If you’re a woman who engages publicly in that whole feminism thing, it’s almost inevitable that you will find yourself followed around the internet by a small squadron of the Internet Lady Hate Army, baiting you with disingenuous questions and bad-faith “challenges” and general abuse. If you’re a famous woman, well, that just makes it worse.
Consider the case of Emma Watson, the Harry Potter actress turned UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, who’s been a favorite target for this seething mob ever since she publicly embraced the F-word in a nervous speech before the UN in September 2014.
Only a week ago she faced a torrent of Twitter abuse for the terrible crime of reminding the world of the pro-feminist sentiments of fellow Harry Potter veteran Alan Rickman shortly after she learned of his death.
Now the troll army is targeting her again, this time with a Change.org petition demanding that the actress “[s]pend one week in a Calais migrant camp for feminism (without bodyguards).” The petition-writer, a Melbourne man by the name of Oscar Izard, declares that
In order to show how safe current migration is to Europe, particularly regarding the cause of feminism (I reject wholeheartedly the notion that North African and Middle Eastern migrants are unsafe, and rapists), Emma Watson should spend a week’s holiday in a Calais migrant camp, without guards of course, to show how safe, and how pro feminism these migrants are.
So far the petition has garnered more than 10,000 digital signatures. It’s unclear how many of them are from the likes of “Mike Hunt” and “Amanda Huginkiss.”
Even if you set aside all the ludicrous straw manning going on in the petition — who exactly is arguing that the refugees are feminists? — the petition is pure trollery, aimed at a woman who isn’t even particularly associated with the refugee issue. (Indeed, in reporting on this story, the Independent had to go back to September of last year to find a Tweet from Watson supportive of refugees.)
Watson’s big issues are education for girls and the HeForShe campaign she promoted in her UN speech. The only reason Emma Watson is the target of this petition is that, well, she’s Emma Watson.
Naturally, the increasingly trollish Breitbart has injected itself into the middle of all this, offering a rather strained justification for the petition’s weird focus on Watson.
Ever since she was invited to give a widely praised speech at the UN on the topic, she has become a poster girl of modern feminism. Her simultaneous embrace of female equality, mass migration and the misogynistic non-western cultures brought with it, is widely seen as typical of left wing activists today.
In this context, the petition can be interpreted as an expression of frustration with the contradictions of modern liberal feminism, rather than merely a personal attack on Ms. Watson.
Truly an argument that only a Breitbart reader could love.
The underlying assumption of this supremely bad-faith petition drive is to suggest that if Watson personally doesn’t rush off to embed herself in a refugee camp, this somehow proves that feminist women, and women in general, are terrified of refugees and think they’re all a bunch of dirty rapists.
But the fact is that many women are active in helping refugees already, some of them former refugees themselves, others the Western women who are the real target of the petition; we just don’t hear much about them because they are less famous than Watson.
Had petition-maker Oscar Izard spent any time in the refugee camps himself, he surely would have noticed this.
“FEMINISTS! Jump through these MAN-DATED CHALLENGE HOOPS I’ve set up for you (that aren’t even related to anything you were just discussing and I refuse to jump through myself) so you can PROVE FEMINISM IS WORTHY to me, a man! And if you don’t, you’ll face my ridicule! And if you do, you’ll face my ridicule! For I am the arbiter of the ALMIGHTY MAYUN LOJIK.”
Now this is just sad.
Ah, another opportunity to plug my mate’s blog. It is relevant to thread.
https://kthavocblog.wordpress.com
Is it wrong for me to think that they just made up a bunch of political sounding mumbo jumbo to justify a deep rooted fantasy where they want her to be raped? 😐 I mean, from all the things we’ve seen no bar is too low for these guys…
Emma Watson is an intelligent, beautiful person. She’s a wonderful role model and I’m happy that she’s around to inspire all the children I know. The troll who created this petition seems like a bitter idiot and one wonders if who the woman was who stole his ice cream.
All refugees are, of course, men. There are no female refugees at all. Otherwise, petitions like this wouldn’t make any fucking sense, since women would be spending tons of time in refugee camps, and we all know that teh menz are totes logical and would never say something that makes no fucking sense. QED
Yes. And it’s funny, because what they’re doing is acknowledging that when for a woman, being around men puts her at risk of rape. Of course when women point that out and explain that they have to take care around men they don’t know and trust because rapists don’t wear signs, that’s misandry.
Sure, they’re trying to make a racist and xenophobic point about refugee men all being rapists, but still. It’s pretty ironic. Women go into spaces with lots of men without bodyguards all the time and the petition is accidentally pointing out the women who vulnerable in any way are in danger from being harmed by men.
@sunnysombrera, my thoughts exactly.
“Hey, you know how Emma Watson hates refugees *that I totally don’t think are rapists just in case you thought I did I’m just preemptively mentioning this*?”
“There is no evidence of that.”
“But what if there was?”
“But there’s not. Stop making things up.”
“But what if there was…?”
Then a sitcom daydream fantasy sequence started and farce was born. … I mean legend.
