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.
True – and of course if this whole thing is some bizarre comedy/performance art stunt I can readily appreciate why it’s impossible for him to admit it, since that alone would completely torpedo his appeal.
(Stating the obvious, I meant legal appeal, not appeal in general – that’s already been comprehensively sunk below the waterline).
Yes, it has! If it is all a big joke as well, it’s just not…funny. It’s funny at first in a “I can’t believe you’re saying these things.” kind of way, but after a while the whole whorewhorewhorewhorewhore thing just gets a bit boring.
RE: Quackers
The whole “men and women can’t be friends because of SEX” thing is bollocks. I mean, reverse it just for a sec for gay men. “Men can’t be friends because they always want to have sex with each other.” Do you seriously believe no gay man can be friends with another man without wanting to bone them? I assure you, it’s not true. (Also, seeing how you can get bashed, gay men who DO get attracted to the wrong men usually can keep themselves from ogling, staring, or anything that might end up with them getting a beer bottle to the face.)
It’s horseshit. I’m mostly ace here, and I still think it’s horseshit. I mean, by that logic, bi men can’t be friends with ANYBODY!
–Rogan
LBT
I think its astoundingly egotistical when straight people presume that of course the person who is gay is automatically attracted to them. And its that presumption that drives a lot of discomfort with the gay community. Strangely, when you ask the straight person if they think someone of theopposite sex is going to fall all over them, the person can give qualifiers for why that may not happen. And they get pissed when you point out that gay people have the same needs to choose based on their own personal preferences.
While filming his video I could help but notice Tom walked past scores of men and women sitting together in groups, or walking together (while he of course was alone). All he really would have to do to realize that men and women are friends is look around.
Seeing him he’s not got the look of your typical living in the parents basement troll that a lot of mra’s have, it’s a pity he’s so lonely.
Kavette I don’t pity him at all. If he wants to rigidly maintain such a toxic set of beliefs and assumptions and he’s lonely as a result, as far as I’m concerned that’s just divine justice. He’s been trolling blogs for quite some time now, and people have presented a great deal of evidence that should at least make him question himself. Yet he refuses to do so. He made his own misery and with equal effort (probably less since he wouldn’t have the emotional burden of resentment) he can umake it.
RE: Pillowinhell
Funny. Only time I’ve encountered that were cis gay men who were worried I might be attracted to them.
LBT why does the word irony spring to mind?
Slight TW for homophobic statements
I’ve known a few straight men who “justified” their homophobia by saying gay guys were going to hit on them all the time and that’s just the worst thing ever. “It’s not that I have a problem with what ‘those people’ do or anything, y’see, it’s just that they shouldn’t be forcing it on me by hitting on me.” Turns out, it doesn’t really hold water as an explanation for homophobia, since when you ask them why being hit on is so incredibly terrible, they’ll almost invariably say “because they think I’m one of THEM! I’m a real man! I ain’t no prancing fairyboy! I like girls, you hear me, girls!” showing they have incredibly negative attitudes about gay men in general. Besides, most of these guys also really dislike lesbians and it’s not like lesbians are going to be hitting on them all the time.
That TW was probably silly, since I took out the uglier parts of my comment before I posted. But, whatever.
RE: Pillowinhell
I totally misused the word irony there. (Ugh! One of my pet peeves too!) It just strikes me as odd as how it seems to be the direction of that fear of hitting on goes. The cis straight men fear getting hit on by cis gay men because they aren’t like THOSE guys, the cis gay men fear getting hit on by trans gay men because they like DICK, DICK, do you hear me, and so on.
LBT, just. Wow. Its amazing how humans are always so ready to push people away. Having ideas about what you like in a partner physical or otherwise is fine, but why the fear and hatred I’ll never get. At least not when it comes to hating on groups or individuals that have never done you harm.
Sorry to hear you’ve had those expiriences though.
