Oh, Reddit! Need another reminder that on Reddit, whiny lady-hating man-babies can be found outside the Men’s Rights and Red Pill subreddits? Take a look at this lovely comment from occasional Red Pill commenter purple4th in Change My Views, which (the last I checked) had garnered nearly 150 net upvotes from the crowd there. Here’s the money quote:
[S]ocietal laws are so filled with misandry that in 99% of societal contexts such as going to office, going to the supermarket, going to the movies, etc;, it is men who have to be continually afraid of women.
That’s right, fellas. Women who worry about men harming them are all a bunch of big sillies. It’s MEN who should be worried Oh, sure those gals may look innocent, but don’t let your guard down for a minute lest one of them misander you with a false accusation of being too much of a dude! con
Purple4th continues:
As my investment banks’ Sexual Harassment presentation says, “It is harassment if she says so”. Period.
Really? I decided to look online to see if I could find any Sexual Harassment literature making that argument. A search for “It is harassment if she says so” in quotes returns only one hit on Google: Purple4th’s comment on Reddit.
In fact, the legal standard for sexual harassment — in the US at least — is not “whatever the hell a random woman wants to call harassment.” It’s whether or not a “reasonable person” would see the behavior as harassment.
But that’s how it works in the real world. MRAs and the MRA-adjacent don’t live in the real world.
—
Thanks, AMRthroaway on Reddit for pointing me to this lovely quote.
And hopefully people are keeping a close eye on him so that he doesn’t do it again or if he does, he can’t deny it again.
You don’t do something that creepy (and I don’t think even the misters could deny it was creepy) out of the blue.
Unimaginative,
I have to admit, when I read he was a gun zealot and libertarian type I also wondered if he might be into MRA sites too.
In case any trolls are lurking and getting ready to whine at me, I’m only speculating not saying I’m certain he was a denizen of the manosphere.
Nothing men do is creepy according to that lot – except for seeing women as human.
Another shooting? Argggggh. 🙁
And yeah, the commenters on the lakes of Africa thing remind me of a graphic going around c. 2002 that showed a huge sea where the Middle East once was….not subtle at all, guys.
Also, I have to wonder if they know how big Africa really is; it’d make building those lakes pretty much impossible.
A lot of people seem to think Africa is one homogenous country :/
@cloudiah @hellkell
That was where I went to school. My facebook page is freaking out. Even if the asswipe who did it wasn’t angry about not getting laid (against the rules anyway!), I can easily see him being an aggrieved white manboy who could get anyone to even date him. There’s a whole lotta privilege in that school. And privilege can easily breed entitlement.
I BIG SCARY FEMINIST. I EAT YOUR FACE. RAWR!
Speaking as someone who is a redditor (r/creepypms, r/pokemon, and r/archerfx are my usual hangouts), Reddit is, in general, a terrible place. Some of the minor subreddits are all right, either due to non-controversial topics (like pokemon) or really badass mods (creepy pms), but in general it’s a breeding ground for trolls, bigots, and all-purpose assholes.
The (alleged) New Brunswick shooter has been arrested.
https://twitter.com/RCMPNB/status/474770191747129344
Long time reader of this blog, had to unlurk for this one to share a little story, sorry if it’s a bit long but it’s relevant to your interests…
A few years ago I dated a total shitstain. Eventually he fell in with a crowd of MRAs and proto-RedPillers. This shit was ALWAYS something they railed on about, how they couldn’t even look at a woman without being accused of sexual harassment. Anyway, one day shitstain BF got fired for sexual harassment, he was livid and claimed he’d been unfairly fired. So his MRA mates come around to cheer him up and after a few beers he reveals that he had had a crush on this women, constantly asked her out (we were in an open relationship at the time so he was allowed to pursue other women, I was hoping it would make him get bored of me and dump me because he wouldn’t let me leave the relationship. Long story for another day), but the straw that broke the camels back was when he grabbed her breast when she wore a slightly lower cut top to work one day.
Anyway, he legit did not understand that this was sexual harassment. He was utterly convinced that she was just playing hard to get and wore the lower cut top as an invitation for him to touch her. In his mind she had trapped him. And the fucked up thing was after this came out all his MRA friends not only agreed that he did no wrong, but started telling their own tales about being accused of harassment. Every single story was a clear cut case of harassment (groping, repeated sexual advances, inappropriate language, etc) but they legit did not understand it. They thought their gross come-ons were compliments, that the women were ‘asking’ to get groped because of what they were wearing, that their ‘healthy masculinity’ was being punished. Then they ranted about how you can’t even talk to a woman these days without the fear of being accused of harassment.
