If you’re a feminist holding an event, and you don’t want to have recordings of that event posted online without your permission by MRAs, it looks like your only option is to ban anyone and everyone associated with A Voice for Men from the premises. AVFM “activism director” Attila Vinczer has made that very clear.
Earlier this month, you see, Jaclyn Friedman – feminist writer, speaker, founder of Women, Action & The Media (WAM!) – gave a talk at Queens University in Kingston, Canada, followed by a panel discussion.
A number of Men’s Rights Activists associated with everyone’s favorite hate site A Voice for Men showed up with cameras and other recording devices, as they do.
The organizers made clear that there was to be no filming or recording of the event.
They had security remove Steve Brule, an MRA-sympathetic “documentarian” who’d shown up with his camera gear. Organizers had every reason to worry about Brule and his camera: in the past, footage from Brule has been used by AVFM to dox feminist students. Nevertheless, he cried foul, saying that he promised the security guards he wouldn’t film the event –honest! — and, absurdly, claiming that he had been discriminated against as an “old guy.”
But organizers let in other MRAs, apparently on the condition that they not record any of the proceedings.
Well, I guess we now know how much those sorts of promises are worth. Today, A Voice for Men posted a recording of the event. Vinczer explained that
I herewith revoke my word not to record the Jaclyn Friedman What’s Feminism Got To Do With It public event. Had security not violated my Charter Rights I would never have had to take the steps I did to preserve those rights.
His accusation?
On April 7, 2014, a group of five men and one woman were denied access to a public feminist event at Queen’s University for absolutely no reason at all. Security trampled on Charter rights of these Canadians.
But then in his next line we learn that four of these people, including him, WERE ultimately allowed to attend the event. (Presumably the fifth was Brule.)
So four of these people were unfairly denied access to something they were not actually denied access to, and a fifth was denied access because organizers and students didn’t trust him not to record the event.
And so, in order to protest a man being kept out of an event because people were afraid he would secretly tape the event, AVFM is … posting audio that someone secretly recorded of the event, after promising not to record it.
So that’s irony number one.
As for irony number two, well, according to Vinczer, posting the audio of the event is necessary because
The public has a right to know what type of damaging and dangerous rhetoric is being spoken to highly impressionable young adult minds.
But guess what? The event wasn’t actually secret. It was actually BROADCAST LIVE AS IT WAS HAPPENING.
And for anyone who missed it, it’s ARCHIVED ONLINE HERE. Go to April 8 at 8pm (or, as they have it, 2000 hours). Ta da! The sound quality is better than AVFM’s recording, as well.
Besides sound quality, the other difference between AVFM’s recording and the officially broadcast one is that AVFM’s includes the panel discussion afterwards, which, as the radio station that broadcasted the event noted in a tweet “we were not permitted by the panelists and event organizers to record & broadcast the panel discussion due to safety concerns.”
In other words, the organizers wanted students to be able to ask questions without worrying about being publicly identified on the internet by MRAs — because MRAs, particularly those associated with AVFM, have a longstanding practice of singling out college feminists for harassment online.
So good on you, AVFMers, for making life a little easier for potential harassers.
Also, in the comments on AVFM, we see this wondrous little exchange.
Wait, a feminist telling women to exploit their sexuality for money? That seems … odd.
And that’s because she isn’t doing that at all.
Which brings us to irony number three: If you actually go and listen to that portion of Friedman’s talk, you will see that she isn’t issuing marching orders to her feminist sisters. In fact, she’s describing the traditional, patriarchal, female-sex-as-commodity notion of sexuality. She’s very clearly describing a model of sexuality she, as a feminist, finds troubling, not one that she endorses.
But just as the folks at AVFM have trouble telling the difference between a secret event and one that was literally broadcast to the world, they also have trouble telling the difference between feminism and the complete opposite of feminism.
Congratulations, AVFMers, you’ve once again demonstrated to the world that you are both liars and idiots.
