Was Marysville school shooter Jaylen Fryberg trying to exact revenge on a girl who had rejected him? Various news accounts suggest that Fryberg was reeling from a recent breakup; a number of angry, anguished, and frustratingly enigmatic recent comments on Fryberg’s Twitter account seem to back this up.
So it may be that the shootings on Friday were yet another reworking of an old story.
It’s no secret that many men, for an assortment of reasons, react badly and often violently to romantic and sexual rejection. This can range from self-described “nice guys” of OkCupid sending vicious messages to women who say no all the way to angry men who stalk and harass and sometimes kill ex-wives and girlfriends. Women who leave abusive relationships often suffer greater violence at the hands of exes unwilling to let them go.
I’ve written before of the striking ways that Men’s Rights Activism recapitulates the logic of domestic abuse; it’s no coincidence that so much MRA “activism” consists of harassment of individual women. So the question naturally follows: does the rage that drives so many MRAs come from the same dark place in the psyche as the rage that so many romantically and sexually rejected feel towards their exes?
Think of the fury many divorced MRAs feel towards their exes and women at large. Think of the self-pitying rage of “nice guys” MRAs in their teens and twenties who feel they’ve been unfairly “friendzoned” by stuck-up women.
As I pondered the tragedy in Marysville, I found myself thinking again about a disturbing short story written by A Voice for Men’s Paul Elam several years ago (and which I posted about recently).
In the story, you may recall, a jilted husband tells the other men in an anger management group session just what had landed him there. His story, as rendered by Elam, is a melodramatic and often mawkish tale of a man betrayed by a narcissistic “hypergamous” wife who left him for his business partner while he had been out of town at the funeral for his father. Oh, and she stole all his money, to boot. (Elam is not what you’d call a subtle writer.)
When the story’s hero finally confronts his ex, whom he finds ad his business partner’s house, she comes to the door in a nightie and tells him she left him because he just wasn’t cutting it in the sack. Then she makes a point of refusing to kiss him goodnight (and goodbye) because, she tells him sadistically, he probably wouldn’t like “the taste of another man’s cock on her lips.”
And so, the hero tells the other angry men in his group, he punched her in the nose so hard he broke it.
It’s clear Elam identifies wholly and completely with the hero, and we are supposed to see his punch as a form of righteous justice administered to his sadistic, emasculating ex.
There are a lot of angry divorced men in the MRM – including some with several divorces in their past. The standard MRA explanation is that these men come to the Men’s Rights movement after being “raped” — their word, not mine – in divorce court, or kept apart from their children by angry exes.
But I don’t think that’s it. Many of the angriest don’t even have any children. I suspect that the rage they feel is more like the rage of Elam’s hero – a rage borne out of a deep sense of sexual humiliation and the loss of control over the women who have rejected and abandoned them.
The anger of many younger MRAs seems to have a similar psychosexual source. These are the young men who rage against “friendzoning” and wax indignant about “false rape accusations” and “yes means yes.” In their mind, women are the “gatekeepers” of sex, and this frustrates and sometimes enrages them.
On some level they feel that women are collectively depriving them of the sex that they deserve, and they feel resentful they have to, in their mind at least, jump through so many hoops to get it. Some, I suspect, think that there’s no way they can actually “get” sex without cutting a few corners, consent-wise, and resent feminists for making this harder for them.
The self-righteous rage of the rejected is a dangerous thing. It’s dangerous when it’s directed at individual women. And it’s dangerous when it’s directed at women at large.
I checked out John’s blog. Oh myyy. Did anyone else see the earlier webste, banmindcontrol.com? Apparently, psychotronic mind control devices make the Baby Jesus cry.
I didn’t even GET to the part about ‘losing’ his son.
Okay. I take it back. Femaaales really do have all the privilege and men are oppressed. I just found proof of this. You see, males aren’t typically allowed on magic carpets. That is a femaaaale privilege. That’s why this poor oppressed male cat was forced to dress in drag in order to secure a ride.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8UEu5XeDh8
It became pretty obvious that John is a conspiracy theorist. One senses that his child’s mother might have reason to be concerned about his behavior.
David Horowitz is well-known as an extreme right-winger who used to be an extreme left-winger and now sees everything he doesn’t like as an extreme left-wing conspiracy. Anyone associated with the David Horowitz “Freedom” Center (e.g., Mallory Millett) ought to be suspected of being a right-wing conspiracy theorist.
