Category Archives: sexual harassment
Immodesty Daze: The Thinking Housewife thinks “immodest dress” is a form of violence towards men
From Liberty University’s dress code for women (and, evidently, mannikins). Click on the picture for more details.
We’ve heard before from numerous MRAs and MGTOWers and other backwards dudes that women who dress like “sluts” deserve to be raped. You may remember my post about the patriarchy-loving MGTOWer who calls himself Drealm, who thinks that immodest dress is an assault on men, because it excites them without giving them the opportunity to, well, rape the women who so cruelly give them boners. In Drealm’s mind, almost any form of clothing on a woman that in any way shows her shape is suspect – as does uncovered female hair.
Obviously, I think all of us will agree that certain kinds of clothes are inappropriate in certain settings – no one of any gender should be teaching kindergarteners wearing nothing but a thong – but invariably those who complain the most about women wearing “immodest clothing” have a much broader notion of “immodesty,” which includes things that most of us just consider “clothing” – shorts, short skirts, any top that shows even the tiniest amount of cleavage. (Click on the picture above to see more about Liberty University’s dress code for women.)
Unfortunately, this kind of thinking is not confined to religious fundamentalists and weird dudes lurking in the dark corners of internet. Recently, Laura Wood, the self-identified Thinking Housewife behind the blog of the same name, has declared that “immodest dress is a form of aggression.” The heart of her post is a reposted comment from a reader posting under the name of Arete, arguing that immodest dress is a form of violence towards men similar to and in some ways even worse than actual violence from men towards women.
Immodest dress is analogous to male violence. Men who flaunt their muscles and crush beer can’s with their fists (not that I have seen much of that lately) are telling the weaker world around them, “I could crush you. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t.We’ll see. Depends how much you annoy me.” Women are stronger than men in this one way – the sight of their women’s bodies is overpowering to men. Immodest women are saying to men, “You could have sex with me, if I let you. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. It depends how much you annoy me.”
Both behaviors are flaunting the power that one has over another weaker being and both behaviors used to be considered uncouth.
But as the myth goes: only men have ever been violent towards women not the other way around (women have no power over men whatsoever – don’t you know!) and so now that we have entered the great age of woman – when she will get her revenge for all the injustices against her by men through the ages – both real and imagined — she has decided to take her “pound of flesh.” But instead of a swift cut right above the heart like Shylock she wants to get men where it really hurts– tease and taunt with the sight of her own body, forever reminding men of their weakness before female power.
So apparently a woman giving a man a boner by wearing an outfit less modest than a nun’s is worse than a dude literally punching a woman.
Laura’s comments make clear she agrees with this basic assessment, though (in a moment of generosity towards her own gender) she acknowledges that some women may not be conscious of the enormous power they wield over men every time they put on a tank top.
In the comments, Fitgerald expresses his enthusiasm for Arete’s thesis:
This is sooooo true… as a male I can ABSOLUTELY attest to this. …
As a celibate male I must actively work at constraining sexual response to females flaunting their wares.. “You could have sex with me, if I let you. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t.”.. yeah right. If I was an alpha male – strong, thin, tall, tanned.. definitely — I’ll also have to be honest and say it does piss me off, but suppressing ordinary human responses is part and parcel of not only being a civilized human being, but a Christian which constrains me further. …
Women are the sexual power brokers. They can and do decide with whom they pair and mate with. Men are essentially powerless save those few well endowed “alphas” (rich, physical specimens, powerful) who are like kryptonite to many women. Any male that is half-aware knows the look: “Yes.. look at me.. I’m sexually desirable. See my power. Feel my power..” Oh, then the look away: “But you aren’t worthy of me.” Happens EVERY day.
Yep, another misogynist furious that women get to choose who they have sex with. Dude, SO DO GUYS. If two people are having sex, both of them have to agree to it. Otherwise it is rape. Everyone is their own “sexual gatekeeper.”
Robin offers a mild dissent, noting that some of the “immodest” dressers may be victims of sexual abuse. But they still deserve “righteous judgement,” at least when this judgement is ostensibly tempered by “love.”
