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.
Will you be designing it from scratch, Argenti? It’s not using a WP template, is it?
“Considering the treatment of some ex-regulars because they were trans* or GQ, no, I do not think I have a reason to grant you this.”
I really wish I’d been here for that. I’d have enjoyed telling those two that their GQ attitude left me feeling not trans* enough for them.
Note to the newer folks: it REALLY wasn’t as simple as that makes it sound. And claiming their treatment was due to their gender is disingenuous at best. Particularly since this genderqueer over here is good friends with people on the other side of that split.
Normally I love red but I think as a template it might get a bit hard on the eyes.
(Oh noes, more backsliding. Punish me, comrades.)
I say blue, but I really, REALLY like blue. <.< *has his wallpaper all done in shades of blue*
Besides pointing and laughing? The truth. Don’t know how that would work in person though, since MRAs seem to be impervious to dialog getting though to them.
Cassandra: stop throwing red under the bus, OK?
Under the template, maybe?
>>>I suspect the conversation would have gone the same way, had it happened
🙂
Right back atcha!
LOL I knew under the bus comments would be made when Argenti suggested red or blue!
How about combining ’em and going for a softish purple, something in the aubergine range? Or would that be too dull? I don’t like reading red text much, at least not on something smaller than a main heading.
We should think about accessibility. Which color combinations might be hard for some people to read? Avoid those.
Excellent point.
Argh, I really need to get on with the vaccuuming. Back later.
Wow BlackBloc, are we fascists? Come on, make the case for that, or admit you’re being a teensy bit overly dramatic.
Kitteh — yep, I’m mostly done with the PHP and working on the CSS. Then *gags* spiffing it up with some JS. I hate JavaScript.
Hellkell — what very little has been colored so far is blue. I’m leaning towards blue, but idk, I do like red, and MBZ is red…
Vote stands at blue: 2; red: 0, as of my typing this.
Or are we Catholics?
It’s a little hard to tell, since BlackBloc hasn’t fully mansplained.
>>>Wow BlackBloc, are we fascists?
I thought the question was my view on art destruction?
Dark blue should be pretty legible on a pale background, even for colorblind folks, I think.
cloudiah: Fascist Catholics?
Good band name at the very least.
Background and such — very pale greys; text — black (#000 BLACK, not almost black); I find the not quite white easier to read than pure white. On that any fairly bright color is accessible. And yeah, I’m talking about heading and dividers and the like (scroll up to the sidebar, that sort of thing)
How much of the accent color will there be? A bit of red is good in that it makes those parts stand out, but too much tends to decrease readability ime.
Blue!
BlackBloc, great goalpost moving, I give you a 10/10.
Greyscale, absolutely. If red, I’d go crimson/cabernet. Or green, if it was an available choice. Not a big fan of blue, myself, unless we’re talking sapphire or royal blue.
The red can be a bit much, especially if you’ve been working on a computer all day. Bright white text is too much for my old eyes.
Very soft grey with black text is good; it’s less harsh on the eyes than black and white.
Maybe we’re Crypto-Fascist-Catholic Illuminati?
Bit awkward for a band name, tho’.
::returns to vaccuuming::