Jeff Sharlet takes on the Men's Rights Movement, describing the events at a recent conference sponsored by A Voice for Men. He definitely has the ugliest photos ever of various AVFMers, but the real killer is the words of the MRAs themselves.
Here’s a conversation that took place at a party after the conference.
The night winds on, with discussion of rape and the smothering of penises, the sorrows of false accusations and the narcissism of young girls. A sore point for Factory, who has two daughters, who, like young women everywhere, he says, compete for the most exaggerated rape claim. It is, he says, a status thing. When one of his daughters came home one night and said she’d been raped, he said, "Are you fucking kidding me?" Sitting with us, he hikes his voice up to a falsetto in imitation: " ‘Oh, I just got raped.’ " He laughs. There’s a moment of silence. A bridge too far? "I told her if she pressed charges, I’d disown her."
Elam, whose attention has drifted, grins through his beard. "That’s good fathering," he says.
Factory loves his children. He would have reacted differently if it had been what he in theory considers a legitimate claim, but—"if you don’t have videotape or forensic, a whole lot of bruises, I don’t give a fuck."
I can’t quite imagine that situation — it sure isn’t how I’d respond. I guess I must be a bad father, since I raised my kids to be honest, and I trust them.
I read We Hunted The Mammoth regularly, so I thought I lost my ability to be shocked by these assholes. Holy fuck…
Cripes, being disowned by a clown like that would be a blessing.
No, Mr. Scarlet. Factory DOESN’T love his children.
Oops, sorry that’s “Mr. Sharlet.”
Curse you iOS autocorrect!
Empathy fail. Parenting fail. Humanity fail. Just ultimate fail.
My heart goes out to the young woman who had the bad misfortune of being born to a misogynist asshole with no redeeming feature at all.
How convenient for the MRAs. This means that almost every rape is not a real rape. Which gives them the perceived right to do whatever the fuck the want to anyone.
And once again the MRAs acheive a new low when it comes to sheer, eye watering, empathy-free evil. This arsehat doesn’t love his children. He is quite happy to place protecting his own notional right to sleaze onto any woman, anywhere above the safety of his own daughters. He is a disgusting excuse for a human being, and has repudiated any claim he may ever have had to the title ‘father’. He was merely the donor of genetic material, nothing more.
As for Elam, he is misogynist scum of the first water. Anyone receiving a compliment from him needs to immediately re-evaluate their lives.
:Stunned silence:
Does my heart ever go out to all the children suffering under these abusive, ignorant assholes.
Seriously? What the fucking fuck?!? I know MRAs are stupid and evil, but even to their own children? His daughter is raped, and he ridicules her, and threatens to disown her if she presses charges? Are these assholes trying out to become cartoon supervillians?
Who is worse?
Is it the man who mocked and slut shamed his daughters after they were raped or is it the man who devotes his life to encouraging men to rape women and girls and fathers to do as this misogynist dad did?
QFT.
Of course. Honor before reason, ideology before reality, ideology before all.
Jackie @ #11
Both and they set the standard.
The benighted notion that “legitimate rape” requires the woman to exhibit “a whole lot of bruising” is based on the disgusting principle that if a woman didn’t fight back hard enough, then she really wanted to have sex. If a woman is too shocked, too terrified, or too incapacitated to physically defend herself, then she is still responsible for what happened to her. Serial rapists like Cosby who don’t leave their victims with bruises are apparently not guilty of any crime. I speechless at the callous idiocy.
Where are the pictures? I want to know how to recognize them. So help me goddesses above, if I spot one of these assholes in the public sphere every woman within a 10 mile radius is gonna know about it.
They should create a creeper alert app. If other women are encountering these dudes I’d like a head’s up, too.
This hit me way hard first thing in the morning. Not twelve hours before reading this, I was having dinner with my mom and finally told her about the rape my “best friends” committed against me when I was in high school (about 12 years ago). I’d kept it from her because (among other reasons) I knew that, due to her own awful experiences, she sees rape as “not a big deal” and thinks people need to just “get over it.” The fact that it took me more than ten years to tell my own mother, someone who I know to be a victim of multiple sexual assaults, only makes it more horrible in my mind what it would be like to hear a parent not only deny your reaching-out-for-help, but condemn you for it. I’m literally shaking right now, but I can’t tell whether it’s due to the overwhelming anger or the incomprehensible sadness.
All I can say is that I hope that story is not true. I hope it is a false non-rape accusation, I guess.
I’ll be bookmarking that for the next time someone suggests the west is somehow superior when it comes to misogyny.
My heart breaks for anyone who has people like that for parents. I can’t find words to express my horror and empathy for them.
*vomits*
I am so sorry for those girls, i hope they scape that fucking arsehole…
This place is not a good place to go to rekindle your faith in humanity…
I feel for the daughters and Factory’s wife (if she hasn’t already left him). He’s a pearl (an irritant surrounded by oyster spit).
Factory doesn’t love his children, he loves the attention he gets from Elam and other MRA’s.
I envision that, when/if his daughters get married, he will wonder why he’s not on the guest list.
He will wonder when, in his dotage, neither daughter will want to visit ‘dad’ and comfort his in his old age.
