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.
@steph (i’ve just done it myself for the first time!)
{blockquote} put the quote here {/blockquote}.except replace the { } with the little v symbols next to the m on the keyboard if you get what i mean
Mags, Tom sent me an email today using the email address given publicly on his website, which referenced his comments here; it’s really him.
A) Great, it worked! Thanks!
B) Nuts, I must have done it wrong.
(please cross out incorrect sentence)
@pillowinhell, the bf made me two breakfasts this weekend, and took me to lunch! (I took him to lunch, too, but I don’t think that counts because men can’t be whores, obvs). But then — apologies for TMI — we actually did have sex, a couple of times. I thought it was about our love and attraction for each other, but I guess I was just paying him back for pancakes and yogurt and strawberries? With… the sex we both enjoyed? I wish I could pay for everything by enjoying things! It’s like going to the store and buying a bag of chips, but the store owner gives you $2.50! And also makes $2.50 themselves somehow! And the $2.50 is really hot sex!
I take back my previous nomination. Tom’s way too one-note; he’s just like B__don.
Tom, I agree with you about one thing: Whores are boring. If they’re all you ever talk about, ever.
@pillowinhell “Hey, I bought a new tank for my siamese fighting fish today.”
When I read that, I thought you must have some very aggressive fighting fish, before I realised you meant fish tank, not Panzer.
In other news, flu medication is awesome.
Jeez, I go off and study for my exam (that I have the day after tomorrow, orz), and I find the comment number has almost doubled in size. Well, best to make up for lost time.
Calling the Quran “the whoran” in a country where you could be arrested or killed for insulting Islam would qualify as a risk to personal safety (and *gasp*, it would be at least as much of a risk for women)
I get it, you reject the idea of patriarchy, but believe there is a social construct of oppression. You just want to make it women’s fault. After all, if those boring old prostitutes re-entered the “sex-free-zone” and prostrated their sexuality and lives to men willingly, everything would be peachy. After all, if a woman is at all selective with whom she chooses to have sex with, it makes her a whore.
Tom, you remind me of the bizarre lovechild of slavey and DKM. I keep waiting for you to talk about how people evolve “by type” and blame it on title IX or Hillary Clinton.
oops, “free-sex-zone” (although sex free zone also seems to be in line with his ideals)
Kyrie:
The Open University is one of the great British educational innovations of the last half-century/
There’s a good Wikipedia overview here – but, in a nutshell, it offers distance learning courses that allow people to study at degree level even if they can’t spare the time to enrol for a full-time course. Willy Russell’s play Educating Rita (best known in its film version with Julie Walters and Michael Caine) was entirely about the OU – indeed, it illustrates how it particularly benefited intelligent working class women (sorry, WHORES) like Rita, who otherwise would have spent their lives manacled to the kitchen sink. Despite making 90% of all the decisions in their relationship.
The OU now delivers course materials online and on DVD, but in the past lectures were broadcast by the BBC, usually late at night or at other unpopular times. These only ended in 2006, so if Tom’s vague citation is correct, he must have caught one of the very last broadcasts. They also passed into popular folklore – Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie famously mocked their somewhat ramshackle production values and uncharismatic presenters here:
So it’s a perfectly valid reference to cite – if only Tom had remembered such crucial details as the title and broadcast date. I’d also argue that it’s seriously misleading to call it “a BBC documentary”, since it wasn’t made by them and was broadcast at a time of day when the BBC channel in question (presumably BBC2) was effectively the OU channel. But I suppose “an Open University broadcast” doesn’t sound quite as impressive as “a BBC documentary”.
And I have to say that I’m pretty gobsmacked that Tom thinks that this vague suggestion of a program that he might have caught late at night when drifting in and out of sleep is a valid basis for a court case – where the quality of referencing has to be just as solid as that in academic research. Rather more so, in fact, because if the issue over the chairs had actually come to a hearing, Tom would have been expected to make a copy of the broadcast available – otherwise how could it possibly be admissible as evidence?
Good luck with that appeal, Tom – something tells me that you’re going to need it. And quite a lot more cash to add to your existing £37,000 bill.
Hi there
Long time reader, first time commenter here, but I really couldn’t let this pass
Hi Tom!
Remember me? I’m one of those whores who handed you your ass over at Butterflies and wheels before Ophelia kicked you for not being able to type comments without using the very word.
So, I see you have refined your theory why men are so totally discriminated against.
I see that you still haven’t learned about the first rule of holes: stop digging.
And you still haven’t learned what on earth the word “evidence” means.
Here’s a hint, it doesn’t mean “opinion” or “interpretation”.
It’s much closer to “fact”.
Also, the person making the positive claim is supposed to support that claim. Yes, that’s true in Arts and Humanities, too, not just in science.
So, yeah, if I claim that Shakespeare was actually a woman, or that the third planet on the left in Alpha Centauri is inhabited by savage rabbits, I need to back those up.
If I get 500 people laughing at me, that doesn’t prove my point.
The fact that many great advances in science and culture were made against the opposition of a large majority does not mean that anything that faces a large opposition is automatically true.
I’m not willing to donate to your legal funds (you’re keeping LSE’s lawyers happpy, I think), but maybe I can get a group of women together who’d be willing to make cushions and donate to you and your likes so we can make up for all the things we owe you (sorry, no free blow-jobs).
