The We Hunted the Mammoth Pledge Drive continues! If you haven’t already, please consider sending some bucks my way. (And don’t worry that the PayPal page says Man Boobz.) Thanks! And thanks again to all who’ve already donated.
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.
Newsflash, asshole: We don’t like you. Please do us all a favor and cut off contact with us, and go snivel somewhere we don’t have to hear you.
“You’re not my mom!” Which we actually agree with, so that works out just fine.
I’m not up on all the rules, but didn’t already do so when he called another commenter a b*tch?
I agree, you can shut people out of your life if you want to.
So, why are you still here? It would make sense if you fled the web site, instead of staying here accussing us of making you do things in your life — like associate with women. You want to be here and crow about shit. That’s your choice, isn’t it?
And no, we’re not like the MRA. If we were, we’d be on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s radar — like the MRA.
@treehugger
All I have to do is clear my browser and return.
You can’t stop me from exposing your fake concern for those shooting victims.
Davis:
Hey, you keep ducking my questions:
Prove it, Davis. Quote someone who bashed men and/or non-feminist women.
BTW, you ever gonna answer my question? Do you really think black women are worse than the KKK? Is that what you were trying to say? Do you really think that black women have done more damage than the KKK? Do you know how sexist and racist that is?
While your at it, also prove that our concern for the victims is fake.
Go on. I dare you.
Ohhhh. Faux threats to @treehugger being made by @Davis!
He’s a REAL BADASS. It’s obvious his social awkwardness stopped the ladiez, and not you know, his toxic personality.
David can see your IP address and location actually.
“I’m not up on all the rules, but didn’t already do so when he called another commenter a b*tch?”
**raises hand** Yes, that would be me. He also talked about guns, on thread discussing a young man who used guns (and a knife) to kill men and women.
@Davis is also clearly a COMPUTER GENIUS! He knows how to clear his browser history. WATCH OUT!
::typing through tears of laughter at this badass::
Feminism isn’t some sort of regime, dude, it’s people saying that women are people and deserve equal rights as people. By saying that you avoid women simply by virtue of being women, you’re saying that women can’t act as individuals and people in their own right. Even non feminist women. So, really, you’re like an MRA. Or a MGTOW, especially in the way that you don’t actually go anywhere.
And if I wanted to seep myself in misogynistic stupidity, I would go and engage them on their sites, but I would do better talking to my friend’s three month old baby. He’s probably cuter, and he’s certainly more fun.
…yeah, I’m only mad because morons like you derail a lot of the conversation to listen to themselves talk. You can say whatever you want until you get banned, but I’ve had more entertaining and in depth conversations with my dog. Has anyone’s pet done something funny today? My dog got scared by his own fart.
Skimmed the AVFM re the petition. Turns out, if it did reach the White House, the movement wouldn’t meet the legal definition of the word “terrorist” and they would have a giant, public laugh- which would more positive awareness to their cause.
Pardon the pun, but I’m feeling trigger happy on the posts tonight. I’m going to burn scented fucking candles and masturbate to take the edge off. And my cat is watching.
You’re Erin, right? I dunno. You’re familar, that’s for sure.
Anyway, this is total bullshit:
“While your at it, also prove that our concern for the victims is fake.”
That would be you.
@JJ
LOL
You got ether’d kid.
I don’t think any of the MRA groups that exist online could organize their way out of a wet paper bag, so terrorist is a bit of a stretch.
Most misogynists are like the vast majority of racists. Most misogynists aren’t posting all over AVFM, and most racists aren’t in the Klan. I want to attack the fundamental misogyny that exists throughout our entire culture and that allows extreme cases like Rodgers to go virtually unremarked upon until the guns come out, and that allows mainstream media to ignore his misogyny and allows other idiots to deny it, claim it was all “mental illness” and “access to guns”, and Not All Men anyway, wah. I don’t want to get sidetracked by terms like “terrorist” on top of all that. Having a scheme to attack a sorority house, even in explicit detail, doesn’t qualify as a terrorist plot. Getting fed by hateful MRA bastards in websites all over the internet isn’t being recruited into a terrorist group. Most people who are called terrorists barely meet that qualification, or don’t meet it at all, and I’m tired of hearing it bandied about by anyone. It has become meaningless.
