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.
I’ve been harassed by one MoC – he looked like he was Somali or Ethiopian, perhaps – one Asian man, the rest white guys. That rather reflects how much Australia’s demographics have changed in my lifetime; all the earlier incidents (and I’ve had remarkably little harassment in my life) were white guys.
Apart from the persistent bully at my first workplace (and yay for my manager and his manager, both guys, who Stopped Him within five minutes of my reporting it) it was all low-level stuff, mostly irritating rather than threatening.
I still remember what my manager said that day. I was in tears, he went straight out to the creep’s manager, and when he came back said, sounding controlled-angry, “It won’t happen again.” It didn’t, either.
Wish I’d heard what they said to the jerk.
I’m from cleveland and in some places the bus stops were redesigned to be open overhangs. Less protection from the weather but not a place where a person can be easily trapped by one or more people like the enclosed ones that used to terrify me. Nothing ever happened to me in one but I realized the entrapped nature of the stop and no matter what the weather was I would stand outside it.
I don’t know if the redesign and the elimination of some shelters altogether ,had anything to do with safety though. I can attest that bus stops themselves just encourage idle chatter.
I once went to see an apartment space that scared the living Hell out of me. This was in Columbus about 20 years ago. The only thing I could think of when looking at it, was how many different places there were for some stranger to surprise me ,of which there were plenty. I was too frightened to even go look at the apartment, as just stepping into the courtyard made me feel horribly vulnerable. I felt like it was a place where lurkers were all but encouraged to be there. its been many years since then but I was wondering if you can design a public place to feel as unsafe as that place felt, then you can design public spaces that feel safer, as well…
I was also wondering that in certain public spaces with lots of women ,who do the harassers choose and why. My experience is that quite a few of them wait until you’re alone but this isnt always so as I’ve heard of women being yelled at or intimidated while in a group.
I think the only way for it to be avoided entirely is to never go outdoors or teach guys it’s not right but I was also wondering if public spaces can be designed in such a way that discourage that kind of behavior.
???? Kitten serf: I like to believe he told him that if he causes that company a lawsuit ,the money will come out of his pocket.
“If that woman comes and tells me “one mo’ gin” that you did something to her, you’re outta here.”
“[Not All] Redditors agree…”
LOL nice edit, David. XD
1029384756, so, you’re saying “Not All Redditors?”
Of course not all Redditors. My post doesn’t claim that all Redditors think like this. Heck, I use Reddit, so technically I’m a Redditor. It’s just sort of amazing that this guy got roughly 150 upvotes, last I checked. I’ve been on Reddit for years and I don’t think I’ve ever got that many upvotes for anything.
Yes, the headline was a teensy bit simplified, because the quote was already long and I have to keep the headlines shortish so they can be Tweeted. But I’ve corrected it for you now. Not All Redditors!
Brain bleach, yay for cute kittehs:
I chuckled at the revised title and now Redditors don’t have to nurse their hurt feelings publicly. That’s a win-win.
LOL!
It’s interesting to think about that, though: lawsuits weren’t really a thing in the public service here in the 1980s, and I’ve no idea what the harassment laws were like then (though I was aware that what the creep was doing was harassment, so there must have been a reasonable amount of public awareness: I was only 21). I don’t know if there was any legal comeback, which means it’s extra good on those two managers’ part to take it seriously.
But I bet they told him he’d be out on his arse.
Wow, my kittens would never sit still for that long!
It’s easy to forget that people like this exist since I am lucky enough not to interact with men like this much in real life. But the internet really puts it right in your face, and it’s mind-boggling how distant these guys are from reality. I’ve gone through many sexual harassment trainings as a supervisor, and as you say there’s nothing that resembles this guy’s claims in any legit training.
Ikeke: You’re from Cleveland? Me too (long time gone). I went to elementary school at the “The Mac” (church of the Immaculate Conception). My Grandmother’s place was around the corner (E45th and Superior).
