Turns out VICE made a video about that Men’s Rights rally in Toronto. GO WATCH IT.
This is not an embedded video, so don’t click on it.
I don’t know how I missed it, but a couple of weeks back Vice posted a short video about that EARTH-SHATTERINGLY HISTORIC Men’s Rights rally in Toronto that captured the attention of the world a tiny fraction of a percentage of people in the world (including the people at it and readers of this blog) a little over a month ago.
Alas, WordPress won’t let me embed the video here, but you all need to go look at it. Not only does it capture pretty well what a dinky event it was, but it also contains a bunch of mini-interviews with some A Voice for Men folks that are rather revealing.
The most revealing one of the bunch starts about 2:40 into the video, when AVFM’s Suzanne McCarley explains that
Men, as a class, have never ever oppressed women, as a class. Men have always protected and provided for women. And protected them from oppression from others.
From others? What kind of others? Like, space aliens?
Women have never objected to this, and in fact have always been grateful because it’s how they survived. It is only in the last few hundred years when women of privileged class who don’t even know what they’re being protected from feel disadvantaged because they’re not comfortable with the level of protection they have.
Wow. A few hundred years? Sometimes people accuse MRAs of wanting to take us back to the 1950s. McCarley apparently wants to take us back to the 1750s.
They don’t even understand what they’re being protected from.
Wolves? Sharks? Dishpan hands? Space aliens?
They have no concept how dangerous the world is for them but gosh they’re just not happy because, you know, the males in the family tell them what to do and make all the decisions for them and control all the money. That’s not oppression. That’s protection.
Wow. So I guess slaves and prisoners are the most protected classes of all.
It’s what kept our species alive and what built … [she gestures at the park and the buildings around it] this beautiful city.
Wait. I thought Jefferson Starship built this city. On rock ‘n’ roll.
Anyway, there’s also some footage of a speech about the evil oppression of white men given by an unknown speaker at the rally. He also complains that men working for the government are men who’ve had “their things cut off and are toeing the politically correct line.” (Hopefully after the bleeding has stopped.)
There’s an interview with Paul Elam, who for some reason looks like he’s wearing mascara (which I’m pretty sure he isn’t). He delivers this puzzling pronouncement:
Looking at men in government and saying they have all the power is like looking at women in grocery stores and saying they have all the food.
Not only is this way more revealing about gender inequality than Elam may realize, but it’s also a tad ironic, because Elam not that long ago used (unreliable) data about how women “control” most consumer spending — that is, they do most of the shopping — in order to argue (twice!) that women were the ones primarily responsible for destroying the environment.
There are assorted other bits of misinformation and ignorance and just plain old bigotry from the MRAs.
There’s also some commentary from the counterprotesters that made me wince. No, MRAs aren’t all Marc Lepines waiting to happen. They’re shitty enough people as it is; you don’t have to compare them all to a misogynist mass murderer to make your point. And in fact, you undercut yourself with that kind of rhetoric. Focus on what they actually say and do. It’s bad enough.
And the “racist, sexist, anti-gay” chant? Drop that. MRAs are, for the most part, driven by misogyny — not by other bigotries. Yes, some are racist, including one of the speakers featured on this very video, but that’s not the driving force for most of them. Some are homophobic, but that’s not the driving force for most of them. Some are transphobic — including Elam himself – but that’s not a central issue for most of them.
It’s worth pointing out these other bigotries, but to make these issues the centerpiece of your counterprotest is to miss the point — it would be a bit like attacking the Ku Klux Klan as “sexist and racist.” I’m sure plenty of KKKers are sexist as hell, but with the Klan racism really is the main thing; with MRAs, misogyny is.
And in this case it gave AVFM’s Karen Straughan the opportunity to appear (at least for a moment) like a reasonable person by pointing out that she in fact is not straight.
Anyway, watch the video. It’s amazing.
Posted on November 2, 2013, in a voice for men, actual activism, antifeminism, evil women, FemRAs, FeMRAsplaining, GirlWritesWhat, imaginary backwards land, imaginary oppression, incoherent rage, ladies against women, men created civilization, misogyny, MRA, oppressed white men, paul elam, reactionary bullshit, Suzanne McCarley, things that aren't fascism, we hunted the mammoth and tagged a voice for men, antifeminism, men's rights, misogyny, MRA, toronto. Bookmark the permalink. 1,097 Comments.
Do you grant your solidarity to absolutely everyone, despite whatever basic, fundamental objections you might have with their methods and goals? Are all communists equal?
Your solidarity is worthless and meaningless in that case. You might as well stand with MRAs who share your views on communism and to hell with their bigotry.
You can act as paranoid as you like, BlackBloc, it doesn’t change things.
So you think we accept TERFs here, BlackBloc? Go fuck yourself. Damn, you are really being an unredeemable asshole here.
Considering the treatment of some ex-regulars because they were trans* or GQ, no, I do not think I have a reason to grant you this.
