The recent thread started by a MRA....

[Hakluyt]

....Does anyone understand why it has been zapped? Surely we have just played straight into their hands?

No, it's still there.

Oh, it's still there.

How odd.

Oh great Another raid. Ah well We have been here before and dealt with it.

Was probably the modus operandi all along.

I reported it, purely because I knew MNHQ we're going to be busy with the webchat this evening, so wanted to give them a heads up that the MRA Reddit klaxon has gone off.

I wasn't expecting them to delete the thread, he was a condescending child, but the women raised some good points in rebuttal.

Long drive now. Wish me luck!

thinking about the whole "i'm an MRA and i don't threaten to set fire to feminists or rape them" it's completely "do you want a medal?" isn't it

that's the most basic expectation i have of a man i'm going to engage in conversation with, whether i agree with his views or not. it's not the identifier of some kind of hero.

I had a skim through. Agree that he was perfectly civil, but it looks like a kind of forms-and-names politeness. He's observing the rules of polite behaviour - including being sporting enough to apologise for misunderstandings he caused - but largely refuses to engage with arguments made except to request clarification of some and declare others irrelevant. He provoked engagement in others, but refused to engage himself.

If you look at it quickly, it looks rather like a lot of angry feminists putting the boot in to some poor nice guy who dares to question their orthodoxy. If you look a little deeper, it looks a lot more like a lot of people frustrated by someone not listening to the answers that he demands they give.

Suspect he was looking to confirm his belief in irrational feminists, and has done so by framing his judgement on the form rather than the content of the posts.

So really a self fulfilling prophecy for these MRAs then - "I believe that that all feminists are angry man-haters. I shall disregard their arguments and not engage in discussion, however, I shall deign to give them the wisdom I have garnered and set them right. When they inevitably get annoyed with me, it 'proves' my belief that feminists are all angry man-haters. And I shall be 'proven' right again".

Wouldn't they be better off, like, playing sport or something, y'know, getting out in the fresh air, instead of poisoning their minds like that?

Thinking about it, I think that was Plan B.

I used to post on an unmoderated science forum. We got a lot of clowns claiming to have unified quantum theory and general relativity (that's an instant Nobel prize if you actually do it). They all failed to understand both quantum theory and general relativity, their "theories" weren't actually theories in the scientific sense, were frequently self-contradictory, always contradicted by experiment, and they would never listen to rebuttals. A lot of them got shirty about forms of civility while themselves totally disrepecting a skilled audience by ignoring their comments.

In their case, Plan A is to get real scientists to agree that their ideas are good. Plan B is to convince themselves that any hint of incivility is proof that all criticism is rooted in emotional defence of dogma, rather than frustration at being ignored and/or patronised.

LaVoix reminds me quite a lot of that kind of nutcase. Plan A failed, so he comforted himself with Plan B.

it's really telling that partway through he got a bit miffed at the ribbing - and suggested that we could start having a go at his sexual experience etc.

ie. if he were insulting, that's where he would go next. Even someone who thinks he wants equality wants to attack us using sex.

One thing struck me while skimming through the reddit MRA board. One man said that one reason MRAs get stuck in arguments with feminists is that we have a whole arm of our movement engaged in the academics of the cause, producing studies and literature etc that we can use in our debates. And they don't.

"Well, why no?", I thought.

Then it occurred to me that pretty much every woman I know who strongly identifies as feminist is highly intelligent. And most intelligent men I know also recognise the benefits of dismantling gender stereotypes.

While men who strongly identify with being MRAs. Well.....

There are far too many instances of the word "one" in my first line. Sorry!

Can someone do a clixky libk to the reddit board please? the New mobile site wont let me copy and paste :( (oe tyow apparently!)

i spotted that too annie. there's also lots of academic research in civil rights studies for other oppressed groups, far more than that into the rights of white people, heterosexual people, able-bodied people etc. i wonder why...

they are obsessed with straw men aren't they?

reddit in question [[http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/2g02gs/as_an_mra_are_you_also_a_feminist/]]

Ooops, link fail.

Trying again

@Hakluyt

Yeah, well, deleting the thread isn't going to stop the invasion. We can deal with that, surely.

Hello

Sorry to barge in but just wanted to address this point because it's been made a few times.

Over the years we've been told many, many times by regular FWR posters that they are sick of MRA trolling - and we've been asked to do what we can to protect the FWR board from it.

To that end, a couple of years ago we decided that we would delete and ban those who signed up to MN purely to promote an MRA/anti-feminist agenda. (This doesn't mean deleting and banning anyone who disagrees with an opinion expressed in FWR - we're talking specifically about systematic MRA/anti-woman stuff.) We just see it as deliberately inflammatory posting, which breaks our TG.

Individual FWR posters may of course feel that they can take it, but the avalanche of reports we get when MRAs start posting suggests strongly to us that that isn't the majority opinion. And tbh, allowing MRAs to run loose on MN causes absolutely mountains of work for MNHQ as well, distracting us from possibly more urgent stuff elsewhere.

Thanks Rowan. I remember when lots of us were asking you to deal with people signing up purely to post as MRAs. I'm really glad that you have made the decisions you have. The reasoning by FWR posters at the time was that MRA trolling has to be nipped in the bud because otherwise it encourages similar posters and then this place will just become a fight club/sixth form debating club where there is very little thoughtful exchange or genuine discussion. It all becomes about being right/having a debate.

On the 'politeness' of our latest MRA, I don't think it is politeness. It is detachment (and an inflated sense of superiority) - because these issues don't actually matter shit to him. Unlike for women - these issues are our lives. I know it is easy to get caught up in such threads because they do goad us but I have very much come round to thinking that it is a waste of women's time and energy to engage with misogynists. I understand posting stuff for lurkers or other women but I think troll posters just sap our energy - that is why they post. They don't post because they actually give a shit what we think or say to each other, they just want to waste our time and confirm their stereotypical idea of us.

yy that's what i was trying to say, just, you know, a bit incoherently

no, i think it's very relevant. if i've interpreted correctly, a lot of what we think we know lots about, we actually only know lots about in relation to the default of male/educated/white/able-bodied etc (and combinations thereof)

but of course given that they are the least vulnerable then perhaps if we're going to be experimenting then it should be predominantly on them

...she says, going round in a circle