Tom Martin, a former gender studies student at the London School of Economics, recently became a minor celebrity amongst Men’s Rights activists and other angry men when he sued his alma mater for alleged sexism against men.
He’s now had his case thrown out of court. Let’s go to the Camden New Journal for details:
Tom Martin, 39, who lives in Covent Garden, claimed he suffered “anti-male discrimination” while studying for a master’s degree in gender, media and culture at the world-famous university in Holborn.
Representing himself at his application for a trial at the Central London County Court on Tuesday, Mr Martin complained of a lack of men-only sessions in the university’s gym and the preponderance of posters in the corridors advertising services for women without the presence of similar materials geared towards men.
Mr Martin, who describes himself as a feminist, said “hard” chairs in the library were uncomfortable for men and that a “male blaming culture” was evident in course materials, which “ignored men’s issues” and focused on wrongs done by them.
Damn those misandrist chairs and their man-hating hardness!
The judge didn’t buy it, saying Martin’s case had essentially no chance of success. He threw out the case and ordered Martin to pay LSE’s legal costs.
Martin, welcome to reality.
On Twitter, Martin responded to the news by calling his critics “whores.” One of many examples:
But I was really discriminated against, you whores!
And, yes, his Twitter handle is indeed Sexismbusters.org.
EDITED TO ADD: Actual headline today on What Men are Saying About Women:
EDITED AGAIN TO ADD: Tom Martin has replied to this post in the comments. Some highlights:
My legal complaint did NOT involve a complaint about the seating. You have been misled by the press – The Times and the West End Extra/Camden New Journal both mysteriously got it wrong.
One year prior to joining the university, when visiting its library, I did complain, that the seating being hard created a greater disadvantage for men than for women, as men have considerably smaller weight-bearing buttock pads than women, and men are heavier too – so for men, on average heavier than women, have more weight bearing down onto a pad which is approximately four times smaller than women’s on average – according to a BBC documentary on the subject.
He then details his attempts to fight this grave injustice. Also, there’s this:
[S]everal comments here are confusing ‘whore’ with ‘slut’. A slut has sex freely, which I am all for. Freedom of association is the ultimate in humanity. A whore charges for sex. Even if a woman is a virgin, but is waiting for Mr Right to buy her something, she’s a whore.
It’s counter-intuitive, but a lot of professional feminists are whores. They expect the government and men to do them special favours. They make up stories to convince men and government to believe that we all owe women something.
But really, if someone were keeping a tab, then…
Women owe men five years pension.
Women owe men some National Service.
Women owe men some inventions.
Women owe men positive discrimination in university curricula.
Women owe men some child access.
It’s women’s round at the bar too.
For the whole thing, see here.
For more charming quotes from Tom, see this post on the blog Butterflies and Wheels.
So I was just at the gas station and my friend bought me a drink because I didn’t have my wallet with me.
OH THE JOYS OF WHOREDOM
I’m thinking Jeff Foxworthy will have a whole new act if he reads this thread.
Whore new*
“No sale. Good bye.”
I believe this is what the judge said to Tom Martin, once he stopped laughing, and laughing, and laughing.
Then he offered him a cushion.
For those who like a good belly laugh at Camille Paglia’s expense, here is the always brilliant (and unfortunately, late) Molly Ivins on everyone’s favourite anti-feminist (pdf)
That…is the most beautiful flounce I’ve ever seen. 10/10.
TOM FOR TROLL OF THE YEAR!
Wasn’t he the one making the pitch in the first place?
@Mags
Lolll wtf? U get jackasses like that often?
Win.
Hm… if I give my boyfriend flowers, can I be a reverse whore?
I should get extra points for that.
Holy crap, that was some of the worst arguments in the history of arguments! My favorite: prostitutes are boring. Unproven, unprovable, whether causality or simply correlation and if absolutely true, wouldn’t mean anything.
Though I must say the Nobel prize is good too. Incidentally, there is no Nobel Prize for frivolous lawsuits or for the more creative use of ‘whore’, and there is also none for most jobs.
I did a review of Paglia’s first essay collection when it came out, 20 years ago (I’m old):
http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/reading-tales-of-two-narcissists/Content?oid=881042
@ Tom Martin
Like all MRAs, you are obsessed with “shaming”. Don’t you realize, though, that you are acutely aware of being shamed because your views are shameful?
You are part of a hate movement. That’s a hate movement as defined by an organization that have been defining hate movements for decades. Belonging to, and supporting, a hate movement is worthy of shame.
Feminism has been dubbed a hate movement by a disparate movement that actually is a hate movement.
You are a prominent member of a hate movement and you have further dragged that hate movement into disrepute by your inane, nonsensical law suit.
You are the reason the MRM is doomed to fail. You represent the best and the brightest of the MRM – and your rambling, un-referenced, delusional theories (typical of the MRM) show that you’re really not that bright and your best efforts are pathetic.
Any political movement (and I use the term very loosely) that had suffered the (well deserved) public rebuking the MRM has had over the past week or so would begin a process of self reflection.
The MRM won’t, because it exists not to further the rights of men, but to channel the anger and inadequacy of MRAs. You can’t dispute this, it’s the truth.
What has the MRM done for men in general? Nothing.
What has the MRM done for MRAs? Nothing, given them a tiny corner of the internet to congregate and spout venom. And that’s it.
