Thursday, April 5, 2012

"Men's Right's" Activists: It's Ok To Hit Women

I've written about the "Men's Rights" movement before, but I'm returning to the topic because I want to discredit them as much as possible.

The Southern Poverty Law Center recently classified the "Men's Rights" section of Reddit.com as a hate site, saying in part:
While it presents itself as a home for men seeking equality, it is notable for the anger it shows toward any program designed to help women. It also trafficks in various conspiracy theories. “Kloo2yoo,” identified as a site moderator, writes that there is “undeniable proof” of an international feminist conspiracy involving the United Nations, the Obama Administration and others, aimed at demonizing men.

I wanted to reveal just how twisted these men can be in the pursuit of their agenda so I came up with a story they could not resist. On April Fools day, I posted a thread titled "My girlfriend just tried to steal a used condom to impregnate herself and is now threatening to call the police on me. PLEASE Help." It told the tale of a college student and the girlfriend who tried to steal his sperm.

The spermjacker trope is irresistible to "men's rights" activists because they believe they are perfect Darwinian examples of masculinity and as a result are irresistible to the hormonally irrational schemers that make up womankind. Narcissism and misogyny collide to make a toxic brew.

Oh, and I added the twist that this man punched his girlfriend so hard in the stomach that she bruised. Surely such fierce proponents of "gender equality" would not support violence against women. Right?

Like little hate-filled moths before a flame, the MRAs could not resist themselves.

This site has a good run down of what happened. I was told repeatedly that I did nothing wrong. Another MRA said men should put hot sauce in their used condoms to prevent women from trying to impregnate themselves.

Several commenters called me out as a troll, but it's interesting no one in that thread or my subsequent follow up said unequivocally that it is not ok to hit women.

The "men's rights" movement is morally bankrupt. It is made up of people who support hitting women. It is made up of people who refuse to say it is wrong to hit women. It is made up of people who are so paranoid of women that they think people actually talk like this:
You fucking bastard, how dare you punch me for what I'm entitled to! Call me the minute you get this god damn message or I'll call the fucking police and end your future. CALL MEEEE.
Attention MRA's: You have all exposed yourselves as rotten human beings and you have discredited your movement (again).

My original goal was just to generate a handy link to keep on file any time I needed some ammo to point out how morally bankrupt this movement is. I also would have been happy if my tale convinced some MRAs to get vasectomies.

But then this thing started to take off. Erin Gloria Ryan of Jezebel wrote about it in a hilarious post that over 16,000 people have seen. In that post she also mentions something I had not considered. Mainly, the possibility that my story was "destined to be urban legend fodder for men's rights activists for years even though it smells to high heaven like bullshit"

I don't want my post to lead anyone into thinking that women behave this way. I certainly do not want anyone to come across my post and use it as an excuse for hitting someone. So I'm coming clean.

I wrote this story by stitching together nearly every cliche I have ever come across in the "men's rights" movement. I tried to see if the MRAs had any line they would not cross. Apparently they do not. Looks like the SPLC made a good call.

Update:
It looks like the menly men of the "men's rights" movement had their feelings hurt by Jezebel's send up. The original poster laments "So this is what feminists think about one of our most pressing issues."

Message to MRAs: Sperm jacking is NOT an actual issue, let alone the most pressing issue facing your made up movement. I would say the most pressing issue you have is that many of your members openly condone violence against women.

When you cite sperm jacking as one of the most pressing issues, it makes it readily apparent that you have no agenda other than thinly veiled sexism and misogyny. "Mens rights" issues have NO bearing on the quality of life for men. They are ALL an excuse to bash women. Please get vasectomies, all of you.


Update II:
The "men's rights" activists think I've unfairly distorted them. Take Reddit user Pooballs for example:, who had his "skin crawling" over my post:



This sums up the "men's rights" movement pretty succinctly. Shoddy "logic" about how much harder men are treated followed by an affirmation of violence against women:
Plus this rabid attacking of punching a woman.. omg. We're not all delicate perfect little flowers who will die if somebody hits us. Honestly I think if I'd witnessed, or if this type of thing happened to me, I probably would've punched her too.

You lose MRAs. Your movement's intellectual underpinnings are just a veneer to cover up your seething hatred of women. Check mate.

Update III:
The MRAs are busy trying to rationalize this event away. Let's keep a little focus:

1. While the post is now flooded with comments calling me out as a troll, it started with unquestioning acceptance of the basic premise that women are crazy enough to steal condoms in a bid to impregnate themselves and "enslave" men into paying child support against their will. MRA's are fundamentally paranoid of women. They think each women is a threat just waiting to trap them.

