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If anyone was hoping – against their better judgement – that Men’s Rights activists would be inspired by the tragedy in Isla Vista to reconsider any of their beliefs, or even to reflect for a moment on the many striking similarities between passages in Elliot Rodger’s book-length manifesto and comments posted every day by MRAs and others in the manosphere, well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you should not keep that hope alive.
It’s not that they’re not talking about the tragedy. A look through the top 100 posts in the Men’s Rights subreddit, the largest Men’s Rights forum online, reveals that roughly a third of them, including the top stickied post, relate in some way to Elliot Rodger’s rampage and the discussions that have come up online and in the media in its aftermath.
But the message of virtually all of these posts is: “Nothing to see here! Move along!” There are numerous posts expressing outrage that anyone would see any connection between Rodger’s toxic misogyny to the Men’s Rights movement; there are others mocking and attacking the #YesAllWomen hashtag; there’s even one suggesting that Rodger, who wrote about how he longed to watch all the women of the world starve to death in concentration camps, wasn’t actually a misogynist at all.
Take a look. One post, with more than 500 upvotes, complains:
Another post makes a strikingly similar complaint:
One angry MRA asks:
Another wonders:
Sorry to break it to you, fella, but that’s not how defamation suits work. If it were, all of us who call ourselves feminists would be collecting millions of dollars from the Men’s Rights subreddit for all the patently untrue things you guys say about us every day of every week.
Still others make sure that everyone knows that Rodger hated men too – not that this has actually gone unnoticed in the media or in discussions of the tragedy.
And then there’s this fellow, who seems to think that Rodger only hated men, and that his big problem with women was that he loved them too much:
There are, it’s true, two posts that raise the issue of what might be done to prevent tragedies like this from happening in the future. One of them takes on the issue of “virgin shaming.” (Sure, I’m against that, and against slut shaming too. Odd that roughly 100% of the virgin shaming I’ve ever heard in my life has come from MRAs and other non-fans of this blog, even though — sorry to break it to you fellows — I’ve not been a virgin since the early Reagan administration.)
Meanwhile, the other “positive” suggestion — the stickied top post, submitted by one of the forum’s moderators — is pretty transparently intended as a PR move – and an excuse to bash feminists.
Yep, “creep shaming.” That’s the problem! Way to cut through all the bullshit and get to the heart of the matter! The problem isn’t that some men — well, a lot of men — think and act in predatory and entitled ways towards women. The problem is that sometimes when they do, women call them “creeps.”
The problem isn’t that the world’s creepiest and most entitled man just killed 6 innocent people, the problem is “creep shaming.”
After killing his roommates and a friend of theirs, Rodger attempted to get inside a sorority so he could massacre the women inside it. But he couldn’t get anyone to let him in. Probably because, well, whoever was nearest the door thought he looked a bit, well, creepy.
“Creep-shaming” isn’t some insidious form of discrimination against awkward men. It’s a defense mechanism that women develop to protect them against predatory men. And in the case of the Isla Vista murders, I’m guessing that the willingness of women to go with their gut sense that Rodger was a creep literally saved lives.
But the mods of the Men’s Rights subreddit would rather moan about “creep shaming.” They would prefer that women lower their defenses against men like Elliot Rodger — because it hurts their feelings to sometimes get called a “creep.”
Guys, this is why people think Elliot Rodger was an MRA.
EDIT: I added more to the conclusion because I had more to say about creep shaming.
Anand, you do know we can read the words you posted, right?
Just to know, did the MRAs themselves make up the petition or was it a feminist as dean esmay claims? Im confused.
Hey Falconer! How are the wee ones? And how are you holding up with that whole mobile twins thing?
So right too, I left my older electric toothbrush there in like a week’s time, 2~3 months later the whiskey got brought over!
Sparky, that’s what MRAs claim isnt it?
Weird wood tiger?
That’s the strangest mangling of my name.
If nobody understood you were doing satire, that means you didn’t do it well. It doesn’t mean everyone was too dense or humorless. We did some great satire of our troll from last night.
See, Anand is the kind of troll I don’t get: the one who acts like an asshole in one post, then shows up in another and acts like we’re all best buddies.
Racnad,
1) This is an appallingly dishonest reframing of what happened with Davis.
2) You’re still not entitled to “lively discussion” if the other side doesn’t want one. I know your type: the one who “just likes to debate” and “wants to have his views challenged” so much that he goes around deliberately provoking other people and laughs when they react. Surprise surprise, asshole, women’s lives aren’t your intellectual exercise and not wanting to engage while you debate our humanity isn’t a moral failure on our part.
I actually agree, but it’s not feminism that’s responsible for this messaging. It’s OTHER MEN who decided that having sex was a measure of a man’s masculinity.
Dammit, racnad’s still pooping in the threads.
Did you see the part where Davis was wishing that various commenters here had been shot? The part where Davis was wishing that various commenters here contracted horrible deadly diseases? The part where Davis was explicitly stating that he hated women? The part where Davis said black women were worse than the KKK? The part where Davis said “black gangbangers” caused more damage than the KKK? This is the “difference of opinion” we’re supposed to entertain?
And yes, Davis was asked repeatedly to back up his assertions. He did not, but instead resorted to threats and name calling. For all intents and purposes, Davis was basically conceding to us. We indeed “won.”
