Mod Note: If your comment takes the form “this is the Internet, everyone experiences harassment”, “these women should just suck it up when people send them rape threats”, ”everything Sady Doyle has ever done is now invalid because she said some unwise, inflammatory things on NSWATM” or “#mencallmethings is misandric because not all men harass women on the Internet”, don’t leave it here. I’m having a bad day and don’t want to deal with it.
Also, trigger warning for rape threats and gratuitous, sexist insults.
Ugly. Gross. Slutty, so many times I’ve lost count. Wouldn’t fuck you with someone else’s dick. Ugly, rationalizing, unhitched and unhitchable. Hairy beast. No tits. Crazy feminist, once again so many times I’ve lost count. She’s stupid but at least she’s hot. Does menstrual finger painting. Wallows in piss and shit. Auschwitz pussy.
Not to mention the entire Spearhead thread devoted to how much I suck as a human being (Google if curious), which rapidly devolved from discussing my actual point (feminism and the MRM are both failing men) to discussing my ugliness, sluttiness, possible anorexia, likelihood of dumping my boyfriend, apparent belief that I deserve an alpha male badboy lover, et cetera.
For the past couple of days, the Twitter hashtag #mencallmethings has been exploding around the feminist blogosphere. Turns out a lot of women have been experiencing gendered abuse for having the temerity to voice their opinions about things on the Internet.
The vast majority of people who send random gendered abuse on the Internet are male– although I have no studies to back it up, I do have the anecdata that despite four years of involvement in the feminist community I have never actually heard of a message that was “I am going to fuck you to death with a strapon you filthy whore, you don’t even deserve to service a real man” while I have heard of quite a lot of “I am going to fuck you to death you filthy whore, your only use is as a cunt to service my cock.”
However, that doesn’t mean that men are never victims of gendered abuse on the Internet. In my anecdotal experience, men who blog about gender are not only insulted for their marginalized identities (“faggot,” “fatass,” “crazy”), but also for being supposedly feminine (“mangina,” “pussy,” “faggot” again). Because clearly the worst possible insult is being feminine! Also, quite often, they are threatened with rape. Once again, rape is treated as a punishment for being a sufficiently bad person.
What I find most interesting about #mencallmethings is how much they violate the first rule of insults: insult someone based on a trait they feel bad about.
Man Who Calls People Things: You’re a hysterical crybaby!
Feminist: I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having emotions, especially emotions about things like people being raped. Stoicism is not necessarily a virtue.
Man Who Calls People Things: You’re ugly!
Feminist: Good thing I don’t believe that physical appearance is a determinant of a woman’s worth as a person, and that ugly people can still have interesting contributions to an intellectual discussion. I mean, it’s not like the treatment of women as sex objects is a core issue of feminism or anything.
Man Who Calls People Things: Slut!
Feminist: …dude, did you miss that whole SlutWalk thing? There is nothing wrong with having lots of sex partners.
Man Who Calls People Things: Dyke!
Feminist: Lesbianism is also not wrong. We went over this in the Second Wave. For Christ’s sake, you might as well insult me for working outside the home.
Man Who Calls People Things: Faggot mincing around with a purse!
Feminist: Not only what I said earlier, but also since I know you’re working on that whole “gay = femme = bad” thing, being a feminine man isn’t wrong either.
Man Who Calls People Things: The wild ravings of an escaped mental patient!
Feminist: Okay, really, I know ableism is kind of a new addition to the whole social-justice thing, but most feminists are down with that now at least enough to know that being a mental patient should not be stigmatized any more than having cancer is.
Man Who Calls People Things: Pussy mangina!
Feminist: …I happen to like vaginas. Vaginas are nice. You might as well call me a cupcake.
Man Who Calls People Things: Bitter, angry, humorless bitch!
Feminist: No, I don’t think being unfeminine is an insult either. Why do you ask?
Man Who Calls People Things: Feminazi!
Feminist: Yes. So?
Man Who Calls People Things: You’re a dumb bimbo little girl!
