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.
*obfusticator of ass equality discourse
DAMN YOU TOUCHPAD!
“It’s not like teaching the sun revolves around the earth to elementary school children.”
LOL I meant, “It’s not like teaching the earth revolves around the sun to elementary school children.
I also made some other mistakes. I wrote this in a rush and in a fury.
Men don’t need proof! they are right because they say so!!
Personally, I see the fight as a double-edged sword. One the one side, serrated teeth, sharp as knife-points, impossible to forget and impossible to ignore. War, child custody, prison rape, they’re examples of teeth. The other side of the sword is wavy, rounded, dulled. That side represents the culture that we are “soaking” in, every hour of every day.
Now, true, the waves of injustice might be softer, less immediately alarming- but in the end, they are just as important, because it is the wavy side that really promulgates prejudice, normalizes it. Not everyone experiences the teeth; as men, we all experience the waves. I salute the Tom Martins of the world for learning to swim. Or at least buying a life jacket. 😉
Oh I see! It is we who are the whores which you describe! Oh no!
Well, not actually oh no, since I have no problem with sex work; but I’m not interested in working in that industry personally. So, Tom, what can I do to not be a whore? Don’t just tell me what not to do (be a feminist, have men offer me gifts [which I don’t even know how to control, by the way — is it good enough if I don’t accept?]) but tell me what I should actually do when I’m interacting with straight men, particularly straight men who I’m attracted to or vice versa. How do I make the cost of sex zero? Kthxbye!
This is another one of those threads that makes everyone mistype.
Men Under Siege may win for best metaphor, though. This sword, I presume? (It is a pretty badass sword.)
I’d like to see the faces of those students (especially the ones who gave you money) after hearing some of the shit you told us.
Another pressing question: Once you’re a whore, can you ever be un-whorified? This is important! If you can, women might theoretically do what Tom says to move from the “bad” camp into the “good” camp. But if, as I rather suspect, you can’t, then we’re all just people Tom is pissy at and it doesn’t really matter what we do with respect to him.
His name is David Futrelle, not Manboobz
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IAmNotShazam
Well, when I say “Manboobz”, I am referring to all the contributors in aggregate- I have read beyond this one thread.
Dude, I’m a single lady who supports myself by working. Men don’t even buy me drinks, and I *still* think you’re full of crap.
Technically, Manboobz is David’s pseudo on reddit…
Men Under Siege: I think the most used is ‘manboobzers’ for the whole of manboobz’s commenters.
All badly overblown by you ahistorical, hysterical nitwits? The lattermost is a problem that needs to be ended, yes, the formermost is not really a threat for men in the western world, the middle is not really a problem (Not that fathers should be denied custody, since you idiots make a habit of misunderstanding things, but that men are not systematically denied custody and actually have a pretty good deal if they’re actually willing to contest for custody).
Men have primacy and pride of place in effect. If the culture that is fucking run by you, in a very real sense, is what you call ‘prejudice’ against you, I’ll trade you, any day of the week. You don’t know what prejudice on gender is.
MUS: So, women never experience waves or cutting bits, eh?
And supporting and promoting the self-centered -and blatant money-grab- of an obvious charlatan like Martin is going to help these issues… how?
At any rate, catching up on this thread has been absolute comedy-gold! For far too long the new trolls have been like Amateur Night at the Apollo up in this piece. This guy? This guy is stupid as hell and entertaining. I really feel like I’m getting my money’s worth.
Which, incidentally Martin, makes you a WHORE!
So much for caring about equality on the other side. Tom martin is not really someone worthy of being saluted, he seems to think hard chairs are the worst oppression of men. Plus he isn’t really pro human rights for women with his whole “women are all whores” thing.
uhuh? I have read beyond this thread as well and no one here calls us all “manboobz” except trolls who are trying to patronize us. “you all” or “manboobians” at least imply we aren’t the same person.
A life jacket made of the word “whore”.
Some of you are showing a few more encouraging signs of humanity.
I’m asking feminists in particular to renounce prostitution in all its forms.
In my opinion, any woman who does that and sticks to it, is a keeper.
I mean, there are women who have become really great at their jobs, and they’re earning more than their male partners, and they’re so engrossed in their interesting public lives, that they’ve inadvertently allowed their male partners to do more of the childcare etc. They’ve inadvertently relinquished prostitution, but they are usually somewhat complainy about the fact the man can now have more of a caring role etc, so they haven’t ideologically renounced prostitution, but are rather, ruing the loss. That’s not good enough.
It is my estimation, that as little as 3% of women have actually made a conscious decision to treat men as equals, never expect any money from men, and actively promote more egalitarian gender roles (rather than begrudgingly suffer them), by celebrating the less worky roles afforded men.
I’ve had these kinds of conversations, where the woman is all like “men should definitely pay on the first date” for instance, and then after a bit of explanation from me, about how that makes her a baby and a whore, she’ll end up snapping “Alright, I will buy YOU a beer, if you’ll just shut the fuck up.” to which I respond “Can I just have the money instead”, because it’s not just the action of behaving in an equal way, it’s the attitude as well.
From a straight male perspective, the potential mate pool is quite full of hypergamous gold-diggers and prostitutes, the stand up egalitarian women few and far between, so yes, not only should women renounce prostitution in all its forms, but they should buy the T shirt or get the tattoo as well or something.
Just like it being polite to inform someone first if you have a social disease, you should inform someone first if you are a gold-digger/whore/housewife wannabe etc.
But then, there are a lot of women who swear blind they’re not whores who are – so some kind of renouncement on their part, where they’re putting a bit of heart into it, might be in order. Maybe an fMRI lie detecting brain scan certificate to show you’ve passed the test.
But if fems just want to go with “I can’t believe you think women are whores. How misogynistic” then its really falling well short of the mark – given women’s woeful track record in this department so far.
So come on then, who is going to be the first to renounce prostitution in all its forms?
Given how he was shilling for small change in his documentary, I think we can conclude that (in his parlance, not mine) Tom Martin is a cheap whore.
Tom, why would women (or anyone) want to be “good enough” for you? We’re good enough for everyone else in the world.
not me! you still have not proven its bad!
Also, again, can men be prostitutes?
Nobinyamu, if you had read my whole comment, you’d know that do not classify Martin’s activism as a serious human rights issue. Of course not. Nonetheless, it is my firm belief that all injustice must be challenged, because it all- no matter how minor- reinforces our current culture against men.
We need to learn to “swim in the waves”, as it were. Martin is an instructor.
I don’t call myself Man Boobz. The Man Boobz of the title are the misogynist dudes I write about. There are also Lady Boobz like girlwriteswhat, but there’s no pun involved there so I don’t really refer to them as that.
This is the sort of problem that poor Dr. Frankenstein had with his monster.
I suppose I shouldn’t post on Reddit as manboobz, but I figured that was the easiest way to identify who I was, and at this point it would be silly to switch that.
The non-troll commenters are generally referred to as Manboobzers.
Also, I spell it with a Z because manboobs was already taken on blogspot, where I started this blog, and as a url.
As an academic and feminist, I clearly am a whore.
But my partner is a woman.
Again, Tom, you show a clear lack of information about feminism and gender studies!
QUEER WOMEN EXIST! (But are still whores, i.e. professional feminists.)
Tom, you’re begging for money on your website, you big WHORE!!!
I’m not renouncing anything, you silly wingnut.