"Kaum will man alle Männer umbringen, schon kommen die Frauenfeinde angekrochen"

Das aktuelle feministische Hashtag #killallmen führt bei Twitter inzwischen zu leichten Spannungen. Dabei wird dieses Hashtag von feministischer Seite wortreich verteidigt:

“Kill all men” is a shorthand war cry, much the same as “ACAB” or “tremble hetero swine” or “die cis scum”. It represents a structural critique, presented in a provocative fashion. While my focus here is on “kill all men”, and therefore in relation to sexist oppression specifically, these points are applicable for all oppressors and all victims of oppression who dare to feel angry.

Die Verfasserin dieses Blogs, Zoe Stavri, outet sich in ihrem Text als Mitglied einer Lesegruppe, die Valerie Solanas "Manifest der Gesellschaft zur Vernichtung der Männer" als Lektüre auswählte und empfiehlt dieses Werk, das unter anderem die Vergasung von Männern als unwertem Leben vorschlägt, mit Nachdruck, da es eine großartige Satire darstelle. (Offenbar bestanden die Kugeln, mit denen Solanas Andy Warhol und dessen Assistenten niederschoß, aus reiner Ironie.) Leider sei es jedoch

pretty difficult to mention SCUM (or indeed just cry “kill all men”) without the misogynists crawling in, crying misandry.

Dabei gebe es für diesen Vorwurf der Männerfeindlichkeit nicht den geringsten Grund:

So no, we’re not actually advocating killing all men, but what we need is for men to understand why we might. (...) Of course, all men are not deserving of death. In fact, most of them aren’t. I can think of a fair few I do wish painful, violent death on, although this remains but a fantasy. Patriarchy would destroy me were I to ever touch a hair on their head. Patriarchy already tries to punish me for merely expressing these thoughts, because they are unbecoming of a woman.

Ja, die Kritik an dem Hashtag "#killallmen" KANN wohl nur daher stammen, dass es Frauen im Patriarchat nicht erlaubt ist, wütend zu sein. Wenn umgekehrt Männerrechtler den Hashtag #killallwomen verwenden würden, erhielten sie dafür nicht den Hauch einer Kritik ...

Natürlich dauert es nicht lange, bis sich in den Kommentaren unter diesem Beitrag ein lernwilliger Mann aus der Kemper-Rosenbrock-Rupp-Fraktion zu Wort meldet:

I’m still learning, still trying to be ‘better’ and still getting it wrong, but people like you are helping, making me realise I can and should and must do more than I have. Thank you.

Verblüffenderweise wird diese Dankarbeit nicht von allen Lesern dieses Blogbeitrags geteilt. Eine starke Gegenrede unter der Überschrift Bye Bye Intersectionalism stellte gestern der Blogger "Zarathustra" online. Er wollte sich nach einer Konfrontation mit einem offenbar rüpelhaft auftretenden Männerrechtler eigentlich nur näher über intersektionellen Feminismus informieren und stolperte dabei über Stavris Blog – und reagierte darauf weniger mit Dankbarkeit als mit Irritation:

Much of her argument seems devoted to explaining that when intersectionalists say, “kill all men” they don’t actually mean, “kill all men.” Though sadly it doesn’t seem to have occurred to her that if that doesn’t convey what you mean, then perhaps you need to change your wording.

Stavris Argumentation, "kill all men" sei doch genauso harmlos wie z.B. "die cis scum" (etwa: "Stirb, nicht-transsexueller Abschaum!"), überzeugt diesen Blogger nicht:

I was discussing this with a friend of mine, a bisexual woman with physical disabilities and asperger’s syndrome. She commented that she finds being told “die cis scum” particularly unpleasant, as her asperger’s causes her to interpret things literally. My first thought in response to that was to wonder if whoever sends out a message like “die cis scum” is sitting somewhere with a set of scales of oppression and privilege. Does the oppression of being female, bisexual, physically disabled and with asperger’s outweigh being cisgender?

My next thought was, “Do we really want to get into such a game of Oppression Top Trumps?”

And a further thought from that was that one certainly doesn’t need to have asperger’s to not want to be told “die scum”.

Auch Stavros Argumentation, mit dem Schlachtruf "kill all men" wolle man mehr männliche Unterstützer gewinnen, empfindet dieser Blogger als wenig überzeugend. Er kritisiert im übrigen:

The intersectionalist Twitterati tend to have something of a fixation with the meaning of words and phrases. Some of the language can be a little obscure to those outside of what is a relatively small online community. What is a TERF? What is mansplaining, and is it anywhere near Copenhagen? (...) Ironically, for a group that seem surprised at the offence taken to “kill all men”, there’s a tendency on the part of the intersectionalists to act as a self-appointed linguistic police, “calling out” people over their use of language.

Sometimes the “calling out” can spill over into outright cyber-bullying, especially when it turns into a pile-on of multiple tweeters rushing to tell someone how terrible they are for a semantic misdemeanour. I recently highlighted the case of a woman with an anxiety disorder who was piled-on by intersectionalists mistakenly interpreting a comment by her as a jibe at transgender people. She suffered a mental health relapse and has had to take a break from Twitter in order to safeguard her wellbeing.

Insgesamt gelangt er zu dem Fazit:

To me, #killallmen has a sense of the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’m done with the bickering, the cyber-bullying, and the mutually self-congratulatory circle jerks. My Twitter feed has been cleared of those involved, and it feels a more peaceful, more mature place for it.