Men’s Rights Activists continue to make strategic use of the media attention they’ve gained as a result of the Elliot Rodger killings. Yesterday, Al Jazeera America ran an interview with A Voice for Men’s “US News Director” Robert O’Hara in which he touched upon numerous important Men’s Rights issues, like the fact that he doesn’t hate women because his mother is one, and how it was totally an amazing publicity coup for AVFM to be singled out as a misogynistic hate site by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Let’s look at some highlights from his Q and A. (The block quotes are direct quotes from the man, the legend, himself.)
Men aren’t having a giant patriarchy party all the time:
The idea of male entitlement is almost entirely a fabrication of feminist ideology. The idea that men kind of run the show – this patriarchy theory – and that we’re having a big huge party at the expense of women is really a hateful idea.
I don’t have the statistics with me but I’m totally sure that rape almost never happens:
We hear all these silly lies: there’s a rapist behind every corner; all men are potential rapists. …
I don’t have the exact statistics with me right now, but you’ll see it’s usually around 2 percent of women in their lifetime will have some kind of problem with sexual assault. …
[T]his whole rape things has been used by feminists to garner political power, lots of it, and money. The whole thing has been used as a scam.
(O’Hara’s claim about the rareness of rape was such a whopper that Al Jazeera felt obligated to note that a recent large-scale study by the Centers for Disease Control found that one in five women in America had experienced rape or attempted rape. Not one in fifty.)
When feminists talk about rape it apparently causes homophobia or unhealthy gay sex or something:
There’s no doubt that male sexuality has been demonized in our culture. And that’s a real shame. I think that inhibits a lot of men’s sexuality to the extent where it’s not healthy – especially homosexuals, especially gay men.
The Southern Poverty Law Center is totally irrelevant and besides they did us a favor by calling us hateful:
The SPLC, they’re not a credible organization, not like they once were. And I think the whole this of them listing us, or targeting us as a hate group didn’t work out too well for them. It worked out much better for us [in terms of publicity] than it did for them.
All you need is love:
I love women. My mom is a woman. … What I do not like is that we live in a culture and in a legal environment where if you do choose to have a relationship with a woman, it makes things very complicated and oftentimes dangerous.
Great job, Bob! Another flawless victory for the Men’s Rights Movement!
All mocking aside, I have found video proof of this last claim. Marriage can be very dangerous for men. Heck, they don’t even have to be the one getting married.
Just found out about this, what a nice surprise for that couple: http://www.buzzfeed.com/jimdalrympleii/hero-who-stopped-seattle-shooter-has-his-wedding-registry-an
I wonder how Randy the guinea pig will be able to keep up with those child support payments. I’m sure the evil gynocratic court system will bring him to financial ruin.
They’ll charge more for the female children coming into the animal park, because it was totes obvs. a feminazichild that caused the problem in the first place.
They would have received a terrorist phone call of a soft high-pitched voice going baa, baa, baa, which was clearly the work of the feminazi animal liberation army. Then the whole Bay of guinea Pigs alarm occurred.
A guinea pig named Sooty did the same sort of thing back in 2000, except he got into a pen with only 24 females and they found him the next morning. Apparently he slept for two days afterwards.
Right. Bob doesn’t hate women, and I am the Queen of England.
I’m kind of surprised Paul turfed this job out.
Sarcasm warning.
@daintydougal – Silly. Of COURSE those “silly lies” have EVERYTHING to do with turning men gay. Here is how it goes: Men, the poor darlings, are gifted (or burdened) with the godly sexy power Penis Imperative, you see, and if they cannot rape freely, their Saintly Penis Power backs up and explodes. To avoid this terrible consequence, they must turn gay.
Of course, once they can rape freely again and not be attacked with those evil and silly lies, they will turn back into the penis-wielding Studly God-men that is their true and holy nature.
And now I have even less respect for the MRA’s then I ever had before. Bleah!
I didn’t interpret his quote as saying that anti-rape campaigns turn men gay. Instead, be seemed to be saying that men’s sexuality is repressed by the feminist overlords and as a result of that men, especially gay men, are harmed. I would guess he’s suggesting that it’s something to do with having large numbers of sexual partners being more desirable to the average man than the average woman and that desire being stalled on by those terrible anti-promiscuity feminists? Oh, I don’t know. Trying to get inside these people’s heads to even be able to follow their sentences is pretty miserable. No wonder they’re all so angry if they live there.
be = he
stalled = inhibited
Damn autocorrect…
I’m astounded that someone can live in the real world and believe this, or expect anyone else in the real world to believe it. I’m sure the sky is a beautiful color where Robert lives.
I think that inhibits a lot of men’s sexuality to the extent where it’s not healthy – especially homosexuals, especially gay men.
FEMINISM MADE ME GAY!
Also, I really, really wish I’d never hear someone defend themselves by saying “they LOVE [x].” My rapist “loved” me. Willing to bet the primary child-molester in my family “loved” his kids. It’s incredibly common for terrible people to claim they love the people they hurt most, because they want to induce confusion in their victims.
It’s why I like to use Bell Hooks’s definition: “Love is a combination of care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust.” It might mean there are some people you “should” love but don’t, but it makes things a lot more honest. You have have deep affection and a long-standing relationship with someone, and not love them.
RE: emilygoddess
Would a parent who isn’t a woman identify as a mother?
