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.
I have a super friendly cat, she’ll be happy to participate.
LOL!
Not to mention that at Manboobzcon we’ll have crafts and hobbies and areas of interest, and all sorts of clothes from totally comfy trakkies to people in cosplay and all shades in between.
Ninjaed!
Bets that some troll will show up to whine that the reason MRAs will only be offering the stale crackers is that some evil woman stole all their money?
My puppies (actually middle-aged but don’t tell them that) would love to distribute free hugs and smooches whilst explaining that “bitch” is a terrible insult because bitches are actually awesome.
My girls would hide under the furniture, I think. 🙁
But if I could persuade my sister to let Laddie come along, he’d be up for pats and playing with all the other pups. Also for crawling into anyone’s lap if he thought there was food going.
re the chant: A good chant is clever, easy say/be loud with and is infectious. You want the audience to take it up.
I could bring Lilly. She’s our bombproof cat, nothing upsets her and she loves strangers.
Everyone else has said what I would have said about the chant: It’s not a weak approach because it’s intersectional, it’s weak because it’s boilerplate and doesn’t either demonstrate any knowledge of the MRM or provide any criticism. The Bash Back people might be experts on the MRM for all I know, but they might also be a bunch of college kids who jumped in a bus because they heard someone was protesting something, and who don’t even know who or what they’re opposing. And the chant rather makes them look like the latter.
OTOH I fully support anyone who wants to criticize the MRM specifically for racism, transphobia, homophobia, classism, ableism, etc. If that’s your main point of interest, go for it, and it’s absolutely fine to not really talk about the gender aspect at all. Or, if you prefer, talk about the ways the different types of bigotry are interrelated. But throwing a list of words out there isn’t really being meaningfully intersectional.
Feminist Bees kind of came across like she didn’t recognize intersectional arguments when she read them, it was more like she expected people to just write “intersectionality” over and over again and that would take care of things. Like it’s a buzzword rather than a thing that can actually be put into practice.
(It’s a sad commentary on how neglected the concept is that the comment box is trying to tell me that “intersectional” is not a real word.)
I’m sad about Feminist Bees. She seems really cool and I want her to hang out here and like everyone, but it looks like there was just a really bad case of miscommunication and now she thinks we don’t believe in intersectionality and it would probably be really hard to convince her otherwise because everything we say is going to sound like “I’m not an X, but…”
@fem.bees
I think the problem is that the chant against them, “racist, sexist, anti-gay,” suggests they’re all three in roughly equal measure, possibly with racism being the worst and, since nothing else was mentioned, perhaps that’s all that’s wrong with the MRM. That’s not true. Racism and homophobia do play a very large role in the MRM, but while there is a not-insignificant number of MRAs who are not racist or homophobic, they’re all misogynists (or they abandon the group as soon as they pick up on that fact). If you criticise them for their racism and homophobia, they can wheel out their gay and PoC members, play up the few things they do that count as pro-gay and civil rights, to distract from the glaring misogyny.
I don’t think an intersectionalist stand point means giving them cover to hide behind.
We should specifically point out everything they do, including the racism and the homophobia, but if we’re casting blanket criticisms, we should concentrate on the things that they’re all guilty of. I mean, misogyny is a big problem in the atheist community, but if the likes of William Lane Craig decide to argue that we’re all misogynists and that our theological opinions are based on an ignorance of the philosophical and scientific underpinnings of the ontological argument, we can use his false claim that we’re all misogynists to distract from his point about theology.
We should care about all aspects of oppression, but when someone is engaging primarily in one – a primacy imposed by them, not by us – then we should focus our critiisms of them on that more than on others, and address the others when they actually engage in them.
I mean, I’m sure I engage in oppressive behaviours… I try not to, but I’m not aware of everything that counts and I’m not some avatar of perfect morality. I welcome criticisms of these behaviours, because I want to improve myself, but if you criticise me for being a misogynist – which someone with what your idea of an intersectionalist view seems to be might, since I’m an atheist, and misogyny seems pretty rampant in our community at the moment – when I’m not acting as one, there’s a good chance I’m just going to dismiss you as someone who’s desperate to discredit me, and I – and onlookers – might assume that your valid criticisms are invalid. Yes, that’s an irrational assumption to make, but humans are really good at being irrational. Other than war and oppression it seems to be our main talent.
@Argenti
I’m a fan of blue… I prefer green, but that wasn’t among the options given, so blue.
@Kitteh
Or the famous, right wing, Irish goth band; Crypt Ó Fascists?
@Brooked
I don’t know about anyone else here, but I actually am an unschooled savage (Is savage cool in that context? I can’t help but feel uncomfortable about that word…) at least regarding most social theories. But, that said, I find most of feminist theory & intersectionality pretty self-explanatory, and sites like this – specifically the conversations that happen on them – help me shore up my understanding pretty effectively… or at least I think so…
*puts a sticker on zes back: “How’s my feminism? Call 555-1637225″*
@Λυνα
Now that might be a good idea. You’d have to include citations to the sources (or something like the “find these and more @manboobz” thing that was suggested) and make sure to edit it right to protect yourself from accusations of quote mining, as well as actually avoiding quote mining (no accusation, just saying) but that could really be effective.
