Taking sexism and misogyny seriously

[_Chap]

In what ways do you think women have the upper hand in the court system?

I would like to see his answer to that question too. Probably one of the things he will claim is that women sometimes do seem to have an unfair advantage in child custody cases. From what I have seen in the news, there does seem to be some justice in that claim.

I cannot speak to US law and practice in family matters, but in deciding on a contested divorce settlement in the UK, the judge will try to give major, if not decisive weight to the interests of the children, so far as those can be ascertained.

If the children are young, and have mainly been cared for by their mother (note the bolding), that will move the judge towards ensuring that the mother and the children are still able to live in the parental home. When the family assets are not large, that will often put the husband in a difficult financial position, since he has to find a place to live as well as contributing to the family upkeep. But if preserving the interests of the children requires it, that is the way the judge will incline. And on the whole I think the difficulties caused for the husband in such cases are outweighed by the interests of the children, whatever issues there may be between the parents.

If of course the father has been the main carer, the situation would be reversed. But that is not very often the case. When there are disputes about who really has been the main carer, the known facts about the widespread tendency of men to overestimate the amount of housework and childcare they provide in comparison to their partners will mean that the father claiming to be a main carer will have to provide fairly solid evidence that that is really the case. That may seem unfair to the father, but the judge has to decide on the basis of how things are known to be in the real world.

And of course the matters discussed above are quite separate from matters of access rights and so on.

Divorce when there are children of the marriage and family assets are not large will always be a painful and messy business. It is rare for both partners to come out of it feeling good.

[_Gunnar]

Chap, thanks for that information about child custody cases in the UK. What you described is the way it should be, and I am fairly sure that more often than not it is the same way in the USA, but I still have the impression that whenever there is an error in judicial judgement in such cases, it is more likely the man who is unfairly treated than the woman. And as you said, what is best for the children ought to be of primary importance.

Of course, I could be wrong about the father being more likely to be unfairly disadvantaged. I don't claim that it is any more than a vague, subjective impression based on far from complete evidence. I would guess that ajax18 would probably claim more surety about that than I do.

[_Lemmie]

This story hit hard for me. There is a poster here who spent one evening last month making six or seven subtly threatening posts about my son, regarding very specific bad things that might happen to him, including false arrest due to someone lying about him, being hurt in an aggressive arrest, being brutalized and assaulted while in custody, and how “bad things can happen” if he is not “careful.”

Obviously, there is no real danger (I hope) due to anonymity, but given the language and the specificity, it still was a very uncomfortable situation for me. Due to the software issues, I don’t think reports are able to be handled, and besides, what would I say? Freedom of speech and all that. I can take the nonsense this poster says about me, but having him involve my family crossed a line, a subtle passive-aggressive line that makes it difficult to deal with, but still, he made his point. Even though many men have repeatedly pointed out the sexism in his posts, many more bluntly than even me, he still only attacked me and my family. Now, maybe I am just better at getting under his skin (!) or maybe I just represent something about which he has very serious issues.

His comments about my son are the reason I ultimately stopped calling out the sexism in his posts, which I have previously posted is something that I strongly feel needs to be done.

So... he got what he wanted, I suppose.

Then I saw this article about the female judge losing her son because an sexist, misogynistic anti-feminist was angry with her. It was beyond disturbing and so painful to read. I also realized, once again, how grateful I am for anonymity online. Obviously I don’t think the poster here would ever have done anything if he knew my in real life details, but then again, he’s not the only person I have interacted with online. (Including Smokey, who Dan Peterson, on his blog, announced had told him who I was. He was incorrect, but by the time he found that out, Peterson had already posted the woman’s name on SeN, an act I find reprehensible.)

The sexism and misogyny a female poster receives in many internet settings is, at times, overwhelming. I am extremely grateful that almost none of it happens here.

Bottom line, there is no excuse for using threatening language, no matter how subtle or passive-aggressively deniable, to try to shut someone up. Again, I have no concerns this poster will escalate, but as a woman who speaks her mind, online and in real life, I can’t ignore this issue. From the OP article:

....there have been a disturbing number of these men who have moved on from posting their hatred online to engaging in acts of violence and terrorism -- not unlike other extremists around the world.

For too long, though, American law enforcement, our most trusted institutions and the media have looked the other way on misogynist extremists in the United States, refusing to take them particularly seriously and brushing off the hatred of women and even gender-based violence as unfortunate but fixed parts of normal life.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.co ... index.html

[_Jersey Girl]

but I still have the impression that whenever there is an error in judicial judgement in such cases, it is more likely the man who is unfairly treated than the woman.

How? I have yet to see anyone on the thread state just how men are treated unfairly or how the courts rule in favor of the woman.

So tell me how.

