Misogyny, Terrorism and the Manosphere
Trump and Vance dog-whistled them to win the election. Now their leaders are loose. They'll target women and people of color first. And won't stop. there.
To view a larger (actually readable!) interactive version of this map, compiled by the University of Maryland, go to this link for START on the Homeland Security website. Do that right now. Trump will take this down. Go to the site, print it out. Permalink the URL. It’s here:
https://www.start.umd.edu/january-6th-capitol-extremists-network
The January 6th insurrection had five nexuses of violence. These three centers and overtly anti-feminist and misogynistic. They are are the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, and White Supremacism / White Nationalism. Yesterday Enrique Tarrio of the Proud Boys and Stewart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers walked out of jail. All over the streets of Washington, D. C., the Proud Boys had showed up in traditional garb.
Here’s an example of their handiwork.
‘Nancy, Bigo was here you bitch’
This is Richard Barnett (aka Bigo), co-founder of the group 2A NWA STAND, who took over Nancy Pelosi’s office on January 6th. And that sweet little quote is what he had to say for the cameras. And this is what The Conversation had to say in response:
While partisan differences often drive political violence, misogyny can play an underappreciated role, especially when directed at women in prominent leadership positions. Misogyny punishes women who fail to live up to patriarchal standards, like those who dare to participate in the supposedly “male world” of politics.
Women born in the mid-20th century or earlier—women who have witnessed the progression of feminism from its extremely hopeful days through the male backlash of the later 20th century—are more worried than every because alt-Right groups hoping to create a theocratic state are shot through with the worst kind of misogyny. They are clear that young women are being targeted, shamed, groomed, stalked, raped, and incarcerated at a rate unknown before the backlash went horrifically dark and then openly challenged a woman’s right to her own body and to walk unharmed in public spaces even in broad daylight. They are challenging a woman’s right to work, shutting her out of religious work and the priesthod, and now challenging her right to contraception and her right to vote, while they also challenge her right to divorce.
And it’s not just in these horrible militia groups we see this: it’s in the non-military groups that claim rights over women or who denigrate them in an attempt to shun and threaten them out of the public sphere. These are:
The Men’s Rights Activists who believe women’s rights has taken their rightful place in society. They “flip the script,” pretending that this isn’t really a patriarchy at all, but a matriarchy in which they are being “emasculated” and that their jobs (MONEY) is being taken and that they must restore order. They also use women’s freedom to claim THEY are responsible for the violence against them. Or, as Tucker Carlson put it: “The matriarchy is the reason women get beat up.”
This is the script dumped on the Catholic college kids by HARRISON BUTKER, which we discuss here in an article framed by the cowardice of his enablers:
The Pick-Up Artists (PUAs). This is home territory for Andrew Tate, presently in jail in Romania on charges of human trafficking (or women in a sexual slavery racket) and rape. Tate, interestingly, converted to Talibanism in November of 2023. O quel surprise!! The level of denigration done by these people is so vile and shocking that when their pontifications — for they believe they know everything about women’s motivations, which are always, they claim, evil and greedy — appear on my Facebook reels, they never cease to amaze me. These are the kind of men who take young girls and “groom” them, use them for prostitution, and are responsible for a staggering number of statutory rapes of children and young teenagers. They are openly predatory and daring you to say you don’t like it. Andrew Tate has more than a million men following him. PUAs believe women should be removed from the public sphere, which should be completely people by men, as they are in Afghanistan, and that women should not be allowed to drive. Some believe they should not be allowed to work, to have credit cards, to have their own bank accounts or their own cell phones.
The INCELS. Incel stans for “Involuntary Celibate.” They’re not getting laid, and they don’t like it. There are BaldCels and ShortCels, men railing about not being classically handsome—and disregarding the fact that Martin Scorcese is 5’1” and Danny DaVito and Robert Reich are 4’10” and Dwayne Johnson “The Rock” and Jason Statham are bald. Incels are an extremely dangerous group as they fell that they are entitled to sex, women are supposed to deliver it on demand, and whatever they do to a woman who doesn’t comply deserves no criticism whatsoever. A large group of Incels follows the philosophy that RAPE SHOULD BE LEGALIZED because, as males and superior beings, they’re just owed it. Like the PUAs, they believe that women should be chattel and removed from the public sphere to serve men’s sexual demands.
Some Incels believe that the majority of women should be exterminated in death camps, with only some left alive for breeding purposes. Please read that last sentence multiple times.
So, before we begin these discussions in earnest, please upgrade to paid—and please share us with men and women you think would be interested in joining us for the articles, comment-area discussions, and podcasts that will come.
Meanwhile, I want to encourage everybody to order this book. It’s not out until October, but line up now. I was part of the editorial team that worked on this book for McFarland, so I’ve already read it, and it is MUST-READ for every father and mother of a teenage girl whose rights they want to protect and every woman—because we need to know about this in the most critical way.
Meanwhile, before we get started in earnest, here’s a definition that all women, and the men who love them, need to understand:
Semiotic forms of violence against women in politics—and indeed the public sphere in general—involve mobilizing semiotic resources—words, images, and even body language—to injure, discipline, and subjugate women. Unlike other forms of violence against women, these acts are less about attacking particular women directly than about shaping public perceptions about the validity of women’s political participation more broadly. Analyzed inductively, women’s experiences in politics suggest two main modes of semiotic violence: rendering women invisible, attempting to “symbolically annihilate” women in the public sphere, and rendering women incompetent, emphasizing “role incongruity” between being a woman and being a leader.
More soon …
"Have you never wondered why it is we are not just in armed combat against you? It is not because there is a shortage of kitchen knives in this country. It is because we believe in your humanity, against all the evidence."
- Andrea Dworkin, "I Want a 24 Hour Truce"
Oh man. You make my heart hurt. Everything you said is true.