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A little over three years ago, a Canadian feminist with bright red hair confronted some Men’s Rights Activists outside of an event at the University of Toronto.
The woman, known as Chanty Binx, was trying to argue a point; they kept interrupting her; she raised her voice, told them to shut up, dropped the f-bomb. She was, as she admits, a bit rude to them — more than a bit, really. But being rude is not illegal, nor even uncommon, when people who disagree fundamentally encounter one another in person at a demonstration. Much worse things have happened at demonstrations.
The one thing different about this confrontation? It was caught on video, and uploaded to YouTube, at which point a vast army of the world’s worst people decided to do their best to make her life a living hell. Footage of her at the event was posted and reposted and spliced into countless antifeminist videos on YouTube; it’s been watched literally millions of views.
Binx was besieged with insults, misogynistic slurs, and grotesquely violent threats; her image was appropriated for who knows how many creepy memes. She was doxxed. “Artists” drew pictures of her engaging in sex acts. Think of any way a woman can be harassed and bullied online, and chances are it was done to her.
Binx has laid low for three years, hoping that this onslaught would pass. And, she says, the direct harassment had died down somewhat in recent months.
Now one of her haters has put her back in the spotlight again, and in a supremely creepy manner. Not long ago, you see, Binx stopped by a government-run liquor store in the Toronto area to pick up a bottle of wine. A seemingly friendly employee offered her help.
In fact, he claimed later, he had recognized her from the internet, and was hoping to hear her speak to make sure she really was who he thought she was.
After she left, he somehow accessed the store’s surveillance footage, took a screenshot of her visit to the store, and put it up on Facebook (without the blurs you see below):
No, liquor store creep, it hasn’t been two years. It’s been three. THREE YEARS of hateful, disgusting, privacy-invading harassment. Because THREE YEARS AGO a woman yelled at a couple of MRAs, and they filmed her doing it.
This time Binx has decided not to lay low. She spoke with CityNews about the latest twist in the internet war on her. The report is chilling, and well worth watching.
Feminist says LCBO privacy breach fuelled flood of online hate https://t.co/rrh0hvgfPx pic.twitter.com/W5I7nibXre
— CityNews Toronto (@CityNewsTO) June 30, 2016
“[I feel like] I’m being watched constantly,” she told CityNews. “No matter what I do, I’m under a monitor.”
Now that the CityNews segment has run, the hate campaign against her has predictably ramped up again. On YouTube, a video about the CityNews segment from “Rekt Feminist Videos” has racked up 47,000 views, and generated 1900 comments, since it was posted earlier today. Here are a few of those comments:
Several commenters “jokingly” discussed staking out the store she was filmed in.
I spent only a few minutes reading the comments; I’m sure there are many more along these lines in the 1900 posted so far.
The discussion took a similar turn on LiveLeak:
A Voice for Men, meanwhile, complained that CityNews had quoted threatening posts on its website in order to construct “yet another threat narrative” aimed at … MRAs. The comments to the AVFM post did not exactly reinforce the site’s claim that MRAs are the real victims here:
Naturally, Binx’s haters are mocking her for allegedly bringing this latest wave of harassment on herself by, well, speaking up about the vile harassment she was still getting, three years on, before she spoke up for herself.
This, from the CityNews segment, is some of what she was getting BEFORE she spoke up for herself. CONTENT WARNING: Rape, violent threats.
.
Apparently, as the haters see it, she has only two choices:
She can remain silent about the ongoing harassment, and pretty much everything else in the world, for the rest of her life.
Or she can risk getting “deservedly” beaten or raped or killed. For the “crime” of yelling at some MRAs once, three years ago.
But they’ve been threatening to do that anyway, without her saying a word to them for three years. Being silent hasn’t protected her from harassment or threats or someone literally posting surveillance footage of her that lets the world know where she lives.
I’m glad she’s speaking up and reclaiming her voice. She deserves all the support in the world for it.
If anyone here has good ideas on how to show this support, post them below. If anyone wants to explain how Binx really does deserve harassment, go to hell.
NOTE: I’ve been in contact with Binx and she is ok with me identifying her by that name; it’s all over the internet already.
wait… Dawkins retweeted the video? I thought he took it down after Lindy West insisted and let that go. I know he said Chanty deserved to be mocked, but not death threats.
I know that, later, he showed that meme saying “One of this pictures offends feminists, the other is a woman being executed” with the picture of Matt Taylor and a woman being executed (a photo taken by a feminist organization and that it’s in feminist website, but he wouldn’t know that).
Still, in spite of al his bad actions, I thought he had not retweeted that video. I kinda hate him now…
I’ve known Richard Dwakins was a piece of shit since Elevatorgate.
@ryeash:
If we are not all Chanty Binx, then maybe we should be. I’m all for telling them to STFU on every occasion, and wank-listing the wanking wankers if they don’t.
Let’s not go overboard. There are MRA who aren’t anti-feminists. There are MRA that just care aout men’s issues like suicide and custody cases, etc.
