Every time I post something even remotely concerned with human rights on my blog, I get a slew of bile from all quarters. Most of it comes from my natural enemies, such as this moron responding to my post Fascists are poisoning HEMA:

Or this one:

That’s quite incontrovertible evidence that the post was worth writing; if nobody’s calling you a cuck, you’re not working hard enough.

“Cuck” is an interesting choice of epithet, isn’t it? Short for cuckold, it is a derogatory term for a man who can’t control his woman- so she goes off having sex with other men. Personally, I don’t own a woman, and if my wife wanted to go and have sex with other men, I’m sure I’d be quite upset. But the notion of controlling her is abhorrent.

When I wrote in support of legalising gay marriage, I got things like this:

My last post, Let's Illuminate Invisible Women, garnered a similar crop of responses, indicating to me that there are a lot of very, very, strange people who read my stuff.

Take this from the comments, for example:

But don’t worry. Soon enough all of this terrible society in which women-gays-blacks are so oppressed will disappear and in it’s place we will have Islam. The “religion of Peace”. You all will manage to get what you really want. And it will serve you right.

So, if we close the data gap and stop treating men as the default human, and encourage women to become instructors, we’ll somehow open the door to an Islamic takeover of the West? Hmm, unlikely. Not least as Islamic culture generally has less sexual equality than we do. And women armed with swords are less likely to put up with anyone telling them they are second-class citizens.

But here’s my favourite exchange of them all. This occurred via email, rather than in the comments. Yes, I’ve redacted this person’s email address as they chose to remain anonymous (unlike the commenters above), and I wouldn’t doxx anyone. Other than that, this is the complete text:

Isaiah 3:12

As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.

Be careful, Guy.  You might have to hang up your sword and trade it in for a knitting needle.  I hope you don't still urinate standing up, you misogynistic pig.

😉

Sent with ProtonMail Secure Email.

Where to start? No salutation, and a wink emoji for a signature. Hmm. Obscure biblical quotation… can anyone explain what “destroy the way of thy paths” is supposed to mean? The Contemporary English version is a bit clearer:

Though you are God's people, you are ruled and abused, by women and children. You are confused by leaders, who guide you down the wrong path.

OK, that makes more sense. But how do we get from “women should be treated as equal human beings”, to “I want a matriarchy”? (I’m not saying I’m opposed to matriarchy, actually, but it wasn’t implicit in my previous post.) and what on earth makes this person think I’m likely to be in the slightest bit interested in his biblical authority for patriarchy? 

It may seem odd that I’m an avid fan of getting swordsmanship knowledge from books, and yet discount the bible as a legitimate source of advice on constructing a society. Let me explain: I’m interested in how to win sword fights, so it makes sense to read Fiore (for example), as I’d love to be able to fight like he did. I have no interest whatsoever in living in the manner of an Israelite from two millenia ago. A.J. Jacobs famously had a go at it (read The Year of Living Biblically if you’re interested), and honestly, it just doesn’t appeal to me. So I truly don’t care what the bible says about the proper organisation of society.

The second paragraph is really illuminating. Is knitting unmanly? If it was, would I care? And I can pee how I like, right? I especially appreciate the completely malapropistic use of misogynistic. Clearly, a dazzling intellect. 

Besides, I’m British. Our Head of State has been a woman since 1952. Indeed, our most famous monarchs of the last 500 years include Queen Victoria (reigned 1837-1901) and Queen Elizabeth I (reigned 1558-1603; a time in which the monarch was very much more involved in the day-to-day running of the stated than they are now). Pretty much the highest honour I could get from my country would involve literally kneeling at a woman’s feet while she taps me on the shoulder with a sword.

I replied with a simple “Fuck off”, and manually deleted them from my mailing list. Which I thought covered all bases adequately. This prince among men replied with this awesome message:

Feel free to take me off your mailing list.

A society where the men allow their women to be either “equal” to them or dominant over them is a society that is about five minutes away from being conquered by another society ruled by more virile and masculine men.  If you fancy yourself a swordsman, you should probably also be interested in combat, self-mastery (WHICH IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR MEN WHO ARE DOMINATED BY THEIR WOMEN), and the like.

Does your wife or your mother give you permission to play with swords?

Seriously though, Guy, if we men don't get out courage back, our society WILL be conquered.  In fact, that is already in the process of happening…

Best Wishes.

Sent with ProtonMail Secure Email.

My first thought was “he clearly hasn’t met my wife”. My second thought was “actually, perhaps he has!”

Fortunately, I don’t fancy myself a swordsman. I simply am one. Also fortunately, I don’t need permission from anyone to play with swords. And yet again we have bizarre connection with treating women as equals and being ‘conquered’ (I give you one guess by whom, in this moron’s head).

My reply was a model of decorum and restraint:

Real men sign their emails with their real names.

I already took your email off the list.

Yours

Guy Windsor

And of course, Mr oh-so-brave-Anonymous chose not to reply…

Compared to the hazing, death-threats and the rest that many people have to put up with, this is very small potatoes. But just in case anyone here thought we were living in Utopia, I thought you might find these examples instructive.

The post was also sent out to my mailing list. I usually use 4-8 subscribers every email (which is normal, see here for how mailing lists work), this one lost me 19. That's totally in-budget for cleaning misogynists off my part of the internet. I should also point out that these examples represent a tiny minority of the people responding. The positive comments, thank-yous, and overall goodwill vastly outnumbers the negative.

Here's one lovely example (I've redacted the signature as the writer generally prefers privacy):

Yes! I’m so glad you wrote this.

This is where a young person would say, “OMG this! I’m low key shook AF because reasons. This post is literally everything right now and I’m stanning.”

No linguists were harmed in the making of this email.