Well, I have been banned from the Men’s Rights subreddit, evidently for mentioning The Spearhead too often. And also, apparently, because of Lorena Bobbit? Honesty, I’m not sure I fully understand why I’m banned; I am pretty sure I haven’t breached any of the tenets of Reddiquette in any of my comments in r/mr. See if you can figure it out:
I’m also banned from A Voice for Men. And Toysoldier. Not sure about The Spearhead. I don’t think so, but there’s not really much point posting somewhere where all dissenting commenters (and most women) are downvoted so thoroughly that you have to click a special link to even see them. I might or might not be able to comment on other MRA blogs, I don’t know.
But honestly, the only Men’s Rights forum I really have (or had) any reason or desire to comment in is the Men’s Rights subreddit, because for all of its faults it’s really the only MRA forum of any size that’s not completely overrun with misogynists and fanatics. The only one where there is even a chance of holding any kind of substantive discussions with MRAs online. And Ig has shut that door, at least for me.
(There are of course many other places to discuss things with MRAs online, like, you know, here, and NSWATM, and so on, but these places aren’t run by MRAs.)
I asked Ig if he would also ban the guy who wished me liver cancer earlier today. I have not heard back from him yet.
EDITED TO ADD: Ig has gotten back to me. He recommends that I “go to hell.” Meanwhile, the liver-cancer wisher has reaffirmed his desire that I “catch” cancer.
Elsewhere in r/mr, another fellow describes me as “an accumulation of grunge far worse than any of the quotes you mine.” Which doesn’t make a lot of sense, but at least has a spark of originality to it.
CassandraSays:
That’s not fair to bricks.
Garvan: It’s bizarre, I know all kinds of people– male, female, and other– who have been sexually and romantically unsuccessful. My best friend got his first kiss when he was 21. And yet somehow he managed to avoid sending obnoxious messages on dating websites because of it.
I don’t like “die cis scum” myself, but it is generally read as referring to “die scumbags, who are all cis” not “die cis people, who are all scumbags,” and I am not entirely against wishing death upon transphobic scumbags. Mostly because they keep wishing death upon US, and fair is fair.
Buttman: Men are less likely to get custody primarily because they’re less likely to fight for it. Men are less likely to fight for it because taking care of kids is women’s work. The patriarchy was the one that decided that taking care of kids is women’s work. Hence, yes, it is caused by the patriarchy.
Ture, bricks are useful.
Oh look, another MRA making excuses for someone`s horrible misogyny by saying, “He`s just hurting inside!”
Go piss up a rope.
Doesn’t matter why our hypothetical shouty all-caps guy is screaming misogynist insults at random women on dating sites, he’s still being an asshole. If he is (again, hypothetically) shouty and angry because he’s not getting what he wants out of relationships, guess what? His behavior is ensuring that he never will.
That’s nice and all, but the thing is, pretty much everybody has been lonely at some point, and the vast majority of us don’t respond by yelling, “Fuck you cunt” at people. I don’t judge people for being lonely. I judge them for being assholes, and I’m not sure why you seem to think we shouldn’t criticize people for being assholes if they’re sad about something. I’m freaking clinically depressed – does that mean I have an ongoing license to call everyone I meet cunts and worthless pieces of shit without criticism? Because I really don’t think it does; I think grown-ups are capable of being sad without throwing tantrums at people, and if they do throw tantrums, I think other grown-ups are more than entitled to say, “Wow, you are being a pathetic little asshole. Stop that right now.”
But … but … intent: it’s fucking magic!
http://genderbitch.wordpress.com/2010/01/23/intent-its-fucking-magic/
“Mmmm, part of the reason men pay more is because men take more risks. So you know, work on that.”
Which would be fine if MEN didn’t have to pay for women’s choices in Health care. But you demand that MEN pick up the tab for your decisions. You don’t want equality. You want special rights.
I don’t buy that Solanas was pursuing any agenda outlined in SCUM, because her statements after the shooting reflect her personal conflict with Warhol and her would-be publisher; furthermore, it’s pretty odd that she would try to get SCUM published through a man if she were serious about its contents. From her wiki page:
“After going into police custody, Solanas was brought before the Manhattan Criminal Court where she told the judge, “It’s not often that I shoot someone. I didn’t do it for nothing. Warhol had tied me up, lock, stock and barrel. He was going to do something to me which would have ruined me.”
