Jack Barnes, a volatile American Men’s Rights activist known for his harassment of feminists on Twitter, is now threatening to unleash a new offensive designed “to strike fear in the hearts of feminists.” In a post on Men’s Rights hate site A Voice for Men bristling with violent language, Barnes declares that
we have our hands on the throat of feminism. This isn’t the time to ease up. This is the time to squeeze harder.
The ostensible subject of Barnes’ post is a several-weeks-old piece on News.Com.Au by Australian writer Kerri Sackville about a road-raging, red-Jag-driving man who shouted “slut” at her when she honked at him for blocking the road. Barnes adds to the abuse, declaring her a crazy, misogynist (!) “cunt.”
The real source of Barnes’ fury at Sackville is a campaign she launched last December to “name and shame” men who sent abusive and threatening messages to women online using their real names.
And that’s what leads Barnes to what he says is the real “point of this article,” a declaration of virtual war against “Sackville and her fellow feminazis.” He writes:
Here is what we do. We make it hurt. If they want to continue to do this then we make them regret it. They need to learn that their are consequences for doing this. They need to learn that we will extract a pound of flesh, figuratively speaking. They need to learn to fear retribution from us.
Barnes claims that this “retribution” won’t include physical violence, but he doesn’t specify exactly what it will include, merely suggesting that he will soon have the “tools” necessary “to strike fear in the hearts of feminists.” And by soon he means next month.
We won’t use violence. We don’t need to use violence. How do we make these feminists think twice before going all Gestapo on any guy who has the balls to call out feminism or individual feminists on their FemKKK behavior? Well I can’t tell you that right now. Lets just say a plan is in place and being brought into fruition as we speak. Expect it to be revealed before the end of February provided that everything goes according to plan.
Barnes then launches a preemptive strike on any even slightly ethical MRAs who might be “wringing their hand” [sic] over his mysterious threats, bluntly informing them that “this fight is about to get dirty. Deal with it.”
Barnes — using a rhetorical switcheroo common amongst MRAs — frames his threatened offensive as a defensive move. Feminism is dying, he asserts, and like many dying beasts it is lashing out against its enemies in a desperate frenzy. He predicts that
feminists will become increasingly more vicious. … MHRAs with lives ruined, imprisoned and dead is not outside the realm of possibility.
As he sees it, not just Sackville and her fellow Australian ally, writer Clementine Ford, but all “public faces of feminism” are fair game for “retribution” for whatever offenses he’s decided they’re guilty of.
You don’t get a warning. You all have engaged in this despicable behavior. You will receive consequences. Go ahead and whine and cry about the horrible MRAs threatening you. We don’t care. This isn’t a threat. This is a statement of fact. We will not use violence. But we will make you hesitate to ever do these things again.
Barnes apparently believes in some sort of collective guilt, making clear that he will hold prominent feminists “responsible” not only for their own alleged crimes, as he defines them, but for the behavior of what he calls their “mindless minions.”
This is not the first time Barnes has announced his desire to harass feminists into silence. Usually he remembers to put the word “harass” in quotes, as if this will be enough to transform harassment into something that doesn’t sound quite so bad.
Usually, but not always:
Nor is this the first time that Barnes has issued threats that he insists aren’t really threats.
Indeed, I myself have been the recipient of some of these non-threat threats. Last November, after someone doxxed him and his family, Barnes decided that I needed to be held “responsible” for the doxxer’s actions, even though I had nothing to do with that person or persons, didn’t know who they were, and didn’t even know about the doxxing until I learned about it from a video by AVFM head honcho Paul Elam a day or two later.
I made it clear I knew nothing about the doxxing or the doxxer (who later ended up doxxing me). I condemned the doxxing, publicly and repeatedly. It didn’t matter: Barnes declared the doxxer to be a “cult follower” of mine, so anything they did was somehow my fault.
“I promise you David,” he wrote in an AVFM post, “that for the rest of your life there will be nights you cry yourself to sleep in anger and frustration over me.”
