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.
Yes! But the companion pieceis the one I’d like on a tshirt!
Because Poutine, of course, though the magic pony is awesome!
I see that mmn’s approach to men’s activism is to try to pester women into doing the work for him.
So women should be doing all the work to emancipate women AND men. And what will you be doing?
Then you haven’t been paying attention. Or you’re lying.
It’s not hard to find the same handful of examples being passed around the Internet as though they represented all feminists, no. But I’ll go ahead and assume that you don’t read or speak to a lot of feminists, and are thus woefully ignorant of the fact that such suggestions are extremely rare, especially if you get your nose out of the second wave.
Mmn,
One of the issues MRAs often talk about is men dying in wars. Feminists have always been a part of the anti-war movement. Just look up the origin story of mother’s day. It wasn’t created to sell Hallmark cards.
You want a women’s group that’s fighting to end war (which by the admission of the MRM would help men)? I give you Code Pink http://www.codepink4peace.org/
Why doesn’t the MRM do something like what Code Pink does? You can call it Code Blue! I know how much the MRAs like to co-opt names of other organizations! Instead of complaining about men dying in wars and fantasizing about women being killed to make up for the deaths of male soldiers, how about engaging in some anti-war activism?
This conversation in a nutshell:
“Dude, this homework assignment isn’t even that hard.”
“Prove it! If it’s so easy, then it should be no problem for you to do it for me!”
With a side order of “If you didn’t hate men you’d already have anticipated how much harder it would be for me than for you and have done it for me without my having to ask”.
@cassandra
As an asexual who has sex, I’d love to take a stab at answering this question.
For me (other asexuals’ miles may vary) performing sex and getting a romantic partner off is like the ultimate puzzle game experience, like Professor Layton on crack. Here’s this thing and if I respond to all these hints and statements, listening for the right noises and verbal confirmations and follow the careful techniques I’ve honed, I can make my loved one experience something super intense and wonderful for them and that makes me feel all awesome and connected with them because I could bring that intense joy and that’s emotionally satisfying.
There’s also some manner of kink stuff done to me that also feels emotionally satisfying because it helps resolve gender dysphoria issues and thus makes me feel good in that way.
Of course, this is only speaking for myself and other asexuals are going to have different experiences and backgrounds that shape things.
Also, I’m shocked. Shocked I tell you that mmn ignored my comment noting the many much more marginalized groups who had no difficulty forming positive activism while facing way more harassment and violence and blocks against assembly than men will ever have.
The reason that MRAs are assholes has nothing to do with them being blocked from activism but having to do with them being lazy bitter bigots who can only really get behind an activist campaign if it is about hurting women. It’s not the society, it’s the movement itself. Which is why every organization actually doing something to help men (whether it is Just Detention working to stop prison rape and abuse, feminist groups working to prevent sexual violence against men and boys and provide spaces for men to share experiences of sexual assault, or feminists and queer groups bringing attention to male sufferers of domestic violence) runs screaming away from associations with the MRA.
You’re a hate group, dudes. And you like it that way. You can either be honest about that, or keep waffling about how you’ve been forced, forced I say to be evil assholes picking on the powerless because the world is just so unfair and real activism requires so much work and shit.
Just using myself as an example. I have been spat on. I have been discriminated out of a job. I have been forced into closets. I have weathered an endless stream of microaggressions and have stared down neo-nazis while in a skirt. I work nearly 10 jobs to support myself and my loved ones and still volunteer where I can. If I can do all that and still form things to aid my fellow group (with the knowledge that a lot of activists who are like me have been killed in my area for doing activism) mates then frankly, you have no damn excuse for your laziness and lack of imagination.
RE: J.J
LBT you totally exist! You get to be their token minority who sits in a corner and takes what they get!
Seriously. I’ve had a couple trolls try to engage with me who really just couldn’t seem to fathom that I was a (1) gay/asexual (2) male (3) feminist (4) who has been raped. It’s like their minds can only fathom half the criteria, and I must be lying about the other half. The results have been pretty funny/awful in the past.
RE: cassandrakitty
By which I mean, if you’re not feeling attraction, what’s the motivation to have sex with someone?
Enh, sometimes I have ace days where I’m totally uninterested in being turned on or orgasm, but I still want to bang hubby, because it makes him happy and I find emotional pleasure in his own. I get to pretend I’m a mad scientist, putting all my attention on his enjoyment without getting distracted by my own. It’s fun!
Some people just feel like home to me,
Yes. YES, this. I think this is why hubby circumvented a lot of my rape baggage (which at the time was all my sexual experience). For the first time in my life, I felt SAFE with someone, and for me, that was a huge deal. I’d always assumed that the closest I’d ever come to feeling safe was being partnered to someone smaller and weaker than myself, but he was big and boofy and still totally nonthreatening.
RE: Lids
And when my history of sexual abuse comes up people try to say “well maybe you aren’t asexual, maybe the problem is that you were molested and you are afraid of sex.”