It’s so interesting that I’ve never had anyone accuse me of sexual harassment. Nor have I ever been “made to feel rapey” (since apparently that’s a word now) “just for being male” or any other reason. I wonder why… Hmmm….. I guess this rash of women yelling “HARASSMENT!” Helter Skelter just to make men feel like baby-eating Nazi monsters simply for being men just hasn’t affected me for some reason. Or any of my male friends. Huh. Odd… Maybe it’s because, I don’t know, I treat other human beings with dignity regardless of their gender? Nahhhhh! Can’t be! No, it must be because I’m a “mangina.” (since that’s apparently a word now too) I guess all these women who want nothing more than to ruin the lives of every man they ever meet for no other reason than that they irrationally hate anyone who was born with a penis before they cut off said penis with a meat cleaver are just somewhere I’m not. I guess I have a constant one mile radius of no crazy man-hating misandrist lunatics around me for some reason. Must be my magical Green Lantern forcefield or something.
Because bitches be crazy, amiright, fellas? HEEEEYYYOOOOO!
…Or maybe it’s just extremely insecure man-children who would rather blame all women for their hateful bigoted insecurities than look in a mirror and take some responsibility for their own actions.
No, nevermind. Can’t be. Must be, um. Feminazis. Or misandrists. Because the first one is actually a thing and the second is something that happens with any sort of frequency at all. Yes… That must be it. Right…
Careful, Hezekiah! You’re having doubts about the truthy truthiness of Teh Menz!
More Red Pills, stat!
There are people who think about such things. I remember an urban designer talking about simple little things that can be done to cut down anti-social/ criminal behaviour in the UK. The two things I remember (this was yeeeears ago) were the design of rubbish bins and preventing small-ish corners from being used as public urinals.
1. Wheelie bins. A lot of people in Britain who live in those row houses hate having wheelie bins outside their back fences — it’s an open invitation for easy jumping into the back garden despite locking the back gate. Solution? Design bins with a sharply sloping lid so that there’s no stable surface to assist climbing or jumping.
2. People urinating in corners. Repave surfaces in such areas with sloping, cobbled topping. The slope means that people think twice for fear of splashbacks. The cobbles or similar uneven surfaces mean that it’s hard to keep your footing.
Simple. Easy. Imaginative. I’m pretty sure a person like this would come up with suggestions, even solutions, given half a chance. The big question is whether local and transport authorities would actually do anything about it. My suspicion is that they’d be much more amenable to a poster type campaign.
Flying Mouse: Good on you for getting out of that situation as well, there’s nothing worse than walking on those eggshells while you watch the clock. I just put this name in on the fly, it actually belongs to the very handsome fellow who was cuddled up with me while I was reading this post. In my lurking I noticed commenters here seem to like cute animal pictures, glad I can finally contribute http://imgur.com/a/JDrXK
AngryMouse, your namesake is adorable. But you knew that already. 🙂
Aaaw, lovely lap rat, AngryMouse.
Love the first pic, Angry Mouse – I always forget how large rats are. Angry Mouse the Original is a big chap!
“Commenters here seem to like cute animal pictures” – this gets my vote for WHTM Understatement of the Year. 😉
*pets little rattie’s nose* hi there little fella!
As for bus shelters…not on corners unless that side of it has a SOLID see through pane of plexiglass so you can see people coming before they clear the corner and spook you, well lit, at least some seating for those who need it, some variety of overhang that covers enough area to account for average use of the stop.
Or Pittsburgh could stop cutting its routes to places outside the golden triangle.
I’m picturing two sides, plexiglass, a bench or such, and your standard porch roof with lights in the apex (solar with the panels on the roof overhang?) Basically the current design, minus a side in the direction the bus is coming from, and with more of an overhang and lights. Garbage cans would also be nice.
My little off grid house design was spec’ed for Pittsburgh, do all the bus shelters with solar powered lights and the panels wired into the grid and you’d be creating more electricity than you used, almost certainly.
Angry Mouse, your not-so-angry rat is adorable!
Your story and Flying Mouse’s remind me far too much of how my mum finally escaped the creature that fathered me. I send you huge respect, and my kitty must want to send her love, as she just aggressively nuzzled my computer.
As for the harassment issue, I’ve been harassed by guys of every race and ethnicity, but the white guys are by far the worst. (For reference, I’m very white. Pallid and freckly and burns to a crisp in the sun. Sometimes I tease my Latina BFF that I’m going to suck some of her melanin one night so I can go outdoors in the summer…Then she hits me with a massive stuffed panda.) Second place goes to the Desi dudes, for some reason, with Native Canadians in a distant third. And my Persistent Flirt is black.
