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!
And @kitteh? Sexy teapots?
I mean I’ve heard of ‘Bone’ China, but I don’t think that’s what they meant!
NO you flippin’ don’t! What you said here:
applies to you too, y’know!
Bone china … ::dies::
It was weird, I was pouring MrSerf a cuppa outside last night (this is over the other side, (I don’t use teapots here) and went all sorta squiggly squee inside about it.
Maybe it was just the prospect of having a cuppa without feline interference that was exciting. 😛
@ophelia
Aww, thanks :3
Well played.
Yeah, I think it’s a combination of that, and the fact that I was calling him what he is straight from the very beginning. Every post of mine addressed to him was addressed with pejoratives. I mean, sorry(notsorry), but if dude’s gonna be an asshole, I’mma call him what he is.
@Ophelia: Hey, I mean, I had my crazy time too, and there’s no guarantee it won’t come back. As far as I know, depression’s only ever in remission, really. And no one needs the kind of stigma that’s attached to mental health issues these days. It’s ridiculous and harmful, and people need to back way the fuck up with their privilege and badmouthing.
Plus, you’re awesome, and ain’t no one fucks with people I think are awesome when I’m around to say something about it.
Apologies for going back on-topic, but I keep thinking about this sentence and I’ve finally figured out what’s wrong with this sentence:
It’s not the rock star bit, although I hate the contemporary media’s habit of labeling anyone with a following a “rock star” with a passion. It’s the “loved or despised” bit. That immediately casts Elam as some kind of fascinating, enigmatic character, like Julian Assange or someone; you know, “a visionary freedom fighter to some, a dastardly traitor to others.”
But, in the first place, I’m sure virtually everyone who knows about Paul Elam despises him, including a lot of the MRM, and the ones who love him are a small minority, so while true, that statement is wildly misleading.
And in the second place, it suggests that there’s something far more interesting going on at the heart here, when in fact it’s nothing beyond “if you’re extreme enough and loud enough, you will attract other people who are extreme in the same way and they’ll become your fawning followers.”
katz – and the “seemingly everyone” is a joke, too. How many people have even heard of the creep, or the MRM for that matter?
Thanks Ophelia! (more hugs) I told my doctor and she told me to increase my tricyclics — the ones that make me really really blaaaaaaaaah. I was dubious but tried it once and spent the next day zombified with a massive headache. Yeah, I won’t be doing that again. I fucking hate tricyclics.
Don’t panic (easier said than done, yeah); you are as awesome as a dynamic go-getter, a genius and a person from Ireland (poor Roy) combined!
Didn’t think of that, but you’re right: It implies that he’s a much, much bigger name than he really is.
Paul Elam pisses me off beyond the obvious reasons because Elam is the name of Auckland University’s fine arts school and in my student days I had some awesome friends who went there. So yeah, he’s not as big a name as his actual name is, if that makes any sense.
What I don’t understand, on the topic of Elam, is how he manages to say the stupid things he says when he’s quite clearly a grown man. I mean, I know this is me buying into the idea that older = wiser, which is silly because I pretty universally reject it, but… it’s still confusing to me on many levels.
@kittehserf: You’re right, as always. And very well put. It just never seems to be the right time to say or type certain things, and then when you do, you’re all guilty for saying or typing them and bothering people with them, even though you yourself don’t feel bothered by people sharing their life experiences, quite on the contrary… Okay, I’m not really going anywhere with this. Jerkbrain is the right word.
I guess the most hurtful thing about the specific thing I shared was that I don’t make friends easily, and to be so completely wrong about someone I thought I could trust feels really bad. At one point, I actually blamed myself for mentioning anything for said ex-friend, since things changed between us after that. It wasn’t until later that I realized it was me who was distancing myself from him, since he had proved to be a crappy friend, but I still somehow felt guilty about it because jerkbrain. I do have a few close friends still, but we live so far apart that we seldom see each other. But, on the bright side, I’ll be meeting them next week when we get together to celebrate Halloween/All Soul’s Day/Samhain/kekri/w/e. Yay!
And things aren’t actually bad, even though blahs happen. I mean, I did get my degree in the summer and I am working on my second one (thank gods and goddesses for universities being flexible here)! And though the place I’ve worked part-time just lost a huge contract and I may be out of work by the end of the year, I’ve managed to save up some money and maybe I’ll finally find a job in my field of expertise now that I have something to show for my education.
@ophelia: No worries, not your fault. My blahs (is that actually a noun now?) are unpredictable. Ranting does make things feel a little easier, and that video you linked was quite funny. 😀
And I feel you in the bit about fearing of screwing up things and saying something wrong. But, as kittehserf said, it’s different when you see someone else doing it. I don’t see how anything you typed could be taken the wrong way, and I would say you’re getting anxious for no reason, but then I remember how I feel in a similar situation, and… yeah.