He should live long enough that he sees both daughters disassociate from him.
My heart goes out to the children of people like these men, especially those children who have suffered bad parenting and rape or sexual assault.
So, wait – pressing charges, which is one of the ways she could actually get forensic evidence (or at least the attempt of), and… that’s what he would disown her for? So essentially she wouldn’t get to come home until after the trial (pending a ‘guilty’ verdict – and all the years of investigation and waiting that entails), and only then she gets to tell him she was raped, and only then (probably with photos of bruising and the like) he will believe her and support her.
What.
An.
Asshole.
I would like to use many, many, many more bad words, but… This little shit isn’t worth the effort. Complete failure of empathy, as mentioned above. And no, he doesn’t love his children. And Elam… wow. And people listen to these guys and take them on authority.
That is scary.
This is sickening – what the hell is WRONG with these people?!? In a sense, I would prefer it if they were hypocrites and at least treated their own female kin with something resembling decency.
I would never wish it on anyone to be raped, but sometimes I wonder if anything at all could teach a MRA empathy with sexual abuse victims short of first-hand experience. And maybe even that wouldn’t be enough.
These people are evil. Vile and evil. I hope their spouses and children are able to escape their horrible environs.
Excuse me, I need to go puke.
And yet…it’s been demonstrated that even videotape doesn’t necessarily result in anything more than “but pressing charges will ruin those boys’ lives!!!”, and that rape kits—you know, the ‘forensics’—are way under-processed, when they are even collected.
–
I feel very sorry for any kids he’s raising—whether they’re daughters raised to know that they are only handy fucktoys, or boys raised to know that ‘females’ are only handy fucktoys.
–
(TRIGGER WARNING)
Oh no no. You see unless the video depicts a scene out of Irreversible, it’s not REAL rape. THOSE videos just showed drunken, frat-house hijinks, dontcha know? If she had video of herself being violated while passed out, he’d just blame her for getting drunk/drugged.
I just read Sharlet’s entire article. (Not recommended if you want to feel good about anything today…)
He has a great knack – previously demonstrated in his amazing reportage on hyperchristians – to get repellent people to open up and expose what makes them tick (in this case, tanker-loads of self-pity). After this job, he must have had to boil himself in carbolic acid for a week to clean off the slime.
Often, I relay insightful material to an array of friends, but I can’t think of anyone I know who’d thank me for passing on this load of fractal wrongness.
I’m really hoping that he made up the story to impress his asshole friends. Still a terrible home for any girl or woman, but…
I find myself bewildered that a woman would consent to have children with this monster. Stockholm syndrome? Someone so badly abused herself that this looks normal to her? How do such men mimic the appearance of husband/father material? What sort of Game of Thrones creates these unions?
One last question: what sort of education or outreach to young women can prevent a guy like this from mating? Ever.
Sorry, proofreading fail:
What sort of Game of Thrones world creates these unions?
sadunlap @31:
No bruises, no film, no forensic evidence means that, no matter what, it was consensual. For a sick definition of consent, of course.
I don’t think my rapist ever left bruises on me. At least, not in readily visible locations. He and another man regularly took still and super-8 film of me, and other children, but never me and an adult. Any forensics were long gone by the time I even began to admit what happened. So, according to him, what happened when I was 8, 9, 10 years old was consensual.
These people scare me.
I’m not bewildered at all. I’m sorry that this has come as a shock to you. Because it has, I’m guessing that you don’t know a lot about how women wind up in relationships like this. If that’s true, brace yourself: adding this particular knowledge set is ugly and painful. Would this be a good time and space to discuss it? (that’s a general question: I don’t know if talking about how women and men who wind up in abusive relationships would enhance this comment stream or derail it.)
The more I think of it, the more I wonder if that story ever actually happened. But even if it didn’t, then he’s more than happy to have people think that’s the kind of guy he is. So fact or fiction, he’s still a real asshole.
Ceesays@34
I wonder if PZ would let you write a guest post?
sandulap
Could you at least try to avoid blaming the woman?
Here’s a hint: they don’t have “misogynist asshole” tatooed on their foreheads. And they’re not exactly rare. I’m pretty sure you know one or two of them. Dozens, that is.
I do not want to believe that the quoted story teller told the truth I want to think he was just boasting to his friends how tough and manly he was to those he wanted to like him.
I want to believe the the whole article about listening to this conversation is made up, a composite of snippets of many conversations put together for effect.
I really want to but I have seen too much and heard too much personally for me to do that easily. There are people like that who are so miserable that they only know how to heart others. They are so bent by their own victimization and their own pain that it is all they know. It is the only thing I know that is truly ugly!
uncle frogy
sadunlap @ 31:
Are you utterly unfamiliar with how people work? A whole lot of people know how to charm, how to manipulate others. You don’t know everything about a person when you fall in love, and love is a very strong emotion, you know. Also, people change over time. Some people become increasingly bitter, angry, and fill up with a world of self-pity, and that might be years later after marriage and children.
FFS, people end up in bad relationships all the effing time, and yet here you are, pointing the finger of blame on women in bad relationships. How about pointing a finger of blame at the men who embrace these repugnant ideologies?
