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.
No, they’re small enough to fit in your hand, and practically toothless. They live largely on snails.
The whole conversation tip toeing around “lets not play oppression olympics” and “but experiences are different and some people really seem to get upset over what I think is minor” reminds me of some of the difficulties in social justice movements who are trying to both be completely accepting and to take a stand. It can often feel to me as if there are all of these overlapping perspectives, and with some things you can kind of put your thumb down and go “There! We all agree on there!” but a lot of things are like, “Well, through the blue lens it’s this, and the green lens its this, and some of us can’t see, asshole” and I just get confused about what to do, because I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I do want to take a stand.
And now I want those glasses with lots of lenses that you can flip over and over to see the world through lots of colors.
Pretty much sums it up, Deoridhe. There’s the difficulty of talking in general, broad numbers and looking at individual experience, too, when they don’t seem to overlap at all. The old anecdote not being data thing, I guess.
This conversation also reminded me of the way that sexism seeps into so many movements. Talking about Saudi made me think about the specific way the Salafi/Wahhabi sect operates there, and yeah, they hate the idea of idolatry in general, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a religious group that’s so aggressively misogynist (please note that I’m not talking about Islam as a whole – the Saudi Wahabbi movement is its own thing, and regarded as ridiculously extremist by a lot of others Muslims) would decide to a. destroy the shrine built over Fatimah’s tomb and b. bulldoze the grave of Muhammad’s mother.
Whaaaat!?!
I just did a bit of googling (not having known about this) and saw a Muslim commenter saying the Wahabis destroyed the tomb of Mohammed’s father as well. WTF is it with them, do they think people worship the tombs/bodies?
@kitteh’s unpaid help
that’s a cute lizard 🙂
It is, isn’t it? I liked the one in our yard a lot.
Have you owned snakes, Marie, or come in contact with them, or do you just like them anyways?
PS feel free to call me Kittehs, it’s quicker. 🙂
It’s the anti-idolatry thing, they think that it’s un-Islamic to venerate tombs. Which still leaves the question of why pour gasoline on the grave of Muhammad’s mother. Did they think she wasn’t dead enough yet after 1500 years?
This is why I always try to make it clear that the Saudi version of Islam does not equal Islam as a whole. Most people were horrified at what was done to the graves of Muhammad’s family, especially his mother.
@kittehs
I’ve come in contact with some, but not much. I want to get a ball python, but I live in an apartment with mom and she is opposed to me getting a snake. Also, I think our apartment complex doesn’t let people bring snakes, presumably because they hate cuteness*
*tongue in cheek. Sort of XD
@Marie
I know a friend of the boyfriend who got her landlord to approve 3 snakes. (She had 30ish.) I should see if there are any good pictures when the boyfriend wakes up now that there is a snake-lover here. (Snake-liker looks too much like snake-licker for me…)
This is a decent overview of what happened to the historical sites in Medina, with photos, though there’s some anti-Semitic conspiracy theory nonsense thrown in there too.
http://www.facebook.com/notes/moula-ali-as-mushkil-kusha/8th-shawwal-yaum-e-gham-holy-shrines-in-jannat-ul-baqi-destroyed-by-ibne-soud-la/433755551327
Yeah, religious extremism and misogyny, always comfortable together. Destruction of graves always pushes my buttons, largely because of what happened in the UK and France during the Reformation, Wars of Religion, Civil War and French Revolution.
Marie – that’s a pain! Apartment Anti-Cutenessers aside, has your mum ever encountered snakes? Is she nervous of them or just doesn’t fancy having one around?
Oh! And on the site of the house of Muhammad’s first wife (the one who provided the finances necessary to kick things off in the first place)? After they knocked that one down they built a public toilet right on top of it.
I really hate the destruction of any sort of historical sites, and there’s something about disturbing graves in particular that just doesn’t sit right with me.
I’d totally have snakes if my mother weren’t opposed and the is of feeding them rodents didn’t bother me. My father used to have some, that ended when one “trapped [my mother] in the bathroom” — my brother’s got bearded dragons, but they live with their co-parent (he swears they aren’t a couple, considering that the only girl I’ve ever seen him with is a lesbian, I have my doubts)
Note that I only care because I’ve been on the receiving end of my father’s fury about coming out, and he’s my little brother, I took a far number of physical blows to protect him, I’d certainly take that verbal onslaught. But he insists he’s straight.
