Manosphere

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The "Manosphere" is a loose network of websites oriented towards a particular vision of masculinity. It includes men's rights and pick-up artist blogs, as well as some bodybuilding and men’s fashion blogs, although the latter aren’t the ones that draw controversy for having a hateful misogynistic rhetoric.

The thing that ties these boys' clubs together is their collective obsession with feminism and the weird way in which they express both a strong desire and a profound distaste for women. They also share a similar vocabulary and troubling attitudes concerning sexual assault.

Contents

[edit] Inside the Manosphere

[edit] A Voice for Men

See the main article on this topic: Paul Elam

A Voice for Men is more or less the men's rights movement's flagship website, founded and run by Paul Elam. In many respects, he could be considered the unofficial leader of said movement, if not for the infighting between him and other "Manosphere" mullahs such as W. F. Price (The Spearhead) and Daryush Valizadeh (Return of Kings).

[edit] Register-Her.com

In 2011, Elam established the site Register-Her.com, which publishes the personal information of women the site claims "have caused significant harm to innocent individuals either by the direct action of crimes like rape, assault, child molestation and murder, or by the false accusation of crimes against others".[1] While the list includes women who have been sent to prison for various crimes, it also includes others who were acquitted, and some who have not been accused of committing any crime,[1] and lists any female rape victim whose court case results in anything but a full conviction, sentencing them as a "false accuser".[2] In other words, it is a website for rapists to register their victims as false accusers.

Elam showed shown zero concern over the fact that his site targets only one gender or that doxxing innocent people has (or could potentially have) real-world consequences like harassment and stalking. In fact, he has stated that the site could feature a listee's "name, address, phone number … even her routes to and from work," though to date he has not gone so far as publishing addresses and phone numbers.[1] He also once offered a cash reward to whoever was able to discover the real name of an anonymous feminist blogger.[1] [3]

[edit] Reddit

See the main article on this topic: Reddit

Social media website Reddit contains many forums dedicated to "Manosphere" topics. Some of the most notorious include:

[edit] r/mensrights

Reddit is one of the top gathering points for MRAs. It is essentially full of outdated anti-feminist conspiracy theories, their contest to find the worst woman on the planet, and whining about any joke ever made with men as the punchline, while contributing fuck all to any gender debate. It is here that the misinformation and falsified statistics are spread to the widest audience.

Sometime in December 2013, r/mensrights posters spammed an online rape report form set up for students at Los Angeles' Occidental College after one poster noted that it could be open to abuse. More than 400 false accusations were made through the system, including some against staff at the college and notable Feminists.[4][5] Ironically, this means that the group has actually greatly increased the amount of false rape accusations made through American University systems rather than contributing in any meaningful way to decreasing them.

[edit] r/theredpill

Like /r/mensrights but actually worse. More open in their hatred of women and "betas", with quoting and mocking what male posters say in /r/relationships. Described on /r/TrollXChromosomes as "a place where bitter divorcees and young ugly dudes meet up to discuss strategies of making themselves feel better."[6] Even denounced as misogynist... by /r/mensrights, no less.[7] (It's unclear whether /r/mensrights users genuinely dislike TRP or are just (badly)[8] trying to hide their own sexism.)

[edit] The Spearhead

The Spearhead, a one-stop shop for misogyny and attendant reactionary politics, is an MRA webzine founded by W.F. Price. It has a number of contributors, including Roissy of Chateau Heartiste, Paul Elam of A Voice For Men and white nationalist YouTuber Paul Ramsey.[9] Unlike some other manosphere sites, The Spearhead does not attempt to deny or downplay its sexism -- it is openly and proudly against women's rights. The Spearhead has run articles decrying women's suffrage[10] and advocating patriarchy.[11]

[edit] Roosh V

Roosh V aka Roosh Vorek aka Daryush Valizadeh is an American pick-up artist and sex tourist.[12] Roosh runs websites that make up some of the darkest corners of the "Manosphere", including his personal blog RooshV, and the repugnant Return of Kings.[13]

He was once referred to as "the most-hated man on the Internet",[14] and while that may not be true, he is possibly the creepiest.

