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.
@emilygoddess – thanks for the perspective on the Budapest thing. I remember reading about that and thinking ‘holy crap, seriously?’
The way it was presented to me was that there was some on-site promotion going on that, intentionally or unintentionally, failed to make it clear who was actually running the ritual.
I wasn’t there personally to know one way or the other (I don’t attend anything in person that’s not being run by people I don’t know personally), but that was how it was related to me by someone who was there and bowed out once it became clear what was going on.
The worst part to me was instead of approaching it from a “there’s been a misunderstanding” angle, Budapest went out of her way to emphasize that she didn’t consider transwomen to be “real” women. I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt that she didn’t even consider that this was an issue that might come up, but she certainly did her best to fan the flames afterwards.
Adding to the current conversation, one of the things that’s been making me really uncomfortable about the whole “she’s a TERF, let’s go get her!” thing is the way that leftist dudes have jumped on it as a way to call feminists evil bitches in often quite blatantly misogynistic ways without getting called out on it by other progressive peeps. It’s because of the “she’s a witch!” thing that Brooked was describing, I think, and also because some of those guys just really really want an excuse to be able to say misogynistic things about women in progressive spaces. With the guys I mostly see them using it as an excuse to pull old chestnuts from the album of anti-feminist greatest hits (old, ugly lesbians who can’t get a man, you just hate sex, charming things like that) and to indulge in chest-beating aggressive behavior towards women in a way that normally wouldn’t be tolerated, and I think that as feminists we ought not to be letting those dudes get away with that.
It would have been great if we could have shared our feelings with Ally but she wouldn’t have allowed it nor would several of those around her and she still would have stropped off, saying urndrustrations were the result of our transphobia, if we’d pushed the issue.
Yeah, the whole, “She’s a witch! Let’s burn her!” vibe, is apparent to me. Makes me cringe.
There are sites on Reddit where dudes brags about their transphobia. Are they bombed with this kind of thing? I mean, it’s right there for everyone to see.
But it’s easier to scream at women because they’re less intimdating? Seriously, go visit Reddit.
Sometimes I feel like Tumblr is Reddit for teenagers.
I thought Reddit was Reddit for teenagers.
Though actually, since I’ve been so mean about it, I finally thought of a good thing about Tumblr! The way it’s designed makes it really easy to avoid mansplaining dudebros, if you want to. I mean, they’re on there, but depending on what tags you choose to read you may hardly ever have to witness them doing what Edward is doing in the Sarkeesian thread, which is nice.
Edward doesn’t even know what he’s mansplaining about. But he feels compelled to do it anyway.
There’s that silver lining we were looking for.
Also there are cats, lots and lots of cats.
brooked, no need for apologies as far as I’m concerned! You said things I want to very well: I just haven’t the energy to get into it again and I know I’d get angry about it, for the very reasons you described. Your posts were terrific! You were a darnsight more Zen about it than I was.
It’s also that I don’t know how much detail I can safely go into in public.
“TERF” vs “transphobic” – I honestly think it doesn’t matter who you are, transphobia is transphobia, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a cis lesbian or an MRA – it’s still awful, either way, regardless of the identity of the person involved. I don’t understand why there would be a need to designate that it’s from a radfem or someone else. All groups, no matter how small, will have assholes in it, and I think it’s better to address the fact that they are an asshole without bringing anything else into it.
“examine your privilege” – I want to throw an honest question out you guys: Has saying this phrase ever worked to get someone to re-examine their thought processes in an honest manner? I think just throwing it out there like that makes people defensive. The assholes who won’t will double down and have a fit at being questioned and otherwise clueless people who didn’t realize that it’s wrong will probably feel humiliated, thereby insuring that they won’t either. I mean, highlighting a comment and saying that it’s example of privilege or just talking about it and how it affects our lives is totally different than just saying those words at someone, as if the words are a magic spell to instantly change a person’s thoughts. My feeling is that someone who does examine their privilege will have an internal journey rather than having someone shout it at them.
