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2012: Year of Triumphs for the Men’s Rights Movement

Come early to get a good seat!
Come early to get a good seat!

What a year!

The Men’s Rights movement, the most important human rights movement of the 21st century, got 2012 off to a flying start in February with an event in Bozeman, Montana that was quite literally attended by no one. After that, the year was a whirlwind of activity. Let’s go to the timeline:

January: The Men’s Rights movement rests up to prepare itself for the year.

February:  The Montana State University chapter of the National Coalition for Men holds a lively and well-attended Men’s Rights event in Bozeman, Montana.  Sorry. When I said “well-attended” I meant to say “not attended at all.” As the local NBC affiliate reports, in what may be my favorite sentence ever written about the Men’s Rights movement: “No one showed up to the event but organizers say the lack of attendance is not due to a lack of interest.” You can read more here at Man Boobz, or watch the NBC affiliate’s report here.

March: The Southern Poverty Law Center, an important and influential watchdog of hate groups in the United States, profiles the Men’s Rights movement, describing it as “an underworld of misogynists, woman-haters whose fury goes well beyond criticism of the family court system, domestic violence laws, and false rape accusations. …  Women are routinely maligned as sluts, gold-diggers, temptresses and worse; overly sympathetic men are dubbed “manginas”; and police and other officials are called their armed enablers.”

March: British Men’s Rights activist Tom Martin has his “anti-male discrimination” lawsuit against the London School of Economics thrown out of court as a “hopeless claim.” Martin responds on Twitter by calling his critics “whores.” He then comes to Man Boobz and calls people here whores. Eventually he announces that female penguins are also whores. No, really. Read more about Tom’s visits to Man Boobz here: 1, 2, 3, 4. (TRIGGER WARNING for links 2 and 3, which deal with Martin’s reprehensible views on child prostitution.)

April: Thousands of Men’s Rights Activists converge on the National Mall in Washington DC for “Sink Misandry,” apparently some sort of protest against the lifeboat-boarding policies of the RMS Titanic, which sank in the North Atlantic one hundred years ago. (There was a movie about it.)

Sorry, correction: When I said “thousands of MRAs” I meant to say “none.” While the Sink Misandry protest was announced with great fanfare in December of 2011 on A Voice for Men, it was later called off due to unspecified logistical problems. Understandable, given how difficult it is to get to our nation’s capital, inconveniently located on the sparsely populated East Coast and served by a mere three airports.

May – June: The Men’s Rights movement has lunch and takes a little nap.

July:  Seven Men’s Rights activists make it to the steps of the Capitol in Washington DC, evidently for some sort of anti-circumcision protest. On Reddit, one MRA blames the poor attendance on the machinations of the “Government and the Fem lobby.”

August: In order to more effectively harness the activist energies of MRAs on Reddit, Paul Elam of A Voice for Men sets up a Men’s Rights Activism subreddit alongside the longstanding Men’s Rights Subreddit. Only a handful of MRAs subscribe, possibly because Elam seems more interested in banning people he doesn’t like than in organizing anything, and the subreddit is abandoned by its founder and everyone else within a month.

September:  In Vancouver, Men’s Rights activists hold a lively, well-attended debate with feminists on the question “Has Feminism Gone Too Far?” at a local used car dealership.

Oh, sorry. Another correction: After being announced, and cancelled, then resurrected and reannounced, the event is ultimately cancelled after the organizers lose the venue for the event due to a weird turn events that involves an MRA car salesman being removed from his place of business by police after some sort of dispute with his business partner. Also, the MRAs never bothered to round up any feminists to take part in the debate with them. You can read the whole complex and confusing saga of the Great Vancouver All-MRA Debate That Wasn’t in these three Man Boobz posts: 1, 2, 3.

October: Recess

November: Artistry Against Misandry holds a lively and well-attended concert and fundraiser in Nashville to celebrate International Men’s Day.

Whoops! One more correction: The event never happened. Apparently the organizers lost their venue, and were unable to book another one, as Nashville isn’t really much of a music town and musical venues there are as scarce as … wait, no, it’s fucking Nashville. NASHVILLE. Music City. The home of the Grand Ole Opry. I’m pretty sure that every building that isn’t a house or a restaurant there is a musical venue.

Also, the Artistry Against Misandry website seems to have vanished from the face of the earth. Might I suggest a visit to Artistry For Feminism and Kittens instead?

December: Christmas shopping.

I should note that when not organizing, then cancelling, events many MRAs have been busily harassing individual women online and posting many very angry comments. A few have also been putting up some very badly designed posters. So there’s that.

With a year of such triumphs behind them, how will the Men’s Rights movement manage to keep up such a blistering pace in 2013?

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howardbann1ster
11 years ago

Truly, their best year yet.

That’s a pretty uplifting thought.

Tulgey Logger
Tulgey Logger
11 years ago

I’ve no idea how they keep it going at such a frenetic pace, but I’m sure there’s a plausible evo-psych explanation about why men’s movements are so successful/why no men seem to want to movement. (it’s the manly Logicandreason.)

freitag235
freitag235
11 years ago

I wonder…maybe…

Perhaps…

Not all men are as consumed with the violent and irrational hatred of women as MRAs?

