Oh she knew how bad she just got burned. Can't you see it in her reply? She was /seething./ pic.twitter.com/hsjqhn3X6Q
— MenOnStrike🚫 (@MenOnStrike) August 11, 2014
Another victory for Men’s Rights activism!
The guy who posted this was so proud of his work here that he pinned this Tweet to the top of his Twitter home page.
Naturally, he went after Jessica Valenti for the same, er, crime.
This coming from the "I bathe in male tears" woman? Did Robin Williams tears feel extra special to you? @JessicaValenti
— MenOnStrike🚫 (@MenOnStrike) August 12, 2014
MRAs are so convinced that feminists hate men that when feminists express their genuine sorrow about a man’s suicide it doesn’t occur to MRAs to perhaps reconsider some of their beliefs about feminism. No, they’d rather use it as an excuse to attack individual feminist women.
Speaking of which, here’s how the folks at A Voice for Men are mourning the death of Robin Williams — with a supremely nasty and opportunistic attack on Valenti.
More on Valenti in a bit.
So they think it’s fine to use someone’s suicide as an ineffective attempt at Gotcha moments? And they think women are the ones treating men’s lives as disposable? I can’t even begin to understand the cognitive dissonance behind that.
I think what drives me craziest about the MRM is that they have legitimate concerns, but they do absolutely zero about them. Worse, they hurt worthy causes such as getting men into mental health programs. One of the girls in my DBT therapy group pointed out that there were no males at all in either ours or the other group the center runs. Borderline supposedly affects women more than men, sure, but one wonders if the fact that it’s a disorder dealing with intense emotions that men are socialized not to express has anything to do with the numbers on that. Borderline deals with high impulsivity as well, and suicide is often an impulsive act. I’ve seen many males disparaging women with Borderline Personality Disorder on those deplorable forums of theirs; they are hurting their own cause and blaming women for it. It’s such obvious cognitive dissonance I want to shove their noses in it like a dog who messed in the house.
http://en.webfail.com/855852d8b8b
P.S. For my fellow depression sufferers, read this. It’s amazing.
Oh, Ryeash. That’s actually beautiful. I had a really bad time a few weeks ago and a good friend said something like this to me when I told him how weak I felt. I think it carried me through it all.
Fuck you, cosmicrays. Misogynist’s inability to get a joke is not any woman’s fault. I’m sick of people blaming women for men’s shortcomings. ”
Fuck you.
Fuck you.
and of course,
Fuck. You.
BTW, misogynist scum reading this:
Robin Williams was a feminist. He was a great big lefty progressive and a feminist. He’d have laughed his ass off at you not getting the “male tears” joke. He wasn’t one of yours. He was one of ours. Stop using his tragic death to try to hurt the people who admired him and felt an emotional connection to him. If he were still here, he’d mock you mercilessly. Since he’s not, the rest of us will. We may not have his comic genius, but we’ll do our best to make fun of you being the worst.
MenOnStrike: “Feminists never care about male suicide! So I’m going to shame you and berate you, feminist, for caring about a man’s suicide!” If he actually believed that feminists don’t care about male suicide, and that this is a morally problematic thing that should change, the “solution” he’s selected here is going to be the opposite of effective.
@cosmicrays
If you’re trying to make sense, you’ve failed. The protection of the comfort and tender feelings of privileged groups is not a high priority for many social activists, and it’s quite problematic to suggest that it should be. There is a logical problem in expecting the feelings of privileged groups to be privileged on the grounds that those people are already privileged, and it’s not even efficacious to go that route. Social change does not happen when the people who benefit from the status quo are completely comfortable and unchallenged in their comfort.
I also ??? at your characterization of the people you’re defending as “dummies.” Perhaps you can explain why Valenti deserves to be abused because she didn’t bow and scrape for the benefit of dummies.
Isn’t it just? It helps to remember that we really aren’t weak; it’s our brains rebelling against us telling us stuff like that, and we’re literally doing battle with ourselves every step of the way. I have Bipolar I on top of the Borderline, so I’m no stranger to fighting my own chemicals. It gets so tiring, and seeing how it affects the people you love the most makes suicide seem almost heroic. Then you have people like these men telling you you’re weak or even evil, and it’s hard not to internalize stuff like that. But we’re not weak. We’re not evil. We’re motherfucking warriors, and we’ll go down swinging if we go down at all.
*hugs* for days, and luck to you with your battles. Sounds like you have at least one supportive friend, and sometimes that’s all it takes.
jbgarner58,
No. I never cease to be amazed by their douchebaggery.
I’ve run into this quote before, but it was never a feminist who said it. It was MRAs. They ended up saying that women who die from their attempts were not meaning to die.
MenOnStrike might want to do some research on RW before determining that his suicide and mental health issues are the fault of feminism or divorce courts. Robin was already addicted to cocaine at the beginning of his first marriage. His bipolar disorder probably predated the marriage. He also had abandonment and self-esteem issues that started in his childhood. Maybe, instead of jumping to ridiculous conclusions, MenOnStrike should spend time learning about the science behind mental illness and the man whose life ended because of it.
For a time I worked at a suicide hotline and there was one thing that they stressed through training and I saw time & again on the phone is that suicide is not a spur of the moment decision. It is most of the time a thought through action, A fair amount of time in the person’s mind what they are doing not only makes sense but is also the merciful thing to do for the people around them. A scary large amount of men who I spoke to on the phone didn’t want to talk to me because as a female I “just wouldn’t understand their life”. Unfortunately at that time most volunteers were female so while we tried our bests to make sure they could talk to men that wasn’t always possible at any given time. And believe me that fact weighed heavy on the mind of everyone that volunteered.
