Author: David Futrelle

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antifeminism misandry misogyny MRA paul elam threats violence against men/women

Men’s Rights site A Voice for Men offers $1000 “bounty” for personal information on Swedish feminists

A Voice for Men, one of the most influential and popular Men’s Rights websites, is now offering a $1000 “bounty” for anyone able to track down the personal information of several Swedish women involved in a tasteless video advertising a theater production based on Valarie Solanas’ SCUM manifesto. As the anonymous poster calling himself John the Other – the second-in-command at AVfM – put it in a posting yesterday (emphasis in original):

We are asking for the full legal names, home addresses, places of employment, email addresses and contact phone numbers of the women and man who produced and starred in the video described above. We will pay 1000 dollars to any individual who provides and confirms this information, to be paid either directly to themselves or to a charity of their choice.

John explains that this information will be posted on the AVfM-affiliated site Register-Her.com, an “offenders database” that is being used to vilify individual feminists and “Fuck Their Shit Up,” as AVfM head honcho Paul Elam likes to put it. John notes that Regsiter-Her.com also intends to post the “government identification numbers [and] drivers licences” of the women they are able to identify.

John admits plainly that posting such information may put the physical safety of these women at risk from vigilante violence. As he puts it (emphasis mine):

Some individuals may criticize the intent to publish not only names, but also addresses, phone numbers, employers and other personal information – on the grounds that such exposure create a risk of retributive violence against individuals who openly advocate murder based on sex. It is the considered position of the editorial board of AVfM that any such risks are out-weighed by the ongoing hazard to the public of these individuals continuing to operate in anonymity.

The comments posted on the article at AVfM suggest that such “retributive” violence is a real possibility. Indeed, here’s the very first comment (which currently has 17 upvotes from readers of the site):

A commenter called  Xnomolos, in another upvoted comment, adds:

i would love to hunt down these women myself.

JinnBottle responds to this comment by advising “all men to start carrying guns.”

The commenters on AVfM have already uncovered the identities of all of the women involved in the video. The blogger Fidelbogen has been the most active internet detective so far.

There is no question that the video itself is offensive, and designed to provoke. You can see it here; I’m not going to embed it on this site. If you don’t want to watch it: it depicts a young woman shooting a man in the head for no reason. Afterwards the woman and her gleeful, giggling accomplices do a victory dance, then lick the blood from the dead man’s head. A message at the end urges viewers to “Do Your Part.”

Every feminist I know who has seen the video has been appalled by it. I’m appalled by it. It’s hateful, and it’s wrong.

But John the Other, and the other commenters on AVfM, claim that it is more than this: that that the video of the staged murder, intended to provide publicity for a theater production based on Solanas’ notorious SCUM manifesto, is quite literally an open call for the murder of men. As John the Other puts it:

Open advocation of murder cannot be allowed in a civil society, without that society devolving into a culture of brutal violence.

Evidently he has no problem with, or has somehow not noticed, the comments on AVfM fantasizing about shooting and killing the women involved in the video.

Is the video a literal call to murder? Is it, as one AVfM commenter puts it, evidence of a “conspiracy to commit mass murder?” No. Violence and murder have been dramatized in the theater since its beginnings. No one accuses Sophocles of advocating fratricide and incest, though both are dealt with in his play Oedipus Rex. No one accuses Shakespeare of advocating mass murder, though many of his most famous plays have body counts that put many horror films to shame.

Does the tag line at the end of the video – “do your part” – transform the video from a depiction of murder  into an open call for it? No. The “threat,” such as it is, is vague; it’s not aimed at any specific individuals. It might be seen as akin to someone wearing a t-shirt that says “kill ‘em all, let God sort them out” – tasteless and offensive, but not a literal threat.  “Kill ‘Em All” is actually the name of Metallica’s first album. While a lot of people see James Hetfield,  Lars Ulrich et al as pompous idiots, they have not been jailed for conspiracy to commit mass murder. That would be ridiculous.

