#alanrickman pic.twitter.com/4WXwnoUtM7
— Emma Watson (@EmmaWatson) January 14, 2016
Earlier today, as you no doubt have heard, legendary British actor Alan Rickman passed away, at age 69, from cancer. Actress and activist Emma Watson, who had worked with Rickman on numerous Harry Potter films over the years, paid tribute to a man she had considered a friend, writing on Facebook that she felt
lucky to have worked and spent time with such a special man and actor. I’ll really miss our conversations. RIP Alan. We love you.
Watson followed up her tribute by posting a number of quotes from Rickman on Twitter, including the one above.
And that was all it took to rouse the vast internet antifeminist troll army, who took to Twitter to attack Watson for supposedly “exploiting” Rickman’s death to push her evil man-hating agenda. They called her a bitch, a feminazi, a whore, a tw*t, and of course an SJW; they dropped the c-word so many times I fear it might be permanently broken.
Never mind that the “agenda” she was supposedly pushing was in fact Rickman’s agenda too. She didn’t make up the quote; they were his actual words, from an interview he gave to Australian chat show One Plus One. Watson was remembering Rickman as the feminist he was proud to be.
Perhaps the most offensive Tweet of the day came from the unlovely and untalented “journalist” Milo Yiannopoulos of Breitbart. Several days ago, you may recall, Milo attempted to use David Bowie’s death as a way to get some cheap publicity for himself; he rather outdid himself in this department today with this insensate Tweet:
I told you feminism was cancer pic.twitter.com/syKFBkF3cG
— Milo Yiannopoulos (@Nero) January 14, 2016
Congratulations, Milo; you’ve won today’s Worst Person on the Internet award.
Delete your account.
Pandapool – I normally get outed from the way I write on any other forum where I have not declared gender. But as I say, this is a culturally allien experience to me so I have no idea what language norms you have developed. It’s pretty standard stuff in my world and not at all hard to find honest to goodness feminists making exactly the same argument under their verifiable identities.
Alan
When colours for baby clothes arrived, it was pink for boys and blue for girls. Switched after WWII.
Interesting ref: http://www.badscience.net/2007/08/pink-pink-pink-pink-pink-moan/
I’m mostly a lurker, since I generally have much more to learn than to add to the conversation, so have only made a couple short comments in the past. I’ve learned a lot this way, especially when differences of opinion have been discussed. (not referring to the poking of trolls/mras with sticks – that’s just amusing)
However this thread has me confused, because I don’t see the troll/mra talking points in Jo’s posts at all, yet several regular posters do. If Jo’s a troll I honestly can’t see it, I’ve found her posts generally interesting and worth reading. Different takes on things are interesting are they not? Being dismissive as some have feels to me like friendly fire, and bothers me.
Watched a Harry Potter film with daughter tonight to honor Alan Rickmans’ passing. Sad couple of weeks with Lemmy, David Bowie as well. It’s been making me feel rather mortal with these legends were always there (seemingly) leaving us.
@ Jo
That was interesting, thank you.
@ Jo
Oh, now I see. I can certainly see the case for that. After evaluating my own beliefs, I think I’ve come to the view that patriachy negatively affects both women and men, and there is nothing at all wrong with talking about its effect on males. After all, if feminism is concerned with mainly (not only by any means) how women are affected, at some point someone needs to talk about men affected too. That’s, I think, why its such a shame that MRAs have overshadowed the original Men’s Movement. There was an opportunity for discourse there.
I will continue to focus on women’s issues with patriarchy, as a feminist, but I hope that there is meaningful discussion about men being affected negatively outside of my circles. I think there may be, but MRA type mindsets are not exactly helping.
I think I may have been a little hasty in totally agreeing with Alan (Sorry Alan!) because men are definitely made fun of and stereotyped because of patriarchy and this needs to be discussed at some point, and treated as an issue, which I do know a lot of feminists are doing nowadays.
I also found your comments on class interesting, and convincing too, and I’ll have to mull it over.
@Jo
Sure, but if you feel comfortable blaming the murder of black boys and men on sexism, your intersectional analysis needs some work.
Congratulations, you have discovered brocialism. Although perhaps we should call it something else in this instance, as you are not a bro.
@ nparker
No worries 🙂
I’m non-binary and part of the trans umbrella so that might be a part of it.
NParker – cheers
Viscaria – can you expand on that please? I can’t link it to anything I said.
@Orion
They’re not pink, they’re Nantucket Red.
I’m embarrassed to say that I can’t find where I’d thought you had blamed police brutality against black men and boys on sexism, and I have to assume I misread something. I’m sorry. Please allow me to take that back.
NParker – sorry, hit post in error and missed the 5 mins.
I don’t think it has to be an either or, gains (true gains) for one mean gains for another (equal pay for women means less financial pressure for the men some of them live with, for example). There are a zillion different feminisms and I think the Men’s Movement has potential to be a useful one of them. The danger of MRA diversions is high though – I remember when it started and men I knew being interested in checking it out so that they could discuss stuff without feeling like they were mansplaining or white knighting or all that other stuff that can make it difficult for men (and indeed any person of relative privilege in any progressive movement) to contribute in a useful way.
And just as feminism has spent well over a century unpicking the things that make us unequal – spotting the harm of benevolent sexism, the problem of childcare when your household income doesn’t cover it, the having it all without any help at home nonsense – I think there is much for men to unpick about how inequality manifests in their lives and – importantly and – how it is simply the flip side of feminism.
Viscaria – no problem.
Oh, I didn’t mean it should be an either/or thing. What I’m saying (I think) is that feminists don’t have to consider men’s issues if they don’t want to.
