Men’s Rights Activism — The Deceptive Gateway to Misogyny Terrorism
An undercover dive into the online ghettos of organized extremist misogyny
It was a dark wintery day when I stepped through the gateway into the first lair of online misogynist terrorism — apt considering the task at hand.
I had spent some time preparing; creating a fake male persona; writing up an imaginary profile; making mental checks of my speech. The goal was to keep my new identity both as far away from me and as close as possible. Keeping my real self safe was paramount. But my alt-self I knew would only be believable when the lie was close to the truth. I needed to be careful and was particularly conscious of the words and syntax that might give me away not only as an imposter — an interloper into the dark recesses of the manosphere where men who wish to harm us lurk — but which might identify me, a feminist writer already known in local men's groups.
Satisfied that my alter-ego was ready, and tucking Me away for a while, I became Justin — newly separated father of two young boys and deeply resentful of the woman who had left him — and entered the gateway to misogyny terrorism.
But why?
Perhaps it is my own experience with misogyny trolls that has motivated me to delve deeper into this phenomenon rather than run from it. Perhaps it’s linked to watching someone close to me marry and then leave a deceptive and dangerous man. I don’t honestly know when I started paying such close attention to the hidden face of misogyny. But at some point, just as men have taken their red pill, I have taken mine. And what I know now cannot be unknown, much less ignored. Consciously though, this particular interest all began with the men’s rights movement and my interactions with men’s rights activists (MRAs) online.
The men’s rights movement
In the beginning, I didn’t need Justin. I engaged as myself. I didn’t know about MRAs and didn’t seek them out. As a woman with an opinion, I didn't need to purposefully seek out angry men online as inevitably they sought me. I became the regular recipient of childish insults thrown in response to comments I made on social media posts or news stories. I received threats of assault when I left a negative review on a man’s business page. Then there were the occasional rape threats via private messages in response to public online discussions on gender inequality.
As most women know, we don’t have to seek out male attention, in fact, we are more likely to offend men when we don’t.
Not only did I not seek men out online, I often literally ignored them, alrighty now-ing their sexist comments in my mind, but skipping over them to respond constructively to other women.
Misogynists in particular do not like being ignored. They actually demand attention. They barge into women’s conversations and insist they be heard. Some even insist they be answered, “you don’t get to dictate when this conversation is over!”
Soon I began to recognise specific words and phrases, the language and patterns of those who are now collectively referred to as “the menz”. And, as someone who prefers discussion over debate, my interest in this particular type of misogynist was piqued and I began to engage, politely, my non-adversarial approach often mistaken for support.
Soon the menz pointed me to the places where the truth was being told, and so I began to follow, to learn their truths.
For the most part, I just watched, speaking up occasionally to ask a question or present a different point of view. Before long I was declared a dangerous “feminazi” and “deceptive bitch” and then banned and blocked for not denouncing feminism as such groups require we must. Clearly attempting to find connections and common ground was a clear breach of the rules in a social group that seeks to divide and conquer, not listen and learn.
Following a men's rights page
For several years now, and more quietly this time, I’ve followed a popular Facebook page, watching with interest as its content became more and more overt in its misogyny. I watched its name change from Awareness of Men Experiencing Domestic Violence to Black Ribbon Foundation to Open Eyes Australia, before settling in 2017 on the current and most misleading one, Domestic Violence Awareness Australia (DVAA).
Misleading is a key component of men’s rights activism.
At first, their content that highlighted incidents where women perpetrated violence on men or children was entirely acceptable. The name of the page was, after all, centred on men experiencing domestic violence and it seemed logical that the violence described as “domestic” must therefore be at the hands of women.
In 2017, their numbers still hovering in the realm of no one cares, they changed tactics in an attempt to attract a wider audience and to appear less men’s righty and more gender-neutral.
The numbers grew, but the page was still populated by those who held MRA attitudes, and the woman who started it with the best of intentions threw her hands up in the air, accepted it was an MRA page and handed admin over to those who wanted to go full misogyny.
Posts became less about the experiences of men and more about the evils of feminism. By 2019 their posts criticising women and feminists made up 43% of their content. In 2020 that rose to 54%. This year has seen a spike to 77% of their content being anti-feminist, and often simply anti-women.
Attempting to find connections and common ground is a clear breach of the rules in a social group that seeks to divide and conquer, not listen and learn.