Nah. That’s ridiculous. It’s a feminazi conspiracy, just like they think it is.

It’s the only plausible explanation.

amandajane5
11 years ago

I deeply apologize. I thought there were only four dudes in that picture in DC, imagine my disgrace at discovering there are seven!

freitag235
freitag235
11 years ago

A virtual mob scene! But where were the box-cutter wielding hordes?

Starla
Starla
11 years ago

You’d think by now they’d figure out they’re acting ridiculous when nobody shows up to their events…. I wonder what would happen if all of us here staged a sit in! It’d be fun!

cloudiah
11 years ago

I still want to do a poster run with our posters. Just to mess with them. Maybe once school is back in session…

NotMRA NotFeminist
NotMRA NotFeminist
11 years ago

Kind of contradicts ongoing claims that MRAs are this HUGE threat to feminism, doesn’t it? If this apparently tiny movement is the worst threat feminism is facing, then the siege mentality coming from the feminist blogosphere isn’t exactly warrented, is it?

freitag235
freitag235
11 years ago

@Starla, I read that as “…if all of us staged a sin in!” I then visualized miniskirts and high heels to drive NWO into a frenzy.

My bad.

Argenti Aertheri
11 years ago

“@Starla, I read that as “…if all of us staged a sin in!” I then visualized miniskirts and high heels to drive NWO into a frenzy.

My bad.”

Don’t forget the see through clothing and swim suits XD

And damn, if this is their best year, they really are full of fail. Pleasing considering how hateful and absurd ( and tiresome) they are.

freitag235
freitag235
11 years ago

And 10-year-olds in capris. Never forget the pre-adolescents in capris.

Starla
Starla
11 years ago

@freitag and argenti

Well if wearing those will help get the point across than why not? Driving them into a public frenzy over something so frivolous sounds like exactly what we need to show how silly they can be.

hellkell
hellkell
11 years ago

PaulE is bragging about their banner year over at AVfM, begging fools to part with their money yet again. PT Barnum was right.

kysokisaen
11 years ago

Have they considered offering pie to event attendees? More people might come if they think there might be pie.

Back when I was in undergrad, there was one particular activist club that had chapters in colleges across the country, and as near as I could tell each chapter was stuffed with people who couldn’t organize their way out of a paper bag. I went to a couple of colleges and at each one these were the guys who could be consistently counted on to not know how to get permits, forget to rent speakers for their benefit concert, and just generally fuck up everything they tried. It was nominally an anti-racism club, so their intentions were good, it was just that other, more focused clubs tended to attract the more competent activist types and it left these guys as the miscellaneous anti-bad-stuff club.

The MRAs seem to have a similar problem. They’re just a broad anti-stuff-they-don’t-like club while anyone who can actually do anything can find other, more organised, goal-focused organisations on which to spend their time, money and energy.

freitag235
freitag235
11 years ago

MRAs are also hobbled by being, well, kind of strange in some of their beliefs. So while they might have a few things in common with men who are concerned with family courts or custody problems, they’re driven away by the frothing hatred that seeps out of the MRM.

Sylocat
11 years ago

You know, with all the horrible and disgusting things I read about here on a regular basis, it’s easy to forget that in the long run… slowly, laboriously, but eventually… we’re winning.

freitag235
freitag235
11 years ago

@Sylocat, keep in mind that they’re a very small “movement” with a few prolific posters. But, like cockroaches, they tend to scuttle away when light the light hits them. MensRightsOnline had to close their forum to public scrutiny after only one post by David Futrelle. They talk a lot, and do practically nothing.

It makes it hard for them to accomplish anything when they feel a need to stay out of the public eye.

howardbann1ster
11 years ago

Well, “winning.” At times. In certain days. On some battlefields.

No, this is winning, right here. Every time David splashes daylight on these guys and they scream, it makes it harder to describe what they do as a mainstream position.

The Republicans are still a mainstream position. And they are not far removed from these fuckers.

But we’ll get around to those guys.

freitag235
freitag235
11 years ago

Of course, when you’re opposing bright fellows who think that spermjacking is so a real thing…

Kiwi girl
Kiwi girl
11 years ago

I didn’t realise Gandalf was a MRA: http://i.imgur.com/qKogC.jpg

freitag235
freitag235
11 years ago

Now that’s what I call a rally! How can anyone stand in the way of such overwhelming support?

freitag235
freitag235
11 years ago
Ithiliana
Ithiliana
11 years ago

Normally I shun year in review type posts, but this one? Warmed the cockles (heh) of my cold, evil feminist heart.

I especially liked “recess” ahahahaha!

Sir Bodsworth Rugglesby III
Sir Bodsworth Rugglesby III
11 years ago

When was the last time you saw a president, a CEO or a king on a picket line? Exactly: never. Look, high status people don’t protest, right?

Actually doing any activism positions you as a low-status mate, and thus makes it difficult to breed. Thus, over time evolution weeds out protesters.

It’s science!

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