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So the other day, the atheist blogger Rebecca Watson, aka Skepchick, had this little conversation on Twitter:
Watson, you may recall, got herself onto the Men’s Rights radar a few months back, after a brief comment she made in a podcast — suggesting that perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea for a guy to hit on woman he’s never spoken to before while the two of them are alone in an elevator at 4 AM – somehow turned into a Big Fucking Thing on the Internet, because how dare she say such a thing, it’s creep-shaming, she must hate men, bla bla bla.
So, anyhoo, one Men’s Rights Reddit noticed this little Twitter exchange, and posted it to the Men’s Rights subreddit. And there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. MRAs hating women? How dare she suggest such a thing!
Here are some of the things that assorted Men’s Rights Redditors posted in response, to remind us all that the Men’s Rights movement isn’t all about shitting on women. Let’s start with this lovely rebuttal, boasting nearly 60 net upvotes:
This comment inspired a long and winding discussion of the word “cunt,” and why it’s like totally ok to use it all the time, because in England the UK people call men “cunts” as well.
Speaking of fantasy, here’s a strange bit of paranoia, which nonetheless drew upvotes from the very same people who are outraged that Watson was a bit creeped out by a dude she didn’t know asking her to come to his hotel room at 4 AM:
And here’s still more evidence that MRAs, despite their many egregious flaws, do at least have vivid imaginations:
Some other comments, all of which got at least a few upvotes from the MR regulars:
Let’s end with this eloquent plea for people to not give a shit if MRAs hate women:
The folks in the Men’s Rights subreddit are currently debating whether or not to change the subreddit’s slogan, which is currently: “Mens’ Rights: Earning Scorn from Bigoted Feminists and White Knights Since 2008.”
So let me humbly suggest:
Mens’ Rights: Like it’s even relevant if mens rights is anti women in regard to if mens rights is a movement about addressing mens issues.
Or the even punchier:
Men’s Rights: i’m tired of not using the term “cunt”.
Child pornography is a multi-billion dollar international industry for a reason, people enjoy it. Humans are the most sexual creatures on the planet, the second is our closest relative the bonobo ape. Kids and adults have been having sex since before the dawn of man. If you want the rape and the kidnappings to stop you legalize it and take it out of the hands of the black market. Prohibition doesn’t work.
Yep, that’s right, he’s arguing that the best way to stop the abuse of children inherent in the production of child porn is to legalize it. And he got more upvotes than downvotes for his cheerful child porn apologetics.
After thinking the issue over a little more, Sirhotalot returned with an reassessment of sorts:
Edit: I was wrong about the child porn industry.
Yes, yes you were.
Apparently it’s actually quite small.
Yeah, that’s really not the main problem with your child porn apologia. The main problem is that IT IS A CHILD PORN APOLOGIA.
I am devoid of wit today, so here without comment is a heaping slab of “women are whores” courtesy of the Men’s Rights subreddit. The whole thread is full of poop; check it out.
Clever. You encourage hatred towards men while using their own language to shame them. …
You’re just a hate-mongerer albeit an intelligent and creative one. Hitler would have just loved you
That’s right. I “encourage hatred towards men” by reporting what some dudes actually post on the internet, usually under a fake name that can’t be traced back to them. Pointing out when someone says something shitty evidently makes me as bad as Hitler. (I should note that I mock specific men, not men in general, and that I also mock specific women with similar opinions.)
Casper also complains that “[e]ven the name of your site is an effort to shame men.” Again, I should point out that the dumb punny title of this blog isn’t directed at all men, merely those who act like misogynist boobs (or, if you prefer, boobz). “Boob” is pretty much the mildest insult I can think of, not to mention one that is a bit archaic; it’s a bit like calling someone a ruffian or a jackanape. Frankly, it’s far too nice a name for many of the people I write about here.
Of course, Casper isn’t the only one who feels that pointing out the offensive crap that people say is somehow equivalent of starting a death camp in your backyard. Take the many critics of ShitRedditSays.
For those who aren’t familiar with the ways of Reddit, ShitRedditSays (or SRS) is a user-created forum (subreddit) on Reddit devoted to pointing out some of the worst, most bigoted and awful crap posted on Reddit that nonetheless gets upvotes and acclaim from Reddit regulars.
