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.
I think I’m most offended by his dense misreading of Aries. That woman did BRILLIANT work
See. I told you women hate the idea of compulsory paternity tests.
It would make men less paranoid, jealous, and protective about keeping women away from other men, thus allowing women freedom of movement, but it’s the women who don’t want to end the “controlling” nature of men.
Now remind me, which sex is it who wants to preserve “patriarchy”?
If women don’t identify the father for a paternity test, give the woman 6 months community service. She’ll remember who it was then.
Cue excuse upon excuse for preserving whoriarchy.
Tom Martin anti-logic shields engaged! On the plus side, he got through most of a comment without using the word “whore”. He almost made it! I feel like we’re training a particularly dim dog. He’s catching on to the fact that constantly screaming WHORE undercuts his arguments, but it’s going to take a while for it to fully sink in, and his vocabulary is limited.
Actually Tom, I have no problem with paternity tests. But I think a lot of men and a few women will. It has nothing to do with wrong doing on those peoples parts, it has to do with the fact that only criminals are forced to undergo mandatory genetic testing.
You’ll be fighting an uphill battle dude, even moreso in Canada because we don’t have mandatory drug testing like the US does.
Newsflash: a remote-control collar isn’t less controlling than a leash.
What about the men who will refuse to submit a sample for paternity testing, because they don’t want to risk having to parent the child they sired?
In your version of reality, do men ever have sex with women they don’t want to own?
Tell me, how many men did you run your sperm phylactery idea by? I, for one, have no interest in registering the contents of my balls
Xeginy is 100% right, Tom. But it’s even worse than that. A pacifist, in its usual definition, is a person who is against war.
A pacifist can therefore be a sex-worker, a housewife, a gold digger, a Muslim woman from Saudi Arabia with a husband who do all of her bidding,..
A non pacifist, let’s say a woman who invent weapons for the US army and spend her leisure time writing the president to urge him to go war with everybody, could also be a woman who depend of no men, a non-married woman who grant acces to her vagina to all men who wish it. And this imaginary woman pay for the condom, the lube, the drinks, the hotel room, refuse gifts, give gifts to her lovers (because she is rich thanks to all the weapon she created), never complain.
The question, of course, isn’t if these magic women exist or not. It’s that they could, in theory. One can be both pacifist and whore(tm)* and not pacifist and not whore(tm)*. Unless, it’s not pacifist you means, but pacifist(tm)*, and you have your own little definition of that word.
tl;dr : You seem to be using a very personal definition for ‘pacifist’. In any case we’re back to scare one: I can’t know what a whore(tm) is.
*(tm) stands for “word as defined by tom martin”.
I propose that for every paternity test done, for each child born to the rightful father (ie the one told he’s the father) we should bill all men who’ve declared themselves MRAs. This will be to help offset the enormous costs of creating and maintaining a genetic base. On the other side, women who have children and falsly accuse the wrong man of fatherhood shall also be billed to help offset the cost.
Still going for this Martin?
But why compulsory paternity testing? Wouldn’t it make more sense to just offer paternity testing either at a low cost or for free? That way if a dude is unsure about the paternity, he can get the test done to see if he is the biological dad. But if the guy is sure, or he just doesn’t care, then the hospital doesn’t have to waste the money.
Also, if there is no father in the picture, why would a woman be required to put a father on the birth certificate if she didn’t want to? How would no father’s name on the birth certificate harm men in any way?
There are so many synonyms/euphemisms for whore, with different shades of meaning. Tom, why do you limit yourself to WHORE?
Prostitute, meretrix, putain, strumpet, harlot, public woman, drab, lady of pleasure, courtesan, streetwalker, traffic, trug, trull, common stale, polecat, hackster, hell-moth, moll, kept woman, concubine, night-worm, pug, venturer, curtal, jumbler, land-frigate, walk-street, doll-common, stewpot, turn-up, barber’s chair, tweak, fling-dust, night-shade, waistcoateer, twigger, mar-tail, carry-knave, night trader, treadle, mob, wench, slattern, bawd, fire-ship, mawks, man-leech, marmalade-madam, nocturnal, fille de joie, trugmallion, screw, town miss, Cytherean, lady of easy virtue, kennel-nymph, loose fish, receiver general, Cyprian, molly, dolly-mop, hooker, tail, horse-breaker, professional, flagger, cocodette, cocotte, Queen’s woman, joro, geisha, horizontal, moth, prossie, pusher, broad, shawl, quiff, prostisciutto, brass nail, mud kicker, scupper, poule de luxe, twopenny upright, slack, yum-yum girl, working girl, pavement princess, parlour girl, high-flyer.
As a person whose profession involves connecting people with the information that they need, it causes me physical pain that you fail to make use of MOST of it, and the information you DO stumble across you fail to understand.
You’d be a fool to take it Tom. Most women do not cuckhold men. At least two thirds of all births in your country are attributed to the correct father, if not more.
See!