TL;DR In my experience the guys that are so afraid of being accused of sexual harassment are the ones who are most likely to engage in it, are unable to engage with women in a manner that is not overtly sexual because they only view them as sexual objects, and stay purposefully ignorant of what sexual harassment is to justify a victim complex. Fuck these guys (not in the good way).
AngryMouse, welcome!
At this point I’m pretty much convinced that most MRAs are driven by anger at feminist successes over the past several decades on issues of date rape, sexual harassment, and domestic violence. A lot of them are guys pissed that they can’t get away with what they used to be able to get away with, or (if they’re younger) what they feel entitled to get away with. Hence all their focus on “false accusations” and trying to muddy the issue of consent.
Obviously there’s a subset of the movement angry about divorce, but I think many of them gravitate to the father’s rights movement instead. (The 2 movements are surprisingly distinct.)
Welcome AngryMouse,
Your story does not surprise me in the least. None of the non-creepy guys I’ve known have ever, to my knowledge lived in constant fear they will be falsely accused of sexual harassment or rape. It sounds like you got away from him? Good.
I really do think sex ed classes need to broaden the scope when they talk about consent. Instead of no means no it really does need to be yes means yes and they should talk about boundaries more.
What they’re living in fear of is being accurately, not falsely, accused of rape or harassment. It’s not as if they give a shit about whether or not their behavior harms someone, they just think it’s terribly unfair that the ambulatory sex toys are allowed to say no and sometimes other people actually care about the fact that they did.
Hey I was just reading about this!
It was supposed to be called “Lake Chad”, and the idea is there’s a huge below-sea-level depression in the Sahara that you could flood if you connected the Mediterranean Sea to it with a canal or something. I think one plan involved atomic bombs.
It’s actually been proposed multiple times, by multiple governments, though most significantly it factored into Nazi Germany’s plans after the war, along with a hydroelectric plant at the straight of Givraltar so they could control the level of the Mediterranean Sea.
Our species sure does produce some creative assholes, doesn’t it?
AngryMouse, hi! Have a Welcome Package!
Seconding WWTH, I’m glad it sounds like you got away from the shitstain. Would I be right in guessing his idea of the open relationship meant him fucking whoever he wanted and you not fucking anyone but him?
Thanks for the welcome, all 🙂 I got out of that sorry situation 4 years ago, but I was in it for 4 years. Fortunately being exposed that MRA bullshit was a big part of what got me into feminism so there is light at the end of the tunnel. I have a thousand other stories of shitstain and co.’s MRA double-think so might chip in from time to time.
Kittehserf, that was exactly the situation except that I could sleep with (but not date) other women if he could be involved too. Very convenient for him that I’m not attracted to women! But that whole thing was my idea: I needed a way out of the relationship but he would not let me leave and I utterly refused to be around him naked because of the sexual abuse. He couldn’t resist every MRAs dream of multiple women on the go, finally getting consensual sex and a vague promise of threesomes. It got him to loosen the grip enough to give me enough time and space to consolidate my emotional resources and get the help I needed to leave him for good.
AngryMouse, I am shocked, shocked! that he fancied his chances of the frat-boy fantasy of him and two women.
So glad you got away from him. That’s some seriously good protective planning.
Hi, Angry Mouse! I like your nym. I just delurked recently, too. Are we the vanguard of a Mus musculus invasion?
I had to plan out a similar dangerous boyfriend escape. It was excruciating to have to sit there, biding my time while he thought everything was fine and everyone else thought I was nuts for staying another minute. I’m still not sure how I got lucky enough to get away without him hurting me or himself.
I’m glad you got away from that guy, and I’m glad that you’re writing about it. Hopefully someone else who feels trapped will read it and realize that there might be a light of hope at the end of the tunnel.
My husband has given sexual harassment presentations in both military and corporate settings, and according to his training, verbal harassment (such as telling dirty jokes, making sexual comments, putting up cheesecake photos, etc) usually requires the victim to inform the harasser that their comment or behavior is unwelcome and makes them uncomfortable, and it’s only if the offensive behavior is repeated that a charge of harassment can be pursued.
So there’s no validity to claiming to be “afraid” of being accused of harassment, when you get that first bite of the apple for free, and the victim is required to tell you exactly what you said or did that was wrong. It’s the repeated offense which makes you guilty of harassment or creating a hostile work environment.
Nor does it explain what the supermarket or movies have to do with it, unless you’re employees in those places.