2. They think hitting women is justified.
MRA Charlie Tango's response shows just how dangerous this movement is:



57 comments:

  1. The advice, "Never strike a woman" is devoid of philosophical foundation if taken as blind dogma of the universe. Better to say that only a douchebag caveman sees striking a woman as a necessary way to express how you feel, but I digress.

    Basically, dead brained progressives like yourself need to be TOLD stuff like that because you would never come up with it on your own. Your inability to process things like that is the reason why there are bibles--if you are dumb enough to think it is the word of God, you probably should.

    But don't worry, I am sure you're an Atheist, and remind people frequently how much smarter you are than everyone else because of it.

    You think you know what you wrote and how clever you were, but you were the one asking for advice, not the woman. Further, you seemed very disoriented in your writing as you would never really give a clear answer on anything leading people to believe that you really had no idea what was going on, and turning the entire thread into the cluster fuck you had hoped for.

    Basically, as it was pointed out to you repeatedly, if you had left a bruise on the abdomen, particularly one that showed up immediately, she would have needed IMMEDIATE MEDICAL ATTENTION! The fact that she ran out like nothing had happened, according to your story, leads people to believe you are 1) possibly a troll, or 2) a disoriented idiot blowing everything out of proportion.

    Putting it in context, thinking that hitting a women in that situation is going to land you in jail and ruin your life forever is just not the way the system works, even if real you think it should. Nobody was saying that hitting her was the right thing to do, people were trying to calm you down because you were wildly blowing things out of proportion. You made it sound like you were on the verge of suicide.

    You came across as a complete fucking loon. You were dismissive of rational advice. You were utterly clueless as to completely fucking insane this girl was that probably needed to be heavily medicated from the way you describe her, and all you kept doing was whining about how helpless you were.

    Empathetic and thoughtful people that actually listened to you, just in case you were a real human being, could only do so much with what they had to work with. You had already broken the rule, "don't stick your dick in crazy", so how much more advice can one give that you might actually listen to.

    So anyway, congratulations on your adventure into Gonzo Journalism. Hope it provided the type confirmation bias that will make for a haughty chuckle between you and your progressive friends and the next circle jerk.

    But a real suggestion to help you in your journalism career, as misguided as I might think you may be, see if it might be possible to find a woman to play the role of the girlfriend you described. Even insist there is a bruise (but obviously important to be vague on the detail, otherwise anyone that has taken more than a basic human anatomy class will call it out as BS), and see what kind of feedback she gets from, say, r/twoXchromosomes.

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    1. Look at all these words you're using to defend these douchebags.

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    2. My first incoherently angry comment! You attack me as a Christian, then you attack me as an atheist (?). Then you tell me to get a woman with a stomach bruise to help me (?). Yikes.

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    3. it must be so hard to be you

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    4. I'm curious, why would life be so hard for me? Unlike you, I don't live in a world where every woman I meet is a psychotic shrew who is out to steal my sperm and "enslave" me through child support. I also don't look for justifications to hit women. It's a pretty nice mindset to live with. Women are pretty cool people. You should stop hating on them so much.

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  2. Nice work.

    Lila Rose approves of your underhanded tactics.

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    1. You guys did this to yourselves.

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    2. then how come we don't have the password to this blog so we can delete this post?

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    3. Haha, what? You want the password to my blog?

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    4. you really don't know anything...you're just in it for the lolz

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    5. I actually take this quite seriously. This post is just as important as all the others on my blog. I write about the theme of systematic injustice. None of the other posts I have written have received anywhere close to this level of vitriol. Why are MRAs so much more filled with rage than everyone else?

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    6. vitriol? I don't see any vitriol here. Do you have a victim complex?

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    7. Not sure what makes you think I have a victim complex. I'm just wondering aloud why this is the only post I have written that has received such angry, hate filled comments.

      I've had some of my posts about religion end up on Free Republic. Even they didn't take the time to kick up trouble in the comments.

      Curious.

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    8. Well one sided views usually invoke a heated response from the side that is unjustly slandered...

      Obvious.

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    9. I'm not the one who said it's ok to hit women. I didn't force anyone to say anything. This was not unjust. It was MRAs being honest

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    1. ahahah ahaha ha hahahah ahahahaaaa oh my god

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  5. "It's not ok to hit women."
    "it's ok to hit/steal from men"
    You aren't sexist at all.

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    1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    2. Wrong. The point of this post was never about the ethics of stealing from or hitting men. The point was that the "men's rights" movement is so consumed with a hatred of women that they will defend a woman beater. You are creating false equivalencies where they don't exist.