The SRS modus operandi may seem a bit familiar to anyone who reads Man Boobz: SRSers find highly upvoted crap on Reddit and post it to their subreddit, where others react with horror and/or laugh about how hilariously awful it is. They don’t send out “downvote brigades” to downvote the crap they link to; they don’t try to track the bigots down in the real world and harass them. No, SRSers post what they find, and they mock.
On a couple of occasions, they’ve gone further. When they discovered that actual child porn was being circulated in Reddit’s “Jailbait” subreddit, a hangout for ephebophile creepers to creep on pictures of underage girls, SRSers spread the word beyond Reddit, and the resulting media attention led to Reddit finally deleting that subreddit.
Problem solved? Not exactly; the creepers merely moved on to any number of other subreddits devoted to the sexualization of underage girls. And so SRS struck again, alerting the media to the fact that Reddit still hosted a forum even creepier than r/jailbait – that is, r/preteen_girls, devoted to sexualized pictures of girls under the age of 13. This time, the Reddit admins moved more quickly, and banned all the subreddits that, in their words, “focus on sexualization of children.”
And apparently the Reddit admins are still pissed off about it. Recently, someone on Reddit leaked the log of a private chat between a Reddit moderator and one of the site’s administrators (that is, someone who actually works at Reddit). (See here and here for more details.)
The admin, known as hueypriest, described SRS’s attempts to get child porn and other material sexualizing children off of Reddit as “kind of like a forrest [sic] fire,” and grumbled about SRSers and other opponents of child porn sending “frivolous tips” to the FBI:
the fbi is not interested in following up leads of 17 year olds who’s boyfriends post shit on the internet
And evidently neither was Reddit, until SRSers and others revealed what was going on in its sleaziest subreddits to the world.
Again, all SRS did was to point out what was there.
Ever since Reddit’s belated shutdown of what hueypriest euphemistically described as the “questionable” subreddits, there’s a lot of talk on Reddit about how SRS needs to be shut down.
A couple of comments in the SubredditDrama subreddit pretty much sum up the frustrations a lot of us feel towards Reddit’s admins and many of the site’s users. 1338h4x writes:
Subreddits sexualizing kids? Let that slide for 5 years until the public pressure and bad PR is finally too much. Subreddit calling out sexism, bigotry, etc? SHUT IT DOWN RIGHT NOW!
This would just be the ultimate validation of SRS’s message. I dare them to do it.
Making reddit look bad = the worst thing. Perhaps they should stay on the ball and actually get rid off the terrible shit in advance … you know, that way they don’t look bad by having a policy that tacitly allows child pornography to remain on the website for extended periods of time.
You would think this is a no-brainer. Apparently this is not the case~
Here’s a little exchange from Reddit Men’s Rights subreddit that shows what exactly we’re up against here. By which I mean: complete dunderheads.
To properly enjoy the exchange below, you need to know that the “Sadly… yes” link leads to a video of Gloria Allred.
Superior male brains at work in r/mensrights
Here’s the video of Hillary Clinton Gloria Allred:
Well, hey, they do look sort of similar, if you ignore the name “Gloria Allred” in giant letters at the start, and sort of squint your eyes, and disregard the fact that her voice is not actually that of Hillary Clinton, but of an entirely different woman. Gloria Allred, to be specific. I mean, heck, Hillary Clinton’s only been on the national political scene for, like, twenty years; it’s not as if anyone could be expected to know what she looks or sounds like, or that her name isn’t spelled “Gloria Allred.” And it’s not like Gloria Allred is ever on TV or anything.
But the important thing is, even though Gloria Allred is not Hillary Clinton:
While Reddit’s reluctant, long-overdue banning of subreddits devoted to sexualized pictures of children drew applause from many Redditors, there has, of course, been a considerable backlash from pedophiles, ephibophiles, and other assorted apologists. ShitRedditSays has already started covering this, and I’ll be doing some posts of my own.
So far the most appalling thing I’ve run across (thanks to ScrappyB for pointing it out in the comments here) comes from the BeatingWomen subreddit — which is, unfortunately, a real thing. Some people, you see, are suggesting that maybe Reddit shouldn’t be hosting a forum devoted to sharing images and videos of women being brutalized, so that Redditors can cackle over their victimization, make rape jokes, and whatever else they do there.
The idea that r/beatingwomen “might be next “ roused one racist, misogynist jailbait enthusiast to post this little manifesto.
He’s not trolling. If you look at his comment history you’ll see he’s completely sincere. (Actually, don’t look at his comment history. It’s horrifying. I’m not going to link to it.)