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!
Ullere: ‘The statistics reveal at least three
noteworthy facts. The first is the obvious decrease in lynchings over time. The second is
the absence of a correlation between lynchings and Klan membership: there were actually more lynchings of blacks between 1900 and 1909, when the Klan was dormant, than during the 1920s, when the Klan had millions of members—which suggests that the Ku Klux Klan carried out far fewer lynchings than is generally thought.’
Maybe, but I also see that there were more lynchings in 1890-1899, when the Klan wasn’t so dormant. Convenient of you to not try to correlate that.
I cannot find any data on civil rights movement killings, but I would suspect that in the 1960-1969 decade they commited more than 3.
I’m sure you do, and that passive voice is convenient, but numbers, or you got nothing.
@Cloudiah, no I wasn’t saying you were being unfair to the KKK, just that the KKK;s violence is exaggerated.
And then using that elision of the facts to dismiss the MRM as being full of violent people. But you are also dimissing the steady campaign of terror the KKK engaged in.
@Tulgey Logger Then I will contrast it to feminist sites that link to the SCUM manifesto or Radfemhub shall I?
Go for it. Also show that the SCUM was written with serious intent; that it was meant to be taken as a plan. Because it’s sort of hard to not take a man seriously; in his intent, when he set himself on fire to get more attention to his rantings, and when the MRM touts it as the words of a martyr; and cites it as activism.
The Kitteh’s How on earth do you manage to type with your head so far up your arse? It must cause terrible back strain.
Lots of yoga.
Some Dude: David Futrelle allows his blog to be cited as a reference by the SPLC and by other noted pundits in common culture like PZ Myers.
Allows?
What, there is some statute which make his public posts off limits to researchers?
My blog has been cited by researchers. It’s what public records are for. People say stuff. Researchers look at it. They make decisions.
Wait… I get it, you think the SPLC (and PZ Meyers) are STUPID! You think they see the name, “DAVE FUTRELLE” and decide, “oh, he makes his living as a journalist; everything he says is therefore Truth.” and look no further.
Right? That’s pretty much the only way your schtick makes any sense. It’s stupid, but at least it has some internal logic.
I think I have manosphere movement logic down now.
According to manosphere logic if I, as a black woman am ever unhappy in my life, then feminist and civil rights movements have failed to deliver me happiness, thus they should never have happened?
The MRM looks soooo, like a movement I want to get behind……
no
…it’s what I deserve for being a hypergamous slut/frigid ugly feminist who thinks I somehow just deserve to be treated like a human being when everyone knows that the only way for women/PoC to get rights is to take them away from white men, and that would be unfair, because white men should have all the rights by virtue of their superior white dudeliness. Also shut up about rape and abuse or else we’ll rape and/or abuse you.
/manosphere ‘logic’.
FTFY 😉
Apparently, not only does Sticky not read Manboobz, he doesn’t read the links he claims are citing Manboobz as a Blog of Record. This link, for instance, was pretty much the opposite of that:
http://goodmenproject.com/ethics-values/the-southern-poverty-law-centers-creepy-mission/
(I remember back when Assange’s legal troubles were new, one Reason writer described the accusations against him as him being prosecuted “for having sex without a condom.” Yeah, no, shithead.)
I must say, it was pretty disappointing to see the so-called “Good Men Project” defending fucking rapist ROOSH V of all people. Also, all the Reason blog piece was doing was misrepresenting the SPLC’s lone reference to Manboobz in exactly the same way Sticky is. Not exactly honest or trustworthy on any of your parts.
“[S]ome sort of feminist resource” is right, though. Manboobz catalogs misogyny, complete with quotations and direct links to the original context. If anyone—literally anyone with a computer and Internet—wants the full story, they can do a little digging on their own.
Wonderful post, David, this is hilarious!
I like how the Good Men piece on why its totes unfair to call out the MRM for its violent rhetoric basically boils down to “But the MRM is way too disorganized to ever get anything violent done!” I mean, it’s true, but whining that you shouldn’t be classified as a hate group by virtue of your incredible incompetence isn’t the line of argument I would pursue.
Maybe they aren’t organized, but their violence is alive and well in our society. Just by googling “man kills wife” and my small, sleepy state (murder doesn’t happen often here in general), I come up with 4 that I can see. All from this year, and 2012 isn’t even over yet. When I type the reverse, “wife kills husband” and then my state, the first two results are 2 of the 4 “husband kills wife” results, and the third is Pamela Smart (old news). There’s another story from New Orleans about a wife who mistook her husband for an intruder, and a VERY old case from 1865.
Men are killing their intimate partners in numbers head and shoulders above the reverse scenario. Sometimes, they kill their children as well. And in a not-insignificant amount of the cases, the man kills his wife because she cheated on him (or so he thought).
These are all reflections of the MRM ideals of women as property and a woman being unfaithful is a death-worthy offense. You’d think a normal person, while angry at being cheated on, would just dump the cheater and be glad to be rid of them. But not someone with an MRM mindset! They are gravely insulted their possessions have DARED to defy them, and they respond with murder.
Yes, because I have seen it stated, and more than once, either here or at other forums I have frequented, (I’m paraphrasing here) that men cheating on women hurts only the woman involved, but women cheating on men destroys society at large and so is a far more grievous offense.