As previously mentioned, most women and feminists absolutely hate the idea of compulsory paternity tests.
Even though paternity tests would reduce male paranoia and controlling behaviour, as they’d have automatic verification the child was actually theirs, we can see my these reactions, women would rather perpetuate “the patriarchy” by perpetuating male uncertainty.
All the excuses.
If we tell women to find the father and get him tested and verified pronto – or face a huge fine and a six month spell of National Service – she’ll find the father every time.
Every time a woman has sex, she’ll be thinking I better get this guy’s details, or I’m going to the Gulag. She’ll get the details.
Even if the woman was working as a hooker at the docks, she’ll take every guy’s name and address. And that guy will wear a condom every freaking time.
If the law says that claiming the father is now dead would result in five years in prison if found to be fraudulent – woman wouldn’t make that lie.
Remember, 30% of non-custodial fathers paying child support are found not to be the biological father, so there’s a good few women who should be in prison right now:
http://www.wnd.com/2006/02/34861/
Sometimes you need to just step round what feminists want, particularly when they’re trying to preserve traditional gender dynamics.
How would compulsory paternity testing make men less paranoid, jealous, or protective? Don’t guys get jealous and paranoid over stuff that has nothing to do with child paternity?
You forgot one. Seamtress *hem hem*
Seriously, you need to look up the word ‘whore’ in the dictionary (a real one). Because it really does not mean what you think it means. Fucking language, how does it work?
We already had this debate about paternity test not so long ago. Here is the conclusion on which most (all?) non-trolls agreed: mandatory test re useless for most, expensive and intrusive. Not mandatory tests are available to most, which is a good thing. If you think it should reimbursed by insurance or something, this is another, potentially interesting debate.
The idea that you can solve jealousy with paternity test is ridicule because
1) you can already do the test if you have doubts
2) people who don’t have babies can get jealous. Cis gay people can get jealous, though there is no possibility of lying about paternity. And straight people are aware than you can cheat while using condom. Cis women can get jealous. People get jealous of their platonic friends all the time.
You won’t destroy patriarchy by condemning women to community service.
I… I just realized. You want to give community service to women who just gave birth? To women who probably are in no shape of doing it and who (things being what they are) are probably in charge in charge of the baby.
I really doubt that there’s anything that would make you less paranoid, Tom. It’s your nature. Shame you keep projecting your personal problems onto everyone else.
Ah…so you just want to see women locked up! You do know that women can lose their children, face fines or go to jail for making false paternity claims in court right? They can also be ordered to repay the man who was cuckholded?
If we tell women to find the father and get him tested and verified pronto – or face a huge fine and a six month spell of National Service – she’ll find the father every time.
Every time a woman has sex, she’ll be thinking I better get this guy’s details, or I’m going to the Gulag. She’ll get the details.
Even if the woman was working as a hooker at the docks, she’ll take every guy’s name and address. And that guy will wear a condom every freaking time.
If the law says that claiming the father is now dead would result in five years in prison if found to be fraudulent – woman wouldn’t make that lie.
I’m confused. none of these scenarios actually involve a man being cuckolded (or even possibly cuckolded). How does informing a man, who has no idea that a woman is pregnant, that he MAY be the father, do anything for this apparent epidemic of cuckoldry paranoia
Crap, I don’t know what kinds of men you’ve been hanging out with, Tom Martin. Sounds like a bunch of assholes.
“thus allowing women freedom of movement” — what the fuck?
allowing?
freedom?
movement?
You leave the house, right? And see people, out and about, exhibiting people-like behavior?
Why do you hate men so much, Tom?
Come on, Tom, you have to admit that some of the objections are reasonable even by your standards. You’re proposing creating a massive genetic database, which would not only be expensive, but a lot of people would argue would be a huge privacy violation.
Aside from that, though, I genuinely don’t understand how a man knowing, for realsies, that the kid he’s raising is someone he genetically created, would solve any problems. Jealousy, paranoia, overly controlling…this behavior is not just motivated by “I wonder if this kid I’m raising/paying for is biologically mine?” There’s at least a dozen more reasons why a guy would be jealous, paranoid, or controlling about a woman. So your compulsory testing would, theoretically, only erase about 10% of the motivation behind those behaviors.
Or are you performing some “experimental psychology” on us? I’ve never been part of an experiment before…
See!
Tom Martin doesn’t support his arguments, he just repeats them.
SEE?!
What happened to you blockquotes? You used to be cool 🙁
See, Tom, you see “30% of men who pay child support are not the fathers of those children”. I, on the other had, see “of the self-selecting population of people who contest paternity (because paternity tests are not mandatory), only 30% find that they are not the father”. According to Jared Diamond in The Third Chimpanzee, in a blood-test study done on all newborns and their parents in one obstetrics ward, it was found that less than 10% of the children were not blood relatives of the men claimed as their fathers. The problem is not as dire as you make it out to be.
You may be on to something here. Perhaps this experiment is the thing he “invented” and is trying to “patent.”