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?
What does that “I’d better not find that” sentence even refer to? The sentence structure is … opaque.
please sign my petition for fathers to have equal rights as a parent, the Boston DCf does not recognize father’s rights,- thanks for your help-
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/262/927/335/abuse-of-authority-by-the-boston-dcf/
Yeah, Manboobs sure spends alot of time talking about a movement that they claim nobody cares about and is getting nowhere. LOL! Lots of time to spare on a nothing movement, huh? Yeah right. You forgot to mention the mainy gains of MRAs throughout 2012. Some states have adopted joint custody laws. In CA, Judges are now being educated on the data on male DV victims, no longer by radical feminist groups. MRAs are getting leverage now in getting due process protections and non-discrimination clauses in VAWA, and educating legislators about its misguided focus on law enforcement as opposed to mental health approaches. MRA groups are forming all over the world. They had a march in Costa Rica a few months ago. http://insidecostarica.com/2012/11/25/dozens-march-to-demand-rights-equal-treatment-for-men/ They are growing bigger and bigger in India, where only men can be prosecuted for adultery and where male victims of rape and DV are ignored. MRAs have helped the L.A. DV Council to create a task force on male DV victims and the Council now has male DV victims listed as a major topic of discussion. The San Diego DV Council has come around completely to pay attention to male DV victims because of MRAs, who used to be ignored by the Council. The National Coalition For Men is getting anti-male posters removed from the walls of courthouses and child support services offices. MRAs successfully protested and ended Verizon’s hateful ant-male ads.
A growing “womanist” movement, mostly minority women, are distancing from feminism because womanists support BOTH men’s and women’s rights.
“One of the primary ways Womanists differentiate themselves from feminists is their concern about men’s rights and their willingness to include men’s rights within their advocacy issues http://wesleyanargus.com/2011/03/25/womanist-house/
Austria, Germany and surrounding nations are forming official commission on men’s rights issues. The UN and EU human rights courts have both addressed fathers’ rights now.
Like it or now, Manboobs, the men’s rights movement is going the same route the fathers’ rights movement went. Ten to fifteen years ago any mention of fathers’ rights was met with immediate ridicule and distain. Not anymore. The men’s rights movement will go through the same path. The BBC News and the UK Guardian have both done good, balanced articles on the MRA movement and are covering the issues very well.
Sorry, Manboobs. Scream and whine against MRAs all you want.
Oh look, a necro-gloater.
Part 1: Tagline of the website: “Misogyny. I mock it.” – so yeah, that does entail talking about MRAs a lot, because they’re horrid little misogynists.
Part 2: ll those things – tell me a) how women/feminists were opposed to them and b) exactly how being horrible to women on the internet achieved them?
Part 3: Womanism has been around since the 70s, idiot. And Jesus fucking Christ, you ignorant little shit, thinking womanism started because of a desire to pander to men?
Part 4: Again, tell me a) how women/feminists were opposed to them and b) exactly how being horrible to women on the internet achieved them?
Part 5: The Father’s Rights movement is in disarray. It splintered about five years ago in the UK when some of them wanted to commit acts of kidnap and terrorism and the others didn’t. The last time anyone heard a peep out of them was when the ASA pulled their advertising campaign for being libellous and fraudulent. I’m assuming, from your reference to the Graun and the BBC that you’re from the UK, so you damn well know this.
Part 6: Laughing at how stupid you are and grimacing at your obscene childish tantrums about how not getting everything you want, up to and including the use of other human beings, is neither screaming nor whining.
Diddums.
And backed up a quote from a single university’s student paper.
From that same student newspaper site (http://wesleyanargus.com/2011/03/25/womanist-house/):
It’s not as though it hasn’t had enough time, from the same webpage:
I’m tired of people railing against strawfeminism. Also:
– feminism is inclusive of males, because equality is what we’re after. For example, I don’t like non-custodial parents withholding child support, regardless of the gender of the custodial parent.
– it’s so cute about how any action to assist males (probably he meant men, but I’m going with the wider definition here to be generous) is automatically assumed to be due to MRAs.
This is a particularly strange thread to come into and gloat about how much the MRM is gaining ground.
Also, VAWA is helping men? (I mean, I know it would have, but wtf.)
The Christians are creating a church state in response to this shit, so, you may very well find your face at the end of a riffle. I know your nothing you’re an idiot troll, but people are getting very pissed of and as you know 70% of America is Christian. So if you think you hold a candle to them when this war comes, think again… We all know how crazy the Christians are! They are pissed off, I would piss them off any more if I where you… what is you choice, Men will win, they always do, but we can avoid repeating the past… Do you want the Christians to take over and put all the women back into their place, or do you want to play fair,and respect men’s rights? Again, men will win, but if you make them win by force, everything you have worked for will be gone. I doubt the Christians will put up with this much longer. As it is they can already ignore all of your feminists laws now that they have church states, and there is nothing you can do about it. You should join the fight for men and women’s rights before it is too late, and we only have the Christians right to follow.
Way to necro a thread with your big talk, Fights With Keyboard.
That could be nice. I like streams.
Riffles are indeed lovely.
Just want you to know that I am a Christian and I hate MRAs. Great way to generalize.
I’m sure it would be absolutely impossible to find a comparable amount of failed feminist events for this same time period, which, if such a thing were possible, would of course be a completely accurate representation of the movement as a whole.
Alex
Why don’t you set up your own blog where you do just that.
And when you go to your blog to look for feminist activism failures in 2012, Alex the Necromancer, I suggest try to find any examples of a successful MRA protest during the same period. Otherwise, when you triumphantly announce how feminism failed to do anything in 2012, we will simply point at all the activism that actually did occur; and when you are unable to do the same for your own movement, you will look extremely foolish. And we can’t have that.
Yes, Alex, it totally would.
Name one event that failed.
Go on, name one.
I’m sure it’s out there, Al. Come on. Just one.
Then, if you can name one, survey out all the feminist events above a certain size attempted, and graph out the percentage that failed, and perform a similar survey of MRA events.
We’ll wait.
More to the point, name an MRA event that succeeded. Not just in 2012, ever.
I would offer to wait, but as we know MRAs could fuck up the opening of an envelope, so…
Paper cuts are misandry.
Into which we pour the lemon juice of femicommunaziliberalism.
Alex came to this thread to drop that off? You know we’re looking at what passes for his best work.
Good morning, thread zombies!!! 😀
I feel like you get to be a drive-by troll or a necro troll but doing both is just rude.
What the hell is cybroo on about? Ladies, comply or else the christians will take you down with a shotgun? Or something close to that? I’m not sure. Maybe I have to be drunk to understand.
Oh and Alex, you are so brave….so brave….**chuckles**
So…. Paul Elam is off to ABC news… Avfm is positively buzzing about it.
What could possibly go wrong for the MRM? They’re sending their best man onto a news program to discuss his views…
I eagerly await him being scrutinised with an audience. There’s a danger than ABV won’t do their homework on his hateful little outfit, but a cursory glance at his diatribes gives the game away.
With avfm at the helm, looks like 2013 is going to be an even worse year for the MRM.
Credit where it’s due, folks: they’re usually pretty (unintentionally) entertaining.
Mr. Elam wrote about the interview after it happened. He called the interview “every bit as skewed as I expected” and talked about the interviewer obsessing on “cherrypicked bits of his most provocative writing” . . . so it sounds like they did their homework,
http://www.avoiceformen.com/misandry/back-from-new-york/