Persistent Flirt lives downstairs in my building, and we’re on friendly terms. He’s always polite, and fun to talk to. We’ve had some really good conversation just hanging on the front porch in the summer, and have each saved the other’s ass when accidentally locked out of the buliding. He’s smart, athletic, and super easy on the eyes. I can’t pretend that I haven’t given him the eye more than a couple of times. And he has a girlfriend. I might’ve taken him up on his suggestion of a bit of a booty call now and then if he didn’t. But he does, and so I keep turning him down. I’m not sure what else to do about him, except let things ride as they are, and remind him that he has a girlfriend every time he hits on me. What the hell?
The Melanin Vampire! :O
Gah, I hate that. “You might be into cheating, dude, but I’m not.”
I’ve been harassed by men of many different races. I have noticed that white women like myself will sometimes erase white men’s harassment by drawing on the unmarked quality of whiteness. When a white man behaves badly, We might say “I was harassed by some guy today,” but when the culprit is First Nations (for example) it’s instead “some Native guy harrassed me today,” as if race was a factor. This plays directly into harmful stereotypes of First Nations men.
AngryMouse deserves far more credit than I do. My asshole ex was emotionally abusive, but sexual stuff was off the table (he was immersed in an early version of the Christian Patriarchy movement, so we were saving it for marriage). He slowly ramped up the physical abuse while we were together; any trolls who slimed their way over from the Mankind Initiative thread should be interested to know that every time he grabbed me, it was always in public and nobody did a damned thing about it, including the time I was trying to get away from him during an argument and was shouting/crying at him to let go of me.
The main problem I had was that he was trying so hard to dominate my life and isolate me from everyone but him, and to a lesser degree his family. Any time I went out with friends, he either called me constantly in tears because I’d abandoned him for the night or he crashed the evening halfway through (one night he drove for an hour so that he could interrupt dinner with my BFF). If I had to do homework (I was a junior in college at the time), he’d sit next to me and distract me until I finally pretended that I needed him to leave so that I could sleep. He’d come to my work and wait for me to get done so that he could follow me home in his truck. If I stepped out of line he’d start lecturing me with Proverbs and passages from Romans and tell me that he’d be accountable for all of my sins before God, so I’d better get right (this did not gel with my own understanding of religion and personal responsibility, but I was a silly misguided girl, you see). The harder I fought to be my own person, the more he’d work to track my every move and the angrier he’d get when I’d refuse to defer to his judgement.
It dawned on me after about eight months that he was pretty much okay with doing anything he needed to do to keep me in my place. I had no idea exactly how far he’d go, and I didn’t want to stick around to find out. That’s when I started trying to ramp down the relationship. I was really scared that he’d seriously hurt me, and kind of scared that he might hurt himself to get me to “behave.” It took me months, but I finally got enough distance between us that I felt safe enough to tell him I was done. He still stalked me for about a month after that; he only stopped after my dad called him and said we were going to the police if he didn’t leave me alone (heh, I just realized now that he didn’t respect my cease and desist notices, but a call from the man who, in his view, had prior claim to me was enough to make him stop).
TL;DR – My ex was manipulative and spiritually and emotionally abusive, but I was lucky overall. AngryMouse is the real badass, I had it a lot easier.
Yikes, yeah, Flying Mouse, that bites.
It’s weird, because due to doing some Multi Dear Abby shit on the Internet, I found myself thinking of an old “friend” who was the first person we came out to, and later became multi herself. I was just randomly thinking about the toxic mess our relationship became (and it was WEIRD, seriously, I’d tell you the story for sheer entertainment value if it wasn’t so goddamn LONG) and I suddenly realized, “Oh, they were emotionally abusive.”
…it was really bizarre to realize that. And it was even weirder to realize that I considered that relationship ‘minor’ for me. The weirdest was realizing, dear god, I didn’t have a single healthy relationship offline that wasn’t with one of my system members until I was almost twenty-one!
Jesus. No wonder our system is so close-knit and so protective of each other…
I absolutely agree. Us men have plenty to be terrified of women in public places. You laugh now, but how many of you are afraid to leave your own homes by yourselves? At any moment, a woman could decide to creep-shame you, spermjack you, or worse! Personally, I nearly have panic attacks whenever I see a woman approaching me on the street. I always avoid them, and if they are coming towards me, I just run. That’s how I stay safe.
I’m sure there are plenty of guys just like me who know just how bad it is for us in today’s society thanks to feminism’s global anti-male agenda. We live in crippling fear every day that a woman could just up and destroy our lives like it is nothing.