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    3. you created a false account

      if the point was that "the "men's rights" movement is so consumed with a hatred of women that they will defend a woman beater", why did you need to lie and make up stories?
      wouldn't it be self-evident?

      why do you need to lie and say you're somebody you are not and say something happened that did not in order to prove something that you already decided was true?

      was there any chance that you set up room for the possibility that your experiment could have shown different results?

      your stunt is not a very reliable test to show the validity of your thesis

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    5. I find the critiques of my methods unpersuasive. I am a sociologist by training and what I did was textbook conflict methodology. You break a few rules and watch how people respond. Their actions are illustrative of their underlying values.

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    7. Meh, I take it from your name that you are probably a libertarian/atheist/MRA. I'm choosing to feed your persecution complex by deleting your comments rather than legitimize you.

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    8. I don't identify with men's rights, but spewing a bunch of thought-terminating chanting about hitting women is a coward's endgame, and no self-respecting troll plays to the gallery like this.

      No, you're actually telling yourself this accomplished something. What a cop out.

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    9. Also, shouldn't you be writing a survey or something?

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    10. I don't identify with men's rights, but spewing a bunch of thought-terminating chanting about hitting women is a coward's endgame....

      Ah yes, "thought terminating"... because if there's one thing we need to seriously sit down and weigh the pros and cons of, it's violence against women.

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    11. "I am a sociologist by training and what I did was textbook conflict methodology. You break a few rules and watch how people respond."


      ^----what textbook?

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    12. "no self-respecting troll plays to the gallery like this"

      I've been waiting for the angry comments to start ever since I began blogging. This is amusing

      Also, bringing up the social sciences was in itself a bit of conflict methodology. MRAs fetishize science. Your responses are illustrative of the ways you use "logic" to create morally abhorrent equivalences. SCIENCE AND LOGIC DICTATE THAT MEN BEAT WOMEN.

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    13. I brought up the social sciences first when I said tour methodology is invalid and unreliable because you did not allow for the possibility of any other conclusion than the one you got.

      Putting it in all capital letters only serves to emphasize how weak your argument is.

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    14. Ahh, classic MRA distraction technique. Instead of arguing about substance (the morality of hitting women so hard they bruise) you try to shift the discussion to methodology. Not going to fall for it on my own blog.

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    15. The morality of hitting people so hard they bruise.

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    16. Women. "men's rights" is about creating an intellectual framework to legitimize hurting -women-

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  7. Reading comprehension is not strong in this thread...

    But seriously thank you for that AMAZING troll. I think it's hilarious that the MRAs are so panty-twisted about being tricked into revealing how they actually are. And the backpedaling? BRILLIANT.

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  9. What a coward, can't take a comment calling you out for the rape apologist you are. I'm sure you'll remove this comment too. It shows you're lack of intellectual honesty and you're lack of support for feminist ideals. You should stop calling yourself a feminist, you coward, because you're not one.

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    1. This is a particularly vile comment. Forced sexual assault is a truly traumatic experience for women. That you would seek to abstract such an evil to win an online argument shows how little empathy you have. And don't give me any of that BS about how men are the real victims of rape.

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    3. I'm leaving your original comment as a testament to your vileness. But I'm not letting this particular discussion continue because it trivializes the seriousness of the issue and those who have lived through it.

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    5. I tip my hat to you sir. Keep on trolling the fair seas.

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  10. I'm still going to say that the guy was justified in this made up story.

    If someone tries to steal from me, damn right I'll punch them in the stomach to get back my property.

    The author is SO BRAVE for tricking mens rights activists to prove a shitty point.

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    1. Yes! The Libertarians are showing up. Please forward my site widely. I would love to get a whole crowd of angry John Galt wannabes flooding my comments

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    2. A casual observation - You are in this for attention and seem incapable of discussing this with an open mind....

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    3. Your comment disappoints me. Please make it more pro ron paul

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    4. He's absolutely right. I have yet to see you reply to the actual substance of any comment that doesn't support your views. You simply find some harsh way to say "this person doesn't support my views" and then you declare victory.

      Again, this playing to the gallery. I honestly feel sorry for you if this blog represents your capacity for critical thought.

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    5. The idea that "liberty" protects property interests to such an extent that it allows a boyfriend to punch his girlfriend in the stomach so hard that she bruises is absurd. Libertarianism is the glorification of selfishness.

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  11. Reddit gets revenge. You look like a fool. You are a fool.

    http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/s1gh5/an_open_letter_to_the_spermjacker_troll_from_a/

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    1. Hilarious. So much of that is flat out wrong

      1) I'm not a woman

      2) I never said I was a feminist or that I was advancing feminism. I was just trying to discredit "men's rights" (it worked)

      3) The total lack of citation for "it's self defense to hit a woman so hard she bruises when she's trying to escape your apartment" is disgracefully incompetent

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  12. Jesus pete, it was April Fools' Day. Guess we know who the fools are...@@@

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