The Men’s Movement (the pre- MRA one) was a great thing (I’m sorry, but I don’t know if there is one left or not) and can indeed be a great movement, but I don’t think they could be called a type or kind of feminism IMHO, but they are allies and they take many cues from feminism, I know that much (and one can of course be a member of both.)
One can certainly care about and even participate in discussions about both problems, but it in no way should it be a requirement, in my opinion, for feminists to ‘care’ about the problems men face.
Oh, I also meant to ask, did you mean that you had some experience with the original Men’s Movement? I’m really quite interested in that (even if it makes me sad its been perverted by the Men’s Rights Movement)
So basically Alan Rickman was a guy good enough to gain sainthood and shit for brained jackasses are trying to use his death as a cudgel to beat women.
Real ****ing classy.
On a side note, has anyone else read the responses to Jo in Alans voice?
I noticed that I was thinking in his voice by the third response.
I’m not trying to resurrect a dead conversation, I was just curious.
This is a good example of what I mean about the intersections with class being something very different:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/black-woman-strip-searched-male-5888058
The woman, who worked in PR, said: “My drink had been spiked and the police should have helped me. Instead I remember being in a cell with strange men putting their hands on me and taking my clothes off.
“I believed I was being raped and remember screaming in fear.”
An investigation revealed she was held down in the cell by four male police officers and a female officer with every item of her clothing forcibly removed – including her bra that was cut from the front of her body.
She was then left naked in the cell for half-an-hour with the CCTV camera broadcasting the images back to the custody desk.
This was all in breach of police rules stating strip searches should only be carried out by members of the same sex and should not take place in a CCTV cell.
Detainees should also only be required to remove half their clothing at any one time and be allowed to dress as soon as the search is completed.
When she later woke in a hospital bed she had no memory of what had happened and could not understand why her clothes and underwear were off.
Now 26, the woman believes the officers had treated her in this way because she was black.
On coming round she said a police officer at her bedside commented she was very well spoken and asked where she was born.
When she replied “Hampstead” the officer radioed a colleague and was overheard saying: “I think we made a mistake.”
____
But the key point is “I think we made a mistake.” The moment he realises she is a black woman from a rich family and not the crack whore* they assumed (correctly) that they could abuse with impunity.
And even then, four years fighting and £37k compo, but none of the cops were sacked. They should be up on sexual assault charges.
* with apologises for coarse and undoubtedly sexist language used characterise their attitudes
NParker – the MRA stench was there from early on. I had no direct involvement but was involved in discussions with men who were looking for something that would meet their needs without requiring them to deal with a bunch of raving misogynists/F4J types. I recall discussing materials etc but no involvement. Some of the stuff was very decent, some of it previewed the MRAs.
It’s really hard for men to shout over these jackasses. They’re loud and whiney and have absolutely no idea that they are not like most men.
Oh goodness, I didn’t know there was MRA types hanging around the Men’s Movement.
That’s one of the things that infuriates me the most. They think the majority of men agree with them or are like them, when in reality even most misogynists would look at them and say ‘dude, what the heck in wrong with you?’ They really can’t comprehend that the world is not centred around them.
Okay, I know this is from the last page… but:
Dhag? YOU SAW ORCAS!?
I am jelly. Super jelly. As jelly as this jelly:
http://cdn.instructables.com/F15/NJXX/IEOPBTRV/F15NJXXIEOPBTRV.MEDIUM.jpg
I live in a coastal area, but the last Orca group I saw was nearly a year ago. I keep being on the wrong end of the town when the Orca pods are around.
Edit: FINALLY got that image to embed. I am not pro.
I was always under the impression that there was the men’s liberation movement which emerged in the 60s and 70s, then faced a pro/anti feminist split in the mid 70’s. The pro-feminist portion largely folded into feminism, the men’s liberation movement itself disappeared, the rest went on to become the MRM we know today.
nparker (apologies, I’ve been capitalising your name)
They are certainly at the extreme end of the narcissist/psychopath range – toddlers basically – but I don’t know any men who find it easy to shout back at these guys. And they know that most men aren’t like that. But they also know that they might not get back up.
Women have had a lifetime’s training in taking abuse from men. Men have had a lifetime’s training in how to fear being compared to a woman.
I will often draw flak until it gets so ridiculous that the healthy psyches do speak up and make their position clear, but I get more support in private than public. Not complaining, I understand why, but that is what I think we need to change. How do boys learn to be men if the ‘real men’ (ugh) are allowing the fakers to dominate the shouting?
dlouwe – quite possibly. Not a story I followed closely and wasn’t old enough in the ’70s to remember anything. The backlash was predicted over a century ago – not to hand but there’s an evil quote in ‘Delusions of Gender’ promising all hell would break loose if women tried to emancipate.
This is how the powerful protect their power, and their useful idiots/acolytes/aspiring power brokers make it easy. No unions. No public housing. Cut welfare to the bone. Do everything the rich men say or they will fuck your economy up and there’s nothing you can do about it. That is what we have called democracy since forever, but increasingly intensely over the last 40 years.
Yeah – here ya go. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_movement#Profeminist_men.27s_movements
The US was a couple of decades ahead of everywhere else.
@ Jo
That’s completely okay. I sometime capitalise it myself.
Just like to raise a few points:
Firstly, could we refrain from using mental illness words to describe opponents. It’s policy, but it’s also to avoid othering people with those illnesses who are good people.
Second though, the second paragraph rephrased for me the fact that femininity is seen as an insult, and it really is horrible, and it is something I think all feminists and allies have in common to see the way society does that to women. I think it was Iggy Pop who said that there is no shame in dressing as a woman because there is no shame in being one (not exactly Kant, but anyway!)
I wasn’t using them as an insult. Those are the behavioural categories these behaviours fit into. I am quite careful about mental health slurs and those were not.