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.
RE: CassandraSays
Yeah, I like that. I mean, I could easily have gotten sucked into the MRM (for a little while, anyway) if I hadn’t been aware what DOUCHES they were about queer and trans people, and poor people. I can’t see why it wouldn’t work for other folks.
@CassandraSays
Intersectionality isn’t a political tactic… what so ever. What are you even talking about?
The link I gave was to Wikipedia… I promise it doesn’t have malware.
In fact, Intersectionality undermines political tactics that choose to downplay one system of oppression for another. Which, as far as I can tell, is what you’ve been arguing for: that the Bash Back protesters focus only on misogyny.
This implies that only those bodies “unmarked” by racial, sexual, gender-identity, class, and ability stigmatization or marginalization are worthy of concern. To put simply, it’s the argument that only white, affluent, cis, straight, able-bodied women are worthy of political consideration.
RE: sparky
It was during the period they were chasing the Boston Marathon Bombers through Boston, and areas of town were in lockdown. Thus the context. But yeah, that was a very creepy way to start the day. (Don’t worry, the bombers never came through our area.)
I might ask you the same thing. Certainly you don’t seem to be having (or reading) the same conversation as the rest of us.
@CassandraSays
Is that seriously your response to the intersectionalist criticism?
Are you for some reason not able to scroll back? We’ve been talking about some of this stuff for a while.
This article is about ONE protest, at an MRM rally. They can focus on whatever they want in their general activities, but to just lump it all under their general chant is overlooking the hatred of women that drives them. Is it really too much to ask that their protests actually be more specific to the hate-groups they’re confronting? That is, after all, what David said to begin with.
cloudiah, it’s an excellent question and I am increasinly distressed to say that I just don’t know. I keep coming back around to the idea that a counter protest is the wrong idea for the reasons stated up thread. I just don’t think the optics are helpful, and you know there will be no productive dialog.
I’d never get on a “stage” with an MRA, basically, because that would be granting them too much legitimacy (like denialists on the subjects of climate change or evolution). As a feminist, I’ll lend my support to my allies whenever I can, both in the sense of basic support and by lending my presence to their rallies and marches, and I’ll work to take down the ideas in venues where nuance is welcome and false equivalency is anathema.
But I’d never go to an MRA ‘event’ to do anything but point and laugh, and I’d usually be too busy even for that.
Hell, someone who otherwise identified as an MRA wanted to hold an event where they actively try to advocate for real problems without the misogynist rhetoric and I’d even consider coming out because, as we note here again and again and again and again, there are real issues having to do with workplace safety, rape, educational achievement, and a whole host of others, that we could meet over, so long as “meeting” was defined as actually working to find solutions to address and end them rather than trying to spread around the misery.
I was addressing kittehserf. He’s the only one who’s been consistently gas-lighting and straw-manning me and also putting forward microaggressions, though I guess now Cassandrasays joined the fray. And that thebewilderness person, which (I may be misremembering) but I think is a TERF troll, so I don’t really care.
*hatred of women that drives the MRM, and Bash Back’s protests. Pronoun slip!
@feministbees, I think you are seriously mis-reading Cassandra’s argument. Read Shadow’s comments for a more nuanced critique, which is being taken seriously.
I have nothing against counter protests, and I can see some usefulness in them in the sense of making it clear that there are people who object to the goals of the group protesting, but in terms of actively combating something as internet-focused as the MRM I can’t see them being very effective.
Just FYI, kittehserf seems to prefer “she” rather than “he”.
Yeah, and you say:
Which doesn’t make sense from an intersectionalist stand point. Regardless of whatever “primary focus” means, ignoring the other systems they participate in is not an option. Period.
Like seriously. This is exactly how my long abandoned arguments with GWW went. I’m not going to do all this work for you in an ostensibly pro-feminist place.
Oh, I’m a he now?
Damn, that McCarthy haircut really has to go.
And thebewilderness is a TERF?
Wow, you really are full of shit, aren’t you? Troll-worthy indeed.
Yeah, I’ll use micro-aggressions at a bloke who’s talking shit and making up rubbish about everyone else on the thread.
>>>>You use the hammer and sickle and you associate yourself with a particular historical example.
*I* actually don’t, but there’s this thing we call solidarity, you may have heard of it.
Way to misgender Kittehs. who was doing no such thing. Neither has anyone else, but you are in martyr mode tonight.
thebewilderness is not a TERF troll, do you really think they’d last long here?
Jesus.
Feminist Bees, you really are coming across as saying “Never mind the misogyny, what about the homophobia and the racism?”
Is the vast bulk of MRM ranting about LGBTQ people or people of colour? I know plenty of it is, but this is a woman-hating movement before it’s anything else.
WHO IS ARGUING THAT WE SHOULD IGNORE THE OTHER ASPECTS OF THEIR BIGOTRY?
Sorry to yell, but I’m not seeing it.
Huh? You admit that you don’t understand what I meant, but it’s wrong because, well, it just is, and you assume that I’m asking you to do something for me because..?
I don’t know that I have the patience for a discussion with someone who doesn’t know the difference between “primary” and “exclusive”.
Like seriously, no one asked you to do any heavy lifting, we get it.
Is Mercury in retrograde or some shit?
kittehserf: I don’t know you. At this point there’s enough regulars that I can’t keep track of all of them (I’m assuming you are a regular, since you seem to be under the impression I should know who you are). I went off your avatar’s rough gender presentation. I’m sorry if I misgendered you. And I thought I remembered who thebewilderness was, but apparently I’m wrong on that as well.
Yes, it is. I was just thinking that.
It is, supposedly. I don’t believe this shit, but one of my work friends has had unremitting bad luck since this started and it’s become a running joke.