@Weiss
Take the #NOTALLMRAS arglefuck elsewhere, Whitey*. This is a troll-free thread.
*Seriously, a thread about a literal flag-waving Nazi-tatted Hitler-lover and you pick the German word for “White”? That doesn’t even count as a dog whistle.
Even if this were true (spoiler alert: it’s super not) it is irrelevant to the topic at hand.
It was a talk organized by CAFE (a men’s rights organization known for its dishonesty). It WASN’T a talk by Warren Farrell, who is the guy you’re thinking of, but CAFE had previously organized a talk by him and it also had been protested.
Warren Farrell as far as I know never advocated for a lower age of consent. But he has claimed that incest can sometimes be a good thing. I wrote about that here.
Farrell has said some really creepy things about date rape as well.
He also thinks men are oppressed by women’s butts. No, really.
I’ve done a bunch of posts about him.
Someone else has asked if Chanty has gone to the police. She has; they have not been helpful.
… Actually, given that every MRA is either a literal Nazi or a friend to and defender of literal Nazis, that was redundant of me. Oh well.
I was talking to someone who said “This really makes me want to tell every MRA from now on to shut the fuck up.”
I am not a troll. I know the majority of MRA are sexists and jackasses. Just, not all of them.
Example of one who isn’t? Because I’ve been here for 2 1/2 years and I haven’t found one of these mythical non-bigoted MRAs.
Can we talk about how the #NotAll rando shows up with the German word for white in a thread discussing a Teutophile(?), quite probably white supremacist harasser? Suspect as fuck!!!
Hey, Weiss. Either you’re a troll, so fuck off, or you’re not, so still fuck off. This ain’t the thread, and this ain’t the day
Weiss is white in german. You’re right. But the reason why I chose it has nothing to do with a white supremacy. It’s because it’s in my email, which was also chosen for reasons that had nothing to do with white supremacy.
Who was I trolling for saying not all people of a group are bad?
I even said the majority of MRA are sexists.
But I am leaving, so you can be happy
Dawkins first retweeted the “feminists are the same as Islamists” MRA propaganda/harassment video on January 26th this year. He took it down that day I think. After considerable contemplation, he re-retweeted that same video on Jan 30th. I have no idea why any feminist would want anything to do with the Center For Inquiry.
A bit OT, but I had to comment:
While we’re on the subject of icons of hate speech, a certain presumptive presidential nominee has tweeted a picture of his rival against a backdrop of cash featuring a very prominent six-pointed star decrying her “corruption”.
I wonder how his daughter feels about that?
@Weiss
See that you stick the flounce.
I was going to give Weiss the benefit of the doubt and just assumed they made a mistake and chose the wrong thread to #notallMRAs, But then they flounced without saying who the non-misogynist MRAs are so we can never know.
Giving me the benefit of the doubt? By calling me troll and attacking the name I chose, ’cause you all use your real names here,…
I was looking for the post in FTB, I think it was called “MRA done right” (something like that), but I can’t be sure, ’cause I can’t find it. Anyway, I think the one group they recommended was Good Men’s Project, or something like that.
But thanks for the benefit of the doubt
Flounce: not stuck.
Whine: check.
Cheese? Sorry, I’m all out.
I think all the rape apologia from The Good Men Project might make their status as ‘non-misogynistic MRAs’ a bit suspect. (Pretty sure the GMP don’t identify as MRAs, either, though I could be wrong on that count.)
I haven’t read much of that project, but I first read about in FTB, which is clearly feminist and cares about social justice. And it quotes this site a lot.
@Weiss
Well, yeah. Odds are. But ya can’t say that shit isn’t suspicious. Cos it is. Humorously so, even!
Trolling needn’t be a transitive verb. One needn’t troll something or someone. Trolls can, and often do, just troll
There was a sealion around here a bit before my time. He agreed that all the MRAs were terrible. Except the Honey Badgers for some reason. ‘Roosh and Elam are literally Satan, but Karen Straughan is A OK.’ That shit got the side eye too
Nothing about this makes me particularly happy, ya know. I’m not filled with joy to see you leave. What would make me happy is for you to stick around as a friendly, constructive member of the commentariat. Make the same, tired jokes about misogynists. Dispense internet hugs as appropriate. Post inane screeds about your children and/or pets. The classics, as it were
If that’s what you wanna do, however, the 1st rule of WHTM is you don’t talk about WHTM /s. But the 2nd rule is that not everything needs be said, not everything needs be said by you, and not everything needs be said right now. Makes sense?
Googling FTB gives me results for Feed The Beast, which is a minecraft challenge map/game community? Not sure if that’s the FTB you’re talking about, but if it is, it’s entirely possible that the community is non-misogynistic. I don’t see any evidence for it being associated with MRAs, though.
Is your definition of non-misogynistic MRAs “men who express interest in social justice and limiting the effects of toxic maculinity’? Because I think those guys might object to being lumped in with MRAs.
“I’m leaving” ,official troll slang for “I’m going to stick around until you ban me”
FTB is the usual abbreviation for FreeThoughtBlogs – of which Pharyngula is the best known.