I have had several accounts on Reddit. I rarely last more than a month before the hostility and deliberate obtuseness makes me check out. Most of my posts are in forums having to do with topics of non-interest to most MRAs, such as the cosmetics forum, but having any sort of female identity on Reddit eventually makes one the target of antagonistic behavior. Men will tell me to post my photos in the porn forums, that I deserve to get raped, blah, blah. Even the ones who don’t identify as Red-pillers or MRAs seem to have massive entitlement complexes and free-floating anger toward women. No topic that largely affects women–harassment, rape, catcalling, domestic abuse, whatever–can be discussed without dozens of men quoting statistics they pulled out their asses to “prove” that men are the victims in all of these situations. Then there is the trope that all women become desperate hags upon their 25th, 30th, 35th, etc. birthdays. In the “Ask Men” forum, there are almost daily posts asking men if it is okay to punch or hit a woman. The answer is almost invariably yes, from all posters who don’t get downvoted, replete with masturbatory fantasies of how these punching situations would play out.
Really, one can laugh at the MRAs and Red Pill guys on Reddit, but the scary thing to me is how their attitudes are common among the guys on there who wouldn’t associate with either group. The reasonable men who seem to have some empathy for women get downvoted whenever they speak up. It’s depressing because I like anonymous forums, but I don’t like being harassed merely for being female. And I apparently can’t have one without the other. My husband has been on Reddit for several years, and he has never experienced harassment or hostility. In fact, he says he doesn’t even see it.
I saw a post on Feministing and it made me think of this. Maybe the guy in the OP who is ‘afraid of women’ is the guy who pooped himself, especially since ‘going to the movies’ is a common thread in them both ;D
http://feministing.com/2014/06/05/guy-grabbed-my-chest-i-yelled-real-spooky-like-he-pooped/#more-82455
Thanks for sharing that, fromafar. I’ve had lots of weird harassment lately and am glad to hear a story where the offender gets some portion of what he deserves.
There is another regular commenter who has mouse in her name too. So there’s actually three of you. Looks like mice are an up and coming power in the furrinati!
That pooping story is literally one of the funniest things I have ever read.
And speaking of bodily functions, I was recently subject to the weirdest incident of street harassment ever. I was sitting on the tram reading my book with a totally ordinary-looking male stranger sitting across from me. He was leaning forward which was a bit uncomfortable but I ignored him and kept reading. Then he started burping. At first I felt a bit sorry for him because… you know, spontaneous bodily functions in public places can be embarrassing and this dude seemed to be having a belching fit on a semi-crowded tram.
But then he leaned further forward. So I sat further back and withdrew my legs. Then he leaned even more forward so that he was basically burping on my knees. At this point, everyone else in the carriage was steadfastly looking the other way. I still couldn’t tell if he was doing it deliberately or not, but nonetheless it was super gross, so I decided to defuse the situation by jumping off a few stops early.
But as I got off the tram, I heard a burp behind me. Even then, I was thinking, “OK, this is just a coincidence”, but then I realised he was following a few feet behind me. I stopped at the crosswalk, he caught up with me and leaned down and burped over my shoulder.
At this point, I was so terrified and grossed out that I bolted across the road, ran into the supermarket and wandered around until I was sure he was gone.
So that left me pretty shaken up, but what made me ANGRY was the reaction of two of my male friends when I told them the story.
One guy I told that evening after I got home, because I was freaked out and needed to talk to someone. His first question was so bizarre. He said: “That’s so weird… did you know him?”
As though I would be like, “Oh yeah, now that you mention it, he was actually a co-worker!”
And also as though that would somehow make it more acceptable? In-built was the assumption was that I had somehow misread the situation… like, instead of harassment, it was genuinely more likely that it might have been a male acquaintance playing a hilarious prank and I simply didn’t recognize him?
The second time I told it, I was in a bar and giving it more as a general “weird shit that has happened to me” framing rather than outright calling it harassment. Even so, one of my guy friends turned around to me and asked, “Why didn’t you stand up for yourself? Seriously, why didn’t you turn around and ask him what the hell he was doing?”
I remember just staring at him blankly and then asking him if he honestly did not understand why it might be a stupid idea for a 5’0″ woman to angrily confront a strange man who is following her after dark in a relatively deserted area?
He honestly did not understand.
Tinyorc,
That’s disgusting!
When my friend and I were teenagers we were flipping through CDs at a used music store (obviously this was during the 90’s).
This grown man came up behind us and farted. Then he told us that he likes to go to department stores and fart in the perfume section. He also asked us if we wanted to know what he ate to achieve this ability.
What the fuck is wrong with people?