Someone claiming to have been involved in the SCUM-inspired theatrical production in question has posted several detailed comments on AVfM, explaining that those involved in the production are “not out to get you” and that the video itself was “meant as a viral “wtf?!” to give attention to both the questions that it raises and the play itself.”

By contrast, AVfM is targeting specific individuals, and intends to offer information that would allow anyone intent on doing them harm to quite literally track them to their homes and workplaces. Those fantasizing about killing these woman are not simply making a joke along the lines of “women, can’t live with ‘em; can’t kill ‘em.” They are fantasizing about killing real people, and providing would-be evil-doers maps to their doors.

AVfM is an American site, in English; these specific women live in Sweden. While it is a real possibility, it seems unlikely that anyone reading the site will literally find and murder any of those involved in the SCUM production. At least I hope that this does not come to pass.

I don’t believe that either Paul Elam or John the Other literally wants any feminist to be killed. The real intent behind AVfM’s publishing people’s personal information, it seems clear, is to intimidate feminist writers and activists into shutting up, to make clear that if they post something that offends the internet vigilantes at AVfM they will face the possibility of some deranged individual quite literally showing up at their door intent on doing them harm.

Paul Elam and John the Other claim that they’re not advocating violence. But they are playing a dangerous game here. If some deranged individual, inspired by the hyperbolic anti-feminist rhetoric on AVfM, and armed with information provided by “Register-Her.com,” murders or otherwise harms a feminist blogger or activist or video maker, Elam and his enablers will have blood on their hands. As will those MRAs who continue to publicly support and/or link to AVfM and/or Register-Her.com.

This is not the way a legitimate rights group deals with those who disagree with them. This is what hate groups do.

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alpha males cannibalism douchebaggery feminism man boobz review misogyny patriarchy violence against men/women

Man Boobz review: Lucky McKee’s The Woman

World-class douchebag

I wrote earlier this year about the controversy swirling around Lucky McKee’s film The Woman. After a midnight showing at Sundance last January, one angry man in the audience stood up and denounced the film as a “disgusting movie” that “degrades women.” Given McKee’s nuanced treatment of gender issues in his previous films May and The Woods, I suspected that this outraged critic had completely missed the point.

Now I’ve finally gotten to see the film and, yep, he did. The Woman isn’t a misogynist film; it’s a film about misogyny. The Woman revolves around a cheerful , self-satisfied and and superficially charming country lawyer who captures a ferocious feral woman he spots on a hunting trip and chains her in the cellar in what he perversely sees as an attempt to “civilize” her. A patriarchal king of his castle, he introduces her to the rest of the family and assigns them all chores relating to her upkeep.

I don’t really want to give away much more than this; suffice it to say that as the film progresses we learn just how much of an odious psychopath this “family man” really is. But while the film offers a savage critique of his cruelty, and his misogyny, none of the women in the film are unambiguously noble victims, and when they begin to fight back the story is no simple tale of feminist empowerment. It’s a bit more subtle and unsettling than that.

While less overtly violent than, say, your typical Saw film, The Woman is a film that’s often, and by design, hard to take.  Yes, there are some grisly deaths, but this isn’t a film that glories in gore for gore’s sake; it’s really about cruelty and complicity and feeling trapped, the ways in which fucked-up families can ensnare even outsiders in their toxic dynamics.

Naturally, the film has drawn sharply mixed reactions from critics. It got a glowing review from Andy Webster in the New York Times, who described the cast as “remarkable” and praised the way McKee invests the film’s “a powerful parable with an abundance of closely observed details.”  Marc Holcomb of the Village Voice, meanwhile, dismissed it as “torture porn for people who’d never admit to liking torture porn.” (He also noted sardonically that the feral woman is “apparently tame enough to shave her armpits.” And her legs too, I might add; under the caked-on-grime, she’s what the PUAs would probably rate a HB10. )

But the strangest review I’ve seen so far is one by Rene Rodriguez in the Miami Herald, who perversely describes the film as, er, fun. While acknowledging the film’s feminist themes, she dismisses them as mere window-dressing:

[C]ome on: You want a feminist movie, go rent Norma Rae. The Woman is the sort of horror picture designed to make you throw popcorn at the screen, groan with disgust and shriek out loud when McKee springs a shock on you. …  Good times.