Feminist: Oh, infantilization of women and treatment of women as inherently stupid. I think I have bingo!
Man Who Calls People Things: Tranny!
Feminist: …I give up.
The Men Who Call People Things show a remarkable lack of empathy, I feel. If you want to make me cry, don’t fuck around with my appearance. Tell me my writing sucks. I just laugh when someone calls me a slut; I sit in bed for an hour questioning my existence when someone questions my writing. Of course, my experience is not everyone’s experience, and lots of women have insecurities around their sexual experience or attractiveness, but I’m pretty sure the “you’re a bad writer” insult is damn well universally wounding.
Of course, I shouldn’t expect much empathy. All these insults are coming from the people who think it’s a-okay to threaten to rape a rape survivor. I mean, say what you will about Liss’s politics, but I think we can collectively agree that there is a special hell for people who say “you fucking bitch, I’m going to rape you like your rapist should have.”
Not to mention that anti-feminists, in particular, should be very against Men Who Call People Things. Ever wonder why you get moderated all to hell at Shakesville? Because when she sees someone saying “I just have a couple of questions about abuse orthodoxy…” she starts thinking “I wonder how long it will be before this guy starts describing, in creepy detail, how he would rape me.” It poisons the conversation for honest dissenters, and that is not okay for anyone.
About ozyfrantz
And another Schala comment about how she’s totally not reacting to me. I’m beginning to doubt you’re that good at just brushing things off if you need to tell about it every time. Perhaps you should be a bit more careful about telling other people what you think they can just ignore if they want to.
I’m reacting to you, not replying to that wall of text which puts word in my mouth, twists context and makes me appear to approve the usage of mangina, and even use it myself. I mean wtf?
Upon consultation with Noah, Tit4Tat has been banned. Honestly, “don’t insult commenters and then when told not to insult people say ‘but they REALLY ARE LIKE THAT’” is not that hard of a standard, people.
I think it’s generally helpful to fight both, but the “real” victory is undermining the root cause, yes.
So no one who has a college education is allowed to disagree with you? You assumed that a casual reference to high education was an attack on your lack of it. The mere presence of a college educated person is not an attack no matter how much you’d like to think it is.
No one who is younger than you can disagree? Because your “I have more experience than you” sounds an awful like entitlement that everyone should agree with you simply because you’re older. From where I’m sitting, it’s pretty clear you’re trying to pull seniority on all of us.
And here is where I sound like an old person (did someone mention ageism?) and say, who is Jay Smooth? RE watch? What?
Um, okay. (?)
Vejuz: So no one who has a college education is allowed to disagree with you?
Who said THAT?
Most everyone here does, don’t they? In fact, most of Blogdonia does. If I thought that, I wouldn’t have any blogs to go to.
I think it is grotesque to use it as evidence of superiority or as proof that one is more intelligent (as Valerie did), yes. Obviously, you disagree.
No one who is younger than you can disagree?
Who said THAT?
Most of Blogdonia is young, aren’t they? Again, if I thought that, I would have precious few blogs to go to. I think the only women my age in the progressive blogosphere are Twisty and Arianna Huffington. (If I add CLASS to that mix, there are none at all. It can get lonely out here.)
Because your “I have more experience than you” sounds an awful like entitlement that everyone should agree with you simply because you’re older. From where I’m sitting, it’s pretty clear you’re trying to pull seniority on all of us.
Well, I don’t have education to throw around, or class, or cool, or any of that. I ain’t pretty neither. So, I guess that is the only thing I have. If it is worth nothing, then I guess I have nothing to offer.
AB:
No offence Danny, but you frequent spaces (such as here and FC) where slurs and accusations against women are often ignored at best and defended at worst, while people are required to show the utmost care to never offend a non-feminist man lest they be accused of misandry. Perhaps instead of requiring complete justice in other people’s spaces, you could start by speaking out once in a while when someone you know is defending calling women the kind of stuff said in the OP.