You know what? Fuck it- I’ve
Dammit, somehow posted early.
You know what? Fuck it. I’ve avoided talking about my son online because I don’t want to violate his privacy in any way.
But as a new father? Fuck you, John. I can’t imagine how awful it must be to lose contact with your child. I can’t. But for you to think that it can possibly be anyone’s fault besides either his mother or yours, or (frankly, most likely) some combination of the two, is just terrible. However given what I’ve seen in custody hearings, I’m not inclined to believe that you’d be completely cut off for no reason. Almost every time a father presses for visitation they get it unless the mother can prove he’s abusive.
So in short, one father to another, I sincerely hope your situation gets better, but fuck you and your “I’m for peace”.
Fun fact: Loving fathers tend not to be totally deprived of their children, just as loving husbands tend not to be divorced. Good men tend not to be the “victims” of “vindictive” women.
Funny how that all works…
Thankyou everyone, heh. ^^;; (Sorry for the slow response, had to game off the rage and embarrassment for a bit.) Hugs for Shaun and everybody else that needs them. ♥ Which, after this particular threadshitter, might be all of us. Ugh.
Because I’m bored, I checked it out too and have to second the “Oh myyy.” I didn’t read about mind control but did learn the assfax that 97% of abortions in the UK are psychiatric abortions, therefore eugenics. I’m not sure what that term means. I’m pretty sure he just made it up because he was lamenting that nobody but him is upset about this phenomenon.
I also learned that ex-gays are really “transoriented.” Yet another term he seems to have made up in order to appropriate the bigotry trans gender people face. I guess if this term takes off in the manosphere, we’ll have another silencing tactic on our hands. “Saying homosexuality can and should be cured isn’t homophobic! You’re being transorientest!”
The whole thing was rather hilarious.
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess he was going on about his bizarre theories at whatever the UK version of family court is called and the judge knew this was not a person who should be shaping young minds.
Canada has the most vitriolic MRAs, but the UK has the weirdest. Remember Mike Buchanan? USian MRAs, you’ve been falling behind your Canadian and British brothers. Get your act together!
@Robert, I didn’t see that particular website (and it appears to be taken offline now), but in his current blog, there’s some peculiar stuff about some guy who thought he was the victim of “organised stalking and electronic harassment using directed energy weapons” with the use of “non-lethal directed energy weapons” by entities in “the British public sector.” Our John here seems to have made something of a personal hero out of a man who seemed — and was found — to be suffering from paranoid delusions.
He’s been associated with some outfit called “Christians Against Mental Slavery” whose members “wanted it to be regarded as a crime against humanity worldwide for anyone to monitor or to influence human thought technologically without continuing, informed consent.” Okay… I might suggest he start by getting off the internetz.
To complicate things, however, he also claims to be affiliated with an organization that strives to advocate for those who have experienced the “stigma of mental illness,” (definitely a real thing) but it appears it’s more like ‘advocating’ for sufferers of mental illness who claim that they aren’t mentally ill and it’s all just some evil mind control plot (plus a plot to deprive people of childrearing rights, among other things) to suggest someone is, meaning they’ve bought into the stigma, themselves.
Oh.
“Transorientist”????
Sounds like a cross between the Trans-Siberia Railway and the Orient Express.
Hey, all, newbie here. Figured I might as well point out, because it adds a hilarious bit of humor to things, that ‘transoriented’ actually is a thing. It’s a phrase used by men who are exclusively attracted to trans ladies.
Which… Well. Certainly could tie into his ex-gay thing, I suppose?
Mary added
I’ll add options 8. and 9.
8. Child’s mother gave judge the link to father’s blog.
9. Father started citing ~and quoting from~ his own blog.
Here, allow me to attempt to translate the gist of Mr. Allman’s (NOT ALL MEN) herd of teal deers:
“I say, old chap, I find it highly offensive that this blog would imply that MRAs are driven of the rage of the rejected. For example, I support MRAs and patriarchy because my ex is a horrific harpy that everyone here should hate because stole MY child and the state REJECTED my pleas to have complete control over MY son and the bitter harpy that carried him. But I’m definitely not angry about that, oh no, not at all! I’m righteously indignant. It’s really quite different.
