The quarterly WHTM Pledge Drive continues! If you appreciate this blog, and can afford it, please click the “donate” button below. Thanks!
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.
@calmdown – fantastic puffin meme and you are SO RIGHT.
Thanks 🙂
Ugh and I forgot they co-opted honey badgers too!
http://angrytorro.com/fs/i/2012/09/13/3ef6f4dbbddbce22d045450ba3c8f1.jpg
Not to mention alt-righters co-opting anime. Gah 🙁
Animals and anime – anything else with “anim” in it?
Puffins are adorable. And so, in their weird-ass way, are lowercase honey badgers. Trite MRA memes with animals attached? Honey Badgers™? Bleah, fuck that noise. Lay off the animals. Just admit that you’re human dreck and have done with it.
@Mish
Animated GIFs. Even SpongeBob’s imagination rainbow hasn’t gone untarnished (they have a “Kill yourself” version).
@SFHC – nnnnnooooooooooooooooooooooo, pls no.
They probably hate Spongebob because of that brilliant song from the first movie – “Now that we’re men”. I love that song so much.
@ mish
Hey, sounds like your conference went really well; glad you enjoyed it. I’m sure I’m not the only person here who’d like to hear more about it if you get the time.
Was also thinking of you over the weekend. Various bits of on-line animal rights stuff cropped up. I’m now looking at all that through a new prism. So many issues.
Hey David, I’m also living in Toronto, in the Spadina area. Would you please give Ms. Binx my email address? Please let her know if she needs anything at all, even just to vent, I’m more than willing to help wherever possible.
She deserves some reconciliation with the internet in a way she can go online and live her life without these retarded threats. I may be a guy and not all for feminism but damn she was badass telling them to shut the f**k up. Its about time someone did. Life isnt all smiles and agreement and i wouldve done the same. She deserves a normal life free from harassment and id always welcome her with a smile and no judgement.
Hope she gets a break soon. If she wants my email too she can have it. She needs to know that even through all the hate she still has alot of support. Take care.
@Andrew Doran
Comments Policy. Read it. Thanks
ETA: moderation, yay!
@Alan, @Mish
Yeah, me too, Mish.
Alan, I’d also be interested in hearing your new thoughts about animal rights.
@ kat & mish
It’s not so much I have new thoughts about animal rights per se; but some of the discussions here have brought up interesting points about the social media aspects of animal rights campaigns. That’s why I’m so interested in seeing Mish’s paper.
This thread for instance has some relevance to the fallout from the Cecil the Lion case. Would we be as concerned if Chanty Binx had been a lion murdering dentist?
And what about things like this?
Obviously, even within the animal rights community PETA are controversial, but stuff I’ve picked up here gives new perspectives.
I’m really excited to see Mish’s paper about all this, and that’s even before we get onto whether you can be a feminist if you drink milk 🙂
@Alan, @Kat – how do people here contact each other without putting personal info on the site? Is there a special secret ceremony? Is it telepathy? There’s been a few times – like now – that I’ve wanted to take up a discussion with people without hogging the thread, but am obviously wary of offering my email/FB etc. (not wary of Mammotheers, of course, but hostile onlookers).
I’ve been vegetarian and pro animal rights for nearly 3 decades now, and the whole ‘scene’ of animal rights has changed enormously; it has a much more visible public presence now. This brings new complexities. Alan, your comment about Cecil reminded me of the fallout over Harambe. I found myself unable to agree with the ‘majority’ condemnation of the killing because it was so vicious (especially towards the child’s mother). I also had friends decrying it who happily eat wagyu beef, which I find problematic (yes, I get that gorillas are endangered and cows are not).
I’ll stop here; worried again about derailing/hogging, especially given this isn’t a personal/open thread. Thanks both for your comments!
@ mish
People here have had no problem finding me on Facebook (of course, everyone here is smarter than the average bear 🙂 )
Oh yeah, Harambe. Plenty of my normally compassionate friends going down the ‘shoot the parents’ route. I’ll have to admit I was pretty irate at first; until my mum reminded me of all the times I’d done something daft as a kid (she also pointed out that she’d have happily swapped me for the gorilla at times); but emotions running high I suppose. It was such a waste; and I’m in a circle that’s not fond of zoos generally.