Indeed, he wrote, if anything happened to his family as a result of the doxxing, he would literally show up on my doorstep for
a face to face in person discussion … No cops. No lawyers or prosecutors. No judges. No jury. No hiding behind a computer. Just me and you. …
I don’t know of any parent that would blame me for stomping a mud hole in your fucking ass and walking that motherfucker dry for what you have done!
What I’ve “done” is to condemn the doxxing that Barnes blames for putting his family at risk.
Barnes is hardly the only AVFMer who believes in this sort of guilt-by-non-association; assorted others rallied behind him on Twitter, repeating his accusations and defending his threats. The title of Elam’s video on the doxxing declared bluntly that I was “Trying to Get MHRAs Killed.” How? By writing critically about AVFM.
Elam’s bizarre inflation of my carefully documented criticism of MRAs into an attempt to literally “get MHRAs killed” is not only jarring; it’s ominous. By pretending that the writings of feminists leave MRAs, quite literally, in mortal peril, Elam, Barnes and others associated with AVFM can justify almost any actions they might take against feminists, no matter how sleazy or underhanded or even violent, as a form of self-defense.
Abusers who think — or simply pretend — that they are the victims are some of the most dangerous people in the world.
@Newt :
That shit is from another world. I often read here, but I hadn’t seen that one. Definitely answers my question.
@Scildfreja (Nordic name?):
See above, answered very well. Look through the blog archive for more. More generally, see the quote “Men are afraid women are going to laugh at them. Women are afraid that men are going to kill them.”
Your personal impression is just that – a personal impression, formed from the position in which you live. Your personal impression would be very different if you were in different circumstances.
Throw it out. Don’t let it bias your opinions (as much as that is possible). There’s a distinct and visible difference in timbre between harassment towards men and harassment towards women.
Are you seriously asking if misogyny is a problem?
@Alan
I actually have done that, but what I saw doesn’t support your conclusions. That’s one anecdote obviously, but I was a gamer about ten years ago (without saying I was a dude, but most people kinda assume you were), I was pretty good but wasn’t in guilds or shit like that, I would often top games while being an outsider, and I’d regularly get insults for that (faggot, noob, etc). Then I kinda dropped gaming and took it back two years ago. Since I was too lazy to do a profile, I let my GF do one and she went and created a profile that was very girly, pink stuff with very sweet sounding name. I actually used it for two years, and can recall being insulted once by a guy who figured out I was a guy, and flirted with by two other dudes.
That’s why I was kinda surprised by the Anita video called “Invisible Benefits of Gaming While Male” (or something like that), because if I am to believe this video, I’m clearly not a dude. 😀
Then again, that’s only my anecdotal experience. My personal question is to know whether this happens more to women or if I just don’t pay attention to that stuff when it happens to me. I’m definitely open to considering it happens more to women, but I’d like some reference.
No, I’m asking if general abuse is not the problem, and misogyny is one of its specific iteration, or if misogyny leads to heavier abuse than traditional arseholery. I am talking about online abuse here.
Take it easy, you’re not always at war.
Orion, if you’re claiming you would feel bad if one of the MRA All-Stars passed away of natural causes (no human hand involved) in anything more than a lip-service, “sorry it happened” way, you’re telling that fairy story to the wrong person. Or maybe you just don’t know the difference between indifference and joy. By the way, the rest of you, I didn’t make any threats.
.Re: Max
I’m going to assume you’re not trolling and tell you to keep in mind that is not just the men making the threats that are the problem . It’s the many, many men who read the threats and take them seriously enough to believe it’s okay to act on them. It’s called incitement to violence. ( See my previous post on the tail end of of page 2.)
There are people out there willing to act on threats they see other people make. I’m not scared of any of the people online threatening me. I know they’re not coming into my neighborhood to do a damn thing, but I am concerned about people who would act on their threats who are already in my neighborhood ( although once again it’s not a very deep fear because most Black men ain’t into the whole MRA thing to that level.)
Did you just come here from a different solar system yesterday? Have you honestly not noticed that women get abused on the internet for being women, on top of the regular crap everybody gets? Sorry but it’s impossible for me to believe you’re here in good faith.
