The bad publicity bonanza for Men’s Rights activists continues — and it couldn’t happen to a worse group of people.
Yesterday, the Daily Beast published a long-awaited piece on the Men’s Rights movement, and it’s a doozy. If you’re a regular reader of this site, trust me, you’ll want to read the whole thing, like now. The piece, by R. Tod Kelly, is long — some 6000 words — but worth it.
It’s mostly on the money, but with a few notable flaws.
Here’s what it gets right:
1) It captures the pervasive misogyny of the Men’s Rights movement in general, and of A Voice for Men in particular.
2) In an extended section, it profiles AVFM’s John Hembling, and tears apart some of his most blatant lies — including the now legendary box-cutter incident, in which Hembling claims to have stared down a mob of 20-30 feminists brandishing boxcutters.
As Kelly notes:
Vancouver police records show that there was indeed an altercation in September of 2012 between Hembling and others seeking to tear down men’s rights posters. However, according to the police, Hembling was arguing with two or three people, not being accosted by a “mob” of any size. When questioned by the authorities, neither Hembling nor witnesses mentioned seeing any weapons. …
Curiously enough, Hembling actually videotaped the events and had his AV4M Radio partner Karen Straughan post it online. The discussion with the police has been conveniently edited out, but the rest of the video clearly matches police records and not Hembling’s story. There are only a few young men taking down Hembling’s posters, and the video shows them choosing to ignore him except when he engages them in conversation. One of the men is seen using a box cutter to take down the flyers, but at no time does he use it as a weapon, raise his voice, or threaten Hembling in any way.
Kelly found some troubling, er, discrepancies in another story told by Hembling. Kelly writes:
According to Hembling, sometime around 1995 he was on his way home at 2:00 am after working a night shift when he came upon [a sexual] assault in progress. He says he used his steel-toed boots as weapons to chase off the perpetrator. When the victim was too distraught to speak with him, Hembling says he contacted the police, waited until they arrived, and then quietly left without speaking to them. He says they later tracked him down at his home, where he gave a statement.
It’s hard to know whether this event actually occurred or not. There is no record—at least, not in the Vancouver police files—of Hembling being a material witness to a rape, and police blotters from that time period do not show a crime that matches Hembling’s description. However, this does not necessarily mean the event did not occur. Vancouver police did not fully computerize their data until 2002, and it is possible the police never reported the incident. Hembling claims the incident took place at a specific hospital, where he says he worked as a contractor for 18 months. The address he gives, however, is for a different hospital in a completely different part of the city. This raises the curious question of whether Hembling forget the name of the hospital he contracted with for 18 months, or whether he forget what part of the city he worked in for that same period of time. The real truth of the matter is anyone’s guess, because Hembling wouldn’t comment to The Beast on that or any other matter.
In other words: Cool story, bro.
3) Another thing the story gets right: it makes clear just how little the Men’s Rights movement does to actually help men — and how in many ways it can actually be terribly damaging to men who need real help. As Kelly writes,
the movement’s radicals might … do … immediate damage to those who most desperately need the MRM to succeed.
“When we talk about recovery from trauma and abuse, there were two things that helped me,” says Chris Anderson, executive director of the male-victim advocacy group Male Survivor and a sexual abuse survivor himself. “The first was realizing that I’m not alone; the second was hearing that recovery was possible.” Anderson is quick to dissociate himself from the men’s rights movement: “In [the MRM] people get that first message, that they’re not alone. I don’t know that they ever get the second message. And when they don’t get that second message, it turns into an endless feedback loop and eventually they say, ‘Oh my God, all of society is f**ked.’”
Indeed, Kelly writes:
It is telling to note that of the professional male-victim advocacy organizations I spoke with, every single one specifically asked that I not allow readers to think they were in any way related to the MRM.
But there are also some things that I think the article gets wrong.
1) I think it gives Men’s Rights activists way too much credit for their supposed good intentions. While there are some MRAs who do seem to be motivated at least in part by a sincere desire to help men, most of the MRAs I’ve encountered in the 3 years of doing this blog have clearly been motivated primarily by anger and hatred of feminists — and women in general. They don’t really seem to give a shit about doing anything to actually improve the lives of men — and the paucity of their accomplishments reflects this. In its relatively brief lifespan, AVFM has raised many hundreds of thousands of dollars. Has it set up any shelters or hotlines or helplines for men? Not a one.
2) It wildly exaggerates the importance of Hembling to the MRM — especially ironic given that Hembling has been more or less AWOL in recent months, producing only a few short videos and one article for AVFM.
