Have you heard about the big debate in Vancouver? In the wake of the recent hubbub over Men’s Rights posters in that fair city, one woman thought it might be a good idea for there to be a public debate over some of the issues raised by the posters.
I’ll let A Voice for Men’s JohnTheOther explain it, in his adorably poncy way:
Has feminism gone too far? …
That is the question asked in September of 2012, by a woman of integrity and courage. She posited this question as the premise of a public debate. It was to be discussed by three individuals from the contention that yes, feminism has gone too far, and three individuals arguing that no, feminism has not gone too far.
But, alas, this debate was not to be.
Unfortunately, following the announcement of this scheduled debate on the social networking site Facebook, that woman was rewarded for her attempt at public discussion by a torrent of abuse and threats. Some individuals apparently did not want a debate. Not only did they not want to participate, they wanted nobody else to either. Under the weight of abuse and threats, that woman whose integrity and courage moved her to propose a public discussion – cancelled the event.
What JohnTheOther doesn’t mention is that the “torrent of abuse and threats” apparently came not from feminists, as one might assume from the way he’s phrased it, but from Men’s Rightsers, who were evidently so excited by the prospect of having a debate with actual feminists that, in their enthusiasm, they couldn’t help but harass the organizer once it became clear the event wasn’t going to be organized in the same exact way that they might have organized it, if as MRAs they ever organized anything.
As the original organizer of the cancelled event explained to Jezebel:
I took the event down because of threats I had received from MRA members when I told them I was thinking of cancelling the event/changing the question. Having my Facebook account linked to here has reduced my safety from these men, who didn’t have my personal information as I was speaking with them over email. I have now had to cancel my FB profile which impacts my job seriously. Luckily I am in England right now so am safe.
Later, someone claiming to be her posted a comment on A Voice for Men saying the threats had come from “people claiming both sides of the debate.” The AVFMers downvoted her.
But fear not, debate fans! The debate is ON again! With the help of A Voice for Men, the blog A Father’s Story, and the East Vancouver Debating Society, a heretofore unknown organization which apparently has been conjured up just for this occasion, a “Has Feminism Gone Too Far” debate will take place later this month. At a car dealership, for some reason.
The debate format has apparently been designed to be as confusing as possible:
The debate format will be three speakers presenting arguments affirming the debate proposition and three speakers presenting arguments against the proposition. Each speaker will have 5 minutes to present an opening argument, alternating between for- and against postions. Following opening arguments, each speaker will have 5 minutes to address presented arguments. A third round of discussion will allow 3 minutes to address counter arguments, and final statements will be formatted within 3 minutes per speaker, for a total of four rounds of discussion for all speakers.
Following the scheduled debate, speakers will address questions and commentary from audience and observers for 55 minutes.
After which there will be an additional 15 minutes of calisthenics.
And then everyone will buy a car.
So far they don’t seem to have found any feminist debaters eager and willing to spend a nice Sunday afternoon in a car dealership getting yelled at by angry dudes.
Instead, they have devoted their energy to defining what exactly feminism means, because how can you have a debate about feminism if Men’s Rightsers don’t define the term first?
Someone called Sasha offered this definition:
If “the National Organization For Women, the largest American self-identified “feminist” organization, defines feminism as “The radical notion that women are human beings,” then I’d say MRAs have the radical notion that women are grown-ups.
I believe that feminism is simply a selfish, solipsistic creed, which exploits a natural tendency in some men and women towards narcissism.
The result has been a massive epidemic of narcissism across society, across the world (1) particularly amongst college students (2) and researchers agree this will have profound consequences for society.
One study showed that use of the phrase ‘I deserve’ in publications had increased 2000% between 1975 and 2005.
The reason that feminism doesn’t deliver happiness (3) to women is because happiness is dependent on ‘doing for others’.
The reason it doesn’t deliver it to men is because, being a selfish creed, it doesn’t recognise the sacrifices men make (from time with their families all the way to their lives) to support their families, communities and even countries, and in fact punishes and disincentivises such sacrifice.
All of this has gotten us at Man Boobz so excited that we – in conjunction with the Chicago Debatalogical Cooperative – have decided to have a debate of our own. And it’s happening right this very minute. Right here on your computer! The format is a couple of YouTube videos I found.
Here a representative of the Men’s Rights movement will argue the pro position: “Feminism has gone too far.”