Yes, and with guys like them, they believe that anything up to and including murder is “self defense” if a woman hurts their ego and pride. This is part of why they hate feminists so much, because many feminists are women that refuse to give them the respect they think they deserve.
It’s funny, I knew exactly what car dealership that was before looking at the link. I see it every day on my commute, it’s been putting men’s rights posters (*a lot* of them) on its lawn for the past few months (that’s when I noticed it).
I was under the assumption that it was owned by the other dude debating (I forget his name), the guy who has a website “take my money, not my son” or something. I could be wrong.
Yeah, it’s such a big thing that they have a term for these tools: family annihilators. They don’t make the news very often, because usually the guy kills himself in addition to his entire family, hence no traumatized survivors to add human interest and no trial for suspense. This and “regular” domestic murder is pretty much the only kind of murder we have around my neck of the woods. The piss icing on the shit sundae is that the triggering event often has absolutely nothing to do with the family, things like losing a job; if I can’t be a Man™ and Take Care of my Family, they might as well all be dead.
(You can tell I’m from the sticks because I used the phrase “my neck of the woods” unironically.)
@Maude, I am pretty sure you’re right.
Unrelated tidbit from the FB page for the event, posted by Aoirthoir An Broc Masculinist:
Alright, someguy, here’s my official statement on journalism and this blog: this blog is not, by and large, “serious journalism,” though some posts on more serious things could be considered that.
BUT: While I express my opinions a bit more bluntly here than I do elsewhere, and make a lot more dumb jokes, I also do all the things that journalists are obligated to do if they want to be called journalists. For example, I cite my sources (and link to them when possible, which is almost all the time); I don’t misrepresent what anyone has said (if you disagree give a specific example, including quotes to show exactly where and how you think I’m misrepresenting something); when I don’t know for sure that something is true, I indicate that with words like “apparently” and “alleged.” (As I have done in the OP here.)
When facts are disputed, journalists report what the most credible sources say. That’s what I did in this case, reporting what the debate organizer told Jezebel, though I noted that someone claiming to be her also posted on AVFM saying both sides had harassed her. I have no idea whether or not the blog you’ve cited is credible; it presents no evidence for its claims. If someone comes forward with screenshots showing feminists harassing the debate organizer, I will add them to the post.
Journalists are not obligated to have no opinions on things. *Reporters* are supposed to at least pretend to be objective; that’s impossible, but they have an obligation to be accurate, to present all sides of an argument and to be fair.
*Commenters* are allowed more leeway to express their opinions, which makes sense because, after all, people read commenters for their opinions, not for “objective” recitations of facts. But they are also required to, you know, not make shit up.
I’ve never been a reporter. I’ve always been a commenter. (Well, most of the time; some of the stuff I’ve written has been fairly dry, heavy on facts and light on opinion.) If you look through my “serious journalism” online, you will find a lot of opinions in it, as well as some jokes. I don’t think any of my Appall-o-meter pieces for In These Times are up online, but they were very similar in spirit to what I do here.
For someone who talks so much about journalism, some guy, you don’t seem to really know much about it.
so where are my pictures of Spider Man? Or rather – feminists harassing that organizer online?
RE Warren Farell: didn’t he advocated for parents to “genitally caress” their children or something? Doesn’t that fit right in with the “MRAs want to make rape legal” thing? So, yeah, Ullere is full of shit.
Farrell claims that he said “gently caress” and was misquoted, though “gently caress” is pretty much equally as creepy in context. He had (has?) some extremely, well, odd ideas about incest — that it’s a good thing for many people, including the vast majority of boys molested by their mothers.
He gave an interview to Playboy about it once, and it is a massively disturbing read:
http://www.thelizlibrary.org/fathers/farrell2.htm
Note that Farrell is the dude who MRAs like to hold out as proof that moderate MRAs exist and there’s nothing inherently problematic about the MRA movement. This guy – the one who thinks that a nice little family orgy is a great idea, and that if most girls who were abused by their dads say that they found the experience traumatic it’s just because they’re repressed.
(He’s not doing male victims of incest any favors either.)
Good god, and I thought his equation of getting fired and being raped was the worst Farrell got. jfc jfc jfc
Oh good god, that’s even worse…And yeah, how often do you see the word “caress” when it comes to kids? So I agree, “gently caress” is still creepy.
Every now and then I read a thread on Something Awful, so when I see the words “gently caress” my mind immediately replaces them with the word “fuck”.
Yeah, lest anyone think the MRM’s roots were in ideas that were only KIND OF wrong and gross, rest assured: It has been vehemently defending rapists and abusers since the very beginning.
If anyone can stomach it (I can’t), JtO has a video up about this. I’m deliberately not embedding it because his smug expression is annoying.
@elodieunderglass
I’m glad the bicarbonate of soda trick worked. But as Jilly said tell your husband to drink lots of water as well.
And also that adding orange squash to the bicarb/water mixture makes it much easier to drink.
And your poor dude is unlucky, UTI’s aren’t that common in men. But apparently if they do get them they’re more likely to turn serious (ie. turn into a kidney or bladder infection) so he should keep a careful eye on it and if it hasn’t cleared up in a couple of days to take himself straight to a doctor.