She clearly connects her actions to her suspicions about others’ use of her works, and not to any plan or agenda outlined in SCUM. Even someone who’s bad at planning can tell you why they did something.
On the other hand, not only does Breivik’s manifesto reflects not only his planning and rationale for his massacre, his post-arrest statements reflect his written ideology as well:
http://bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-24/norway-killing-suspect-may-explain-motives.html
If the only two data points we had for both Solanas and Breivik were
1. Wrote document about killing
2. Subsequently killed people
then the analogy might make sense. However, there are more than two points in both cases, so one simply cannot sneer “oh yeah! Well Breivik was writing satire, too!” and expect it to be a serious argument. The relationship the SCUM Manifesto bears to Solanas’ shooting is much more ambiguous than Breivik’s case.
Miscellany:
Solanas was actually trying to publish the SCUM Manifesto, and had a contract with a publisher. Some of the language in her contract apparently fed her paranoia. Her play “Up Your Ass” was found in a trunk, not the Manifesto.
SCUM doesn’t appear to have originally meant “society for cutting up men,” but instead refers to a certain kind of empowered woman who steps outside the boundaries of contemporary society.
Regarding this post. Pinegrove33 includes the Spearhead often when he’s talking about men’s rights sights. I believe he even referred to them as our brothers over on the Spearhead. If he’s talking about anything mentioned an Spearhead also, then they get a mention. Pinegrove33 is more prominent, active, and “mainstream” than those reddit posters, I daresay. I would name him as a moderate and careful/safe in his commentaries if he didn’t so often mention these other extremist slugs in his videos.
To me, the significance of the quotes over in MRAland are not that they are obnoxious but that so many of them cross the border into the advocacy of cruelty or even violence against women, and serve as an encouragement of the attitude that women should be targets. The denial of humanity, the disparagement of basic citizenship rights, the ugly blanket accusations and descriptions, and even sometimes the defense of perpetrators of violence (Josh Powell, to give a recent example) are signposts to where this sort of thing can lead. I have no idea what W. F. Price is like as a person, but he should feel no surprise if law enforcement investigators come knocking at his door, considering some of the online company he keeps. Anyone who keeps a garden without weeding it may find some bad things growing. That’s why they call some of it “hate speech.” Any genuine beef he may have got lost long ago in that noxious underbrush he feeds and waters. I’m not holding the manosphere responsible for the entire Internet, only the parts they moderate.
Buttman you must be obtuse if you bring up insurance. -Insurance. How does it work?
Have you ever been asked by your car insurance agent if you’re left handed? I have. Why do you think that is? I’ve also been asked if I “name” my cars. Why is that?
Insurance companies profile and charge according to risk. It means men get in more accidents. According to car accidents. com, men are more than TWICE as likely to die in car accidents than women. If women got in more accidents, they would be charged more. If Insurance companies could go Full-Orwell, they would. They’d do whatever they can get away with.
Nader used to point out to women if they take the exact same shirt to the cleaners, they are charged more than men. People would argue with him and try to come up with excuses for this, and he shot them all down. It’s almost like the people that started the MRM writing actually took whatever women’s issues/complaints were and tried to find equivalents, and that’s why we get these weird Tom Martin arguments.
It actually is true that men are built so that sitting for long periods of time is harder for them. Well, instead of saying “it’s true” I should say that’s what I was taught in high school, just as a point of interest. It has to do with the shoulders vs. waist, supposedly. But what’s more alarming in this oppression Olympics is that men are considered the default in society to the point where seat belts are made for them, and if women die in an accident because their seat belt was not fit for them, the women are called “too small”. Because everyone knows that default is male, and that outside of that is some abnormality. If anyone can find the article I’m referring to (I think it was in Yahoo News and was a statement from the manufacturer), that would be great, I can’t find it again.
garvan: Ander’s Breivik’s Manifesto should be taken as satire, like Valerie Solanas and the SCUM Manifesto, or Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal.
But now we’re doing it for a girl who attempted to kill a person but wrote about it before she attempted kill them?
