If the Men’s Rights movement is looking for a celebrity endorser, I think I’ve found just the guy for them: the mixed martial arts fighter, and erstwhile porn actor, War Machine, currently sitting in jail on charges of brutally beating and attempting to kill his ex-girlfriend, porn star Christy Mack.
Men’s Rights activists should be able to look past these criminal charges; after all, as they remind us all the time, women are forever falsely accusing innocent men of all sorts of terrible things.
And in so many ways War Machine is perfect for them. An MMA fighter, he’s already only one letter away from being an MRA. A misogynistic asshole with rage issues, he’ll have no trouble fitting in with the Men’s Rights crowd. And, especialy important for a movement that has a lot of trouble getting any good PR, he’s a bit more comfortable on camera than the Paul Elams and Dean Esmays of the world, with experience on television (on the reality show The Ultimate Fighter: Team Hughes vs. Team Serra), and in seven films (albeit pornographic ones).
Best of all: he’ll need no ideological education from what A Voice for Men likes to call Fuck Shit Up University. War Machine – real name Jonathan Koppenhaver – is already an outspoken proponent of many of the Men’s Rights Movement’s core beliefs.
Consider these selections from a little Men’s Rights manifesto War Machine wrote a few years ago during a previous stint behind bars, serving time for felony assault after two bloody bar fights. His rant, which a friend posted to the internet, would fit right in with the sort of stuff we’ve seen regularly posted on the Men’s Rights subreddit, or The Spearhead, or A Voice for Men. I’ve bolded some of the Men’s Rightsiest bits:
The oppression of MEN is worse than oppression of Jews in Nazi germany, worse than the slavery of Blacks in early America…
There has always been the oppressor and always the oppressed. Before, it was blatant … NOW the oppressor has learned to disguise his evil. You can see man, but you can not see MEN. How easy it is to oppress a minority that is invisible to the eye! How genius of the oppressor! And what a better target too! …
Men challenge injustice from Government, MEN fight for their Constitutional rights, that are slowly being taken away every year. …
And they don’t just oppress us by making more laws and taking away more freedom, they are far more clever than that! Ask yourself what your REAL dream was?? If you gave up on this dream, why? Because of the brainwashing of the Government, that’s why! They taught you to “play it safe.” They told us a responsible man has ONE wife, a house, good credit, good job, and kids. How are you supposed to chase your dreams while maintaining all of that!?
Men are supposed to take risks and be aggressive! What accomplishments have ever come of a man scared to risk it all!? None!? Where would the world be? Still ‘flat!’ Still ‘Earth at the center of the universe!’
If any of you have your Men’s Rights Bingo cards out, I’m guessing you might already be close to scoring a bingo. We’ve got a comparison to slavery that could have come straight from the pages of A Voice for Men, a marriage-is-death-to-male-dreams rant that could have been borrowed from any MGTOW forum, and an evo-psych-esque argument that men are the true risk-takers and the world’s real innovators.
And I don’t think War Machine would have much trouble with Paul Elam’s “Bash a Violent Bitch Month,” either.
[I]t’s Christmas day and I’m laying in my bunk wondering “Why in the hell do American men get married!?” … If your wife is being a bitch you can’t slap her, if your wife is yelling at you, God forbid you yell back … Next thing you know it will be illegal to fuck your wife! LMAO! Maybe then, MEN in this country will get the fucking hint and MOVE! This country forces you to be a bitch!
In another online posting, War Machine touched on another Men’s Rights hobbyhorse, the notion that the justice system is stacked against men:
[L]ook at the prisons, they are FULL of MEN, not women. Are men “evil” and women not? Or do the laws target and attempt to restrict NATURAL MEN’S BEHAVIOR? How many of the HEROES in American history would avoid prison if they lived today? Davey Crockett? Thomas Jefferson? David Bowie? General Grant & General Lee? Shit, George Washington. … Laws target MEN and men’s behavior. Women want to bitch and cry about their rights and equality… LMAO! MEN are the ones locked away like animals, while women run free!
Someone might have to explain to War Machine that David Bowie is not actually a famous American HERO but a famously androgynous British musician who once recorded an album called “Heroes.” (Mr. Machine may be thinking of James Bowie, a well-known 19th century American frontiersman and slave trader, and the guy the Bowie Knife is named after.)