I was once one of these women: a female friend was loving enough to take me bra shopping as a thirty-three year old adult and teach me about covering my body so as not to invite further abuse. Other people waited patiently and said nothing; this was a disservice to me as I could have transformed more quickly if people would have had the confidence to open their mouths and teach me the truth. Others condemned me without knowing my story, and I withdrew in offense.
While it is true that immodest dress is a form of aggression in feminist women, I want to bring to light that sexual abuse of young girls has become so prevalent that many women we see walking around today dressed as prostitutes may still be ensnared and imprisoned by their victim mentality brought about through no fault of their own due to horrendous acts of abuse against their bodies as children. I believe it is important that these women do not experience condemnation, but rather righteous judgment in love so as to bring about repentance from this behavior so that they may be healed and be examples to others.
Laura feels the need to reiterate that some women and girls really have no excuse for being slutty sluts:
I know teenage girls who are sweet and innocent, and have never been abused, who dress like tarts. It’s everywhere. They see it and they imitate it.
I’m interested how Laura knows that these girls haven’t been abused. Does she know the intimate details of all of these girls’ lives? Or does she just have powerful Abuse-dar?
Mary, meanwhile, argues that the real villains here aren’t women – but evil feministy feminists.
I have too many female friends who have had their hopes dashed/hearts broken/been humiliated at the hands of average-looking, low status guys to buy that women have all the power. These average young women were doing what they thought they were supposed to do, what they were told everyone was doing – having premarital sex, that is. They were told by feminists that it was as fun for them as it was for the men if only they would get into the spirit of it, that it would lead to ultimate happiness, that it would benefit them. Many girls of average attractiveness are giving themselves away, sometimes over and over again, to unworthy men and to their own heartbreak, while the strains of “Your Body is a Wonderland” play in the background. I don’t call that sexual power. That men are more vulnerable to visual cues doesn’t make all men innocent, just as some women’s extreme immodesty doesn’t make all women sexual power brokers. …
That’s what’s so diabolical about today’s extreme immodesty: many of these women are just trying to be relevant.
Apparently the readers of The Thinking Housewife, like many MRAs and other manosphere dudes, seem to have forgotten almost entirely the old stereotype of the hairy-legged, man-hating feminist; these days, they seem to assume that any woman who wears skirts above the knee and doesn’t hate sex is a feminist.
Setting aside the ridiculousness of the “sexy clothes are an assault on men” argument generally, I can’t help but wonder how many men out there – beyond Drealm and Franklin and assorted religious fundamentalists – actually, honestly feel “assaulted” when they see a woman they find attractive wearing something that shows off her figure. Somehow I suspect that most straight guys who are interested in sex – including most of those railing endlessly about evil sluts online — actually find this sort of thing … pleasant. Most of those guys complaining about immodest dress would, I think, feel rather disappointed if women actually decided to cover up – and not just because it would rob them of yet another excuse to demonize the ladies.
A little gender experiment confirms that Reddit is full of douchebags
Now that's what I call a bridegroom.
So someone on Reddit did a little experiment that confirmed what we already know: that Reddit is overflowing with misogynist douchebags. Here’s the experimenter explaining her somewhat casual experimental protocol:
I noticed after two months as my female username I was constantly having to defend my opinions. I mean constantly. I would post something lighthearted, and have people commenting taking my comment literally and telling me I was dumb or I didn’t understand xyz. People were so eager to talk incredibly rudely and condescendingly to me. People were downright hateful and it made me consider leaving.
Then I decided to experiment with usernames and came up with an obviously male name. While people still disagreed with me which is to be expected, I had more people come to my defense when I had a different opinion and absolutely no hateful or condescending comments. I am completely shocked at how different I am treated since having a male username. I am not saying Reddit is sexist, well kind of yes, but I think it’s really interesting and thought that some other girls on here would want to get male usernames and see the difference for themselves.
