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 just did the math three times, hoping I screwed something up, and tried multiple years’ data…the risk of murder among trans* people is somewhere between 1 in 20 and 1 in 26. The general risk is 1 in 210~230. I shouldn’t be surprised, what did I think 10x the risk was going to look like…but seeing it like that…
This is why the radfem insistence that trans women are predators pisses me off so much (well, it’s one of the reasons). There isn’t a single demographic group that I can think of who’re more at risk just by virtue of being who they are than trans people.
My oldest nephew just started school, but he’s going to a catholic school (private schools here are overwhelmingly catholic, though why he needs to go to a private school I don’t know) so I don’t know what his sex ed will be like. He might have already got a bit of info about where babies come from since he’s got 2 younger brothers.
The where babies come from book I had as a kid had cartoony naked people in it. They did say that people do it for fun, not just babies, and it even described what an orgasm is like.
“There isn’t a single demographic group that I can think of who’re more at risk and not being subjected to genocide just by virtue of being who they are than trans people.”
Cuz I’m sure there are genocides with higher murder risks. Of course, certainly makes you question just how phobic transphobia is versus how “oh hey, maybe we can get away with genocide since it won’t be called that”
I’m very, very, crisp on the meaning of genocide this week. (Last week? This weekend?) Everything from how opening trade with Burma/Myanmar and giving their leader(s) a peace prize will help stop the Rohingya’s genocide…if it really rises to genocide, they could leave. To how Native Americans and First Nation people haven’t been subjected to genocide in decades, to my twitter feed including Brennan’s latest dox’ing (there’s one who should step on a Lego and get it embedded in her foot, preferably between her littlest toes, so every step is spiky)
But yes, trans* women are the predated, and the predators. Ten times is the conservative estimate btw, I found as high as 1 in 12, which would be closer to 20x.
Also, why do people who’re scared of trans people always default to Bathroom Panic? I’ve always wondered why that in particular sets people off. Had to deal with it at work once (as a manager, that was fun) and no matter how many different ways I asked I never could get people to explain to me WHY they found it so threatening that there might possibly be someone in their bathroom whose genitalia looked a bit different to theirs.
Cassandra — I really don’t know, it seems to be some visceral cultural thing though. I took my mother to children from the shadows back before it got renamed, they cover the gender signs on the bathrooms so you can use any bathroom and only guess based on the presence or absence of urinals. My mother got real weird about what if she used the wrong bathroom!
Not anything like “what if there are men? What will they did to me?!” but more like “won’t I embarrass them if they’re at a urinal?!”
Of course, among rational people this level of socialization would get shrugged at when faced directly. And we do when it comes to children, the question of “at what age do they use the bathroom alone instead of with the opposite sex parent?” (Oh hai gender neutral bathrooms)
Also, they just don’t think about it. Only TERFs do shit like “what if the bank teller has hairy man hands and a skirt?!” and fuck, even they can’t be that pissy or they wouldn’t accuse trans* women of fraud by deception. They’d assume any remotely masculine women was a trans* women and never be defrauded (*gags*) — instead they assume women area women until proven otherwise and the whine about how they thought she was cis.
When even they only acknowledge trans* people while being upset, I have to suspect that most people just never think about it. Too bad really, I’m sure I understood the concept of gender before grade school because I distinctly remember wishing it was changeable (should’ve seen me when I discovered it was, androgyny here I come! and then biology fucked me, fuck you too biology)
Shorter answer, it’s irrational to the point that the bathroom is the only time they can think of where they might have to acknowledge that trans* people exist. Unlike TERFs who get bent about trans* people existing because they might be “defrauded” into interacting with one as if ze were cis (it’s the end of the world…)
I can sort of understand people getting uncomfortable about someone of a different gender being around when there are urinals in use, but the thing is, that issue is easily solved by using stalls instead (and not taking the doors off…that is really not OK, the parents of the kids at schools that do that should raise hell about it with the school board because that’s a massive invasion of privacy). I once accidentally walked into a men’s bathroom and it really was awkward all around, more awkward for the guys than for me I’m sure, but in the case I’m talking about at work it was a standard women’s bathroom with a couple of stalls and a shared sink/mirror area, so I just don’t see wtf the problem could be.
And then there’s the idea that single-person bathrooms need to be gendered, and that’s just absurd. I’ve used the men’s bathroom in restaurants when it was a two separate but identical bathrooms situation, and had people get all omg how could you do that, and like…it’s a bathroom. The fact that it’s usually used by people who have balls doesn’t really make any difference given that there’s only room for one person and there’s a lock on the door.
Actually maybe that was it, the fact that having their trans coworker use the bathroom would involve chats while everyone fixes their lipstick in the mirror, hey-could-you-pass-me-some-tp-this-stall-is-out, and all the usual stuff that happens in a women’s bathroom, and that would mean they would have to admit that she was a woman. When I sat down to sort it out the attitude of the people who were complaining was awfully childish and petulant, so “you’re making me acknowledge this person and I don’t want to!” would totally make sense.