But other than that, he seems ready to go.
There is, of course, that whole attempted murder charge to deal with.
It’s true the Men’s Rights Movement has had few problems in the past rallying behind men with histories of violence. But War Machine might be a harder sell as a Men’s Rights hero. His alleged attack on Mack left her with a cracked rib, a ruptured liver, numerous broken bones, missing teeth and her eyes swollen shut. (See here for photos of her injuries; obviously this link is NSFW and could be triggering.)
While Mr. Machine denies attacking Mack, he joked to a TV host last year that if she were to leave him “I would just kill her” and get a tattoo saying “Rest In Peace” above the tattoo of her name he has on his neck.
And several hours after allegedly trying to murder her, War Machine tweeted this lovely message about his ex:
https://twitter.com/WarMachine170/statuses/497663075831787521
War Machine does seem to be at a low point in his life. Even aside from the charges he faces, and the time he seems likely to serve, his career in porn is almost certainly over. The “Alpha Male” clothing line he helped start wants nothing to do with him. Nobody but the prison system seems to want this guy.
In other words: Men’s Rights activists, this is your chance! War Machine may not be the, er, hero you want. But he’s certainly the hero you deserve.
@daintydougal
I’m sorry you felt like that. I mean, no matter what happens to anybody, things could always have been worse right? That doesn’t mean what does happen doesn’t matter. I am sure you know this already, but I think it’s worth saying – it’s ok to care about your own problems, and want to spend your energy on fixing them. That’s not the same as saying yours are the worst problems, or that no one else has problems (à la the misters). Wanting to talk about your experiences is not the same as talking over other people, or silencing them, especially not here where it’s about misogyny in general, not transmisogyny specifically.
I’m pretty sure I tried to step in and stop that specifically from happening on at least one recent occasion, where someone specifically said that there was an experience they wanted to talk about but they were afraid that if they did they’d upset or offend Ally, and that? Is not acceptable. People should feel able to share bad stuff that’s happened to them without prefacing it with “and I’m sure it’s much worse for you and so this is probably not such a big deal”, especially when the thing they want to complain about is caused by misogyny, which is what this site exists to point out.
@gillyrosebee Aaaaaaaaand it didn’t post. That’s okay. Clicky on the blue there, you won’t be sorry. Totally SFW, unless you go “aaawwwwww” too loudly or the cute makes your brains liquefy or something.
Of course, the animal you just pictured is a far more relentless and violent predator than a ray. Just saying…
I think the reason that kitty pic didn’t post was because it was an https. Just testing to see if it works without the S.
http://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/s720x720/10429388_637691856344045_3980605061228546415_n.jpg?oh=d41236522a218e6ba46be01c569723e1&oe=5463694F&__gda__=1415657897_4272ab3dde67c32268f0430dc321f659
nope…
maybe it’s just a facebook thing and wordpress can’t process that kind of URL. The URL doesn’t work without the variables after the jpg.
@ hippodameia8527
Ding! Ding! Ding!
@hippodamia8527
That was in 2008 for me.
I was never involved in Shakesville – I only read it occasionally. It was way too grim and humourless for me, which, btw, pretty much describes Feministe as well. But the whole “You mustn’t say anything without humbly asking X’s permission first, or else her handmaidens will eviscerate you” is all too much like the path we seemed to be on here. But it turns out it was more _everyone_ being scared to say anything. Abusive, like I said. I’ll even add naughty words like narcissistic, because nobody else’s troubles mattered, it all had to come back to the most oppressed person evah.
One of the things that happened at Shakesville is that if you did not specifically include each and every group of marginalized persons you would be called on by numerous people for “excluding”. So the general term women no longer meant all women and if you said it did you were a racist transphobe and you could either apologize right now of GTFO. I had no effing idea how that came about there but it was the last day I read there.
I like to read Shakesville sometimes but never had the slightest desire to comment. The moderation is too heavy handed. The times I’ve lurked there never seems to be much of a conversation. Boring. If that works for people, cool. But I like it here.
I was reading on my phone (can’t see recent comments) and just got back to the computer and saw this link was still active. I am so glad that a lot of people decided to stay.
