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!
auggz: IIRC, dustydeste prefers to be called “deste”.
And should feel very proud to have become a troll’s target. Usually the honor is bestowed on Cassandra.
Ok, so both groups are rape victims, that means your control variable is whether they know about the concept of rape culture. Which they either know they don’t know, or know they know. There is no way for enough people to make up all your participants to go “gee, I don’t know if I know what that means” — you’d need group “yes I know the concept” and group “no I don’t know the concept”
And the survey administrator not to know which is which.
You fail at social sciences.
Oh, oh, I’ve got a “hypothetical”. It’s not deste’s so you should be able to answer it.
TW: rape
So, why was she told that? Why did the young man get away with it? What advice do you have for her and other children to prevent the litany of issues that prevented persecution of the rapist? And why the fuck isn’t this an isolated incident and in fact happens with a frequency that’s disturbing? What in the hell could cause that, if not cultural bias?
In all seriousness, I don’t get why people deny rape culture because it’s a “buzzword.” It’s one thing to not be a fan of the phrase “rape culture,” but to say “rape culture is just a buzzword so I don’t think it’s a thing” is ridiculous. I don’t really like the phrase “rape culture” either, but I can’t think of a better term and I know it exists.
So, Hostie, that’s why you’re silly and being called a rape apologist. “Rape culture” refers to the undeniable way rape is treated compared to other crimes, not some subculture like punk or goth where everyone is really into rape and wears rape T-shirts and listens to rape music. If you are denying things like victim blaming, how way more people than there should be don’t even get what rape is or think it’s wrong, how victims are silenced and terrified to report the crime, how some victims (males in particular, but also females at times) are told they couldn’t even have been raped or they should just be lucky it happened, and that recognizing those toxic things is helpful to victims, then you are an ignorant scumbag.
If you just don’t like the phrase “rape culture” and think it’s confusing or something, you are having the wrong conversation. Think of a better term to describe the unique and terrible attitudes towards rape and then get back to us.
12 min til Criminal Minds, EST anyways. I shall be leaving this pile of idiocy to y’all while I go actually use my brain untangling forensic psych…not that that’s science or anything.
Don’t you know that if you coin a word for something, it automatically becomes untrue?
katz, Poutine and pony = win!
Plus scones and clotted cream. Why am I not surprised Poutine approves of scones and clotted cream?
I notice everything troll says is geared toward “do not believe anything rape victims say, because they aren’t really rape victims, after all”. I’d add that he’s doing it specifically to cause distress, so this might be a case where “don’t feed the troll” applies.
Though he probably knows (and I’m still not ready to say he’s not a sock) he’s working his way to the banhammer.
This thread is desperately in need of brain bleach.
Katz, like friendzoning!? I KNEW IT.
It’s just another excuse to dismiss the concept. If it wasn’t “it’s a buzzword!” it’d be something else.
And things that are required of other people, but not Dishonesty Boy
Extensive military experience to speak on matters of history which are about war.
STEM Degree.
Answers to questions.
Things Dishonesty Boy expects us to take on Faith.
His STEM Degree.
His being in advance of his coeval age cohort in school
His scholarly brilliance
His nationality
McGee: Your incessant attempts at getting my attention have been noted…and rejected. You have long since realised that I do not wish to interact with you and still you ignore my obvious lack of consent and keep hectoring me for a response. That, to me, is analogous to street harassment. Please cease and desist.
You are wrong.
You came here. You chose to interact. You are still interacting, ergo you are consenting to being asked questions.
Spot that nationality:
“I’ll take British cultural metaphors for 1,000, Alex”
Oh look, he’s being dishonest again:
‘undetected’ as in: possibly, if not probably, never happened?
I thought the victim got to decide if it was rape?
Or do you mean that when someone says, “I had sex with someone and used force (such as twisting their arm)” and that person wasn’t arrested that maybe the rapist got away with it; that is was (for some reason) unreported; but still rape.
Either way, you are lying; either about not understanding what undetected means, or about how you define rape.
McGee: I see no contradiction.