You are in the same fetid pit as your enemy throwing shit at each other, whilst both sides consume their own excrement.
Nope.
Solanas didn’t write about killing Andy Warhol. She didn’t publish the manifesto. It wasn’t published until well after she shot Warhol. She wasn’t, so far as anyone can tell, trying to convince people to go out and shoot men.
Breivik is in court right now, saying he meant every word of it.
garvan: Except Solanas wans’t joking, hence shooting Andy Warhol.
Except that she shot him because she thought he had stolen from her.
So the equivalence, is as false here as it was elsewhere.
Wait, please please tell me that they do not equate because one caused more death than the other.
They don’t equate because they had different motives.
If you’d like, we can take large sticks and hit each other until one of us dies if that’s more to your liking.
But I’m going to poison your drink before you get a chance to step into the ring.
Ooh… you think you are clever, and cunning, and that you will be allowed to be treacherous; and that no one else thinks like that.
If you think a mortal combat is something I’m going to treat as a duel, good luck. I was a soldier. I’m not in combat for the glory, and I’m an old soldier. I’m good at checking the skyline.
Poser.
garvan: Really… you think that someone can have a reasonable justification for hating all women?
And then you think that feminists are evil for saying that some men hate all women?
“Buttman you must be obtuse if you bring up insurance. -Insurance. How does it work?”
Maybe feminists literally can’t realize the inequality in charging a man more because his choices and charging a woman less when her choices lead to higher costs. It’s quite simple. If women cost more for health care then they should pay more. If not, then MEN should not have to pay more for auto and life insurance. You only want equality when it benefits females.
If you can show that women, as a class, are more expensive to insure, for routine procedures, go ahead.
We’ll wait.
Facts and figures; i.e. with data, otherwise you are just blowing smoke.
@Buttman
Men being on average bigger than women means bigger structures are needed to accommodate them comfortably. It would probably be much cheaper material-wise if we built to fit the average woman, and just made men deal with it. Should we charge men extra for taking up more space?
Here is something interesting-the only choice you could be referring to is a woman choosing to have a child. That is it.
So let us break it down: the average cost (in 2009, latest numbers I could find quickly) was $1,800 to 21,000 depending on where and what kind of birth. On average a woman will have 2 kids. So at the top the woman will cost an insurance company $42,000 to give birth. Prenatal care will be around $2000 a kid so $4000. So you have a cost to the company of $46,000.
Now let us take a look at accidents: Average cost of 1, count ’em, 1 injury only crash is $126,000. It is an average of $6,000,000 when there is a fatality. And with 1.542 million injury crashes in the US in 2010 alone, you are talking some serious cash. And who causes these very very pricey accidents? Males, in one study they were 80 more likely to be involved. In fact it has been pretty steady since 1975 that men cause about 70% of fatalities.
So $126,000 is more than $46,000. And that $46,000 is much smaller than $6,000,000 plus the devastation that a death can cause.
Mainly because we have been picking up yours. Now go work on reducing risk in male drivers.
princessbonbon, thank you for that!
You are welcomed. The good news is that people are less and less likely to get hurt in car crashes nowadays. But 1.5 million is still a huge number.
Ah, mras never fail to be racist as well as sexist, do they? Sexist, check, racist, check, cissexist, check. The self proclaimed “good” mras are just as nasty as the rest.
Posted that last comment w/my gmail address because I’m forgetful today, but it was mine David, just so you know.
” It is an average of $6,000,000 when there is a fatality.”
ಠ_ಠ
Buttman — that’s the cost to the insurance company — that very likely includes investigating how the fatality happened and how to prevent future fatalities. Investigations are more expensive than birth, that’s surprising somehow?
princessbonbon — I’ve bookmarked that math for the next time this comes up, the bad math seems to work in cycles.
I just want to comment on the attempted rationalization of that online dating comment. For real? Because if I was to come on here and say that the last guy who rejected me, “was a worthless piece of shit just like all men,” MRAs would be having a field day, proof of misandry.
