Trigger Warning:
I’ve just been alerted to a group on Facebook calling itself the “Anti-Feminist Group” that’s promoting violence against women and holding Chris Brown up as some kind of god ‘cos he “slapped up that bitch.”
One picture (reproduced after the fold) on the group’s page shows a woman with a black eye, and the slogan “This bitch didn’t know when to shut up. Do you?” with a comment underneath saying: “A message to any outspoken women.”
If you’re on Facebook, click the Report Group button at the bottom left of the page, and tell Facebook why this shit isn’t acceptable.
This is seriously fucked up. Let’s hope Facebook removes the group asap.
Too Much To Say For Myself 
These charmers probably think feminism is the reason they can’t get girlfriends.
I can’t find the group, must have been removed or sumfin’. BTW, there seem to be more anti-feminist groups than feminist ones.
Yep, the group has now disappeared. Whether Facebook shut them down or whether the idiots who started the group closed it themselves I’ve no idea.
There is an entire demographic out there.
The same market as the Home Office ‘consent’ posters, which were only produced because of a underspend to avoid handing it back, so they gave it all to the Lads magazines.
“This is seriously fucked up”
That’s about what it is.
The Home Office should have been all over this anti-feminist group. Instead of Facebook just deleting these assholes, the CPS should have tried prosecuting them for “(gender) hate crime”.
I mean seriously, if these images were of MOC, the CPS would go after them for inciting racial hatred.
Why is misogyny still such an invisible and underprosecuted crime?
“Why is misogyny still such a invisible and underprosecuted crime?”
Because it doesn’t hurt the *real* humans- men /snark
stormy –
I don’t know if you saw the group before it was removed, but it was quite clearly set up by a group of stupid teenagers. While the sentiments expressed were deplorable, it had the air of a *very* bad taste joke taken to extremes: there was at least one teenage girl amongst the 18 members who posted a “haha you guys are so funny!” comment. And then what looked like a teacher telling them off.
That doesn’t make it okay, of course, but the group has now been removed, and talk of hate crimes might be lacking a sense of proportion.
So if ‘stupid teenagers’ set up a ‘ku klux klan’ group with jokes about lynching would anyone who complained also be lacking a sense of proportion?
The point is damagedoor, women do die in incidents domestic violence. About 2 a week on average in this country. It’s not a joke. And violence against young women by young men is a serious problem.
Polly –
Thanks for the reply. I didn’t say complaining was out of proportion. (I said mentioning hate crimes and involving the CPS was). And I’m certainly not saying domestic violence isn’t a serious issue, or that the group was in any way admirable or amusing.
It would be the same if a tiny number of stupid teenagers set up a joke ‘lynching’ group – assuming, that is, a number of them were black, and the whole thing was clearly a joke, negotiated between them, that had been exaggerated and taken too far into the public realm. I would support complaining; I would support those teenagers getting swiftly ‘done’; but I wouldn’t support prosecuting them, because it’s over the top with respect to those individuals. It’s a teenage misjudgment, not a manifesto or an illustration of how they really behave and think.
Also worth noting that it only had 18 members, and that most of those were people who’d joined the group to post negative comments. It isn’t/wasn’t really worth all this attention – which is not to say the issues behind it aren’t.
It’s a teenage misjudgment, not a manifesto or an illustration of how they really behave and think.
So these ideas happen in a vacuum, out of thin air eh? Or are you claiming “just a bit of harmless fun — can’t you take a joke” or the “boyz will be boyz” defence?
Was the Werribee CTM attack just a teenage misjudgment too? They were teenagers.
You see, they may *just* be teenagers, but they can do actual damage to actual females in the real world. And these teenagers grow up, if no sanction is made against their “harmless fun”, they carry these same attitudes into adulthood, becoming the next generation of domestic abusers.
At the very least, the authorities should make an attempt of scaring the bejesus out of them, to send the message that This Is Not OK.
FTR, no, I did not see the group before its online disappearance.
One in four women will suffer domestic violence within their lifetimes, how will survivors of DV view this “stoopid teenage joke”?
For example, if this violence was directed against UK Muslims (who make up 3.3% of the UK population), there would be an outcry that this “joke” is wholly unacceptable. But this “joke” is aimed at an invisible 51% of the population, whereby violence and rape is a very real scenario and not at all a rare event.
Don’t let the damagedoor hit you on your ass on the way out.