Ceesays @ 34:
Given the cluelessness demonstrated in this thread already, I think it would be fine to discuss it.
Given than GoT’s main inspiration is our own fucked up history…
ZugTheMegasaurus and Ogvorbis, my heart goes out to you. And to Factory’s daughter.
Ceesays, I’d be interested in a guest post too, if you and PZ are up for it.
Of course, the comments section in the OP has already been overrun by MRA’s whining, calling it misandry and a hit piece. Anyone who thinks this is an extreme fringe movement with only a handful of members, you are sadly mistaken.
These dudes seem to be driven by a sense of powerlessness into a toxic brotherhood.
For example, they blame feminism for the plight of men trapped in low-wage jobs.
They apparently can’t blame rich men without alienating the people they want to be, so they cling to any sort of alternative explanation.
Sad, lonely, and angry. Scary.
Well, I guess the first thing I want to say is this:
Abusers don’t stand out. They don’t have warts or a menacing aura or any kind of “sign” that they’re abusers. They usually make good first impressions. They are very often admired by their friends and co workers. And they live and operate in a culture that makes it easy for them to exist and thrive without people noticing them until it’s too late.
Abusers are very often charming people. I’ve survived a few. My father was a very charming man. He was funny. he had a way with words and an easy manner and he was really, really good at getting people to do what he wanted them to do. That charm was how he attracted women, often much younger than him, and (when I turned 20) sometimes younger than me.
He never, never said or did anything overtly abusive to me where outsiders could see. He’d also constructed a narrative where he was the bewildered, kinda hurt victim of my faults – I was lazy. I thought I was smart because I read a lot of books and did well in school, but I had not a speck of sense. I was sulky and ungrateful and hostile and dramatic, and he’d spread his hands and say, “I can’t get through to her.”
Another one got added, when I got a little older: I was crazy.
And that’s a common refrain of the abuser. “I love him. But I just don’t know how to get through this problem he has.”
Abusers slowly, gradually warp your world. They don’t walk up to you and say you’re a stupid lazy waste. They don’t punch you in the face on your first date. They’re often charming. and while they’re being charming, they manipulate you. They push at your boundaries in little ways. if you let them, that’s good. if you try to protest, they’ll push a little harder, usually with manipulation. if you still don’t let them, well, you’re usually denigrated. if you’re lucky. but saying no to an abuser, even from the first meeting, can get you killed.
But abusers aren’t immediately obvious. And people will insist on thinking the best of people, especially if they’ve been taught to do so. Abusers can be dazzling, beguiling people. A common story of surviving abuse is all about how the early days were wonderful. This is by design. Those good early days, and intermittent good times give the abuse survivor hope, and that’s every bit as powerful a trap as slowly stripping away their individual support system and self-sufficiency.
It’s an intricate, complicated, layered process, snaring someone to abuse and keeping them. One should never, ever wonder why an abuse survivor chose someone so repellent. No one would, and abusers know that. they hide the truth, and let that out once the person they’ve trapped is trapped.
I mostly just lurk here, but just wanted to say that ceesays @45 really puts it well. I’m very sorry that happened to you, but thank you for sharing that.
Cliff over at The Pervocracy wrote something that I think is quite good on the variation of Why does she stay with that jerk?
I felt almost physically ill reading that. Jesus.
And his poor daughters . . . from what it sounds like, both of them have been raped, possibly more than once. Not that I’d expect that repellent asshole to ever teach them anything about consent. I hope they get out of his house and never look back on this asshole – let him die alone and unmourned.
Either this guy raised his daughter to be a pathological liar, or he treats his daughter as an evil lying brat even when she’s talking about a life-or-death-or-serious-injury issue, or he’s making up a deliberately defamatory story about his daughter for some reason or other. Either way, that’s the exact opposite of an example of “good parenting.”
I’m literally shaking right now, but I can’t tell whether it’s due to the overwhelming anger or the incomprehensible sadness.
Why can’t it be both?
I think it’s simpler than that, Raging Bee.
I think he just hates women, and he hates them so much he’s incapable of treating *any* of them as human, no matter who they are.
Tell me again how it’s a legitimate sociopolitical movement comprised of sincere activists that work to meaningfully address the myriad real concerns faced by men and boys, as opposed to a loose affiliation of hateful, self-obsessed, narcissistic, irresponsible, opportunistic borderline sociopaths.
If your daughters are such liars, you failed at parenting.
But, hey, maybe he thinks he just fathered a couple of lumps of meat whose nervous system is not that important.
BTW, a partner of mine is a rape survivor, and she has PTSD which makes her life miserable.
She’s on her way to recover but it reminds me of an argument from a bigot that people choose to be homosexual because it’s trendy and they like the attention and being victims.
Jesus fucking Christ I hate people who put their fucking ideology before human compassion (and decency).
After reading through the comments over there, I’ve learned that reporting things someone actually says and does is now a “hit piece”.
Not too long ago a man I had previously thought was reasonable and intelligent told me, “All a woman has to do is cry ‘rape’ and the guy is done for.” He went on to explain that, “Women have all the power.”
This conversation devolved into a discussion of the ways in which I supposedly use my womanhood to gain unfair advantage. This supposedly unfair advantage included being allowed to post more emotional comments online.