She posted this in TwoXChromosomes, a subreddit devoted to women and women’s issues that is regularly overrun with angry MRA dudes and an assortment of FemRAs. This time the MRA squad didn’t take over the discussion, and numerous 2XCers reported experiences similar to that of the OP.
earthpeesfire noted:
I had a feminine user name years ago. Fuck that. It was like having a target on my back.
cantstopthe tried to duplicate the experiment on a smaller scale:
Just wanted to say that I made an alt yesterday with a female name, and continue to post the kind of things I normally post under this account. And today I was told I should be raped.
That has NEVER happened in all my 4 years of being on this site with various neutral names.
misscastaway also tried posting with a clearly female name:
I just tried posting on an discussion from this account. Immediately an insult including the word cunt and remarks on how I’m making a fool out of myself.
Might be a coincidence but when posting from my regular account (which is very gender neutral) that I use for discussions related to science, fitness, books etc I have never received this kind of behaviour. Not even when it turned out someone knew more about the subject and I was wrong/short in my knowledge. Then I was given another point of view, with a source – that was it.
I guess I’ll keep using those accounts in parallel now just to see if this was just by chance or if it really makes such a difference.
fatchick400 reported on the results of a similar experiment:
I created this account a few days ago to comment on some fat-hate, and have actually found it really interesting to see reddit from a different point of view.
The biggest surprise for me is the difference in how fat women are treated vs fat men. There is so much more hatred towards the fat women. A lot of people even refer to these women as “it”, completely negating their gender all together.
Meanwhile in the posts about fat men there are a few hateful comments, but they’re mostly full of light hearted jokes. In a few posts where the guys were obviously morbidly obese, barely anyone commented on the guys’ weight at all. Yet in posts with woman who are maybe 200lbs , mocking her weight always seems to be the main focus of conversation.
twofish added her experience to the pile of anecdotal evidence:
Most people on reddit assume I am male until I make it a point to say otherwise. More often than not, once it’s discovered that I own a vagina I’m no longer taken seriously, my opinions are belittled, and a slough of sexist and misogynist jokes/accusations get thrown my way.
I love Reddit for many reasons but it is one of THE most hostile places on the internet to be a woman.
Over on the Men’s Rights subreddit, meanwhile, the locals largely dismissed the experiment as unscientific and biased. As DavidByron put it:
Just seems like someone who set out to “prove” her own biases. She was biased to begin with, she ran the “experiment” in a biased way, interpreted the results in a biased way and then presented them to support her initial assumptions.
It’s the usual princess feminism which says men have it easy and women have it hard even while the exact opposite is happening. Why wouldn’t she say which usernames she used in her “test” so others can look at her methodology? Of course it’s not serious but then that’s the point.
Others explained that they weren’t really sexist because they’re such earnest fanboys of GirlWritesWhat, a woman who is able to bypass the usual MRA misogyny by pandering to the misogynists’ fantasy of male martyrdom.
The woman who posted about the experiment in the first place has now popped in to the r/menrights thread, and has (very politely) suggested to Mr. Byron that he try the experiment himself. I guess we’ll see what happens.
Gamer asshole: “Sexual harassment is part of the culture. If you remove that from the fighting game community, it’s not the fighting game community.”
This may be old news to gamers, but a reader just brought it to my attention:
Capcom and IGN recently put on a little online gaming “reality” show called Capcom’s Cross Assault, based on the game Street Fighter x Tekken. The show, like the game, pits a team of Street Fighter players against a Tekken team.
During a live stream of the ongoing battle on day five of the tournament, Twitch.tv community manager Jared Rea made a few remarks criticizing the assholish, and often misogynistic, comments of some of the fighters.
Here’s how the Penny Arcade Report summarized what followed. (I’ve taken the liberty of highlighting several particularly egregious comments in bold.)
“This is Aris,” a voice said on the feed. “If you don’t like onions, you get your sandwich without onions on it, man. This is the fighting game community.” He then stated that sexual harassment and the fighting game community are “one and the same thing.”
The voice belonged to Aris Bakhtanians, the coach of the Tekken team.
“The sexual harassment is part of the culture. If you remove that from the fighting game community, it’s not the fighting game community… it doesn’t make sense to have that attitude. These things have been established for years,” Aris stated. He then noted that making sexual jokes at StarCraft players would be inappropriate, so it’s unfair for anyone to tell fighting game fans they can’t viciously mock women. …
“That’s what you’re trying to do to the fighting game community and it’s not right,” Aris continued. “It’s ethically wrong.” This may be the first time in the history of video games that someone had said that removing sexual harassment is ethically unjust.
