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.
Today I have learned that begging for donations does not make you a whore if you are not a woman.
http://sexismbusters.org/Line%20by%20line%20analysis%20of%20text%201.pdf
Well according to this it appears his main issues is “what about teh menz???”
So Tom, everywhere I read I see you saying you don’t have time to “unpick” whatever is being argued.
“Tom Martin | September 23, 2011 at 8:51 pm |
I’m in pre-production for a video now, so don’t have time to unpick your comments one by one.
In the meantime, renounce prostitution in all its forms, and I’ll get back to you with a video by Thursday of next week.”
http://toomuchtosayformyself.com/2011/09/17/tom-martin-the-lse-and-the-missing-minister/#comment-9078
And on the BBC interview too, you waste time saying you don’t have time.
How is that video coming along? Love to see it!
Warning: the link goes to a collection of images showing how representations of women’s bodies are used in men’s bathrooms as urinals, toilets, sinks, etc.
So, Tom, I’m sure given your sensibility to posters that you plan to condemn this sort of thing, right?
http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/03/10/more-urinals/
If Tom Martin (or anyone else) can supply the actual title of this BBC documentary, and if it was broadcast in the last few years, there’s a pretty good chance that I can track down a copy.
Ithiliana–link’s broken, darn it.
Found: http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/?s=urinals
@FelixBC: thanks–don’t know what happened with the blasted link, but it’s happened before with that site.
Also, Tom does have a video up of interviews (?) he claims he did with LSE students on his web page (which is nothing but a GIMMEMONEY to fight my great groundbreaking suit to ensure quality education for men and boys in future) on the face of it.
Also: as a friend asked, did Tom try to put up posters for men’s programs in the Common Room and where they then torn down, which might be discrimination (depends on nature of the posters–I imagine any saying “Talk on Men’s Rights: All Feminist Faculty are Whores” would not fly……)
10 bucks says that the BBC documentary ran off somewhere with that Harvard study and they’re both raising wonderful baby totally factual documentaries somewhere out there
Tom in the comments on the video with LSE Students.
@TheZajac123 You don’t become a woman by becoming a whore. Should be a certificate required to be officially designated ‘woman’, where every 10 years you have to establish to the rest of humanity you haven’t been leaching off any men. In return for passing the test, non-whore real women should only then be entitled to same tax code as men, otherwise, if a whore, it’s a higher tax code, with national service thrown in. Whores to the back of the line (except front lines). It would get my vote.
sexismBusters 23 hours ago
Can anyone watch that thing and report back? Too bad he doesn’t say he’s going to interview any of his former classmates. The video starts with him declaring what he’s going to hear (It’s a man’s world, so sexism against men is fine.) Doesn’t all research work that way, by declaring what you’ll find in advance?
Hey, I embedded a video! I win an internet for my awesome html skillz. (copy paste)
Shadow:
Well, I’d be very happy to provide independent verification. Which I imagine Tom Martin would jump at, given all the pointing and laughing and cruel mockery that he’s been enduring up to now.
Please remember that he’s British*, and therefore a sensitive wilting plant hiding behind that ramrod-stiff upper lip that he’s been sporting in public.
(*As am I, so I can say that).
@Wetherby: I did some google searches for BBC documentary plus various search terms I thought might be useful–horrifying results….resulted, nothing to do with ANYTHING.
So my skillz failed–but yeah, I’ve noticed Tom has a stunnng pattern of never giving a citation to anything he….cites. Academic fail, to the max.
And you don’t have to have a master’s degree to know you should cite sources, do you?
My undergraduates learn it pretty darn fast.
Ithiliana:
Yeah, I couldn’t find anything either. But my offer is open, and serious.
@Wetherby
As someone who considers London a home away from home, I take umbrage at conflating any of Tom’s personality with my beloved Brits
@felix
I watch! I’m just waiting for him to start talking about “whores”.
hahaha people in the video are like whatever weirdo when he is passing out those pamplets XD
Also none of the people he interviewed agree with him (he seemed to think people would) so because he did not get the result he wanted he complained about it in subtitles.
Is this suppose to be the documentary? I’ve never seen annoying author commentary via subtitles when someone says something they disagrees with. It looks immature and unprofessional.
He made a weird comment like the pay gap exists but only because women discriminate against men?
Every couple of minutes he also advertises for his site. XD
He has a list of “discrimination against men” that scrolls by quickly but pause if it for the lulz you see some interesting things. Like “men are discriminated against because people blame them for women’s anorexia”, “men’s must fight 12×3 minutes each round and women 10×2” “90% of males are awarded patents, yet men are portrayed negatively”, “childbirth’s risks are exaggerated to block men’s contributions in debates” Yeah such great discrimination!
Surprisingly no talk of whores!
Yes, you’d at least have expected ‘WHORES!’ to pop up in text boxes, considering all the other uses he finds for them. It would liven up the talking-heads bits no end.
That’s what he’s got on discrimination against men?
I guess his whore theory must be for advanced classes then.
I’d love to see his little “are you a whore test”
Hey Martin, where’s that test?? I’d like to take it please!
@Felix:
None of the women he speaks to say that at all, but he probably still considers himself the victor
You should at least skip to the 5:00 mark for his laughable list of lists that show anti-male discrimination. Here are some highlights:
Boxing – Men must fight 12×3 rounds, women only 10 x2
Civilzation – 90% of patents awarded to men, yet men portrayed negatively
Dress codes – Neckties typically compulsory for male employees only
Koran – Decries that women are weak and so should be provided for by men (because clearly there’s nothing misogynistic about that!)
This is by far my favorite:
Porn – Female porn stars can choose male co-stars, but males get no choice
He lists one or two ‘sources’ after each line. I don’t feel like checking all of them but one is a link to an MRA’s Youtube video so I’m guessing the others are equally as reputable.
TM is probably wriggling in his chair, hugging himself and weeing a bit with glee right now at all the attention he’s getting on the net. Too bad he doesn’t understand it’s the kind of attention you give a toddler who’s throwing food in a restaurant.
I engaged with his drivel on Cath Elliott’s blog last year – we in the UK were waiting amusedly for the result of his ludicrous lawsuit, and I’m so pleased for him that he finally had his day in court. Bless!
Geesh! If this is what Martin thinks of as critical thinking and high standards of academic rigour then I would like to know where my PHD is and when the folks form the Nobel awards will be calling me.
I’ve written shopping lists better researched, organized and presented than his crap.
I tried to look up the BBC documentary and found one about women with large breasts which sounded interesting, but nothing about butt size.
Hey Tom, riddle me this: The BBC totally misrepresented you. So how do you trust them to correctly represent butt sizes?
Wow! What a steaming pile of propaganda! What’s more unbelievable is how YouTube guzzles it all down!