Staying away from this guy now. Just can’t take it. I especially don’t like the way he is seemingly always alert for signs that I’m somehow gaining unfair advantage. I think confirmation bias plays a big role in what he sees, in what he remembers … in how he views all the women in his life. Sad. Disappointing.
I find myself bewildered that a woman would consent to have children with this monster.
I’m sure there are a lot of women who simply never meet a better kind of man than this, and never saw or learned of a better example of manhood to look for.
@52: The comments are the most wretched hive of scum and villainy this side of Mos Eisley. Did somebody send up the batshit signal?
I feel gross just saying this.
Someone find out this guys real name and call protective services.
55: I’m sure of it.
I’d like to echo ceesays’s point on ‘Abusers don’t stand out.’
My own father was very much the same. To all outward appearances he was a charming, helpful and friendly man. Something people should be aware of, in the case of violent abusers, is that their victim (partner, sibling, child) acts very much as a ‘safety valve.’ That’s why they appear so calm in public.
rq #24
Very good point. These are the same assholes that claim that if you don’t call the police, it couldn’t possibly be rape… yet, here he is trying to intimidate a victim into not reporting the crime.
Come to think of it, this is exactly the MO of these people: Use every means available to cast suspicion on victims and hound them into staying quiet. Then once they do, declare that obviously there’s no problem, since a true victim would have reported.
I think there is a good chance that Factory’s story is a load of B.S., some disgusting swagger so he can be the biggest a-hole among a bunch of a-holes. Extremist assholes will not hesitate to exaggerate or fabricate when they get going, especially if they’ve had a few drinks. We all know what it’s like to hear some Christian telling a story about an atheist that doesn’t sound like any atheist you ever met, or to hear a racist talking about blacks, Mexican or Jews, and sometimes you hear a story that just doesn’t sound right. I’m hoping – perhaps desperately – that that is the case here.
Sigh. However I can’t ignore the possibility – as remote as I hope it to be – that the story is true. It is disturbing even if he is lying, but if he is telling the truth, it is profoundly disturbing in so many ways. For one thing, he has not been disowned by any MRAs. Even if they don’t care about the daughters, they should at least be a little concerned about looking like monsters to all decent people who hear about it.
There are very real parents who tell their kids that they are to blame for being raped. There is no reason to doubt Factory is one of them.
I don’t understand why anyone would doubt it.
If you can stomach it, I strongly recommend reading the entire article (PZ’s link goes to page 3 of 3). It’ll probably ruin your day but Sharlet does a very good job of getting these people to open up. A lot of the questions asked about Factory are answered there. At least, they’re his versions of the answers. His ex-wife denies everything he says about her. As for ChristineRose’s question at #56, his name is Dan Moore according to Sarlet. He also claims that his wife abused him and that lead to taking the red pill.
I’m not sure I’d believe a word he says about his ex or his daughters.
Then, of course, there’s the convicted sex offender that thinks the age of consent should be lowered to 12. I feel like I need a shower now.
Hoosier X, I understand why you wouldn’t want to believe someone could be that bad. But. People can be that bad. Sorry.
ceesays, what you wrote in #45 gave me chills.
I’m sorry you had to endure any of that. :-(
Maybe he said “good farthering”, as in “a good way to make your children move farther away”
@Jackie #61
I wanted to doubt it because it was one of the first things I read this morning and my daughter had just trundled into the room. It was too much horrible for that moment.
Daz@63 – I know that people, especially the MRA buttholes, are pretty bad, and I know that what he says may very well be true.
But I also know they are liars when it suits their agenda. So which is it in this case? What are the probabilities? I’m trying to think it is more likely that his daughter never came home and said she was raped. Maybe she asked “What if I came home and said I was raped?” and he turned this theoretical exercise into a true story.
If she knows what her father is like, I wonder if she would ever go to him and tell him she was raped.
CONTENT WARNING: I’m going to talk about rape, here. I apologize. It’s central to the topic. I also talk about some of the really chilling control and supervision tactics abusers use on their targets.
Now that I’ve talked a little bit about how you can’t tell an abuser on sight, and about how they keep the start of a relationship good until they have their target trapped, I’m going to talk a bit about one of the ways you can keep a target trapped, assuming compatible and functioning genitalia and organs: reproductive abuse.
forbid, or refuse to use contraceptives. Deliberately sabotage contraceptives. Monitor menstrual cycles. Use the calendar method of contraception, but take things too far. Be present at medical appointments – by which I mean, be in the room so you can hear everything that’s said and control the conversation. Scrutinize medical bills and services. Tell everyone outside of the relationship how much you want to have kids. Make sure everyone knows that you really want to be a parent, and that you’re “trying.”
When you’re an abuser’s target, you may not be able to “Consent” to having children with the person who is abusing you. This can be about your abuser’s refusal to use or allow you to use contraceptives. It’s probably also about the expectation that you participate in activities meant to gratify your abuser sexually. If that seems like a gray area, understand that I mean rape, from being browbeaten to being drugged to knowing you had better submit to “making up” after you’ve been battered or something that’s done to you in order to punish, terrorize, and control you.