Later in the, er, discussion, after someone brought up the harassment of a guy playing a female character (“someone yelling the world “bitch” over and over … and then scream[ing] for her rape when she lost”) Aris responded with this:
“What is unacceptable about that?” Aris asked. “There is nothing unacceptable about that. We’re in America! This isn’t North Korea! We can say what we want.”
You can listen to the whole discussion on this video; it starts, with Rea’s comments, at about one hour forty-five minutes in. (Aris starts commenting about two minutes later.)
Many more appalling details in the PA report post.
Oh, gaming community! Get it the fuck together.
Rape jokes: Not a good way to advertise vodka. Also, a non-apology is not a good way to apologize for using a rape joke to advertise vodka.
No thanks, Belvedere vodka. I think I’ll be going with pretty much ANY OTHER BRAND than you the next time I purchase vodka.
After a flurry of complaints online, Belvedere offered this “apology.”
Yeah, pretty sure “sorry if you were offended” does not count as a real apology. Neither does this: Belvedere Vodka, I’m sorry you’re so fucking clueless.
Sady Doyle on “Fighting Sexual Assault, One Tweet at a Time”
Upvoted!
Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown fame has a great piece up at In These Times on the ways in which the Internet has helped to highlight virulent and violent misogyny — and inspire effective feminist pushback. It’s actually kind of … inspiring? (That’s a word I don’t use often!) Here’s the opening:
When a history of 21st-century feminist activism is someday written, 2011 may be labeled Year Rape Broke. Sexual assault and harassment have, of course, always been key feminist concerns. But in 2011, sexual violence, exploitation, or intimidation were part of nearly every major story that fell under the heading of “women’s issues”–and the activism against it has been particularly widespread, focused and effective.
As we enter this renaissance of sexual assault awareness, it’s worth considering the ways in which new media has informed it–and, indeed, perhaps even made it possible. …
You can read the rest on the In These Times website.
Full disclosure: I worked at ITT for a couple of years in the 90s (yes, I’m old), and Sady says some nice things about Man Boobz in the piece.
“I hope this advice doesn’t sound rapey … ” A visit to Reddit’s “seduction” community.
If you wonder why some dudes get so worked up about “false rape accusations,” it may be because their notion of “seduction” is pretty much indistinguishable from what most of us would call “date rape.” And chances are good that they sort of know this.
Check out this discussion in Reddit’s Seduction subreddit, recently highlighted in ShitRedditSays.
The original poster writes in with a heartrending tale: it seems he can’t get the ladies to touch his penis. Throw5891away writes:
So I have little problem getting numbers, little trouble turning those numbers into dates, I can keep her interested during dates, but i can’t make the move to anything physical beyond a kiss or some light making out.
Let’s have the deets!
A lot of my problem, I think, comes from the fear of possibly making it awkward. I’ve been in a few situations where i’ve tried to slide a hand down the pants of a girl and she turns timid. This is after some over-clothes touching, or pressure with my thigh. Warming them up, i think, is not the major problem. Obviously if a girl says no, i’m not going to push through with it because that’s when it gets awkward.
Yes, trying to stick your fingers in a woman’s vagina when she doesn’t want you to does tend to get a little … awkward.
Beyond me failing at making a first move, it’s nearly impossible for me to get a girl to notice I have an erection and attempt to do something about it.
Maybe you need to wear a t-shirt that says “erection” on it with a big arrow pointing to your crotch? Otherwise how on earth are the ladies you’re making out with ever going to realize you have a boner?
I’m average in size there, so them not noticing is not an issue. I feel like I almost have to physically take their hand and place it on my junk in order to make it happen. And after a while of them paying no attention to my erection (mind you, they’re still gropey elsewhere/into making out), it really starts to make wonder if they’re really into having sex with me at all.
It seems you might just be onto something here. And how on earth can you possibly tell if a woman actually, for real, wants to have sex with you? It’s not like you can ask her directly, because she has the power of speech, or anything like that.