You see, if all the world did exactly as I asked and took MY needs into consideration before attempting any actions, then everything would return to the blissful utopia that was 1950s america, instead of the festering misandry hellscape that has been created by feminists in the last several decades. What with the availability of divorce and abortion and womens shelters and the like now. It’s disgraceful.”
Wow. Batshittery and fuckwittery! Just when you think you’ve seen it all.
I have to disagree here. Even if every patriarch was pretty awesome (and mine is, fwiw) patriarchy would still be wrong because people deserve to be able to choose what their social role will be and how they will relate to others. Patriarchy doesn’t suck because some patriarchs suck, it sucks because it forces everyone into boxes that may not fit them very well, and because nobody should be being forced into those boxes in the first place.
On the OP, I’ve been saying this for years. The MRM is a giant tantrum about the fact that women get to say no to sex and relationships. Everything that MRAs want comes down to wanting to create a situation where women’s options are so limited they’ll have no choice but to give the men who’re creating this fantasy scenario what they want, and wanting to be able to punish the women who are currently not going along with this plan.
Also, if the court that decided John’s case saw any of his multiple rather alarming websites then I can’t say I’m surprised that they decided that the mother would be a better choice of custodial parent. She’d have to try pretty hard to be a worse choice, honestly.
Um, is he gone?
We could try burning some incense just to make sure.
I’ll give it a go, cassandra. I’ve got sage and eveything.
Yep, on the 97% of UK abortions being “psychiatric” – in the UK, there is no “right to abortion”. Instead, the law states when an abortion is not illegal. That is, the
“law states that two doctors need to agree that the abortion can be carried out. They will reach this decision if they believe there is a greater risk to the woman’s mental or physical health if she continues with the pregnancy than if she has an abortion. The doctor can also take social circumstances into account when making this decision.”
From: http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/health_advice/facts/abortion.htm
So the vast majority of UK abortions are because there is a greater risk to the uterus owner’s mental rather than physical health. Hence the quote. It has nothing to do with eugenics.
Sorry for the cis language in the quote.
I’ve seen the “being a jerk in legal proceedings” dynamic at play in dozens of cases, dusted occasionally with the conspiracy flavoring. Judges get very obstinate in those cases. The litigant is going to “get his mind right” as the Captain said in “Cool Hand Luke.” If the litigant never does get his mind right, the legal system is going to plow him under. Usually this is appropriate since the same personality attributes that led the litigant to be intransigent with the court led to the underlying problems the court is being asked to address.
@ Samantha
Samantha, I have been away for a little less than eight hours, sleeping for most of that time (i.e. from after 3 a.m. here until before 11 a.m.). I have returned to a barrage of comments here that mention my name, many of which are packed with straw man caricatures of what others *speculate* are my opinions about all sorts of different topics (and even personal testimonies of abuse) on which I haven’t commented on at all. It is going to be necessary for me to leave here, because almost nobody has commented on what I have actually said, representing what I have said with any sort of accuracy. In the circumstances, I am going to have to draw a line, and get out of here.
I am a minor public figure, with a blog on which anybody here can comment. I have a large “following” (for want of a better word) of people who tell me about their problems, and do not purport to have insight into my problems that is based upon assumptions about me. This now includes one person who had the courtesy to post a heart-warming and humane comment on my blog, after reading here the little that I had posted about one of the several problems, of my own and of others that I posted here.
I did want to deal, before leaving, with the apparent misunderstanding of my representation of abortion as an equality issue. Your comment, essentially itself somewhat straw man, in the sense that you paraphrase my position badly enough to misrepresent it, in order to ridicule it, is a good hook on which to hang this small clarification.
“Whatever they believe about the embryo itself, they also seem to believe that a woman is a walking incubator, with no other reason for living, and is the property of the man who owns her.” [you wrote]
What I believe about the embryo is that, as nothing more or less than a very young human being in his own right, the embryo is my equal and yours, with the same right as I enjoy not to be put to death for the convenience of another, not even his mother’s convenience, upon whom he is dependent physically until he (or she) is sufficiently developed to be able to survive without her womb. If you read these posts on my blog,
http://johnallmanuk.wordpress.com/category/pro-life/
especially this one
http://johnallmanuk.wordpress.com/2013/04/13/thinking-outside-the-botch/
you will have the opportunity to comment on my real arguments, refuting them if you can, rather than upon a straw man misrepresentation of my arguments that you have chosen to compose.