EDIT: Added several paragraphs noting that the AVFM recording included the panel discussion and audience questions.
EDIT 2: On Twitter, AVFM “assistant managing editor” Suzanne McCarley seems to suggest that Attila Vinczer’s argument that he had to post the audio because the public “has the right to know” is pure bullshit: AVFM, according to her, posted the audio simply because it was forbidden to post the audio.
Here’s her tweet:
@DavidFutrelle It wasn't secret, silly. It was forbidden. Much more exciting.
— Suzy McCarley (@SuzyMcCarley) April 22, 2014
So is she trying to make excuses for AVFM not knowing that the audio of Jaclyn Friedman’s talk was already online, or is this the truth? Funny thing is, either way, the folks at AVFM look like asses.
AVFM and it’s drones don’t care about anyone but their pockets. It’s why Paul Elam, Jto, Victor Zen, girlwriteswhat, and all the other profiteers who post video/blogs where they ask for donations. They just look for news they can use or make something up to keep people pist off at women to the point of actually giving them money. They remind me of pimps who don’t want to work for a living, hence seek out teenage girls so as to prostitute them so they can sit around all day smoking their profits.
And as if that isn’t bad enough, the AVFM crowd try and hide behind the cloak of being ‘human’ rights activists. Because of that do I sometimes find them worse than other lone anti-feminists who don’t want to associate with them.
Considering every ass-backward dating advice book (i.e., ‘The Rules’) has clearly written about the idea of not having sex even if you want to in order to secure further commitment from a man, if for some reason the speaker had a massive brainfart and actually agreed with it, it’s hardly ‘TOP SECRET’ information. It’s in every lazy relationship advice book in the self-help section of the book stores.
But it’s par for course for this ‘SECRET FORBIDDEN FEMINIST MEETING’ being streamed live for anyone to listen.
Leaving aside the other problems, that comment about how marriage is “price-floored at the cost of your soul”… but actually they’re talking about *money*. So money is this guy’s soul? Seriously?
Dammit, if only the Queens U security guards had made them all cross their hearts and pinkie promise and remembered to say “No take-backs!” Then Vinczer wouldn’t have been able to revoke his word!
cendare – yes, and his soul would be much like the German mark in 1923, when one US dollar was worth 4,210,500,000,000 of them.
I have read this post several times. I have read everyone’s comments. And I still struggle to get my mind round how dishonest, contemptible and puerile AVfM is.
So basically, any member of AVfM’s promises are worthless. They are untrustworthy, they have such contempt for everyone else that they regard promises given to non-AVfM people as somehow not counting. And I woudln’t rely on promises given to their own community, either.
So Vinczer, “revoke” your promise? Matey, it’s no good introducing big fake-legal words. You gave a promise not to record. It is obvious that you had no intention of keeping that promise because you immediately broke that promise and recorded. You are a deliberate and malicious liar and your attempts to justify yourself show that behind all the bluster, you suspect that about yourself. I wish you genuine self-awareness. That smell of burning – it’s your pants!
As someone on r/AMR pointed out, Attila revoking his consent after giving it has a certain similarity to something AVfMers condemned in their “Don’t be that girl” posters. To quote Ripowal2,
This once again proves that MRAs not only make false assertions regularly; they actually endorse that activity with pride.
Not to mention that they’re complete ninnies.
On the plus side, AVfM-ers will have presumably gotten themselves banned from all future feminist events at Queens University. More seats for feminists.
I think we should all note that at no point did Vinczer declare that there would be no takesies-backsies. He can therefore not be blamed for revoking his word after AVFM triple-dog-dared him to do so. How could he show his face again on the
playgroundbattlefield for the rights of men if he had not?They really are like bold children nudging of the boundaries of the rules to see what they can get away with, then wriggling out on a technicality. (“You didn’t say I couldn’t not NOT do the thing!”)
