Mad Men: Inside the Men’s Rights Movement—and the Army of Misogynists and Trolls It Spawned - Mother Jones
On a balmy afternoon last June, dozens of demonstrators carrying “Stop the Violence” and “Rape is Rape” placards descended on the Hilton DoubleTree in downtown Detroit. They had come to protest the first-ever national gathering of the men’s rights movement, which aims to battle discrimination against men but has drawn criticism for stirring up hatred of women. Two weeks earlier, a sexually frustrated 22-year-old named Elliot Rodger had gone on a suicidal rampage in Santa Barbara, California, killing 6 people and injuring 13. He had left behind a chilling 137-page manifesto suffused with a bitter misogyny and language commonly found in men’s rights forums. “The girls don’t flock to the gentlemen. They flock to the alpha male,” Rodger wrote. “Who’s the alpha male now, bitches?” His attack ignited a firestorm online, spurring women to share their experiences of misogyny via the hashtag #YesAllWomen, and bringing major media attention to the men’s rights movement.
With irate phone calls and even death threats pouring into the hotel in the run-up to the conference, its organizer, A Voice for Men, was forced to move the event to a local Veterans of Foreign Wars hall. The group warned ticket holders by email that “ideological opponents” were likely to show up, and that they would be “looking for anything they can to hurt us with.”
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