I don’t just “believe” that a woman is a “walking incubator”, when she is pregnant, I actually KNOW that, whatever else she may be, she is, also, for the duration of the pregnancy, a “walking incubator”, the life support system on which the survival of her not-yet-born offspring depends. I do not think that she has “no other reason for living”. I do know that, view from the selfish point of view of the “embryo” (or the foetus) being “incubated”, her only reason is to keep him alive. That is a scientifically accurate knowledge. It is impossible to “terminate” a “pregnancy” in which the embryo or foetus is still alive, without intending to kill, and usually actually killing, the very young distinct and EQUAL human being inside the mother.
I do not regard the woman herself as anybody’s “property”, except that of the embryo or the foetus to some extent, because his survival depends upon her well-being.
My late wife (who died in 2006), was a black South African. One of her female friends described having been burgled by burglars who were carrying firearms. She describes in chilling detail lying on the floor during the burglary, listening to a casual and callous discussion between the burglars as to whether to murder her before they left with the loot, lest she reported the burglary to the police and was later able to identify the perpetrators, or to spare her life, since the penalty for murder might be more severe if they were caught anyway might be more severe than for mere armed burglary of a home whilst the home-owner was at home.
I have been in a similar situation in myself. I have endured listening in comparable silent terror to an equally casual and callous discussion between a health professional and the mother of my youngest surviving child, as to whether or not to kill my youngest son or daughter before his or her birth, or to let him or her live.
In the event, the little one turns out already to have died in his or her mother’s womb by the time this chilling conversation took place in my presence, whilst I played with my youngest surviving child. I was able to cope with that grief, of a natural death of one of my children. I do not think I could have coped with knowing that my child had been killed deliberately, at the whim of his own mother.
I have heard it asserted that the decision that no woman takes lightly the decision to have an abortion. That it is always an “agonising” decision to take. I am a living witness to the fact that this is simply not true. A decision to abort MY child was taken, within my earshot, for the flimsiest of reasons imaginable, without the slightest agonising. Whatever others say, I know the truth.
@ Policy of Madness
“he encounters men who are having legal trouble in their divorces, and assumes that all men have these troubles because men who don’t have these troubles don’t call on him”
Will you PLEASE stop GUESSING. Actual cases that I am involved in at present, or have been recently:
2 benefits appeals (male clients)
1 Human Rights Act s7(1)(a) claim against a public authority (male client)
1 complaint against the police (male client)
1 libel (female client)
1 application to the European Court of Human Rights (male client)
1 application under the Protection From Harassment, against an intelligence service
1 Children Act application (my own)
1 claim for subject access and compensation for data protection rights breaches
No divorces at all.
I also help at monthly help meetings for people with problems in relation to residence and contact of children following family separation, or relationship breakdown for parents who never lived together. Help meeting clients are of both sexes, mothers AND fathers. A fair few of the clients are grandparents.
@ Samantha
“It is reasonable and right to challenge and end patriarchy or *any* -archy that concentrates power and choice in one person, to the detriment of the other(s).”
I agree. That is what attracted me to the men’s rights movement, because my experience in my second nuclear family, was one of complete and utter powerlessness. However, even I have found the MRM tedious at times.
People’s perceptions of how life is *generally* do tend to be coloured by their *personal* experiences of their own lives. This corrupting influence is evident in the MRM, and I’m afraid that it is also evident here. Civilised dialogue between people with different life experiences is possible when people learn to listen as well as to talk. Civilised dialogue helps people to overcome the natural but dangerous tendency to generalise from one’s personal experiences. If somebody uses a hashtag that begins “not all” (as I don’t, but you get my point, I hope), the chances are that what they are trying to do, by that, is to challenge a harmful generalisation. I do not think that that is a wicked thing to do.
Thank you for posting a comment addressed to me that was reasonable. I shall have to leave soon, because I am becoming the focus of too much attention, much of it unreasononingly hostile. There is a limit to how much I am going to able to teach or to learn anything here. Almost everything I have said here has been paraphrased back to me, in such a way as to misrepresent what I have said. I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody had a bash at “deconstructing” what I have said here in that tedious, straw man way too. That is why I am leaving soon (I expect).
Gross. Especially the part where you post that women are incubators and men own the fetuses inside of them…or at least “to some extent.” I just threw up in my mouth. Thanks for that.