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!
Sorry, haven’t done blockquotes in a while, just testing.
Rats and bats, I know I’ve seen some work on this one, back when “opting out” was the stick-du-jour with which to beat feminism. Maybe check the work of Barbara Ehrenreich?
What I seem to remember were studies that suggested academic achievement was less threatening to the identity of girls at the upper and lower most socioeconomic levels. Academic achievement was characterized as a boost for working class girls because getting any education would move them up the scale into clerical or skilled work (nursing, teaching) over “unskilled” or domestic work. For working class boys, academic achievement was seen as emasculating.
At the upper levels, educational achievement was less significant a factor for boys than personal and family connections while achievement for girls was correlated with being ‘proper wife’ material, ie capable of being a knowledgeable and effective decorative accessory to a wealthy husband.
Middle class was where things got interesting, IIRC, with an upward pressure on boys to achieve educations that would push them up the economic scale and a downward pressure on girls not to ‘endanger’ their femininity.
Granted, this was retrospective in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but someone must have taken a look at it since…
@Tulgey, Both the Queen’s portrait and The Hay Wain were defaced. Asshole McGee here thinks it’s fine that the Queen’s portrait was defaced, but as far as I can tell hasn’t weighed in on The Hay Wain.
Also, to answer a question not asked of me, I would totally approve of someone defacing, say, George Washington’s portrait. This country is way too fucking in love with its ruling class, slave owning racist forebears. Fuck ’em.
That’s a bit more of a live issue than the dreaded Victorian Penis Wars, though.
Yay 🙂
Isn’t there another troll who always claims to be French and says he has trouble with his English?
This one acts like every British bigot I’ve ever met but claims to be German.
Is this just a troll disease?
While I agree with your reasoning, wouldn’t it be better to create a wholly new work of art which expressed that message than to deface someone else’s work? I mean, if a negative reaction is what you’re looking for, as in the case of the highly rational and consistent Mr Hostileworld, you could always do something along the lines of Piss Christ? Get the same message out, get the same negative reaction, and actually make something worthy of being called art at the same time. Two birds with one stone? Move aside! THREE birds!
gillyrosebee: interesting, looks it is even more complicated. I had to idea about the attitudes at the upper levels, but I guess they are not so many people there, so they don’t affect the statistical means so much-
cloudiah :”So why not murder people, if the government isn’t listening to you? That will get even more negative attention! Be specific, and tell us exactly what shit you think it is okay to break to get negative attention to make people talk about your issues. ”
Do we want this thread to turn into the Terrorist’s Handbook
Yeah, Tulgey Logger, I got that. But he doubled down on it in later comments in a way that was weird. Because a painting of the Queen of England is a legitimate target because it is kitschy and also because the Allies dropped bombs on Dresden, Cologne, Stuttgart, London, Glasgow, Birmingham, Coventry…
Oh, wait, no. Those last few cities were bombed by someone else during WWII. Wonder who that was…
@Marie Yeah, the “rape babies are a gift from god” guy was Indiana’s own Richard Mourdock
No, it got people talking about what “cranks”, “crackpots” and “nutters” they are. It did effectively nothing to actually help men and their children. I’d argue that by encouraging people to see people involved in the F4J as weird, extremist, and potentially mentally ill, it actually set the movement back.
I have to say, I do find it odd that a German would defend the barbecuing of German children during the war (which is what happened in the firestorms that followed the combination incendiary/high explosive bombing raids) as a both a morally defensible tactic, as well as a more effective one than crippling the nations armed forces. I mean, I get that Hitler and his government were a terrible group of people doing terrible things who needed to be stopped, but I don’t think it makes sense to hold German children morally accountable, and therefore valid proxy targets, for their actions.
“Negative attention is better than no attention at all.”
Nope, sorry, it is not. Defacing paintings just makes the organization look bad, so those people who might have said, “gee, they have some good points” instead just scratch their heads. Because defacing paintings makes no sense.
You know what does net you some good press? Rallies. Posters. Petitions. A good-old fashioned sit-in. All those nonviolent protest techniques that you don’t seem to put much store by.
And all this shit about the government not listening? Again who makes up the freaking government? Here in the US, it’s mostly white men!
And we’re talking Britain here, right? According to this, women make up about 33% of members of Parliament. So exactly how are men not getting a fair shake from government when over half of the government is men? Or are all this MP’s just “White Knights” and “manginas” who are in feminists’ pockets?
http://www.parliament.uk/Templates/BriefingPapers/Pages/BPPdfDownload.aspx?bp-id=SN01250
Well, yeah, of course a few people who hate men and boys by default used it as another welcome justification for their visceral hatred. As if they ever needed one. But you are not everyone. And me and many of my peers started discussing subjects pertaining to child protection and men’s rights in much more detail than we used to.
Ok, I have internet again and it is definitely better than before, so then!
The answer to Dvärghundspossen’s question is that 80%~ of us are cis, 5%~ declined to answer, 4%~ are trans* and the remaining 10%~ ID as neither trans* nor cis, or checked “other” (most of that 10%~ checked “neither”)
So yes, we are far less cis than the populations average.
What gives with the “visceral hatred”? The only thing for which I have visceral hatred is raisins. Well, ok, raisins & sultanas. Oh, and currents. Basically, the whole dried grape thing. Bleuch!
@Athywren, glad I’m not the only one.
This one just seems hinky, I mean it just doesn’t scan.
I know all Europeans outside the UK are awesome at languages, compared to us Brits feeble efforts, but why is the subject of his crap so UK centric? Suffragettes, monarchy, art, british soldiers etc.
The topics are just wrong, and why reference your bad english when it’s obviously so good?
And I’ve known loads of people from Germany and not one has used the word ‘mate’, that’s normally UK, Aus or NZ.
I’m betting, if he is in Germany, he’s still British.
ahostileworld: Foul ball! Who on this site has expressed a “visceral hatred” of men and boys?
” at least not to the degree that the art of a Van Gogh or a Rembrandt, or even a Gainsborough lies in its brushstrokes.”
But…but…Van Gogh’s brush strokes! Fetch my fainting couch!
FTR, I feel the same about the Hagia Sophia. Somethings really do need every last detail to “work”. (Now there’s somewhere I’d love to visit…with someone to drag me out eventually)
Oh??? It’s okay for you to anti-feminist jargon in my mouth (‘white knights’, ‘mangina’), but when I suspect hatred of men I need to back it up?
To put, sorry
Lima beans here. Although I do not appreciate raisins in food one bit.
@ahostilewotsit, that straw feminist in your head is playing up again.
Yes, ahostileassholemcgee, you need to back your shit up. All of it, which so far you have failed at.
I’d have thought @acheesywotsit would be much more upset about the suffragettes burning down cricket pavilions than them destroying telegraph poles.
Lima beans and okra. Rutabagas too.
I said: felling those masts was legitimate. I don’t know the first thing about cricket.
Interesting observation: accusations of straw feminists in an environment where people exclusively think in clichés: MRAs are like this, men are like that and we are oppressed. Because.
Meh, it’s the internet. No use trying to discuss things seriously. It’s like pushing diarrhoeia up a mountain with a toothpick.
It’s the “if there are no obvious flaws that anyone can point out his person must be attractive to everyone” way of framing beauty. Which I’ve always found rather sad, since I tend to look for things that I actively like rather then just going “eh, nothing obviously wrong, so I guess you’ll do”, and the idea of deciding who you want to fuck via consensus seems really weird to me.
Cumberbatch – nope, and I’m even more confused by his appeal than I am by Brand’s. See why this deciding who you find hot via group consensus thing doesn’t work?