So I’ve been mostly avoiding writing about the whole Men’s Rights postering controversy in Vancouver, because it’s such a tempest in a teapot. The tl;dr: Some posters got torn down, and some of the people tearing them down yelled at the blabby MRA videoblogger and A Voice for Men second fiddle known as JohnTheOther.
MRAs: Given that virtually none of you have any experience as actual real world activists, you may not be aware of this, but POSTERS GET TORN DOWN. It’s annoying, and I don’t support it myself, but it happens all the time. Sometimes, you may actually run across people tearing down your posters, at which point there is usually some sort of awkward confrontation that may include yelling.
You know what you do when this happens? You put your posters up again. You know what you don’t do? Compare the experience to rape. Because, on the list of the grand injustices of the world, having posters torn down is pretty far down the list, somewhere around “stubbing your toe” and “kitten farts on you.”
That said, here are a few new “developments” in this ongoing epic.
1) Jezebel has posted a piece about the controversy. The most interesting thing about it is the following quote from, you guessed it, JohnTheOther, who apparently had this to say to someone from a local “community-driven news” website. The topic? False accusations of rape.
Maybe it’s a mistaken accusation, she doesn’t remember who she had sex with because she was drunk at the party or whatever. Some make accusations that have nothing to do with being raped; they’re angry, or they got stood up, they wanted to have sex with a guy but he said no. The fact that our society doesn’t have a balance for this is a major problem. I’m not suggesting every woman you meet is a loose cannon, but every woman you meet has the potential to be one, because for those few who are nutty, there’s no disincentive for them to go, oh, I was late for work. I know, I’ll just say I got raped.
Now, if the Men’s Rights movement were an actual civil rights movement trying to better the lives of men, this quote would be a public relations disaster. What real civil rights movement would want to have itself associated with someone who seems to think that women make up rape accusations willy nilly, when a date stands them up or when they need an excuse for being late to work?
Of course, the Men’s Rights “movement” isn’t an actual civil rights movement at all; it’s more like a collective tantrum. While MRAs are eager to “spread the word,” the more spreading they do, the more damage they do to themselves. No one is better at making MRAs look bad than MRAs themselves, which is why on this blog I spend so much of the time letting these (mostly) dudes make themselves look ridiculous with their own words. So, JtO, thanks?
2) And speaking of Mr. TheOther, we can now see video footage of the supposed dramatic confrontation that JohnTheOther had with what his AVFM boss Paul Elam called “a gang of 20-30 assholes on the street, some wielding box cutters.”
GirlWritesWhat, one of the Men’s Rights movement’s few non-dudes, has put up selections of video footage from Mr. TheOther in her video below.
As you’ll see – unless for some reason GWW has decided not to post the most incriminating parts of the video — there was no gang; it was a small group of people. No one was “wielding box cutters” in a threatening manner. The whole thing took place in broad daylight on a busy street.
Some posters were taken down. There were some raised voices. That’s it. That’s the sort of shit activists deal with every fucking day of their life.
Here’s the video:
Am I missing something here? This non-event is the alleged confrontation that AVFM has been hyperventilating about all this time? This is the evil anti-MRA harassment that Elam says “makes getting bestially raped by Richard Dawkins sound kinda funny.”
Leave it to Mr. Elam to add a rape-joke cherry to this bullshit sundae. Once again, MRAs are their own worst enemies.
Oh noes! I just made a cup of tea with sugar (fairtrade) and put on some clothes. I’m going to do some paid work later (after I’ve done some more important but unpaid work, such as going to a pro-choice demo where I will wax lyrical about how much I love ground up babies) and I am, in fact, sat in a flat now where – HORROR OF HORRORS – I had a shower and used (vegan) deodorant!
Am… am I kicked out of anarchist club for not fitting idiotic stereotypes? 🙁
I’m a feminist too, and I don’t shave my armpits, do I have to start hating men now? I quite like my boyfriend, and although I’m pansexual I have no immediate plans to go into lesbian separatism… but idiotic stereotypes say I must. Ah well, I’ll go break the bad news to him…
By the way, I do think working an unnecessary job in order to earn a wage to enable people to survive in a capitalist system is oppressive. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to do any work, it just means the work I think is necessary (helping the homeless, providing support and assistance to asylum seekers, campaigning for LGBTQI* rights etc. – all of which I have done in the past week) doesn’t provide me with the means to, you know, eat, and what does provide takes the time I had to concentrate on important things away. HTH.
Ohh, shit, I remember Jack Donovan, if he’s who I think he is. Formerly Jack Malebranche? The positively NOT “gay” homosexual “androphile” and sometime Satanist? Good times, good times.
Wait, it’s that guy?
I was imagining something more like Lady Gaga’s meat dress.
Hi Fembot,
I used to think that about Chapin, and that actually he was even interesting every now and then, but after a few videos it became obvious that he’s basically a more articulate Paul Elam with better presentation skills than JtO.
Off the bat, I can remember him describing sexual harrassment at work as “malarky” as well as endorsing typical lurid MRA urban myths such as “hypergamy”, “false accusations” and “big daddy government”.
I do think it’s interesting that he doesn’t associate closer with AVfM, though. I reckon Elam views him as the closest contender for King MRA. JtO wants the top spot, but will never, ever get it. If/when Elam bows out, for whatever reason, AVfM will probably be taken over by JtO and will be even more irrelevant than it is now.
