Last month, police say, University of Mary Washington student and feminist/LGBT activist Grace Mann was murdered — bound and asphyxiated by a male housemate and fellow student.
An antifeminist blogger is blaming her death on feminist jokes about misandry.
As Mike Oelke of the Feminism is a Fraud blog sees it, Mann’s death was the inevitable result of the unwillingness of feminists to “learn misandry is not a joke.” In an older post, Oelke had predicted that
one day a feminist wearing an “ironic” KILL ALL MEN t-shirt will walk down the wrong street, enter the wrong room and encounter the wrong man; a man that does not value her as a woman and chooses not to treat her as an equal. The man will not see the t-shirt as ironical humor, but be offended and beat her savagely, laughing as he licks the tears from her crying eyes.
WIth Mann’s death, he says, this “prediction has somewhat been proven true.” And he promises that there will be more violence directed at feminists who
constantly laugh off their misandry as a joke, while treating misogyny like a scourge. Some types of males are going to take that badly with predictable results.
While he says he doesn’t “feel good” about his prediction “somewhat” coming true, he also claims that
this young woman’s death serves a purpose. She “Took one for the team.”
That callous and cruel last line, whatever Oelke meant by it, seems more than a little ironic given the facts of the case.
While we still don’t know the motive of the man who allegedly murdered her, Mann’s death took place on a campus that feminist activists say has become an increasingly hostile environment for them.
The campus group Feminists United — of which Mann was a member — has faced a barrage of harassment and threats online and on campus since last fall when it started to “expose the insidious misogyny and hatred” on campus, as the group’s president Paige McKinsey put it in an op-ed for the school paper in January.
The most egregious example of this “insidious misogyny” was the violent chant — celebrating the rape of dead “whores” — that the school rugby team performed at a party last fall. Surreptitiously recorded by a (male) friend of McKinsey who happened to be at the party, the noxious chant was brought to the administration’s attention by Feminists United last November.
Once the school began disciplinary actions against the team earlier this year, its supporters reacted with outrage — and an even bigger wave of harassment against campus feminists, including hundreds of threatening comments made on the anonymous chat app Yik Yak.
There were rape threats and numerous vicious, sexually explicit personal attacks against McKinsey; Mann was also targeted and threatened with rape. One supporter of the team warned that feminists would “burn” if the team was suspended and that “there will be no survivors.” Another threatened that “Dandy’s about to kill a bitch … or two.” When Feminists United reported these threats to the school administration, they were reportedly told that the school could do little about them.
The rugby team was suspended in March. Mann, a prominent member of the group whose activism led to the team’s suspension, was murdered in April. The suspect, a returning student named Steven Vander Briel, was a former member of the rugby team.
And while there is as yet no clear evidence that there is any connection between the suspension of the team and her murder, it is hard not to wonder if she was killed, not for any ironic jokes about misandry, but for challenging the culture of violent misogyny that seems to infect the Fredericksburg, Virginia, campus.
Mann, who was gay, was not involved with Vander Briel, police say; she was assaulted during what was supposed to be a brief stop at her home after returning from a Day of Silence event to raise awareness about bullying and harassment directed against LGBT folks.
In the wake of Mann’s murder, Feminists United, along with the Feminist Majority Foundation, has filed a Title IX complaint with the Department of Education charging the University of Mary Washington with a “systemic failure to protect” members of the group “from a sexually hostile school environment, from sex-based cyber assaults, and from threats of physical and sexual violence.”
At a media event on campus announcing the complaint last Thursday, Frederickburg.com reports,
Attorney [Debra] Katz said the complaint does not allege that the university caused Mann’s death, but that it “failed to act in the face of vicious abuse and ridicule” Mann suffered.
According to Frederickburg.com, Julia Michels, a University of Mary Washington student and one of the complainants in the Title IX complaint, said at the media event that while
she hopes the threats did not have anything to do with Mann’s death … when she heard the news … her thoughts immediately went to the threats.
“I know she had been mentioned by name on Yik Yak, and I know she was scared, as I am,” Michels said. “I know she was angry, as I am. Most of all, I know she was disappointed in her school for failing to protect her, just as I am disappointed at UMW for failing me.”
We will know in time, one can only presume, what motivated Mann’s murderer. But the damage that can be done by the sort of violent misogyny that she and other members of Feminists United were subjected to on the University of Mary Washington campus — and which her friends still face — is already very clear.
“Misandry” is a joke. Misogyny can kill.
