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,
Some questions for you.
Do you agree with the SPLC assessment that AVfM, which you contributed to, has a major role in a “hate movement/hate group”?
You describe yourself as a feminist. Which feminist theorists do you identify with?
Any time a self-identified feminist refers to someone as a “patriarchy theory adherent” I get all suspicious-like. If you knew what feminism meant, I’m pretty sure you’d know what a patriarchy is. (Hint: not what you think.)
Women’s studies became gender studies departments on the understanding they would drop the male-blaming bias, and include men’s equality issues along with the women’s, thus legitimating the field’s continued funding, but gender studies failed to drop the bias, or broaden its remit to include men – according, that is, to the head of LSE’s Gender Institute, Clare Hemmings, writing in 2008, and 2011.
Where did all the real feminists go?
Yeah that’s real interesting but I’m not hearing none of it from a guy who likes to call people “whores.”
Real feminists mostly don’t even call people who have sex for money “whores.”
Dear Tom: ignoring your chair obsession for the moment, speaking to the issue of “greater participation for men in universties,” I can speak only for the United States. Here are some sources that show that in fact men (primarily white, cis, straight, middle class men) as a class are much more in evidence at universities (especially the big Research 1, elite, schools) than women: go read these and maybe we can talk. I’m sorry there are no pictures of chairs for you.
http://www.catalyst.org/publication/327/women-in-academia
http://people.mills.edu/spertus/Gender/EKNU.html
http://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/F86E0505-198B-4E2E-B430-8B7185305744/0/AuriemmaKlein.pdf
http://uspolitics.about.com/od/electionissues/a/women_science.htm
Oh, you’re just one of those douchebags who think that a woman should be obligated to fuck any man who wants her. Boring.
Yup, selling sex is BAD, but buying sex is morally neutral. Men aren’t at all culpable for participating in the transaction, because women are terrible.
BOOOOOOOOO! 🙂
Dear Tom: now, if by participation you mean people attending (the technical term is “learners” these days), as opposed to oh the people earning the biggest salaries, running the place (look back at David’s Board of Directors to see what most US Univesities Board of Regents look like), getting all the perks, and historically and currently dominating the place, well, then, there are some data showing that women are attending in greater numbers and outperforming men (which maybe explain why men tried to keep them out for so long?), but that’s heavily influenced in the US by racism: the fact that more black men are in prison than in college in the U.S. is not caused by omgfeministwhores, but by racism in the white male dominated police and judicial system:
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/7609
There’s also the issue of pay disparity: men with high school diplomas can make more than women with high school diplomas, so many go to college
There’s also the issue of where these students are: at my university (rural Texas), women learners are heavily concentrated in “feminine” (read; lower paid) fields: Elementary Education, Social Work, and among the humanities, English (my department). Amazingly enough, the vast majority of learners in the STEM fields are…..tah dah, MEN!
So just who is participating where?
And tell me why, again, as a queer feminist faculty member, I should be worried about male participation at universities given that all the data I have access to, not to mention nearly forty years of experience, tells me that white men at least (WHITE MEN) are doing just fine, and that the major barriers for some men involve ethnicity and class.
So, white boy, wanta talk?
How nice of you. this really captures you essence of how much you care about human rights!
See, including men’s issues is a good thing. (“Dropping the male-blaming bias” is stupid because no one was doing that anyway and also there is a thing called “academic freedom.”) The problem I have with you is specifically limited to your belief that calling women whores is a good method of argument.
STFU and go away.
I really appreciate you concern for the bottoms of men everywhere! We need more men like you who really care! Those dirty prostitutes and disabled people on the other hand can go to hell!
To ‘Happy’:
AVFM is run by Paul Elam, who is all about equality from everything I’ve read and heard from him. He calls himself ‘the happy misogynist’ for some reason, but don’t let that fool you.
I subscribe to the scientific feminist theory. My favourite feminist scientist is Elizabeth Aries.
Feminism should be about encouraging women they can and should do anything (apart from prostitution). With this system, there is no need to blame men for anything, just give up and renounce all forms of prostitution – then get an interesting job, and make everyone’s life a bit better with your endevours.
Welcome to humanity!
@ Tom The Mighty White Warrior Dude: Women’s studies became gender studies departments on the understanding they would drop the male-blaming bias, and include men’s equality issues along with the women’s, thus legitimating the field’s continued funding, but gender studies failed to drop the bias, or broaden its remit to include men – according, that is, to the head of LSE’s Gender Institute, Clare Hemmings, writing in 2008, and 2011.
