MRAs seem to think that they can spin their way out of pretty much anything. And on the internet, particularly in their own little echo chamber, they can kind of get away with it. It’s when they venture out into the real world that they run into some trouble.
Take, for example, the mad spinning that accompanied the implosion of the Canadian Association for Equality’s “E Day” concert scheduled for last weekend. CAFE, you may recall, is a Canadian Men’s Rights group that’s probably most famous for organizing a series of talks by Men’s Rights-friendly folks on Canadian campuses that, well, caused a tiny bit of a stir.
Oh, sorry. The group says that even though its “focus is currently on men and boys … [W]e do not consider ourselves a Men’s Rights Group.”
Anyway, so this non-Men’s Rights group decided to hold a concert on Toronto Island celebrating “Equality Day,” a holiday they made up just for the occasion. They found a venue, got some sponsors and even managed to convince a bunch of bands to sign on.
Everything was ready to go until a few days before the concert was scheduled to happen, when some of the people who had been roped into the event discovered just what they had gotten themselves involved with.
A headline from the Huffington Post sums up what happened next with admirable succinctness:
The exodus from E-Day kicked off after a post appeared on the lefty Canadian news site Rabble.ca pointing out what CAFE was really about. Musicians and sponsors quickly distanced themselves from the event, and CAFE lost its venue as well.
CAFE’s response to all this? A press release stating:
CAFE received overwhelming support from musicians, sponsors and the general public for Equality Day. After several months of productive collaboration, the original venue Artscape Gibralter-Point cancelled the use of their location after receiving a small number of misinformed complaints.
That’s a rather … odd way to describe what happened. According to a good number of those who had originally signed on for the concert, it was CAFE that was actively spreading misinformation about their own event and hiding its Men’s Rights agenda.
The musical group Giraffe posted a statement on Facebook saying:
We feel that we were not fully informed about what it was that is being supported here, and also that calling it a festival that celebrates “equality” as opposed to “men’s equality” was intentionally misleading to us in it’s effort to entice us to play this show.
Hogtown Brewers, one of the sponsors, offered a similar explanation for why they pulled out. “We’re kinda surprised that an event that built itself on being for equality turned out to be anything but that,” the president of the company told the The Star. “The minute that it came to our attention that it wasn’t a concert in line with our values, we moved to remove our support. We regret any involvement.”
Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for Artscape, the venue that was to have originally held the event, told The Globe and Mail that
[t]he premise of the event as it was given to us was a fair and equitable event that was family-friendly and a lovely music festival. It has since turned political and we anticipated that there could be health and safety concerns as well.
Perhaps the most amazing revelation: Jagermeister, which had been listed as a sponsor on CAFE’s publicity materials, said it had never agreed to be part of the event in the first place:
Thanks @amirightfolks for bringing this to our attention. We did not approve a sponsorship to this festival nor approve the use of our logo.
— Jägermeister Canada (@jagermeisterCA) May 30, 2014
CAFE’s creative, er, spinning continued in an interview the group’s outreach director Denise Fong gave to NowToronto. I’m not even going to summarize this one. Go read it.
A scaled down E-Day celebration of sorts did go ahead last weekend. It consisted of some CAFE volunteers standing on a corner handing out pamphlets and talking to passersby about their support of “boys, men and families.” (That’s a strangely limited notion of equality, huh?)
In their press release last week, CAFE announced that
Equality Day musical activities will be postponed to next Sunday, June 8. Details to be announced.
So far no details have been announced. But, hey, they’ve still got a couple of days to go.
On a totally unrelated note, I will be holding “E-Kwalitee Day” in my apartment sometime this afternoon. I am proud to announce that I have managed to book some outstanding musical acts for this extravaganza. They don’t know it yet, but I have written their names down in my appointment book.
Here’s the headliner:
I support kittens, cats and families. Ask me why!
I think it’s important to examine common sexual and romantic preferences when discussing people as a large group. Culture does shape these things. For example: The blue eyed gene is thought to be only about ten thousand years old so it doesn’t seem likely that humans are “hard wired” to be attracted to blue eyes. Yet blue eyes are almost universally prized and viewed as attractive why is that?
However, when you talk about an individual and their preferences it gets super dicey. Especially when we talk about women’s preferences since women get a lot of culture messages saying that we are bad for having them.
I do think it needs examining if you’re attracted to a person and want to be with them but won’t because you don’t want to be seen with them for whatever reason. I also think it should be examined if you’re fetishizing a person (like the guys in the creepy white guys tumblr). When it comes to actual attraction or lack thereof, it’s got to be off the table or you get into that entitlement zone.
A little bit more about preferences in dating…
From sociological images.
It’s from a dating site.
The highest response rates from men to women are… towards Asian women. Fetishistic? I think so.
The lowest response rates, both from men to women and from women to men, was pointed squarely at black people.