Really? Were you throwing popcorn at the screen during Antichrist too?

Of course, it doesn’t exactly help – as Rodriguez and a couple of other reviewers have noted – that the film’s publicists sent out the DVD screener  with a barf bag “just in case.” The Woman deserves better than that.

EDITED TO ADD: Regular Man Boobz commenters might want to check out this thread on the IMDb forums, in which a (somewhat oversimplified) discussion of the feminist themes in the film is quickly derailed by a dude who thinks it laughable that a mere woman could possibly overpower the family patriarch:

I feel sorry for you and any other woman who truly believes that they can physically overpower a man.

You know, if women are just as physically capable as men, I’d love to start my own inter-gender boxing league. Sign me up, baby! Equality at its finest. 🙂

The Woman: Official Site

And the trailer:

Categories
antifeminism bad boys crackpottery evil women misogyny patriarchy precious bodily fluids reactionary bullshit sex shaming tactics sluts thug-lovers

100% Mathmatically Accurate! Manosphere blogger Dalrock on slut-shaming

"Kids Love it!" Another claim that is not 100% accurate.

The director of the first Human Centipede film – the one about a psychopathic doctor who sews three unwilling and unwitting captives together mouth-to-anus to make a sort of “centipede” — proudly declared that his film was “100% medically accurate.” That is, he found a  doctor who was willing to say that if one were indeed to create such a centipede, the second and third segments (i.e., people) would be able to survive, provided that you supplemented their rather dismal diet with IV drips to give them the nutrition they were lacking.

This dubious claim to 100% accuracy came to mind today as I perused a post by the blogger who calls himself Dalrock, a manospherian nitwit with a penchant for pseudoscientific defenses of old-fashioned misogyny. In a post with the whimsical title “We are trapped on Slut Island and Traditional Conservatives are our Gilligan,” Dalrock argues that the best “solution” to out-of-wedlock births is some good old-fashioned slut shaming.

Here’s how he breaks down the (imaginary) numbers in a post that is “100% mathematically accurate” – which is to say, not accurate at all:

Assume we are starting off with 100 sluts and 30 alphas/players.  The sluts are happily riding on the alpha carousel.  Now we introduce slut shaming.  It isn’t fully effective of course, but it manages to convince 15 of the would be sluts not to be sluts after all.  This means an additional 15 women are again potentially suitable for marriage.  This directly translates into fewer fatherless children.  This also makes the next round of slut shaming easier.  Instead of having 99 peers eagerly cheering her on her ride, each slut now has 15 happily married women shaming her and only 84 other sluts encouraging her.  After the next round this becomes 30 happily married women shaming the sluts, and only 69 other sluts cheering them on, and so on.  This process continues until all but the most die hard sluts are off the carousel.  You will never discourage them all, but you can do a world better than we are doing today.

Why not shame the fathers as well, while we’re at it? Dalrock explains that this just doesn’t make good mathematical sense:

Start with the same base assumption of 100 sluts and 30 players.  Now apply shame to the players.  Unfortunately shame is less effective on players than it is on sluts, so instead of discouraging 15% of them (4.5) in the first round, it only discourages three of them.  No problem!, says the Gilligan [the social conservative], at least there are now three fewer sluts now that three of the evil alphas have been shamed away, and all without creating any unhappy sluts!  But unfortunately it doesn’t work that way.  The remaining 27 players are more than happy to service the extra sluts.  They are quite maddeningly actually delighted with the new situation.  Even worse, the next round of player shaming is even less effective than the first.  This time only 2 players are discouraged, and one of the other 3 realizes that his player peers are picking up the slack anyway and reopens for business.  This means in net there are still 26 players, more than enough to handle all of the sluts you can throw at them.