I’ve tried that before and you know what happened? It was graciously accepted and i was still expected to sit and shut up when the shoe was on the other foot or such words were just left to fade into the wind as I was just lumped in as an MRA, anti-feminist, non-feminist, or whatever group someone felt like insulting. We’ve danced this dance before (and I bet neither of us wants to dance it again). But it would be nice if I were still new enough to this where I haven’t already tried your advice. But who knows maybe throwing an “again” on it may be worth it.
In regards to which post specifically?
Your explanation of the problems with the word bitch. I actually do agree with quite a bit of what you said there (hence why I’ve been trying to get rid of it from my vocabulary and simply call women who do terrible things jerks, horrible, aka gender neutral terms). Also with the use of referring to cowardice with a slang term for female genitals.
We’re talking about a guy who strait up said that men don’t harass women, invalidating the experience of thousands of women who’ve been sexually harassed by men, while simultaneously equating women who want to be left alone with racists.
When did AlekNovy say such things?
As for the rest of your comment its almost a mirror image of my interactions (and I mean that almost literally, a few word changes and it would hold just as true).
So. We’ve both tried showing concern for both sides of the isle and we’ve both been treated less than kindly while doing it (or could I say “treated less kindly for it”).
Schala, “Heart Sees” IS Heart. I think she was also “Amazon Night” or something like that? There are probably more. Sockpuppetry in extremis.
I worry about Brenda, listening to all of that hate speech every day, just can’t be good for her. She used to argue w/Heart on the Ms. boards too! This means they have been arguing about the same thing virtually every day for a decade. Boggles the mind.
@Danny:
It was graciously accepted when you called posts at FC misogynist, but they still expected you to shut up and called you an anti-feminist? Somehow, I find that hard to believe.
As an example, tu quoque posted the following at FC: “This cements my opinion that women have some deep psychological need to reject people. It affirms their sense of self-value.” If a feminist had said something similarly about men having a deep psychological need to do something destructive and hurtful, even outside their own space, the people at FC would be all over it. But there? I couldn’t find a single reaction, it’s completely natural to talk about the disturbed psychological needs of women.
Not to mention the whole concept of female hypergamy. If a feminist had suggested that male sexuality (or at least 80% of it) was inherently problematic and oppressive to women, the way female preferences are made out to be oppressive to men, you would have objected. I actually believe you already have (and I agreed with you). But as long as it’s my sexuality on the line, not yours, you don’t care about it. Or rather, you’ll start maybe caring about what goes on on sites which you support, as long as I stop every single case of injustice and rudeness going on on sites which I don’t know, don’t support, and don’t recommend to anyone as being fair or egalitarian. Until then, I can apparently rot in (hypergamous) hell for all you care.
And then we have examples like debaser71 writing “sluttiness, even in pretence, repulses me” to explain why he doesn’t go to clubs. Totally not hypergamy. Totally not rejecting someone out of hand based on first impressions. Totally not never giving someone a chance. Totally not judgemental. Totally not using shaming language about people he’s not attracted to. Totally not anything of the crap women routinely get accused of. Nope, just a normal guy expressing his completely egalitarian preferences. (When he was moderated, only the s-word was found objectionable. The mod ensured him that there’s nothing wrong with being repulsed by other folk’s sexual behaviour (and expressing it), he just needed to find a different word).
Speaking of that, the very same poster speculates that women only put on make-up to avoid dating normal guys like him. Again, a moderator did step in, but only to tell him that expressing anger an frustration are understandable (except when feminists do it, obviously), but the part where he wished that make-up still had a high lead content to punish the women wearing it was a bit much.
This is what you support. This is what you don’t find sexist or unfair. This is what you’re OK with people saying about the group which I belong to, the 51% as Schala was kind enough to generalise us as. This is what you recommend to me as being egalitarian. This and dozens of other examples are what goes on every day in places you frequent, and you don’t care, because you’re too busy criticising strangers to care about what your buddies are saying.