The capitalization of my name doesn’t really matter, btw. Uppercase, lowercase, w/e. We see enough capital letter obsession with the MRA stuff…
@gillyrosebee: Exactly what I was thinking, only my brain couldn’t put it nearly as eloquently as you did. I guess anything can be a success if your definition of ”success” is lax enough. For example, yesterday, I had it set that I’d do the dishes. I did manage to draw hot water, though I didn’t actually get anything clean. That has to be some kind of a victory, right?
Also, kitty hugs! I iz ded of cute.
@marie: Seconding kitteh and ophelia. You always say the right things.
@everyone: Thanks to everyone I forgot (I’m late with my assignements again, and may have skipped over something), and hugs to everyone who needs and wants them. Oh, and y’all can call me Parrot if you like. “Radical Parrot” is not a very handy nym, but it has a cutesy personal story behind it, so it’s what I like to call myself. I guess people could shorten it to RP, but then I’d be all ”Ron Perlman? Where?” 🙂
Or I would assume you’re discussing tabletop role-playing games, and I’d start rambling on about my Manboobz-inspired homebrew campaign world called Misandria, a world under the constant threat of undead lich princess Miss Andrea Dwor-Kin and her vast armies of her feared straw feminists. Also, there are sentient mammoths, called Prophelephants, struggling for survival as the poor, oppressed MRA brothers-in-arms keep hunting them to extinction to feed their feminazi overlords. One could say it’s… (puts on sunglasses) a hostile world. (YEEEEAAAAAAH!)
Oh, gods damn it. I did it anyway.
Suitably gothic. But we need some factions to add a bit of diversity.
—
In the dark corners of the world, splinters of the Feminist Collective spread, a thaumaturgical experiment gone haywire and broken free from the control of its elitist creators, infecting minds and turning individuals into naught but drones.
You may be infected.
You won’t know until it’s too late and you, my friend, are no longer… you.
—
In the towns and cities, too, the cult of Strauss widens its grasp, people banding together and entering a lodge with the intent of bettering themselves. Only, the guidance and aid given to these earnest souls turn them down the path of damnation, for as they progress in the arts and become known by different letters (the AFCs, the puas, the mpuas, the amogs…), they lose their humanity and their consciences, each bit nebolously thrown into the gaping maw of dark entities that feed on positive emotions and leave little but despair.
These broken souls spread their message, repeating learned lines in an attempt to draw in new converts and assuage the whims of their hungry masters. What can you do, adventurer, against foes that are mere automatons, programmed by someone else, endlessly repeating arcane incantations they neither know nor care what means?
—
Against such insidious forces, what can truly be done? Man is, after all, a weak creature, neither mighty mammoth or enduring undead lich. But the followers of the Voice proclaim that there is a way, that each soul can find the Voice of Man and learn to shout their rage against an injust world, to break the whim and will of others with the wrath made manifest. Offspring of a bardic college, these shouting masters are powered by anger that burns most brighty, and their spittle specked screams carry with it the acidic scorn of their eternal ire. Against a man who screams with the force of the Winds, what can you do?
—
From ivory towers ride forth the messengers of the Vox Populi, intent on finally unleashing the Day of the Vox, and their arts are mighty indeed. Each is a fortress unto itself, a single entity bound up with such immaculate egotism that it breaks swords and shatters arrows. These aberations do not stride through the landscape, they pull the world to themselves through force of gravitas and gale, and what army can stand against the centre of the world itself? Weapons turned aside from ignorance, wounds disregarded with scorn, the needs of sleep, sustenance and succor rendered null before the onslaught of a mind incapable of considering anything but itself.
Pray tell, hero.
How can you kill that which thinks you have no life?
—
But there is a darker foe. Behind the plots and plans of lesser monsters stand the Cadre of the Evopsy, sheltered from the world high in the peaks of the Mountains Implausiblé. They scry and search, scheme and plot, and treat the world like a game of White Knights. Their precursors dwelved too deep into the mountains and found there a grim force, and the portents this Law of Evolution proclaims may yet doom the world of Misandria. They think they have the answer, they believe they know the question, the Cadre of Evopsy know that they know how the world would best benefit. Their twisted creations loom and lurk in the shadows, amalgamations of matter, mind and antipathy to nature, each slithering thing ready to launch war with a whispered word of motivation, aspiration or glorification. The High Hypergamists have had their fates foretold by the Propelephants, but found it wanting. In their mad desire, they would unwind nature itself, break the laws of stars and sea, all to suit the whims of their owned pernicious desires.
Against those who would wield madness itself to destroy you, guarded by concepts of abstract thought rendered material and bound up in fortifications of alien logic, what will your mere <I<science do, Misandrist?