Yeah I don’t wanna make it seem like I’m discounting experience of victims. I understand the problem of not being able to make abuse stop pretty well unfortunately, so I definitely have a lot of sympathy for people who go through that.
I’m not sure where I’m getting at with my questions, it’s basically me thinking out loud. Why can’t we not all love each other?
@Max,
Though I addressed my last post to you, it was really intended for Alan. I hadn’t read your post yet, and now that I have, it looks like you’ve made a pretty basic error in judgment, by assuming that acceptable behavior stays the same in very different environments.
Look, I’m a gamer. Even with Gamer-Gate trying to ruin it for me, I’m staying the course with this identity. I understand the point the “gamers are dead” was making — that not all games don’t have to be made for people like me — but that’s the kind of person I am and I see no reason to pretend otherwise.
I’ve spent a lot of time in a variety of hyper-macho, competitive, point-scoring environments. They’re kind of my guilty pleasure. In my case I’m most invested in intellectual point-scoring and feed my ego with arguments about strategy and design, not with wins. I’m on friendly terms with Frank Trollman, whom EJ has aptly described as the legendary asshole sage of RPGs. Now, I called this my guilty pleasure for a reason. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that every last one of these communities ends up overwhelmingly male.
Fortunately, we don’t need to have that conversation. I’ve been active for years on the Gaming Den, where our signature idiom is “your idea is bad and you should feel bad”, it’s common practice to tell idiots and trolls to “suck a barrel of cocks,” and our welcome to newcomers is some ever-changing variant on a promise to “wreck your car, burn your house, and then say mean things to or about you on the internet.”
The important thing to note is that I keep that shit on the gaming forum. I like imagine that most raging Halo players are also well-adjusted enough to keep their profanity-filled homophobic posturing on Halo.
If I’m playing League of Legends and someone says he’s gonna find me and murder me, I’m gonna report him for misconduct but I’m not going to lose sleep. If I’m posting a personal blog and someone comments to say he’s going to find me and murder me? That’s a whole different ball game.
In conclusion: It is true that men are routinely threatened with violence during certain kinds of online gaming. However, the majority of women coming forward to talk about receiving death threats are not involved in online gaming. (I don’t believe women get equal treatment in gaming, either, but that’s almost beside the point)
Read what I write: most guys I know have been abused online as well, except before Twitter, you couldn’t really talk to strangers for nothing. My point is that people tend to become assholes when they think nobody can see them. I’m not trying to push an agenda of not caring about women’s experience, but I think it’s more universal an experience than that. My unfortunately extensive personal experience with abuse as a child (get the violins) is that abusers do not abuse you for the reason they say. They abuse you because they want to abuse and because they think you won’t retaliate physically, and what they say is the medium. If you deprive them of that specific medium, they will just find another one.
That’s what I’m getting at: I think that tackling abuse at women as if it were created by the women being women is wrong: for me the abusers are assholes to begin with, and they use misogyny as a tool to hurt. So I think that it’s their willingness to hurt that should be addressed, because otherwise they’ll just find another avenue.
Does that make sense?
I didn’t indicate I felt safer if the threat was not misogynistic. But now that you said, I’d like to point out that misogyny is a genuine fuel for some extreme violence, whereas an online tiff is rarely so. I have a feeling you don’t “buy into” the whole misogyny scam, amirite? It’s just not really a problem in your world. Weird.
@Orion
That’s a very good point, thanks for the input. It does put things in perspective.
And overwhelmingly asshole. I have never met a dude who was really a racist or sexist that I liked. I have a low tolerance for assholes in general. This type of guy also tends to drive out males who don’t think like them, but they have less avenues to attack them, since it would be hard to attack someone on his identity if you share the same. But at this point, as we say in my country, I’m sodomizing flies.
Yup, now I know you’re trolling. I’m out.
@Leda Atomica
Please don’t put words in my mouth. I definitely buy into the misogyny scam, as you say, and I also buy in the fact that people can be vilely abusive for no other reason that you are not like them or that they have prejudice against you. You say that “I’d like to point out that misogyny is a genuine fuel for some extreme violence, whereas an online tiff is rarely so”, well that was my original question regarding online misogyny. Does it transfer to real world violence more often? It’s not exactly a crucial question in my life but I was wondering about that.
