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.
*hugs Emily*
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.
Oh, I just discovered a relevant follow-up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbdxeFcQtaU
The video we’re referring to is:
https://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.
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… Read more »
Danny, well, let’s see. Testing.
Has this thread been closed or something?
@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
@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… Read more »
@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… Read more »
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.
@Danny: 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 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… Read more »
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.
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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. (?)
That it’s more important to know the root causes that you’re trying to remedy rather than the symptoms you’re trying to treat. I think it’s generally helpful to fight both, but the “real” victory is undermining the root cause, yes. This is a reference to formal education. 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.… Read more »
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’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?
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.
T4T: Do NOT insult other commenters. Do NOT call them bitches. Do NOT call them malicious, unpleasant and selfish. Do NOT say they are full of shit. Shape up or I will ban your ass.
Daisy, while privilege itself is not an insult, I think you probably need to rewatch that Jay Smooth video about how to tell people they sound racist.
Not replying to AB’s total misinterpretation of my word. Not putting words into my mouth, or I don’t reply, and ignore the walls of text.
As far as I know there is Heart Sees. A play on heartsies? It could be her, but I don’t know. It’s amazing that Brenda is still there though.
@valeriekeefe: Schala is a woman. She is a trans woman. I can’t speak for her, but I do NOT appreciate your third-gendering. And I got plenty of misogynistic insults while (badly, apparently) presenting male. It was my comment, not Daisy’s, she’s just quoting me (too bad Schala didn’t notice that before she said it wasn’t intentional). And I didn’t third-gender her. It might as well have been homosexual slurs as one of the examples (which I’ve used enough that you ought to know that) together with misandry and transphobia. The point is that she doesn’t seem to care the least… Read more »
Valerie, one correction:
Me: In the USA, congresspersons start poor and routinely emerge as millionaires.
I meant: CAN start poor, theoretically. No, they don’t really, but that is the Horatio Alger idea in the USA, that is widely propagated.
People go into politics to just become rich.