Well, there’s no arguing with that!

Seriously, there’s no arguing with that, because it is an imaginary construct with only the most tenuous connection with how things work in the real world. “But … MATH!” doesn’t really work as an argument here, since human beings don’t actually behave according to simplistic mathematical formulas.

Film critic note: While the first Human Centipede film offered little more than a workmanlike treatment of a fantastical idea, the recently released sequel, which details the attempts of a deranged Human Centipede superfan to take human-centipeding to the next level, is actually sort of brilliant. If you like that sort of thing.

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disgusting women men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA the spearhead

This just in: Girls are stinky.

Over on The Spearhead, a fella name Towgunner offers up these observations on the young ladies of today. (I’ve broken his wall of text into shorter paragraphs.)

I’m beginning to notice a couple of odd trends amongst the younger females, which are quite surprising.

1. more and more women smell – BO, ass, a dog, a cat, stale, unwashed

2. many are losing their hair.

This generation of women is so cuddled and brainwashed that their complete messes. Even though their “demanding” “careers” do indeed keep them locked to their cubical/nest they’re new masters, TV (gays anatomy) tell them cleaning is beneath them.  And after cycling class (more hamster running) they collapse in their studio or 1 br beehive condo…crap everywhere. …

FYI next time you’re in a CVS go check out the hair products section, note the number of “volumizers” available (for women of course), this is something new, they didn’t need this before.

I have also heard reports that they have cooties as well. Although I think I heard this when I was about five or six.

Last I checked, Towgunner’s comment had gotten 30 upvotes and only one downvote. Evidently there are stinky women everywhere!

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evil women misogyny pics sexy robot ladies Uncategorized

If you’re havin’ robogirl problems I feel bad for you, son!

Uh oh! Trouble in Robogirl paradise! Apparently some of the sexy robot ladies are just as bad as real ladies in the not-shutting-up-and-obeying-the-men department.

Anyway, I found this online. I have no idea what comic it’s from. Do any of you comic book experts know?

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antifeminism internal debate MRA oppressed men sexy robot ladies

MRA demands that people stop calling him an MRA, and instead call him an … MRA.

A Male Renaissance Agitator in action.

Stop the presses! Noted counter-feminist bloviator Fidelbogen has an announcement: He no longer wants to be known as an MRA. In a shocking and stunning post on his blog, Mr. Bogen informs us:

I am an agitator against feminism, and in favor of a Male Renaissance.

But I am not an “MRA”.

That is not a word which I apply to myself as a label. I formerly did, but I no longer do.

He likes these one-sentence paragraphs.

But why, oh, why would you turn your back on those three little initials, Fidelbogen?

That word has picked up more baggage than I can honestly claim to be carrying. I mean that it has picked up other people’s baggage. And it would place an unwanted burden on me personally, to carry a shitload of baggage which I do not own — or which is worse, to have other people assume that I am carrying such baggage.

Huh, what kind of baggage might that be? Could it be that MRAs have picked up the “baggage” of being labeled a bunch of histrionic woman-hating angry dudes – perhaps because ( I would hypothesize) so many of those calling themselves MRAs just happen to be historionic woman-hating angry dudes.?

But what shall we call you now, oh Man Who Will Not Be Called an MRA? He’s got some suggestions:

A counter-feminist….

A non-feminist. . .

An activated non-feminist. . .

These are his actual suggestions; I swear I’m not making them up.

A non-feminist partisan. . .

A partisan of the non-feminist sector. .

A pro-male agitator. . .

A pro-male partisan. . .

And last but not least:

A Male Renaissance Agitator. . .

Uh, really? Male Renaissance Agitator? Mr. Bogen, I hate to break it to you, but “Male Renaissance Agitator” has the exact same set of initials as “Men’s Rights Activist.” In other words, you want us to stop calling you an MRA, and start calling you an … MRA?