Hmm. Granted you are in the UK, and I am in the US, and I am in the godlesscommunistliberalradicalbrainwashinghippy field of humanities (English, hotbeds of radicalism at most USian universities), but I think your claim above may be a big of an overgeneralization, and I can say that apparently you have not learned how to summarize and attribute very well. I looked up Clare Hemmings and would be interested in some of her work:
http://www2.lse.ac.uk/researchAndExpertise/Experts/[email protected]
Let me see: her 2008 publications are:
2008
Hemmings, Clare and Alldred, Pam (2008) Feminist review (special issue). Feminist review, 89 (1). pp. 1-161. ISSN 0141-7789
Hemmings, Clare (2008) Tuning problems?: notes on women’s and gender studies and the Bologna Process. European journal of women’s studies, 15 (2). pp. 117-128. ISSN 1350-5068
I assume it’s the second one? It looks interesting (but pretty sure it has nothing to do with US–I’m actually grateful to get this name; I don’t know enough feminist/gender scholars outside my field outside the US).
Which of her 2011 publications are you referencing:
2011
Hemmings, Clare (2011) Crossings. In: Evans, Mary and Davis, Kathy, (eds.) Transatlantic conversations: feminism as travelling theory. Ashgate, London, UK, pp. 23-32. ISBN 9780754678359
Hemmings, Clare (2011) Collective powers: rupture and displacement in feminist pedagogic practice. European journal of women’s studies, 18 (3). pp. 297-303. ISSN 1350-5068
Hemmings, Clare (2011) Why stories matter: the political grammar of feminist theory. Duke University Press, Durham, USA. ISBN 9780822348931
Again, I’d have to read them, but I have nearly 20 years experience teaching graduate students, and the above pings all my “really bad reading comprehension and may be taking an opposing argument as the scholar’s main argument” radar.
Here’s a search on gender studies at USian Universities.
https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1ARAB_enUS452US452&ix=sea&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=gender+studies+site%3A.edu
The move from women’s studies or feminist studies to gender studies is complex and controversial (quite a few US feminists I’ve read were against it because they saw it as a way to align the focus on men, and dismiss women/feminists all over again; and there is a major connection to the debates bewtween “women’s studies” and “GLBT studies” — i.e. gender focusing not just on gender issues but sexuality as well (ie. lots of gender stuff is by gay men).
So, I’m not quite buying this claim, and am beginning to agree with the quoted judge’s comments about the lack of coherence in your arguments. Srs. Did you defend yourself because you thought you could do a better job than a professional, or was it that no actual trufax legal professional would take the case?
Dear Tom,
Do you kiboze yourself? (Kibo was the first person on Usenet to grep the entire news field for the characters “kibo”, which would find people mentioning his name intentionally or by accident. He would pop out of the ether to reply in person, and generated a cult following and a dedicated newsgroup, alt.religion.kibology.)
It sounds like you enjoy ego-surfing for whenever the initials “LSE” and your name get mentioned on the Internet.
Anyway, I think you’ve missed your true calling. Why don’t you run for parliament? The Official Monster Raving Loony Party has long held a political position of “sitting, facing forward”, which is surely in desperate need of overhauling to bring it in to the 21st century enlightenment of gender equality.
Why, on a new rejuvenated platform of “sitting, facing forward on comfortably padded seats”, you could be just the man to lead the OMRLP’s campaign and be the new sitting member for Bootle, Cheadle, or maybe even Tooting.
Just a thought!
hahahahahahahaha ohhh it burnsss
Wuttt most feminists are not prostitutes so its not like major thing that needs to be fixed. And if it was what would it matter? Why is prostitution bad? Right now you are just arguing for feminists to shutup and be “quiet and gentle” and accept how the world is run. Ain’t happening bub
Seriously, dude, what IS it with you and whorephobia? Sex work is real work.
@Tom The Scientific Feminist:
Gee, I’d never heard of this term though I have read and studied and taught feminist materials.
But I do know this one:
Feminist epistemology and philosophy of science
Query: would you characterze the main argument of this paragraph from the Stanford Encyclopedia (look lots of men on the board: http://plato.stanford.edu/board.html) but then Philosophy is known as the humanties discipline with the greatest plethora of penises and as the most sexist of all the academic humanities fields, as “blaming the men”?
Bahahahaaha.
