So in my email inbox yesterday, alongside a nagging reminder from my dentist to schedule a checkup and my latest marching orders from the Gynocrat Central Committee, I noticed an email from an unknown correspondent with the intriguing subject line “The Holy War against Feminism.”
Clicking on it, I found an angry little manifesto from someone calling himself Mortago Black. It started off with a bold all-caps claim:
THE MENS REIGHTS REVOLUTION IS AT HAND.
The revolution will not be spellchecked.
But apparently, if Mr. Black has any say over things, it will be “liked” on Facebook: our manifesto-writer followed his bold headline with a link to a Facebook page – which, by the time I got around to looking at his email, had been taken down, probably because it contained stuff like, well, the rest of his manifesto.
Mr. Black continued:
The dawn of men’s rights revolution is fast approaching. We are rising to destroy the evil of modern day feminism. The lies, the bigotry, and the hatred of feminism must be erased from the surface of our earth.
We are sworn to our lives to wage a holy war of men’s rights against feminism.
Huh. You know, before starting this blog, I probably would have dismissed something like this as obvious trollery. But too many Men’s Rightsers talk exactly like this for me to assume it’s not for real. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be a troll, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if it was 100% real.
You will see my profile picture is the flag of the men’s rights revolution.
Wait, they have a flag now?
The 3 colors represent the heart and soul of our holy struggle:
You haven’t even specified what the “evil of modern-day feminism” consists of, and you’ve already moved on to the flag-describing stage?
Black: The black represents the darkness that is the evil of feminism. The shadow the oppression of feminist bigotry casts over the land, and the blackening of hearts against that which is good and just.
Ok, black = evil. No points for originality here.
Blue: The blue representatives man as society expects him to be, the role we have written for us, the character society forces us to play.
So, the Blue Pill? The Blue Pill is bad, right? Why are you giving 2/3 of the real estate on your flag to things you don’t like?
Red: The red represents the blood shed by fathers, husbands and sons of the past. It reminds us of the struggle and sacrifice we must be willing to make to destroy feminism.
Oy. Now I’m seeing why Facebook tried to nip your little revolution in the bud.
We shall cast this flag over the United States, and one day, over the world. We shall unshackle ourselves from the chains of feminist hate. We shall cleanse the world of this cancer, of this filth, of this plague, of this DISEASE that is feminism. We shall DESTROY those who seek to hurt us simply by virtue of birth. We shall ERADICATE the hatred and enemies of men.
Dude, hate to break it to you, but when you start talking about “cleansing the world” of the “disease” that is your enemy, you don’t sound much like Thomas Jefferson. You sound a lot more like the guy who wrote this:
[T]he discovery of the Jewish virus is one of the greatest revolutions that has taken place in the world. The battle in which we are engaged today is of the same sort as the battle waged, during the last century, by Pasteur and Koch. How many diseases have their origin in the Jewish virus! … We shall regain our health only be eliminating the Jew.
Yes, it was indeed Hitler who wrote that. Yes, I just compared you to Hitler. But you can’t call Godwin on me because you are LITERALLY USING A FASCIST TROPE.
If you find yourself, consciously or unconsciously, spouting rhetoric that sounds like you plagiarized it from Mein Kampf, I think you might just have to consider the possibility that, well, you might be the baddies.
Also, would it kill you to proofread your hate manifestos before you send them out?
EDIT: Added a bit more on the question of whether or not this is real or a troll, since I can’t tell.
I expect this document to be added to the sidebar of /r/theRedPill and /r/MensRights any day now, along with indignant comments from their subscribers about how the sidebar literature isn’t representative of the movement and that we’re taking things out of context once somebody mentions it.
A misogynist flag that’s the color of bruises and blood? Sounds about right.
“A misogynist flag that’s the color of bruises and blood? Sounds about right”
Huh, black, blue and red, I never even made that connection. Seems oddly appropriate for them.
David, can we assume that nowhere in this document is there any indication that the person knows anything about feminism?
weirwoodtreehugger: An excellent observation.
Anyone else feel like you had to wipe the spittle from your eyes after reading that? Just me? Anyone? Bueller?
Add white and you have the colors of the leather pride flag. Theirs has a cute little heart though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leather_Pride_flag
The “evil” and the “lies” are never actually spelled out, nor does the author of this screed make it clear how men have shed their blood over the “disease” of feminism. It’s almost as if the writer is just bitter, angry and bigoted and even he doesn’t know why. All he can communicate is his hate and his fantasy of a Mistogynist Reactionary Movement that gains enough popularity to turn violent and terrorize women back in to their “proper place”. He does sound like a Neo Nazi who is sure the race war’s a come’n any day now and just cannot understand that even casually racist white people think he’s an evil, out of touch, asshole.
I predict that Dean or JB will interpret that as proof positive you’re on the gynocracy payroll.
Sadly, the only thing surprising about that manifesto is that Facebook put the kibosh on it.
