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!
@gillyrosebee, nighty night, thanks for being lovely. 🙂
@Argenti, I hate Gin AND it appears to make me stupid! Of course I know you have your SSI hearing, but for some reason I read that last comment with poorly ears in mind. 🙂
Yeah, that medical system of yours is a doozy, and having that wanker of a psych you have must make it so frustrating. I’m really sorry you have to deal with that.
I think you should channel that Emilie Autumn video and FLAG.
Thanks again everyone, gonna try and get some sleep now. Nighty night.
Night, Ophelia.
The crappy bits are purer, and more evident, even if more delicately presented.
Commiserations to all people at the mercy of their brains! Urgh it sucks. I’m going through a yucky bout of depressive hypersomnia, and much as I adore my pups, they’re such snuggly enablers. They do offer virtual hugs to anyone here who needs them, though.
I may not know what refined ass tastes like, but I’m pretty sure it looks like this.
LOL Fi, I thought it might be that sort of pic!
Extra hugs and kitties and pups and all sorts of critters for everyone who needs or wants them.
And poor John Anderon did his best to troll us, somewhere back in the forests of this thread & we just ignored him. Bless.
I was busy watching a very long movie and missed the rape joke, but thanks for putting him on moderation anyway. He was tedious (which I still think should be a ban-worthy offense on every blog).
I think he scored moderation for lack of good faith, too. And arguing round & round in circles.
BTW, for anyone else who’s fallen down the rabbit hole of gawking at Peter Andrew Nolan…WTF is the “MBA”? I keep reading it as NBA and wondering why he thinks they’re going to help in his officially declared war against Ireland.
@CassandraSays
Why it’s the Mens Business Association, of course! My favorite section is “coming attractions”, the many planned projects listed sound a bit overambitious. I’m somewhat skeptical that Nolan will succeed in founding a male-centric Amazon (www.a-man-zon), YouTube (www.mantube) and Facebook (www.Manbook).
The Manbook description is comedy gold:
“Coming attractions” makes it sound like he’s advertising the upcoming features at the local cinema, which is kind of fitting given that all of his “projects” would be best filed under “fiction”. He and Tom Martin have a lot in common – they both really want to be the MRA PT Barnum, but neither of them have good enough people skills to pull it off.
Wow. So much happened overnight. Where to begin…
@Brooked: Thank you, I try! 🙂
@marie: Any gender neutral pronoun is okay (ze/zir, they/their etc.), thanks!
@opheliamonarch: All the hugs if you want them. Also, now I read everything written by you in Mrs Doyle’s wonderful accent. Is this bad?
@Pecunium: A science fiction folk music convention. A science fiction folk music convention. Dammit, I live in the most boring place ever!
@ahostileworld: Social sciences are different from hard sciences, true. That doesn’t make them worthless, though. You have to understand that unlike, say, physics, where we’re observers of unchanging natural laws, social sciences dabble with a more nuanced issue: an environment that we can affect as much as it affects us.
To put it in terms you might understand: Imagine if nuclear physicists, by observing the interactions of nuclei, were able to make the nuclei ”aware” of this interaction, and they could consequently change their behavior if it was more beneficial to do so. Imagine if nuclei were living, breathing, sentient things, like… I don’t know… human beings? Of course, this would make the physical world unbelievably unpredictable, unstable and prone to change. Almost like… I don’t know… a human society?
In social sciences, knowledge truly is power. For once we recognize and understand a phenomenon that benefits a certain demographic at the expense of others, we can work towards changing it in a way that makes things more fair, more equal. Increased understanding of the underlying mechanisms of societal forces (economics, psychology, sociology, all power structures embedded into our system, expectations and cultural themes, the whole shebang) has always been what drives social change.
That’s why the MRAs and their ilk desperately cling on to their evopsych and other dubious forms of determinism: They do not want things to change, to become more equal (probably because deep down, they do recognize their privilege, despite all their objections), so they treat human beings like automatons.*
So you can take your ”wasting taxpayers’ money” shtick and shove it in your ”do-do-hole”.