You don’t stop defensiveness and hostility in regards to men by going to feminist spaces, telling them how wrong they are, but acknowledging that some other people are also unfair to women. But you might stand a good chance of lessening it if you could make your own spaces into an example the kind of egalitarianism which you and pages like FC consistently claim to represent. I usually don’t visit FC because there’s a limit to the amount of casual misogyny I’m willing to subject myself to, but I have seen you on this site, and you do not appear to want to influence any of the people you usually hang out with.
In the Creep discussion at Clarisse’s. I would have given you some links to the specifics, but there’s a database error at the moment. I’ll post them later, but I already know the drill. He didn’t really mean it. He was expressing justified frustration. It’s taken out of context. It means something different when he says it. Etc. That’s how it always is.
Just like an MRA using a patriarchal slur against women is really just an example of internalised misandry, which makes men at least as much the victims, while a feminist using a patriarchal slur against men us an example of the power and hypocrisy of feminism. Oh, and an MRA making comparisons to racism (like AlekNovy did) is just a useful and appropriate analogy, while a feminist doing the same is an example of white privilege and false equivalences.
I haven’t seen you treated less kindly. From what I saw on FC and here, no one was hostile to you. Then again, I might not have seen it when you have criticised anything there. But I’ve more or less given up expecting you to have an opinion of it. I’m mostly just curious if you’re going to justify that things like tu quoque’s remark was acceptable and how hypergamy is a valid concept totally different from the stuff that’s called ‘preferences’ when men express them, or if you’ll just ignore it.
Why do my comments keep ending up as spam? I don’t use more slurs or include more links as usual, but this is the third time today.
@AB
I don’t care what your intent was, the construction of that paragraph was casually cissexist. If you can’t see it, well… you haven’t been a fish out of water yet, which is fine.
@Daisy
I was going to get a liberal arts education whether or not I set foot in a grey edifice. See library card. The reason I’d gone there was this rigid belief in my family that legitimating education with credentials, of course, apparently not so rigid that the threats and the angry tirades would stop and I worked all through university. Yes, there’s a little bit of first-world privilege that comes from living in any nation in the West save the US, and no, it wasn’t enough.
And yes, when one comments on public policy it’s good to know the facts. What do I do when I want facts? Wikipedia, Google… simple research tools. Also the library when I want to check out something good on the subject.
I’m glad I focused on public policy instead of more avowedly culturally left-wing fields, despite being more left-wing than most, because it gave me the tools to be able to move forward and take on and take in other schools of thought. Pete Seger would not have got me to Julia Serano in the way that Marx and Kant and Smith did.
If you want to call my literacy class privilege, fair enough… but again, it’s on an axis that you and I share. How do I know? Because I’ve seen you write and it’s coherent. It doesn’t follow from the context of what I’ve written but it’s coherent it’s well written, you clearly are able to formulate opinions about subjects at hand. I find however, that they are often intellectually incurious, a sin which people with far more credentialing than you or I could hope to have often commit. (See Paul Krugman re: Serious People.)
I am saying that I was well served by the discipline in which I chose to focus when I did seek education. I don’t know how else to phrase it. It wasn’t a reference to your lack of credentials, it was a reference to the dilettantes who become professional leftists instead of furthering the spirit of inquiry. It was a reference to how there is rarely an original thought to be found in a field ending with the word ‘studies’. How you get from that to contempt for the working poor from someone who rents a studio apartment (for the first and last forseeable time, I can’t afford the 4K+ in extra rent and I’m going back to having roommates after this place.) and can’t afford, nor will beggar themselves to attempt to procure, a vehicle, is beyond me.
I also don’t know where you’re getting the age thing.
@Danny:
Clarisse’s is back up, so I’ll post some links to what AlekNovy said on the Creep-debate:
http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2011/01/02/men-dont-deserve-the-word-creep/#comment-8480
“Like most feminist theories, this one too uses the word “men” when it really means alpha males. Womanizers… yes, they get asked out by women ALL THE TIME… In fact, I know womanizers who turn women down more than even an attractive women has to turn down men.”