More than 40% of young people know girls whose boyfriends have hit them and 40% know girls whose boyfriends have coerced them to have sex, an ICM survey has discovered. The poll, on behalf of the End Violence Against Women Campaign, which covered 524 people aged 16-20 across the UK, also found that 59% feel they do not have enough information and support to advise those they know who may have been the victims of physical or sexual violence. Twenty-seven per cent thought it acceptable for a boy to “expect to have sex with a girl” if she has been “very flirtatious”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2006/nov/20/familyandrelationships.healthandwellbeing
The ‘one in four’ figures for both DV and sexual assault, are usually based on a wide age range of women surveyed.
The ICM survey shows a frightening rise in violence towards females, in the next generation. And why, as a society, we should not let “silly teenage mistakes” go unchallenged.
I’m not saying they should go unchallenged – the group was taken down, and that’s good and right. The mistake you might be making is thinking the kids involved believed these things.
I’ve mentioned in both my posts I think the underlying issue is a serious one, so stop throwing stats at a stranger. I only commented when someone mentioned the CPS.
Just to clarify. Do you think the teenagers in this group meant it and so should be prosecuted for ‘hate crimes’? Or do you think it was a joke taken too far, one they didn’t mean, but they should still be prosecuted? In both cases, including the teenage girl who posted that it was really funny, implying it was part of an escalating, ongoing joke between them all? Or do you accept that kids over step the line of good taste sometimes, have no doubt been in trouble for this, and the group is gone?
Keep a sense of perspective. Save your whole venom for genuinely violent people, a little for stupid kids mouthing off and – hey – how about a little less for people online with the temerity to disagree with you?
The question surely is would they have been prosecuted if they’d put something on facebook encouraging people to hit people of a certain race/religion?
And the answer is – yes, more likely than not.
And stats are relevant, because young women getting hit by their boyfriends is a real phenomenon, not just a joke.
Damagedoor, your attitude is sadly reflective of a lot of people’s attitudes towards this kind of misogyny. It’s just a joke and it doesn’t matter.
It does.
Polly –
Where did I say violence against women was just a joke? I’m kind of quietly outraged – and disappointed. I took pains to be clear, even tho i thought ‘nobody will misinterpret this.’ My point is that this is a facebook group set up by five or six kids, including a girl, and that talk of ‘hate crimes’ is ott.
Can you re-read my previous comments and explain what you think I’m saying? And do you think the CPS should waste money on a mixed sex group of kids messing around?
Advocating violence against women is a hate crime. Whether you are doing it for a ‘joke’ or not is irrelevent.
Well the CPS won’t waste money on it will they damagedoor because what they have done ISN’T a crime? Your ‘argument’ is made of straw, and I don’t care if you’re ‘quietly disappointed’. Because I’m not five and you’re not my dad.
The mistake you might be making is thinking the kids involved believed these things.
It may also be a mistake in thinking that the kids involved (who are actually young men and the up and coming generation) don’t believe in these things.
And the presence of a female in the group is moot, read Mary Daly and her talk of the Token Torturer. Or how some young girls/ women foster a need to please patriarchy.
A token female in the group does not a “mixed group” make. Just your phrasing to make it seem like a bunch of kids in roughly equal numbers of male/female, just joking around that went “too far” or “poor taste” is thoroughly disgusting and shows a complete lack of understanding of the reality of violence against females of all ages. Given the reality, I posit that it is Damagedoor that is in poor taste. And I shall “throw stats at a stranger” because you are obviously in need of them.
Using the ICM survey, of kids around that same age group, it is extremely likely that 40% of those boys have either been violent to, or sexually harassed girls in their circle of friends.
With an estimate of 18 members of that group, taking off a few because there may have been more than one female, let’s use 15 boys as the figure. 40% of 15 is six. It is very likely that six of the boys in that group have assaulted a female peer already. Six of your “harmless jokesters”.
Well, you’ve convinced me with your impeccable logic and measured tone. Hang them all. Not the girl, though.
Of the eighteen – as I mentioned, but you ignored – most had joined to post negative comments. Perhaps, as with daily mail writers and films, you should look at something before passing judgment? Just a thought.
We have used impeccable logic and a measured tone damagedoor, that’s why you’re so pissed off. It’s you who doesn’t want to face reality and is using ridiculous hyperbole *hang them all* indeed.
I’d love to take a look at the group, but a)I’m not on facebook and b)it’s been taken down. The post says the idea of the group is ‘seriously fucked up’, it doesn’t say every single member supports it. Various commenters then pointed out that the person who posted these images is every bit as guilty of hate speech as someone who incites racial hatred. Which you also didn’t want to accept.