Nobody cares about your sexual history. Why do you think any if that is relevant?
@wierdwoodtreehugger, blame autocorrect. 😛
Oh well. Point taken.
As you know, im not associated with any labels but its intresting to read up on the MRM and feminism. I just wanted to bring attention to the petition only to find out that the trolls beat me to it. Sucks!
well il go back to being a lurker then.
David, keep writing more articles. Good luck to you.
Yes, Anand, that is what MRAs believe. That’s why, agreeing with them there, isn’t satire. It’s actually the exact opposite of satire.
You should probably look up what satire means before trying to do it.
Oh look, Rancid is back with more of his male entitlement. Not only our men not entitled to our bodies, they are not entitled to our time or deference. When a misogynist comes on a thread about a misogynistic entitled mass murder to troll us about how much he hates women, we are in no required to be respectful. For the bazillionth time, this site is about mocking misogyny. That is clearly stated on the main page. That women are humans isn’t up for debate here. By the way, David deleted many of Davis’ most offensive polls. You missed the fact that he essentially made death threats. Tell me again why we should have been nicer to him?
It should also be noted that, contrary to the beliefs of “Nice Guys” and MGTOWs virgin shaming is a thing that women can also experience even though we are also subject to slut shaming.
I graduated from high school a virgin who had never had a real boyfriend. It wasn’t a big deal because the same was true of a majority of my friends. But when I got to college all my new friends were more experienced and socially adept than I was. They were all surprised that I was so inexperienced. They never tried to shame me for it, but I still felt bad and like there might have been something wrong with me. Later my freshman year I lost my virginity to the first guy who would have me that I didn’t find gross. I don’t regret that because I don’t have issues with casual sex and I really felt it was the right time for me, but other young women in similar situations do something regret it.
Now I’m rambling. I just hate that assumption sad sack guys always make that only men can be awkward and unsure when it comes to sex and dating.
Knowing you have a problem is the first step, Anand.
Who is this random nobody and why does he assume we’d know things about him?
For all of Jezebel’s flaws their coverage of the shooting has been quite good. This post about spending the day lurking in a forum of PUAhate refugees confirms our suspicions that the influx of new trolls has come from there. http://jezebel.com/lessons-from-a-day-spent-with-the-ucsb-shooters-awful-f-1582884301
I saw that one, too, weirwoodtreehugger. I’m totally linking to those conversations every time I see another smug troll trying to argue that “no one” in the MRM is condoning Rodger’s actions.
Shut up and go away, Rancid, you insipid little skid mark.
Racnad, you missed the death threats.
David scrubbed them, because wishing death is way over the line.
In fact, civility was pointless, from the get go. We made attempts, elsewhere, and he totally skipped anything nice but counter to his worldview.
Mocking the living day lights out of him was at least cathartic.
I enjoyed it.
Besides, the header does not read : Misogyny, care to tell us about yours? We’d love to listen and then tell you you’re a special misunderstood snowflake. Come closer. You have something on your face. I’ll get that for you. What you’re shoes are untied? We’ll just let me do that for you too!
It says: Misogyny, I mock it.
*Well*
oops
That Jezebel article…hey, it’s OK, I’m sure that there are no women who needed to sleep tonight anyway.
On the troll who got banned, and the one in the other thread who may or may not have been the same person (more likely just from the same forum) – men, including our host, notice how the women on this board were able to spot those guys for what they are pretty much right away, even before they rage-sploded? That’s because our radars for this kind of thing are more finely tuned than yours are, because we have lots of experience being the targets of misogyny. So maybe next time when we say “hey, misogynist ragemonkey who’s clearly trolling here” actually listen to us rather than telling us to be nicer, yeah?
I didn’t get far enough to see said confirmation. I made it to ~9am and the guy trying to rally himself and others to “go Elliot” on the 31st, and for the first time in all this I was actually afraid for my safety. Fucking terrorists.
“For all of Jezebel’s flaws their coverage of the shooting has been quite good. This post about spending the day lurking in a forum of PUAhate refugees confirms our suspicions that the influx of new trolls has come from there. http://jezebel.com/lessons-from-a-day-spent-with-the-ucsb-shooters-awful-f-1582884301”
That was chilling — though it wasn’t anything anyone here hasn’t heard, unfortunately. They’re pro-rape, want to have sex with preteen virgins, some think shooting sprees are the perfect way to express sexual frustration. At one point, one of the fuckwits posted, “What if (Rodger) had met (George) Sodini?” Like a comic fanboy wondering what would happen if Batman met The Flash.
@ Shiraz
Did you expand the conversation that’s at the very top of the page? All I can say is, I hope that dude’s about 14 and will learn that other people are in fact people as he gets older, because otherwise he’s another potential shooter in training.
And I just got to the bit where he says he’s in college. Gonna go hug my cat now.
Well. That was depressing. 🙁
I probably should have included a trigger warning. Sorry.
What’s even more depressing is that the comment section is full of whiny men who are NAMALTing because the author was so upset by what she was reading that she got expressed anger at all men and directed it at her boyfriend. Because apparently it will scare allies away.
Personally, I think if men are only going to be allies as long as we stay nice and accommodating at all times, they aren’t real allies. Fuck them.