*Incidentally, I’m not inherently opposed to the view of human beings as immensely complex data processing machines that are entirely the sum of their genes, their absorbed information and their physical and mental life experiences. It’s just the ”immensely complex” part that privileged asshats miss in their desperate attempts to prove that all humans are biologically wired to work in a certain way, full stop.
Also, I can sense a certain sort of self-loathing seeping through in your posts. It is possible that you project your feelings of inadequacy on others in order to feel better about yourself. I would feel sorry for you, but I don’t think you deserve it. You see, the thing you so vehemently oppose withour understanding the tiniest bit about it, namely the existence of rape culture, is something I’ve experienced firsthand.
TW for rape apologia, though this whole thread should probably have a fucking glowing neon sign trigger warning:
To answer your so-called questions: Yes, I was raped. No, I did not report it. Yes, it still happened. I told one of my closest friends, someone who knew the rapist personally, and do you know what his reaction was? He looked me in the eyes and said: ”No, that didn’t happen.” He was completely serious, he said that in such an earnest tone that I almost believed him. That’s when it hit me: he knew. He knew, and he didn’t care, because my rapist was his friend. His friendship with a rapist was more important to him than my well-being. It was at that moment that I knew I could never tell anyone. Ever. Because if your car is jacked, if your house is burglarized, if your wallet is stolen, you are still considered a victim. Even if you were stupid and careless, it is still the criminal who gets blamed for the crime, not you. There is still a perpetrator and a victim, and they are different entities. Not so with rape, which is a far more heinous crime, an attack on your person instead of your possessions. By making it public, you risk becoming the target of scrutiny, scepticism, and downright ridicule on top of having to go through it all again and again. The emotional stress is just too much for most victims. I know it woud have been for me. So I let it go.
That’s what meant when it is said that rape is underreported, and that, my overtly emotionless friend, is rape culture. If some of my things had been stolen, nothing would have kept me from going to the police and reporting the theft. Why then, do you imagine, things are different with rape, if not because of a culture that sends out a message of ”don’t bother, no one will believe you, and you were probably as much at fault anyway”?
And yes, learning about the concept of rape culture helped me understand, to some degree, that it wasn’t my fault, that I wasn’t to blame. It didn’t erase the blame completely, seeing that I have an intense self-hatred, a relic from my childhood, that makes me physically hurt myself for things that, rationally speaking, are not my fault. It’s an ongoing battle, but by having the tools to handle it, I can now imagine I can, at some point, overcome it.
So yes, I am capable of feeling empathy for you because of the self-loathing you’re quite clearly going through. But seeing that you’re a rape apologist who dares to question the validity of human experience concerning a crime against their very being and that you dismiss sciences that measure social attitudes and human experience as worthless because *gasp* not any two people are the same, I lose all sympathy for you, and you need to fuck off.
@John Anderson: Not this again. The problems you’ve presented have been addressed time and time again, so this is clearly another attempt at wearing people out with the same old bullshit. I’m too tired now to address your points, so if anyone else wants a go, the comment is here: http://manboobz.com/2013/10/20/the-daily-beast-takes-on-the-mens-rights-movement-and-takes-down-a-voice-for-mens-john-hembling/comment-page-25/#comment-366729
Let me just leave you with a small piece of advice: When you make extraordinary claims, such as the claim that the MRM has done anything worthwhile in their miserable existence, remember that CITATION FUCKING NEEDED.
And finally,
@everyone who is not a troll:
http://who-is-awesome.com/who-is-awesome.jpg
Uggh, didn’t mean to make the post so long and self-pitying. Sorry, I’m feeling really blah today.
<3 Radical Parrot. That was beautiful.
I feel like we're all feeling blah… I certainly have been for a few weeks. As shitty as it is for everyone, it's kind of nice to know I'm not the only one… Hugs to everyone who wants them. Non-touching comfort for those who don't like hugs.
Oh. John Anderson… bless you child.
Oh, whut? Everything feminists do to help men is because we’re bowing to the MRM?
I need coffee, I can’t make sense of that.
1 in 6 is MRM? Cuz they actually do stuff. Like, I know they were doing a fundraiser selling blue guitar strings. Fundraising, more things the MRM doesn’t get.
