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.
He’s definitely not a troll, it’s just that there are some significant points of disagreement between him and some of the other regulars that will probably never be resolved.
Who the hell is Hauptsatz? Feminist Bees using a different email?
Also I’m trying to recall where Cassandra was assholish in this thread and can’t remember.
Unless it was insisting on eating dinner before popcorn. 😛
Hey, my mum was very firm about the whole no treats until after dinner thing.
That would be a great opening for a horror movie.
Does it seem cranky out? It has been an oddly cranky day for me.
BlackBloc is a long-term commenter, but definitely channelling trolls at present.
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.
Fuck it. I’m just going to blockquote everything and have another beer.
I have no idea why that failed so bad.
I’ll try it again.
That would be great opening for a horro movie.
@thebewilderness, I think “exploits” has a different meaning under communism, and Stalinism =/= communism, and the two halves of that saying aren’t really equivalent.
THEREFORE I DENOUNCE YOU.
(Or actually, I have a disagreement with you on the value of that quote.)
Think Haupsatz would be in a better mood if I presented a formal self-criticism?
Sparky – they used something like that in an episode of Lewis, I think it was – letter magnets on a fridge kept getting moved.
thebewilderness – it’s cranky weather-wise here, looks like rain coming. I see the blockquote monster’s cranky, too, it just got gillyrosebee.
Update, it is now pissing down!
Damn, I need to have lunch and do the vaccuuming.
I’m cranky, and weepy, and I made cookies after all, but I burnt the bottoms. The tops are okay, though.
@gillyrosebee
True. I think this really depends on what the point of the protest was, though. If the point was to argue with the MRAs, or refute the MRAs, then I completely agree with you. If the point was to EXPOSE the MRM on the other hand, then I don’t have a problem with the chant because it’s for the benefit of the observers, if you see what I mean.
@Cassandra
I was thinking more about disrupting recruitment, but that’s a valid point too.
@kitteh’s
While there are plenty of those, there are also plenty of (for example) POC misogynists, that would be quick to tell racists to fuck off. While anyone who looks even somewhat deeply into the MRM would find all this out for themselves, there are also a lot of people who support causes based on what activists tell them, without looking too deep into things for themselves. It’s those people that I’m concerned about (concerned that non-misogynists may be fooled, and concerned that misogynists that may actually be turned away from the MRM won’t be).
On the issue of intersectionality, nobody here is saying that intersectionality isn’t important. What’s actually happening is a disagreement about what is and isn’t effective strategy at a political protest, or an effective means of countering MRA rhetoric in general. Notice how the conversation that Shadow started has been drilling down on the details a bit?
But not *the* symbol of communism. There is not one communism, as you yourself admitted with your attempted snark about the red versus the brown. You use the hammer and sickle and you associate yourself with a particular historical example.
Which is, let me be absolutely clear, perfectly fine.
But you don’t get to decide whether or not people who don’t like that particular historical example work to counter you based on it, or when those who might otherwise be on your side choose not to march under it. When you use a symbol, you carry it’s baggage along with your own. And if you are not willing to support everything that happened under that particular historical banner, then don’t use that particular signifier.
Plenty of us choose our symbols very carefully based on the ideas we are willing to expend our effort to carry forward. If you can’t be bothered, that’s fine. Go flail yourself uselessly on as many different battle fronts as you choose. But peddle your petulance about the fact that people are upset about the symbol elsewhere.
RE: sparky
That would be great opening for a horro movie.
I once came down from my room to find nobody in the house, just the words ‘DO NOT GO OUTSIDE’ written on the communal whiteboard. I STILL think it’s the best opening for a horror story ever.
I have to go and send a report to my anti-communist masters, and then I’m going to bed. Good night everyone… and if anyone has a weather machine, could you turn the wind down in Yorkshire? It be blowy.
*Reminder to self: do not read Athywren’s comments when mouth is full of liquid which would be painful if expressed nasally*
So, I am actually quite torn on how to most effectively counter MRA “events” and wish we could have a productive discussion about it. It’s good that they’ve been so pathetic that mockery is really all we need to do. What if they get bigger? What would an effective counter protest look like?
Shadow is talking intelligently, rather than doing a “Wahhh I’ll take my bat and ball and go home because you’re all mean meanies!” as BlackBlock is.
That would actually be a great approach for some of the people who have friends who’re getting pulled into the MRM. “But they hate you almost as much as they hate women” could be an effective place to start with some people. For young men who’re getting pulled in via seeing MRA talking points repeated endlessly in comments threads it might be easy for them to miss the fact that the MRM as a whole hates anyone outside a very narrow paradigm straight traditionalist white dude friendly acceptability, so pointing them towards some of the stuff that makes it clear just how broad the MRM’s range of not-acceptable is could be a useful way of nipping things in the bud.
The quote was accurate and timely at the time it was spoken. Political philosophy, for the most part, reads far better than it lives.
LBT: Wow. That is really spooky!