So, it finally happened. The men’s rights lecture and rally in Toronto that A Voice for Men have been breathlessly promoting for weeks — in no less than 17 separate posts — have both come to pass. Men’s Rights celebrities flew in from across the continent to attend the exciting events. Paul Elam was there! So was Karen Straughan! Even Dan Perrins made an appearance! (Oh, wait, I think he lives around there.)
In a post-rally post, AVFM’s Robert O’Hara declared the “Historic MHRA rally in Toronto” to have been a “huge success.”
Well, you can be the judge of that. Go here to watch some actual footage of the event. (Sorry, I can’t get it to embed here.) So far I’ve only watched the final 8-minute video at the top of the page, but it’s pretty revealing in and of itself. The event organizers almost outnumber the sparse crowd. And one of the speakers calls for MRAs to take up arms against their “communist” opponents. No, really, just watch.
In case the video gets pulled, or censored, I’ve taken the liberty of transcribing his remarks: :
There’s an organization out there called communism, and the communist manifesto says that the first thing they have to do is take over power. And they’ll never get elected. And they know that they’ll never get elected. So what they do is they say “we have to take power by violent methods,” right, so if you want to crack back against these people, I hate to say it, but you’ve gotta be prepared to pick up a gun and put down the books.
Emphasis mine.
Someone in the audience responds to this with a hearty “yep!” There’s a smattering of applause, mixed with boos. AVFM’s Dean Esmay hurridly ushers the speaker away from the microphone.
The speaker who follows Esmay — I didn’t catch his name — describes the counterprotesters (who held their own rally nearby) as being of “the hammer and sickle” and denigrates them as “queers.”
This isn’t so much history being made as history repeating itself. I suspect the rhetoric was similar at a lot of White Citizen Council rallies in the sixties.
Oh, and the HISTORIC LECTURE that so many MRAs were hoping and dreaming that feminists would disrupt? Feminists ignored it. Apparently, according to one MRA on Reddit who claimed to have been there, a little more than a hundred people showed up.
Congratulations, A Voice for Men, on your FLAWLESS VICTORY!
I’ll watch as much of the rest of the rally as I can force myself to sit through, and add anything else worth adding.
EDITED TO ADD: I watched the video that covered the rest of the rally. It was pretty uneventful: a low energy, sparsely attended rally with a bunch of half-assed speeches. Apparently no one at A Voice for Men or CAFE, the co-host of the rally, bothered to prepare anything to say — perhaps because they were all expecting some sort of feminist riot? The “pick up a gun” speaker wasn’t one of the scheduled speakers, just someone they gave the microphone to when he raised his hand after the scheduled speakers were done.
One moment that did stand out: a trans man — apparently a member of CAFE — briefly took the mic, taking offense at the chants from the counterprotestors calling MRA’s “anti-gay.” I would suggest he take a look at AVFM’s not-so-proud history of homophobia and transphobia.
EDITED TO ADD AGAIN: Here’s a picture of the event from Civilian Media. You can almost taste the excitement! From left, Nick Reading of Men’s Rights Edmonton, Dean Esmay of AVFM, the legendary Paul Elam (looking a little bewildered), and two other dudes. Paul evidently HEARTS Fucking Their Shit Up. Oh, Paul, we HEART U!
I’ve been sitting on my hands trying to be the bigger person here…but the fucking irony. They say feminists are plain and unattractive? have they looked at themselves?
Of course I know their appearance has nothing to do with their arguments, the most gorgeous man or woman in the world can say the horrid shit MRAs do and it would be every bit as wrong. But really…who are they to talk about physical appearance and what women wear? All this is is a lesson to not bring up physical appearance to smear your opponent.
Also you know how feminists got stereotyped as wearing Birkenstocks? does this mean we can stereotype MRAs as Croc-wearers based on Dean’s choice of shoes? lol…joking of course. Crocs get enough hate as is.
To be fair to the dude freaking out about the commies and queers, the counterprotester contingent was Bash Back, and I’m seeing a picture of at least one dude with a pink hammer & sickle shirt. So… maybe he was being topical and addressing directly the counterprotesters.
Of course, I personally think that the commies (and mostly anarchists) queers of Bash Back being there is *awesome*.
Also, communism is *an* organization? Sweetie. There’s at least three different communist parties in Canada (I will admit though… only one believes in electoralism and presents candidates) and they can’t even go to the same demos without throwing a screaming match. I won’t start on the anarchists, the revolutionary socialists, the autonomists… oh wait, I just did.
>>>I’ve been sitting on my hands trying to be the bigger person here…but the fucking irony. They say feminists are plain and unattractive? have they looked at themselves?
You know when a personality cult is moribund because they all look like this. That’s the look of the dudes that try to sell me the RCP’s paper. At least the LaRouchians and the Krishnas have young blood refilling their ranks.
When Paul was speaking about how boys’ reading skills are getting lower I was already firing off ideas in my head about how to fix this. After school reading clubs, adults signing up to tutor boys in reading, more enthusiasm about reading in the classroom, ect. This is important, feminists don’t have anything against helping boys read, we’re against harassing feminists and trying to shut them up when they talk about women and girls.