NOTE: This discussion thread is a NO TROLLS, NO MRAs, etc thread. If you’re a troll, an MRA or similar and you comment in this thread you will be banned.
EDIT: I have added a few things to highlight Mann’s LGBT activism.
A perfect summary of the current situation of the thread:
http://33.media.tumblr.com/d6708fe36e59e4907cb786b1b3f41310/tumblr_nl7qxd2nMt1s02vreo7_400.gif
Do you have reading comprehension problems? I mean this seriously, because if you have a learning disability I’m going to cut you a lot more slack than if you are neurotypical and just being incredibly stupid.
the chant -> offensive to feminists -> feminists complained about it -> entitled fucking asshole athletes and their supporters LIKE YOU decided that being offensive and horrific is actually fine and desirable -> backlash against the feminists complaining about the horrific and offensive chat -> death threats against the feminists -> suddenly one of the feminists was murdered by someone with a link to the team
I mean, are you seriously disabled that you were unable to follow that chain of events in the post? It’s right up there, in plain English.
Oh, wait, are you not a native speaker of English? Usually non-native speakers self-identify but I shouldn’t leap to the assumption that you are a native speaker just because you didn’t.
I’m really digging the “nuance” that this chant was all in good fun and women shouldn’t have been offended by it at all. That’s some damned fine nuance, certainly a totally original argument and nothing I’ve ever heard before in my entire life, and a very well-informed and thoroughly-thought-through opinion. Black men shouldn’t be offended at being called “boy” either, because, y’know, it’s a term of endearment!
Why is it assumed that every single thread in every single feminist space should be an open free for all for any man who wants to debate it. Who fucking asked for a debate, Divided Line? Nobody.
Do you seriously think you aren’t saying anything we haven’t heard a million times before? We hear every day of our lives that we should ignore red flags or even outright hate and give all men the benefit of the doubt. Until they do hurt us and then it’s our fault for not being more careful of course.
Divided Line, Mr. Wizard Guy? If you want to have a “Legitimate argument”, you read the words of your opponents before making ill-assumed statements (like the one about male sexuality, which you still haven’t corrected) and you don’t ascribe malicious intentions and conspiratorical fantasies to the people you are debating with, not hint that they are incapable of grasping nuannce, irrational and stupid.
That’s not a “Legitimate debate”, that’s literally trolling. This is why people say you are trolling. Because you are trolling. If you want to have a “legitimate debate” then maybe start having one, have some points and say something reasonable.
And now, a message for Divided Brain from my cat:
http://nequam.xepher.net/images/levi/badtrolling.jpg
OMG you are so fucking ignorant, go back to school and read a book. The #1 complaint lodged by lynch mobs was that black people were insufficiently respectful. It is a modern myth that it was hysteria over the sexual purity of white women. It was, and always is, about keeping black people in their place with terror tactics.
That you would transfer that terrorism from white lynch mobs to a fucking internet message board populated by people who are grieving, goes beyond even concern trolling. That goes straight into such depths of stupidity that I can’t even find a word for it.
So, if the purpose of the chant is to be offensive to women, that means it’s out of line to find them misogynistic? That doesn’t even make sense. I tend to take guys at their word on these kind of things. If they’re saying misogynistic things, I’m going to assume they’re misogynists. Men have the luxury of giving their fellow men the benefit of the doubt because they aren’t the target. We don’t have that luxury. Being wrong can mean our lives. But sure, it’s more important to not be mean to the poor menz and hurt their feelings with a misogyny accusation.
One day, MRAs will learn of the arcane concept known as “Scrolling up a little.” Today is not that day.
Well, WWTH, lets be fair. The rugby team was suspended. That’s where we should focus our grief, and not on the dead murdered feminist woman. Being suspended from playing a sport is way, way, way more important than women’s lives.
Ugh. Such stupidity. Women fearing men isn’t like white people ascribing criminality to black people in order to keep a white privileged status quo in place. Women fearing men is more analogous to black people fearing the police.
@PoM
Sadly, Ched Evans’ and half of the NFL’s fans would agree with that.
This guy trolled here before right? The name sounds familiar.
@WWTH
The icon looks familiar to me.
Also, that might’ve been the shittiest flounce I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some shitty flounces in my time. Eight minutes, and his un-flounce must’ve taken seven to
frothwrite! Tsk tsk.I’m right. He’s a sad boner troll who necro’d a thread to tell us that it’s our fault when men commit suicide because we didn’t fuck them enough. So shocking that his empathy is with the rugby players, not the murdered woman.
https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2013/09/30/the-freak-out-artist-julian-from-real-social-dynamics-takes-gaslighting-to-a-new-level/comment-page-8/#comment-548512
Now, let’s talk about this for a bit.