Your tactics are typical of the troll. Try to distract attention from the topic, by implying it’s just hysterical women who can’t take a joke. You’re in the wrong place for that mate. Try CiF or Liberal conspiracy with the rest of the misogynists.
Oh and damagedoor. You ask where you said it was just a joke. Comment no 7 if I’ve counted right:
I don’t know if you saw the group before it was removed, but it was quite clearly set up by a group of stupid teenagers. While the sentiments expressed were deplorable, it had the air of a *very* bad taste joke taken to extremes:
Polly –
I asked where I said violence against women was just a joke. That quote is me saying I thought the facebook group was intended as a joke. These are – very obviously, I would have thought – not remotely the same thing. However, your failure to comprehend that explains a great deal.
For the record, calling me a troll distracting you from the topic is absurd: the topic is the facebook group. As to the rest, I have said (repeatedly):
1) I think the group should have been taken down
2) I didn’t think the group was funny
3) I think violence against women (or indeed anyone) is a serious problem.
However, because I also think (having seen the group) it didn’t represent a serious statement of the teenagers’ views and was intended as a bad taste joke amongst themselves, and that therefore they shouldn’t have their lives destroyed by being prosecuted for a hate crime, I’m a misogynist?? Wow.
“… therefore they shouldn’t have their lives destroyed by being prosecuted for a hate crime”
I suppose rapists shouldn’t have their lives destroyed when they rape someone either eh?
The purpose of the law is not only to punish the perpetrator(s) of any given crime, but to send a message to others that the behaviour/action was unacceptable.
Stormy –
Oh, come on. You’re intelligent enough to use a computer, so you can’t really think that’s what I’m saying, or even that it remotely follows from what I’m saying.
We’re not talking about teenagers raping someone here; we’re talking about teenagers setting up a Facebook group. One that, as I mentioned, attracted 18 members, most of whom joined to complain about it, and one of whom was a teenage girl who clearly indicated it was a joke. Teenagers who actually rape or assault others should be prosecuted; teenagers who make jokes, however ill-advised and unamusing, about those subjects shouldn’t be charged with hate crimes.
That’s what I meant by perspective. It’s not about suggesting you’re all hysterical women, or that violence against women is just a joke. I’ve said I agree with you all about the underlying issues. But because I don’t agree these teenagers should be prosecuted, I get called a misogynist! If there is gender stereotyping here, it’s certainly not coming from me.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Yes, Polly. Quite.
Incidentally – assuming anyone here cares about accuracy over vitriol, which I admit is probably a stretch – Stormy was wrong earlier when she said the ICM survey suggested 40% of this group might have assaulted a female peer. The survey, from the link, says 40% of young people know a girl who has been assaulted by her boyfriend. In a peer group of 100, that could be 1 girl known by 40 people = 1%. It could be higher or lower; there’s no way of telling. If you’re going to throw stats around, at least learn what they mean rather than just how they sound.
Interesting comparison…
“The FBI is investigating after four students confessed to hanging an effigy of Barack Obama from a tree on the campus of their Christian university.
The life-sized effigy was found by a university employee at about 7am on September 23. It was immediately removed, and the university said it believed just two students saw it”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1065778/Four-students-suspended-hanging-Obama-effigy-tree-campus-Christian-university.html
But string up a mannequin of Sarah Palin from a rope, and it’s just all in good Halloween fun.
http://cbs2.com/local/Sarah.Palin.mannequin.2.849299.html
“In a peer group of 100, that could be 1 girl known by 40 people = 1%. ”
I was able to locate sex abusers in the USA by the analysis of ‘Driving While Female’ DUI stats.
The victims (of which there were oodles) didn’t know each other. The good news is that the culprits were a ‘few bad apples’. That was the in-house behav profile.
Like a classroom, I did stuff like that in 1997, if all the female inmates, ( say in Texas) know one gaurd is raping one female, it is Abu Ghraibh for all of them, a regime of sexual terror
I can do PSV (Police Sexual Violence) & peer groups
OTOH, and I will not prejudice my take by actually reading it, the ICM thingie, I’m a professional.
if it is not a close peer group, it could mean 40 girls separately known by 40 other people.
The funniest stats ( by UN standards) are NASUWT stats. a 98 percent rate of malicious allegations, which is outstanding.
I don’t think surveys of the ICM kind, do classrooms and closed groups.