Instead, you’d better ask the dudes on r/seduction. So let’s just see what they have to say.
PuaCurveBall suggests that the best way to avoid the “awkwardness” spoken of earlier is just to ignore it:
I hope this advice doesn’t sounds rapey, but you need to keep going until they seriously tell you no.
Pro-tip: Any bit of advice that starts off with “I hope this advice doesn’t sound rapey” is advice you SHOULD NOT FOLLOW.
Them not telling you firmly to stop (more than just “we shouldn’t be doing this” or “it is too soon”) is the signal. Escalate until they tell you to stop.
Yes, because “we shouldn’t be doing this” is such an ambiguous statement. It could mean anything! It probably is just girl-code for “we should be doing this, so please grab my hand and put it on your dick.”
Either you should get a firm “no, seriously get your hands off me, I’m not ready yet” or you should be having sex with these girls. Everything in the middle is working against you.
So long as she doesn’t literally mace you, you can assume she actually wants you to keep going.
Naturally, the suave Lotherios of the r/seduction community rewarded this sensible advice with upvotes.
Others offered similar advice. Productionx was insistent: “No” means “keep going!”
Women want a man to be dominate. Other women lead you to believe you have to ask for permission, don’t listen to these stupid feminists. Go be a man, if she says no, you say ok, and keep doing exactly what you were doing. You get an erection, make it freaking known!!!
Fangs78 added:
Don’t give up before like the 9-10th time they stop you. Of course, if they are stern and REALLY mean it.
Everyone knows that the first 9 or 10 “no’s” really mean “maybe.”
It’s all part of the art of “seduction.”
This post contains:
Women! Why must you assault men with your evil sexy outfits?
Women totally slutting it up in provocative waist-cinching attire
Apparently, or so I’ve learned from the manosphere, every single thing that women do is designed to torment men. Yesterday, we learned that women with jobs are leeching off of men just as much as women without jobs.
Further proof of female perfidy can be found in a recent post on the popular manosphere blog In Mala Fide with the provocative title Provocative Female Attire is an Assault Against Men. Guest poster Giovanni Dannato lays it out for anyone who needs convincing:
When a woman walks down a crowded sidewalk in revealing clothing, she is forcing herself on every man nearby.
The woman fully understands the powerful biological drives of men. She knows they cannot ignore her, not even if they want to.
Amazingly, the fact that a woman might show some cleavage does not automatically mean that she wants to have sex with every single man who sees her.
She has chosen to advertise herself to everyone passing by, but she is looking only for a few men. The wealthiest, the most famous, the most powerful men she can attract. …
There’s an old elementary school custom…when you bring something tasty to class, it’s understood that you should put it away unless you intend to share it with others. …
Likewise, a woman who puts her goodies blatantly on display is making false advertisements. Nobody supposes or expects that she could share herself with her entire audience—not even if she wanted to.
That’s right. Women are like gum. Or that pizza Spicoli had delivered to him in class in Fast Times at Ridgemont High that the mean Mr. Hand forced him to share with everyone. And if you gum-pizza-ladies are not willing to share yourself with every horny man (and, presumably, lesbian) who happens to notice you in your slut uniform, you are committing a terrible infraction.
Oh, sure, wearing a totally cute outfit is not specifically against the law, but, as Dannato reminds us,
looking for refuge in explicit written law is inherently disingenuous. …
[W]omen exposing themselves without intent to reciprocate the attention they attract is impolite and inconsiderate – an act of aggression in which they use the power of their sex as a weapon.
So how can men defend themselves against such evil feminine perfidy? By yelling “hey, whore! How much?” or “can I squeeze those titties?” or “Can you give me directions to Pussy Avenue?” Because street harassment – sorry, catcalling – is
a defense mechanism used by lower status men against women flaunting themselves publicly – for the benefit of millionaires only.
What else are men supposed to do?
[M]en are effectively strapped down, gagged, and muzzled while females can flaunt and taunt with impunity. For many men this pretty much sums up every single day of an entire lifetime at school and at work.
