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Turns out VICE made a video about that Men’s Rights rally in Toronto. GO WATCH IT.

This is not an embedded video, so don't click on it.
This is not an embedded video, so don’t click on it.

I don’t know how I missed it, but a couple of weeks back Vice posted a short video about that EARTH-SHATTERINGLY HISTORIC Men’s Rights rally in Toronto that captured the attention of the world a tiny fraction of a percentage of people in the world (including the people at it and readers of this blog) a little over a month ago.

Alas, WordPress won’t let me embed the video here, but you all need to go look at it. Not only does it capture pretty well what a dinky event it was, but it also contains a bunch of mini-interviews with some A Voice for Men folks that are rather revealing.

The most revealing one of the bunch starts about 2:40 into the video, when AVFM’s Suzanne McCarley explains that

Men, as a class, have never ever oppressed women, as a class. Men have always protected and provided for women. And protected them from oppression from others.

From others? What kind of others? Like, space aliens?

Women have never objected to this, and in fact have always been grateful because it’s how they survived. It is only in the last few hundred years when women of privileged class who don’t even know what they’re being protected from feel disadvantaged because they’re not comfortable with the level of protection they have.

Wow. A few hundred years? Sometimes people accuse MRAs of wanting to take us back to the 1950s. McCarley apparently wants to take us back to the 1750s.

They don’t even understand what they’re being protected from.

Wolves? Sharks? Dishpan hands? Space aliens?

They have no concept how dangerous the world is for them but gosh they’re just not happy because, you know, the males in the family tell them what to do and make all the decisions for them and control all the money. That’s not oppression. That’s protection.

Wow. So I guess slaves and prisoners are the most protected classes of all.

It’s what kept our species alive and what built … [she gestures at the park and the buildings around it] this beautiful city.

Wait. I thought Jefferson Starship built this city. On rock ‘n’ roll.

Anyway, there’s also some footage of a speech about the evil oppression of white men given by an unknown speaker at the rally. He also complains that men working for the government are men who’ve had “their things cut off and are toeing the politically correct line.” (Hopefully after the bleeding has stopped.)

There’s an interview with Paul Elam, who for some reason looks like he’s wearing mascara (which I’m pretty sure he isn’t). He delivers this puzzling pronouncement:

Looking at men in government and saying they have all the power is like looking at women in grocery stores and saying they have all the food.

Not only is this way more revealing about gender inequality than Elam may  realize, but it’s also a tad ironic, because Elam not that long ago used (unreliable) data about how women “control” most consumer spending — that is, they do most of the shopping — in order to argue (twice!) that women were the ones primarily responsible for destroying the environment.

There are assorted other bits of misinformation and ignorance and just plain old bigotry from the MRAs.

There’s also some commentary from the counterprotesters that made me wince. No, MRAs aren’t all Marc Lepines waiting to happen. They’re shitty enough people as it is; you don’t have to compare them all to a misogynist mass murderer to make your point. And in fact, you undercut yourself with that kind of rhetoric. Focus on what they actually say and do. It’s bad enough.

And the “racist, sexist, anti-gay” chant? Drop that. MRAs are, for the most part, driven by misogyny — not by other bigotries.  Yes, some are racist, including one of the speakers featured on this very video, but that’s not the driving force for most of them. Some are homophobic, but that’s not the driving force for most of them. Some are transphobic — including Elam himself — but that’s not a central issue for most of them.

It’s worth pointing out these other bigotries, but to make these issues the centerpiece of your counterprotest is to miss the point — it would be a bit like attacking the Ku Klux Klan as “sexist and racist.” I’m sure plenty of KKKers are sexist as hell, but with the Klan racism really is the main thing; with MRAs, misogyny is.

And in this case it gave AVFM’s Karen Straughan the opportunity to appear (at least for a moment) like a reasonable person by pointing out that she in fact is not straight.

Anyway, watch the video. It’s amazing.

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cloudiah
11 years ago

@katz, That would work even better (because I wouldn’t have to do anything). Argenti, is that okay with you?

kittehserf
11 years ago

Righto LBT, I’ve sent a payment to your account. I haven’t a Borg beast in mind (other than kitties, obvs). Just think of it like a Scritchstarter. 😉

Argenti Aertheri
Argenti Aertheri
11 years ago

Cloudiah — yeah, that works fine by me!

LBT, re: PayPal — not really, they hate me, got it all confounded as my account was from my freshman year and completely different info and yeah. Don’t worry about it though, I don’t have to pay rent or anything and y’all do.

pecunium
11 years ago

I like birds (even owls, which are lovely, but dumb). I also like horses, dogs, rats, mice, cats, snakes, lizards and spiders. Scorpions are out, but centipedes are tolerable.

