“The Raw Story” has an honesty problem. Despite their claim to be a bastion of independent and progressive journalism, they have repeatedly shown that they will throw honest reporting and journalistic integrity out the window if it helps them sell a phony, prepackaged, sensationalist narrative to their gullible readers. And they have–repeatedly–shown that they prefer to silence any voices which challenge the prejudices and petty bigotries of the people who work there. In addition to pre-emptively banning people they’ve written stories about from commenting on those very same stories, a recent email correspondence between a member of our staff and Roxanne Cooper, publisher of The Raw Story, confirms that just being a known MRA or noting childish behavior by radical feminists is sufficient justification to ban someone from commenting on The RawCooked Story. (You’d think they’d at least have the courtesy to mention that in their Terms of Service, but who are we to say? It’s Roxanne’s world, after all, and she doesn’t have to allow any independent thoughts in her publication.)
As a case to illustrate the lack of ethics and journalistic integrity at Roxanne Cooper’s The RawCooked Story, we noticed that they recently ran a thunderingly stupid article supposedly about MRAs. In reality, this story took commentary from a Reddit group called “The Red Pill”–a non-MRA group known to sometimes be hostile to MRAs–and grabbed some stupid remarks from them out-of-context. Then they twisted those remarks from The Red Pill group to look like rape advocacy, and declared this to be proof that “MRAs” strategize on how to get women drunk to rape them–because apparently, in Roxanne Cooper’s RawCookedStoryLand, men can rape drunk women but women can’t rape drunk men. This is like taking an article from Elle magazine, declaring it representative of feminism, and then twisting Elle magazine out of context on top of all that–layer upon layer upon layer of stupidity and dishonesty, in other words.
And then they further went ahead and auto-banned any known MRAs from commenting to point out their error or challenge their hateful bigotry, pretty much however polite those comments were.
Then some MRAs that Roxanne’s people apparently didn’t recognize, like Alison Tieman, got in there, and some even more enlightening things happened. Apparently, once it was realized Alison was female but an MRA, they were flummoxed; they obviously hoped Alison would match their bigoted, misogynist prejudice that female MRAs are stupid and gullible and ill-informed and were frustrated when, instead, they found they couldn’t even answer basic questions she posed, or be bothered to look at data she offered that challenged their prejudices. They were able to answer only with name-calling and “lalalala I can’t hear you!” But still, Alison has a vagina; they couldn’t ban her just yet, could they?
But then Alison committed the greatest sin of all: she exposed the misogyny of The RawCooked Story‘s community. This could not be tolerated; who does this woman think she is, to dare speak heresy in TheRawCookedStoryLand? She must be silenced! Lord knows Roxanne doesn’t want her self-loathing misogyny, or the hateful closed-minded intolerance that permeates her community, to see the light of day. It might make all that independent-ish thought of theirs start to look a little less truthy than it does now.
But too bad; in an act of genuine independent journalism, as opposed to the faux-journalism of TRS and the ideological thuggery of Roxanne Cooper, we present Alison’s expose on the den of woman-hating that is The Raw Story.–DE
The misogyny that dare not speak its name
Raw Story recently wrote an article attributing statements made by members of the Reddit community “The Red Pill” to men’s rights activists. Although these statements were not made by self-identified men’s rights activists, they were also not very controversial—amounting to tips to avoid being crime victims–unless viewed through the feminist lens that women can’t consent to sex while drunk.
In an amusing twist, feminist Amy Schumer recently gave a speech in which she detailed having sex with a man so drunk or incapacitated he was going in and out of consciousness. Instead of stopping it and trying to ascertain if her partner actually was consenting or running on autopilot with no clue who he was engaging with sexually (even him calling her by another name didn’t give her pause) she apparently allowed her egotistical impulse to be seen as desirable by a high status male to dictate her actions.
Now if having sex with drunk people is automatically rape than Amy Schumer is a rapist. A much-lauded-by-other-feminists rapist.
In the comments on The Raw Story, I called out this feminist double standard. After five hours of commenting and having moved far from the original topic, I was banned permanently from commenting at Raw Story.
Not after calling out Raw Story and feminism’s double standard regarding rape–but after I engaged in the greatest sin of all: Calling out feminist misogyny.
Here’s a transcript of the exchange prior to my banning:
Bagelsan
It’s adorable how there’s always that one random female MRA running around, desperately bleating anti-feminist talking points. Does she think that will make the boys like her? Is she 10-years-old? Is she going to wake up hungover [sic] and regretting the whole sordid thing? Is she ever going to realize that bending over backwards to prove that she’s not an icky feminist will result in zero respect from anyone, male or female? Is she ever going to get over her hate-crush on Amy the comedienne?
Truly a mystery for the ages. Let’s watch. 
Alison Tieman
A feminist!
Did she take a rational look at the evidence–both for and against–before concluding that women are oppressed or does she simply assume it based on her unexamined and unconscious misogynist belief that women are “acted upon” and men “actors.”
Will she ever realize that her persecution complex is what’s oppressing her?
Let’s find out. XD
Bagelsan
Actually, it’s a funny story: a little handbook came along with my vagina, which laid out all the tenets of feminism to me at a young age. Did you not read yours?
Alison Tieman
I certainly did. And then I looked at the publication notice on the edition page.
It said “Church and State press.”