@dhag85
Cheers.
I just have to keep going after the violins. Max, I’d like you to read about bigotry. Abuse has different motivations, and sometimes the motivation is to keep a group of people down based on random characteristics.
You don’t seem to fully understand the difference between abusing someone who is a woman and abusing someone for being a woman. One of these is misogyny.
You seriously sound like those people who come in and complain that feminists just want women to be handled with silk gloves or they’ll cry misogyny.
It would also help if you stopped pretending people’s replies to you are ‘war’. And the whole ‘let’s lurve one another’ after knowingly saying stuff you admit makes you sound like a troll, well, it makes you sound like a troll.
Do most guys you know have named, years-long movements with memberships in the hundreds dedicated solely to harassing them, complete with logos, theme colors, mascots, and swag?
I mean at some point, if you don’t see the difference here, I can’t explain it to you.
@ Orion
There’s an arsehhole called “Trollman”?
Nominative determinism in action?
Because while you’re thinking out loud, women are busy handling their death threats. I understand that every man, at some point, has to learn this stuff for the first time, and that the depths misogynists sink to are so bizarre that it’s hard at first to believe that they’re real or common. When they’re first alerted to the abuse crisis in Western culture, many decent men go through a short phase where they don’t know what to think, or want to believe it’s not as bad as it really is. That’s not wrong, but you should do that questioning on your own time, with other men, or with a very close female friend as much as possible, and keep your skepticism out of feminist hangouts.
The first time you hear about a social problem, you don’t have to unquestioningly accept that it’s real and exactly as bad as they say it is. You are entitled to withhold judgment and investigate before you make up your mind.
However — and this is important — you cannot expect the people living with a problem to be happy to hear from people who don’t believe in it. A woman targeted for online abuse has her plate full dealing with that; asking her to prove to you the abuse is real adds insult to injury.
Can’t we have some good old fashioned trolls who are just blatant? I’m getting really tired of the sealioning, JAQ off types who say a bunch of bullshit and then wonder why we’re getting irritated when they’re being so “polite” and “civil.”
It’s tedious as hell.
Max, this site is for mocking misogyny, not debating its existence. Just stop and think about you’re saying.
I get that. My question was: does online abuse on grounds of misogyny lead to more real-world outbursts than online abuse in general, where the recipient can happen to be a woman?
I’d kinda like everyone to be handled with silk gloves to be honest, hence what I said:
I did not say all replies were war, I said one of them was, I might have misinterpreted, but when I ask about the impact of online misogyny and get “Are you seriously saying misogyny doesn’t exist” as a response, it does feel a tad antagonizing. As for the “Why can’t we all love each other”, it was directed to MRAs, racists, sexists and assholes in general, not the people in the comments.
@TreeHugger:
I have asked if online misogyny translates in real-world violence more often than regular abuse, which basically means that I acknowledge its existence. This is getting insane.
“I get that. My question was: does online abuse on grounds of misogyny lead to more real-world outbursts than online abuse in general, where the recipient can happen to be a woman?”
And I’m questioning your motivation for wondering about this specific question on a feminist forum.
Let’s all dance around the wondering, questioning rainbow and sing the question song.
@Orion
True, I definitely had no idea about a few things I have read in the comments, like the forums dedicated to harassment. Thanks for taking the time.
I understand your point, but I don’t see how asking precisions on a site dedicated to an issue could be done differently; ultimately, you never know how painful something can be for the person you’re talking. If you’re sensitive to that and I’ve touched that, sorry, it definitely wasn’t my intention. But don’t go around and try to make me say things I haven’t said: it’s pretty scary to see people label you as an enemy so fast. Not immediately believing everything on your words alone isn’t a personal attack.
@Leda
Good idea.
More seriously, where would you have me ask about that? On A Voice For Men?
Let’s be honest, shall we? What you really said was that the abuse directed at women isn’t because of misogyny, but because that’s just how it is on the internet. I’m just calling your shit out without playing the little JAQ game. I’m not buying it.