I’m so totally not wanting to prejudice myself, I haven’t read it.
I bet I’m right.
“It could be higher or lower”
Lower then 1? Let’s live on that campus.
Gregory –
But 40 different girls known by 40 out of 100 people surveyed still isn’t ‘40% of young women have been assaulted by a peer’. The key word there is ‘know’. It may be 1 girl out of 100 girls they know. I suspect it isn’t 40.
Dream on damagedoor.
My assumption has far more chance of being correct than your MRA-propaganda figure of 1%.
This is completely stupid. They should have no other punishment then having the group deleted or there accounts deleted for violating Facebooks awful terms of service contract. 1st amendment rights. If a bunch of skinheads put up a KKK group with illustrations of black people getting lynched, barring the feds labeling them a terrorist org., there should be no action beyond deleting the accounts/group as long as they don’t act on the premise of the group. They can say, write, and put pictures up of whatever they want as long as they don’t go around beating the crap out of people.
We’re in the UK Steve. We don’t HAVE the 1st amendment, or any sort of written constitution.
Check yer cultural imperialism before commenting next time.
damagedoor & stevenson illustrate exactly why the rape culture and sexism thrive.
Noooo, don’t punish the little tykes, they’ll grow out of it, boyz will be boyz …
Most people would be outraged if the group were doing KKK type stuff, and very few would stand up and support their actions like DD and SS are doing here supporting such obvious misogyny. Dudes, if you don’t think the perps should be given more than deleting their account, then you are as good as condemning the next generation of females to even more violence, rape and discrimination.
I mean seriously, you reckon deleting their accounts will teach them anything? Five minutes after that they will set up a new account.
Oh yeah, and most people wouldn’t expect the teens to “just grow out of” their pro-KKK “pranks”.
But somehow, magically, boyz grow out of their sexist attitudes. Gimme a break.
I second that emotion. If you don’t think that boys who think this stuff is ‘funny’ are likely to at some point in their life be violent for real, can I suggest you’re not thinking very hard?
Stormy –
My figure of 1% was intended purely to illustrate to you why your interpretation of that stats was wrong. Although, as I suspected, you’re not interested are you? 40% sounds good, and it’s in a survey, so no doubt you’ll continue to quote the figure even though there’s no basis for it beyond your personal beliefs. Just be honest. The survey doesn’t support your figure.
For what it’s worth, you’re not more likely to be right: if you were, and understood the stats, you wouldn’t support the ICM survey at all. If 40% of young women had been assaulted, and only 40% of people surveyed knew a woman had been assaulted, that would be rubbish, wouldn’t it? Just think about it. Or – as I suspect you prefer – don’t.
I’ve just done a straw poll of female friends, including a lecturer in social policy. I asked them to read this without commenting, just to make sure I wasn’t missing something. I wasn’t. Every single one of them said I shouldn’t bother, because the people on here clearly had no interest in listening or debating. I guess there’s no point discussing anything with someone who will not only never admit they’re wrong but can’t even conceive of the possibility, is there? But never mind, go on – I’m a misogynist, aren’t I? Call me some more names for disagreeing with you.
DD, you are repetitive and boring, and have no grasp of the sexism and violence that significant percentage of women face throughout their lifetimes. Debating endlessly about any actual figures is pointless. Pointless because, even if it were only 1%, that is still many millions of women. I say that figure is still way too high. I do not have an acceptable losses or an acceptable casualties figure.
Until you can grasp that concept, just piss off.
PS: Do not bother to address me directly again.
“But 40 different girls known by 40 out of 100 people surveyed still isn’t ‘40% of young women have been assaulted by a peer’. ”
Coercive sex is quite common.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1083197/Teenage-boys-believe-using-pressure-alcohol-girls-bed-acceptable-study-reveals.html
What do you think happened to the women prisoners at Abu Ghraib?
It was like FCI Dublin, California. Normal is what normal does.
One of the techniques we use on Brit school was developed for rape camps.
A ‘place’ can be profiled, you arrive, and you know you’re at a crime scene.
Women use to seek me out, because I had the concept of scale.
An ordinary rape crisis thing, not really, horror, has to be known, what I worked with was a phenomena closer to Bosnia.
Gregory
Gregory –
To be honest, I’m not sure we’re disagreeing. (Although I’m also not quite sure what you’re saying).
To be clear, I’m very obviously not saying:
1) That 1% of young women are beaten by their partners.
2) That any percentage would be acceptable.