And women won’t even admit that when they put on a cute outfit and leave the house that they’re doing it to torment men.
Western Women don’t just abuse their incredible sexual power, they pathologically lie about their inability to understand the effects and implications of their actions. In fact, they seem to derive a sort of sociopathic pleasure from being able to sow unpleasantness and discord without consequence – all while playing innocent. They express their contempt and hatred for men even as they troll the populace for providers. Their enormous power comes without responsibility and they love it that way.
And now these evil women have come up with an even-more-dastardly-than-usual way to torment men “[i]n the most vengeful, derisive, and mocking way they know how.” Yep, you guessed it: The SlutWalks. Large groups of women tormenting men with sexy clothes in unison!
Apparently overwhelmed by contemplation of the sheer feminine evil of the SlutWalks, Giovanni ends his post abruptly at this point.
I admit I don’t have the patience to wade through the comments. If any of you do, please post any of your findings below.
EDITED TO ADD: Ironically, Ferdinand Bardamu (the guy behind In Mala Fide) aids and abets the evil sexy-woman assault on men with his own retro porn site Retrotic. NSFW, of course. And if Dannato’s post is to believed, not safe for straight men generally.
NOTE: This post contains sarcasm.
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 ….
“Please Killl Yourselves”: MRAs respond to #mencallmethings
Well, that was … instructive. The Twitter hashtag extravaganza that is #mencallmethings is still going strong. But I think at this point it’s safe to say that it has basically served it’s purpose: to highlight the obnoxious, obscene, often threatening misogynist shit that women who express their opinions about almost anything on the internet get in their inboxes or in comments online on a regular basis. Women with feminist blogs who actually call out this kind of misogyny get this sort of abuse basically every day.
Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown, who started up this hashtag campaign, explained in an eloquent and angry blog post why she did it: to point out how absolutely routine this sort of shit is. When she started her blog, she really hadn’t anticipated the sheer volume of vicious shit she’d get:
I got targeted. With threats, with insults, with smear campaigns, with attempts to threaten my employment or credibility or just general ability to get through the day with a healthy attitude and a minimal amount of insult.
The intent of all this abuse is simple: to intimidate. When someone says to a woman online “I hope you get raped with a chainsaw,” the point is to get her to shut up. The person who posts this sort of violent shit, Doyle notes,
hopes that the next time you sit down to write, you’ll remember that yikesy chainsaw-rape thing and think, “you know? Maybe this isn’t such a great idea. Maybe I don’t need to say this. Maybe I’ll piss someone off, and maybe it will be more than I can handle, and you know, maybe my thoughts on this topic just ARE NOT IMPORTANT ENOUGH for me to risk the headache/fear/irritation/distress/panic attack I know I will get.”
And then, when you say that aloud, they call you a whiny little girl who can’t handle the Internet. Because, of COURSE multiple chainsaw-rape comments aren’t a big deal! They’re just words! Sticks and stones! …
To you, my friends, I say: Fuck that noise. All of this matters. A hostile work environment matters. Being afraid of your own in-box matters. Deleting your blog because that’s the only way for you to have a normal, non-hate-filled life matters. “Accepting” that continual, virulent, hateful misogynist abuse is a pre-condition for being a lady who talks about thing, or for challenging sexism in any way, no matter who you are: That matters. And if you think we’re fragile, well. LET US COUNT THE WAYS we have hacked it, under conditions your pampered manly self just cannot imagine. LET US DEMONSTRATE FOR YOU the shit we wade through, every day, in order to talk about whether or not we liked that one “Community” episode or Lady GaGa album.
Naturally, critics of the whole hashtag campaign have done their best to minimize and dismiss this sort of routine harassment in exactly the ways that Doyle predicted they would.
The charming Ferdinand Bardamu of In Mala Fide responded to #mencallmethings with a bunch of obnoxious comments that conveniently proved basically every point Sady Doyle was trying to make with the hashtag in the first place. He started off with this bit of rapier wit:
He followed this up with a clumsy fat joke:
He continued on in this vein for awhile, so proud of his insightful critiques that he made a blog post about it.