But I’m not convinced that this would work… I’ve had too many conversations with MRAs which involved expressions of confusion and hurt tones that anyone could ever believe that they were in any way against women – and they certainly don’t want to see laws changed to remove protections from rape survivors and transfer them to the rapists. Bleh.
I wonder, though, do they actually believe that? Are they genuinely shocked, genuinely unaware of where their arguments lead? Or are they just disingenuous dardnarblers?
@Kitteh
You don’t see the immorality inherent in allowing gay people to wear pants?
Disgraceful.
@Pecunium
*shrug*
Some people like brown eyes, some people like Irish accents, or musical talent… what’s to say there’s nobody out there who likes a nice corduroy trouser?
I was more amused by the “MRA” part of that phrase. MRM? You can stay. That one MRA, over there in the corner. Yes, you! Steve! The guy with the hat! Go away!
…holy carps, this is getting rather long.
Last thing! Manboobzcon – what music? I vote for Tubthumping… on repeat… forever.
Seems like a good message to blast out at those who would keep at least half of the human population down.
WRT the Manboobzine color scheme: I don’t care about the color, just make it dark text on light rather than light text on dark, please. I find white-on-black text massively hard to read.
“Good lord. Kittehs, that would be The Most Fun Convention Evah. Manboobzcon. I’d totally go.”
Assuming Mr. Mango goes, I’m in (nothing personal guys, but I don’t handle people well and he’s proven good at making me less of a wreck)
Also, a chance to drag my Wayward Victorian Girl costume out and spread Emilie Autumn’s plague! …need to figure out how to attach my new rubber rat to that costume…
Athwyren — my last design for myself was a green scheme, I broke my brain matching the colors and am going a combo of minimialism and keep it simple stupid.
Katz — no worries, I resort to inverting the colors on my screen when people do that. I can’t stand it myself!
If there’s going to be a rat I can’t bring Mr C, he’s scared of them even if they’re behind the glass at a pet store.
I would go to MBZcon in a second.
I’m glad everyone else smacked Blackbloc for me, though. Sometimes I’m not sure if I’m unfairly picking on him or if he is just an obnoxious little shit. But today leaves me in little doubt. Also I’m probably a fascist too.
(If I ever am picking on someone unfairly, I hope everyone will tell me and I promise to be good about it. I don’t want to be treated that way and I don’t want to treat others that way either, but I know I can lose perspective in the middle of an argument.)
Did I ever tell you guys about the best protest “rally” I ever helped organize? It was during thte last round of California cutting budgets, and parks in urban areas were being shut off with fencing so the kids had nowhere safe to play. I was part of a coalition of unions & community groups organizing around the budget cuts,” and we found out that one of the “parks” that was not being fenced was actually a publicly funded golf course in one of the wealthier enclaves of the city.
So we found a bunch of inner city families with kids whose parks had been shut down, arranged shuttles to get them to this golf course, brought tons of toys and kiddie pools and things, and took over the golf course (well, just the first hole) and turned it into a park for a day. It wasn’t huge (though we had way more people than attended the MRM rally in Toronto), but it got a ton of really good, sympathetic press.
I guess I’m saying it’s a good idea to organize events that can get your message across clearly, and in fun and memorable ways. Even when you’re counter-protesting. I like the ideas about using their words against them, but I also think we need to show people that we actually have compassion for both men and women, and proposed solutions to their problems, and kiddie pools, and yummy food, and kittens.
Hi from Austin, Texas!
Oh and sorry about all the f-bombs yesterday. I was cranky.
Anything that gets the message that no, we’re not just a gender-swapped version of the MRM, across is a good idea.
@Pecunium
I know this is very wrong, but a small part of me wishes you were a mushroom, so I could carry you in my pocket and pull you out when I needed one of your well thought out explanations, whether esoteric (slang from British public schools) or significant (debates over torture or why Christian Evangelicals see the themselves as god’s chosen people). The mushroom would also drop cool allusions, like your reference to a famous quote from The Man For All Seasons earlier in the thread, in a non show-offy way.
You, as a mushroom, would sound like Ian Mckellen, BTW.
And before anyone cries out, “he is not the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, he is a human being!”, I did say it was very wrong of me to wish such things.
cloudiah, that sounds awesome. I would have loved to be a part of that rally somehow.
Also, I just want to say that, as an anarcho-communist, I think criticizing the hammer & sickle symbol makes a lot of sense. I don’t see how criticizing a symbol of oppressive state communism is red-baiting unless you believe in some weird kind of solidarity with leftists who have no problem with the associations that symbol has.
It’s not as if communism as a movement will die if it discards either a symbol that has developed unfortunate connotations or the habit of calling people “comrade”.
(I kind of thought we’d discarded the latter a couple of decades ago, but apparently not.)
But Cassandra, I can’t feel like a True Leftist Radical unless I wear a hammer & sickle t-shirt and people regularly greet me with “comrade Ally” when I visit communist spaces. Don’t you dare red-bait me!