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.
I think the idea that men can’t hit women is kind of like the whole women make false rape accusations when they regret having sex both are near myths that have been accepted by society in general and the mrm especially by repetition in every day life and showing up all over the place in fiction despite the reality of what happens when a woman says she was raped or how often men actually hit women.
I’m just baffled by MRAs obsession with hitting people and I have nothing to say about it. I do, however, have some cute shoes to show you.
@some gal, dear lord, that was traumatic. When the wee girl ran in the room to protect her mum, I lost it. Powerful,visceral stuff.
@clairedammit
I want to pet those shoes, but I would be very disappointed when they didn’t purr.
@BigMomma
The little girl is really hard to take. You can just read how desperately she wants to help and how helpless and small she really is in every part of her. I can only imagine how hard it must be to watch your child responding like that and know there really isn’t anything you can do.
There’s also an interesting article about the comments & backlash suffered by the victim and the photographer
http://www.salon.com/2013/03/01/dont_blame_the_victim_or_the_photographer/
I wish I could wear shoes like that, I would SO buy a pair or three!
Yet these same MRAs throw a fit when women occupy combat positions – even though every single woman who volunteers for combat can probably take a punch just fine.
I call bullshit, dudes. Even if every woman could “take a punch,” whatever the hell you mean by that, you’d just find some other reason to bleat about how how we shouldn’t have “equal rights.”
Some Gal: Have you seen WTF Price’s commentary on the Time photo essay? Its comments are another master study in making up facts to create the story of a woman who asked for it.
TW: discussing the content of the Time article.
Being a mum to a 9yr old and 3 yr old, both girls, I just instantly imagined my kids, imagined my little one running out.
The stats all say that the kids witness the abuse the majority of the time but seeing it put into images really shows you what that means.
And the one where Shane is raging in front of the TV, that was just terrifying.
At least the police were good with her. I recently took a client to the police station because her ex was sending her gifts for their shared child in direct contravention of his restraining order. The police officer instantly started accusing her of trying to stop him from having a relationship with his kid. he kept cutting her off and dismissing her. She was great and very patiently explained that she wanted the ex to have contact, that they were going through mediation to resolve this. She simply wanted him to respect the boundaries of the court set order and that the toys could be given on contact days. Eventually, the police officer stopped huffing and puffing and actually listened to her. He conceded she had a point.
I also know a fair few police officers socially (small town)and, whilst I appreciate it’s a hard job, I am very unsettled by their attitudes towards DV but it seems entrenched in the workplace culture.
I’m not sure I could face the MRA’s take on that article.
That Salon article was worth reading. I hope Maggie gets safely away from Shane Shiteater and never has to encounter him again. I’d really like to know he was doing time.
I had seen the photo essay and read a bit about the backlash on Pandagon, but I hadn’t seen the Salon article – that was great.
More talking about the Time piece.
@Bee
Disgusting.
Yep. He turned into such a good guy that it was all he could do to disentangle himself when she started choking herself with his hands, amiright?
*shudder*
@BigMomma
I am glad the officer finally bothered to actually listen to what was happening. You would hope that “my ex is violating a restraining order against [doing X] by [doing X]” would be enough. Maybe someday. *sigh* The myth of the vindictive woman is amazingly entrenched.
@Some Gal, exactly..he just launched straight away into the Vindictive Women Narrative. I was very impressed by my client’s composure but couldn’t help but imagine less socially skilled people trying to communicate with the officer. I was boiling inside myself.
If you need some cuteness, it’s feeding time for the Cosmos kitties
http://new.livestream.com/FosterKittenCam/TheCosmoFosters
Well, I did it. I read the Craphead article by Price. I read the comments. I just feel like crying.
Luckily my 3yr old daughter is doing jigsaw puzzles at my feet which balances out some of the shit.
Maru brain bleach for all:
http://youtu.be/tHwntRpLobU
I think Maru must be a reincarnated tortoise.
I love Maru.
Thank you, Kitteh.
I’m now off to make a vegan banana bread as I need to use up the bananas from my friend’s garden and I can’t be assed to go to the shops to buy eggs.
Kind gentle fathers don’t actually spend their time pissing and moaning about how their woman spends too much time taking care of the children instead of paying attention to him, yanno?
Vegan banana bread, yum!
*wafts hot, sweet banana bread making smell in everyone’s direction*
ANY banana bread yum! It is my favorite bread.
@thebewilderness
They also don’t beat up the children’s mother, but that is a great point. I don’t understand how anyone can be jealous of kids. I mean, they are kids, ffs.
I couldn’t find the video, but it makes me think of 30 Rock.
How are there real people like that?
WTF Arakiba? Punching people is wrong and shooting people is very wrong.