Cassandra said it best: “which points to social conditioning as probably being the cause of your aversion.”
I really wish cis people here were more familiar with TERF rhetoric.
Again, Lea explains it really well. Thank you.
Yep. A generalized conversation about, say, how social conditioning tends to shape preferences and how maybe diversifying the images people see represented as “desirable person” in the media might help with that is fine. When we get into demands that specific people reexamine their preferences, especially when it’s at the behest of someone who would really like to date them who’s just been told that they can’t, sorry, but the primary sexual directive has to come before any other consideration, because if it doesn’t we’re getting into coercion, and social coercion is a powerful thing. “You’re a bigot if you don’t want to fuck person X/people in category X” is really, really not a direction that we should be going in if we care at all about consent.
One of the things that really helped me understand this debate was when I heard a TERF say that any time a trans person had sex, it was rape. It was rape by default, because of their status. It was rape, and that any person presenting themselves as trans was only doing so to rape.
That was eye-opening.
I admit that I’m not that knowledgeable, I know about in general only. I do think it was still glaringly obvious that Ruby’s posts were full of transmisogynistic dog whistle language.
I am, and I still think that this “examine your preference” thing leads to places that as feminists, we shouldn’t want to go.
@rubyrubyruby
O.mi.god.
I…uh, have no words. I have seen cis people whine that calling them cis was oppressing them, or a slur, or whatever, but did not think I’d see it here.
Here, Ruby. I’m cis. It’s not a fucking slur, it’s not speculating, it’s just taking away the otherness of only labelling people if they are trans.
No we’ve hit ‘how dare you call me transphobic when there are people who are even moretransphobic than me. Ruby, fuck off.
If you don’t think TERFs hate trans people, especially trans women, I don’t think there’s anything you actually would recognize as transmisogyny.
Omigod. Going to try to go through this one at a time.
TERFs have actually planned to* crash a trans health conference, they’ve harrassed trans women,, they’ve done plenty of shit. I have yet to see any trans women actually calling for violence against femenists. Maybe it happens? But I doon’t think it’s a widespread thing, unlike TERFs transmisogyny.
Um, cis lesbian here. And being unnatracted to trans women because they ahve penises is transmisogyny. NO ONE is saying that you have to have sex with soemoen you are not attracted to, but people can point out cissexist beauty standards, and that preferences can be transmiogynistic.
Um, I’ve never had a menstruation conversation interupted by trans women. But for someone who is so supposedly *not transphobic* you are missing that people who aren’t women can menstruate too.
I think we also have to be very careful when we say that this conversation reminds us of men’s entitled attitude to women and sex, because TERFS have a tendency to frame it as “you’re demanding that women examine their preferences because you are a man“, which is obviously transphobic. I can definitely understand why this conversation is fraught for trans women.
And Lea, I hear what you’re saying about fat acceptance. I agree that it’s important to remember that people’s preferences don’t form in a vacuum, and that an aversion to fat or trans or disabled bodies is most likely cultural, rather than “natural”, in origin. On the other hand, I’m really uncomfortable when that discussion is aimed at women in particular, for obvious reasons, and when it happens on an individual level.
I think everyone tends to make the “examine your preferences” demand towards women more than towards men because the idea that women’s sexuality is fluid and basically functions in response to the needs of others is one of the building blocks of patriarchy. People don’t make those demands of men because men’s sexuality is framed as belonging to themselves, not to other people.
It happens, but (1) not as often as come people like to claim, and (2) TERFs turn around and call it “male violence”, which is fucked up.
What i don’t get about this whole preferences/ whatever conversation is: do people normally think about genitals when they’re talking to someone they find attractive?
i mean if your arguing that you shouldn’t bother to examine your attraction to only cis women based on genitals, then it seems like you’re making the assumption all cis women’s genitals look the same (they don’t) and all trans women’s genitals look the same but different from cis women’s.
I kind of skimmed so i’m not exactly sure if that’s what’s going on. it seems kind of like reducing diverse groups of people down to their genitals based on assumptions, and i’m really not comfortable with that.
@cassandrakitty
yeah, cuz I know when I’m attracted to someone the only thing I’m looking at is their genitals. /sarcasm.
I mean, this whole conversation just seems off. Especially since like, no one’s saying that you have to have sex with someone you don’t want to. Just that’, yeah, if you’re attracted to women and you go ‘woah but not trans women’ it’s pretty skeevy.
Cuz trans women are such a big group. And gah.
Idk I can’t even articulate what’s wrong with this at the moment but it just seems off.
um, how are you getting that from what she said. Because I really don’t see how pointing out that people’s preferences can be influenced by cissexist beauty standards is the same as saying it’s not okay to have sexual preferences.
Um, what? Cuz maybe I”m being naive, or uninformed, or whatever, but I’m just not getting this. Um how is that close to homophobia?? LIke, asking as a lesbian. Because seriously Im not getting it.
