Boko Haram butchers schoolboys en masse for 8 months in Nigeria, no outrage. Media claims in May the same group abducted 200+ schoolgirls. Cataclysmic outrage. US pledges diplomatic & military intervention, Change.org hosts petition signed by hundreds of thousands, and SJWs set Twitter on fire.

c0mputar · 2014-05-07T13:10:56+00:00

I try to point out to people that Boko massacres boys but there are simply too many submissions about the abducted girls. Granted, it's a horrible event, but when the inevitable intervention comes in the form of aid, shelter, food, etc... I expect it to be earmarked for girls. Dead boys don't need help.

Then when the conflict is covered by teachers or the media in the future, it'll be about the violence against women. The dead boys will be wiped from history, as they so often are.

2014-05-07T16:39:23+00:00

I mentioned this is the thread about the girls being stolen in the /r/worldnews thread. I was downvoted into oblivion.

LaughingVergil · 2014-05-07T15:36:18+00:00

This pattern is thousands of years old. Kill the men and boys (the perceived warriors and heads of households) and take the women for "wives" is as old as the Old Testament, and probably older.

This is also not the first time that females have been abducted from schools. This is mentioned in one of the Wikipedia articles OP linked to - as is a reference to an earlier attack than the Sep 2013 massacre (July, 2013 I believe).

Why did this one attack get so much attention? Partly random journalistic interest, partly because there were 200+ living victims that could potentially be saved. Note that the previous, smaller abductions of girls also did not gain publicity.

Additionally (IMO), I have noticed from years of following the news that, in a single incident, you need about 5x the number of dead to gain the same attention as an abduction in a distant location. If 1000 boys had been killed, this would have passed the indignity threshold for reporting news from Africa, and may have gained the same attention as this incident.

Keep talking about the deaths of the boys. Someone in the news will pick up that part of the story when the interest in the abduction starts to wane, to keep interest (and ratings) up.

If you want to change these behaviors, you need to change

c0mputar · 2014-05-07T13:41:47+00:00

Everything about these situations with Boko Haram make me unbelievably sad. I hate that it's happened to anyone, male or female.

And to be honest, even though the kidnapped girls will get more attention, I feel like this is going to end like any other "diplomatic talk" bullshit: everyone will spend weeks and weeks talking about it in outrage, and the U.S. will reply with something like, "We do not condone these acts" to look good, but won't actually do anything about it.

Then after those weeks are up, it'll fall off the radar. Just like most things happening in Africa, mostly because nobody cares about Africa.

I think if the care goes beyond talking tough, and someone actually stages an intervention on behalf of the girls, then we might call it discrimination.

HQR3 · 2014-05-07T15:41:09+00:00

Was watching CBS news this morning, a discussion with a rep from, I think, the CIA. He actually mentioned that previously boys had been massacred. The female newscaster responded--in an obvious slip of the tongue--"Well, now that it's girls, something will probably be done." Quickly, very quickly, they switched to another angle. How revealing is that?

lordslag · 2014-05-07T16:41:45+00:00

Males. The disposable gender. Muh privilej.

kick_a_cunt_monday · 2014-05-07T21:37:58+00:00

I'm a news writer for a series of websites. When the story broke, I chose to do a 2000+ word piece about it and of course started doing research.

Not one big news website (from the Washington Post to the LA Times and everything in between) even mentioned Boko Haram's butchery of school boys. I continued reading about 10 of the most popular news websites/online newspapers in the western world and their coverage of the story.

I could honestly say I was as well informed as anyone on the face of the earth could be and I wouldn't have known little boys were also victims of Boko Haram if I hadn't have searched out the groups history of violent attacks.

ThisisMalta · 2014-05-07T21:00:21+00:00

We are the disposable gender, gentlemen.

Eryemil · 2014-05-07T16:41:13+00:00

I had no idea about the boys. :(

AloysiusC · 2014-05-07T15:01:19+00:00

Yeah yeah but Boko Haram uses child soldiers who are probably boys. See? Boys are doing it to themselves so stop whining you misogynists /s

dungone · 2014-05-07T17:14:47+00:00

Maybe they turned their attention to girls because no one seemed to give a shit about boys. That's how terrorism works.

2014-05-07T20:02:30+00:00

http://www.mediaite.com/online/why-did-kidnapping-girls-but-not-burning-boys-alive-wake-media-up-to-boko-haram/

Clauderoughly · 2014-05-07T16:44:37+00:00

Society doesn't give a fuck about men and boys. They are the disposable gender.

They could feed 1000 men and boys through a tree shredder and you'd get a collective "meh" from the international community.

Do the same to 1 girl ? Massive moral outrage! resources! Armed support !

This is why Mens rights will ultimately go nowhere. No one gives a fuck about the suffering of the male gender, never have, never will.