Nope, you didn’t try at all, not until you admit that men have just as much responsibility for the system as women do.
Magdelyn said:
“I doubt any of the ladies on this thread are whores. You know your a whore when you get an email like this (which I did just yesterday):
“So final time I’m gonna ask. Will pay you to milk my cock with your sphincter. Will wear protection. Will pay you more for good blowjob and swallow.””
Bloody hell, that’s foul!
Just caught up with the thread and can’t atop laughing. I must read his ebook. Maybe Kladle can illustrate it.
Tom’s core argument seems to be WHORES BAD.
No sale? OK.
I am Nthing the shocked reactions to this.
Just in case you actually think receiving emails like this actually makes you a whore, let me say: You bear no responsibility for receiving emails like this. Some men are just assholes. Some people approach sex as a contest of power. You did not make them so.
That was one of the most entertaining new trolls I’ve seen here in a while. We need more of these and less like Roberta.
I know this has been torn apart by dozens of people more capable then me, but I can’t resist.
I’ve heard a similar argument about food, water, and shelter (and it was obviously less gender divided). This assumes that sex is something men (since of course, there are no women who want sex, and no women whom will ever struggle to find or get it…zie said sarcastically) should have as a human right, and it reduces women to a commodity for the sake of meeting said “right” for men.
Yeah…no. I’m sure it happens to some, and it may have happened to them regardless of their chosen profession. I know of at least one sex worker whom actually said her body had become more receptive toward stimulation that would result in orgasms, and she came about them more easily.
What is this free sex zone? It sounds like a level in a porno version of sonic the hedgehog.
I just quoted this because it’s the absolute nadir of your argument. I can’t fathom why people working a specific job would automatically be “boring.”
If there was a Nobel Prize for unintentionally amusing trolls, I would nominate you, because this is comedy gold right here.
Also, this may shock you, but I am pretty sure male sex workers exist. Furthermore, I am confident that there are women who have hired sex workers (and not necessarily just the male ones). Then again, what do I know.
As far as I can tell, there are only two ways for women to stop being whores according to martin. They are as follows: cease existing or create a parallel society where men and women have zero interaction. I don’t know where this would land him as sex is apparently a god given right for men, but there you have it.
I think Figleaf needs to add another rule to the Two Rules of Desire: only men actively give or nurture a relationship. Women just look for things to take, never giving anything of value in return, especially material goods.
I think my favorite bit about Tom is how he seems to think that once you become a sex worker, the only sex you’ll have is for work.
I also can’t remember the last time I saw people competing in order to be able to pay for a sex worker o.O. Where do you get your ideas from dude, and do they take requests?
@Quackers: Read the Molly Ivins review (linked by TheCatFromOuterSpace), and David’s own review, and you’ll have a good sense of Paglia. Re-reading the Ivins and reading David’s, I’m like damn, she was an MRA before there were MRAS (she thinks she was an Amazon, excuse me, feminist, before there were feminists).
@TheCatFromOuterSpace: Thanks for the link–I remember reading that when it first came out, and it’s quintessential MOlly (ANYTHING she ever wrote or recorded is incredible), and she certainly skewers Paglia AND the New York intellectuals as brilliantly as she did Shrub.
@Tom: you flounced! You have no staying power! You announce you are doing a book with experimental psychology (O RLY?), and then “no sale” (meaning you behave like the ideal whore and don’t charge us? Or you’re fleeing this space in horror–I mean, srs, I read the shizfest you did on Butterflies blog, and you didn’t get anywhere NEAR that here–is it because you can no longer say “thus, the court case” given the way a TOTALLY MALE judge tossed you out on your ass?).
Of course, we not get to see if Tom can in fact maintain the flounce………
Oh, honey, sometimes my labia fall asleep even on non-wooden chairs!
googling around on Tom’s case (hey, last day of spring break, I’m still avoiding work!):
A copy of the student newspaper’s (LSE) account of the suit way back in 2009 it was:
http://sexismbusters.org/Beaver%20article.pdf
50,000 POUNDS! For hard chairs, and six weeks of man-blaming materials.
wow.
Up next: lounge jazz meets anti-feminist feminist theory in our special feature, Lou Rawls’ Blue Balls.
I like how he was offered and accepted a full refund.
And I’m looking forward to his book! I’m sure its arguments have never been presented in such detail or with such care.
Sorry, couldn’t resist. XD
From the Butterflies and Wheels thread, here’s Tiny Tom, King of the Feminists, on the subject of honour killings:
Responsibility for this sorry state of affairs lies primarily with the queen whore mother, then the obedient father, the wannabe whore daughter, and finally, the blamed for everything son.
Yes, Tom’s little blame list has the victim (who is, natch, a ‘whore’) placed higher than the murderer.
IOW, Tom is a pile of shit in ten-dollar shoes.
Here’s Tom Martin responding to a commenter on Butterflies who is asking him if the girls who are forced into arranged marriages are also whores:
“The closest anyone here has got to winning the argument, is by pointing to underage females in arranged marriages – passing it off as forced rape.
Well those under-age girls still understand the meaning of consent (unless of course they’re marxist victim-feminists) and they definitely understand the value of marriage gifts – as do the mother whores who arrange these skanky little contracts.”
Ophelia bans him soon after, when “whore” turns out to be some sort of verbal tic he can’t stop using, along with the stupid colour codes of shame.