Encouraged by Bardamu’s example, blogger PMAFT (Pro-Male/Anti-Feminist Technology) announced a #MenCallMeThings Trolling Contest. The highlight of his own contributions to this contest:
Over on Reddit’s Men’s Rights subreddit, c0mputar offered slightly more coherent, if equally misguided, response.
The reality is that most of the “misogyny” they face is just criticism to their feminist viewpoints. I see this a lot when I confront feminists arguments, present my arguments, and get called a misogynist, amongst other things characterized by misandry. It happens on both sides …
Really now? Here are some actual examples of comments posted on #mencallmethings (taken from a comment from Shaenon in the discussion here).
here’s some to start: ‘I’ll rape your mum, faggot fuck’ “I’ll come to your house and kill you”
#mencallmethings, impersonate me on FB, & make disgusting sexual comments, post my name & # when I helped organize Slutwalk
cunt, whore, ugly, disgusting, cold, feminazi, shut the fuck up bitch, manipulative, crazy, playing the victim, sociopath
Bitch, whore, being sensitive, little girl, dumb, subject of jokes involving physical and sexual assault.
Any variation on fat and/or ugly at this point just makes me yawn.
I’ve had so many emails and messages telling me I deserve a beating, I don’t even keep track any longer.
“13? Judging by the size of your titties, I’d of thought you were 18.”
(censored version) If you keep talking the way you do, you deserved to get raped.
My #mencallmethings moment – receiving an email consisting of 1600 lines plus of the same insult over and over. My crime? Being fat.
I’ve had so many guys tell me how good I must be in bed because I’m fat and therefor will do anyone
I usually get ‘sweetheart’ just before they dismiss my argument as being ‘stupid’. No counter argument.
Will not repeat the violence that’s been directed at me but this one made me laugh “Blubbering self-important herd animal.”
apparently I’m a lesbian… I was unaware until #mencallmethings.
I’M ON ANTI-DEPRESSANTS AND I CANT EVEN JERK OFF CORRECTLY NOW & ITS BECAUSE OF WOMEN SO FUCK ALL YOU INFERIOR COWS
“You should have your tongue ripped out.”
I get sent one rape threat a month on average.
I was once told “get back in the kitchen you ugly bitch” for posting on a Linux board (can’t remember which one now)
Have you ever wanted someone to tell you that your genetalia should be stapled shut with bugs inside, start a blog
How about being choked to death during a forced blowjob? Start a feminist blog.
Not worth the effort to murder: the most recent example of what I had to delete off the blog when #mencallmethings
C0mputar, in his Reddit post, went on to offer another argument that seems to be a favorite of those trying to trivialize the abuse catalogued by the contributors to #mencallmethings:
In the end, veterans of the internet know there is no protected demographic. Everyone gets shit on, but if you make a point of belonging with a group, you get shit on even more, and more so the smaller you are. You know who gets shit on more than feminists? MRAs.
Really? Some MRA types on Twitter tried to get a rival hashtag going: #womencallmethings. Needless to say, they didn’t have much to work with.
One Man Boobz non-fan — whom I banned for his repeated comments about anal rape — tried to post a sarcastic little comment here last night dismissing #mencallmethings on similar grounds. Here’s a screenshot from my wordpress account, with his identifying data erased:
Let’s just, for contrast, take a look at the previous comment he tried to post here:
Another day, another “hope you get raped” comment.
Ironically, though I’m pretty thoroughly disliked across the manosphere, I actually get a lot less of this sort of abuse than most reasonably well-known feminist bloggers who happen to be non-dudes. Oh, sure, I get called a “traitor” and a “mangina,” and once in a while someone points out that I’m, you know, fat, but when it comes to the really nasty shit, the abusive commenters and emailers seem to much prefer going after women. This may be because they are misogynistic assholes. That’s just a theory, though.
Some MRAs are rallying around Herman Cain because he’s not “bowing before the golden hoochie.”
So some MRAs are rallying around Herman Cain – not in spite of the sexual harassment allegations against him, but because of them.
On The Spearhead, W. R. Price notes that Cain has gotten a flood of new donations since the scandal broke. His conclusion:
The support for the conservative candidate suggests that the decades-old trend of male helplessness in the face of female accusations may be coming to an end.