Since many abusers control all the household finances, you probably can’t just leave. You don’t have money of your own. No bank account. Your legal identification could be locked away somewhere you can’t get it. You might not be free to leave your house unless supervised. You might not have your own house key. Your house might have those old style deadbolt locks that require a key on the inside in order to turn the lock. You might not have your own phone, or if you do, everything on it is under someone else’s control. You might not have your own computer, or if you do, there’s a keylogger installed so it doesn’t matter if you clear your browser history – everything you typed is recorded.
And there’s a baby on the way.
Why would anyone consent to that? There’s a chance they did no such thing. Never ever wonder this. It’s nothing but victim-blaming.
Hoosier X #67:
The probability is that an abusive bastard will act like an abusive bastard.
I’ll tell you what; I’m going to decide right now that he’s just lying about his daughter’s rape allegation to act the big man. “Look at me, everyone! I’m so committed to hating women and denying rape that even my daughters don’t get any sympathy from me.”
I have no evidence to support that decision but this is something I need to believe to get me through the night, so to speak.
I am sick. Literally feeling like I want to puke. That poor child. What is wrong with these men? How did the right to sex become so normalized to them?
@rq #24, @LykeX #59
I second the very good point.
Next time someone arguest “why don’t they call the police” I’m just mentioning this guy.
THIS is why people don’t report to the police.
Sorry if I’m being naive, but am learning a lot.
ceesays @45:
Thank you for sharing your story. I’m sorry you were put through that.
ceesays 45 and 68:
I would like to second what Tony wrote. I am very sorry you went through that.
I probably should have done a better job of writing my post. I lack perspective and my lack of contact with such creatures caused me to feel genuinely bewildered. FWIW one of my favorite quotes was when Will Rogers said “I’d rather be the one who bought the Brooklyn Bridge than the one who sold it.” Not blaming anyone but the MRAssohole. I should have made that more clear.
And these guys think they are “alpha”s??
sadunlap @74:
If I may politely suggest something…ending your bewilderment might be easier by not othering MRAs. For all that they are vile human beings…they are still human beings. As disgusting as their words and actions are, their motivations are not mysterious nor do they lie outside the realm of human understanding.
Another reason people don’t leave abusive relationships, especially emotionally abusive ones, is Gaslighting. Abusers don’t look like monsters, and many of them are really good at emotional and psychological manipulation. They can spend most of the relationship convincing the abused partner that things that go wrong are the victim’s fault, and if the relationship fails it’s all their fault. Social constructions like ‘You have to work at relationships’ and ‘love is hard’ can be turned to incredibly toxic ends in the hands of a manipulative person. They can have you believing that up is down and black is white after while, and that their bad behavior is entirely your fault. If only you tried harder, or weren’t so (fill in the blank) they wouldn’t be so sad/angry/violent/moody all the time. They know how to occasionally overwhelm you with nuggets of kindness, or show you a glimpse of how it was “when things were good”. You’d be AMAZED at how far they can lead you down this path before you have that ‘holy crap, I’m being abused!’ moment. Since Factory says that she’s his Ex, I’m assuming that she had that moment and left his ass. I’m also willing to bet his story of how she assaulted him (knife, etc) is a complete load of horse crap. My abusive ex had a similar relationship with the truth when it came to her past as well, and to her it justified all sorts of egregious behavior.
Hoosier X #60
I have no problem believing it’s true… Actually, that’s a lie. I highly doubt she just non-nonchalantly said “oh I just got raped.” More than likely she was shaken up and went to her father for support. But, I have no problem believing he minimized her experience and threatened her to keep her from reporting it, that part is pretty common.
ceesays @ 45 –
Ceesays, you summed up my father so perfectly here, it stopped my breath. Yes! My mother often says, “He was so flattering and attentive, gave me flowers all the time, in the beginning. How would i know that he’d turn out that way?” And he was ‘okay’ for eight years. Eight halcyon years before he became completely abusive. So my mom really could not believe it.
When it got really bad (TW for an example: On my 15th birthday, when the divorce was finalized, he stood in our front yard with a baseball bat and smashed our only means of transportation into a wreck of glass and metal, gleefully saying, “Happy Birthday, sis!” — His nickname for me), still no one believed it. My mom’s own parents did not believe her and would not help us. He had them that convinced of his charm. Really scary shit.
to all those who don’t want to believe that this is true
I realize that this is probably not your intention, but here’s what you’re saying:
Dear victim of abuse
You’re lying. Your story isn’t true. Your story isn’t true because I have decided that I’d much rather live in a world where this is a fake story than live in a world where you were abused. And I’m putting my comfort level before your desperate need to be heard and believed.
You don’t want to believe that these people exist? You don’t want to believe that this abuse happens? You’re not even believing the fucking abusive parent when they admit their abuse.
Do you really believe that an abusive parent would not tell about it, especially in a situation where they think that their abuse is condoned?
Here’s a little story for you: I had an abusive childhood. My mother was physically and emotionally abusive and my father saw nothing wrong with it. He didn’t care that much.
When I was about 5 or 6 I was playing in the street when my mother chastized me from the window above. I put my hands on my butt to protect it. And because she didn’t see herself as a physically abusive parent, she got furious. She came down, grabbed a stick and beat me with that stick.
