups for men (which kind of support groups, BTW? Because that matters) is a consequence of gender roles that oppress women.
See: cooking and making clothes.
Gender roles that harm *both* genders. Which is exactly why it is so silly to support an explicitly anti-feminist movement (and the MRAs certainly) if you want those harmful gender roles reduced or abolished – a laudable goal, but the MRA movement is about the exact opposite.
Jesus, those goal posts are dancing all over the field. Next you’ll be saying “You can’t prove MRA’s can do anything useful for men until you can prove that MRA’s have done anything useful for men.”
Are you seriously making the argument that the negative attention gained via the “don’t be that girl” posters is evidence of men’s marginalization? Those posters have done nothing but spread around misogyny in order to counter a claim never even implied in the “don’t be that guy” posters.
And your claim that negative attention is better than no attention at all is ridiculous. MRAs, through their own actions, are undermining efforts to support men. They are destroying their own credibility, and they have no one but themselves to blame. Feminists and womanists merely point out the bigotry and shitty reasoning behind MRA talking-points when they see them.
Look, I’m not always nice, either, even though I prefer to be. But at least when I’m not nice, it’s in response to bigoted, disingenuous shits like MRAs and trans-exclusionary feminists. I don’t have to attack an oppressed class for no reason just to get my point across. And at least I have points that aren’t solely determined by a reactionary ideology opposed to feminism.
@Myoo:
It’s pretty clear that when MRAs (and their sympathizers) say “men” they mean straight, affluent, white, cis men.
So basically mmn101 wants feminists to do the work and excuse the so-called activism that the MRM does while also excusing the fact that they don’t do anything that actually helps anyone. Plus thinking negative attention is better than no attention is very childish.
I want to talk about sexuality some more because stupid troll is not worth paying more attention to and sexuality is more interesting anyway.
I thought I was a lesbian for a while because I was basically afraid of men, and then it was like, oh, no, never mind, I like both.
I agree that sexual attraction is different for everyone; no one processes it the same way. I mean, if I’m watching Game of Thrones and there’s someone I find sexually attractive, I’ll maybe fantasize about it, but if I met the person I would actually want to have a conversation with them first.
I have had instant sexual attraction to someone that have led to short flings, but having a long term relationship with someone requires a lot of mental/emotional attraction. One night is one thing, but if you’re boring or stupid it makes you less sexy immediately. Current boyfriend is smart and sweet and so I want to eat him up and count the freckles on his shoulders. Seriously, when you’re really into someone, their body is fascinating.
There are of course “Resources for Men” linked to in the sidebar here. These are good groups that help men. But they don’t want to be associated at all with the MRM.
I would wonder why, but I actually don’t.
Okay, so I’m sick today, and the thing I like to do when I am sick is to curl up in bed with my iPad and hang out with the manboobzers. Y’all always make me feel better (as opposed to guilty because I am taking today “off” even though I worked through the last four weekends – really, brain? I’m lazy because I want to take a day laying down because the effort of walking across the room makes me start coughing up goo?)!
Anyhoo.
mmn101 needs to check himself if he thinks that creating all the currently-existing services for women was in any way easy. Sure, women establishing shelters couldn’t take out loans or own property or things like that, so they got creative and found means of funding on their own, but it wasn’t just that shelters take space and money and those things were difficult to get your hands on if you happened to be female.
They were also often in danger of being beaten and/or raped and/or killed by those same ragey abusers the women they were trying to help were trying to escape from. They were also likely to be arrested by a police force bound by culture and often by law to support the abusers. They were also more likely to face violence, forced hospitalization, and even death for advocating for any number of “wacky” ideas like women are people and deserve to vote, be protected by police, organize or join unions, get abortions and contraception, leave abusers, take rapists to court, get and keep custody of their children and child support, hold jobs as providers for families (instead of earning “pin money”), have bank accounts and credit cards, own houses, etc., etc., etc., etc. …
And you ask for proof that feminists have created more options for men? Seriously, how dense are you? Gay men, and men who are cis/het but don’t conform to “traditional” norms, and trans men, and trans women are all more free to be their authentic selves and not hide in closets now thanks in large part to feminism both directly (many of those movements branch from the trunk of mainstream feminism) and indirectly, in that once society had to contend with and tolerate an expansion of roles for women it could also be asked “well, why not my identity as well?” and be forced to extend courtesy and space to a whole range of other identities which previously had to be closeted. Do many women and feminists fall short of the goal of being good allies to gay men, non-traditional men, trans men and trans women along with all other axes of identity? Sure, and they deserve to be called out for it when they act to silence or shame others for freedoms they want for themselves. But here’s the thing, calling out does not include rape, beating or death threats, or harassment, or stalking.