And here is the rebuttal from the feminist side.
Who’s the winner? We all are!
David, all of these people http://tab.bz/zwf (that link should take you to one page with 11 other links) all seem to believe this site is either a journalistic endeavor, or some sort of feminist resource.
Someguy, think of it as a giant book of terrible, terrible quotations, with extensive annotations.
Or think of it as a giant red duck.
I don’t really care what you think of it.
I think you are disingenously non-committal about how your site is perceived by others, used, and represented by them to their readers.
I think that is so because you know many posts, like this post, have clear, blatant, obvious distortions in them, that are far far away from any code of ethics of any journalist not to distort their reports.
Frankly, let me tell you, there is plenty in the mens rights movement worth mocking. Which is why I don’t understand why so many of your posts distort so much to render them obvious propaganda.
I think you stab Arthur Goldwag, the SPLC, and feminists in the back when you writes posts like this one, and this one is not so different or special. A post as blatantly distortive as this, is merely a troll, intended to spread anger and mis-information. I cannot see that as being in anyone’s interest but yours.
You keep saying what you think, schtickguy, after David told you he does not care what you think.
Do you understand that you are harassing him?
Do you understand that the behavior is inappropriate no matter where you do it or who you do it to?
STOP!
Some Guy, I hate to break it to you, but sometimes people link to or reference websites even though they know that they don’t qualify as serious journalism.
Is this concept really that hard to understand?
Well, Sticky, I think that you stab the entire concept of blogging in the back when you keep demanding that someone else turn their blog into what you’d like it to be rather than just getting off your ass and starting your own blog. I demand that you correct this insult to the very nature of the internet immediately.
For example, there are MRAs who type out sentences beginning with “Frankly, let me tell you.”
Well, I think Manboobz is a great resource on how to make spanakopita. Someone posted a recipe for it on this site once. Therefore Manboobz is a resource for Greek Cooking.
@ obnoxious plank
Okay, I wasted my time and read your damn links. The SPLC refers to Man Boobz as “a humorous pro-feminist blog (its tagline is “Misogyny: I Mock It”)” and a repository of quotes; the “Loved one MRA” Jezebel article speaks to David as someone who is familiar with the MRM; the Good Men Project and Reason articles merely refer to the fact that the SPLC refers to MB; and all the other articles merely link to the site as a repository of MRA quotes. This is a repository of MRA quotes. No one ever characterized it as a scholarly or serious journalistic endeavor. No one is confused, and you pretending to be just makes you look stupid. If you really can’t figure out the difference between what is basically a humorous gossip site and the New York Times, I’d suggest you seek help.
I’m not surprised that she told Jezebel that MRA’s shouted the debate down.
We have screenshots of feminists doing exactly that. Yet none exist for MRA’s doing so… odd.
Do share these elusive screenshots!
Oh boy, time for Popcorn!
This could take a while, after all.
@ Some Guy
“when you writes posts like this one”
Did that make anyone else think of Rocky’s trainer Mickey: “when you fights him, he’s gonna kill you till you’re dead!”
I watched a film that made me think of MRAs a few weeks ago. Before I post this, I am *not* saying that MRAs are, automatically, racist, fascist or violent. What I am saying is that the entire “movement” has parrallels – it attracts angry, disenfranchised individuals. There is a huge amount of rhetoric and violent imagery. There are a tiny amount of members and, lastly, they make a lot of noise and are attention seeking:
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/skinheads-usa-soldiers-of-the-race-war/
Screenshots please!
Fembot, Manboobz has given me excellent advice on cystitis. Therefore David is a doctor?
What a horrible world we would live in if we were merely defined by other people. Oh, wait.
Shiraz – best typo ever ‘scarifices’ (assume sacrfices) Looks like a freudian slip (like I would make) to me. (I raise my glass to you)
‘Men were never making all the scarifices to their families, communities or country, so I’m not sure what all the pissing and moaning is about.’ (apols haven’t worked out the blockquotes)
Also some bored wanker. You repesent the hamster on the wheel. Same shit different day and you keep expecting different results, The only amusing thing is that Manboozers actually manage to come up with different and funnier rebuttals to your rants. keep on running in that wheel boy.
Urelle – dude take a pill, or a few, sit back and relax and listen to your favourite melodies. Also cut the racist shit.