Not that bad in itself, but combined with how he refuses to acknowledge that the women who frequent bars (which already rules out me and most of the women I know) and can get any man they want aren’t representative of women in general, and how he blames women for never approaching, it becomes more than a little sexist.
http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2011/01/02/men-dont-deserve-the-word-creep/#comment-8504
In the first third of the post: “My point is that men don’t harass women on purpose, and that women most of the time label something harassment when its not”.
So harassment of women is just an innocent mistake (except perhaps when a woman does it), and most of the time it’s not even harassment. So why is it that MRAs, Feminist Critics, ‘egalitarians’ etc., can make post after post about all the bad stuff women said/did to them and hold those women fully responsible, but when a woman experiences harassment from a man, he didn’t mean to and she’s wrong for feeling bad about it? Also “Its more like 0.001% of relationships are started by women”.
In the post right under that one: “Not only do I know this anecdotally in that all men are either in the too shy to be treated like human range… Or in the jerks who don’t give a fu*k about women group.
There are even studies on this. Look into any of the studies associating sociopathy/psychopathy to hookups and dating. I didn’t invent this. Tons of studies have shown that by far sociopaths/psychopaths have the most dating/sexual success with women. (and its a huggeee margin)”.
As I said on that thread, this is a no-go for me. I happen to have a bit of expertise in this subject, and the fact that he chooses to interpret those studies solely in terms of “sociopathic men are more successful in dating” and then top it off by blaming it on women’s behaviour is really telling. You probably wont understand why this is problematic, but I couldn’t not include it.
http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2011/01/02/men-dont-deserve-the-word-creep/#comment-11187
“Right now the market is dominated by a-holes, who hit on 50 women a night/day, and don’t care about being blown-off, called a creep (because they are truly creeps, so they don’t care).”
Interesting case of creep-shaming, equating men who hit on many women with creepiness. This fits my personal experience with guys who believe women should have sex according to which men deserves it (as judged by other men). They rarely mind that men get shamed for behaviours which aren’t boundary violations, as long as they get to decide the behaviours.
http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2011/01/02/men-dont-deserve-the-word-creep/#comment-20414
This is the part where he makes the racism analogy (he also, quite amazingly, claim this whole line of discussion has nothing to do with sex, only basic human treatment). Also “Men don’t become misogynistic because they’re rejected, but because they’re unfairly labeled and mistreated.”. I can’t quite decide how sexist it is, since this could both mean that men become misogynistic because they’re mistreated (i.e. blaming women for misogyny, in a way your FC guys would likely never blame men for misandry), or if the hypergamy-guys who keep linking women’s sexual choices to misandry are not really misogynist. I sucks no matter what.
Here’s my answer if you want to see my opinion on the post: http://clarissethorn.com/blog/2011/01/02/men-dont-deserve-the-word-creep/#comment-39155
@valerie: “As far as the economic sphere, correcting for education, experience, willingness to transfer, income stability, hours worked, etc, women earn [b]more[/b] than men. [...] Men work more hours for less money per hour and more money total”
Are you willing to give us some citations? (To clarify I collect this kind of data)
Oh goddess… here begins the inevitable conversation over the legitimacy of sources because, again, like Adam Smith, it seems some authors are doomed to be widely praised but never read. But fine, here’s Warren Farrel explaining that men are suckers when it comes to work:
http://www.forbes.com/2006/05/12/women-wage-gap-cx_wf_0512earningmore.html
Has this thread been closed or something?
Danny, well, let’s see. Testing.
This getting aggravating. I’ve been trying to post a specific comment for the last two days. At first it was just not appearing now its telling me I’ve already said that. Let’s try again.
AB:
It was graciously accepted when you called posts at FC misogynist, but they still expected you to shut up and called you an anti-feminist? Somehow, I find that hard to believe.
Not posts but certain ideas from people in other places including FC sometimes. But it doesn’t surprise me that you find it hard to believe.
But as long as it’s my sexuality on the line, not yours, you don’t care about it.
Nope.