—-
q:
Re: RPGs — Whovians! Look what my pharm student found me! http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/42142/doctor-who-solitaire-story-game
Parrot and Fi, that was amazing. Now I want to play in this game!
ophelia and Parrot and Marie, all the hugs. I don’t worry about other people’s stories, I’m actually really glad there’s a place to discuss it like manboobz with such supportive people. But I do get the other side, where I’m feeling like all I’ve been doing is complaining and killing the thread with depressiveness and it’s hard to remember right then that kitteh is totally right. Actually, even afterward when someone has reminded me I still find it hard. I think that’s a major part of depression and empathy, you’re easily able to want to help others but feel selfish when you say you need help. Wish there was an easy way around that, but there really isn’t… Just repetition until you believe it I guess.
So women who
Sorry, need italics. 🙂
@katz
I totally agree with what you said.
I also think Kelly likes Elam and Price and thinks of them as some sort of enigmatic characters that are misunderstood. That, although sometimes they might go about things in the wrong way, ultimately they are righteous.
The article reads as if he’s a consultant bought in to tell them where they are going wrong and how to change their image. It doesn’t criticise it critiques.
It seems to me this is simply a covert way of legitimising the MRM.
That is not journalism, that is support!
I mean what the fuck was this?:
So women who do the wrong thing should not only have their law license suspended and be disgraced and bad mouthed in mainstream media. Oh no, they should also be targeted for stalking by men’s groups!
So it’s not the wrath that’s the problem, their anger is fine, their tactics are fine, they just chose the wrong target.
To me, this article is written for the new wave of MRAs, Kelly is no different from all those racists who say:
“I wouldn’t be a member of the BNP, oh no, no, no, but you must admit they do raise some good points.”
When Kelly advocates hate against even one woman, no matter what she has done, then his journalistic integrity is immediately called into question.
I mean, that’s just a fucking advert! And if he’s ‘fair and balanced’ where’s the Man Boobz ad?
When mainstream media draws attention to the MRM in this way it will only serve to legitimise a hate movement, giving excuses where condemnation is the only valid reaction.
And when the journalist in question thinks hate and abuse is a legitimate form of disagreement, this type of men’s rights advocacy will simply end up just like the Elam brand, but with more supporters.
It is highly seductive to blame your problems on another group and I can’t help but think many more men would agree with MRA talking points if presented in Kelly’s sanitised way.
And that is just disturbing on so many levels.
*All hail the blockquote monster!*
I think it’s to do with the cultural worship of toxic masculinity, honestly. The writer sees Elam and JtO as Strong, Tough, Brave Manly Men who’re Fighting for What They Believe In, and the fact that he sees them as embodying some of the ideas about masculinity that he values is more important than anything that might happen to a few random women. Plus there’s a sort of childish “well you can’t tell me that I’m not important and don’t deserve to be focused on” thing going on – it doesn’t so much matter whether or not the specific causes advocated are valid or being approached in a helpful way, it’s just about the idea of the manosphere existing appealing to the writer’s ego.
It does at times feel like an advert (mentioning women on staff is just plain irrelevant unless they go on to discuss the implications of that), but I think it’s not that they’re pro-MRM so much as that journalistic convention inevitably presents everything in a way that ends up sounding positive to neutral, no matter how bad it is.
@Fi, and you are definitely not yesterday’s jam. 🙂
@Parrot, loved the RPG.
@Fibinachi for the win. That was fantastic.
@SittieKittie *nods in agreement.*
It seems like we need a pseudo-tabletop environment in which to explore this new RPG… I’m curious about how some of the mechanics might work. Clearly the White Knights of the Order of the Beboob’d Man would have the ability to break apart into their component ferrets when under threat, but how would that work? Would it be a changeling ability, allowing you to change form at will, trading high damage for high defence, or would it simply be a saving throw modifier representing a temporary scatter in the face of a critical strike?
Athy – Saving throw modifier, to fit in with MRA viewpoints on the Mangina?
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking – a brief scatter & reform.Ferrets don’t really do too well in combat unless they know some magic…
Dual mode for a tactical approach. The White Knights of the Beboob’d Man bond with their trusty, fuzzy ferret familiar and have the choice of becoming unto a swarm of ferrets, or remain their trusty knightly ferret self,
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4089/5091535519_472729e6d0.jpg
for a boost. Obviously, it’s an add will shapechange effect q:
“Such wail of fury, fur and fuzz, those white knights of Futrelle-Upon-The-Boobz, came upon the Kingly Spearhead Legion, and did scamper among them like a wave washing over the sands of the beach. Many a stout, stoic and stern Straight Spear of the Spearhead did find their exposed toes most furiously nibbled upon, and were delayed in their marching. Thus, by brave action and bold deed did the defenders of the Linkhitis mines of Blogtopia have time to fortify their hovels against the coming storm….”
Taken, obviously, from: “The War of the View Veins, or, “For A Few Comments More”…