Roosh has self-published fourteen nausea-inducing books, most of which are sex tourist 'advice books' (such as Bang Colombia: Textbook On How To Sleep With Colombian Women and Bang Lithuania: How To Sleep With Lithuanian Women In Lithuania and Don't Bang Denmark: How To Sleep With Danish Women In Denmark (If You Must)). These sex tourist 'advice books' have faced criticism from the majority of the countries that they focus on, and publications in Norway,[15] Lithuania,[16] Colombia[17] Denmark,[18] Poland,[19] and Iceland[20] seem to find him as revolting as we do. An Icelandic organization even labelled Bang Iceland a "rape guide."[21]

[edit] Return of Kings

The Return of Kings blog itself is open for reader submissions. It is a great example of Poe's Law in action, as the blog has published several (more or less obvious) troll submissions, which then often end up endorsed and discussed by manosphere luminaries in dead earnest.

The website is unabashedly homophobic[22][23] and transphobic[24][25], as well as pretty much useless for dating advice. Like most PUA blogs, it mostly functions as a place where men can openly berate women and be celebrated for it.

[edit] The Counter-Feminist

The Counter-Feminist is run by Fidelbogen (Luigi Logan), a men’s rights activist (or “male renaissance agitator” if you ask him[26]) who is most frequently seen harassing women in the comments section of Feminist articles or Youtube videos.[27] As its name suggests, the blog mostly consists of counter-feminist retorts, going so far as to discourage actual men’s rights activism, such as "opening DV shelters, men's centers, passing male-friendly laws", as this is energy that could be better spent "attacking feminism".[28]

It isn't just the contemporary Feminist movement that Fidel is concerned with, he has also spent time attacking the women's suffrage movement (a century or so too late)[29], even stating that "Women's Suffrage was neither good nor bad. It was just historically fashionable."[30]

[edit] Men Going Their Own Way

See the main article on this topic: Men Going Their Own Way

The Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW) movement is a weird offshoot of the men's rights movement resembling some kind of straight male separatism. Basically, MGTOWers buy into the same rhetoric MRAs spread ("society is actually biased against men, not women!" etc.), but instead of doing something about it (what MRAs mistakenly imagine themselves to be doing), MGTOWers have decided to stay away from women altogether, or, since that is hard, not entering romantic relationships with women (hence "going their own way"). In other words, it's a hilarious analog to the lesbian separatism movement. It's unclear if the movement has any power beyond "disgruntled douchebags talking shit about women (in general) on the Internet." As a general rule, the reaction of sane people is "Sure, do go your own way and stop whining already!"

The "going their own way" part is often framed not just as self-preservation, but as some kind of "strike" that is supposed to punish women. Apparently in the worldview of some (if not most) MGTOWers, women are some kind of succubi-like creatures, seducing men with their feminine wiles in order to exploit them and unable to live support themselves without men to exploit. (It's worth mentioning that there's a very strong whiff of misogyny wafting around many in the movement.) There are amusing parallels here with the notion of "going Galt" that is popular among wingnuts who overestimate their importance in the grand scheme of things.

[edit] Love-shy.com

See the main article on this topic: Love-shy.com

Love-shy.com is a website ostensibly dedicated to supporting people who are suffering from social anxiety and are therefore incapable of forming romantic relationships. Nothing nefarious about that, right?

In reality, as a quick stint at Fundies Say the Darndest Things will deftly reveal, the website is a hangout for unwashed, basement-dwelling Nice Guys™ who are bitter about their inability to get laid and who use it to support each other's vomit-inducing, fury-invoking sexism. In the minds of this website's users, all women — and particularly all American women — are heartless, gold-digging whores and cockteases who foolishly deign to date Bad Boys™ who beat them instead of poor, sweet Nice Guys like them, and thus are to be held in contempt. How very nice.

[edit] Chateau Heartiste

See the main article on this topic: Chateau Heartiste

Chateau Heartiste is an MRA/PUA blog run by a guy named James C. Weidmann, formerly known as "Roissy" or "Roissy in D.C." One of the sneeriest and most vicious websites of its ilk, arguably even nastier than its compatriot Roosh V, and written in a bombastic, overheated ramble, Roissy's speciality seems to be evolutionary psychological woo. He rants at length about how women having careers, not marrying at age 13,[31] and not looking like airbrushed supermodels[32] is a violation of evolutionary principles, and how women's economic freedom leaves the majority of men with no means of attracting or attaining sex from them, thus leaving them with no incentive to work, thus leading to the collapse of civilizations.

Roissy also is a White Nationalist. He says he opposes the movement, but only because it is not sexist enough for him [33]. Otherwise, his talking points are the same. He does not even try to hide his racism: He believes "white civilization" is getting destroyed [34] as it is "overran by Uruk-Hai" [35]. The only solution to the terrible prospect of Whites becoming a minority is, according to Roissy, to forcefully deport all minorities. [36]. However, this will not happen as, according to him, the "elites" have an "anti-white ideology" and plan to destroy the white race. [37][38].

