A Voice for Men’s plans for world domination seem to have hit a little snag. Earlier today, the so-called “Men’s Human Rights” site — which posts an open call to firebomb courthouses and police stations in its “Activism” section — posted a most unusual article titled “A Very British Coup,” which detailed — in a highly one-sided manner — some rather nasty infighting in AFVM’s apparently quite tiny British satellite organization MRA London.
According to newly self-installed MRA London Maximum Leader Andy Thomas, earlier this month,
a bizarre coup was attempted within the MRA London. While I was travelling and out of regular contact, a certain member of the group announced to the world that he had been ejected from MRA London by me personally, and put out a widespread appeal to have me “deposed”, “overthrown”, or whatever. He also made a series of even more bizarre allegations against me and several others.
But for various unspecified reasons this “reverse coup” failed, according to Thomas, “ending in farce and bitter recrimination.” Now the alleged coup-plotters are no longer with the group, and Thomas has declared himself the Chief Executive Officer of the group, such as it is.
This news seemed to come as a shock to most of the AVFM faithful, some of whom were faintly horrified to find Thomas airing this sort of dirty laundry in public where people like you and me can see it. One reader was so baffled by it all they concluded it might be “feminist gaslighting.” (When in doubt, blame the feminists.)
Others more familiar with the situation blasted Thomas’ account of the affair as self-serving nonsense. Richard Ford, one of the expelled/resigned/whatever members, wrote sarcastically, in a comment on AVFM that has miraculously not yet been deleted:
Andy has not chosen to speak to me directly about whatever is bothering him and I am unable to discover the reasons from any other member as it seems that every one of us (with the exception of Erin [Pizzey] and possibly one other) has been expelled at the same time! I honestly know no more about this than what I read here.
I wish Andy well with his new bonzai version of MRA London. The membership will simply have to start again with a new name. Much time will be wasted but we will get there in the end.
For the record. Andy has no power to expel anyone from a group that he so recently joined. Despite this I believe it best to go our separate ways.
AVFM’s own Maximum Leader, Paul Elam, has promised a further explanation tomorrow. Stay tuned, as this has the potential to get very messy indeed.
I took a screencap of their post over there, because I have a feeling they will take it down soon out of embarrassment. I’m also cracking up that they think feminist spies could have caused their infighting. Wow, I’m sure it’s that and has nothing to do with how they have too many people in the MRM with huge egos that want to call the shots all the time. No, it has to be the wily feminist infiltrators.
Can men mansplain things to other men? Is this possibly what has happened here? Men mansplaining over each other leading to tantrums and walkouts and decrees of ‘I am the king and you are smelly’? Adorable.
Mmmfmm mfmm fmmm mmfm MMMMFFFF.
Eh. I guess?
I capped the text, and comments (as of about 7 p.m. last night).
“Can men mansplain things to other men? Is this possibly what has happened here? Men mansplaining over each other leading to tantrums and walkouts and decrees of ‘I am the king and you are smelly’? Adorable.”
“I am the King and You Are Smelly” is crying out to be a T-shirt.
I think by definition, mansplaining is when a man explains something to a woman that she knows about better than him, and he does it in a really condescending way. If it’s a man acting like that to another man, I’d call that a pissing contest. It’s still obnoxious but it’s not sexist like mansplaining is.
They spew this shit to just muddy the waters. It’s all part of the rape-apologist spectrum that ensures that the majority of rapists will never face justice.
We say, “We can’t tell who is a rapist by looking at them” and “our culture has a tendency to shield and protect the rapist at the expense of the victim” and they CHOOSE to hear “all men are rapists.”
I guess the MRM will just split into smaller and smaller groups until it’s down to on MRA per group with increasingly ridiculous titles.
@thebionicmommy Eh, the behavior is the same, but the targets are different. I know some guys who will prattle on for hours on stuff they have no idea about. Some of them are at least entertaining and willingly admit their ignorance after a bit. The more boorish ones feel like torture. I almost had to chew off my arm at a party this weekend.
Can someone tell me what relevant feminist actually believes that “all men are rapists”? The only one I know of it a feminist that wrote that in her fictional book, as something a character said in response to finding out that her daughter was raped. It wasn’t her actual view.