Saying that suicide is weak, selfish, “girly”, stupid helps no one and only makes those in the position feel worse. If you are truly concerned about decreasing the number of people who end their lives support help for people. Work to decrease the stigma of mental illness & depression. Stop the call to “man up”, not take the “wussy/pussy way out”. Increase the ability of everyone, no matter their gender to get non judgmental help.
Anytime someone, no matter their gender ends their life it is a heartbreaking tragedy. Instead of using it as a soapbox to point out how you think feminists are hypocrites and this is your ultimate gotcha take some time to make a difference in this world to make it a more supportive world.
But of course that would take you away from your keyboard vigilantism so what am I thinking? Why should you do something when the evil feminists in your mind aren’t doing anything to help men? /sarcasm/
Off topic (slightly), sorry, but have you guys seen this?
http://www.alternet.org/gender/look-inside-infamous-mens-rights-movement
I know I’ve said this here before, but…
Even if a suicide attempt were just a bid for attention, isn’t it better for the person to get that attention than it is for them to die? If someone craves attention so badly that they’re willing to risk their own death to get it, then by all the gods they need some fucking attention and others should give it to them. If they’re already getting attention but feel they need more, then something about the attention they’re getting isn’t working and the situation needs to be re-examined. Either way…just give them some damn attention! Find out what’s wrong!
Humans are social creatures. We need attention from other humans, as much as we need food and water and sleep. When did this culture decide that “wanting attention” was a moral failing?
Brain bleach
Actually, I would go one further, and say that it’s a strange and poor aspect of our culture that “wanting attention” is framed as being a bad thing. What’s wrong with wanting attention? The way some people go about attracting attention is bad, but the badness is in the manner of their actions, not in the motive.
There is a gendered aspect to this, as boys are rarely smacked down on the grounds that they “just want attention” whereas girls experience this from both authority figures and peers (the boys may be smacked down on other grounds, such as being disruptive). Then when the boys and girls grow up into women and men, they retain these lessons. Even though adult men who act out “for attention” are sometimes reprimanded, they don’t have the ingrained idea that getting attention for themselves is, innately, a bad thing that women do.
Girls/women are “attention whores” while boys/men are “class clowns” or “the life of the party.”
I assume the empathy removal procedure also results in the inability to understand statistics, poor reading comprehension, a host of cognitive biases, Reddit argument syndrome (YOU USED A FALLACY SO I WIN) and a crippling fear that feminists are going to steal your videogames
A Wolverine
I can see that on a brochure:
Empathy removal
Are you tired with caring about people and just have to… You know…care? Well with this new procedure all your love and empathy will be taken away
May cause: lack of logic, inability to understand logic and statistics, poor reading comprehension, paranoia, anger, depression, hate, lack of understanding others, lost of humor, not finding baby animals cute and just not giving a ****
I don’t think it’s so much lack of logic per se so much as always starting from false premises, which tends to come from cherry-picked data and the inability to deal with data that doesn’t agree with whatever conclusion they’ve already come to. All feminists want to kill all men because of one rather tasteless Jezebel article several years ago and Valerie Solanas 40 years ago. Feminists don’t care about male suicide so whenever they seem to care about male suicide they are obviously being hypocritical.
One of the nastier aspects of human character, which seems to be much more prevalent (gross understatement) in males of whatever age, is the tendency to ridicule any signs of weakness and build up one’s own ego by kicking people when they are down.
Ryeash: Thanks, hun. I’m finally working through the hangover of an abusive relationship (on top of already living with depression) and this friend is one of the few people who knows the details. He knows what to say when I don’t.
And you’re right. This is a battle and we won’t go down easily. People who commit suicide don’t either. Robin Williams fought for so long. He made it to his 60s when some of us don’t make it past our twenties. Losing him is just so sad and awful, but we should always celebrate everyone trying or who tried their best to live in this world.
Hugs and solidarity to you too! x
PRECISELY!
{read, enthusiastic agreement}
One of the accusations leveled at self-injurers is that they do it for attention. This is not usually true, but if someone needs attention badly enough to slice themselves open for it, they really ought to be given some fucking attention. Maybe a better way of getting that attention as well.
@ ryeash, that poster IS amazing…Gotta figure out who all I need to forward a link to that to.
Sort of yes, sort of no. You don’t “get used to” it, you learn to live with it. You’re constantly disappointed, rarely surprised, but often shocked.
This barrel has no bottom. They can always go lower. Even when you think “they’ve done it this time”, they always come up with something worse.
This bullshit comes as no surprise to me. For a supposed activist movement, I have yet to see these chucklefucks show any care for anyone, except as a club to hit other people they don’t like. It’s regular as clockwork with them.
To some degree, yes? I mean, after a point, all my ability to process pure terror is spent, and I’m left with a kind of blissful nothing. A side bonus is that the hilariously misogynistic, stupid crap some people I’m around say just seems so much less insulting because I know these dudes on the internet who are worse.
Honestly, I think the awareness of MRA’s is a net positive in my life. It gets me the Mammoths, and it nicely concentrates all the tremendous fuckshitarghshitfucknoohgodwhyhelpitburns into one neat little package that never ceases to feel like a hundred burning bees percolating through my skeleton.
Which means it frees up all my energy for other things!
@jbgarner58, hi, have a Welcome Package!
On getting used to MRA craptitudes … for me, I’ve been here a couple of years and yeah, on this level I’m used to it. They don’t really surprise me any more; it there’s a way of hating women, they’ll find it. It pretty much confirms what I’d long thought about misogynists anyway.
But it’s filtered by what David chooses to write about and the supportive mockery of the regulars (plus kitties, knitting, general conversation, etc, etc … ). I don’t think I’d get used to it if I read it at the source, and I don’t know how David manages it.