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.
Tom, what does “whore” mean to you?
To me, it means a person who receives money directly for having sex. (Although it’s a rude word, and I think it’s both more polite and more clear to say “sex worker.” But if people want to describe themselves that way it’s their prerogative.)
To you, it seems to encompass:
1. Women who have sex and get anything whatsoever from their male partner, even if it’s clearly not payment for sex, even if they also give things to their male partner.
2. Women who get treated decently by men, whether or not they have sex with those men.
3. Women who get things just generally from society, like welfare or the protection of the law, whether or not they have sex.
4. Women who don’t really get anything, and also don’t have sex, but they’re all womany.
Admittedly category 4 is somewhat theoretical as every woman receives some protection of the law in developed nations.
I guess my question is–short of going off to live in a cabin, how can a woman un-whore herself?
Do you have any concept of what the word “whore” means or are you just a toddler who learned a naughty word to use to get lots of attention and make the grownups make a big fuss?
You know, there are words that indicate “bad person whom I disagree with” besides whore.
When the bad person whom you disagree with doesn’t actually have sex for money, it might be less confusing to use one of those other words.
@Tom:
Aries’ central argument appears to be that the supposed differences between masculine and feminine modes of communication are largely an artifact of confirmation bias; all other things being equal, women are perceived as being less authoritative and more emotional than men, simply because this what we have been socialized to expect. Aries does acknowledge that gender roles hurt men as well as women, although this is hardly a fringe position — virtually all feminists would agree with her. However, I don’t see anything to suggest that she buys into your theory of whoriarchal oppression. From her concluding chapter:
In short, I don’t think Aries is saying what you think she’s saying. And I suspect that if she learned you were using her name to bolster the credibility of your odious crackpottery, she’d find herself in dire need of a stiff drink.
Kyrie:
Especially not since we know that you don’t have an American accent, and “douche” as an insult is pretty much exclusive to the other side of the Atlantic from where you reside.
Not that I’m saying you should switch to “blighters” or “rotters”, but something slightly more convincing wouldn’t hurt.
Tom… The fuck? Women owe men money because you think they are whores?
Your list makes some huge leaps. Women owe men some National Service (long abandoned) because what? Some men didn’t get laid?
Inventions? Really? Who created the distaff? Who invented the wheel? Who discovered that one could plant seeds, rather than just go out and collect them? Who figured out how to turn yarn into cloth?
Prove that it was men, then prove that women were charging sex for it.
That’s completely ignoring that, if women were “withholding sex” that, as free actors in a market based equation they have perfect liberty to so decide what basis of exchange they choose to require for their activities.
As such, the use of, “whore” in the perjorative sense you apply it fails. Not only that you are demanding that women be compelled, in some way, to give sex to men (as a class, as opposed to the free choice of an individual person), which is far from a “free and open market”.
It seems that, no matter what economic school you pretend to follow, the best course of action for you would have been to continue your studies until 1: you had some actual grasp of an implemented discrimination against men (which from your complaint seems to be unfounded. I wish I could find a book to take my bet on your losing your appeal, but the ROI is pathetic), and 2: had actually acquired some grasp of the principles of economics so that your, laughably pathetic claims, could at least be dressed more believably to anyone who has any comprehension of the way things actually work.
In re the claim of breach of contract… a contract is a reciprocal agreement, in which one party, for due consideration (services or payment) agrees to provide to the other some service or payment. If you don’t have something on the part of LSE which says they intended to 1: undertake some specfic change in the seating, and that you were going, in some way, to exchange a good, service, or dedicated monies to that end… there was almost certainly no contract.
Ah yes, the numerical-list style of debate, whereby one puts numbers in front of his unproven, stupid-ass points and is immediately granted an air of credibility. Also see: It rhymes, WOW it suddenly makes sense now; and Alliteration = validity.
Oh, Tom. We don’t have to mock you. You’re doing a fine job of that on your own. Is it stupidity or performance art? One can only marvel.
Wait. wait wait wait… I’m scrolling up reading comments backwards and I see in a block quote,
“Muslim women are the biggest whores of all.”
wat.
If that doesn’t demonstrate that you’re using that word -whore- in such a way that renders it irrelevant, then you are beyond help, hope and reason.
How is someone a “bigger” whore, anyway? Seems like you have sex for money or you don’t.
Is a bigger whore one who works more hours, or charges lower (or higher? I don’t even know which one we’re supposed to despise more) prices? That’s kind of funny phrasing. I don’t call someone “the biggest waiter” because they work long hours at a restaurant.
Maybe it would help if Tom stopped using “whore” interchangeably to mean “sex worker” and “bad naughty wrong person,” because right now I am so confused.
Not half as confused as he seems to be. I bet the judge had problems keeping a straight face when he threw the case out.
Damn… I think I missed out on the serious fun. I particularly liked his copypasta of a comment he’d already made to us.
He’s not got the staying power of an NWO, nor the wideranging scope of planned oppressions against all who don’t look like him of a DKM (the Gorean fantasies may be present… the obsession with the maximalisation of his gluteal comfort is implicatory), but in the short time of his mayfly-like flowering (all awash in the colors of the “code of shame”) he’s been the best of the contrarian gits we’ve had in ages.
