I realize that I may be the only one who’s really all that interested in sectarian infighting amongst the MRAs, but an old friend of ours has weighed in on the recent battles over the A Voice for Men satellite group MRA London, and I’ve learned some interesting things as a result.
The old friend? Tom Martin, the British MRA who famously lost an anti-male discrimination lawsuit against the London School of Economics and who is well known around these parts for his beliefs that 97% of female humans are whores, 100% of female penguins are whores, hard chairs are misandry, and that [TRIGGER WARNING FOR CHILD RAPE APOLOGIA] “pedophiles who pay children for sex are not really rapists, because the child consents, then performs the act, indicating they understand the nature of the contract.”
Martin used to be a regular troll around these parts, making himself (and the Men’s Rights movement that supported him in his crusade against the LSE) look worse and worse with each comment he posted, until he became too repetitively obnoxious and I banned him.
Apparently he went on to have a bit of a run as a commenter at A Voice for Men, the self-described men’s human rights site that hosts an open call to firebomb courthouses and police stations in its activism section. But he was banned there too. Not for his misogyny. Not for justifying child rape. But for being … too feminist???
No, really. All this happened some time ago, apparently. But AVFM’s Dean Esmay recently unbanned him to let him post his thoughts about the MRA London fracas, and this exchange happened.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure Tom was able to figure out pretty quickly that we hated him, and it wasn’t so much because of the whole “male wanting to be treated as a human being” thing so much as his “inability to treat females as human beings” thing. But as we know, the inhabitants of AVFM don’t really live in what most of us on planet earth recognize as reality.
In any case, if you want to wrap up your Memorial Day with some utterly surreal reading (non-USians can ignore this bit), I suggest you take a look at the rest of the AVFM thread from that point on. You will see DriverSuz describe Martin as a “male enabler” of feminism. And you will see Martin himself describe himself as a “feminist MRA,” and offer this strange semi-endorsement of feminists as potential dates:
[W]hen you’ve dated and screened thousands of women for potential dates, you get to realize, its the ones identifying as feminists who are the ones least likely to be gold-digging whores looking for an early retirement off the man’s toil. …
I follow the money, which is why I am a feminist MRA.
The money the state disproportionately allots to over-screechy victim-feminist wheels is wrong, and needs to be fixed, but pales into insignificance compared to the over-screechiness an anti-feminist traditionalist woman has lined up for any man unlucky enough to cohabit with her. A feckless housewife wannabe is far more a financial burden than an ill-informed egalitarian identifying as feminist who can be corrected on which sex owes the other money.
Tom Martin, such a romantic!
“Who-riarchy” is when all the Whovians get together to rule all of time and space. And THEN we’ll actually see peace on Earth.
The whack-doodle notions spouted by Tom Martin actually sound kind of like the plot of a really dumb sci-fi B-movie, though. Militant whore penguins, hard chairs that cripple our brave soldiers so they can’t fight back, and all of it funded by child prostitutes.
Kind of the Sarah Jane Adventures as imagined by the writers of a SyFy channel Saturday night original movie.
I’m proposing a new internet rule: if your ‘nym is something about how you are committed to the truth above all else e.g.; factfinder, truthteller, diogenes(seriously?) you have done nothing more than declare yourself to be the most disingenuous and/or ignorant person on the thread.
pi male: like factcheckme??
I don’t know if she’s disingenuous, but she’s definitely an awful radfem.
Oh yeah. And Golda Meir and Indira Gandhi and Sirimavo Bandaranaike. Weak-willed, peacenik, benign earth mothers, the lot of them.
I’ve never heard of factcheckme but honestly that name sounds like someone who is inviting people to check zir facts which is different than someone who is declaring themselves to be the absolute truth.
That’s what I get for challenging the blockquote monster before I’ve had coffee …
She’s a popular TERF blogger. And she is quite hateful.
Whoriarchy … what, headed by Steven Moffat?
Ah. Thanks Aaliyah.