What a shame it didn’t rain, then it would have been a complete wash out. lol .. but oops it was.
@BlackBlock
I was always under the impression that a good chunk of MRAs were in their 20s too…for some reason a lot of them didn’t appear to be at the rally :/
I think the young MRAs are basically passive receivers, none of them are active or militant. It’s no less dangerous, mind you, because they’re being sold a bill of good and may affect things in a passive and less obvious manner, but they’re not organizing anything. In fact the MRA itself has very little organizing capabilities except as a catalyst for allowing disturbed individuals with violent fantasies to act with some sort of ideological structure behind their actions.
Showing up at a demo is very basic militancy. The MRA is not even capable of provoking that much interest in their cause.
Quackers — I know right? When Joe went on about how men commit suicide more, and I suggested that there should be suicide prevention programs targeted at men and the reasons they commit suicide, I got accused of victim-blaming.
They really have no desire to help men or boys, just bash women.
@Quackers
Yeah… to a certain extent, the very fact that they refuse to actually do anything for men or boys just kills me. I used to think their work was benign, entertaining but ultimately useless.
After enough MRAs attacked feminists who sincerely care and think about men and boys (I’m think R.W. Connell, bell hooks, Judith Butler, Kimberle Crenshaw here) I realized that they’re trying to tear down some of the most important theory.
Now imagine that someone in the government caves, and decides that the MRM is the way to go, and they get their hands on actual resources… shudder. I don’t know what they would do, but I can’t imagine it would be good.
I also got the impression that young MRAs just don’t date and play videogames all day, so that can factor in for “protesting” in a passive manner?
There’s nothing wrong with nor dating and playing videogames all day either, except they’re being told to live like that because women suck and are out to get them/falsely accuse them/steal their sperm/use them for their money/etc. It’s upsetting because it’s making choices based on what assholes who hate women say. Then again it’s their lives, they can do whatever the hell they want as long as it does not infringe on my rights.
I’d imagine a lot of infighting, followed by the discovery that all the money has mysteriously disappeared and the guy in charge of the funds is nowhere to be found. This is the MRM. after all.
So, how was the turnout?
@Argenti
What the hell? how on earth is that victim blaming? or did he just want a chance to basically say “NO U”
@FeministBees
I’d like to think if they got resources they would use it to legitimately help men and boys, but given that this entire movement is basically set up as the opposition to feminism, I have my doubts. I recently saw one MRA comment say that women should lose their right to abortion unless men can have a male pill. Factor that in with all the other shit they’ve said online and documented on this very blog, they seem more interested in girls and women losing rights and choices rather than boys and men gaining more.
I try not to think about it. I hope I’m wrong…I want to be wrong about this!
More films based on old novels… one of my classmates told me about how they’d been reading Lord of the Rings after the film came out. Sentences like “I’m actually excited!” were in attendance.
I think the problem with MRAs in their teens, is that a lot of them consider themselves skeptics and associate with skeptics, so they don’t have a huge amount of support, and do have a fair bit of open disagreement and fallacy-out-pointing from the people around them… not that it does much good.
Athywren – Unfortunately, them identifying as skeptics makes actual skeptics who aren’t assholes look bad. I’m a skeptic and I’m a feminist. They’re perfectly compatible with one another, plus it helps with “not looking like an asshole” aspect.
@Athywren
Great idea! also I’m not at all familiar with what books are out for kids/preteens, but when I was young we had Goosebumps and choose your own adventure books. They were popular and both seem like something boys would enjoy. Elementary schools also had book fairs and I was always excited when we got book order forms….ah I feel so old now lol
Cloudiah, I couldn’t resist adding that pc to the post. Paul looks so cute there in his little “I HEART FTSU” t-shirt!
Well, that’s half rational. A male pill would be excellent, though I wonder how much MRAs would appreciate it when they realised the effects of chemical contraceptives. I imagine it would have similar effects to the female pill. Though maybe men having to deal with the same side effects as women would drive a move to reduce those side effects?
The only thought that pic inspires is “isn’t it a bit cold in Toronto for shorts by this time of year?”
Maybe I’m just not communist enough.
So, judging for the thread I just read, the turnout wasn’t that big because so many of the MRA’s are just too manly to comply with a no violence policy even in the case of self defense, for a cause certain to benefit half of humanity. Where’s the courage of conviction?
Actually, its more like these guys can’t resist putting a “mouthy bitch” in her place, and they don’t want that kind of nastyness used against their cause.
Quackers – How old are we talking here? I remember book order forms all the way till middle school seven years ago.
pillowinhell – It’s not like they don’t already make up enough nastiness to be used against them on a daily basis. Otherwise, Manboobz wouldn’t have a reason to exist.
Cassandra, its been in the mid twenties during the afternoons for the past week or so. Almost beach weather really.
@David Futrelle
Is there anyway we (I) can get that photo Typhon Blue style?