And the ‘which animals are food’ thing is also a big issue. Ties in with everything from the recent dog festival to Taiji. It was a friend calling me out on my tricky position of disquiet at eating some animals but not others that was a factor in my conversion to veggie (“Would you eat Sassy?” was a pretty good rhetorical question)
[it was a plaintive message “Please stop eating piggies” that actually swung it]
It’s strange when the internet collides with the real world. Such as the case with the guy who posted the footage and comments about Binx. You have to wonder, that guy at Trader Joes that helped you find the Cookie Butter…does he spend his evenings posting hate? That guy you just said you’d meet for coffee from OkCupid, is he giving other women death threats? Because honestly, these MRAs are normal looking guys. They got mothers. They got sisters. They got girlfriends and wives sometimes. They got women in their life they care about..some of them at least. They got normal jobs and live in normal society. But they just hate women so much. And a lot of those threats made to Binx are some of the most violent, darkest things I’ve ever read. How can that amount of violence even be inside someone? You got to have some pretty black insides to come up with half of those threats. And all for what? I simply don’t get it.
Maybe somebody has mentioned this already, but they didn’t do a great job of hiding “Chad Collins'” identity on his wildly-violent and sickening threat.
I’m going to watch the report now and hope that the person who misused his employer’s video surveillance to force them into a contentious social issue on the creepy side at least got fired.
This is sad and makes me feel sick inside. If there is a way to help her and other doxxing victims I would love to help.
I personally find it a bit intriguing that the author of this article forgot to mention, that Brix and her crew were there protesting a speech about man’s stuff. And it only concluded in a discussion outside, because they were interrupting a harmless talk/lecture with screaming, noise, and in the end pulling the firealarm.
Of course that doesn’t justify making Brix’ life a living hell!!! Don’t get me wrong, but imo feminism in general should move towards reasoning and argumentation and away from the need for safespaces because other people have different opinions 🙂
@DerDeutsche
Necro’ing a thread to whine about feminist safe spaces on a story where a feminist confronted her ideological opposite, on their own turf, and just for doing this has suffered a completely unbelievable campaign of harassment and hate for the last 3 years?
Come on, man. Did you even think before you posted that?
Addendum: what’s with all the German burners dropping by on this thread?
So fucking what? Freedom of speech applies to liberals too.
(And the right to peacefully protest is an actual free speech issue, unlike online rape/death threats.)
This is heartbreaking.. It sickens me to the core that people do this to Chanty.
These disgusting abusers claim feminists get offended at everything, yet they make someone’s life hell for three years just because Chanty expressed her point of view and was a bit rude while at it. Now tell me, who’s really the cowards who get overly offended?
I wish Chanty all the best of success and that this senseless torrent of abuse will stop. If there’s any way at all that I can help, I will gladly do so.
You know, for a online group, the alt-right is surprisingly well organized. Within a month of that video’s release, Binx’s life was already a living a hell. How to these groups manage to pull off this stuff? The Alt-Righters that protest at feminist conventions never get death threats, and their info is well-known.
@Greg
The reason Alt-Righters who protest don’t get the same level of abuse hurled at them is not because feminists are less organized, but because we’re not terrible people who hurl abuse at others for exercising their rights to free speech.
I’m disgusted by the conduct of Chant Binx in the infamous video. She wasn’t just a bit rude. Please… If that type of vitriol was hurled at you, there’s no way you wouldn’t post about it, there’s no way you’d describe as merely “more than a bit rude, really”. The downplaying of her embarrassingly unhinged conduct isn’t honest at all.
That said, it was years ago, and as far as I can understand, she’s not only suitably embarrassed by her display, she’s in no way owed the type of responses I’ve seen. Some of those comments really shocked me. She is deserving of disapproval and perhaps a good old loud, strongly worded confrontation. Not THIS though. THIS is crazy, uncivilized, criminal and just sickening.
“Chanty”: for what it’s worth, I think you’ve paid an unfair price and I’m unreservedly sorry. What I see here is wrong wrong wrong. You didn’t deserve it. It’s terrible. Fuck those guys. Again, I’m sorry.
She mocks male victims of suicide. She harasses peaceful MRA meetings. She shouts death threats towards religious people. Yet, she’s the ‘VICTIM’????