I’m only commenting to say that the ads are for the “Ten of the Ugliest Movie Stars” with a picture of a woman and the trailer for the My Little Pony movie.
When you look into the abyss… Google ads cater to it.
It’s only a pissing contest when both are competing. Otherwise it’s a pisser, and a pissee getting… uh… pissed.
That train of thought didn’t go anywhere good. Let me that again.
I think “bloviating” is a general catch-all term for someone talking about that which they know nothing about. There’s probably a good gender-neutral german compound word for an amateur cluelessly lecturing an expert in their subject of expertise, but since women get hit with this so much more often than guys, “mansplaining” it is.
Brilliant!
I just wish Google knew which one to target for advertising, me or the abyss.
Yes, bloviating is the right word for that. Two know-it-alls both trying to outdo the other would be the pissing contest. At AVfM, there is plenty of bloviating and pissing contests.
Speaking of bloviating and pissing contests, Paulie’s statement on the situation is now up. Only one comment when I looked a few minutes ago.
On the two other stories (the Pizzey one, the Very British Coup one), the comment threads are interesting. There’s a real disconnect between those who think organizations should be run democratically and those who think a dictatorship is the way to go. (And they call feminists Stalinists?) Neil Westlake, who is the dude who wrote about the Occupy ballerina being the stamen of privilege a while ago, seems to be genuinely upset at finding out that his new friends don’t share his democratic outlook.
I think it’s in the Pizzey thread that someone mentions that the new UK Men’s party had its official launch, and there were only 5 people there. That to me is the most revealing comment of all — they may be taking over the comment threads of several newspapers, but they still can’t seem to organize an actual event offline.
“I am the King and You Are Smelly”
I really want to hear Louis say this next time one of the dogs comes in from the rain. Because smell of wet dog.
Just skimmed Paulie’s “statement.” Boy, not a lot there. “I have no idea what actually happened but I’m sticking with Andy because I know him and everyone should shut up after this and we’re not going to run anything with any other viewpoint here.” I was going to do another post, but it’s really not worth it. I’ll just do an update.
There’s also a pretty long comment from someone on the other side. I can’t really make head nor tail of it, but it ends:
“The amygdala is the centre of “The Three F’s: fighting, fleeing and sexual reproduction.” If the frontal lobes are cut off, then the dominant emotional state will take control. A fearful person will become paranoid. An angry person, violent. A person with a disabled frontal lobe could in principle commit sexual offences without realising what is going on at all at the time, and yet present no risk of offending when the stress hormones are at more reasonable levels.
Clearly, people in this state are a danger to themselves and to those who work with and care for them. But to react with vengeance or spite in return solves nothing. We extend our hands in compassion and ask our brother, our long-time leader, to seek help. It is not an act of weakness, but of great strength, to do so. PTSD is not the result of failing to be strong, but of succeeding at strength for too long and of needing a rest.
We ask for control of the MRA London website to be returned to the members, and that the site cease and desist from making allegations without evidence.
We offer the services of the redoubtable Aimee McGee as mediator. We suggest emulating the Quaker model used in “Meeting for Business,” as it is non-confrontational and seeks to find consensus in dispute.
Let us patch up this rift before the ship starts listing.”
I ended up writing a new post after all. On a second reading of Elam’s post it seemed silly enough to warrant it.
http://manboobz.com/2013/05/21/a-voice-for-menmra-london-infighting-gets-even-sillier-paul-elam-makes-his-uninformed-stand/
@bionicmommy
I’ve seen *splainin’ as a general term. The star can be used with pretty much any privileged group doing the behaviour. (cissplaining, whitesplaining, mansplaining, etc.)
I do think “bloviating” is great, although I always thought it was more being pompus than not really knowing what you were talking about.
I also know about conservatives doing the “splainin'”… Like today on FOX News, one guy(idk name), said that the Tea Party were like the parents of America, and America was a teenager who was spoiled and rebellious and just hated the Tea Party to look cool, but in the end “the Tea Party was right all along”.
They don’t even try to sound like a conservative news station, they go off the deep end with it…
“Tears”?
Once again a joke based on homophobic stereotypes and male shaming.
Yeah, no.
This just in: the only men who cry are gay men.
It ain’t feminists who think men who cry need to be ashamed.
The assumption that if a man is described as crying then he must be gay isn’t homophobic at all!