I spend more time on YouTube than I probably should. Most of the time I’m on the site, I’m tracking down strange and awesome music videos. But I also love cat videos (big surprise), ridiculous fake alien and UFO videos, videos of people behaving in incredibly unwise ways that are somehow not lethal to them, and pretty much anything that’s got Yackety Sax as its soundtrack.
What do MRAs enjoy watching? As far as I can tell, when they’re not watching videos of other MRAs, or flooding the comments of feminist videos, they like watching videos of women getting punched.
How else to explain the hundred-plus upvotes that greeted this brief video – it’s all of 15 seconds long –of a man knocking out a woman who was assaulting him. The video starts with a fight already in progress, as a woman rains blows on a much larger man backed up against a wall at what seems to be a strip mall while her friends shriek in the background. The man, after fending off a number of punches, hits her directly in the face and she drops to the ground.
That’s it. That’s all we know. We don’t know who these people are, what the fight was about, or even who started it.
But to the denizens of the Men’s Rights subreddit, this is a man who is fully justified in using violence against a woman, and they can barely conceal their excitement, posting dozens of comments proclaiming him a sort of Men’s Rights hero.
“Kudos to the guy who stood up to this bullshit,” dalsgaard declares, in a comment that gets dozens of upvotes. “I hope other men will take his example.”
Tim8080 only wishes he’d been there to take part in the punching:
Actually, the man in question isn’t particularly old, and he’s certainly not frail; he’s actually rather large and imposing.
Gus2144 thinks that for some reason gender equality necessarily involves a lot of hitting:
Evidently in that last comment Gus took it a little too far for his Men’s Rights bretheren, and he garnered himself a few downvotes.
But the serious downvoting in the thread was reserved for those who questioned whether or not MRAs should be celebrating the incident captured on video as a grand victory for Men’s Rights.
Indeed, CapnDancyPants won himself more than two dozen downvotes for simply wondering what might have happened before the fifteen seconds shown on the video:
MRAs: If they can’t punch women, they don’t want to be a part of your revolution.
Cloudiah, yeah, that’s what I’d think. There’s obviously the fear that suicide is a mortal sin, wider community support, and all those other factors to consider. But if bullying because of a characteristic is what leads to suicide/suicidal feelings… well that gets documented, like with LGBTQUIA youth.
When atheist s are killed for being atheists it isn’t often seen as a hate crime. And I agree murder isn’t A big problem for atheists the one it is for trans folks.
However, that is more likely to be a problem in the southern states.
When atheist s are killed for being atheists it isn’t often seen as a hate crime. And I agree murder isn’t A big problem for atheists the one it is for trans folks.
However, that is more likely to be a problem in the southern states.
@katz
I tried to look at as much of it as I could on mobile and the summary made it sound like the one I was thinking of, but if it just has two questions, then it wasn’t. Back to Google.
It’s all those heathen Vikings’ fault! 😀
Well, now I’m down a little Google Scholar rabbit hole that threatens to distract me all afternoon. It turns out that there are a number of studies about the existence of discrimination against atheists in the US, and apparently the context is important. Atheists/agnostics are more likely to report negative treatment by their own family or in social settings than they are in the workplace, schools, the military or voluntary organizations. The military part surprises me, because I’ve seen a few stories recently of religious military officers pressuring non-believers in their line of command.
There was a 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) that provided some data for these articles.
I’m sorry, I’m going to bow out of this conversation now. As you know, I’ve had a pretty terrible day and my patience is a bit shot. I’m going to leave before I say anything out of line or snap at anyone. I’m not in the right frame of mind to participate in discussions at the moment. Catch you all tomorrow probably.
By the way, I’m happy to butt out of this conversation if anyone thinks I’m talking out of my ass too much.
I like that way of looking at it.
@bad dog and somegal: sorry about your bad experiences 🙁 probably not best way to phrase that, but I mean with family @ bad dog and therapist + mom @ somgal. internet hugs if you want them.
@ freemage. I agree that taking someone with you to talk to the doctor about depression help, it’s the only way I got on anti-depressants was b/c my sister was convincing me to get to the doctor and helping with that. Though I was kind of rubbed the wrong way about needing to find a good doctor. I mean, it’s probably bad with a terrible one, but I (and I assume lots of people) didn’t really have time to try a bunch of doctors to see if one works the best. I kind of had to go with what I had. And not everyone has money to try to change to a different doctor even if they want to, it kind of takes time and multiple visits :/
@karalora sorry about your bad friends 🙁 I’ve never had anyone try to tell me to just take my happy pills or w/e and can’t imagine what you felt. Internet hugs if you want them too.
(sorry if I’m butting in, for some reason every time I comment I feel like I’m butting in, but hopefully that will pass XD)
Speaking of the Vikings… [cloudiah, queen of the subtle segues] Anyone watch the History Channel’s first episode of their Viking saga? It was not at all good, but it was sort of fun to watch and think of how the MRM would have seen it. Lots of “we hunted the mammoth for you” moments, like how all the men were manly men who went a-pillaging so that their demanding ladyfolk could have fine silk ribbons.
I’m kind of a sucker for Viking stuff, is why I watched. Please don’t think less of me. XD
Pfft. Those Vikings wore eyeshadow. Suffer in your jocks, MRAs.