I think a lot of people have fluid boundaries for friendship, so they’re perfectly okay with sleeping with their friends. I notice that it comes up a lot on feminist writings about “I used to be a nice guy” posts and Friend Zone posts, where a lot of male and female feminists counter that with anecdotes of friend that they sleep with, or friends that become lovers. For me, OTOH, I have a strict Friend Zone. If someone becomes a friend (rather than just a friendly acquaintance), then sex is completely off the table AFAIC. However, like 85-90% of my female friends range from conventionally pretty to conventionally beautiful, so if someone were to ask me if I would want to sleep with them in the abstract, I would definitely answer yes. Practically all of my female friends are my “type”, but I have zero desire to risk my friendships for sex.
Personally, I think the “Men and women can’t be friends because sex.” thing is self-fulfilling. If you’re only interested in getting to know someone because you want to fuck them, then of course you’re gonna have a hard time being “just friends”.
RE: pillowinhell
Thankfully, it’s only happened once. I’m married, monogamous, and a good chunk ace, so the one time it DID happen, I was kinda boggled. (Also, the guy was kinda a twit. Why would my rusty old hormones surge for him?) These days, I hang with so few cis gay people (I swear to god, all of my friends these days are frickin’ bi) that it doesn’t come up.
RE: Shadow
My husband was a friend first, but my sexuality is rigged so I CAN’T be interested in anyone otherwise. I can’t comprehend any other way.
@Rogan
Yeah, and I know a lot of people that go that route even when it’s not part of their sexuality per se. And I get why, I would trust starting dating one of my friends much more than I would a relative stranger. I just trust friendships much more than relationships, so I hold my friendships to be more sacred. Other people are willing to risk friendships because they consider relationships to be “something more” or “the next step”, so it’s worth taking a chance for them. Different strokes and all that
Homophobia: The fear that a gay man might treat you the way you treat women.
RE: Shadow
Ah! That makes sense. I get that. In my case, I often see the relationships as equivalent, but the romantic ones have more physical stuff. If I can’t be friends with someone, there’s no way in hell I’ll be able to stand them touching me. (I have a personal space larger than some European countries.)
RE: giliell
But men and women are DIFFERENT! Women LIKE that (unless they’re whores).
I know it’s catchy, but doesn’t it seem appropriative as fuck to anyone else too?
Ladies and gentlemen, the Men’s Rights Movement in a nutshell.
I’ll add, that the idea for lie detector tests is bad, not just because it fuck’s people civil rights, but because it’s inefficient. Haven’t lie detector tests been ruled inconclusive/insubstantial evidence in courts? But of course, that’s probably a result of the gynocracy, because, whores.
Also, I’m really at a loss as to how Tom thinks the majority of straight, cis/het relationships work. I’m currently at an age where a lot of my friends are getting married and/or starting families. I don’t know ANY new fathers who have this all-consuming paranoia that the DNA in the children they call their own doesn’t match.
Rather, they are thrilled to be fathers at all. And oddly enough, trust their wives. Fucking bogus, I know.
I agree with the catchy part , though it’s incomplete, that’s not all there is in homophobia. It seems however like a good definition of this kind of expression of homophobia. But I’m not sure what you mean by it being appropriative.
Hand on heart, there was not one single millisecond during the gestation of my children when it crossed my mind that I might not be their father. Their actual birth established their paternity beyond any possible doubt (in fact, it was really quite unnerving holding my son for the first time and effectively seeing a shrunken version of me), but even during the nine-month build-up it never occurred to me that it would turn out any other way.
In a word, yes. In a bunch more words, I think that men being afraid of other men hitting on them does, in many cases, have some connection the misogynistic idea that being hit on is the woman’s role and womanly things are bad, and that femmephobia is a common aspect of homophobia; but there’s a hell of a lot more going on with homophobia than this, and when straight women (and mostly straight women, like me) bring it up as the most important or only aspect of homophobia we are centering ourselves.
Viscaria: thanks, I needed the longer version.