Weirdly, and please understand that this is a non-political hypothetical scenario, if JtO, Chapin and Elam were in a bar and I had to have a beer with one of them, I think it would probably be Elam, even though I view him as far worse than the others. I reckon Elam, without the bitterness, would have at one time (25 years ago?) been interesting to talk to, at least about music, drug culture or whatever. JtO would be painfully boring, guys like Chapin are two-a-penny.
Renounce prostitution in all its forms! #wrongtroll
@kitteh’s unpaid help
Speaking of Brighton and breaking out of traditional societal roles…
Shouldn’t that Dalek be wearing a tie?
Steeleypants used the word “troglodyte”? That’s funny, mostly because it would be the perfect way to describe him and some of the other MRAs around here rather than “troll”. Both for the common usage and as a reference to D&D.
(D&D reference explained for non-D&Ders: Troglodytes are lizardfolk who live in caves, and stink up the place when they get angry).
I guess it is true that there are 20-30 people in that video… of course, only 2-4 of them seem to give two shits about the MRA with the camera phone.
CWS that photo is the best!
Tell you what though, tailoring a suit for a Dalek could be a bit problematical, even if they didn’t exterminate you afterward to get out of paying for it.
All these mentions of troglodytes have made my brain flip over to The Troggs:
My brain went from why isn’t the Dalek wearing a tie, to why isn’t the Dalek wearing a nametag, and now I’m imagining Daleks working as greeters at Walmart. Wouldn’t it be perfect? Welcome to Walmart, if you attempt to unionize you will be exterminated.
Ah, but if the Daleks worked at WalMart, they’d unionise (who’d dare stop them?) eliminate the management and take it over themselves!
And maybe then they’d do something about the WalMartians, like impose a dress code. 😛
“The Dalek Fleet Must Look Fabulous!!!”
“All Exterminations Must Be Stylish!!!”
See, I felt a little twinge of guilt at everyone assuming that MGTOW was lying about his wife. But it turns out…..he was lying about his wife. This is like some Gregory House style shit up in here.
Eh, blame Pell. After the 15th or so round of “I am a doctor/lawyer/physicist from outer space who owns Disney!” people tend to get a little cynical.
I am very skeptical of “opposites attract” and him romantically meeting up with someone he had arguments online. It seems like a weird romcom/sitcom scenario. I would actually be very curious how that all worked out if it was real. The general thing is most feminists who know about mras avoid them and probably would not meet them in real life for romantic interest just because many mras constantly talk about violence/hating women. Also mysterious feminist woman read two large problematic feminist sites without interest in other websites sounds mysteriously like a something someone made up when they don’t know what sites feminists frequent.
Well I don’t read Pandagon often these days (ever since the move to RawStory, the comment community basically flipped from 80/20 regulars:trolls ratio to like 30/70) but 2 years back I did and there were no so-called MRA vs feminist kerfuffle that could conceivably have ended in a date. As one would expect, MRA commenters on Pandagon are about on the same level of Dumb as those here and inspire disgust and/or laughter rather than amorous sentiments. You’d think that at least some flirty interaction might have leaked in those comments and that a regular like me would be able to piece together who the unlikely couple might be.
“I met my wife when we were both trolling Pandagon and Jezebel with bullshit reactionary bullet points” might have been a more likely story.
No, you guys were dead on right. You always are. I gotta trust your instincts.
@Ugh
“In case you’re still lying to yourself, you are in a hate movement. Literally. Hate is actually the only consistent feature of your movement. The reason that your “moderates” still want to rape and torture women is because there are no moderates in hate movements.”
Here is a link and an example that A Voice for Men and The Spearhead are not hateful websites and are legitimate MRM websites.Please read the link
http://www.antifeministtech.info/2012/08/is-it-possible-to-defend-a-male-space-without-it-being-hostile-to-women/
Read comments #30 #31 and #33 and their comment replies. These comments and replies to the comments will exemplify why the Spearhead and A Voice for men are not hateful.
@ David Futrelle
Good research. I actually posted that comment that day for my buddy from MGTOW Forums that we both comment on periodically. We are good friends, we speak on the phoe albeit occasionally. That day I believe it was on a weekend we were talking and we both discovered your website manboobz. We were both conversing on the phone-he was driving long distance that day in his car. He is unmarried and we were talking about your anti mrm. He wanted me to post for him regarding a single friend who he felt is very obsequious to his wife.I posted for him inamsuch as he was driving. As for me I am married and happily married at that for a little over 2 years now. I am genuinely and sincerely telling the truth about this with integrity. Whether you believe it or not, It makes no difference to me. I have no motivation to lie,In reality many MRA guys who are married or are in relationships with women (as Bill Price of The Spearhead is ) get mocked by other MRA’s.
Unreal
Shadow, i guess that’s the “chortle” we heard so much about.
@Steele
What? For reals? Dude, I was totally sucked in.
Tremendously disgusting story coming out of my neck of the woods. This man had four kids with his wife, and she was pregnant with their fifth. He decided to murder them all to collect the life insurance, so he started the house on fire at 3:00AM one morning, locked his boys in their bedroom, and abandoned them all. His brother and co-conspirator brought their two year old daughter outside with him when the mother handed her over. The husband then tried throwing her BACK INTO THE BURNING HOUSE, but stopped when the wife came outside. The wife is critically injured, has lost her baby, and will likely not survive. Their three boys died in the fire. That leaves a two year old daughter as the sole survivor of this horrific crime.
Again, this is what happens when women and children are viewed as property and not people.
http://www.channel3000.com/news/Father-brother-charged-with-homicide-in-Argyle-house-fire/-/1648/16566918/-/x0edlmz/-/index.html