But there is more to men’s rights activism — a predominantly white male movement — than misogyny. Over the years that I followed DVAA I saw an increase in posts disparaging indigenous people, bemoaning critical race theory, vilifying the trans community, espousing anti-vax and anti-government conspiracy theories, and lauding the good old days of Christian values when men could control their women too. Classic right-wing conservatism. And all this under the guise of caring about everyone impacted by domestic violence — which is to say every white man who has ever been subjected to women who leave them, who ask for child support or, heaven forbid, who expect husbands, or any men for that matter, to seek consent before and even during sex!
Feminism, they say, is cancer.
The women of the men’s rights movement
There are a lot of women in the men’s rights movement — the ones who’ve bought into the concept that men's rights are being eroded, by women.
These are the women who want to be accepted into a man's world, to “be picked” as the phrase goes, “crumb maidens” if you want to get a little more insulting. And then there are those who have raised men who have turned out to be violent but who refuse to acknowledge that such a being could have emerged from their own womb. My son is innocent, they cry.
I’ve watched many women innocently wander onto DVAA, fooled by its misleading claim to offer support and awareness of domestic violence. Some even think it is an official government page or a registered not-for-profit organisation. It is of course neither. Anyone can set up a page or website and whack the name of their country in the title to claim authority.
I’ve watched the innocent respond with confusion to an overtly sexist post and question the purpose of the page only to be regaled with false statistics and accusations of feminism, as though it were an insult.
I’ve watched as abused women relate to an issue of violence being discussed by sharing her own story, only to be turned on as “the problem”, one of the “feminazi’s bleeding men dry”.
I’ve watched women state that they are feminists and, despite the claim being made by DVAA, they’ve never heard feminists say that all men are violent, or that women never are. “Where in the Duluth model does it actually state that anyway?” they ask. They never receive an answer.
I’ve watched these innocent women leapt upon — the proverbial lambs to the slaughter — before the admin proudly announces the evil “fembot” has been banned and blocked to protect their “vulnerable” followers.
You just threw up in your mouth a little didn’t you?
Vulnerable men
It’s important to mention though that a lot of vulnerable men also visit pages like this that seemingly support them.
Men whose ears are open to the suggestion that the rights of women have arrived at their expense. Men whose relationships have ended and who are suddenly in tune with the oft-repeated claim that feminism has destroyed families. Can’t society see that things were better when women had to stay is the prevailing view.
Young men visit, members of the 42%, who don’t even think violence against women is a thing and certainly shouldn’t be criminalised in a domestic setting.
And getting consent? What’s that about? Surely we jest?
And lastly, there are the men who really are victims of domestic violence — female perpetrated domestic violence. Genuine men who need genuine support.
Thankfully most soon realise they have stumbled into a dragon’s den of right-wing misogynists and get the hell out of Dodge. Some, the good men, stay for a while and try and talk sense to the masses before being forcefully shown the door out of Dodge by admin to, you know, keep everyone else “safe”, words like “simp” and “cuck” echoing in their ears on the way out.
But some stay, trying misogyny on for size, finding it doesn’t feel too bad, in fact, it feels quite good. But where do they go from here?
Radicalisation
As Justin soon discovered, the men’s rights movement is a gateway to misogyny terrorism, the place where seeds are planted and where radicalisation begins. It's like a holding bay for angry men, a place to hang out while they get their bearings before deciding which of the other doors to choose — one that goes deeper in, perhaps a little to the side, or out altogether?
There’s no stop valve on this gateway. The door swings both ways allowing extremists to move around recruiting younger and younger members when the opportunity presents itself.
The question is, which group do these freshly anointed men’s rights activists want to join? Red Pillers? Incels? Pick-Up Artists? Each choice offers a different way of hating and hurting women, a different way to get retribution on the source of all that’s wrong in their world.
But MRAs refuse to admit that they hate or hurt women, and they definitely don’t want to draw attention to the fact that so many of these men who claim to be victims of abuse are in fact abusers themselves. Abusers who are just so damned pissed off that their perceived right to abuse is being challenged. That their ability to carry out that abuse is now limited by women having and exercising their right to safety and well being. To proponents of the men’s rights movement that’s just not on.
Perhaps this is the reason that Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW) feels like a natural progression for many MRAs. You’ll often see men on MRA pages enticing other men in that direction. We don’t need women in our lives, they cry. We’re men. Manly men! We go our own way! Come and join us on our forums where we can talk about manly stuff, which, as Justin and I were about to find out, was code for obsessing about women.
To be continued….
This is part of a series written after an undercover dive into the manosphere and the places where MRAs, Incels, MGTOWs, and PUAs lurk to mobilise against women in acts of what is now know as Misogyny Terrorism. If you’d like to follow the series follow the author Sarah J. Baker or the tag, “misogyny terrorism”
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