And they wonder why they get called a hate movement…
@damselindetech the spittle was nasty. Fortunately I wear glasses.
Several MRAs in the Raw Story comment section have recently claimed that feminists secretly want to kill all men. They really believe or want people to think they believe that women’s equality = the destruction of men. They remind me of forced birthers who make claims about female bodily autonomy = “killing babies”. It’s an excuse to justify and encourage violence toward women and their allies.
Meanwhile, it’s clear that MRAs engage in rape apology, harassment denial and victim blaming because even if they are not rapists or want to be free to rape themselves, they understand that the fear of rape and other misogynistic abuse prevents women from being as active in society and as independent as they would be if they did not live under the threat of rape, violence and harassment.
BTW, another woman has been successfully harassed into silence. https://twitter.com/CousinDangereux
She mad the mistake of talking about sexism in gaming and to show just how not sexist the gaming community is, gaming bros harassed her and told her she should die.
I kind of wish facebook had left the page up. Morally repugnant crack-pottery like this should be left in plain sight and not shuffled off to dark corners of the web to fester unseen. People have to see that this kind of rhetoric is more common than they think, so when misogynists go off and hurt people they can’t be written off “madman” and “lunatics.” Too much of the stuff in Manosphere forums is just a grade or two shy of this manifesto.All of it dehumanizes and essentializes women and their allies. And when you’ve convinced yourself that someone isn’t human, it’s much easier to treat them as such.
Save the Queen: The flip-side argument is that getting Twitter, Facebook, etc to lock these sorts of cretins down helps to establish a line of unacceptable conduct. Of course, we’re a long way from there–for one thing, even the social media sites with policies don’t always enforce them very well. I think the better approach (though more labor-intensive) is to continue to call for the sites to be taken down, but ALSO to grab screen-shots so that they can be displayed during discussions like the one you describe.
One of the best Mitchell and Webb sketches. Hilariously relevant.
Freemage: I agree with your last point; that’s probably the best way to deal with these situations. I think it’s important that mainstream sites not legitimize horrible ideologies, to come and make a statement about what is acceptable behavior on their spaces. What I’d like to see some of the mainstream sites do is what David does – mock the holy hell out of really harmful discourse.It would be a kind of rogue’s gallery that shows the worst of the worst with the message “See this shit? Don’t leave this shit on our site.” It doesn’t feed into the persecution complex of morally-challenged individuals because they get to say their piece but there’s a clear message of repudiation that says “you suck.”.Of course, this is even more work than just zapping a page and taking a screenshot. I’m probably altogether idealistic.
**Errr last part should say “too idealistic.”
Some of these sentences are vague in the best way. For example:
I’m not sure erasure from the face of the earth is language I would use, but I’m glad to see you’re opposed to the hatred of feminism!
I sincerely hope you do!
Maybe he meant to spell “Men’s Reich Revolution”.
So, if someone calling themselves a feminist (someone no one had ever heard of and was using a pseudonym and not even showing their face) wrote a psychotic manifesto and sent it in to AVFM, would it be fair to take that and paint the entire feminist movement with it? Anyone could have sent that, just like anyone could be making moronic comments on reddit.
See, when we go after people, it’s actual notable leaders and actual violent protesters and we TELL THE TRUTH. When you guys go after leaders and recognizable activists you always, always distort what really happened. The only time you don’t have to twist the facts to make someone look stupid or malicious it’s always some random commenter or some anonymous wackjob.
For example, the guy from Men’s Rights Melbourne was not “one of Australia’s most visible activists”. I never saw his face, did you? Have you been to his website lately? Check it out, it’s gone.
Another example; when we caught those two women tearing down our posters (which were NOT pictures of Lise Gotelle and WERE posted on authorized poster kiosks, both of which you lied about) I did not “stalk” or “harass” ANYONE. I asked them why they were tearing down our posters and after not getting a response besides the middle finger, we left them.
Hey Dave, can you put http://www.mensrightsedmonton.com on your boobroll? Thanks, bud.
-Nick Reading
Men’s Rights Edmonton
OMG a fucking flag?
David, please tell me you saved a copy of the flag? I wanna see what was surely another graphic design trainwreck.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that typo was a Freudian slip. It’s too accurate to be a coincidence.
Yup. By claiming that genocide is the goal of feminism, they can convince themselves that their desire to harm women is justified because “she started it”. It’s playground justice, writ large.
Lea wrote:
Wikimedia Commons has a whole selection of similarly-coloured flags. East Frisia, who knew?
Okay! That photo in the article is hilarious! Especially the “Joy Jitney”.
I’m going to start calling my minivan by that title. It’s too small to be a train and I like people, in theory, so the “Hate Bus” is out.
Did the flag colour description get the Red and Black song from Les Miserable stuck in anyone else’s head?
This “manifesto” has to be another 4Chan troll.
Proof-reading is misandry.
My fav is the polyamory flag.