There may be some confusion on Reddit about what the philosophy of Anarchism is really all about because of the hateful misandrist trolls who have taken over the r/Anarchism subreddit.

This isn't an attempt to clarify all the underlying principles of anarchist philosophy, and I know that some will always have honest disagreements with the ideas presented by anarchists. Sincere anarchists even disagree amongst themselves. However, for the purposes of intellectual honesty, I do want to make something clear... men's rights, like women's rights, are human rights -- and should not be dismissed. Furthermore, human rights and freedoms are of utmost importance to anarchists.

That last statement may seem trite and self-serving, but it needs to be said in response to the contrary messages seen coming from r/Anarchism. Also, despite a few unfortunate misogynists, I recognize that many people who contribute to the r/MensRights subreddit are actually more in support of feminist ideas than the moderators of r/Anarchism. As an anarchist that's somewhat embarrassing, but I want to make it clear -- The moderators of r/Anarchism are primarily serving to give the philosophy a bad name.

There is a particular reason that I am posting this here now. I was recently banned from r/Anarchism because of an expose I wrote about the subreddit and, ostensibly, for comments I simply didn't make. Although I have since been prevented from defending myself in r/MetAnarchism (as others have been allowed to do), someone who contributes to r/MensRights saw my defense and reposted a link to it before it was deleted. So... I have still not been able to defend myself from the slanderous accusations that have been made against me. I hope you will give me the opportunity to do so here, as I think it's fitting in terms of this subreddit, it serves the principles of intellectual honesty, and people need to be warned about r/Anarchism as a deceitful forum which does not represent the ideas of actual anarchists. With that in mind, I will now present my defense which was deleted from both r/MetAnarchism AND r/Blackflag. I know this may seem long-winded, but such is sometimes the nature of issues like these, and short attention spans are depended upon by corrupt people like the mods of r/Anarchism. The following was my one-shot defense which was deleted...

It's completely a red herring. There is no truth to it.

First of all... the 2 links supposedly explaining the ban are ridiculous. One is about me suggesting QueerCoup is using sockpuppet accounts. The other links to a poorly formatted article I wrote which appeared on AnarchistNews.Org (it's better viewed here because of the formatting.)

Anyway... the discussion in the banning thread,* for the little it's worth, is a mostly a red herring about me supposedly misgendering *someone on purpose -- which is a complete falsehood and not at all based on any reality. I don't think a single instance of anything like this could be found in any comment I've ever posted on Reddit. The closest thing to it is this section from my article -- where I'm not even saying it's ok to intentionally misgender people:

The real problem is that many of the r/Anarchism moderators (and regular contributors) are steeped in reactionary identity politics, accuse people willy nilly of abusing their perceived (1st world, male, pale-skinned) privilege, and then... they threaten to ban people who suggest things as simple as the idea that all people should be treated fairly regardless of their race, gender, or geographic location. Misusing a gender pronoun seems tantamount to a capital crime in some of their eyes.

I'm not blind to the issues of injustice surrounding race, class, gender, or sexuality. I've often discussed such topics frankly on my blog or in various forums (including on Reddit). But that doesn't mean I'm going to condemn and entirely demonize someone who possibly makes the slightest of ignorant mistakes -- and I'm certainly not going to condemn someone who didn't actually suggest anything inappropriate!

I also encourage you to examine all of my comments in the thread which proved to be "the last straw." The entire thing is filled with straw man attacks and red herrings. My final comment, before I was banned, was going to be this:

Suppose there is a young girl who is abused by her father. Obviously, not an unimaginable occurrence. She grows up and her hatred of men grows because of some other negative encounters. She becomes a school teacher where she treats the boys unfairly, grades their papers with bias, and punishes them harshly. Some of them, in turn, start to hate women because of this (along with some other similar encounters). Then... they grow up, father daughters, and some of their daughters become school teachers.

This is an example of the cycle of hate which needs to be stopped. Bias and oppression of anyone because of something they can't control, like their race or gender, is corrupt and destructive. I don't know how I can make that more clear.

Quote:lady_catherine

And yet that's just one person. If I wasn't participating in this thread, then I would have never seen it

It's not just this one person in just this thread. It's a regular occurrence in several threads in this subreddit. Gender oppression is thrown around like a red herring even when gender has absolutely nothing to do with anything said in a particular thread. It's akin to crying wolf and it makes truly oppressive people harder to identify. In that way... such people work with their supposed oppressors to make things worse for everybody.