I know a genderqueerish trans guy who identifies as his son’s mother. It happens. Some trans guys who give birth to children see themselves as the kid’s father. It differs from person to person.
RE: cloudiah
The founder of /r/MensRights repeatedly misgendered him the other day, purposefully.
I am sooooo shocked.
RE: grumpycatisagirl
I’m astounded that someone can live in the real world and believe this, or expect anyone else in the real world to believe it.
Welcome to male privilege, where rape is something that happens far away from you and you don’t need to know shit about it, and people will STILL take you seriously.
On a completely irrelevant note– I love that vintage horror comics panel and wonder who drew it (it looks a bit like Basil Woolverton’s work to me but I’m not sure).
Yes, Chua are from WildStar. My point here is that they’re effectively an entire race of what we’d call sociopaths. They’re totally self-centered, and at best unconcerned with the suffering of others and at worst actively enjoy it. They are effectively incapable of understanding other perspectives: early on when playing an Aurin or Mordesh, one enemy chatter for some NPC Chua enemies is seemingly earnestly recommending you try burning down trees because it’s so fun — even though Aurin are closely tied to nature, and some were living in said trees and were trapped when they were set on fire. This… Reminds me a lot of MRAs in general and some of the quotes here in particular.
However, Chua tend to be genuinely knowledgeable and enthusiastic about science and technology, while MRAs tend to only pretend to know about them, and often come across less as genuinely enthusiastic about them than going for them because they think men are supposed to be inherently awesome at it, and evil women hopeless at them because of their defective ladybrains.
If the best thing you can say about women is that your mother was one…*throws up hands i disgust*
If the best thing you can say about women is that you like to have sex at them….*runs away screaming*
—I hope this won’t be interpreted as spamming. I originally misposted this in the most recent AVfM conference thread.
Since when did the SPLC become “not credible?”
It was when they called attention to AVFM and the manosphere’s hateful misogynistic ideology, wasn’t it?
And by “not credible,” O’Hara means “we don’t like that the SPLC called us out on our hateful misogynistic ideology,” right?
Funny how that works.
And the only way anyone can think that:
…is if they are a flat out rape apologist. Every credible study up to and including the CDC one has the figure at about 20-25%.
There’s been a running shtik at Andrew Sullivan’s blog about the threat to masculinity. Apparently, decrying ‘toxic masculinity ‘ is a necromantic rite that summons Valerie Solanas the Lich Queen to cut off all male penises (penes?). The idea that there might be such a thing as NONtoxic masculinity is akin to dividing by zero.
Did Gareth on The (British) Office once say, “How can I hate women? My mother’s a woman!” That line was already being parodied years ago, is what I’m saying. I’m kind of amazed that someone is still actually saying it without a trace of irony.
Misogynistic menfolk always reassure us that they “love women.” But by “women” they only mean women who fall within a spectrum of desirable behaviors, attitudes, and looks. If you’re not silent when not agreeing, always pleasant and pleasing, and ready to offer up a sandwich or sex, then you’re not the kind of woman they “love.” Then you get called something else and they cannot “love” you. The saddest part to me is that, to be the kind of woman that these MRA-types can “love,” means that you are also likely the kind of woman they will hurt, as “woman” in this context doesn’t really mean “human.” And the moment you step into “human” behaviors, like getting angry, then you are no longer the kind of woman they can “love.” It’s a bit of a catch-22, really. Such an inability to truly love women as fully human beings is also sad for these men, as they don’t get to experience the depth of connection one can have with another person. In this, I am speaking from my own experience.
I can’t help but be reminded of James Taranto (the pile of enteric effluvia) who, after a stream of woman-hating commentary, affirmed that he “loves women,” verifying such “love” by noting he can be called “Tarantosaurus Sex.” (ick) The immediate association of “love” and “sex” is quite telling.
Aside from all of that, hello! I’m new…well, new to YOU. I’ve been enjoying this blog and the amazingly warm, witty, and wise (yay for alliteration!) commentary provided by this community for a good while now. David and the commentators are all manner of fabulous.
As a non-binary person with a uterus, I’m relatively comfortable with the term mother (mostly because explaining anything to people who don’t really need to know is annoying), but it’s always a personal choice and I wouldn’t call a trans man a mother unless he requested the title. I became a parent while I was still struggling with my identity, so for me ‘mom’ predated a lot. That said, there’s a lot of gendered baggage to the word ‘mother’ that I get tagged with, and could really do without. I really hate the ‘but you’re a mom!’ argument when I’m in a situation where I have to explain I’m agendered. Ugh.
MRAs don’t consider those credible studies. Don’t forget, science is misandry!
Looks like the MRA douchebags noticed a respectable newspaper covered them and decided to spam the hell out of its comment section, in the Al Jazeera article.
Honestly, if I were ever forced to give birth (I can’t imagine willingly choosing that kind of financial trainwreck), I would probably ID as the kid’s father. I sure as hell ain’t a mother! I’m just unfortunately the possessor of an organ that can grow small people in it.
I think, were I ever forced to gestate, I’d call myself the Host Organism.
But I’ve seen Aliens too many times.
For the forseeable future, for the moment I would call myself the patient at the abortion clinic…
Mind you, part of that is because I’m not interested in men to begin with, so it’d probably be the product of rape…
Melissia, same here. I’m only interested in one man, but even if then*, nope, not breeding.
*It can’t happen, but even if it could, I mean.