Plagiarism
ˈpleɪdʒərɪz(ə)m/
noun
the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own.
Recently, I wrote an article on whether Men’s Rights Organizations and Men’s Rights Activism (MRA) promote toxic masculinity or not.
Read it here.
Much to my surprise, a friend of mine sent me a screenshot of an article on another website that looked eerily similar to mine.
When I looked closer, I realized that the ‘author’ had copied my article word for word. The only difference being that the word ‘man’ was replaced by ‘woman’ and vice versa. It was published on the website with no credit given either to me or ED Times.
However, the person who shared it on Facebook did mention this website, with the hashtag #titfortat
The end result was quite astounding. The article included lines like
The obviously horrendous grammar mistakes aside, it seems that the author, in an attempt to prove a point has quoted a fictional interview by a single fictional ‘woman’ in a fictional ’news media’.
Whereas the actual interview that I quoted was of the president of a men’s rights organization, conducted by VICE News India, an actual real organization.
There were other lines that made no sense at all, like this one;
Wait, have men not dominated (and continue to dominate) most positions of power. Is that not the core of the issue that women have? That the distribution of power is unfair.
By the logic of this article. Women have already achieved a society where they occupy positions of power and men are the one who is being oppressed and they have a legitimate right to fight against this massive and overarching oppression that they face.
Hmm. Acha. Theek Hai.
Then there are lines which they straight up copied, did not even bother to change it. Now, remember that my article was questioning Men’s rights organizations. A men’s rights organization put a line in their article questioning men’s rights organizations.
WOW! Read ahead
This was not all, I received a barrage of comments on the website, 23 to be precise. Most of them were just plain attacking without much logic to back up their arguments. Others had certain nuance to them, which I appreciate and whose criticism I gladly accept.
But then some were just lacked logic and were outright sexist. Like this one,
I thought this kind of behavior went out of fashion at the same time we outlawed Sati. Guess not.
The fact that these comments lacked nuance and arguments and engaged with me on solely the idea that ‘You are wrong’ and ‘I am right’ instead of giving me concrete reasons why I may be wrong, this was troubling.
There was an outrage on social media as well. With multiple Twitter handles attacking my article and me personally. I have been called a Femtard, a mangina, a son of a b**ch, a bastard, and many other things.
Here are the lovely screenshots:
My favorite, hands down has to be where someone called me a stealth operator since they were not able to trace my twitter account.
My twitter URL is in my author bio which is present at the bottom of the article. Guess they only read the title before getting outraged.
An MRA page also shared my article on Facebook. My public post on Facebook also received quite a few colorful comments.
All this reaction was heartening to see. It made me realize how much work has yet to be done to educate people about what feminism actually is, and how equality is essential for society.
We also need to convey to these MRAs that this kind of blind outrage only seeks to delegitimize their argument, much like it does to the extremist elements of pro-feminist movements.
Shouting won’t solve anything. Making the argument that we have to shout because the voices on the other side are too loud, won’t solve anything. Calling me a misandrist, mangina, femtard and so on, will definitely not solve anything.
Have a discussion. Explain the problems that you face and make people understand, don’t shove it in their faces with the expectation that they will automatically understand.
Instead of acting like victims, start a conversation that is civil and includes all opinions, not just your own. And when you do come for a discussion, please leave your sense of entitlement outside the door. You are not right by default.
It would be much better to have this discussion without it becoming like one of Arnab Goswami’s panels on TV. With low-IQ people shouting because they have no real arguments.
Image source: Google Images
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