People sing a chant, another group find the chant offensive to them, and they say this to the first group. The first groups response is: “The chant is supposed to be offensive!”
For some reason you stop there. Why? It’s supposed to be offensive and? What, that’s it? You’re telling me a group of people gather in place and start chanting stuff that they specifically pick because its the most offensive thing they can think of? What, and that’s just a thing people do? That seems kind of silly if you ask me, but then again, I was never much one for rallies anyhow. People do what they do, I guess.
But it is a fucking fun thing to ponder though, isn’t it? This is something people meet up and routinely chant for no real reason other than to offend people, and the people chanting it have no problem with this. In point of fact, they’re doing it on purpose – as you say, if it wasn’t offensive, it wouldn’t be part of the chant in the first place.
Okay.
Why?
Why is it okay? And further – why is it specifically the rape they pick to be offensive with? There’s lots of ways to offend people. Hundreds. For some reason they aren’t chanting about keying people’s cars or breaking windows, but about rape. A nuanced perspective might wonder if there was some sort of cultural idea at play, that it’s okay for large groups of men to gather and chant about how they’re going to rape / murder / kill things and this is just accepted “as is” because, hey, fuck-it, they’ve done it for a long time! The chants are traditional and old! It’s okay – no one actually wants to rape or murder anybody. They just keep singing about it year after year after year after year. They don’t mean anything by it and the chant is kind of funny, really, so it’s okay. It doesn’t matter and rape is still wrong! We don’t want to rape anyone! No one does. Now let’s all get together and have the traditional pre-battle rape chant. Good times.
I wonder if there’s a word for the kind of culture that exists wherein groups of people consistently get together to do that, often in a way that involves rape, and more often in a way that involves rape of women (dead or alive, as the case may be).
Further, I wonder if there’s a word for the kind of culture that raises people to say “It’s no big deal” when other people say: “Uh, that rape chant is a bit off”.
I wonder. Is there such a word? Like, I don’t know, some kind of… culture? A culture of chants? A culture of rape?
I don’t know.
If there isn’t such a word, maybe someone should invent a phrase to cover it.
http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/dpdfq.gif
Divided line
Ok one that song was about raping a dead woman we’re not blaming her murder on that rugby team but one of the ex rugby player that killed her I mean have you been reading?
Two, stop saying that we’re bashing men for everything they do and their sexuality because we’re not we’re only bashing misognists that flat out threaten that they want to hurt women and Iv heard misognists admit that this is what men do so apparently the only misandrists Iv been seeing are them. Seriously where did you get that we wrote that all men are monsters? Is getting angry for all the men who sent those threats, the men who chanted and killing her equal “all men” to you?
“I don’t think that “rape culture” and assuming that stupid rugby chants will result in women being raped”
…do you even know what rape culture is? Rape is a joke, we blame the victims for their rapists’ actions or we don’t believe them.
So it’s “offensive, stupid and ridiculous” about raping dead women but it’s disturbing that we get onto any man that does something wrong?
http://imgur.com/ylHV9By
I literally cannot imagine any reason why I wouldn’t want to spend all fucking night “debating” with such high-level discourse.
http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/histare.gif
The point of the original post wasn’t the rugby team or a song! It certainly wasn’t that rugby players are the “cis hetero patriarchy illuminati”! It was that a woman was killed and that Mike Oelke irrationally and unconscionably blamed it on feminists making fun of men and threatened that more women would be hurt!
I don’t know the killer’s motive either. But it’s fair to point out that the harassment that the feminist group was getting, whether the team should have been suspended or not, certainly revealed a worrying level of hatred and is more similar to the “lynch mob” mentality you’re maligning than is any criticism of misogyny you see here. Does that make sense?
@ Divided Line
Rugby is a major sport over here, part of stereotypically blokey, sport-obsessed culture. Chants like that would never be tolerated on club grounds or at any team event.
One quote from a TV show invalidates all the actual threats.
Okay.
http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/yes-wait-wtf.gif
Oh how totally original. A man who wants to excuse misogyny pretends that only racism and classism exist, but misogyny doesn’t. Right. I’m the one who is ignorant of history. I forgot that rich women always had the right to vote and own property. Upper class women have never been raped or abused. Legal marital rape only applies to poor couples.