And I think that some things aren’t inherently transphobic, like cis lesbians not wanting to have sex with trans lesbians. I’m not homophobic but I’m not having sex with women because I’m not bi or gay. I can’t magically change that and no amount “examining your privilege” will change it either. The only language that matters is the “yes” or “no”. I am completely confused as to why that’s hard to understand. FWIW, I don’t necessarily think that it’s the socialization of someone who was born male, because I’ve gotten pressure from a few lesbians to be a lesbian (otherwise I’m homophobic, according to them), I just think it’s the socialization of entitled asshats who think this way. It’s almost like the “why don’t pretty women have sex with me” thing that MGTOW trot out. Bottom line, NO ONE is entitled to sex, no matter who you are or what your identity is. Being an entitled asshat is an equal opportunity disease and I hope through education and mockery we can hope to one day eliminate it.
^Yeah, pretty much all that.
It worked on me.
Maybe tranphobia is more often policed among allies because friendly fire hurts more and allies and people who wish to be allies inhabit the same places trans folks do.
Kinda like homophobia and misogyny are called out in spaces where we expect our allies to be, you know, allies.
Then it’s a good thing no one here ever claimed otherwise.
Yeah, well, I guess it might actually be better to skip TERF and just call transphobes transphobes for a variety of reasons. Not the least that some people seem to believe that all radical feminists are transphobes because they’ve heard so much about TERF:s, and that’s simply false. So it might, for that reason, be better to just go “that feminist group is transphobic” rather than “they are TERF:s”.
However, the argument “marginalized groups get to decide what they’re called” is a bad one against using TERF. TERF isn’t a nasty term for woman or for lesbian (and many TERF:s are, for that matter, straight) – it’s a term that points out that someone is being transphobic. Therefore it’s radically different from, say, calling a lesbian a “dyke” and then she goes “I don’t wanna be called that, because I consider it a slur”. Women get to decide what terms we use for “woman” and lesbians get to decide what terms we use for “lesbian”, but transphobes don’t get to decide what terms we use for “transphobe”.
Still, as I said above, people probably have a point that there are other good reasons for switching from talk about TERF to talk about transphobes, even if said transphobes in some cases have a particular kind of feminist theory.
Exactly.
Well, clearly you don’t see how it was claimed, and we can’t make you. But a lot of people saw exactly that being claimed, and backpedaled, and claimed again through different wording after different wording. If you disagree, that’s fine, but I for one don’t appreciate discounting the voices of people we know are here in good faith.
Yeah, you’re making sense. TERFiness isn’t just about feminism + transphobia…their whole understanding of gender and patriarchy precludes trans women actually being women, and in their worldview accepting trans women as women will undermine women’s liberation.
Popping back in to support Alex’s comment.
Emilygoddess — Ok, good, my sense of if I’m making sense is all off (meta!).
(General comment) But what I said before is why I, personally, am going to stick with TERf (little f cuz they call themselves feminists, but the trans hatred seems to outweigh the feminism) — they AREN’T transphobic feminists, they’re feminist who see the very existence of trans people as anti-feminism. In my brain it’s Trans Eliminative Radical Feminist, trans exclusionary. Because they don’t just want trans people out of their spaces, they think any of not embracing our bio gender are like, gender traitors, delusional, freaks, horror shows, rapists, etc. As for when to use the term, no, I don’t think it’s appropriate to use on any feminist who may be expressing something transphobic, I think it should be reserved for those who’re vocal about trans people being delusional, rapists, evil, etc.
Lea, you where here for the blow up, you saw how many people read it that way. But idk, it rubbed me wrong but maybe you didn’t mean any sarcasm and we’re just having an internet = unable to hear tone failure?
It is great that you think that but that is not what is happening. What is happening is that it is used as a silencing and exclusion tactic by authoritarians. Saying you don’t think it should happen won’t make it stop happening.
I think TERF could be useful, but usage has corrupted it. I’m not likely to be using it in writing hence. In part because I have stopped being able to trust references to it meaning something I can agree is a valid use of the term.
Lea, I agree wholeheartedly with your point that asshattery cuts deeper and wounds more when it comes from what you understood to be your protected flank. But, yeah, everything Alex wrote.