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‘Child-man’: Roosh V through the eyes of women he’s met

Angela Washko spent two hours speaking to 'Roosh V' on Skype.

Angela Washko spent two hours speaking to 'Roosh V' on Skype.

Trigger warning: some readers may find the content in this article disturbing or upsetting.

A controversial anti-feminist figure from the United States who has been described as “pro-rape” and running “the KKK of misogyny” has threatened to visit Australia, prompting widespread opposition.

Daryush Valizadeh, better known by his nickname Roosh V, has built a profile and a business around his controversial views on women, dating and feminism.

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Often classified as a “pick-up artist”, the 36-year-old owns and runs “neomasculine” blog Return of Kings.

The blog promotes controversial viewpoints including but not limited to: “A woman’s value significantly depends on her fertility and beauty.”

In the past, Valizadeh has condoned legalising rape on private property.

Return of Kings has amassed over 11,000 Twitter followers and more than 12,000 likes on Facebook despite its offensive content, which regularly denigrates women.

On Monday, Valizadeh claimed on Twitter he had booked a plane ticket to come to Australia following his announcement he planned to host face-to-face “tribal meetings” with his supporters in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane.

Although Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has alluded to a visa ban should Valizadeh apply for one, Valizadeh has hit back on Twitter, claiming “their borders are weak. I’ll get in”.

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Valizadeh has argued in the past that he’s had healthy, normal relationships with women, but these women are yet to emerge.

Rather, the only personal accounts about Valizadeh online are from women who have had negative experiences with him. Here are some of their stories.

A woman he allegedly targeted

Writer and feminist Aurelie Nix claims to have experienced the full wrath of Valizadeh when she began to plan a protest to ban him from entering Canada in 2015.

According to Nix, Valizadeh found some of her modelling photos online and proceeded to identify her on his social media accounts.

She then received a torrent of online abuse from his many fans.

“The rape and death threats, both on his forums, as well as on my social media accounts went on for a few months, pretty much all summer,” Ms Nix told The New Daily.

“The summer while that went down was very stressful, putting aside that I suffer from PTSD, I don’t think a lot of people would be entirely fine dealing with these kinds of threats, being humiliated online, and living under the constant possibly of an attack.

“Now that he is doing it again in Australia, my name has already been taken out again and I just home that I don’t and nobody goes through what I went through.”

While Ms Nix has never interacted with Valizadeh in person, she said this is often the case with the women he allegedly targets.

“As you can see, he rarely harasses women himself, but rather, sends people to do it for him.”

A woman he dated

In a February 2010 blog post, Valizadeh shared an email he had allegedly received from a woman he had been seeing.

While much of the email is too explicit to republish, the woman criticised Valizadeh for “wasting her time”.

“You’re a child-man,” the email read.

“My answer to your unimaginative, pathetically structured robot hate mode was to be soft and sweet to counterbalance. They say to hug a bully.

“You’re a clown. You wasted my time and nothing offends me more. Grow the f*** up and have real, adult friendships.”

A woman who interviewed him

In January 2015, feminist artist Angela Washko managed to organise a Skype interview with Valizadeh in an effort to understand his motivation.

Reflecting on the two-hour interview, Washko said the self-described “writer” had been cordial but ultimately disrespectful to her.

“Though mostly polite and extremely generous with his time, Roosh appeared unable to acknowledge that I might be qualified to think autonomously or be well-regarded in my field,” she wrote.

“It was clear that he perceived me as existing in a bubble removed from most of society. Consistent with his outspoken views on feminists, he assumed that I was a naive, inexperienced, and easily-led person who let some feminist propaganda I picked up in undergrad and on Buzzfeed shape my worldview, as opposed to years of research and projects.

“Ultimately, our roles reflected Roosh’s defensive engagement with the world at large – everything from my hair (too short) to my taste in men (too feminine) to my education (too much of it) was up for criticism even though the interview was intended to highlight his work, how he ended up in his field and how he ended up framing his experiences the way he has.”

Angela Washko spent two hours speaking to 'Roosh V' on Skype.

Angela Washko spent two hours speaking to ‘Roosh V’ on Skype.

A woman he hit on

Valizadeh made headlines in August 2015 when he visited Montreal in Canada as part of a six-city lecture tour.

During a night out at a bar, he was confronted by a group of angry women and men who threw beers in his face and told him he was not welcome in Canada.

Valizadeh later filed a police report and tweeted about his assailant’s “sexy legs”.

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The woman responded to his tweet in a Facebook post which has since been deleted.

“I am the woman with the ‘sexy legs’ and the pint of beer that so lovingly found itself in your face,” she wrote.

“You approached me on a side street and asked me to come into a bar with you. What you didn’t realize is that I knew exactly who you were the moment I saw you, and my efforts in confronting you that night were made much easier when you grabbed my waist and brought me into an empty bar. What you didn’t realize is that every bouncer on St-Laurent [Boulevard] was looking out for you.

“Did you really think that you would get away with what you have done? Did you really think that you could advocate raping women, threatening them and sharing their addresses and personal information online and not pay a price?”

The New Daily chose not to contact Valizadeh for right of reply to this story for this reason:
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If you are you experiencing sexual assault or domestic and family violence or seeking to support someone who is, call the national counselling hotline on 1800 737 732.

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