One crazy story, where batshit crazy behaviour is nonsensically excused by 'Oh and as to your quest for motives? Don’t bother. I just really hate the patriarchy'.

[deepwatersolo]

I am not even sure this belongs into the feminism chat, but this is one crazy story (long read), I wanted to share it. The movie 'Fatal Attraction' come to life. I always found that script deeply misogynyst. But, as much as I loath the guy in this story, a professor, for his utter stupidity (that guy most certainly got his job because he is a white male and not for some brilliance of thought imo), the two women (more precisely a woman and a 'woman') on the other side of that drama take the cake. And then they apparently depict it as some grand feminist struggle that they pursue by acting batshit crazy.

www.thecut.com/2019/07/bruce-hay-paternity-trap-maria-pia-shuman-mischa-haider.html?wt_zmc=nl.int.zonaudev.zeit_online_chancen_cb.d_25.07.2019.nl_ref.zeitde.bildtext.link.20190725&utm_medium=nl&utm_campaign=nl_ref&utm_content=zeitde_bildtext_link_20190725&utm_source=zeit_online_chancen_cb.d_25.07.2019_zonaudev_int#comments

(I don't think I am missing something. Am I?)

I lack the intellect to answer your question but I hate the way 'bunny boiler' is bandied around to describe any woman who is justly or unjustly pissed off about anything.

I concur. But what is described in the article amounts to a sustained (over years) campaign of harrassment including the eviction of the guy's whole family from their house while they were on holidays via a forged lease.

Those poor kids.

I read an article on this, and it seems the woman and the transwoman exploited this guy and treated him extremely badly . My superficial take on it was that they were in the wrong and deserve jail time (in a female and male prison respectively).

This is the story of a heterosexual couple going around telling everyone that they’re lesbians

So when the woman in the couple gets pregnant every one is mystified about who the father is.....except.....d’uh

And Hay put his family through hell. What a plonker

His naivety and desperation to believe the narrative they were selling is astonishing.

Not related to feminism that I can see. Hating the patriarchy is just another available excuse they used to justify their grift.

An interesting read nonetheless, and as Bernard so succinctly put it, what a plonker!

People with personality disorders will make up any excuse to justify their actions. I don't know that they really believe them.

It was a weird and shocking article, they clearly were preying on rather vulnerable individuals. It's always difficult for me to imagine anyone going so far, really just to abuse others.

The link isn't working for me but, urgh, Fatal Attraction. It's no coincidence that all those films of the same ilk (think Single White Female also) which portrayed women as both crazy and deranged and meek, passive victims were released at a time when many women really started to 'catch up' with career men with city jobs, power suits etc. They are deeply misogynistic.

It’s a bizarre story but trying to frame it as something to do with feminism or rather anti-feminism is a stretch. It’s a story as old as the hills, vulnerable person walks into trap set by manipulators and abusers and is manipulated and abused. Happens to women at the hands of men day in day out yet when it happens to a man at the hands of women (and one TW in this case which gives the tale the sensationalist twist needed to make it ‘news’) it’s somehow noteworthy?

Yes there was an appalling lack of judgment on his part but that doesn’t make him any less a victim than a woman who ignores red flags; yes it was appallingly cruel exploitative behaviour by the couple but that doesn’t make them any worse than men who similarly prey on women and, indeed, one of them is a man.

It’s a bizarre story but trying to frame it as something to do with feminism or rather anti-feminism is a stretch.

I agree, but it is the connection the individuals at question make. I was irked by those individuals bringing up their 'hate for the patriarchy' as an excuse for their abysmal behaviour that looks like an incel fantasy come to life. And lo and behold, on further research it turns out the Right is eating it up and blames feminism.

e.g. www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/there-are-only-losers-in-the-wild-story-of-harvard-law-professor-bruce-hay
(Though that particular article at least criticizes the brand of third wave feminism/identity politics. But many, many comments don't.).
I guess I am just irked by two loons hijacking 'feminism'.

It's no coincidence that all those films of the same ilk (think Single White Female also) which portrayed women as both crazy and deranged...

I once read that the original 'Fatal Attraction' storyline was way more sympathetic to the Glenn Close character and way more critical of the Michael Douglas character, but the story line was changed in order to 'appeal to the audience'... (rather what some guys thought would rather appeal to themselves...)

There have definitely been a couple of similar threads on MN over the years - women cheated, abused or exploited by men who come along with grandiose stories of suffering, heroism or another reason to act as if the normal rules don't apply to them. I find it both terrifying and fascinating in equal measure.

A story hit the newspapers a few years ago about a woman who was made to live in hiding by a man who told her that he was on the run from a terrorist organisation. He extorted a huge amount of money from her and she was virtually a prisoner in her own home. Yet she was quite senior in a financial services organisation. I wouldn't have believed it was possible except that my husband met her once at a work event, before it all came out.

The clues were there for this man, but he was blinded by lust and too weak to put down proper boundaries at the first sign of abuse.

That story is one crazy ride. When they took over their house - that was quite a jaw-dropper.

There were things that I couldn't understand - who would give over their laptop and password to someone who had acted so erratically? Why did he think the two families might possibly live together? Why did he think they were giving him $3000? In a script these things would certainly seem implausible, but I dunno....

His poor wife and children.

But a really intriguing article - even if it feels incomplete. Thanks for the link!

He extorted a huge amount of money from her and she was virtually a prisoner in her own home.

This is appalling. As a previous poster said, there are often mental health issues (personality disorders) involved. In the case you mention or also regarding the sordid Fritzl case (he locked up his own daughter and the children she bore him over the years in his own cellar ffs) it very much sounds like unabashed sociopathy, in the case of this woman and transwoman here, I'm wondering if (as an alternative to a sociaopathy explanation) they might actually believe their own bullshit and see themselves as victims, borderline style.

I will say that I find the psychology of the victims fascinating, who so gullibly fall for it (not people like Fritzl's daughter obviously. She was literally locked up). I mean, the indifference of this professor towards his own family is also something to behold. How could a document about potentially borrowing 500,000 $ against his and his partner's (!) house 'end up' on his desk, where his partner discovered it? This was most certainly put there by himself. (There might be some lesson here that is relevant for feminism about a man being totally subservient to the identity politics weaponizing scammers while fully ignoring the material rights and property of his own partner).

Grifters gonna grift.

The thing that really gets me about this story is the fact that although we see an exposure of multiple layers of lies (paternity, entrapment, exhortion, the house stealing, multiple cases of the same fraud, the whole identity/famous father of the conwoman who became pregnant) there is one great big lie that is maintained throughout the piece (the two women etc) and that is never questioned. Some deceptions are apparently more acceptable than others.

Yes, there is a weird elision at the centre of it all.

Two 'women' are living together, therefore a pregnancy must be the result of an encounter with someone else. If the maleness is not acknowledged, it doesn't exist.

It brings to mind a Shakespearian bed-trick.

Strangely, through following sidelinks from that first story I found my way to the internet wormhole that is Anna Delvey/Anna Sorokin.

Anna Delvey

I read that article and it's beyond bizarre but although I had an awful lot of sympathy for Zacks and all the many children involved, I had a lot less for Hays than everyone else seems to, based on the Twitter comments. I also thought that while there seems to be no doubt that they're scamming people, an awful lot of weight seems to be given to Hays's claims of what happened - to my mind unjustifiably so given that he actually, even in his own account, lied a lot (eg to Zacks)