One of the awesome things about San Francisco is that when people act like that you can point out that the local legal system does not look kindly on businesses that discriminate against trans employees (or any employees), so it’s either the complaining co-workers stfu and deal or the company gets sued.
What if they believe you can catch gender dysphoria from dirty toilet seats?
Maybe they’re worried they’ll swap lipsticks and get cooties? I got nothing.
“And then there’s the idea that single-person bathrooms need to be gendered, and that’s just absurd. I’ve used the men’s bathroom in restaurants when it was a two separate but identical bathrooms situation, and had people get all omg how could you do that, and like…it’s a bathroom. The fact that it’s usually used by people who have balls doesn’t really make any difference given that there’s only room for one person and there’s a lock on the door.”
And that is when I just use whichever’s less of a hassle. How could you do what? Use the bathroom without the stick figure in a skirt? Lock a bathroom door? I’m unclear as to the problem, beyond social acceptability, which you’d think would take a backseat to such biological necessities as using the toilet.
Also! Thinking about my first comment, that’s it – the bathroom issue forces people to acknowledge trans people as being the same gender as they are. Which they don’t like.
I mean, sure, men are more likely than women to pee on the floor if their aim is poor, but most restaurants do clean their bathrooms. Do they think incorrectly gendered bathrooms are like the booth that Superman uses to transform, and you’ll go in one gender and come out the other? It’s just so stupid.
Oh is that it? I must’ve used a dirty toilet seat some time around when I was potty trained…I shudder to think what might happen if it happens again, maybe I’ll want to transition instead of just manage to pass as androgynous! (Actually, that’d probably be more feasible, not that my state insurance covers GRS)
Actually, I suppose dirty toilet seats might make you hate others of your biological sex. In the “ok, you guys are gross, this is nasty” sense.
Addendum to the most restaurants clean their bathrooms comment – the Baghdad Cafe in San Francisco does not appear to do so after about mid evening, which is why I would not recommend going in any of their bathrooms, regardless of which picture is on the door, after about 10 pm. It’s like walking into that very special scene from Trainspotting, which is even more disgusting in a place that serves food.
Yeah I have definitely opened the closest unisex bathroom, taken one look, and tried the other. Those are not places I return to.
Also, magic gender dysphoria inducing toilets for all who want them (yes I see the irony, shhh) — we’ll paint them with rainbows and throw in some glitter for that classic drag queen look.
Uhh, unisex in previous comment means private enough that I don’t give a single fuck what the label says.
Re: bathrooms
I live in Brazil and my sort of conservative father will cringe to the idea of neutral bathrooms…He thinks that perverts will start assalting women, which I guess is a valid concern here…maybe?
I alway thought we were not supposed to use men’s bathroom because there would pee on the floor?
Eh, I figure if you’re going to assault someone in a bathroom, the picture on the door probably isn’t much of a deterant. And let’s be real heree, unisex single stall bathrooms are safer, you can’t be, um, caught with your pants down.
Not sure if your father is concerned about predators arround vulnerable women/people/you personally, or what. But that sort of not thought out “but there are perverts” at least makes a certain degree of sense. Unlike the TERF bull about how trans* women want to use the women’s room specifically to assault them.
Unthought out logical errors bother me a lot less, they can be reasoned with (eg noting that single occupant bathrooms mean having an actual door between you and others, where stall doors are usually all together too easy to get around)
And I should get to bed, goodnight guys, try not to use any magic gender dysphoria inducing bathrooms while I’m gone 😀
(Maniacal Goblinoid Nightmare Woman, if it wasn’t obvious, I think that’s hilarious, I’m not trying to have a laugh at your expense)
In fact I’d say that for the kind of predator who’s looking for women to assault, the men’s bathroom is probably not where they’re going to be hanging out looking for victims.
About stall doors in elementary schools. My elementary school had at least one boys’ bathroom that didn’t have stall doors, and this was in the late 80s. I don’t know if they were ever replaced, or why the doors were removed in the first place.
I remember once I was Going, and I was trying to make sure I didn’t go on the floor, and some other boy passed by outside this doorless stall and thought I was playing with myself.
My middle school and high school stalls had doors on.
This one time in high school I went into the bathroom and there was a group of African American boys in there first. I didn’t pay any attention to them but went to the urinals. Then they turned the lights out, smacked me hard on the side of my head, and legged it. Assholes.
Even if you axiomatically accept that gender = biology (and you shouldn’t, because that’s stupid), BIOLOGY ISN’T BINARY.
GENETICS ARE NOT BINARY.
ANATOMY IS NOT BINARY.
Sheesh.
Yep, Argentini, I just asked him what he thought of trans women using the women’s bathroom and it was a completely non-issue. Like “well, trans women = women, so that’s okay”. While I mostly think of my father as a “benevolent sexist”, he does make me proud sometimes.
Sorry to derail for a sec, but the governments girlfriends dude kind of flipped out (more than usual if that is possible) on his blog yesterday… Scarily flipped out…