Marie: Thanks for the middle-class privilege-check. Yeah, I meant to put in a line about things like, “IF your medical insurance situation permits, and there’s a choice of doctors in your area” for most of the find-a-good-doctor bits, but I dropped it when typing. And yes, for immediate care situations you may need to go with whoever’s available, regardless of whether or not they feel comfortable. If the option exists (financially and geographically, I mean) after you get stable enough to generally function, though, then finding a better fit is likely still a good idea.
Last comment on atheist oppression–it’s there, it’s real, it’s a thousand-cuts sort of thing, but it’s rarely outright hate for the most part. (One exception–if you’re an activist atheist, all bets are off. The shit that gets thrown at, say, teens who want to start a Secular Student Alliance club in their mostly Christian schools? That can get almost as harrowing as what LGBT students go through. People are stupid.)
@katz
I think I fucked up and conflated a bunch of different studies into one. (Wouldn’t it be great if there was one study for each topic of personal interest?) Sorry.
Here is the big one from Pew that showed that more people had an unfavorable opinion of atheists than any other religious group.
http://www.pewforum.org/Public-Expresses-Mixed-Views-of-Islam-Mormonism.aspx
Here is the study that found atheist prejudice stems from how untrustworthy we apparently are. (And includes anti-gay discrimination comparisons.)
http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2011-25187-001/
Since I don’t have access, here is the write up I looked at. (I remember reading lots if write ups about it when it came out).
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2011/11/16/new-research-says-anti-atheist-prejudice-stems-from-distrust/
I wonder, considering the crap bathroom panic stuff and the general trickery people seem to expect from trans* people if they would fair similarly or worse to atheists on the trustworthiness questions.
And I would over to read the whole book and see this study updated:
Source of the blockquote: http://atheism.about.com/od/atheistbigotryprejudice/a/AntiAtheism.htm
@Marie
You don’t need to ever worry about butting in here even if you have the sudden urge to talk about your passionate love of unicorns. You are always welcome and I don’t mind telling you that as often as needed. 🙂
Thanks, some gal. I’ll have a look at those.
cloudiah: Mr. HK is watching the Viking miniseries. No judgment!
I really, really hate that whenever atheists bring up anti-atheist discrimination (which exists) otherwise progressive people start playing oppression olympics. Yes, anti-atheist discrimination does not have the same effects as anti-trans* discrimination or sexism or racism–but sexism, racism, and anti-trans* discrimination ARE NOT IDENTICAL EITHER, and that doesn’t make them any less real.
(If you don’t believe anti-atheist discrimination happens, look up what happens to high schoolers like Jessica Alquist who try to get their schools to keep religion out of school–it is scary.)
I know that there are lots of times when I have not mentioned that I am an atheist where others were mentioning their religion because I didn’t want to deal with the possible social repercussions. Yeah, I can pass, and it is relatively easy, but I shouldn’t have to, and I shouldn’t have to deal with the government denying the validity of my beliefs (i.e., God in the pledge of allegiance, God on the money). I’m much less likely to be murdered, but I’m also very unlikely to be able to run for office and might lose custody.
But the discussion started off with this:
I want to reiterate that I really didn’t mean “pretty much the most hated group” to mean “the most hated group.” I meant it to mean close to or approximately. I think trying to determine the definitively most hated group is antithetical to intersectionality.
It is hard to know how much of the bullshit I had to deal with when hospitalized in Virginia was due to my being young, being female, being mentally ill, or being an atheist. I think atheist oppression is minimized because so many of the atheists who are public about their atheism are fairly well off white straight cismen. Thus, the public face of atheism is the group most likely to be protected from discrimination as a result of their atheism. And, because an awful lot of religion is coded in US Protestantism as domestic and so female, their atheism isn’t necessarily always viewed the same as the atheism of women.
I also agree with Freemage about the thousand cuts and less often outright hate. But the hate is there, especially in intensely fundamentalist areas of the US and (moreso) in other countries where death for lack of religious belief is much more likely.
And, while I certainly believe in passing privilege, I think it is offensive to claim that passing is a solution to discrimination. (And not just for atheists.)
I get frustrated about finding good doctors and dentists – technically I could shop around for a doctor for free because doctor visits here are covered by medicare, but dentists aren’t, and I find most dentists unpleasant and judgemental (yes I have bad teeth – they should love me but no they are all “haven’t you been a bad girl” in not so many words.)
I wish it were an accepted thing to go see a doctor/dentist or similar for an obligation free interview where they try to sell their services to you, just like any other profession. Like, just talk to them for 10 minutes about their philosophy and specialities and get a feel for them. before committing to any treatment.
Katz–but “anti-atheist discrimination isn’t as severe as *fill in the blank*” isn’t the same as anti-atheist discrimination doesn’t exist, and talking about it makes you an asshole” and it was the second I was discussing, which I did see some on this thread and some others. But the data does argue that atheists are heavily, and publicly distrusted. And yes, I do think “doesn’t believe in God, therefore untrustworthy” is incredibly an bigoted thing to say.
The thing about anti-atheist discrimination is it is very ideological, and less likely to get turned into physical attacks, but being told your beliefs aren’t valid or make you a bad person is discrimination, whatever those beliefs are.
Sorry, you may have to rephrase that for me. I’ve looked at it several times and I can’t figure out what you’re saying.
(And nobody has said there isn’t anti-atheist discrimination or that people shouldn’t talk about it. Of course that’s not true.)
Except we do that all the time when we talk about MRAs and their hateful beliefs. I don’t believe that is discrimination.