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.
More from the article:
(Aside: The quote above seems to explain a lot about MRAs.)
“I could probably dig out at least 100 where video evidence has proved the claims false though – but well done for finding those two. ”
And yet you haven’t. Funny how it is that you have all this wonderful evidence to support your claims, but won’t share it. Funnier still that whenever you do manage to come up with something that actually exists, you grossly misrepresent it.
random6x7’s summary is excellent. (You rock!) I can only hope my quotes also help support that summary.
Thanks! The quotes you pulled were awesome. I have to say, the whole sexually-inexperienced men thing made me think of certain MRAs, too.
*Tom finishes reading a lengthy, in-depth article*
“Got it! Women are whores. On to the next one…”
Here’s the part of the article Tommy has a problem with, from the conclusion:
I do not think the words mean what Tom thinks they mean…
Jesus Christ is he still here?
@Quackers
Yup. But look at it from the bright side. More entertainment.
Yup. Don’t when to quit, does he?
I just saw Tom’s “male monsterism” quote and had to post this footage of a male monster:
*Don’t [know]*
A post with lots of links from Tom got caught in the moderation filter; it’s up now, near the bottom of the previous page.
That ending was hilarious “Tom can be reached at…”
*goes home laughing*
Don’t MRAs always say men and women are sooooo different, and women are too emotional and interested in stupid girl things and talk too much etc. I’ve heard many men say that men and women can’t just be friends because the man wants to sleep with her? there was a youtube video on this. Not the best evidence I know, but they interviewed college guys and practically all of them admitted to wanting to sleep with their female friends and thought women and men can’t just be friends. Non-surprisingly all the women said the opposite. Also dont “nice guys” just act nice to get in the girl’s pants?
Somehow it doesn’t surprise me women prefer spending time with other women more. Its not because of misandry, it’s because plenty of guys make it pretty obvious they just endure women for sex or hang out with them in hopes it will get them closer to sex…with friends like that who needs enemies?
Thanks very much, random6x7 and cloudiah.
Predictably, Tom’s response was to gush away with a Gish Gallop. Bets on whether any of those other claims will stand up to any scrutiny?
I’ve started referring to my kittens as “cute little whores,” because they are always wanting things from me: food, ear scratches, belly rubs, lap space, etc. I no longer know if it’s good or bad that I am so desensitized to the word… They seem unfazed by it.
Does anyone else suspect Mr Martin’s “idea” for videoing every sexual encounter is actually trying to form the basis of a possible defence in court (“You see, your honour, I was only trying to protect myself from a false rape allegation…”).
Quackers:
I suspect the basic flaw in that methodology is highlighted by the words “college” and “guys”.
I’m a man, and I most definitely don’t want to sleep with my female friends – in fact, I can think of maybe two in the last decade besides my wife, and in both cases this was easy enough to suppress.
But I’m twice the age of the average college guy, and very happily married (and feel free to read “happily” any way you like), so I have no incentive to fantasize constantly about other women – my imagination is far more profitably spent doing other things.
For instance, like coming up with interesting subjects for conversation, which may be a reason why I almost certainly have far more genuine female friends than the likes of Tom Martin and John the Other.
Hey Tom, what can I do to stop being a whore?
I think you have to renounce prostitution as a minimum – though of course that’s “prostitution” using Tom’s rather wide-ranging definition of the term, so that might be a bit of a philosophical challenge.
And I suspect that even if you pulled it off convincingly, it may not be enough.
@Wetherby
That’s a good point. Age is definitely a factor…and I also noticed that many of the women in that video were also very conventionally pretty.
Don’t get me wrong I do think men and women can be just friends. I myself have male friends and every woman I know has male friends too. I guess the internet is making have a cynical perspective on things recently :/
The nice guy™ behavior thing really ruins things though. People who do that (and it does include some women too) are being dishonest and manipulative. Then when things don’t go how they want it too they get bitter and start hating on the entire opposite sex. Like romantic relationships I think friendships should have clear boundaries too…well I don’t know if boundaries is the right word. But it should be made clear that the two people are friends only.
Which to me is just mad – and usually symptomatic of a very limited knowledge of the opposite sex. I’ve had relationships with women who turned out to be genuinely dishonest and manipulative (thankfully in the low single figures, but I’ve certainly had them) – but in those cases I simply extricate myself from them and move on.
In fact, I was rather impressed with my ruthlessness with one girlfriend: once I’d established beyond any possible doubt that she’d told me a direct lie about something important, I pulled the plug on our relationship there and then. And I met my wife within a fortnight, so I’m actually rather grateful to her in retrospect.
Yes, absolutely. In fact, I was furious with a fuckbuddy of mine after my female flatmate complained to me that when I was out getting a takeaway for the three of us she’d been given the third degree about whether or not we were really “just friends”.
First of all, yes we were – we’d known each other for about eight years, completely trusted each other not to have underhand motives, and had started living together mainly out of financial convenience. Secondly, since the fuckbuddy in question was shagging at least two other men at the time to my certain knowledge (which is why she was a fuckbuddy rather than a proper girlfriend), what business was it of hers?
I started to answer every that Tom said, but I’m gone for a night and now there is way too much BS to be answered.
I might be wrong, but has he gone into meltdown? It’s hard to say since his normal more is “whore whore whore whore whore whore whore whore whore “, but it sound even worse now.
I’m really torn over this.
On the one hand, Tom is by far the funniest troll we’ve had since Arks first emerged – absolutely no contest.
On the other, I’m increasingly coming to suspect from his behavior in this thread alone that he may have genuine mental health issues – and he also has a massive near-$60,000 debt as a by-product of all this, which he presumably can’t come anywhere close to paying.
So while I’m normally more than happy to point and laugh, in this case his all too evident real-world problems are giving me pause.
@Wetherby – he’s also claimed before that his whole thing is part of a comedy project, so I find myself wondering if he’s a prankster, particularly with the little quips he makes at the end of his posts eg. “I’ve also made daisy chains”. But I’ve worked on the UK stand-up scene in the past and I’m struggling to think of a comedy promoter or stand-up who would not be utterly horrified by him – and I speak as someone on friendly terms with Frankie Boyle, so that’s saying something!
Then again, he argues for hours and hours and he seems to absolutely *relish* the attention he’s getting. I honestly don’t know what to make of him at all…