NOW opposed the Michigan legislation because it would impose joint custody on parents who were in conflict over custody.
And the legislation was also opposed by: antiviolence/ women’s shelter groups, the bar association, child psychologists, social workers, family law experts, judges, lawyers, and even the Family Forum (a right-wing, “traditional family values” group).
So not just NOW opposing it, actually.
http://www.now.org/nnt/03-97/father.html
John Anderson lying – colour me surprised.
I apologise for misleading people. Wrong piece of legislation. John Anderson is apparently referring to SB 557 which relates to the revocation of paternity. And while NOW were the only group to speak in opposition on the floor, they were most definitely not the only group opposed to it.
For example, I give you the Oakland County Bar Association, also opposed. http://www.ocba.org/Legislative-Positions-Adopted-by-OCBA.id.2813.htm
google is my friend, John. It lets me see when you are lying by implication. 🙂
Yeah, joint custody as default in any case where the parents are in conflict sounds like a terrible idea. What if either parent has legit claims about the other parent?
#pre-disclaimer – I am not a neuroscientist. This is almost certainly rife with errors.
Speaking as a self aware meat robot, I do find their interpretation of determinism funny. I mean, yes, all sources point to our minds being what the brain does, and the brain being nothing more than a meaty computer. That being the case, it stands to reason that, even taking any quantum effects (which are often used to create loop holes for free will which make no sense at all) that may or may not occur, our behaviours are shaped by our environment in a way that would be emminently traceable if we had the tools to do so.
Stopping there, it’s clear! We’re programmed by our environment. Simple automata designed to believe themselves alive. I find it odd that people who shriek about their opposition being just another religion would accept this as the way it has to be, though. As if we were created this way by SCOO*, and to change it would be sacrilege.
Of course, stopping there makes no sense. Of course we look like automata if you read to “we are products of our environment” and don’t bother to read the very next line – “but we, ourselves, are a part of our environment.” (I’m not actually quoting anyone here btw, it’s just that these guys really are quote-mining reality with this stuff. We are part of our own environment, and so are the people around us. When I first posted here, I was pretty free with ableist language. It never occured to me that saying crazy to mean bad was actually a bad thing. A part of my environment – you guys – criticised me on that, and another part – myself, more specifically the part of myself that deals with interpersonal relationships – started to slightly manipulate the “code” that determines my behaviour so that they were more in line with how my interpersonal relationship bit is programmed to communicate with people. In my case, that means avoiding things that hurt people. In the case of MRAs it seems to be do as many things that hurt people as possible, just ’cause it’s MAH RIGHTS DURNIT!!!!
*cough*
Anyway…
*Some Creator Or Other
I don’t know about that. I think, personally, the reason someone like Heartise clings to evo-psych and brings it up a lot is because it gives him (and people who think like him, eg. large parts of the manosphere) a way to make everything that is happening right now just a momentary hiccup.
“Oh, sure, women are in college and they have jobs now, but evolutionarily, they can’t, because SO AND SO, so the economy’ll crash and it’ll all go bad and then they’ll see, we were right all along!”
The thing about evolution is that it takes a a lot of time, so they’re fine playing the waiting game. They have their perfect answer, and they know which way everything is going, so they’re so much better than us poor deluded fools otherwise. They treat human beings like automatons because in automatic machines, momentary hiccups of programming are just that – flaws that are soon corrected, and output that was garbled, but can be fixed.
It’s slightly worse than just “There’s no free will”, this is thinking “There is no free will, and soon, all these people will realize this and pay for their misdeeds“
“There is no free will but Allah!
… I mean… uh, ours.”
Evo psych is basically a set of fairy tales designed to make reactionaries feel less frightened by the modern world, imo.
Just in case anyone’s worried, no that’s not an “aaah, the’re all extremists just like all Muslims!” thing. It’s just that they have that “there is no god but Allah” thing, while other religions, to the best of my knowledge, don’t have a similar statement with similar wording. Basically, I’m just mocking them for religious adherence to an idea while reviling religious adherence to anything.