Thanks all for helping to keep me sane!
Hamsters arepretty cute though. Rats arecute too. Mice, not so much. Chinchillas are adorable. And gerbils are incestuous little buggers. But cute incestuous little buggers.
Sorry, someone mentioned rodents and I neededto wordvomit.And my space bar is intermittent.
Someguy is charmingly reminding me of how all those people were harassing Catherynne Valente, because book critic RequiresOnlyThatYouHate liked some of her work, and they were spotted on each other’s blogs. The argument, as I recall it, went along the lines that “Cat Valente should only be best friends with super-nice critics who love everything they read and the onus is on her to destroy critics who are mean about other people’s books.” Because that’s how causality works.
FWIW, David, I think of your blog as a pheasant phasing halfway through a pane of glass, the whole tableau preserved in aspic.
@Sharon:
Why exactly do you MRAs want to debate?
We already have ample evidence (things we can readily show you, not some vague screenshots like you keep alluding to) that lots of MRAs hate anything feminism with a burning rage so intense that they frequently make veiled death threats against us. In particular, John the Other has said made some outright nasty comments about both feminism and women, like the time he said he would ignore a rape victim if he happened across a rape in progress.
I JUST USED THE CYSTITIS TIPS. My husband woke me up in the middle of the night, saying “Shit, I think I have a UTI,” and I mumbled something and went back to sleep. I do not remember this; my husband told me this morning that he’d gone and tried my amazing tip. “You told me to put a spoonful of bicarbonate of soda into a glass of water and drink it. It was fantastic! Where did you get that idea?”
Anyway. Apparently it totally worked. Good call, Manboobz, GOOD CALL.
“You told me to put a spoonful of bicarbonate of soda into a glass of water and drink it
It neutralises the acidity but you still need to drink a lot of water to wash our the bacteria.
Feminism has delivered happiness to countless women. It has given women opportunities beyond being housewives, secretaries, actresses, nurses, and school teachers. I’m in no way dissing those jobs, just saying women should have the same opportunities as men.
Unless those women are poor or in prison or not ‘western’?
to be fair, abuses of non-western women are one of ruby’s favorite jumping-off points for her racist screeds
Oh is it time for one of Rubys bon mots of straw feminism where she gets to point out how little of it she understands?
Its almost like test patterns on TV…
I’m beginning to think that Sticky really IS upset by the jokes about calisthenics and everyone buying a car.
If so, how sad. Otherwise, it just looks like he’s keeping his criticisms vague in order to make others dependent on what he says. Not exacty a tactic that works in this environment, buddy.
Tricksy Hobbitses, writing and not labellings themselves as either pure journalists or humorists. We hates them—GOLLUM GOLLUM!
In this scenario, is the woman wearing blue jeans?
Bored Dude: all you do is create contention, spread discord, and smear.
That is what you are trying to do. Does it seem to be working?
David doesn’t claim the AVfM is unbiased or a good example of journalism and the AVfM does not make its living as a journalist.
David does
Yes, and this isn’t a newspaper. It doesn’t pretend to be. What is it? A place to point at the follies of the Manosphere; says so, right on the masthead: “Misogyny, I mock it”.
Nothing dishonest there, and nothing in violation of the SPJ (I recall when we still had Greek letters in the name, ah, the good old days), because this isn’t that sort of journalism.
And being a journalist isn’t like being an officer of the court, or a member of a religious order. Journalists don’t have to live their lives, 24/7 in concordance with “The Code”, and they certainly don’t have to answer to you. They answer to the public at large, and to their bosses.
Ah… we see a source of your confusion. You think that the SPLC needed Dave to determine that the MRM was full of hateful people (even if they don’t quite classify them as a hate group; which might be for lack of cohesion, but I speculate).
What Dave did was collate. But the SPLC also used the direct words of the Manosphere; which were the determining factor. Dave just makes it easier to find the seamy underbelly.
But even at that, you are ignoring a fundamental point; in your bogus claim of blatant dishonesty: Dave links to the sources. Anyone who has doubts can check the original.
Objective doesn’t mean parroting the other sides claims as true. Testing the accuracy of information makes it possible for a journalist to come to conclusions. A good journalist (as opposed to a hack) will then share those conclusions; because to give a false story equal play to the truth is give it credibility.
One might even think that last idea was your aim.