[_honorentheos]

Thanks for posting this, Lemmie. It struck me that we take online declarations of hate related to potential terrorist attacks quite seriously. The State has no problem with arresting people for making credible threats in that context that aligns with the comments made by the shooter in the case in the OP.

It's worth reflecting on the fact this incident won't be counted in any record of mass shootings because "only" two people died including the attacker.

But this may be masking a different point: It appears mass murderers often express hatred for women within the scope of their broader social pathology. For example:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytime ... n.amp.html

The man who shot nine people to death last weekend in Dayton, Ohio, seethed at female classmates and threatened them with violence.

The man who massacred 49 people in an Orlando nightclub in 2016 beat his wife while she was pregnant, she told authorities.

The man who killed 26 people in a church in Sutherland Springs, Tex., in 2017 had been convicted of domestic violence. His ex-wife said he once told her that he could bury her body where no one would ever find it.

The motivations of men who commit mass shootings are often muddled, complex or unknown. But one common thread that connects many of them — other than access to powerful firearms — is a history of hating women, assaulting wives, girlfriends and female family members, or sharing misogynistic views online, researchers say.

[_Lemmie]

But this may be masking a different point: It appears mass murderers often express hatred for women within the scope of their broader social pathology.

Yes. From article in the Atlantic, on Den Hollander’s writings:

On page 1,776 of his PDF, he writes something that would ring chillingly accurate this week: “The Feminists should be careful in their meddling with nature. There are 300 million firearms in this country, and most of them are owned by guys.”

And on page 1,880: “It makes no sense for men to disarm in the face of an evil that wants to exercise totalitarian power over them. They have a right to revolt against that tyranny, to take it down. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the tyranny of George III or the Feminists.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... il/614425/

[_Jersey Girl]

According to his wiki, he is responsible for an earlier murder as well. I found this quote of interest. Bolding:

In another document, which outlined possible "solutions" to feminists and "political commies", he wrote, "Things begin to change when individual men start taking out those specific persons responsible for destroying their lives before committing suicide."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Den_Hollander

I might choose to comment on that or use it as an example in another post. For now, I'll just let that quote stand.

[_Jersey Girl]

This story hit hard for me. There is a poster here who spent one evening last month making six or seven subtly threatening posts about my son, regarding very specific bad things that might happen to him, including false arrest due to someone lying about him, being hurt in an aggressive arrest, being brutalized and assaulted while in custody, and how “bad things can happen” if he is not “careful.”

I saw those comments as they went up and if we had a usable search feature here, I would bring them forward right now so we could all take a look at them. At the time, I decided to stay in observation mode. 1) Because I wanted to see how long he kept that up, 2) because I wanted to see where it would go and 3) to be perfectly candid here--during the stay at home business I find myself at times, having to manage anxiety so I stay out of things around here in order to limit the amount of "noise" in my head.

When I saw those comments, I considered the following explanations:

1. The poster is naïve, socially unaware, and doesn't know how those types of comments might be received.

2. The poster was projecting their own perhaps unrealistic or irrational fears on to your son, trying to make a relatable connection with you.

3. The poster is smarter than anyone here gives him credit for, knew exactly what he was doing, and intended those remarks to sound threatening due to what you might call the double interpretations in which those comments could be received.

I don't know a lot about this Incel issue. When I first saw Cam use that word I had to go searching it up. I haven't quite worked that all out in my own mind yet. I guess I could offer a kind of old school description of what I think it means to be an Incel. Let me try...

An Incel is someone (typically male?) who isn't getting any and so he hates the f-ucking guts of every female because they all mirror back to him his own sense of inferiority so that even the contempt he feels is manifested both outward and inward.

Anyone? Is that close?

[_honorentheos]

Thanks for pointing that out as well, Lemmie. A claim of, "We have the guns, therefore we have the power" is disturbing.

I thought it worth posting the Times articles because a few comments in this thread seemed to want to compare violence perpetuated by Incels and Men's Rights Activists with that perpetrated by other hate-based identity groups. I think that misses the point completely. Mass shootings and terror attacks are only one manifestation that says at least three people have to die before we pay attention. While it has been on the rise, the manifesto-driven woman-targeting killing spree is an outlier expression of violence that the example in the OP doesn't even reflect due to the way mass shootings get counted. But if that is the metric, it should be noted there is a connection between them as well.

[_moksha]

This story hit hard for me. There is a poster here who spent one evening last month making six or seven subtly threatening posts about my son, regarding very specific bad things that might happen to him, including false arrest due to someone lying about him, being hurt in an aggressive arrest, being brutalized and assaulted while in custody, and how “bad things can happen” if he is not “careful.”

What?!!! That's terrible. People need to take deep breaths and maybe count to a thousand in order to never post such stuff.