Nope. That is a reasonable thing to expect is happening. I’ll be nice* and say that the petition maker is mostly just trying to create a “gotcha,” but given all the times I’ve seen calls for rape as punishment, I would be legitimately surprised if that hasn’t dripped into this or was a part of it from the start.
*niceness is undeserved
@WWTH
I thought at first you meant “Yes” as in I’m wrong to say it after all, but I get you now. You’re right with your other points as well, but bear in mind they believe that only foreigners/refugees are rapists. If a white man is accused of sexual assault then bitches be lyin’, but a darker skinned man? THEY BE RAPIN’ OUR WIMMINZ GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY!!
Something I utterly hate is when Western cultures are assumed to be the only ones with a sense of gender equality. This leads people to call Western cultures “post-feminist” as though feminism has done all it needs to. This has gone on for a long time too; there have been European men since the 19th century who would say how oppressed women of the Middle East and Asia are, then pat themselves on the back for how many rights they allow European women. It ties into fetishization of Asian women by European men who like to imagine all Asian women are submissive to men and that mistreating Asian women wouldn’t be a big deal to them.
Until they want to turn around and accuse feminists of being racist because of the lynchings that used to take place. Because that was somehow all feminist’s fault and there’s no way to investigate and prosecute rape these days without bringing lynching back, because reasons.
Misogynists will pretend to be against racism if they can use a problem that men of color have against feminism somehow.
It does seem that if forced to choose between hating women and hating non-white people, they’ll choose misogyny to stand on top.
The double standard really is real. In fact, I know I’m personally guilty of holding a double standard when it comes to white men and men of color: I have been assaulted in a public place four times in my nearly 34 years on the planet, all in my home city and all committed by white men of middle age either drunk or on some other chemicals. I’ve never had to fear anything from a man of color. Therefore, I hold a double standard in that I get a little worried when I see a white man with a little “wobble” in his step.
#misandry
#whitegenocide
[/sarcasm]
Please note that the sarcasm tag should only apply to the hashtags. 🙂
Of course sexism is far older than racism but they are both only symptoms of a terrible disease called male supremacy!
All the bro’s who are male supremacysts no matter what their colour, are happy to collaborate when it’s comes to women they want to suppress and oppress!
The incidents in Cologne, occurred because men from a different culture, tried to impose their ideology on another through intimidation and violence.
In their culture the streets are regarded men’s territory and the women live under siege and are marginalised to their homes.
In the game of the patriarchy, women are not the opposing team, they are the ball!
I’ve always been bewildered by these “challenges” proposed by people online, who act as if the challenged is obligated to accept it – like it’s the 18th century duel or something.
It’s certainly prevalent on YouTube, where I see videos pop up like Sargon of Akkad demanding that MovieBob debate him. Do these people realize most other individuals probably don’t have time to get involved with these three hour debates? Besides, what’s the point of it other than to appease the audience of the person who proposed the challenge? It’s such a massive waste of time – yet, for whatever weird reason, many people online continuously indulge in it while faulting anyone who decides to opt out.
Can we start a petition where Milo Yiannopoulis has to shut up forever?
@ nicknamenick
I’ve commented before about how most M-M violence is ritualistic and I think that’s relevant here.
A common description of male violence is “posture and submission”.
It’s less about causing actual harm but more about intimidating an opponent until they back down. All that bumping chests stuff is pretty stupid in terms of combat effectiveness; but it’s all part of the “monkey dance”.
Obviously sometimes things escalate; but generally you challenge someone “You want some!” and there’s either a bit of a kerfuffle or the challengee backs down “Hey, I don’t want any trouble”.
Your opponent refusing the challenge though still counts as a “win”.
I think were seeing that mindset at work here.
I. C. what you did there.
We should start an online petition challenging MRAs to do literally anything helpful to men. Like, shovel the snow out of a guy’s driveway, or buy him a new razor. Like, anything even slightly helpful to any man at all.
Honestly, it’d be great if some female celebrity would visit the refugee camps to call attention to the dangers faced by refugee women.
I’ve always been bewildered by these “challenges” proposed by people online, who act as if the challenged is obligated to accept it – like it’s the 18th century duel or something.
Internet callouts have the force of law. If that Change.org petition for Obama to address Milo Y’s loss of his Twitter badge had gotten enough signatures, it would’ve been an item in the State of the Union address. Even though Milo is not actually American. Have you even seen “Schoolhouse Rock”?
I wounder how long those guys would last if they did suddenly find them selves in the 18th century or some other era/culture where dueling was the norm?
@ fabe
Under proper duelling rules the challengee gets to choose the weapons; so you could have some fun with that.
(Trichinella infected sausages was one of my favourites)
Assuming that by “Modern liberal” they mean “Intersectional” (because typing the word “Intersectional” would make them melt like the Wicked Witch)… Isn’t “All people are equal and all people deserve equal rights” the opposite of a contradiction?
Oh, they don’t want her to be raped. They want her to be raped and murdered. *pukes*