Should MRAs maybe be considered hate groups and maybe be watched by law enforcement? I don’t know. I’m too big a fan of privacy to want to advocate for that. I also don’t think new gun laws will fix this problem, and in this instance this guy was getting state of the art help for “mental” issues and it still didn’t help, so I don’t know that advocating for mental health access is relevant to this situation. (It’s totally relevant to, you know, mental health, but that should be advocated for without someone having to shoot a bunch of people.)
And no, I don’t want the police to be able to sweep in to anyone’s house and just, what, cart them off willy nilly to a lunatic asylum? Is that what you’re claiming should happen, Davis? Because if so, we did that in this country once upon a time, and it was a death dealing nightmare to hundreds of thousands of people. There’s a reason we don’t have good mental health policy in America– when the law allowed for people to be committed against their will for just about anything, from being too Native or too black or too gay or too female or too whatever, IT WAS ABUSED, so badly, so horrifyingly, that we have never been able to figure out how to fix it.
I don’t think there’s any solution to any of these specific incidents. I think in a non-misogynistic society, this specific crime might not have happened, maybe, or if it was brewing someone would have spotted it sooner. Unfortunately this guy was just the tip of a massive internet iceberg full of men who hate women and, frankly, aren’t bothered at all that we might end up dead. If we had a non-misogynist society, at least he would have stood out.
Of course not! It’s just that the evil wimminz are shallow and only like bad boys.
I had to type this comment twice because of cat anger consequences. Darrow wants a snack and I’m failing in my duties and decided to type instead. He thumped his large tail down on the keyboard and hit F5 so the page refreshed and I lost my comment.
IMO this makes Darrow a much bigger badass than Davis.
For those following along at home, the reason why it’s not meaningful to say that women/UCSB/the authorities etc are at fault because they could have prevented the killings is that, even assuming that’s true, none of them were what made him want to go on the rampage in the first place (no, not even women, since lots of men get rejected by women and don’t go on murderous rampages).
Whereas the MRM or, more broadly, masculinity culture in general are both plausible sources that could have put the idea into his head in the first place, and therefore can more meaningfully be considered possible causes.
Davis, keep refeshing the browser. You see, I deal with grief and anger by either finding more volunteer work, or being excessively silly.
Since my pager is blessedly silent, meaning no one needs my help, mocking you is quite useful, because trying to be as ridiculous as your rich construction worker gun dealer who sells only to men, is a PoC yet doesn’t mind the KKK, and avoids checkout lines with lady workers, lady dentists, and lady charities like the plague self is making me go to quite silly extremes.
I know people directly hurt. Right now, I’ve done what I can for them. Bawling my eyes out and hugging pillows only helps for so long.
You, I’m just starting with. Thanks for the silly.
Sorry, my Delorean’s alarm is going off again. I thought I told that kid no more time traveling! Where’d I put that flux capacitor?
Have to fly!
Oh, honey.
That’s not how it works, and even if it was, we can easily recognize you by the way you talk. I’m afraid you can’t actually have the run of a site you don’t own.
Ken, Argenti, thanks for answering my question.
J.J.
“Has anyone’s pet done something funny today?”
Yeah. My cat does this thing where she pretends something is chasing her. She stops abruptly after running around, she lowers her head and her eyes dart, then she takes off like a bat outta hell. Then she does it all over again.
Oh look, Dood troll couldn’t handle the Supernatural gossip on the other thread, lol. Probably because it *wasn’t all about him*.
Well, if we’re waiting for the Tardis to refuel (I’m assuming more wine), I’ll see if I can find enough Dark Matter (I’m not sure what’s in Vex, so Dark Matter’s a good guess, right?) for a quick trip, since some guy with a hammer broke my main ride.
Not just today, but my cats have fixated on a small ceramic bird at my mother’s house, and keep dragging it all over the place. I find it somewhere unusual every day.
It’s like a little game we’re playing.
My cat loves chia – I mix it into my yogurt every day, and she likes to lick the bowl. Anyway, ever since I started adding it, she’s gotten incredibly cuddly. It freaks my family out, since she’s normally super paranoid and stares at everyone like they’re weird strangers who she’s never seen before.
*whom? that? Argh, this one always confuses me.
There was Supernatural gossip and I missed it! Damn it!
*tries to find fanart where the three prettiest boys were cats because the idea of chasing invisible enemies cat! Dean is too cute* Thank you, Shiraz for inspiring that image in my head with your cat.
Also, what is Davis talking about? That made no sense.