And then, for the next 25 years, she went on telling that story about how I had made her forget herself and her vow never to beat with an intrument and had made her beat me with a stick. The story of her abuse of a small child turned into a story about how I had victimized her.
When I hear you all say that you don’t believe this father, I also hear you say you don’t believe my mother. You’re denying the hurt and the abuse that I suffered.
ceesays
I am truely sorry that this happened to you.
I’ll leave a pile of hugs here if you want to accept them from a sympathetic stranger on the net.
My heart is sick for all the victims of abuse in the OP and the thread. And a thousand times yes to the comments about the insidious way something can gradually be built up around you … and it’s all your fault, obviously, because all that behaviour is in response to things you have done or do. Of course. And because nobody’s miraculously perfect, there probably are some things you have done – which then somehow magically become the only thing of importance, the only thing that can be mentioned, ever.
MRAs live in a world where they are endlessly put-upon, forced into righteously defending and asserting themselves.
I hope those daughters get a chance to escape.
Krasnaya Koshka, I think of you from time to time, mostly when my daughter is going through another phase of pushing boundaries. My own shitty youth ensures that I will never abuse her; I long ago decided that that ugly cycle ends with me. But remembering (probably incorrectly) your history has on occasion reinforced my resolve to never try to get my way through intimidation. A child scared into compliance is not one who’s learned anything other than deceit. This tiny good that has come from the horrible experiences of your childhood in no way mitigates your Father’s evil, but it’s all I have to offer. Would that it was more.
It’s not just individuals who do these loathsome things. Sometimes it’s whole families. Families who from the outside look perfectly fine. The kids are well fed, clothed appropriately, are getting a good education and they participate in the usual extra-curricular activities. To all appearances these people are doing fine.
I witnessed one such family first hand. The mother is an old friend of Ms. Fishy. She and her husband have four kids, three boys and one girl. The girl is the second youngest and at the time she was maybe five years old. We spent four days together in a house that was too small for that many people. Intimate might be a word, but cramped would be better.
Right from the first day we were told tales of how the little girl was “a devil’. Not literally, these folks aren’t religious. But the use of that word would come to be painful, because these people were demonising their child. All I saw was regular pre-schooler behaviour from that poor girl. Nothing I hadn’t seen in my own daughter, nothing that was exceptional to the way the rest of the children behaved. And yet there was this constant narrative, told amongst themselves, and to us, of how bad their girl was.
Demonising a four year old for normal childhood behaviour, it made me sick to my stomach. At the end of the weekend I tried to convey how uneasy I was about it all to Ms. Fishy. She couldn’t see it, her friend was an avatar of a good mother and nothing I said seemed to dent that belief.
Flash forward four or five years. We are again on vacation with them. And now the mother is saying things like “We hate her.” Note that ‘we’. Now their daughter is in fact having discipline problems. She’s getting in trouble at school, she acts out often and all I can think is that she didn’t have a chance. In an environment where no one is hit, there’s no sexual abuse or even obviously raised voices these people managed to create a ‘devil’ child. All it took was a double standard of behaviour and near-constant false narrative reinforcing that standard.
Ms. Fishy now sees what I was talking about. The mother got a real shock when a school councillor, on hearing what their home life was like, said: “Well, your daughter’s doing pretty well considering the abuse she’s going through.” So maybe there’s hope. I don’t know though. They live in another state and I refuse to visit them.
Abuse. I comes in as may forms and flavours as there are people to perpetrate it. And you cannot tell by looking at anyone whether or not they’re an abuser.
Well, based on that story, I don’t believe your mother. She was not the victim in her relationship with you. She was the abuser.
I don’t doubt that the man in the story is a terrible father and emotionally abusive (at the very least, although his claim that his daughters compete with exaggerated rape claims, it makes me wonder if there isn’t sexual abuse in the family as well). I just doubt that his daughter, if she were raped, would go to her father. Just like you knew to cover your butt when your mother got mad, they have to know that their father would not support or believe them. He is no Ward Cleaver.
Also, I wouldn’t doubt his daughter’s claim that she’d been raped. I doubt his story about how he dealt with it. I may not have made that obvious in my previous comment. I believe that this man would falsify a story of rape to make a point, but I highly doubt that his daughter would or did.
sadunlap
You’ve called this HUMAN MAN both a monster and a creature. He is neither. He is a man. A human being. Stop othering him. Do you believe you’ve never met an abuser in your entire life? That would be ridiculous. Men and women are abusers. Not creatures or monsters. Real people. Some of whom you likely interact with on a daily basis. But you’d never know, because they don’t have horns atop their heads. Because they aren’t monsters, and they aren’t creatures. They are human beings.
Just like you. And me.
Even if his story is just a tall tale to impress his buddies Factory is still contributing to a climate that causes people to be abused. It just reinforces the thinking and behaviour of someone who would dismiss their child’s rape, even if Factory has never done it himself.
Would the people who keep saying Factory made the story of traumatizing his own daughter over being raped please tell me what it would take for you to believe it?
Is it anything like the video tape he needs in order to believe a rape happened?