[edit] Vox Popoli

See the main article on this topic: Theodore Beale

Vox Popoli is the blogspot of Theodore Beale, Christian and white nationalist[39], MRA and PUA, better known by his pseudonym Vox Day.

Beale believes that "female equalitarianism" is a greater threat to science than religion.[40][41] In response to a blog posting by PZ Myers questioning how, exactly, many of the unsavoury aspects of religion benefited women, Beale suggested that honor killings, throwing acid in women's faces and even genital mutilation benefited women because they prevent female independence and promiscuity, which he repeatedly referred to as social ills.[42]

He is also against the notion that there may be rape within marriage. That's right, he doesn't oppose marital rape itself, but the definition of it. In his own words: "The concept of marital rape is not merely an oxymoron, it is an attack on the institution of marriage, on the concept of objective law, and indeed, on the core foundation of human civilization itself."[43]

[edit] The Anti-Feminist

A self-described "Sex Positive Men's Rights" blog, this is at a glance very similar to other "Manosphere" anti-feminist blogs. However, the blog has also hosted content written against current age of consent laws, claiming that they were "raised from 13 to 16 in a backward Victorian Criminal Law Act passed in 1885 - lobbied for largely by feminists",[44][45] and against the sex offender registry.[46]

[edit] F. Roger Devlin

See the main article on this topic: F. Roger Devlin

F. Roger Devlin is a white nationalist and men's rights activist. He is a contributing editor for racist screed The Occidental Quarterly and writes for VDARE.

He is particularly noteworthy for his essay Sexual Utopia in Power, which is the origin of many MRA subcultural memes, jargon and special definitions of words.[47][48]

[edit] 4chan

See the main article on this topic: 4chan

Not specifically a manosphere site, but there is plenty of male angst and misogyny to be found there, including frequent use of MRA and "red pill" memes. While it doesn't take long to find such content on /b/ [49] or other boards, a lot of it is concentrated on /pol/, 4chan's "politically incorrect" board, which is also the home of undisguised race hate, rampant anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, and other such reactionary attitudes.[50]

[edit] Critics

The "Manosphere" has received negative press from news outlets positioned across the political spectrum.

Caitlin Dewey of The Washington Post accused them of being misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic... basically everything that we've been saying for the past few years.[51] Meanwhile, Orthodox Christian Rod Dreher of The American Conservative wrote that the movement "dehumanizes both men and women".[52]

[edit] The Southern Poverty Law Center

In their Spring 2012 Intelligence Report the Southern Poverty Law Center published an article called Misogyny:The Sites.[53] Here, they wrote on various 'Manosphere' websites, writing that it is "peopled with hundreds of websites, blogs and forums dedicated to savaging feminists in particular and women". This detailing included content on MRA websites including A Voice for Men, r/mensrights and The False Rape Society, and pick-up artist (and sex tourist) Daryush Valizadeh's blog RooshV.

The SPLC's Mark Potok compared the forums of the "Manosphere" to white supremacist websites and claimed that they contained "pure unvarnished women hatred".[54] The SPLC later expanded on their initial Misogyny:The Sites post, asserting "It should be mentioned that the SPLC did not label MRAs as members of a hate movement; nor did our article claim that the grievances they air on their websites – false rape accusations, ruinous divorce settlements and the like – are all without merit. But we did call out specific examples of misogyny and the threat, overt or implicit, of violence."[55]

[edit] We Hunted The Mammoth

See the main article on this topic: We Hunted The Mammoth

We Hunted The Mammoth (formerly Man Boobz) is a feminist blog dedicated to poking fun at various instances of egregious sexism on the Internet (and sometimes outside of it[56]). Its usual targets include many manosphere blogs, including MRAs, PUAs and MGTOW. It is probably the best up-to-date source on 'Manosphere' goings-on.

