By David Futrelle
Today in Portland, members of far-right street gang Patriot Prayer and assorted other brawlers on the fascist right are rallying around the banner of #HimToo, a trollish antifeminist response to the #MeToo movement suggesting that many rape accusations are simply false.
I don’t know about the “false” part, but many in and around Patriot Prayer certainly have experience with accusations.
Rose City Antifa has put up a lengthy post documenting that a stunning number of those invited by organizers to the rally today, or otherwise associated with Patriot Prayer or the group’s close ally The Proud Boys, have been arrested in the past for domestic violence and sexual assault. One man formerly associated with Patriot Prayer pled guilty to the sexual assault of a 14-year-old, and a regular videographer for the group “was charged with two counts of forcible sodomy on a victim under age 13,” according to Rose City Antifa.
“Men are certainly also victimized by the sexual and domestic violence and rape culture,” Rose City Antifa declares.
However, [rally organizer] Haley [Adams] and Patriot Prayer’s usage of the #HimToo hashtag has overwhelmingly ignored the possibility that men might be victims of violence in favor of simply “triggering the libs,” and publicly mocking and discrediting any claims of sexual violence.
The hypocrisy is especially ripe given the histories of so many of those involved. Rose City Antifa notes that
Not only is the premise of a “him too” rally ridiculous on its face, the behavior of Patriot Prayer, Proud Boys, Street Preachers and other associated far-right and white nationalist groups, both on the streets of Portland and in their private lives, shows that they are the exact the sort of threat described by the concept of “rape culture.”
Yep.
Local antifascist activists have organized a pushback march highlighting the experiences of sexual assault survivors; as I write this, the counterprotest has attracted several hundred, easily outnumbering the twenty or so who have shown up at the #HimToo rally. See live coverage of the even on the Twitter hashtag #PushbackPDX.
Here’s what the #HimToo rally looked like about a half hour ago:
https://twitter.com/DonovanFarley/status/1063917430873874433
The Venn diagram between fascists and MRAs is rapidly approaching a perfect circle.
If it isn’t one already.
@Bina
It’s been said but: misogyny does seem to be a gateway to bigotry of other stripes.
I’m sure Paul Elam and co will be very quick to tell us they’re not in any way responsible for this.
(Hint: They are)
Jesus christ, this is almost as bad as that time people marched in India in favor of a rapist.
Wait what
#MeToo is already gender neutral and some cis-men have used it to come forward with their stories,
its not anti-men its anti-rape to conflate the two suggests you believe all men a rapists and still side with them.
Why am I not surprised..thank you for posting the link to Antifa, these people are hateful as f***.
I understand that if men are falsely accused it could ruin their lives but HIMTOO will just make less women want to report harrassment – very poorly thought out idea
Also I think men actually (by enlarge) understand what rape is. They just think rape is a typical grab-someone and pin them down in an alleyway kind of thing. They dont grasp that manipulation, emotional blackmail, asking a woman 10000 times until she says yes to sex is rape also
Ugh!
I still remember running into a guy who insisted that as a victim he had the right to speak up whenever rape was the topic, even if the topic was initially and specifically framed as how rape affects women. I could sympathize with his victimhood (child molestation), but not with his need to make the discussion about HIS pain.
The self-centeredness, sadly, was not limited to sexual abuse discussions. He also once told me that if someone doesn’t care for or doesn’t like media of which he is a fan, then he has “the right” (his phrase) to try and get them to try it again. Apparently “it just doesn’t appeal to me” cut no ice with him.
I don’t understand that behavior. Sure, I’ve had times when I wished the world would accommodate itself to me, but I always knew I was being childish or selfish or whatever. I didn’t think I had the right to insist on accommodation to my wishes.
heebee:
Poorly thought out? From their perspective, that’s the idea working exactly as intended. As they say, it’s a feature, not a bug.
FYI, the phrase is “by and large”, not “by enlarge”.
This is what my mom believes! Today she was defending Kavanaugh and talking about how unjustly he was treated and attacking Blasey Ford! It’s so infuriating how people think women should just live in fear of rape but it’s so sad and unfair if rapists have to fear any sort of consequence.