@cassandra
Um then they don’t have sex this isn’t hard.
But its bad to rethink about why you think all trans women are unattractive?
yeah, well it’s a good thing we aren’t actually talking about ‘re-examine your preferences right now so you can have sex with me’.
@lea
^QFT
And I’m not comfortable with people telling other people that they’re not allowed to decide who they do or don’t want to fuck based on whatever criteria happens to be important to them, so we appear to have reached an impasse.
@cassandra
Um, where is anyone saying that people aren’t allowed to say who they don’t want to fuck?
I’m seconding this. I really don’t think Ally was ever implying that people don’t get to have personal preferences when it comes to sexual partners. She isn’t that kind of person based on her past posts. I think she was just calling out transmisogyny when she saw it.
I’m trying to understand where everyone is coming from. So what I’m getting as the moral of the story, to piece it from what other people are saying, is that:
1) People’s sexual preferences on an individual level are not to be questioned or challenged in a way that would remove their autonomy or their right to choose.
2) Society’s prescriptive sexual preferences are fraught with racism, sexism, transphobia, ableism, homophobia, etc, and should be actively questioned and examined. People are encouraged to examine their preferences in a broad sense in the context of society’s expectations.
3) TERFs, racists, etc, will often take point 1 and twist it to justify their prejudices and continue discriminating against groups of people. It’s okay to call them out on this.
Anything else?
If you don’t understand how coercive the whole “examine this preference or you’re a bigot” thing is then I really don’t have the patience to try explaining it to you any further.
but…. no one’s saying they’re not allowed to decide. just that they’re decisions can be based on bigotry and stuff.
I mean, this really doesn’t seem that hard.
I’m disabled. If someone told me that they would never ever have sex with a disabled person, i wouldn’t be like “Oh my god well you should have sex with me” I’d be like “fine whatever but that doesn’t mean you’re still not ableist as fuck”.
IMO it’s the same thing here. if someone’s like “I would never have sex with a trans woman (based on my inaccurate assumption of people’s genitals)” ally’s not saying “Well you should have sex with me” she’s saying that the assumption is transmisogynistic*
*ally that’s what i got from what i read. sorry if i interperted it wrong.
OK, one last try and then I’m out. Asking someone to reexamine their preferences in combination with the argument that they’re being bigoted carries with it a very strong social pressure for them to, after suitable examination, change their preferences. What if they examine their preferences and find that they don’t change? And, given that if we know anything about how social dynamics work we know that “this preference is bigoted, please examine it” effectively means “and then change it”, why do you think it’s justified to exert that kind of social coercion in regards to something as personal as sexual preferences? And how do you square that with the idea that people have an absolute right to reject any sexual partners who they don’t want?
If we truly believe that people have an absolute right to reject any sexual partners that they aren’t interested in then applying that kind of social coercion is just not OK. People can choose to take a second look at their own preferences and try to figure out where they came from, if they want, but that isn’t something that other people should be demanding that they do, or socially shaming them into doing.
While I’m not first and foremost thinking about genitals when I’m just talking to someone, for me personally, a penis is an important part of sexual attraction for me. I’ve never felt the slightest desire to have sex with someone who doesn’t have one. In fact, it is probably more important to be than gender identity although I’ve only been pursued by cis men before so that part is hypothetical.
I simply can’t imagine having sex with a partner who doesn’t have a penis. That isn’t reducing a person to their genitals. It’s just a personal sexual preference. It doesn’t mean that people without penises aren’t lovable or fuckable in general and it doesn’t mean I expect others to share my preference. I’m just not comfortable with the idea that preferring one set of genitals over another is reducing a whole person down to their genitals.
@Cassandra
it’s not Ally’s fault if you’re reading something into what she said (‘then change it’) that she didn’t say. :/
blockquote fail, the second paragraph in teh second blockquote up there^ was mine :/
Again, Marie, I really don’t think you’re quite grasping how social dynamics work here. And about Fade’s question about whether or not people are thinking about genitals when they’re talking to people they’re attracted to…um, yes? I mean, maybe I’m odd or something, but if I’m considering going to bed with someone then yes, I’m probably going to be thinking about what I’d like to be doing with their genitalia if they also would like me to do those things. Are we supposed to be just brains that kind of float in a jar and don’t think about whether or not our bodies will interact with other people’s bodies in ways that we find physically enjoyable? For people who only find penises sexually appealing, or who only find vulvas sexually appealing, then it’s not actually that huge a surprise that they might lose interest in having sex with a person based on whether or not that person’s genitalia fits within their personal “yep, definitely like genitals that look like this” parameters.
So at the risk of being “the person who brings that up,” there was a discussion of the race thing during the Great Manboobz Exodus that boiled down to “if you aren’t attracted to people of all races, you’re a racist.” I don’t know whether that’s coming to mind for Cassandra or anyone else, but there is a little latent bad blood on the topic.