But I must say that you took the word “butthurt” and totally redefined it.
Sir Bodsworth
What? Well my name is pillowinhell of course I have a panzer over here! What else do you think I’d use, seeing as men are the weaker vessel and that feminism must be enforced through institutional violence? All those MRAs, so worried about a few police officers have no idea what they’re in for when I unleash my fighting fish!
Mwahahaha!!
But really, nice cold medication! =)
Back at work today, but just must note this:
Tom: Come on people. Admit, you didn’t know half this stuff. Whenever one of you says “citation please” its clear you’ve never heard it before. I
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
*GASP WHEEZE*
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Also, am I the only one who finds it frakking hilarious that he emailed David to make sure we all knew that yes, he IS that troll, not some other troll impersonating him. He wanted to CLAIM HIS WORDZ!
It was great hanging out here more, now back to WORK. SEe you at lunch time!
That’s a hypothesis in the same way that “whargl bargl turtle vapor” is a hypothesis.
Tom, men and women get a shitty deal because of a lot of factors. Class divides, racism, and gender are all factors, but one factor isn’t NO WOMAN IS EMPLOYED IN THE US BECAUSE MEN GIVE THEM ALL THEIR MONEY OMG.
Yes they both get a shitty deal (gender roles suck for everybody) , but not in whoriarhy, because that’s not a real thing.
@Tom:
This would be a more compelling argument if “culture” and “nationality” were interchangeable concepts, but as it just so happens, they aren’t. Also, I’m pretty sure that Muslim women in the UK do face significant barriers to gaining education and employment. Islamophobia is a very real phenomenon in the UK, and women wearing hijab make especially easy targets.
Somebody asked you this question earlier, but I’m going to repeat it, because I’d really like to see your answer: if you had a choice between being a Saudi Arabian man or a Saudi Arabian woman, and you were choosing solely on the basis of your own self interest (i.e., you don’t give a crap if your decision makes you complicit in the oppression of other people; you only care about what benefits you) . . . which would you rather be?
Okay douches. A quick recap:
1. I was right about the seating, and am still right about it – but it played no part in my sex discrimination lawsuit. Don’t believe anything you read in the Times on gender politics.
2. Muslim women are the biggest whores of all (and that’s a high bar).
3. If you want to learn how women elect men to positions of dominance. thus helping explain why what appears like ‘patriarchy’ is really a scheme for ‘backseat-driving’ female power, then read Men and Women in Interaction: Reconsidering the differences (Aries, E. 1996 Oxford)
4. “Whoriarchy” is not a perfect term, but a more accurate description of the state of affairs on gender relations everywhere than “patriarchy” – and a lot less glamorous.
5. Professional feminists are whores. This includes David Futrelle. His job is not to reflect accurately, but mock, so he is a delaying gatekeeper, attempting to exclude men’s equality debates, by making misleading representations about the men’s rights movement’s core values and goals.
Katz: So do we have a name for the class of troll that’s like “I’m totally trying to find common ground with feminists” and then they expect you to agree with something like “women are just naturally subservient to men” and then when you don’t agree they act like you’re being totally unreasonable?
I think that’s the Brandon Class Troll
Tom is much funnier than Brandon, though.
I’m laughing really hard right now, but I guess this answers our question as to whether or not men can be whores.
Since when is patriarchy glamourous?
You know, every time Martin shows up all I hear is “blah blah blah, something about whores, blah blah”
Seriously whoremaster, you have to do better than “I say so”.
Unless you’re just attention whoring, in which case carry on.
Huh, thanks but that really wasn’t necessary. O useful. Also, calling people ‘douche won’t help convey your message, and you seem to want to convince us.
I get it, not in the lawsuit. So what, we can’t talk about it? You keep argumenting for it, we keep laughing. Especially since you’re enable to show your only ‘proof’.
You do realize each time you use ‘whore’, we stop trying to make sense of your arguments? Well, at least I do. That’s such a lazy and inane argument! Again, your definition of whore is 99% of the planet, including us, and your explanation of why it’s bad to be a whore makes no sense!
I don’t know if you’re misrepresenting this book or if it is that terrible, and I don’t care. If you want to learn how (spoiler!) mouses are in control of the earth, which is really a big computer, read H2G2.
It’s offensive and it’s not real. And patriarchy is anything but glamorous.
How does that not include you?
Either you’re a genius, or it’s written in big letters at the top of this blog.
He quotes people. And give us the links (for context), that many of us do read. Pus the upvotes, wen they exist. That’s the opposite of misleading representation. Go on, how did he misrepresented you?
It’s possible to believe that men and women should be equal and make a living off of doing so? Where? I want in on this deal.
Also, is your operational definition of “whore” still a woman who refuses to have sex with men whenever and wherever they want? Doesn’t calling a man (David) that contradict your own definition?
*unable. Rahh, so much typos.
@Ithiliana:
I think it’s particularly hilarious because he’s spent months trolling around the Internet calling women (and apparently David) whores, revealing some totally baseless and ignorant beliefs about other countries, and so on; and he’s making sure it can be linked back to him, which makes all of it accessible to LSU’s lawyers. He might have toned the rhetoric down in court — maybe not called every woman at LSU or in the courtroom a whore — but that won’t mean much when he can be linked to the sort of things he’s said here and elsewhere.