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.
Is there a way to turn the bust into a purse, Cassandra? Or is practicality bad too?
BlackBloc is having a completely different conversation from what the rest of us are having, eh?
It’s not all that big, could possibly be attached to the strap as an ornament. It’s metal though, so it would hurt if I hit myself or someone else with it while swinging my bag over my shoulder.
thebewilderness: Pretty much.
BlackBloc, is it acceptable for people on the left to criticize Stalinists? Or is that throwing Stalinists under the bus? I’m just trying to figure out how you define red-baiting, because I’m a red and your definition doesn’t seem to match mine.
Wow, BlackBloc really has borrowed an MRA’s brain for this one.
Listen, what do you think lots of people are likely to think of when they see the hammer and sickle? Soviet Russia, or by extension any of the communist dictatorships. Stalin, Lenin, Mao, you name it: there’s a good chance it’s going to bring up the dreadful things done by those states. You can’t get away from those associations. If you want to be really exclusive and do a NACALT, fine, but you’re living in fantasy land if you think pointing out those negative associations is either Red-baiting or throwing comrades under the bus.
Cassandra, here ya go – a genuine approved not-throwing-the-comrades-under-the-bus tote.
http://rlv.zcache.com/lenin_marx_mao_zedong_tote_bags-rbfce525c28204552b5c80561b8ba483a_v9w72_8byvr_324.jpg
So back in my union days, one of my best friends was a former CP member and Stalinist, who eventually became quite critical of the Soviet Union. And therefore, I guess, she was a terrible, terrible red baiter. Anyway, I used to tease her about still being a Stalinist, and she would tease me about being a Trotskyist, and it was all great fun (if you’re into that sort of thing). I was staying with her once, and I snuck pictures of Stalin into all of her picture frames. Front and center, peering over someone’s shoulder, and so on. She said she was still finding them months later.
Good times, good times.
I’m never going to be invited to stay at any manboobzers houses, am I?
I feel like carrying that around would mostly make elderly Chinese people avoid me on the bus.
cloudiah: that’s funny. You’re invited. We can try to put Mao masks on the cats.
@ cloudiah
If you’re the kind of person who would make Uncle Joe photobomb my family pictures then you’re welcome at my place anytime.
Consider yourself invited! Photobombed by Stalin? Heh, awesome… I know he was a massive dardnarbler, but dat ‘tasche!
Bullshit. Red-baiting, if we can have some historical fucking accuracy up in here, is the act of taunting, persecuting, singling out, denouncing, or otherwise attacking someone based on ambiguous signs of potential, suspected, asserted, or alleged communism or communist sympathies.
The hammer and sickle is the accepted and acknowledged symbol of self-identified communist regimes. This is not bigoted fuckwads putting yellow stars or pink triangles on people they don’t like, or blacklisting someone and ruining their careers because they once signed a petition.
The hammer and sickle was chosen by revolutionary leaders because it symbolized the union of the proletariat, of the industrial and farm workers. It was used for decades proudly as a symbol of communist states and carries that historical content no matter what color you want to print it in.
Red baiting (go look up the definition of “baiting” to help you out here because your terminological sloppiness is doing you no favors) is making assertions and casting aspersions against people who may or may not want to identify as communists. The hammer and sickle was used by people who were proud of it and wanted it known. And something we have to deal with is that a lot was done under that symbol that makes it suspect no matter what else we might hope to say with it. You can’t use it and then complain that people associate you with the negative consequences of any number of communist/socialist states any more than you can fly the damn Confederate battle flag and then complain that people think you are racist.
cloudiah, that’s even better than when my workmates and I hid Far Side cartoons all around the office. You’re invited!
(Just make sure they’re Uncle Joe when he’s young and spiffy.)
Cassandra – but acknowledging that Mao was a mass murderer is throwing the comrades under the bus! It’s Red baiting! /snark
Are you kidding? That shit moves you up to the top of my guest list! 😉
I think you’ll find that the Reformers were actually concerned not about the French getting all uppity, but that all the political power was in the East (due to population density). In the reformers’ eyes, it’s OUR oil, it’s OUR money, and the political power should also be OURS. And like I said, French bashing isn’t really a thing out here.
Something happened and my earlier comments in response to my ablist slur got stuck in moderation. That was a really really bad on my part. I apologize.
Here is my response to some of the things said after my initial comment.
::second round of applause for gillyrosebee::
Your post shows another side of how stupid BlackBloc’s claims of Red-baiting are: the suggestions that maybe wearing a hammer and sickle isn’t a good idea because of the associations is mean to HELP those who might wear it. It’s, hello, you’re going to put people offside quite unnecessarily, because you are being willfully blind to the history of the symbol you’re wearing.
The answer we’re getting to that seems to be “Well you can’t tell me what to do! You hate me and you never let me do what I want!”
gillyrosebee: thank you and right on.
We’re expected to go read the link Feminist Bees posted? Don’t see any good reason why I should.
One year, bad Stalinist art was the basis of my Christmas cards. It was actually the only time I ever sent out Christmas cards, since I’m an atheist.
The *liberal* definition of Red baiting is attacking people by accusing them wrongly of being communists. Which we shouldn’t surprised about, because liberals are anti-communist themselves and therefore should not be expected to show even basic solidarity towards those of us on the far left.
Red baiting is better understood in the general sense of poisoning the well and attacking individuals for being communists, whether it is true or not, because of the false assumption that them being communist is a bad thing and a discredit in and of itself. And whenever you claim we should hide our affiliations for the good of the Cause, you’re Red baiting, even if you’re doing it under the guise that “everyone else will Red bait us”.
As for attacking Stalinists: that’s not Red baiting. By all definition of the word, it should reasonably be considered Brown baiting.
Cassandra: go ahead, there’s even a lovely bonus scold at the end.
I send Xmas cards to my family because they’d be upset if I didn’t, even though I’m an atheist. Am I letting down the atheist comrades too?
@CassandraSays
What?