How…did Tom explain how the “setting the price down to zero” thing would work? I mean, clearly this goes beyond the dating scene, apparently replete with “whores” (http://rob.nu/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/4d2ba3f0fff241f83f5182c279c12bc4.gif), but he does comment on actual prostitution, as well, doesn’t he? So, sitting in my hard chair, maybe my man-ass keeps me from thinking of the right answer, but how does the banishing of prostitution by making it “free” work? Does he think sex workers will still have sex with the same men but not take any money? Or is the theory that women artificially restrict the, um, sex market by not having all the possible sex they could have. Is there a council that doles out sex to men? Oooh, all the possibilities! They could have a large headquarter where they plan their nefarious sex deeds (or lack thereof). Please please please let that be Tom’s theory. But really, what’s his theory?
Sadly I can’t read the full pdf because it’s behind a pay wall. However, the small descriptions I’ve been able to ferret out via google present that study as nothing more than evidence that once people are comfortable doing something they start performing their gender roles when communicating with other people.
How do you get women doing backseat-driving out of that?
It’s no wonder your case was thrown out of court. You can’t back up anything you say. And the fact that you’re using a study that’s almost 20 years old is pretty damn ridiculous.
I know I really enjoyed myself. It’s so rare that I even get the chance to follow a thread in “real time” anymore; this has been an absolute hoot.
So what’s the contraception and abortion prevention, if it isn’t patriarchy? The pay gap, the hiring and promotion gaps, the good ol’ boy’s clubs? Hint: Just because you say it isn’t a patriarchy isn’t going to make it so.
Statement assumes facts not in evidence.
…Oh, you must have heard that a lot already, right after the word “Objection”.
I know this has been said a lot already, but I think you are confused as to what the term ‘whore’ means.
Seriously, this idiot should go out drinking with Frank Miller.
Some day these guys will understand that when they accuse women of “backseat driving,” they’re implicitly admitting that men are in the front seat, holding the actual wheel.
But then again I’m getting whiplash by all the veering between “men are oppressed, and we just want equality” and “men are in charge because we deserve it.” Pick one, dudes.
Polliwog: Am I reading this wrong, or is your argument seriously “prostitution should be eradicated by making prostitutes fuck anyone who asks for free”?
You are reading it wrong. He thinks the way to eliminate prostiution is for every woman to fuck any man who asks her.
Anything else is prostitution, because the woman has gotten something, sometime, somewhere, which a man, somewhen, somewhere, invented, built, bought or grew.
Tom: I have clearly stated that you get to choose your sex partners. more freely when you’re not a whore.
No, you didn’t. You said any women who accepted anything from a man (even if that man was long dead, and it was merely the benefit to society that the dead man’s contribution continued to generate) was a whore.
If it was a virgin who was waiting for, “Mr. Right” before she had sex, she was a whore.
Which means, QED the only way for women to avoid whoredom is to fuck any man who wants to fuck them.
That you have failed to follow your own logic to it’s only conclusion; and are upset that others have… I think the word, old bean, is twit.
Tom Martin does, as represented, appear to be a prize pillock – but I stress “as represented”.
If the following is true:-
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.
Then I think he has a genuine gripe. Whether it’s grounds for litigation, or whether he should have expected it given the nature of the course, I don’t know (that snippet doesn’t say if there were women-only gym sessions, and in fairness it should), but being an idiot doesn’t make the guy 100% wrong.
Tom’s also never read ANYTHING about the sex workers he so despises if he doesn’t know that a lot of them have committed partners. Madison Young did an entire art installation about this when her kid was born, Buck Angel has a girlfriend, Jenna Jameson’s been married…
Tom: It’s interesting, because not a single comment from anyone on this blog is supportive of my position, on anything, so everyone agrees, it seems – and I want to know what makes you all so certain you’re right.
The utter shite of your position?
The lack of coherent argument from you?
The way in which you utter fail to respond to any of the actual content of the comments directed to you?
In short, because you are wrong, and have failed to provide evidence (the name of the BBC programme, for one) to show that you aren’t.
blockquote> Seriously, this idiot should go out drinking with Frank Miller.
Nah. Problematic as Miller is, he still gave us Year One and Dark Knight. Tom’s posts are more like the Agent Orange of trolldom: a fun read once, but you can never bring yourself to read over them again
Molly – Tom obviously doesn’t know anything about actual sex workers. I’m friends with a porn model, and… she’s a nice person. A nice and in many ways really ordinary person. (Not that un-ordinary-ness is some sort of crime against society anyway.)
She goes to school, has a boyfriend (and yes, he knows), dresses in t-shirts and sweatpants most of the time, keeps a nice house and is a damn good cook. She’s by no means a perfect person but she’s sweet and friendly and tries hard to be there for her friends. (She also looks really different when she’s made up and waxed and has her hair and nails done and has been working out and dieting before a shoot. So much for “women just have to show up.”)
Ergh… I hate using all these things as proof of her “normality,” as if a sex worker who wore revealing clothes or had a sloppy house somehow had no right to existence. But my point is that she isn’t some separate species called “whore”–she’s a woman with a job.
…Then again, I’m pretty sure Tom considers women with jobs to all be whores, so you can’t call him inconsistent.
Which would be shouting “WHORE” all the time and not doing much of anything, right?
Wait, I just went back in the thread, and I realize that at the beginning, the discussions wasn’t so much about ‘whore’ than it was about ‘prostitutes’ (the ‘ are because they’re Martin’s words, not mines) For example, it was “prostitutes are boring”, not “whores are boring”.
If we suppose that prostitute=sex worker and whore=huge fuzzy definition (including feminists, housewives, SA women, Muslim women, sex workers, women who get drinks or gifts offered,…), we actually don’t know why being a whore is bad.
So, Tom, if we accept that David is a whore (sorry David) for running Manboobz, why is David a bad person?