Gay folk and trans folk are pushing for the ability to live, work, have relationships, raise families, and the shaming and pushback is not coming from feminism. A man wants to take time he is entitled to by contract to be with his wife while she gives birth to their child, and it’s not feminists who shame him for wanting to be a great husband and father. Male victims of rape want support as they push for justice and it’s not feminists who tell him to “man up” (just typing that phrase makes me nauseous) or weaponize his assault to abuse women.
I’m really busy this week and don’t have time to create an activist organization for you, but I can give you some tips to get started.
The very first thing you need to do is to identify a problem and a good potential solution. Some historical examples:
* Problem: We’re not allowed to vote.
* Problem: We’re legally allowed to vote, but state governments have put restrictions into place that make it difficult or impossible to register to vote.
* Problem: We’re legally allowed to register and vote, but people are threatening to assault us if we try to go to the polls, and they’ve got local law enforcement on their side.
You’ll notice that once the problems were identified, the solutions became obvious. Getting the solutions implemented is a bit harder so we’ll save that for a later discussion.
Now, with that in mind, can you identify a problem that you want to solve? MRAs tend to go with things like:
* Problem: Some random woman on the Internet said something that hurt our feelings.
* Problem: An organization put up some posters that offended us in a way that we’re not able to clearly articulate.
And this is the reason that MRAs are laughingstocks.
Anyway, can you name a problem that you want to see a support group for? What you’ll want is a specific problem, not a long litany of random complaints. It should also be a collective problem that affects a large number of people and not just an individual grievance. Finally, the problem should be phrased in such a way that it’s easy to see steps that could be taken to solve it. (Remember that we just need to identify the solution at this stage; we might need to do a lot of groundwork before we can start implementing it.)
As always, there’s a Pierre for that.
Cerberus, I’m curious. Are you the Cerberus who’s on Sadly, No? If so, reading your pieces has been, for me, both educational and highly entertaining.
Also, regarding the topic of sexual attraction. For me, the immediate experience is not one of lust, but desire. I feel a pulling in my solar plexus, rather than a stirring in my groin. That part comes later, pardon the pun.Lately, however, between eighteen years of wedded bliss and thirty milligrams of paroxetine daily, there’s been fewer people who spontaneously combust my lower chakras.
List of things MRAs should do in order to become a respectable and effective social movement:
-Reject male supremacy, the cause of gender policing that men face
-Reject white supremacy
-Reject transmisogyny and become trans inclusive
-Do not disguise the appropriation of trans women’s oppression as trans-inclusion. That’s appropriation, not inclusion.
-Reject all attitudes common among those who support privilege
-Acknowledge any privileges they may have
-Stop encouraging unnecessary violence
-Stop marginalizing victims of rape and abuse
-Stop perpetuating rape culture
-Stop being ableist
-Stop disguising the appropriation of autistic people’s experiences as supportive of autistic people
-Stop talking over women when they talk about their experiences of misogyny
-Stop being heterosexist
-Stop endorsing colonialism
-Stop endorsing oppressive free-market capitalism
-Stop reducing all social problems to products of individual behavior
And that’s just the tip of the ice berg, really.
Also, mmn101, I’ve worked on shelters and transitional housing, and if you really want to create one, if you really want to know how to do it, there are plenty of folks out there who can and will help. Find a shelter whose ‘business model’ you find helpful and call the director. Explain that you want to start a shelter and would like advice and mentoring as to how to do it. Will you find people who might not want to help you? Sure, and that sucks. Will you find people who might not want to help you because of some aspect of your identity (white male, I’m assuming)? Sure, and that sucks too, but people are people and if you waste your time raging at them you are never going to see your plans come to fruition. Cross them off the list and move down to the next one.
It might take some looking, but you will find someone who will welcome you, show you their work (here’s a hint, people are usually proud of what they accomplish and willing to share it with others), and talk to you about what you need to do in order to reach a similar accomplishment. You may even find them willing to introduce you to people who can help you find funding, get free or low cost legal, programmatic and technical advice. You will probably have to work a bit harder to establish trust because one of the things that the MRM has “accomplished” is to create a reflexive suspicion in the minds of a lot of the folks who work with rape victims and domestic violence victims by repeatedly insulting, threatening, harassing and attacking those victims and their supporters.
Go to them and whine at them about why they aren’t doing exactly what you want in the way you want it done and that will get you exactly nowhere.
And don’t you dare come here waving Earl Silverman at us. Women’s shelters and other causes survived and thrived because they built ties to their own community, which nurtured and assisted them. It’s not the fault of feminism if the community that Mr Silverman was explicitly a part of turned its back on him and not only refused to help but participated in shaming him for his struggle so that they could have a reason to point and yell at feminists. In the lead up to his death, where were the MRAs flocking to his side with donations, fundraisers, volunteer help and the like? How do you think it felt to have his own community and movement not only ignore his pleas but to highlight and focus attention on his struggle only as a reason why such effort was useless and hopeless? Your community shamed him. Your community failed him.