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 don’t get you, John. You posted this:
“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.”
You mean, MRAs like to pretend there are a shitload of women beating on men who won’t hit them back? Except I’m not so sure that’s something society accepts — unless you mean in pop culture, when a woman spy tries to murder James Bond or whatever.
No, these guys are weaklings who dream of being cavemen. They actually think if they lived during hunter/gatherer times they’d get a hard-on hunting a mammoth with a pointy stick and a rock. No, they’d miss their i-Pods and porn collections too much. They couldn’t take the pressure. Shit, they couldn’t handle their beloved ’50s either. Dudes weren’t exactly encouraged to whine about not getting sex when they’ve been nice to a woman — at least not in polite society. And keeping a stiff uppper lip without complaining when things get tough? No, they’d be in tears after a day or two.
What’s funny is how they naturally assume they could take any woman in a fight. A friend of mine said men who get physical with women (not counting women who are actually trying to kill them) usually don’t know how to fight. Yeah, no shit.
One time I had a bunch of bananas that I needed to use up, but I was really craving pumpkin bread So, I put pumpkin pie spices (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice and cloves) in the banana bread. Best. Banana. Bread. Ever.
sniff sniff sniff SNIFF
mmmmm 🙂
OT question: I saw a guy today wearing jeans that looked like shot fabric; they had a bit of a sheen to them and the two-colour shift you get with shot silk. Has anyone seen jeans like this, or know what they’re called? I’m totally stumped and I neeeeeed to find a picture, because Sir noticed ’em before I did and promptly made himself a similar pair.
I am in-pic-less at the moment, woe!
clairdammit – YUM!
::looks at watch, is it nearly lunchtime?::
Do you mean these? http://gizmodo.com/5986889/awesome-thermochromic-jeans-change-colors-with-heat
@The Kittehs’
Were they like this or this?
I just called them shiny jeans and got a lot of results, but I don’t know if any are exactly what you two saw.
@thebewilderness
Those are awesome although I’d be worried about having a record of how often I touch my ass to make sure it didn’t pick up something when I last sat down. Silly compulsive tics. Plus…$240? Wow.
I don’t think they were that type. You know how the two colours play across shot silk? It was like that, but not high gloss, just a bit of sheen.
I’m thinking I might have to play with layers or contrasts on a pic to try for the effect.
LOL Some Gal!
Be even worse if one scratched one’s crotch!
Thermochromic lingerie could be really fun if you could do it with a softer (and sexier, lol) material than denim.
I wonder if they put interference mica powder on them.
@clairedammit, yum…it’s too late to grab my loaf out the oven though. I do have some bananas lurking in the freezer so will remember that.
One of my male friends did complain to me that his wife (and mother to his three children) didn’t pay him enough attention. That wasn’t my observation of their relationship but hey, he obviously wanted more than what he was getting. He also would get cross at parties – she is very vivacious and really skilled at talking to people, so she would be chatting away and getting everyone involved. He seemed resentful of this and would demean her lack of interest in politics/music/literature and then hold forth on those topics.
They are not together any more despite having amazing sexual chemistry. Looking back on it all, and listening to the criticisms he still makes of her, it feels to me as if he could never stand being displaced from her primary attention, whether by children or their friends.
Sounds like separating was a good idea. Apart from anything else, having daddy doing the You’re Getting The Attention I Want can’t do kids a lot of good. Nice to be resented by your parent, hey?
@BigMomma
I don’t know what to say. I mean, if he’s your friend I am sure he has some redeeming qualities, but those types of complaints are big red flags to me.
@bigmomma, yep total warning signs, a few years down you get the controlling behaviour then violence often follows. Mind you the controlling behaviour is a form of violence to the soul too.
@Some Gal, it’s complicated. I have known him since 2000, we used to work together and he was very charismatic. He hooked up with his now ex at this time and they got married and had a kid by 2002. We all became friends especially after we had our first daughter in 2003. They emigrated to Oz (she is Australian) in 2004 and we moved over in 2007. By that point, the relationship had started to disintegrate and I was cast as the “scottish friend” who would be able to connect with him and help him to resolve some issues. The man I met up with though, was very different to the man I had known in Edinburgh and there was no sense of connection anymore.
Since 2007, they split and reconciled twice and she asked him to leave finally last year. However, she still sees us as people that can be relied on to help stabilise him. It’s a small town and he has 50% custody of the kids. Our children have grown up together. it’s difficult to utterly avoid him,despite the bright red flags waving above his head. In part, I am there just to keep an eye on him.
I have spoken bluntly to his ex on many occasions since we got here and told her that i think he is abusive. She was so in love with him, for so long and they met when she was in her early 20s. She really struggled to accept that he could treat her like this.
The Spearhead response to that DV piece literally made me cry with anger. Welp. I’m off to pretend there aren’t actually people that awful out there.
Also, Ooooo! Banana bread! I’ve already got some overripe bananas in my freezer and as soon as my household goods arrive I’m gonna bake me up a batch. And whenever I can get my one baking dish back (leftovers are living in it right now) I’m gonna make some apple dumplings from scratch.
the early 20s comment was meant in the spirit that she was quite young when they got together and it got serious very quickly.
Getting serious very quickly is yet another red flag.
Big momma and bewilderness, IMHO if your partner has feminist mother/parents that’s a major protective factor. Although I have met exceptions unfortunately.
He has 50% custody of the kids despite being abusive toward her … yup, the MRM is soooo right about how men are always and inevitably denied custody, forever and ever, world without end, amen.
::puke::
thebewilderness, that is so true. Notice in the story that Some Gal linked that Shane tattooed “Maggie May” on his neck in huge letters when they had only know each other for a month?
*shudder*
@thebewilderness, yes I know.
Looking back over the last 13years of knowing them, you can see all the little red flags pop up and you can see the pattern that took several years to emerge.
They were happy in Edinburgh, we had such good times. But….when they moved to Oz, it fell apart. In Edinburgh, he was able to fulfill his image of the ‘big man’. He was in a band, he went out with his mates from uni, he did a lot of martial arts stuff. She was happy with her baby and we did stuff in the day with our babies.
Then they went to Oz, and he lost all of those things and wound up in a rural community, it’s pretty conservative and also she had grown up here and knows everyone. He struggled to find a niche. Then his brother died in traffic accident and he fell apart.
We came over in the aftermath of all of this and it was such a mess, All those things in Edinburgh that I’d observed like the early marriage, him maintaining a social life that excluded her at home with the baby, I’d kinda chalked up to different strokes for different folks. But, now we saw the full gamut of classic abuser behaviour and you tie it all up together differently.
She just wanted the relationship to work for lots of reasons, both emotional and pragmatic. I have just tried to be there for her, sometimes very directly and sometimes very indirectly. it’s taken 3 affairs though for her to finally give up and seek divorce. To this day, he denies the affairs despite having been seen. it’s a small area.
sorry for over explaining. it’s one of those situations where there has been a complicated dance between them for a long time and it has taken years for his abusive behaviour to coalesce near the surface.
yes, he has 50% custody. They didn’t even go to court or anything. They just agreed it between them.
I’m hungry so I apologise for the damage I’m inflicting on the English language.
*goes to get banana bread out of the oven*