Bagelsan
Oh, you got the goofy one. No wonder you’re confused! Mine was pretty straightforward, and basically said that people shouldn’t rape each other and that men shouldn’t act like assholes to women and vice versa, and so on. But I did hear there was a publication error that got some women awfully mixed-up… I think your edition instructs you to obsessively repeatedly link to random YouTube videos? That’s a doozy of a typo.
Alison Tieman
Ah so you’re a representative of “Church and State Press.”
Sorry, I’m just not buying your product anymore. It’s not about equality, it’s about selling women a persecution complex that turns them into terrified sheep.
Bagelsan
You don’t agree that people shouldn’t rape each other? Because that’s all I’m “selling” here.
Alison Tieman
I don’t agree that most people need feminists to tell them not to rape each other. In fact it’s time for “most people” to tell feminists to knock their rape apologia off.
Feminist Amy Schumer gives widely acclaimed speech in which she confesses to sexually assaulting her male sexual partner:
http://thoughtcatalog.com/anonymous/2014/05/wait-a-second-did-amy-schumer-rape-a-guy/
Feminist Mary Koss scrubs male victims of rape by women from government statistics:
Feminist Professor Adele Mercier engages in rape apologia directed at male victims:
Feminist Jaclyn Friedman fails to call out fellow feminist rape apologist:
Feminist groups block or remove men’s protections against rape by female sexual predators.
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Womens-groups-Cancel-law-charging-women-with-rape
http://toysoldier.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/a-sad-day-for-male-rape-victims-in-india/
In addition to all that feminists promote campaigns that demonize male by presenting them as more likely to be rapists than rape victims despite all the evidence to the contrary!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXK0bfrvjPM
Bagelsan
Oh dear, the copy paste is back. You should sue whoever misprinted your vagina-book; that technique is not very persuasive.
Alison Tieman
Vagina book? Seriously, you’re reducing me down to my genitals?
Tell me, Bagelsan, have you given any thought to the counter argument against women being oppressed by men?
Bagelsan
Let me guess, is it that women are oppressing men? Or are you still stuck on that tired old myth that “patriarchy” means “all men”?
Alison Tieman
Answer the question or simply walk away.
Have you given any thought to the counter argument against women being oppressed by men?
Bagelsan
Look, ma’am, I’ve heard and considered lots of so-called “counter-arguments” to the straw-position of all-men-oppress-all-women or whatever you think feminists believe. Have you got a new one, or should I just say that yes, I probably have?
Alison Tieman
Do you believe that men oppress women more than women oppress men, on average.
I never said “all men oppress women” only “women are oppressed by men.” That means a belief that, on average, men oppress women _more_ than women oppress men.
Bagelsan
Well, if you’d read my comment just above you, that question is a bit meaningless, yeah? But sure: all else being equal women face more oppression on account of being women than men face on account of being men. You totally cornered me into saying something not particularly controversial. ;D
Alison Tieman
Have you given any thought to the counter argument to that?
Bagelsan
Are you implying that there’s only 1 theoretical counter-argument to that, which I must have either considered in its entirety or not? That’s a very limited point of view. I’m afraid I can think of several counter-arguments, but you haven’t specified which one I’m supposed to address.
Alison Tieman
Chose what you consider to be the strongest counter argument to the proposition that men oppress women more than women oppress men.
Bagelsan
Then yes, I do think that oppression runs along multiple axes, including race and nationality and socioeconomic status, and that gender interacts dynamically with all of these other factors to create a sort-of meshwork of oppression (you might be familiar with the term kyriarchy) along which people can be found to relate to each other down gradients of power. Saying that “men mostly oppress women” or whatever does little to address this more complex model of human interaction, which is actually something that feminism has been working on quite a bit (with varied success) and which I might posit remains our current greatest weakness as well as our greatest opportunity to really flesh-out and develop our strategies and effect some proper change.
Alison Tieman
That’s not an argument against women being more oppressed by men then men are by women, on average.
It’s simply stating that race and class based oppression exists.
Try again. Although I have to confess at this point it’s looking like you base your belief less on a rational analysis and more on internalized misogyny.
Bagelsan
So you think that “other factors also play into oppression, it is not merely gender or sex-based” is not the best counterargument to the idea that oppression is fundamentally male-on-female? Then what do you consider a more convincing model of human interactions that I should abandon feminism for? I’m fascinated.
Alison Tieman
It’s not the best argument against the idea that men oppress women more than women oppress men. That’s because we’re not talking about other forms of oppression aside from men oppressing women more than women oppress men so oppression based on other factors are not relevant.
Again, what is your best argument against the idea that men oppress women, on average, more than women oppress men. Without bringing in tangents about other forms of oppression that do not relate.
Bagelsan
Other forms of oppression really, really do relate. And I’m sad (albeit not surprised) that you don’t understand that.
Alison Tieman
Do these other forms of oppression change the fact that you believe men oppress women on average more than women oppress men?
Bagelsan went silent at this point
And lo, I was banned from Raw Story promptly after this exchange. Even though I’d been commenting, up to that point, for 5 straight hours calling out feminist double standards towards men and boys.
Apparently when you defend men and boys against feminists as a Men’s Rights Activist, that’s okay. But when you start defending women and girls against feminist attack?
It’s the misogyny that dare not speak its name.
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Unfortunately due to being banned and not thinking to take screen shots, I can’t give the original responses in an easy-to-read format. Here are .pdfs of the exchanges as they appeared in my Gmail in box and on my disqus home page.
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***Update*** SPECIAL Bonus Round: The Raw Story Feminists say the darndest things, exclusively on Honeybadgerbrigade.com!