Also, thebewilderness and kittehs, I am demi (or at least the description of demi fits me pretty well) so I am in a similar position.
Looks like I missed quite a party.
Only followed the thread back a few pages, so I didn’t find the initial explosion. Don’t think I want to, really. There’s some things I just don’t want to see. This what, the…second? Third?…big blowout in the Manboobz/We Hunted The Mammoth community, and I’m always sad to see people go. I like to think of the people on this site as my friends. There are people that I still miss from back in the days of Ami Angelwings and Cliff Pervocracy (the fact that those were also the days of NWOSlave eases the pain a little bit).
That said, speaking as someone who spent some time on Shakesville back in the day and got caught up in the mentality, I can definitively say that we don’t want that to happen here.
The second, I think.
Kitteh — yeeeeeep. It’s why I didn’t get involved in that thread much. I thought about telling her how absurd she was being, but was too tired to, so I slept on it and, to borrow a phrase Cassandra used, it’ done like boxing jello — messy, frustrating, and ultimately pointless. Which is, really, the perfect way to describe dealing with the narcissistic sort. Spend too long staring at yourself and you can’t stand when everyone else isn’t.
Alex — well, I can’t be sure rays want to be pet. But I can’t be sure cats do either. Otoh, they both certainly behave like they like it and want it to continue. So, antropomorphizing aside, yes, they like being pet.
Thebewilderness — “So the general term women no longer meant all women and if you said it did you were a racist transphobe and you could either apologize right now of GTFO.” — and no point trying to discuss it unless you wanted the banhammer?
But that aside, how is that not othering? What they were doing that is. Women, trans women, WoC, etc…how is that not saying trans women, WoC, etc, aren’t women? Like, most birds, falcons, sparrows and bluejays fly, but penguins don’t. Why list falcons, sparrows and bluejays like they aren’t included under “birds”? And with that example it just looks like a grade schooler’s paper on birds, when it’s discussing how words other…the actual fuck?
What I decided, and I care nothing if no one agrees with me, is that some people like to exercise control all the time about everything. So they correct you, the general you, even when you are not wrong. I have a few of those authoritarian tendencies my own self so that is what I put it down to.
I missed the “party” too.
If something negative happens to me because I’m a woman (experiencing cat-calls, for instance), do I have to apologize for complaining about it because I’m cis, femme and gray-A?
Why the fuck would I have to do that?
What the fucking fuck?
I hear pallygirl’s left the site now over this goddamn “stupid is ableist” or whatever the latest Shakesvillian policing is. I can’t even find which thread it happened on.
How about we stop going down that path and driving good people away, hmm?
Wait, what? Stupid isn’t ableist. And I was just starting to hope things were going to be ok and people were staying. (I miss LBT tho)
Truth. It was very much a case of if we were so selfish as to talk about someone other than that person, they’d centre themselves by trying to control the conversation, the language, the whatever. Or bring in something totally irrelevant, not for its own sake, but because of how it made them feel. There was a real dose of appropriation in there, too, I think.
Ah, because we can never apologise enough, it seems.
I didn’t see a comment from Pallygirl anywhere that she was leaving. Fuck!
Skye, totally agree, it’s getting ridiculous. Makes me wonder why people are on a mockery blog if mocking stupidity, calling MRAs and the like stupid, is out.
She emailed about it, WWTH. Apparently there’s a couple of long comments in one of the threads about how stupid is ableist, or something. Haven’t tracked them down yet.
Nobody should feel like they have to apologize for being upset about being sexually harrassed. Nope, not even if they are the actual Queen of England and therefore probably the most privileged woman in the world. Sexual harassment is a bad thing, and people have the right to complain about it.
I hope she reconsiders. It was just one person saying that. That conversation was in the thread about video games being a safe space for men.
Thanks, WWTH, I’m going to look there now.
I feel like I’m breathing fire over this, I really do.
What? Pallygirl? But, but, but… How will I know all you wonderful people are still alive and doing okay?
Kittehs? Can you send her a note from me saying that I wish her the best, and I’ll miss her, and I hope the aftereffects of treatment and the awful itching is getting better, and thanks for being so ridiculously patient with me and giving good citations every so often, and all the hugs on the open threads, and really, really good discussions on peer-reviewy stuff?