This is what you support. This is what you don’t find sexist or unfair. This is what you’re OK with people saying about the group which I belong to, the 51% as Schala was kind enough to generalise us as. This is what you recommend to me as being egalitarian. This and dozens of other examples are what goes on every day in places you frequent, and you don’t care, because you’re too busy criticising strangers to care about what your buddies are saying.
Oh good now we’re getting to the good stuff. You believe that I support this stuff because I gave up on speaking up on every single case I see of it? Do you think I started off getting selective about the things I care about? I’ll answer that for you no I didn’t. As a matter of fact I actually used to run a (somewhat) weekly post at my place called “That’s What Feminism is Talking About” (or something like that) in which I actually did try lend a friendly nod to the good among them. Well I’ve already told you what happened with efforts like that.
In the Creep discussion at Clarisse’s. I would have given you some links to the specifics, but there’s a database error at the moment. I’ll post them later, but I already know the drill. He didn’t really mean it. He was expressing justified frustration. It’s taken out of context. It means something different when he says it. Etc. That’s how it always is.
No that’s how you’ve decided it is in my steed. If anything I’m thinking something like “Yeah he might have been angry but that’s going too far.” Or at least that’s what I’d think now (mind you you’ve already frozen me in time when we first crossed paths at Clarisse’s and refuse to acknowledge where I came from before that crossing and where I’ve been since that crossing).
Oh, and an MRA making comparisons to racism (like AlekNovy did) is just a useful and appropriate analogy, while a feminist doing the same is an example of white privilege and false equivalences.
Actually that’s part of why I don’t align with MRAs. On the axis of gender and race they seem to want to cut me in two and only keep the male half, casually tossing the black half away (not too different from the history that women of color have with feminists). Problem is feminists seem to want to tear me in half as well keep the black half and toss the male half (I know that sounds weird but I’ve seen it and experienced it).
I haven’t seen you treated less kindly. From what I saw on FC and here, no one was hostile to you.
Please. As many times as I’ve had Daran simply strike out my comments and just say “No”. And I can pretty much say that when he did it I was wrong.
Then again, I might not have seen it when you have criticised anything there. But I’ve more or less given up expecting you to have an opinion of it. I’m mostly just curious if you’re going to justify that things like tu quoque’s remark was acceptable and how hypergamy is a valid concept totally different from the stuff that’s called ‘preferences’ when men express them, or if you’ll just ignore it.
You’re only curious because you’ve already decided that I will either justify it or ignore it. But no I’ll do neither and say such things are wrong. And I say this because I once embraced poison thoughts like that about women and now know they are wrong. There are problematic things among the “preferences” of men and women but to try to assign them are the defining markers of sexuality is a gross generalization.
I usually don’t visit FC because there’s a limit to the amount of casual misogyny I’m willing to subject myself to, but I have seen you on this site, and you do not appear to want to influence any of the people you usually hang out with.
Question have you actually engaged with the folks at FC? I’m asking because I’ve actually been to Shakesville, Feministe, Curvature, Womanist Musings, Alas, Finally Feminism101, etc… and tried to question (versus the tell them how wrong they are you insist) some of the parts of their ideology that I don’t fully agree with. And I’ve pretty much been attacked most of the time. For a while I figured it had to be me. And sometimes it was. But I noticed that no matter how hard I tried a lot of those folks (with the exception of Alas and WM of what I named above) were just hell bent on labeling me a privileged male in order to disregard everything and anything I have to say.
But who knows maybe there is something going on at FC as you say but you might be the influence that challenges the flow over there.
The video we’re referring to is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Ti-gkJiXc
And the reason Ozy said “re-watch” is that I’ve definitely posted this at least once on at least one other thread.
Oh, I just discovered a relevant follow-up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbdxeFcQtaU
Just came back to this thread. I admit I skimmed over most of it, but I did want to apologize to Ozy for the pronoun!fail. Won’t happen again. *salutes*
Everybody else: can we stop playing Oppression Olympics, please? You don’t have to deny female oppression in order to get us to care about men’s issues. This is a men’s rights blog! WE CARE. Okay?
HUG IT OUT EVERYBODY.
*hugs Emily*