I actually read the whole first thread about Tom Martin. All the 1,737 comments of it.
I laughed so hard and at the same time I just… wondered, you know? What the hell is his thought process? How does he get there, really? I find it fascinating.
And cloudiah provided great recipes there as well. The turkey meat loaf, I have to try that.
actually, the comments of that thread were the ones who made me come here and interact a little more with you all.
Then … Tom Martin has indirectly been responsible for something good!
😀
indeed, Kittehserf!! and also responsible for a future turkey meatloaf dinner!! 😀
I will keep you posted on how that turned out!
Oh, that’s where I put that turkey meatloaf recipe; I’ll have to go back to that thread.
Have you all seen this Cracked.com follow-up on their “Straight White Male” piece?
Sorry, I linked to Scalzi, but meant to link directly to Cracked.com.
@tooimpurenangel
And welcome from over here, albeit a little late 😀
@pro patria ‘truth’teller
You do know that feminism doesn’t mean women are perfect, right? Just…people.
Nobody says this.
Ok, the only one of those that’s ridiculous is ‘mangina’ and you should feel silly putting the others in that list. I mean, if someone thought we were living in a matriarchy I’d laugh in their face, but it’s not the same as mangina.*
*hint: the big insult is ‘he’s not manly, ew, like he must have a vagina’. Which is pretty fucking transphobic. And misogynistic, since the point (I’m assuming) was ‘man who’s like a woman, ew’.
Ohmigod, guys, does this mean Cloudiah is like a feminist princess now!!!!!!eleven~!!!!!!
@Marky
::headdesk:: Ok, bub, but we can still laugh at you.
interesting…. I never heard of Valerie Solanas before MRAs. i mean, I knew about the Warhol thing, but I didn’t know the girl’s name.
Feminism is about women being people, being humans. Not perfect. Being perfect is not part of being human.
come on.. that is so obvious. Well, do I even bother? what are these people reading about feminism anyway? I really would like to know….
*”why” do I even bother, I meant
Yes I know that most educated feminists don’t believe in the narrative of women peacemakers, but most women are not educated about feminism. Therefore the more new-age type of feminism is much more common, which you would know if you actually knew more real women instead of learning about nonsense theories on the Internet just like the manosphere does.
Most types of manosphere ideologies and feminist ideologies both want to stifle all disagreements by accusing people of not understanding them or being endoctrinated if they disagree with the terms of their debate, and wanting to enslave the population to their own agenda, no matter that most men and women disagree with them.
I kinda like Factcheckme because she has the right idea about trans issues, but it’s a pretty scary place, especially with her post about women completely enslaving men.
I’ll sign up for a Who-riarchy, so long as Captain Jack, Vastra, Jenny, and Strax all have cabinet positions.
This discussion is way more interesting that the one Black Fedora and Pro Patria seem to be having.
Pro Patria Truthteller = Pro Patria Mansplainer
Looks like you forgot the citation for this, don’t worry, I got your back:
Fedora, J. Bigsby. “Survey of Feminist Attitudes.” Facts Extruded From My Anus 15.7 (2010): 56. Print.
I know new-age folks, and the feminist ones are definitely not the majority.
Also, those “new-age feminists” are decidedly not the only ones who see women as inherently peaceful. Plenty of anti-feminists and supporters of the patriarchy do that as well (hint: think benevolent sexism).
Accusing someone of not understanding an idea is not the same as stifling agreement. Nor are accusations of indoctrination. You don’t seem to understand how most people, including feminists, seem to argue. You would only be correct if their arguments consisted of nothing but “You’re brainwashed” and “You just don’t understand.” But that’s not the case; they always have other, underlying arguments to back up what they say.
And enslavement? Really? Pushing forth an agenda via discourse and activism is not the same as forcing everyone to submit to it. You have a very strange understanding of feminism as a social movement.
Pretty scary place, yup. Definitely for trans* girls like me. Probably because it’s full of TERF assholes, including factcheckme herself. She doesn’t have the “right idea” about trans* issues. Fuck off.