@sylvia bath
Yup. Strangely, a lot of conservatives will rant a great deal about victims’ rights and scream about coddling criminals, except when it comes to sexual assault. Unless the perpetrator is black and the victim’s white, of course.
If they don’t understand that rape is not always (not usually, even!) a grab-someone and pin them down in an alleyway kind of thing, they don’t understand what rape is. There have been studies showing that most school-aged boys and a fair number of girls, too, incorrectly identify what is and is not rape when scenarios are described (basically, they don’t understand what is and is not consent). This is not something to be handwaved away.
@sunnysombrera: You don’t want to know.
It sickens me that these far right arseholes (many whom are rapists as David pointed out) believe that they are the real victims. The good thing about these events, though, is that the counter protestors often vastly outnumber those in the rally itself.
THIS!
Victorious Parasol,
How ironic the guy you ran into doesn’t accept having a difference of opinion from his and the right to say “no” to something. Sometimes people change their minds, but their rights to make decisions are always theirs and theirs alone. At a certain point it’s creepy and out of bounds to persist at trying to persuade them.
But you’d think a survivor of abuse would appreciate the right all individuals have to say “no” to something, whether it’s a media choice, or something more fundamental such as having physical contact.
Is it just me, or does that Haley Adams look just like Hatey Katie Hopkins?
(And not just in terms of visages, either.)
@sunny. It might be this.
Also, I wonder if this guy isn’t going to end up in that bunch pretty soon, if he’s not there already. He sure sounds like he’s picking up their basic ideology:
https://www.reddit.com/r/self/comments/9vs05k/my_son_is_a_hateful_incel_and_i_just_cannot_save/
I knew, the instant I heard it, the term “western chauvinist” was dog whistle for “male chauvinist”. Seriously, the latter is the only context I have ever heard that word being used in my entire life.
@Victorious Parasol, Katherine the Adequate
Reminds me of an anthropomorphic graphic novel based on the stories of real Holocaust survivors called “Maus”. The author contrasted a couple who were the sweetest people ever, despite surviving being put in death camps, with another survivor who was grumpy, caustic to his wife and extremely, unapologetically racist against black people.
Anyone can lack empathy. Anyone can be an asshole.
The “hateful incel” story is almost certainly fake. It trips a lot of my bullshit detectors, but the breaking point was when the father described finding a “treasure trove” of the sister’s underwear in the incel’s closet, “so saturated with old, moldy semen that they were hard as bricks.” This is not a thing that happened.
@ Aaron
I have no idea whether the post is real or not, but I really don’t see anything that pegs my bullshit-o-meter. I mean, yeah, what you highlighted is a repulsive bit of imagery, but why is it you think it didn’t happen?
@Vucodlak
I thought it was fake too. The story telling and the details “the father” chooses to linger on, when most parents who have stories about their children doing horrible things usually talk about their emotional pain, almost always describe the sweet child they loved and wonder when things went wrong. Parents who care about atrocities committed by their children feel a horrible sense of responsibility. Obviously some parents don’t care, but then they don’t write stories.
There is some clever story telling on reddit, but given the anguished accounts that do exist elsewhere of people whose children murdered or became neo-Nazis, this rubbed me up the wrong way. It felt emotionally shallow and a bit cruel.
I remember visiting a friend in Brighton when he was studying at the University of East Sussex. We went for a pint at the pub nearest to where he lived, a pub he hadn’t been to before.
When we had our pints and had sat down, we realised that two blokes at a table a few meters from us had stopped talking after we came in and were now just staring at us. It was pretty unpleasant and we quickly finished our pints and left.
As we exited, my mate remarked “This must be what being a woman is like”.
@ Rei Malebario
University of East Sussex ? As a Brightonian I have to be ‘that guy.’ My home town (The City of Brighton and Hove) is the home of the University of Sussex and of the University of Brighton (my old college in a previous incarnation.) Easy mistake for an out of towner to make though, especially if the two of you visited some other watering holes to steady your nerves after your unpleasant experience. I can only apologize for those inhospitable types, this is usually a pretty accepting sort of place.