3) It paints a picture of The Spearhead’s WF Price as a Men’s Rights “moderate.” Really? While it’s true that Price is not an AVFM-style hothead given to rants about “fucking your shit up,” his views are anything but moderate. This is a guy who thinks higher education is wasted on women, who blames the epidemic of rape in the armed forces on women, who celebrated one Mothers Day with a vicious transphobic rant, who once used the tragic death of a woman who’d just graduated from college to argue that “after 25, women are just wasting time.” He published posts on why women’s suffrage is a bad idea. Plus, have you met his commenters?
I was, however, kind of amazed to learn that Price is married … and to a feminist. No, really.
4) The article, while solidly researched, contains some small errors and simplifications that will no doubt give MRAs and others the excuse they need to dismiss the whole thing. Kelly refers to Reddit subreddits as Reddit “threads!” He refers to Matt Forney as an MRA! Oh no!
Still, whatever its flaws, this is an important piece, and one that tells a lot of truth about the Men’s Rights movement. Again — go read it!
@sparky
I’d love to try that lip balm….but poverty is my curse.
As far as okcupid goes…..most of the guys that message me are 30+……and they try to convince me that age is just a number and blah blah blah.
$34 lip gloss? Holy hell! I grumble at paying about six bucks for a chapstick.
@Joeseph Crumbles – well said.
Have you had your Welcome Package yet?
Fame at last!
Joeseph Crumbles, you’re probably right. I’m just so damn Canadian.
LOL glad you saw that bit!
baileyrenee – if that makes you Canadian, then what does my charitability call me?
Is it possible to be nicer than a Canadian? *is joking*
Ha! To be fair, it’s $34 for two pots, but yeah, it’s pricey. But it does work wonderfully and it does last forever.
sparky – that is some nice lip gloss. Too bad I can’t color coordinate pigments for the life of me (and can’t afford any).
@kittehserf :3 Thank you! I do need a cat avatar and the spinning seal made me just about fall off my chair. Man, I’m in the right place.
@Bill’s wife
Yup. Economy should be our biggest concern. Not people with uteruses getting denied their rights to bodily auntomy, not systematic racism, not trans* people getting murdered way more often than cis people. The fucking economy.
You may be a feminist, but your priorities are pretty fucked.
::snortle:: I must have been watching the wrong mitt romney…
@Ceebarks
bleh that sucks 🙁
Alice, I dub thee an hounourable canuk. Your maple syrup, hockey jersey, Trailer Park Boys DVD, and beaver will be sent to your home address.
Kittehserf, I felt special 😀
hostilitboy: How relevant am I? I’m completely irrelevant, which is why male genial mutilation is so going on in my country. It is the reason men have a much lower life expectancy. It is the reason children are beaten by their parents.
I see, it would all be fixed if you were in charge?
As to the actual claims that those things are because of some “hostility toward men. Prove it
Sitting there and merely claiming you ‘do advocacy’ for this and that group from one corner of your mouth and from the other corner claiming that MRAs ‘don’t do anything’ to confront social injustices is not going to get you anywhere. None of these identity politics trolls on the internet can prove either way that they do anything, so let’s not go down this road.
Good thing that’s not the argument.
The argument you are strawmanning is that feminism does things for women, and the MRM does jack shit for men.
Is it just me? Or maybe it’s the gin?
But @Bills wife is taking me right back to the nineties with all her bollocks ’bout her lurvely husband.
@Bills wife, sweetheart, I’m sorry but, he’s an asshole!:
http://youtu.be/UrgpZ0fUixs
“He says women are just wasting their time after 25. He says women shouldn’t get higher education. You really think that’s harmless? You really think that’s a joke, or just stupidity, or what?”
And why do you have to listen to it and take it into account and apply to your own life? You don’t have a brain of your own to make your own choices? I get where he’s coming from about the age 25, but I myself didn’t get married until 35. Neither did my grandma. So what? Even if she or I hadn’t gotten married at all, we still would’ve made the choices we wanted to make, regardless of what other people think. People can say all they want that “women should marry” young, and, yes, it is annoying to hear that but it will be WOMEN THEMSELVES who will decide whether to marry at 23 or 33 or 42. Frankly, a lot of what MRAs write, sounds like, as if they’re just resentful that things aren’t the way they want them to be. Tough luck. They can shove their opinions.
And Bill will have his opinions, they’re not all great, but it is worth it for me because I gain from this relationship in other ways. It may not be ideal to reward a “misogynist” with your presence in his life, but I wouldn’t do it if there was nothing valuable in it for me. I’m mature enough to know that love doesn’t happen often in life and when it does happen it’s better to embrace it.
I don’t use my own moniker because I want to protect my identity and for the sake of this discussion because I am relevant as his partner in this case and in no other way, that’s all.
Oh, we don’t do feet. Mostly because I have an issue with feet. All feet. Don’t like ’em. Don’t like looking at ’em. Don’t like touching ’em.