I don’t understand why some men seem to think that dating woes only apply to men and not to women. That women don’t face rejection, confusion, heartbreak, and suffering on account of the people they are interested in. And why it’s only seemingly ok to generalize all women based out of anger and frustration, but not the other way around? I mean, rape victims are frowned upon for perceiving all men as potential rapists after being brutalized, but this guy is justified in calling a woman a cunt for having the audacity to not be interested in him? This is a woman whose affections he has no stake in because it’s just some random from an online dating site who he hasn’t even met. He took her lack of interest that personally that he used it to justify his hateful opinions of women as a whole. That is somehow a valid response?
He didn’t exactly make her regret her decision to reject him either. That’s the funny thing about that sort of “I didn’t want you anyways!” type of reaction. It just solidifies our stance that we were right in rejecting your advances. You’re not hurting us or making yourself look better, just making us thank our lucky stars that we didn’t go home with you.
Side note: I got a message on OKC today from someone whose profile mentioned how he was tired of being friend-zoned. I was just like, “Really?” He also took my profile which is a joke from the show the IT Crowd seriously and made it clear that he was solely interested in me based on my looks (because that profile is not flattering) because I was his type. Sorry bro. Dudes who lament about being friend-zoned are not MY type. Cue him being mad because I didn’t give him the sex he deserved.
I get really annoyed when people curse those they don’t like with various forms of cancer. That kind of obvious and concentrated malice can be quite upsetting and unsettling.
Maybe people who say that deserve to be put on chemotherapy for a month or two and see if they still feel like wishing extremely painful and potentially fatal illnesses on people just because they don’t agree with them.
Grrrr…
Sorry, for obvious reasons this particular piece of nastiness makes me want to bang their stupid, malicious heads together.
And then they say, “Feminists don’t like people who challenge their viewpoints!”
Never seen a feminist wish cancer on someone .
Crumbelievable said:
“And then they say, “Feminists don’t like people who challenge their viewpoints.”
Never seen a feminist wish cancer on someone .”
Me neither. I’ve been through it and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. They really need to stop doing it. I don’t know, maybe having them spend time with the patients in a treatment room would teach them that you don’t say that kind of thing. Also: this stuff can be triggering if you’ve had to actually deal with it.
Buttman, you’re complaining that women’s health care tends to cost more than men’s. First, it’s important to note that some men need pap smears, birth control pills, and prenatal care, too. Cis men do not, but even they can benefit from insurance companies making women’s health care affordable. When a man has a pregnant partner, he also benefits from hir receiving good prenatal care. If a cis, straight couple doesn’t want to have a baby, they both benefit from the woman having affordable birth control. You describe health care as a source of conflict between men and women, but a lot of people don’t. They want their loved ones to have good health care regardless of gender.
Many of the prenatal health care provisions of the Affordable Care Act are more for the health of the fetus than the mother, and those provisions help just as many male babies as female babies. The Rh immune globulin doesn’t cost very much, but it can prevent Rhesus disease which can be fatal to newborns. The group B strep test and penicillin are easy, affordable ways to prevent Group B strep infections in newborns, which can also be fatal. You can look at the March of Dimes website to learn about all sorts of easy, cost effective ways good prenatal care can saves the lives of babies, half of whom are male.
What I’m trying to say here is that contraception and prenatal care are not just women’s issues. They are important for everyone.
@Kendra: Because I’m sure ButtTroll will simply live up to his name, I want to say how much I appreciated your very clear and detailed post about how it’s impossible to (logically) think that contraception and prenatal care are some sort of specialized women’s issues that teh menz should never have to deal with (because, cooties!).
Great stuff, and only some immature (which is not about age), illogical, unreasonable, prejudiced butthead would not be able to learn something.
Thanks, ithiliana. I agree that ButtTroll will probably not learn anything from what I wrote. If he reads it at all, he will probably respond with an unrelated rant. I sometimes motivate myself by hoping that open minded lurkers might read and learn even when the trolls keep being close minded asshats.
Kendra: That’s a large part of my debate philosophy. I don’t expect the Buttmen,and NWOs of the world to learn. I do think those who haven’t yet become like them might be swayed.
And sometimes (to my wonder and amazement) one of them does gain a clue. Hope springs eternal.
I got banned on near, if not same, as you from /r/mensrights, I guess they’re cracking down on dissenters
*same day