SHITLORDHERE · 2014-05-07T15:38:23+00:00

Why are people not surprised about this? I'm not surprised. This is SOP.

writeonbrother · 2014-05-07T14:15:54+00:00

I understand your point. It's sad really. But what these Islamist Militant groups do isn't anti-man or anti-woman--- it's anti-human. At least in my opinion.

SayWaat · 2014-05-07T17:47:20+00:00

Shows how normalized sexism is for men but isn't for women. If media can shrug off 8 months of mass murder of boys in nigeria but be offended and outraged 200+ girls are kidnapped it truly shows that no one really gives a fuck about males.

YourProduceCodes · 2014-05-07T19:10:39+00:00

Good article. The only thing I would change is to have something other than a batman meme at the top of the article.

mindbleach · 2014-05-07T20:47:01+00:00

I'm more annoyed that news outlets are reporting on the outrage... which they started... in equal measure to the actual fucking story. I know the story right now is "they're missing, shit sucks," but what the fuck, NBC?

ThatWeirdMuslimGuy · 2014-05-08T21:49:02+00:00

I actually remember hearing about those boys on Aljazeera for about 2 weeks.

shibbidybibbidy · 2014-05-07T15:47:37+00:00

Just a bunch of disposable men are gone, they were probably going to be misogynists anyway /s

ExiledSenpai · 2014-05-08T03:24:52+00:00

I know I'll probably get downvoted for this but fuck it.

People are killed in Africa every day. It's not really a big news story anymore. Kidnapping 234 ~~girls~~ people all at once is not nearly as common an occurrence. Additionally, these people are still alive, and so something can, in theory, still be done to save them. While the attack on the boys at the school is tragic, it isn't like we can actually do anything to bring them back to life.

Does the media typically have a bias towards women's issues? Sure. But I'm not convinced that is the case here.

p3ngwin · 2014-05-07T21:08:58+00:00

reminds of Bill Hicks talking about how when the Branch Davidians in Waco were attacked by the FBI with tanks because "there were children being abused inside".

If the FBI's motivating factor for busting down the Koresh compound was child abuse, how come we never see Bradley tanks smashing into Catholic churches? -- Bill Hicks

same here, if "children being abused and murdered" were the concerns of the nations intervening, why didn't they intervene when ANY children were being abused, like the many MALE children before ?

Number357 · 2014-05-07T23:18:54+00:00

Maybe if the media and the world's governments had cared when scores of boys were being brutally slaughtered, this tragedy could have been prevented.

2014-05-07T16:21:29+00:00

Hang on - I'm not sure this post is correct: were the boys really killed when the 220 girls were kidnapped?

The author says yes, but then to support this claim, seems to link to articles about earlier attacks which don't mention 220 kidnapped girls.

For sure, boys are getting killed. But what did happen to the boys during this particular attack? Were there any boy victims at all?

biffsocko · 2014-05-08T03:45:50+00:00

It's our own fault for not picking an issue and running with it. I really can't blame feminists for marketing women's issues. It's what they do. It's OUR failing for not bringing attention to things like butchering boys for 8 months. That's on us. It's one of the ways that we can effectively gain support

saratogacv60 · 2014-05-07T14:53:16+00:00

You can not save the dead. There is a chance to save the girls.

TheDongerNeedsFood · 2014-05-08T15:30:46+00:00

For anyone new to this subreddit, please understand the following. We here at mensrights are just as horrified as everyone else is over the abduction of these girls. We cannot put into words how disgusting this act was, and we hope to god that the girls are returned to their families right away.

That being said, the reason for this post is because we also outraged over the fact that these same monsters were burning boys alive for months, and yet the rest of the world could not have cared less.

So, for anyone who is here questioning out movement, please explain to us why the mass murder of boys does not register the same reaction as the kidnapping of girls.

kinyutaka · 2014-05-07T18:13:33+00:00

In all fairness the cold truth is dead is dead, there is nothing you can do for the boys who were killed but bury them and move on. These girls can still be saved however (which is the reason for the urgency) and failure to do so will end up with them suffering a life of sexual slavery a fate I think many would argue is worse then death.

RBGolbat · 2014-05-07T15:13:48+00:00

I think the difference is that a mass execution is a one quick event thing, while a kidnapping is ongoing in that there is a chance they can return. That makes all the difference in how much they are covered.

lardlad95 · 2014-05-07T17:26:48+00:00

Just a quick somewhat related question: Why is Africa such a, pardon my francais, a shithole? Even Indonesia/Melanesia, and SE & SW Asia are doing lightyears better. Why not so with Africa???

ElPotatoDiablo · 2014-05-07T16:41:29+00:00

This is the dumbest thing to be upset about that I can imagine.

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