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Arthur Goldwag, "Leader’s Suicide Brings Attention to Men's Rights Movement", Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report
  2. David Futrelle, "Register-Her is a Fake “Offenders Registry” Run By Misogynists, Designed to Vilify and Intimidate Women", We Hunted the Mammoth
  3. David Futrelle, "Men’s Rights site A Voice for Men offers $1000 “bounty” for personal information on Swedish feminists", We Hunted the Mammoth
  4. The Huffington Post, 'Men's Rights' Trolls Spam Occidental College Online Rape Report Form
  5. Gawker, College: "Men's Rights" Trolls Spammed Us With 400 Fake Rape Reports
  6. r/TrollXChromosomes, When visiting /r/TheRedPill for the first time
  7. It's seriously that bad.
  8. A Voice for Men, Red pill prescription: take em all
  9. The Spearhead's about page
  10. ramzpaul. How Female Suffrage Destroyed Western Civilization. The Spearhead, Sep. 9 2010
  11. Jack Donovan. Patriarchy Works. The Spearhead, Dec. 21, 2009
  12. Taki's Mag, "A Sex Tourist Swallows the Red Pill"
  13. We Hunted The Mammoth, Roosh V’s Return of Kings blog offers sex tips inspired by prison rape
  14. The Washington Post, Hunter Moore is in jail, but that just means some other despicable character is “the most-hated man on the Internet” now
  15. Dagbladet, Kvinneforakten på nett
  16. Delfi, Amerikiečio knygoje – patarimai, kaip permiegoti su lietuvėmis
  17. El Pais, Estadounidense vende por internet 'manual' para acostarse con colombianas
  18. Ekstra Bladet, Derfor skal du ikke knalde danske piger
  19. Na:Tamet, Jak zaliczyć każdą Polkę - Amerykanin wyjaśnia w książce. Włoch mu odpowiada: Im chodzi o romantyzm
  20. DV, Ráðleggur fólki hvernig á að sænga hjá íslenskum konum
  21. DV, Femínistar fordæma flagarabók Vöreks
  22. Return of Kings, America Is Becoming A Homosexual Nation
  23. Return of Kings, Why Women And Gays Should Not Be Allowed In Male-Safe Spaces
  24. Return of Kings, 8 Ways To Spot A Transsexual
  25. Return of Kings, 5 Ways To Stop Omega Males From Becoming Transsexuals
  26. David Futrelle, “MRA demands that people stop calling him an MRA, and instead call him an … MRA”, ”We Hunted the Mammoth”
  27. Cases and Materials, FidelBogen threatens woman
  28. The Counter-Feminism, Activism is not Enough
  29. The Counter-Feminist, One More Time -- Women Were NOT "Oppressed" When They Were Not Permitted to Vote
  30. @fidelbogen, Women's Suffrage was neither good nor bad. It was just historically fashionable
  31. Heartiste, March 2008 Comment Winner
  32. Heartiste, Before and After: The Hilarity of Self-Deception
  33. Heartiste, White Woman
  34. Heartiste, Comment of the Week: 60 Years of Shivving
  35. Heartiste, White on White War
  36. Heartiste, White Majority in the US gone by 2043
  37. Heartiste, Parade of Humiliations
  38. Heartiste, Do the White Elite Dream of Mulatto Sheep
  39. ScienceBlogs, Vox Day is a White Nationalist, who’d have thought?
  40. The real assault on science, WorldNetDaily
  41. Vox Day on Women in Science, ScienceBlogs, Good Math, Bad Math
  42. Vox Popoli, A scientist beats up PZ
  43. Vox Popoli, Marital sex is never rape.
  44. The Anti-Feminist, The MRM Supporting the Age of Consent is like the Black Civil Rights Movement Supporting Laws Against Interracial Sex
  45. The Anti-Feminist, Ten Points/Memes On The Age of Consent
  46. The Anti-Feminist, One Brave Mother’s Fight to Abolish the Sex Offender Registry
  47. W.F. Price, The Spearhead, "F. Roger Devlin Reviews Murray’s Coming Apart; Murray Apparently Lives in a Bubble, Too
  48. Eincrou, A Voice for Men, "Organizing Reproductive Capital"
  49. Although it's something of a task finding true MRAs on /b/, given how a large quantity of its users are trolls, and trolls trolling other trolls
  50. 4chan.org/pol/ (NSFW)
  51. The Washington Post, Inside the ‘manosphere’ that inspired Santa Barbara shooter Elliot Rodger
  52. The American Conservative, Women Who Love Men Who Hate Women
  53. The Southern Poverty Law Center, Misogyny: The Sites
  54. Yahoo News, Santa Barbara killings: Did misogynist hate groups play a role?
  55. The Southern Poverty Law Center, Intelligence Report Article Provokes Fury Among Men’s Rights Activists
  56. Such as when he commented on a Victorian painting.
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