Other Spearheaders are a bit more blunt:
It is refreshing to see a man (politician or otherwise) in the spotlight stand up and defend himself against a P.C. hatchet-job such as “sexual harrassment” when so many before him did the whiney-baby kiss-up “I was wrong” pandering while bowing before the golden hoochie.
Meanwhile, white and nerdy on Omega Virgin Revolt (yes, that’s a real blog) has actually put his money where his mouth is, sending along a donation to Cain.
I usually don’t bother with voting. Everyone running for most offices is either a liberal feminist or a conservative feminist. To me that is no difference. However, if Herman Cain is still in the running by the time my state’s primary happens (and if he is the Republican nominee) I will vote for him.
Herman Cain is now dealing with at least three women who are claiming that he sexually harassed them. Public figures who were accused of sexual harassment in the past didn’t take on their accusers directly, but Herman Cain did. He pointed out how what is happening to him is a false accusation. As a result of this Cain has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations in the last few days. One of those donations was my donation.
This may not seem like much, but this small act as made Cain more anti-feminist than all of the other candidates for president.
Notice that in white and nerdy’s version of the controversy, Cain has “pointed out” that he’s being falsely accused. Actually, what Cain has done is to deny that he harassed anyone. At this point, we don’t actually know enough to judge definitively whether the allegations are true — though the fact that the National Restaurant Association paid out tens of thousands of dollars to settle the cases makes me a bit skeptical of Cain’s denials. But apparently, in W&N’s brain, there’s not even a chance he’s guilty of anything other than standing up to the dirty feminazis.
One of the commenters on Omega Virgin Revolt is even more enthusiastic about Cain than the blogger himself. Jack writes:
If Cain becomes president, we might actually see an end to the incessant pandering to women by the mindless political class. It’s about time that a politician stood up and declared that women have responsibilities in life and are not entitled to a free ride. Cain might actually do that.
Over on Reddit, meanwhile, OffensiveBrute doesn’t defend Cain so much as he defends not giving a shit about sexual harassment:
I say even if Cain is guilty, who the hell cares? Sexual harassment is illegal, but not immoral. well not the kind that Cain is accused of anyway.
Skooma714 offers a similar take:
He didn’t even touch them. They probably hear shit like that on the DC Metro everyday.
They probably are over it. They want to get some paper and attention.
And, yes, both of these comments garnered some upvotes.
Of course, not every MRA out there is rallying around Cain. On Reddit, there are plenty of MRAs who are suspending judgment on the allegations, or who dislike Cain because he’s, you know, a right wing asshole. Over on The Spearhead, the only ones who seem to have an issue with Cain are those who, well, let’s just say that they probably also think burning crosses make great lawn decorations:
Black men are notorious for their sexual escapades, their testosterone being greater than that of White Men – as is their level of rape accusation. He may be innocent but he may just as well be guilty of a real indescretion.
I am happy to report that this comment got a lot of downvotes there; not every Spearheader is a raving Stormfronter. Of course, it says something about the general political and social backwardness of the site that those Spearheaders who are defending Cain from the crudest Klan-tastic racist attacks are doing so basically because they think he’s a credit to his race:
If the Blacks in America were like Herman Cain, this country would be measurably better for it and most of us would be hating on someone else.
But don’t worry: On The Spearhead they can still all agree on one central point – that women are evil, lying whores. As Keyster put it, in one of the most-highly upvoted comments in the thread:
What this indicates is that people are fed up with political correctness and the feminist/sexual grievance industry. …
In the new Femocracy you can’t date them, you can’t marry them and you can’t even work among them, without risking untold trouble for life. Is it any wonder men are distancing themselves from women, if not abandoning them altogether? How’s a man to know whether she has a “false accusation bomb” strapped to her waist or not? If you’re a man among women stay alert, you’re outside the Green Zone.
Will MRAs end up rallying around Cain in the way they rallied around Julian Assange and Dominique Strauss-Kahn? Or will something – his political views, his race? – prevent them from jumping on the Cain train? I guess we’ll just have to see.