I am saying:
1) That if you’re going to say “the stats say this…”, then the stats really should say that, otherwise it’s just an opinion, packaged up to mislead.
2) The ICM survey’s “40% of young people know a girl who’s been beaten by her partner” statistic did not show what Stormy said it did. She said it meant 40% of young men had beaten their partner.
3) Even if 40% of woung women had been beaten by their partner, the ICM survey would – by necessity – show a higher figure than 40% for those who knew of a young woman beaten by her partner.
4) If you misunderstand a statistic, the adult thing to do is just admit “oh, yeah, I didn’t get it”. It feels like some people here wouldn’t agree with me if I said 2+2=4.
I have never said the first two, nor would I ever say them. The last four, as I see it, are undeniably true.
Just dropping in to say that if it were a picture of a guy with a black eye, you would just laugh at it and move on as if it were no big deal whatsoever. I know that quite well, and so do you. Before you proceed any further, let me just say I’m not condoning hatred or violence towards women or anybody else, and am not a huge fan of anyone that does. I’m just stating my truthful opinion.
Now that that’s out of the way, I love how you claim it’s wrong and cowardly for a man to hit a woman, which, I’ll admit, it is, unless she attempts to inflict harm on you or your loved ones, but a woman could hit whoever the fuck she wants without even the slightest fear of legal retribution or the most venomous of vitriol from the general population, especially feminists, across the country. Great job. I only hope that you realize in cursing all men in this way, that you’re only fighting sexism with more sexism.
You will probably try to cast me aside as a woman-hating pile of filth and maybe even threaten legal repercussions against me for speaking my mind, but I couldn’t really give a fuck less if I tried. I think it’s sexist to give women any advantages over men when they are in the same situation. I also think it’s sexist, for better or worse, to NOT treat a woman as you would treat a man if she tries to inflict physical violence on you or your loved ones. Now go ahead and liken me to a misogynist that would beat his girlfriend for talking too much…
I know that I have probably said some things that you could use against me in your crusade to make all men look like misogynistic woman-beating piles of pathetic, cowardly refuse, but let me just assure you that I’m not one. I don’t hate or condone violence towards women or think anything bad about them in general, but I sure as fuck don’t like them thinking they have more rights to do or say what they want than everybody else. You, and some of the other people who have commented on this page seem like you are precisely of that opinion. If that only reinforces your opinion of me, I will gladly say that I also hate men that think they’re better than everybody else, and can do whatever they want without problems.
You don’t have to reply to me if you don’t want to. I was just here to express my truthful opinion, and if my opinions are controversial, so be it. If you don’t truly think all men are evil woman-beating pigs, I apologize for the last part of the second paragraph. However, I still stand by everything else in this post.
It’s very mild for the time of year…
Unseasonably so Polly. What do you reckon? A long hot summer ahead?
Hard to tell at this stage. My local paper has failed to feature the chap who predicts the weather yet. It’s usually the opposite of whatever he says, he predicted last year was going to be another summer of ’76.
I like that we can ignore the troll’s “wisdom” (by fuck they are really scary scare quotes…)
Oh yeah, but again, note delphyne’s observation — the males always have long long long commments (esp compared with female quotes).
Bloody long-winded wind-bags.
It’s been wildy fluctuating from rain rain and more rain to indian summer where I am.
Well, we (in the south of England) have had an early-ish and well pronounced Spring. That does not necessarily translate into any kind of Summer. I remember last “Summer” (scare quotes again!) what was it; two whole days?
Canny warm here.
Hey,
I’m a little late to the original point of this thread, but I was appalled to come across this group on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/s.php?ref=search&init=q&q=anti%20feminist&sid=a9502d269b87602da4e7a2431d9a9f93#/topic.php?uid=2211919748&topic=7147
The thread on “R.A.P.E” almost made me throw up.
I think anyone who has the energy/will should report this group…
Late to this too, but “have their lives destroyed” by being accused of a hate crime against women? If fucking only. They’d be a cause celebre in five seconds flat, and that’s at least partly because of people always, but always, seeing a situation from the side of those making the ‘joke’ rather than the side of those having their powerlessness and vulnerability hilariously lampooned.
I get that DD was trying to be reasonable. I’m not sure that (s)he gets that his/her idea of what’s reasonable is heavily influenced by the patriarchal, ho-fucking-ho culture we all live in.
Thanks for bringing the group to my attention dizzy_sparkle. And yes, I agree, the R.A.P.E thread is fucking atrocious.