Parents do this all the time. When you deny it you deny the victims’ experiences of being blamed by their parents/teachers/pastors etc. Please stop. I get that you hope that abusers lie about being proud and right they are to abuse. Do you get how far you’ve raised the bar for believing that someone is an abuser?
“being proud and in the right to abuse”
Oops
sambarge #84:
I would suggest that you have a simplistic view of how abusive relationships work. It’s quite possible that this topic wasn’t a known trigger of abusive behaviour, and so would not be avoided by the daughters. It’s possible, indeed probable, that between bouts of abuse, the father was every bit (genuinely or shammed for appearance) the loving, caring parent, or that he had not even previously been abusive. Or the daughter may have been persuaded that the abuse was her own fault, and that in a case where she wasn’t at fault, he would still act as a protective father.
But when all’s said and done, and all speculation is put aside, you need to remember that the majority of abusive relationships, even some of the most abusive, are not as simple as you appear to think. There can, and often is, genuine love, or a semblance of it. There is almost always, at least where the abuse isn’t of a sexual nature, and sometimes even when it is, a desire on the part of the victim, to be loved and cared for by the abuser. All too often the victim will convince themselves, or be convinced by the abuser, that that last bout of abuse was genuinely the final bout, and that it will never happen again. Sometimes even the abuser is genuinely convinced of that; until they lose control again.
None of that is logical, when viewed from outside the relationship, but it is very human, especially for a child, who is completely trapped in a relationship with an abuser, and looking for any straw to grab.
I could describe Hell to you; and the devil would most certainly wear my father’s face. Ask me a day later, and I could describe the most wonderful scenes of paternal love and affection, support and comfort. It is, simply, not as simple as you appear to think it is.
sambarge @84
You really should consider that she very likely was not aware that he would react that way.
I went to my parents immediately after my cousin sexually assaulted me and told them about what happened in front of my cousin’s mom (my aunt). It was a humiliating experience and they didn’t believe me. I had no way of knowing how they’d react. You spend so much time being taught when you are younger that you should tell an adult when someone touches you inappropriately. I saw my parents as almost infallible superheroes. Was I wrong to have told them? Was it somehow my fault that they didn’t believe me?
Why are you basically stating that the daughter should have known her father would react that way? That is what I am getting from your comments and it feels very victim blamey.
sambarge @ 84
All right then. Let’s do this.
Trigger Warning
When I was eight years old, I was assaulted by a family member. Having been taught by school to find a trusted adult and tell them, I went to the kindly neighbor lady who’d never said a cross word to me. I showed her the marks on my neck where I’d been picked up and told her what happened. She yelled at me to stop making up stories and sent me home.
When I was in my mid-twenties, I was assaulted by a man who left me covered in visible bruises. I had to literally fight for my life and beat him until I could escape. I told my mother immediately after I escaped. She’s not a perfect person–none of us are, remember–but she loves me and I had no reason to expect anything but support. She asked if maybe I was mentally ill and was making a bigger deal about this than it was.
About a year later a trusted friend raped me in my own bed. I’d learned my lesson that time and didn’t tell anyone except my partner and pseudonymous people online.
When you say things like the above, it implies that you think real rape victims like me are mind-bogglingly stupid for not recognizing we wouldn’t get support from our loved ones before trying to reach out. Just how cruel someone can be isn’t actually apparent beforehand. If it was, gosh, I probably wouldn’t have been assaulted in the first place, you know? What you’re saying is incredibly hurtful and dismissive.
Trusting the people we love is not wrong and not unbelievable.
Nh. My heart goes out to everyone in this thread, and to that poor girl. MRA’s really make my blood boil in a way that nothing else does. This world needs more empathy.
It’s doubly hard for me, because my sister has been bull-dozing through a whole lot of emotional abuse from her husband over the past few years. I don’t want to go into details, because it’s her life, not mine, but she’s been doing well – she’s secured a job for herself and is getting stable on her own, even though they’re still ‘trying’, for sake of the kids.
I don’t like the line “life isn’t fair”, cause it implies that the concept of “fairness” actually exists in life, and that life itself just chooses to not be fair. There really is no fair middle ground in life at all – it doesn’t even come close to existing, outside of what fairness that good people can impose on it. Life’s not fair – but people can be.
I hope everyone here gets the goodness, and the healing, that you all deserve.
FossilFishy @ 82 — That means so much to me. Thank you for telling me.
I tried to come up with the least awful way to read this situation with Factory and his daughters and I find that the worst scenario is probably the most likely.
I was already contemptuous of the MRAs but I find them even worse now. Damn! I never put much thought into the plight of the children growing up under these conditions. I really can’t stomach the people who are putting so much energy into hating immigrants or making the bible the state book instead of helping women and girls in this rape culture we currently endure.
There really needs to be some provision for requiring people like these to have their quotes tattooed on their foreheads.
Simple. The daughter telling the story. I’d believe her. If she said she was raped, then I would believe her. If she told me she confided the rape to her father and dismissed her as a liar, I would believe her. Because if it is her telling the story, then she has nothing to gain by it. There is no societal award (contrary to what some would believe) for being the victim of rape. She is confiding a traumatic event and asking for help. I would not doubt her.