As Dr. Husbutt says, “The first rule if this house is NO PIEDI!“
baileyrenee, you are special!
And Alice is an honorary Canuk. ::is jealous::
Joeseph – moar kitties! There can never be too many kitties. Or spinning seals. 🙂
ceebarks, I agree with your stance and I kinda liked you from the beginning (I lurked in here a bit before).
About fiat money, who knows how that will turn out, with regards to money issues, I prefer to be on the conservative side. But the US economy actually seems pretty sound in many ways, in fact, there are a lot of internal resources and it is self-sustainable, my point was mainly along the lines that “don’t take the welfare state for granted” because it is much harder for single women to have children in a more libertarian, anything goes environment or the frontier type of environment. I’m not saying women’s independence cannot exist there, it exists even during the war. I’m not saying it’s a luxury, I already mentioned that a 100 years ago in Europe it was already there, even though there was no welfare state. Women want to be free and respected in any environment. However, when you don’t have the welfare state, you can’t fulfill all your choices, you have to settle with just a few.
I’m using this discreet moniker because I don’t want this to turn into the shit storm that Minter’s affair did, yet I still wanted to explain myself because not that much was said about me in the Newsweek article.
EVERYBODY!!! A.S.S.H.O.L.E, A.S.S.H.O.L.E……there’s not enough air in the world…
Bill’s Wife tl:dr: if the misogynistic hatred my husband spouts doesn’t hurt YOU personally, why do you care?
You’ve a funny idea of feminism, social justice, or any sort of concern for others, madame. You’re also sadly confused if you think that’s the only reason anyone reacts to anything ever. Sounds like you had the same empathy bypass your husband did.
Pecunium – speaking of hostilityboy, did he ever explain what genial mutilation is? It’s not mutilating clowns, is it?
“In his youth was in the upper 10% of men in terms of physical attractiveness”
[citation needed]
I kid. Love is a many splendored thing and she doesn’t have to explain why she married a git who rants endlessly on the internet against women. I personally couldn’t take someone who subscribes MRAs overall conspiracy of feminist overlords ruling/ruining the world seriously, but that’s me.
I’m glad the unnamed European country you came from is a gender equality wonderland. Has racism, xenophobia and anti-Muslim bias been eliminated there too? It sure sounds like a swell place.
But you seem to know very little about American social and political history, which is understandable if Bill is your primary source. Also, the fight for women’s rights is global, so I’m not sure sitting back and admiring the rights and privileges enjoyed by some Western women is a good way to contribute.
@bill’s wife
Don’t try to excuse his crappy behavior with ‘but you don’t have to listen to it!’ We aren’t following his advice, you’ll have noticed. We just still think he’s a horrible, sexist jerk…because he is.
…yeah social standards have no affect on them. Please explain to me why the average age for getting married has been getting higher, then, if women can just choose to do what they want whenever. Fact is, people’s choices are still influenced by society, what others think of them, whether they’ll be able to afford a damn roof over their heads, ect.
LOL I can go with that! Not that I’ve a thing against feet, but mine get persistent itches all on their own, I don’t need anyone messing with ’em.
You could make a really bad pun about Hamelin with that “No Pied” line. 😉
hostilityboy: LBT – in the interest of fairness, I should tell you that I am not easily baited
Pull the other one, it’s got bells on it. Anyone who moves goalposts like that, is easily baited; usually by doing what happens here; quoting their words back to them.
I do not answer for American men’s rights advocates. I do not expect anyone on here to answer for anyone who isn’t them.
Yes you do. You demanded we provide evidence of one single person who was helped by the idea of rape culture. That’s expecting us to answer for all of feminism.
You have to learn to do better than that if you want to play in the big leagues.
I never brought up the topic of feminism.
Liar.
There’s always that little margin of people who consider themselves part of a social justice movement but consider every other issue on the planet to be more important. Like GOProud, the Republican gay-rights group that was too conservative to even be part of Log Cabin Republicans, whose agenda is a flat tax, repealing Obamacare, privatizing social security, wanking about activist judges, small government, the war on terror, states’ rights, gun control, states’ rights again, and charter schools. But they phrase everything like “standing strong against radical regimes that refuse to recognize the basic human rights of gays and lesbians,” so that makes them a gay-rights group, I guess.
@kittehserf Thanks again. Got a new cat, a new name and I’m shaking the Fresh Step off my paws.
How about you talk to the survivors who have benefited from feminist anti-rape discourse? Feminism is what gave a name to the system of prejudices that marginalize victims of sexual violence. One that they have always lived with. At the very least it opened up dialogue regarding the marginalization of sexual violence victims, and that itself is significant.