I don’t like things with more than four legs crawling on me, but I’ve kept mantids.

Argenti Aertheri
Argenti Aertheri
11 years ago

NO SPIDERS! And second that no scorpions. Centipedes are okay, millipedes are not. Other than that I have no opinions on insects. (Well, if you do a maggot, it best be the cute one from last Christmas)

Rats are awesome though.

LBT
LBT
11 years ago

RE: Kittehs

Woot! Though I ought to tell you, today I took your prompt and wrote The Uneatable Plant, in which Chavela’s spirit boyfriend has gone missing. Blacksockswhite goes to investigate! It’s going for $20, so would you like your donation to go to your story, or brogcritters?

RE: Argenti

*sigh* I’m not paying rent YET, unfortunately. I hate this city; it runs on such a college schedule, I can’t seem to get anyone to even RESPOND to my constant emails and calls. Thank god my backpack was stacked for my trip; I’ve been living out of it since I got back.

kittehserf
11 years ago

LBT – check your email for the answer to that question! 😉

Yay, Blacksockswhite and Spirit Guy and Chavela all in a story! I’m gonna read that today. Right now I have to get the shopping done ‘fore the next lot of rain hits us …

LBT
LBT
11 years ago

RE: Kittehs

Yay! I will have it up either tonight or tomorrow morning! 😀 Thanks!

LBT
LBT
11 years ago

Oh, and by the way, I know other Boobzers are into the Tree That Wasn’t stories, and I currently have another up for sponsorship: Trick or Tree’d, in which Maria and Chavela gear up for the inevitable difficulties that comes from having a lot of candy, small children, and a predatory treebeast in the same yard.

This prompt is up for sponsorship at $25.

cloudiah
11 years ago

LBT, I will check it out when I get home!

kittehserf
11 years ago

$25 – whoops, did I get the figure wrong?

LBT
LBT
11 years ago

RE: Kittehs

Nope, you’re safe! There are two stories in the Tree That Wasn’t series, this writeathon; yours was $20, which you paid for, and Trick or Tree’d is $25, and still up for grabs. Don’t worry, you’re good!

kittehserf
11 years ago

Whew! I didn’t even think to check. Duh. 😛

Argenti Aertheri
Argenti Aertheri
11 years ago

So, I just got finished writing a fun little function. Background — the entirety of the Silly // Serious split relies on posts being in one category or the other.

My little function? Determines if a post is in either category, or its child categories, if you simply missed checking the Silly or Serious box, it adds it; if you’re having a dumb and put it in both, well…*cackles*…strips the categories, sets it to “Silly Author, Tricks are for Script Kiddies” and sends it to purgatory, remove the offending categories and the rest will automatically be restored (e.g. If some smart ass puts a post in, say Women in History, and in Manboobz Mythos, it’s going into purgatory [should someone have a good reason to be doing something like this! talk to me then and I’ll work my magic]).

For extra goodness, the Silly and Serious category labels don’t show up anywhere. They run everything from the shadows.

And I am very nearly done coding that split ^.^

Argenti Aertheri
Argenti Aertheri
11 years ago

Uh, wtf autocorrect?

*should someone have a good reason to be doing something like this, talk to me then

Why does it replace , with ! ?

LBT
LBT
11 years ago

Oh, also, head’s up to Boobzers, I’m trying to focus on only one task at a time, so I won’t be able to start working on the borgcritters until I finish Spookathon. Is that okay with folks?

kittehserf
11 years ago

Makes sense to me, LBT.

cloudiah
11 years ago

Totally peachy, LBT.

katz
11 years ago

LBT, you sound like you’re effin swamped, so take things at whatever speed you have.

Argenti Aertheri
Argenti Aertheri
11 years ago

Fine by me, not like I’m not discovering that all the things that bug me about WP are actually fairly complex to fix.

But hey, admin / mods / authors won’t have to log in for the comment to be formatted as coming from them.

I think CSS is next on my list.

Oh! My mother was bored at work so I asked her to pick an icon for admin, we get stars 🙂

Kimberley Morse
11 years ago

” No, MRAs aren’t all Marc Lepines waiting to happen. They’re shitty enough people as it is; you don’t have to compare them all to a misogynist mass murderer to make your point.”

Considering that MRAs routinely present Valerie Solanas as typical of feminist ideology (not to mention Elam’s incessant Godwinning, including at the end of this video) I’m inclined to let the Lepine comparison slide.

Jabron
Jabron
10 years ago

Thanks for only watching the video without looking at what the journalist responsible for it had to say. Thanks also for ignoring any legitimate points anyone in the video made. It must be nice and comfy for you up there, contributing to the same tactics that the article attached to the video calls unconstructive and plain stupid.

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