Her father, on the other hand, is telling a story about how much MRA cred he has. Therefore, I doubt his story. He has every reason to lie and embellish.
So, for the record, it is not the daughter’s allegation of rape that I’m denying. It’s the father’s version of the story. That may be a subtle difference but I think it’s a significant one. I can disbelieve him without disbelieving her.
sambarge #96:
No one has claimed that you have done so.
I have addressed this. Pearson, The Mellow Monkey, Jackie and Giliell have addressed this. Which parts of our various comments are you finding hard to understand?
Just a slight expand on my comment:
I’m not doubting victims of abuse. I thought that should be clear. I’m doubting the MRA in question’s story that (1) his daughters regularly falsify rape allegations in some sort of competition and (2) that after his daughter confided a rape, he dismissed her because he knew she was lying. I don’t believe either of those statements.
I think he is an MRA at a convention, looking to increase his credibility by proving that he has the biggest dick of all of them. If, for example, he was a co-worker who told me that story at work, apropos of nothing, I would react very differently. I would tell him he’s an asshole and a failure as a father. Then I would call Children’s Aid and report what he’d told me with names and addresses so that they could intervene. I would have a recourse to assist the victim, in that case and that’s what I would do. Believe and help the victim.
For the record, that does not mean that I do not believe his daughters have been victims of sexual violence or that this man is an asshole, a terrible father and possibly abusive himself. It most certainly does not mean that I do not believe victims who come forward, even if they come forward with stories of not being believed by others.
I’m not sure how you make the connection between someone not believing the empty, thoughtless boasts of an asshole and the allegations of victims.
Really? Because what I’m reading is a lot of stories about how people were victims and they weren’t believed. And I know that victims often aren’t believed. That’s not even a contentious statement: Victims of abuse are often not believed.
What I’m saying is, when an attendee of an MRA conference boasts about how much of a man he is by disregarding his daughter’s allegation of rape, I don’t believe him. I think he’s aggrandizing himself for his likewise-minded friends. If he had told that story where there might have been the possibility that he wouldn’t have been cheered on for his fuckery, I might believe him. But he was preaching to the choir and getting pats on the back. That’s what casts doubt in my mind.
Sorry. I hit “Post Comment” when I meant to hit “Preview”.
I just wanted to end with an apology for anyone I’ve offended or hurt with my take on this issue. It was certainly not my intention to suggest that victims shouldn’t be believed or that second hand allegations of rape should be shrugged off as false. But regardless of my intent, the outcome was hurt and offense and for that I’m sorry.
sambarge #99:
My #89 is Scotch mist?
Yet when confronted with a story of someone stating that they did not believe a victim, you all of a sudden don’t believe that the story is true.
sambarge, #99
Why would they find that a thing to applaud if they wouldn’t do such things to their daughters?
Are you doubting the story because it’s such a horrible thing to do and you wish it to not be true? I’m with you on that sentiment. But I’m sure you know of honor killings. And I’m sure you know they’re often carried about by the parents over the reason of their daughter exercising her freedom to be with the person she pleases. These same parents would also cover up the rape of their daughter (if not kill her). So I don’t know why you have a hard time believing this guy when he’s saying it himself proudly.
Shoot, that should be “with the person she pleases to be with“.
sambarge
So you wouldn’t have believed my mother if she’d told you how she beat me with a stick because I made her do so?
Yet you claim you’d support the daughter. Tell you something, fat chance she’d ever open her mouth about the abuse she suffered after you didn’t believe it happened when the perpetrator confessed to it.
Or, to tackle this from another direction: If he’s a nasty enough person to think this is a good image to project, why should be not be considered nasty enough to have lived up to that image?
@sambarge
Thanks for the apology. Let me just clarify what I was taking issue with…
Basically, I was getting this vibe of “I don’t believe she would be stupid/uninformed/whatever enough to tell her father (who we clearly know is a douche) about being raped.” I know that isn’t what you said, but that is the type of vibe I got from your comment not wanting to believe that his daughter told him. Now, you and I both know that victims are frequently not believed, but many younger people simply don’t have this knowledge. There is no real reason to doubt that she did and in choosing to disbelieve that portion of his story, while not disbelieving others, it is assuming things not in evidence. We don’t know if she has any idea that her father is as horrible as WE know him to be. We have no reason to think she knows about rape culture and is well aware of how often victims are blamed or disbelieved. Given this, it just really comes off sounding pretty icky to decide that that is the portion of his story that is not believable. Does that make sense?
I do get what you were saying. I had these instant flashes of finding it so abhorrent that I didn’t want to believe, but we don’t do anyone any favors by choosing to not believe what he said and we stand to do some harm. My comfort is not worth the harm that could be added by refusing to believe what he stated.
Whether he’s a misogynist shit bag that abused his daughter in this particular way or he’s a misogynist shit bag that made up or exaggerated this story to impress his misogynist shit bag friends, he’s a misogynist shit bag. I’ve heard enough locker room braggadocio to think that this might be the same. Regardless of what he actually did or did not do he thinks it’s the admirable thing to do and I feel for anyone, particularly any woman or girl, that lives with him. My hope is that he is living alone in a motel somewhere and his wife and daughters are safely away from him.