Aaaaargh, I HATE that! Even though for me, it’s probably true. I’m in a system with sexual people, but I got raped within months of my arrival from the collective unconscious, so yeah, damn straight sex is serious business for me! But the thing is, it doesn’t really matter WHY I have a low rate of attraction; the fact is, I do, and the rest of the world can just fuckin’ DEAL.
RE: Cerberus
On that note, sexual commenters, I’d love to hear what sexual attraction is like for you and what it feels like.
It’s a vague, amorphous set of feelings for me. Despite all my rape history, despite wanting nothing to do with sex, I wanted hubby but BAD. I didn’t even know what I wanted to DO with him, but it was definitely SOMETHING. It was confusing enough that it took me a long time to even recognize those feelings as attraction.
RE: Octo
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?
Enh, I’m gay. I felt like a freak because anonymous sex was totally uninteresting/frightening to me. (Wait, you expect me to go into this dark room with a strange man and get naked with him and just assume nothing will go wrong? ARE YOU HIGH?)
Also, I am all for ignoring irritant troll. Seriously, the inertia that child has going makes pre-meds me look like the paragon of activity. I’ve never seen someone drag their feet so much, and I used to babysit!
I don’t consider myself an activist, but I DO consider myself a layman educator and entertainer. I might have low energy and low sanity points, but I still manage to make comics, sell them, truck my mentally diseased ass to cons (including one this weekend, eek!) and do talks about multiple personality in culture. (That one, I’m hoping to do next month. Fingers crossed!)
What I’m saying is, I’m just one guy, and a really easily worn out guy too, and I still manage to do something useful that doesn’t hurt anyone around me. I’m small fish, but at least I’m doing SOMETHING. Hell, I’d like to think that a lot of folks on Manboobz know a bit more about multi than they did before meeting me!
He’s a perfect illustration of all the reasons why I keep saying that the first rule of feminism is that just because I’m a woman that doesn’t mean I’m your mommy.
mmn101,
Just because men’s lives aren’t perfect it doesn’t mean you’re marginalized or oppressed group, and I think deep down you all know that, otherwise it wouldn’t be so difficult for the MRM movement to get anything positive done.
Most of the things MRAs supposedly care so much about and complain about don’t even have to do with women, anyway. It isn’t gangs of women prisoners attacking and raping the men in prison. It isn’t women foremen or women managers and executives in oil, construction and all the other “dangerous” occupations putting workers safety at risk for the almighty dollar. Women aren’t forcing men to take those jobs to begin with. And they certainly don’t force men to commit suicide, either.
But, no. It’s all women’s fault and the solution is to spend large amounts of time that could be productive online complaining about not getting laid, and other derogatory things about women, and stalking young high school/college girls into keeping silent and in fear of their safety.
The bottom line is that the attitudes of MEN need to change in order to make all those things better, but that’s exactly what you guys don’t want to hear, don’t particularly care about that much because it really doesn’t affect YOUR lives much, and don’t really want to spend your free time on. Harassing women is much more fun.
Perfect summary, and it made me laugh out loud.
cloudiah,
I giggled at that one too. That was spot on. 🙂
@Robert
Curse you, you’ve rumbled my nefarious plot! But yes, it is me, and thanks, that’s really kind of you to say.
Also thanks to everyone who have tried to answer my question about what sexual attraction is like. I know that isn’t exactly an easy question in this society.
? I’m not sure why this particular society would make the question any harder (or easier) to answer, since sexual attraction is presumably a thing that exists for many people in pretty much any society.
@cassandrakitty
I guess what I’m thinking about it is maybe how sex and sexual attraction are sort of assumed to be universal, but also things one isn’t supposed to talk about in public. That one becomes “dirty or bad” by being open and forthright about sex. And I guess I also see it as being difficult entirely because sexuals aren’t often asked to really deconstruct sexual attraction as it’s viewed as this universal thing.
Silly troll is silly. The rest of you seem to have silly troll well handled, so I’m just going to not bother. If he ever actually addresses anything put forth meaningfully, then maybe I’ll spare a bit of mental energy.
Maybe. This other discussion is actually kind of interesting and a little squick-y due to my social conditioning, but I’ll deal. For some reason, I can talk about platyhelmintheyes (flatworms) and their penis fencing all day with a straight face, but as soon as we talk human mating behavior, suddenly things are weird.
I’ve been starting to think (since I got out of high school, which feels like forever ago, now) that I’m probably an ace. No crushes, or weird fluttery feelings, or any of the other things you folks have mentioned.
Well, other than the hugging people and feeling like home. But I don’t think that counts if it’s literally family members or old family pets, when you’re visiting your childhood home. And, you know, if you totally don’t feel anything other than home.
Heh.
I like to ask people “What’s your favorite experience?” and “How do you define love?” when I’m making small talk with people I don’t know yet because a long, long time ago I decided that if I never had another conversation about the weather that would still be too soon. And you learn so much nice stuff asking about favorite things.
I think that one’s nice too, Cereberus, and maybe I’ll keep that question for people I talk to more than just casually.
As for sexual attraction itself… well, I’m a 22-ish and a guy, sooooo I’m not sure I can offer any particularly interesting take on that one, but eh, why not. So normally I get out this supersoaker and load it with… Erh. Ahem.