Yeah, just because someone calls himself a misogynist shouldn’t lead us to baseless accusations that he’s some sort of misogynist!
Oh, so you’re a feminist, for the definition of “feminism” that means “change absolutely nothing about the way society treats women, while demanding women do what you say.”
That is a very new definition.
How do hard chairs affect men more? I really don’t see this one at all.
Also, as I’ve pointed out before, men are welcome to try and be more equal with women-that is more demonized, their bodies and minds treated as inferior, their histories ignored, to be paid less for the same work, to be seen as a class expected to do high social value unrenumerated labor, etc. Women’s and gender studies could just treat men like the rest of the world treats women, and tell them to shut the fuck up, the women are talking now.
Dear Tom Tom The Piper’s Son:
I subscribe to the scientific feminist theory. My favourite feminist scientist is Elizabeth Aries.
Elizabeth Aries, eh?
Thanks for another name, but I can see no connection between her work (which looks quite fascinating and intersectional, as all the best feminist work is these days) and what you then blather on about “feminist shoudl be about encouraging women they can do anything…”
WTF? I already knew as a teeny tiny person in rural Idaho in the 1960s I could do anything (and better than most of my peers, especially the males); the problem was that the system was rigged in terms of getting access to the tools (and I was a white child of a university professor for crying out loud, loads of race and class privilege).
Let me guess, you probably believe in the “self esteem movement”
https://www.amherst.edu/people/facstaff/ejaries/research
https://www.amherst.edu/people/facstaff/ejaries/publications
Aries, E.J. (1976). Interaction patterns and themes of male, female, and mixed groups. Small Group Behavior, 7 (1), 7-18.
Aries, E.J., *Gold, C., and Weigel, R.H. (1983). Dispositional and situational influences of dominance behavior in small groups. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 779-786.
Johnson, F.L. and Aries, E.J. (1983). The talk of women friends. Women’s Studies International Forum, 6, 353-361.
Aries, E. and *Moorehead, K. (1989). The importance of ethnicity in the identity development of black adolescents. Psychological Reports, 65, 75-82.
Aries, E. (1996). Men and women in interaction: Reconsidering the Differences. New York: Oxford University Press.
Aries, E. (1998). Gender differences in interaction: A reexamination. In D. Canary and K. Dindia (Eds.) Sex and gender differences in communication (pp. 65-81) Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum.
*Saylor, E., & Aries, E. (1999) Ethnic identity and change in social context. The Journal of Social Psychology, 139 (5), 549-566.
Aries, E. (2001). Adolescent Behavior: Readings and Interpretations. Mc-Graw Hill/Dushin.
Aries, E., McCarthy, D., Salovey, P., & Banaji, M (2004). A comparison of athletes and non-athletes at highly selective colleges: Relationship to academic performance and personal development. Research in Higher Education, 45 (6), 577-602.
Aries, E., & Seider, M. (2005). The interactive relationship between class identity and the college experience: The case of lower income students. Qualitative Sociology, 28 (4), 419-443.
Aries, E. (2006). Gender differences in interaction: A reexamination. In D. Canary and K. Dindia (Eds.) Sex and gender differences in communication, 2nd edition. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Aries, E. & Seider, M. (2007).The role of social class in the formation of identity: A study of public and elite private college students. The Journal of Social Psychology, 147(2), 137-158.
*co-authored with an Amherst undergraduate
Tom does get credit for being able to name two actual working feminist academics; I doubt like shiz that he understands anything of what they’ve written (dear Tom: do you consider these women whores? They’re clearly professional feminists, as am I).
My favorite science trained (primate biology) feminist is Donna Haraway:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Haraway
Among other things, she was one of the first feminists to actually admit science fiction into the field of discourse!
And look PUPPY DOG!
Stop buying sex. Men are just as responsible for upholding this system as women are.
Blitzgal – His idea of “prostitution” is any time women get basically anything from society, no matter how badly they need it, how thoroughly they earned it, or how completely disconnected the transaction is from sex.
A woman’s boyfriend gives her flowers? WHORE. A woman gets state benefits to help feed her children? WHORE. A woman allows a man to hold a door for her? WHORE.
Oh lord, I’m with jumbofish on this: we must keep this one. Please stay Tom, we love you!
A misogynist self declared feminist who rant about chairs, the mammoths men hunted and call everybody whores? That’s way better quality troll than we’ve had in weeks!
Us.
This asshole showed up so we could mock him in person?
That’s full-service trolling.