Fuck off, Black Bloc. If that’s what you want to think, go right ahead, but that is not what went down at all.
BTW, I thought you were gonna show solidarity and not post here any more. So much for solidarity, eh?
Oh fuck off, BB, seriously. You took “a principled stand” on that at the time, and then came back like nothing happened. You have no moral standing to raise that at this time. I didn’t raise this before out of kindness, but clearly that was misplaced.
(And to everyone else, it is much more complicated than BlackBloc is painting it. But in any case, it is completely hypocritical of him to raise it, only once it appears he is losing an argument but not before when he was apparently fine with the outcome.)
hellkell, you read my mind.
No, the painting thing, that wasn’t BlackBloc. Unless I have the wrong incident in mind, that was Mr “the world is not all tea scones and unicorns” ahostileDisneyworld, subject of one of my favorite Pierre comics to date.
*is watching all this unfold with bemusement*
I… I think I’ve lost exactly what this comment wreck is ABOUT. Not you, FeministBees, I get you. But the rest of this train has leapt the track.
And uh. If there were TERFs here, I’d be running for the hills.
>>>You took “a principled stand” on that at the time, and then came back like nothing happened. You have no moral standing to raise that at this time.
That is true and it makes me a bad friend but that’s for me and my actual friends to judge.
gillyrosebee: BB did do a drive-by comment about art vandalism, but I don’t think it was in the thread you’re thinking of.
Oh yeah, he’s going down the “All you ManBoobzers are homophobes and trans*phobes” bullshit route. Seen that before.
Amazing how it’s only the ex-MBs’ opinions on the site that count. None of the LGBTQ people who’re here now get to have a say in it; it’s all policing by people long gone, a few of whom, IIRC from what was in old threads, were being total assholes about other people, principally asexuals, and were pretty damn good at driving them off-site.
So yeah, BB, go fuck yourself with your assumptions about people on this site here and now, and claiming the high moral ground.
Oh no, BB, we can totally judge you for it too.
Especially since you’re just bringing it up to try and score points, which is seriously fucking tacky.
Got it, my bad.
gillyrosebee – it was when we were talking about the idiots in London who deface art to supposedly draw attention to what fine, hard-done-by fathers they are. BB was all “meh” about the damage done to the new portrait of the Queen, in a combination of sneering at it for being kitsch and for the subject. This was before Mr Rainbows, and drew a good bit of side-eyeing and questions (never answered) about how much art he would approve of destroying.
I suspect the conversation would have gone the same way, had it happened.
“>>>it doesn’t occur to you that they’re accepted regulars here, and thus NOT going to be TERFS
No, I simply do not think that that conclusion follows from the previous statement.”
*Dies* oh wow. You don’t think it obvious that anyone who came in here hating trans* people would be torn limb from metaphorical limb?
——
So, who wants to muse on Man Boobz: The Magazining? Or WP themes in general? I’m thinking greyscale with either red or blue. Preferences?
I like blue.
Hey, let’s ignore BB just like we’d ignore any other troll. (I know I’m guilty of not ignoring him.)
Can we get back to discussing how best to counter MRM-style bigotry?
Will you be designing it from scratch, Argenti? It’s not using a WP template, is it?
“Considering the treatment of some ex-regulars because they were trans* or GQ, no, I do not think I have a reason to grant you this.”
I really wish I’d been here for that. I’d have enjoyed telling those two that their GQ attitude left me feeling not trans* enough for them.
Note to the newer folks: it REALLY wasn’t as simple as that makes it sound. And claiming their treatment was due to their gender is disingenuous at best. Particularly since this genderqueer over here is good friends with people on the other side of that split.
Normally I love red but I think as a template it might get a bit hard on the eyes.
(Oh noes, more backsliding. Punish me, comrades.)
I say blue, but I really, REALLY like blue. <.< *has his wallpaper all done in shades of blue*
Besides pointing and laughing? The truth. Don’t know how that would work in person though, since MRAs seem to be impervious to dialog getting though to them.
Cassandra: stop throwing red under the bus, OK?
Under the template, maybe?
>>>I suspect the conversation would have gone the same way, had it happened
:-)
Right back atcha!
LOL I knew under the bus comments would be made when Argenti suggested red or blue!
How about combining ‘em and going for a softish purple, something in the aubergine range? Or would that be too dull? I don’t like reading red text much, at least not on something smaller than a main heading.
We should think about accessibility. Which color combinations might be hard for some people to read? Avoid those.
Excellent point.
Argh, I really need to get on with the vaccuuming. Back later.
Wow BlackBloc, are we fascists? Come on, make the case for that, or admit you’re being a teensy bit overly dramatic.
Kitteh — yep, I’m mostly done with the PHP and working on the CSS. Then *gags* spiffing it up with some JS. I hate JavaScript.
Hellkell — what very little has been colored so far is blue. I’m leaning towards blue, but idk, I do like red, and MBZ is red…
Vote stands at blue: 2; red: 0, as of my typing this.
Or are we Catholics?
