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.
Also, Feminist Bees, has it escaped your attention that this is a MOCKERY site? The sub-heading here doesn’t say anything about defending the sanctimonious women’s studies set; you want Feministe for that. The sub-heading here says “Misogyny. I mock it.”
What part of that is so hard to understand?
I’m sorry THAT I misgendered you.
@cloudiah
I’ve been reading shadow’s comments, and they’re thoughtful and I mostly agree. That’s why I’m not addressing my comments to Shadow.
I’m also not addressing my comments to kittehserf, who apparently can’t read explanations about intersectionality, i.e.:
is in conflict with my earlier claim:
Accepted, BlackBloc. I’ve been a regular (as in pretty much every day) commenter here for a year or so.
thebewilderness has been here longer than I have, I think, and I can’t imagine why you’d think she’s a TERF.
@BlackBloc, You may want to be more sure of yourself before accusing people of being TERFs. That’s a real asshole move, particularly when you admit you yourself weren’t sure. That almost more than anything else makes me want you to fuck off.
Saying “I’m not talking to you” and then proceeding to indirectly talk to the person you just said you refused to address is such a classic passive-aggressive move. Doesn’t exactly make me more inclined to want to engage with you, Feminist Bees.
I’m talking about the way you’re coming across, repeatedly, Feminist Bees.
Yeah… this is fucking over. Yeah, you can mock misogyny, and you can also mock women’s studies. Whether that’s a form of misogyny, I’ll just let the mockery decide.
@feministbees, Maybe you can explain what you think is the disagreement between CassandraSays and Shadow, then?
Feminist Bees is going to run out of people zie will address at this rate. Though having a different conversation from everyone else seems to be the theme of this thread.
So, Cassandra, what’s for dinner? It must be time for a food derail.
We’re talking about the person whose entire contribution to this thread has been to insult me without even addressing me directly while doing it, right? Okay, ze is not a TERF, ze is an asshole.
I think this thread officially meets the definition of “cluster-fuck” at this point.
It’s ok, I understand perfectly. I have never pretended to be anything but what I am. A second wave radical feminist.
People have been telling me what I am all my life. I don’t take it seriously any more.
I don’t either, but after my toes and some other shit this week, plus the communication problems here, I’m starting to wonder.
Cooking now! Back in a bit.
LOL genius, the “sanctimonious women’s studies set” is Feministe’s own sub-heading as should have been pretty clear from my comment.
Speaking of reading comprehension … pot, meet kettle.
Also too and besides, I have always thought BlackBlock was here for the trollhouse cookies.
>>>Hey, BlackBloc, been out to destroy paintings of people you don’t approve of lately? I seem to recall you had little-to-no problem with MRA-types doing that.
You’ll have to remind me what this is about. Apparently you thought it was more significant than I did.
Black Bloc: just stop.
BlackBloc, given your own tendency to assholishness (in full flight on this thread) you are hardly one to be pointing at thebewilderness or anyone else on that score.
You seem to be suggesting that this is a binary dialectical condition, that either we argue all aspects of institutionalized oppression at all times or we do nothing. No one is suggesting that we should only address the misogyny of MRAs but that it is the primary vehicle through which to understand their ideology and therefore the most focused way to counter it.
Crenshaw’s theory operated not as a binary proposition, or even as a complementarity, but as a hierarchy of multipliers and a theoretical framework for understanding the force of those multipliers.
Absolutely no one here is arguing that the racism, classism, cissexism, transphobia, ableism and all the other bigotry is unimportant and should be ignored, only that it is more effective to be focused and direct.
Tactics. We are talking about tactics. Which is why the discussion of intersectionality is less helpful or relevant in this very particular context, because what we are talking about is not theory but praxis.
No, it asserts that when you are operating in a particular context, you mobilize the parts of your arsenal which will most effectively address that context.
>>>I have never pretended to be anything but what I am. A second wave radical feminist.
So wait, was I right or not?
You can be a radical feminist without hating trans people, or is that too much nuance for you?
Just in case anyone cares the womens studies set is a blast from the 2005 past when Kos told us to GTFO of we objected to his Gillligans Island sexist pie fight ad.
if, not of. sorry.