I’ve never really had a crush and when other people talk about being in love, I don’t follow entirely. It sounds lovely and fun and beautiful, but… no, sorry, I am unacquainted with your butterflies. I used to joke for a long time that I was probably part robot, and I think my libido is probably fairly low, in that I don’t connect at all with the normal description people I’ve met sometimes use to talk about others and wanting to do sexual things with those others; eg: “I’d bang that”. I’m still flabbergasted by the old danish party stand by of “So, if you were hooking up with someone from XXX with no consequences, who’d it be?” where the only real answer I’ve only ever wanted to make was “Why’d you specify no consequences? That sounds skeevy as all hell. Isn’t the consequences the point?”.
Talking about other people as if their personalities were incidental to whatever proceeding someone wants to do with their bodies makes me feel awkward and strange, and it’s sad when it happens because I wonder what the point of it all is, I guess. Not because people can’t be beautiful, there’s definitively a lot extremely beautiful people in the world, but the thought of just hanging out with some stranger in a dark room without a word spoken fills me with confusion. Like LBT, I guess. What’s the point if I don’t know the person I’m supposedly going to engage with? They might be very pretty and aesthically pleasing, but I don’t know them, and who they are.
I know that’s a really stupid reading of a jokish one night stand, but even so. Sometimes the casual talk people get up to just bugs me. That’s a sidenote, I guess.
Only, I’ve had friends I’ve talked to and done stuff with and been around where, after a certain amount of time, kissing and other stuff just seemed a fun extension of being in their company. I remember someone asking me, a long time ago, if I wanted to try kissing and thing from there led to… other things. An emotional feeling of being safe and relaxed with someone else, coupled with a happiness that they’re interesting, charming people who choose to spend time with me?
I guess I don’t see sexual attraction as a game of conquest, dominance and submission but more like a… charades (The actual charades game, with gesturing and laughing and someone awkward trying to imitate a one-legged seafaring pirate so others guess “Captain Morgan”)
Or maybe sand-castle building.
Whoa, the sexuality discussion went past faster than it would have taken for me to organize my thoughts. In short, I don’t know if my attraction to some other people is “genuine” sexual attraction or just some aesthetic fetish. And don’t even ask me to parse romantic attraction.
I’ve been afraid of the label asexual, because it seemed to imply that I’m both unable to enjoy sexuality and incompatible with almost all other people. OTOH, if that’s not really true, then asexual doesn’t seem to mean much anything.
Regardless, I feel insecure about my ability to function in relationships. I do fantasize about certain partnered sex acts as well as cuddling, but i don’t feel I could be really sexually or emotionally fascinated with a partner to make them feel loved. I’m too socially and emotionally awkward to try having casual sex with anyone and besides I feel sex would take a lot of practice to work out smoothly.
I haven’t tried dating much because of my insecurity and laziness and because I wasn’t even interested in partnered anything until my 20s. Now at 31 I feel I’m rapidly running out of energy, sexually and otherwise, even though my job isn’t overly demanding. I’ve had some awesome solo sex play but now even that seems to be drying out before I’m 40 and I feel vaguely cheated.
tl;dr: I’m a whiny weirdo.
Also, just as a demonstration of how hard it can be to untangle what people intrinsically want from all the other social stuff that goes into decision making, my feelings about random hookups with women and with men are totally different. Sitting around talking and cuddling with a friend and that leads to sex, with no expectation of it turning into anything more and no real desire for it to do so? With a woman, sure, I’ve done that. With a man? Nope, no thanks. Thing is, I really don’t think that’s about attraction or libido or any of that stuff, I think it’s pretty much entirely about the fact that in any given situation with a man there’s always a decent chance of him acting really weird and possibly rather unpleasant after sex happens, whereas with a woman the worst that’s going to happen is awkwardness, ime. I trust women not to act like jerks about sex, basically, and again I don’t think it’s to do with anything that’s intrinsic to women or to men, it’s to do with men being socialized to treat women who they have sex with with contempt, and women not really getting that socialization.
God yeah, that. That odd lingering “Well now I get to act like an asshole, ’cause I’ve been there“. So. Many. Times. God is it annoying.
Lol @ homework troll.
BTW, before any MRAs get all “that’s not fair! stop misandering at me!”, can I just point out that women don’t exhibit that particular form of caution because we don’t like men, we’re cautious because we have observed the men around us being assholish towards women after sex for no apparent reason, sometimes even men from whom we wouldn’t have expected that kind of thing. (High school male bestie who decided to talk shit about the girl he was hooking up with to me, WTF? Why did you think I was going to give you congratulatory asspats rather than the side-eye of disapproval, which is what actually happened?)
Don’t shoot the messenger, basically. If you want women not to treat sex with random guys as something that needs to be approached with caution, tell your male peers to stop being assholes to women they’ve slept with for no apparent reason.
Note to person trying to post as “[name of manosphere guy] is a [name of something bad]”
I can’t let through any of your comments until you change your name. Right now all your comments are going into the trash.
Hey mmn101, if you’re still around, can you give me a general physical description?