[I]f you still insist on calling me an ‘MRA’, it is in contravention to my own stated wishes.

But you just said to call you a Male Renaissance Agitator!

It’s the SAME THREE INITIALS.

But Fidelbogen is off and running again:

I invite others to crystallize around the suggested list of terms above, in order to create a distinct brand that will gradually come to be differentiated from the ‘MRA’ brand. We ought to create many, MANY such distinct brands if we wish to claim the liberty of the non-feminist sector.

Or for short: the Liberty of the Sector.

The what of the who?

Fidelbogen imagines a glorious future for this new brand of activism:

Some day, I hope to organize “Non-Feminist Be-ins” at such venues as college campuses. It might be nothing more than a crowd of silent people at some popular location, standing stock still like the guards at Buckingham Palace and wearing identical t-shirts that say, “I am not a feminist”. And maybe holding up signs, too.

Yeah, the signs and the shirts would be nice touches. Otherwise you’ll just look like a bunch of dudes waiting for the  bus.

Does anyone want to think of more things to call the guys who now call themselves MRAs?

Let’s make it a little game. It has to be three words. Double your points if it can be acronymized into MRA. Triple points if it’s an anagram of Men’s Rights Activist. No using terms that already exist, like Magnetic Resonance Angiography, Maritime Reconnaissance Aircraft, Michigan Restaurant Association, or Magneto-Resistive Asymmetry.

Men Raving Annoyingly?

More Ridiculous Asshattery?

Manly Robogirl Admirers?

Categories
antifeminism MRA threats violence against men/women

Does the National Coalition For Men think violence against elected officials is a joke?

The National Coalition For Men – formerly the National Coalition of Free Men – describes itself as “the oldest Men’s Rights organization in North America.” It has been around, in some form or another, since 1977. The group has a board of advisors, which includes academics and mental health professionals and bestselling author Warren Farrell. It has a number of local chapters. Its website is professional-looking; they even have an elegant little logo.

The group appears, at first glance, to be a real and reasonable advocacy group.

But it doesn’t take long to find evidence that the group is infected with the same hateful extremism that is endemic in  the Men’s Rights movement.

Take this bizarre and creepy image – and its equally bizarre and creepy caption – that I found illustrating a recent press release about Senator Patrick Leahy and the Violence Against Women Act.

From the National Coalition For Men website.

As far as I can figure it, the Joker is supposed to represent Leahy’s supposed feminist puppetmasters; regardless, it is a jarring image depicting violence against an elected official as somehow humorous.

The article (picture and all) has gotten 14 Facebook “likes” and no comments; evidently none of the MRAs reading the article were bothered enough by the illustration to publicly challenge it.

How exactly does posting  a picture of the Joker threatening an elected official with a knife advance the cause of Men’s Rights?

Do the group’s advisors — including Warren Farrell and well-known domestic violence researcher Martin Fiebert — know that the group’s website features this repugnant image? Do they care?

I would encourage readers here to investigate the NCFM site in more detail. I wonder what other evidence of hate might be found. (If you do find more, please make screenshots, and post what you find in the comments below, with a link to the page on NCFM’s website.)

EDITED: I originally referred to the images as photoshopped, but evidently it’s from The Dark Knight. Oops. Corrected.

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douchebaggery idiocy kitties misogyny patriarchy pedophiles oh sorry ephebophiles rape reactionary bullshit the spearhead we hunted the mammoth

Men Who Hate Women and the Women They Try to Date: Another visit to the Annals of Online Dating

What is this fucking shit?

A lot of guys who try online dating (of the heterosexual kind) complain that they send out message after message to the ladies and get no responses. Now, I’m no dating expert, but I would like to offer these gentlemen a piece of advice that I feel could dramatically improve their chances. Here it is:

If the message you are sending the lass you fancy would get upvotes on The Spearhead, do not send it.