It’s a little hard to tell, since BlackBloc hasn’t fully mansplained.
>>>Wow BlackBloc, are we fascists?
I thought the question was my view on art destruction?
Dark blue should be pretty legible on a pale background, even for colorblind folks, I think.
cloudiah: Fascist Catholics?
Good band name at the very least.
Background and such — very pale greys; text — black (#000 BLACK, not almost black); I find the not quite white easier to read than pure white. On that any fairly bright color is accessible. And yeah, I’m talking about heading and dividers and the like (scroll up to the sidebar, that sort of thing)
How much of the accent color will there be? A bit of red is good in that it makes those parts stand out, but too much tends to decrease readability ime.
Blue!
BlackBloc, great goalpost moving, I give you a 10/10.
Greyscale, absolutely. If red, I’d go crimson/cabernet. Or green, if it was an available choice. Not a big fan of blue, myself, unless we’re talking sapphire or royal blue.
The red can be a bit much, especially if you’ve been working on a computer all day. Bright white text is too much for my old eyes.
Very soft grey with black text is good; it’s less harsh on the eyes than black and white.
Maybe we’re Crypto-Fascist-Catholic Illuminati?
Bit awkward for a band name, tho’.
::returns to vaccuuming::
Hmm…darker probably is better, for reasons of contrast. Pale is right out.
And the color blind pairs are red-green, blue-orange and purple-yellow (your eyes have three types of color sensing cells, on/off is how you get 6 => billions of colors out of that, any one type fails, you loose one of the above pairs, no clue why red-green is so much more common)
Bright white tends to give some people headaches, so yay on avoiding that.
If “Crypto-Fascist” means “doesn’t realize I’m a fascist, been opposing fascists all my life” I guess I’m a crypto-fascist. THANKS, BLACKBLOC for mansplaining that to me.
I’m off to bed. Try not to throw each other under any conveyances.
*lose
Royal blue could work…
Cassandra — less than this theme uses — http://wordpress.org/themes/minimalizine — and ignore the weird thing with blog titles, I’m so not doing that. But I like parts of the layout, namely the way the date et al are handled. So pretty much the blue there, but that side bit will only have the links in blue (cuz links)
G’night!
And if anyone has anything they love/hate, now’s a good time!
I need to turn in too. My sleep schedule has wigged out over stress and moving and shit. Sleep well!
Avoid electric blue, that’s all I ask!
We could be Crypt-o-Fascists, the famous right wing goth band.
Personally I think the blue is a bit bright to look at much, but if it’s just the titles, it would probably be okay. If it were me, I’d darken it a bit, closer to the blue inside the boat. I’ve always found bright blues hard to look at for any length of time. Again, though, that’s just personal preference on my part.
Good night all! I need to finish packing for a little trip to Austin! (If things work out, I’ll meet hellkell!)
*dies*
Nighty night
Wait, cloudiah is a fascist now? Must have skimmed past that comment. Also, LOL.
How do you feel about the blue in the upper corners? I’m not sure if the bit inside the boat is a large enough area to sample the color from.
>>Maybe we’re Crypto-Fascist-Catholic Illuminati?
Random trivia:
The Bavarian Illuminati was anti-clerical and that was the whole reason why a small, brutally repressed secret society was later written up as some sort of boogeyman by a Jesuit ultramontain who accused the French Revolution (and later, the Russian Revolution) of having been fomented by them in an attempt to eliminate the Church and its political representative (the anointed French king).
A Catholic Illuminati member is therefore sort of nonsense, though I guess THAT’S WHAT THEY’D WANT YOU TO THINK.
>>>Wait, cloudiah is a fascist now?
I’m as confused as you are about that one.
I like it, actually. Sort of a teal, slightly green. Dark enough to be easily legible while still colorful.
The bit inside the boat?
Boat, what boat? Is that autocorrect Doing Things again?
Now really, good night. You’ll have to sort the mansplaining anarchist out on your own.
Kitteh — click my link above, and then click preview. There’s a boat.
Gillybeerose — then, unless someone has complaints, it’ll be either that color, sampled, or very close to it.
I’m just pointing out I did not say anyone here was a fascist.
Or thought it for that matter.
babbeaty: For instance, my boyfriend will always make sure when we crosses the street he is on the side of oncoming traffic. Because his body is made of steel, I guess.
I got this from my grandfather (my grandmother had a different habit, she always made sure she was to the left of people, because she was [until she was 82] blind in her left eye). He was a young man in the late 19th century, when sidewalks were less common, and streets weren’t paved.
He walked to the traffic side so that he could block the spray of mud.
If everyone thinks it’s going to be readable for the majority of people then I like that color.
Piss off, BlackBloc. Like cloudiah said, burned bridges, and tossing in trivia like nothing happened is the sort of nonsense trolls go in for.
Argenti, ta, will check!
Yup, like that colour. Teal rather than straight-out bright blue is good (my monitor is very blue-tinged so I’m trying to allow for that).