Anyways! Lizards! Snakes! All the cute! Maybe that’s what I’ll get for the planted tank, I miss my froggie.
So yeah, pouring gasoline on a grave site and setting it on fire pretty much hits all my wtf-is-wrong-with-you buttons.
@Argenti
I didn’t realize you were a snake-lover too. Now I’ll definitely have to see if we can find a picture. (I just think if you as being mainly pro-fish, but it is possible that I just decided snake = scales = fish at some point.)
They destroyed her house as well? Miserable fucking miserable fuckers hope Khadija makes ’em walk on Legos for a decade when she meets them …
I could never bring myself to go to St-Denis (the royal mausoleum) when we visited France, knowing what was done to the royal tombs. Did go to the Sorbonne, because Cardinal Richelieu’s tomb sculpture was saved. It isn’t a church any more, there was a student art exhibition on, and the tomb was roped off. The guard didn’t speak English, but got through by gesturing that yeah, go in and have a quick look, he didn’t mind. I got to touch the Cardinal’s cold marble hand.
Argenti, you had a frog? I saw this cutie at the Melbourne Aquarium last year. Also this catfish (no idea what species, sorry – big, though!)
Pretty much everything of historical significance in Medina has been flattened, it’s really sad. Building a toilet on Khadija’s house was just adding insult to injury. Apparently they want to knock down the Ka’Bah too. If you’ve ever seen photos of Mecca, you know the black structure everyone is walking in circles around? That (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e2/Kabaa.jpg/265px-Kabaa.jpg). It’s ridiculous, especially since they’re replacing all those historical sites with luxury hotels. Who’ll want to stay in the hotels once all the historical monuments are gone?
It’s funny, I was trying to figure out why the destruction of graves bothers me so much. It’s not as if I think it will bother the dead, I think it’s more what it says about us that we would do that, or allow it to be done.
Some Gal — I have a soft spot for most furless critters, idk, maybe it’s just that the furry ones get all the love? My loaches are scaleless btw, not all fish have scales 🙂
Kitteh — she (I think female, was never sure) was one of these — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_dwarf_frog
I think you broke the catfish link, but if it was a meter+ and black with a white stripe it was red belly catfish. They get frikken huge!
I find the destruction of graves orse than general historical sites because of what graves mean to people. That *I* don’t ascribe significance to where corpses go doesn’t negate that most people do.
Also, red tail catfish = huge — http://www.flickr.com/photos/redmeg8/710415194/
I think my feeling is kind of, OK, if we can’t trust people to be gentle with the bones of the dead what might those same people be willing to do to the living? Plus the fact that I don’t think it’s anyone’s place to tell someone else how to feel about grief or remembrance, and some people really need a grave to visit.
Try that link again! http://s229.beta.photobucket.com/user/LouisLouise/media/Leslie%20Melbourne%202012/Catfish2.jpg.html?sort=6&o=22
Nowhere near as big as the red tail one, though!
What a darling frog – looks almost like a salamander minus the tail.
Now not on topic with fish, but I’ve finally got this pic uploaded. Take a guess who this is!
(Demerit points for saying “Mr K” – for once it isn’t.)
Oh, I just found the best image to illustrate how ridiculous what the Saudi government is doing to historical sites is. In the foreground is the Ka’bah and the pilgrims, in the background is what appears to be Big Ben on steroids, which is apparently part of a development including a luxury hotel and a giant shopping mall. Yeah, that’ll help people focus on the idea of equality.
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2010/12/30/arts/MECCA.html
Oh, shit. The Ka’bah with that thing in the background … these megacreeps sure know how to trash their own faith, don’t they? The focal point of the Hajj and all the prayers, and that’s what they do. It puts me right into No True Scotsman mode – “Call yourselves Muslims? Hello?”
Also, when it’s time to pray and/or do certain other tasks that thing will apparently blink neon green lights. Spiritual!
I’m not a religious person at all, but the call to prayer is beautiful. It really doesn’t need to be replaced by enormous blinky lights coming out of the centerpiece of a monument to capitalism.