This seems like a fairly self-evident point, but it’s one that a lot of guys don’t seem to understand, at least judging from some of the awful online come-ons posted at the always fabulous A(n)nals of Online Dating. Take this fella:

 [M]en have an obligation to rescue kittens from burning buildings, pay for your drinks, hold the door open for you, keep their hair neat, go to war and many other things. I’m just saying… Society worldwide really does put more obligations on men than women all around. There are few things women have to do… Shaving your legs is one of them.

I’m not sure how exactly this topic came up in conversation, but I’m pretty sure that Mr. Mammoth-Hunting Kitten-Rescuing Door-Holder-Opener and Lady Who Doesn’t Shave Her Legs are probably not a match made in Internet heaven.

This guy’s strategy is also somewhat problematic:

A so-cal Brooklyn transplant who believes in grammar, manners, music, and humor. I’m nice to my mother, always smile at dogs and babies, and am in the process of pleading that statutory rape charge down to a misdemeanor.

Yeah, it’s probably not a good idea to open with a joke about raping underage girls. Assuming it is a joke.

This message would be a bad idea regardless of gender:

RON PAUL REVOLUTION!! GIVE US BACK OUR CONSTITUTION!!!! lol sorry

Sorry indeed.

This next fellow is a bit of a Stealth Misogynist, in that he starts out with some actual compliments directed toward an actual women. Really creepy compliments, but complements nonetheless. Then we get a plot twist that’s about as shocking as the big reveal in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village. Which is to say, so obvious that it could probably be spotted from space.

When I look at you I see very happy, fun loving, sexy, good girl. I love looking through your photos, I only wish there were more. Do you enjoy being obedient to the male figures in your life?

David K. Meller, is that you?

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alpha males creepy evil women I'm totally being sarcastic idiocy incel manginas men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA oppressed men oppressed white men pussy cartel rape rapey sexual harassment threats

MRA: Who cares if #MenCallYouThings? It’s not like women have any real problems.

Fried rice. Frequently confused with "fried ice."

Oh, ladies, must you complain so much? I mean, who cares if every time you say something on the internet some random dude threatens to rape you? White and Nerdy, the dude behind the Omega Virgin Revolt blog, doesn’t care, and he wants you to know it:

#mencallmethings is just another example of how women (in first world countries) don’t have any actual problems.  Between the government and manginas doing everything for women, no woman has any true problems.  Any “problem” a woman has is because of one of these reasons:

1. A desire for the equivalent of fried ice.  IOW she wants something that is physically impossible.

2. Failed attempts at defrauding, stealing from, or otherwise attempting to enslave men.

That’s it.  When a woman has to go through 1% of what a typical non-alpha man has to go through then maybe she can talk about having actual problems.  Until that happens women should keep their mouths shut.

Exactly. We need to stop talking about men raping women to focus on the much more important issue of women not having sex with White and Nerdy.

But I am wondering about one thing. Is it possible that the women in question were asking for fried rice instead of fried ice? Because fried rice is totally a thing, and if you call up the proper restaurant someone will literally bring it to your door.

Now I’m hungry.

NOTE: This post may contain ….

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antifeminism douchebaggery I'm totally being sarcastic man boobz fun time videos MGTOW misogyny MRA self-promotion threats video

Grey, Rested and Ready: Some Grey Bloke returns, with a new video and some MRA non-fans

Our videomaking friend Graham, also known as Some Grey Bloke, is back, finally. In his new video, he explains his long absence, due in part to what seems to have been a rather large misunderstanding between him and the Men’s Rights Activists of the world, who somehow interpreted the newfound enthusiasm for Men’s Rights he showed in his last video as a sort of satire.  (How could anyone be drawn to mock or satirize the serious and important Men’s Rights movement?)

Anyway, here’s his new video. And below it, his previous video on “The Manosphere,” which seems to have gotten 49,208 more views than my last video on the subject. Which I’ve also embedded below. It’s not as good as his, but perhaps you could watch it also.