Really… because your defintion of rape (that thing you say there is no cultural support for) is at direct odds with the wider cultural view.
Policitions say, “if it’s, ‘real rape'” by which they don’t mean one party withdrew consent, nope, they mean, “If it was a white girl who was attacked, and fought back against the degenerate who was intentionally forcing his dick into her”.
Then there are all the college dudes who say, “no means maybe”.
Then there are the prosecutors who say, “she’s not a credible witness; no one will believe her that she wasn’t interested”.
Then there is the abysmal rate of conviction, even when charges are finally brought.
All of that on top of not less than One in six women being raped in their lifetimes.
All of this is some sort of statistical anomaly, given that rape is so widely understood and universally reviled.
That, or you are a liar, who knows rape is widespread, and that the culture supports it, and chooses to argue this isn’t the case.
Why is that? Are there skeletons in your closet? Desires you’ve not yet acted on, but would like to? Things you done and worry about others finding out about?
Inquiring minds want to know.
@auggz
But don’t you know anti-racist is just a code for anti-white?
Anti-rape is just a code for anti-male.
auggz – exactly. The trolls who scream most loudly about how rape culture isn’t a thing, and all the other shit snottytwit has been on about are the ones who have me thinking “this is probably a rapist, right here.”
That nobody cares about friendzoning or having to buy flowers.
That it’s sometimes necessary to burn down houses and murder people.
That a portrait of the Queen isn’t art.
That nobody fails to report rapes to the police.
That social sciences are not really sciences.
That dustydeste is a troll.
That he himself isn’t a troll.
And much much more!
Argenti:
I see what you did there. +1 million intentional or not.
Oh good, I’m not the only one… Like how YouTube atheists were/still are sorta all on the topic of rape prevention, every time I saw/see someone just furious at the idea that there’s a damn good chance drunk sex isn’t consensual, or that if you’re in the middle of sex and one person says “stop” and the other doesn’t stop it’s totally rape, I couldn’t help but think they were starting to feel guilty about something.
That rape victims can’t prove that the concept of rape culture helped them because of undefined biases and contamination by unnamed factors.
Hellkell — that was intentional, was wondering how long it’d take someone to comment 🙂
McGee: Now, would you care to explain how I am a ‘rape apologist’?
Don’t need to, you did it for us.
Uhuh. Scepticism toward the utility of the term ‘rape culture’ is rape apology. AKA ‘if you disagree with me, you’re a do-do face.’
Liar.
There is a difference between arguments about lexical utility and arguments about the validitity of an epistimelogical model.
You did the latter. That, duckie, is rape apologism.
Rape *culture* denialist, if anything at all. Although would stop the ‘denial’ if the existence of said culture were proven.
Liar.
You refuse to look at evidence. You pretend that you have, “disproven it” by saying, “It doesn’t exist”, and then asserting it’s not a postive claim.
No you did not. You *claimed* it was helpful to victims. Word to the wise: statement of personal opinion isn’t proof.
Liar.
You demanded one example of it being so helpful. When presented several you said, “so what, it doesn’t exist”.
None of that. I am classical music guy. Mahler, Beethoven, Shostakovitch, Grieg.
Wrong again: you mean symphonic.
Argenti, yes I remember that discussion. And I also remember tgat the only things presented were anecdotal conjecture. Simply not convincing.
Liar. You demanded an example: that’s an objective claim.
Examples (note the plural, as I recall you have had problems with that in the past) were given. You were thus proved wrong, so you changed the terms you were willing to accept.
This is (objectively) proof that you are not arguing in good faith (in case anyone was still in doubt at this point in time).
At worst, social science is a science that has some limitations other sciences don’t have. But it’s still a science because, well, it relies on the scientific method. Then again, I really shouldn’t expect you to understand the scientific method given that you don’t even know what the difference is between a positive and a negative claim.
baileyrenee – yup, it’s pretty much my default state. Though I don’t even give them the “starting to feel guilty” benefit of the doubt, if one takes the phrase literally; at best, afraid more people will identify what they do as rape, or just enraged that their entitlement to use women’s bodies should be questioned at all.
What a misandrist I am!