It reminds of like… sticking your foot through the fence after Mum specifically told you not to leave the garden, and then sprinting away, giggling about how clever you are and how mad the adults are going to be. Like, you haven’t actually achieved anything… you didn’t get to leave the garden in any real way. Also, your mother probably doesn’t actually care, because the reason she told you not to leave the garden is she doesn’t want you to get hit by a car. But because you’re a child you don’t understand the reasoning behind the rules, you’re just looking for loopholes for the sheer thrill of toying with the forbidden.
So yes, basically MRA logic and attitude are roughly on par with a precocious child trying to outsmart hir parents for the sake of a reaction.
News flash: it’s a private event, and the event holders have the right to determine if recording is allowed.
I saw Lady Gaga give a keynote address at SXSW; I was covering it for an online publication. This, by the way, is the day after she’d been puked on at a show. Recording and photography were not allowed, leaving yours truly to take notes. In…get ready for this…a NOTEBOOK. Notebooks are allowed at events where recording is not permitted. So…why couldn’t the anti-misandry brigade bring notebooks and take NOTES? Is it because they can’t read and write?
MRAs understand Canadian law since one of them played the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney episode with the Canadian judge. The world envies our constitutional right to not have your street posters ripped, to use the police and charity logos to fake-endorse hate causes, and of course the cherished Revoking Clause.
Also, where are all those feminists obsessed with marriage and pushing other women to trick men to marry? I get the impression they are all located in Rob Ford’s ass, but I’m open to new evidence.
House Mouse Queen – the only way that I can add you to the approved submitters list is by having a Reddit account. I can’t add you without a Reddit handle. Regardless, AMR will be opening our doors again sometime today (around 6 PM PST? I need to check with the other mods.)
““I herewith revoke my word not to record the Jaclyn Friedman What’s Feminism Got To Do With It public event. ” means anything.”
I think it is to make clear that they both know that they were not allowed to record and that they had promised the same, lest anybody should thinkthey were simply ignorant about it.
Or maybe they have taken inspiration from ” I have altered the deal. Pray that I don’t alter it further!”
I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: These people act like my almost-3-year-old daughter (she’s turning 3 in June- growing up too fast!). Only my daughter has a legitimate excuse for when she acts like an immature toddler: she actually is one.
These people are adults. They have no excuse.
Sparky,
I’ve got a 7 yer old who reminds me of the line from “Please don’t Eat the Daisies”. “You didn’t tell me not to put a chair on my head.”. We’re worried that he might grow up to be a lawyer. 😉
Ka-boom.
When the comparison to a movie villain leaves you looking a little classless… maybe it’s time to examine your movement.
I know logic has nothing to do with this whatsoever.
But still… aren’t you supposed to “revoke” your promise before you go ahead and do whatever?
Oh my glob, did Vinczer just try to “how ya like dem apples”? How pathetic.
Multiple blockquotes win! *victory boogie*
> @DavidFutrelle It wasn’t secret, silly. It was forbidden. Much more exciting.—
If true, this sounds like the whole point is intimidation, a technique AVfM is fond of. Their goal is to prove that even when the event forbids recording and security removes cameras, AVfM will find a way in.
The point of which is not to bring transparency since it was never secret. The point is to discourage people who don’t want AVfM recording them from having the event in the first place, since it’s impossible to escape their “Activism.”
@David Futrelle
> I originally said in this comment that Janice Fiamengo had been shouted down at Queens University, but she wasn’t; she delivered her talk. She was however shouted down at the U of Ottawa.
It’s true she was shouted down at U of Ottawa (which I’m not condoning) but to be clear she still delivered her talk there as well, after security moved the event to a new location.
CAFE sponsored the event and their tweets confirm,
> Indeed we are so very grateful to security. Thanks to them the event in fact did proceed despite opppsition
> Event ends at 9pm. A little early but most of talk was complete and we got a lot of interest and contacts. We’ll be in touch!
If anyone feels like writing a feminist conspirators script, I will totally draw it.
Would Pierre be the security guard at the University? I wish I had time to write a script.