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!
@cassandra
ok, how amen’t I grasping how social dynamics work here? Because just saying I don’t grasp them is uh kind of weird, and uh, thanks? gah.
I can’t even articulate shit right now.
I think I’ve got it. I think.
When examining preferences, I don’t think it’s good to make people feel like they have to change those preferences. I think it’s about changing WHY you have those preferences.
Example:
If I, as a lesbian, say “I don’t like men and therefore trans women because they’re actually men in disguise.” That’s transmisogynistic. Trans women are not men. Period.
If I, as a lesbian, say “I only like fem cis women. Cause that’s what I like.” Not transmisogynistic.
Difference.
Same preference, different reasons.
@cassandrakitty
I am not too familiar with this topic to be honest, where it seems there is a group of trans folk who think cis peoples should be doing this type of examination of their preferences. The way I look at it is, we are not born knowing what we like, and sorry to inject this here but this is something MRAs strongly believe – that we are born knowing what (features, characteristics etc) we are attracted to — this is something learned. So in the context of re-examining one’s preferences, I think what is important there is being able to recognize why we have those preferences, whether they change upon introspection or not. And sorry to go back to this example, but it’s at the crux of a lot of MRAtalk, a lot of men, in general not just MRAs, really believe the features they are attracted to aren’t learned. The underlying premise of all MRA thought is that the things society most dislikes about men and women’s behaviors is innate, when we know this is not true. Anyway, thems my thoughts.
Damn, ninja’d by fromafar2013!
@ katz
I’m starting to have a feeling that this topic might turn into Exodus 2. I’m certainly not going to stick around if “sure, it’s OK to tell women that they need to examine their lack of interest in having sex with people who they don’t want to have sex with” is the eventual consensus.
Ok, I REALLY do not want to jump into this one, because I have NEVER seen this conversation lead to anything besides anger, but on thing that hasn’t been mentioned — TERFs will, or at least the Bug will, go after lesbians who have/are dating trans women claiming they can’t be lesbians because lesbians don’t have sex with the peen.
Which is obviously bullshit, you can be a lesbian and have trans women partners, you don’t have to or anything, but if you do, you don’t have to go turn in your lesbian card.
That’s the sort of assumption that Ally’s arguing against — that being a lesbian requires you never have sexytimes with someone with a penis, even if it’s attached to a trans woman — you’re bi or something if you do, so turn in your lesbian card. (This would likely be less of a headache if biphobia wasn’t a thing, and it wasn’t “turn in your lesbian card and get the hell away from me”. But that’s a conversation for another day)
Katz:
It has crossed my mind, and yeah, I’m questioning my commitment to Sparkle Motion.
Here’s a summary of my views here as they relate to this topic:
1) No one is obligated to have sex with anyone for any reason whatsoever.
2) Sometimes people’s sexual preferences are rooted in oppressive attitudes.
That is literally all I’m arguing. Asking someone to reexamine their preferences in order to pressure them into sexual relationships they don’t want to be in is an abusive strategy and I completely oppose it. I have been pressured into sex before by straight men, so I have experienced a similar social dynamic. It’s not okay and it’s not what I’m advocating at all. How many times do I have to state this?
cassandrakitty
fair enough. i never had sex so maybe i’m missing something
@fromafar
I agree with most of what you say, about how it’s better to just look at why you have them instead of trying to change them (preferences) but for this:
I stil think the second one is a little off. Obviously not as bad as the first one, but I think turning it to ‘cuase that’s what I like’ doesn’t make it much better. Because it is possibe to be a ’cause that’s just what I like’ but in the current society it’s nearly impossible to actually say whether it is a ‘just what you like’ or because of how trans women are portrayed/stereotyped.
@enhancedvibes
^ditto.
And now I feel like we should put an age warning on this thread, if we’re going to get into this amount of detail.
@ally
^QFT.
And I really don’t see why pointing out peoples sexual preferences can be rooted in opppressive attitudes is causing such a big deal :/
Wow, this is hard.
I completely get why people felt that there was a coercive element in what Ally said – it struck me like that as first. There really is an implied “or you’re a bigot” to “examine your position”, which I think is maybe part of where the problem lie.
That being said, I don’t think that is the dynamic we see in place in this specific discussion. I don’t think it’s transmisogynistic for a lesbian who doesn’t like peens to prefer not to have sex with someone whose genitals include a peen – regardless of whether that person is trans or cis and, not to speak for Ally (please stop me if I’m getting this wrong) but I don’t think that’s what Ally is referring to here.
If someone has previously in their lives realized that what they find sexually exciting is genital A but sexually offputting is genital B, that’s one thing. But when the extent of the thought is “I like “real” women” or “I like “real” men”, that might be something that could be explored further.
Also, and I’m asking this because I genuinely don’t know, is this something that would generally come up early in a relationship-to-be?
LOL, you have no idea how much TMI I took out of my post for just that reason XD
I think this is why I’m kinda invested in this a little too much for my own good. I had a huge crush on a classmate in college, and asked her out, but when she found out that I’m bi (and one of my past girlfriends was a trans woman) she freaked out on me. Refused to talk to me. Like I was trying to trick her into something. I couldn’t place why at the time, but I’m beginning to think it has something to do with what you posted above. Maybe she was a TERF?
I just realized (well, not just, but I have been bringing it up a lot) I’ve been rejected a lot because I’m bi. -_-;
But like you said, that’s another conversation.
@ Marie
Yeah, I get what you’re saying. I think my goal was just to show that you can have preferences without throwing entire groups of people directly under the bus in the process.
@fromafar
Fair enough.
Obviously you can do whatever, but I’d like to think that we’re all big kids here and can, at the worst, shelve this alongside the plural of octopus under “discussions that are just going to make everyone angry so seriously just don’t bring it up.”
Ally,
For the record I never thought you were trying to say anyone should be coerced into sex. I think the point is we just have to be really careful when analyzing a person’s sexual preferences because it can get dangerously close to crossing the line into that.
@Marie
It’s not pointing out that a preference can be problematic that there’s a push back against. It’s that there needs to be a logic behind pointing it out and, as far as I can see, there hasn’t been a good argument for why it’s oppressive or trans-misogynistic.
I have no interest in having sex with someone who has a penis. I don’t care if that penis is attached to a cis man or a trans woman. This is not equivalent to saying I’m not interested in having sex with trans women, this is me saying that I’m only interested in having sex with women with a vagina, cis or trans.
As far as social dynamics go, especially in a progressive space, people’s goal is to eradicate bigotry and oppressive practices, both within themselves and in society. If you tell me that not wanting to have sex with trans women with penises is transmisogynistic then basically what is being said is that I must either change my preferences, or I will continue to oppress trans women. This is why there is an element of coercion there, especially in a space like this.
@ katz
I really hope that you’re not implying that finding the potentially coercive elements in the whole “examine!” thing horrifying is a childish response. I’d hope that part of all being big kids on a feminist site would be acknowledging the fact that women as a group have very good reasons to respond negatively to anything that smells like possible sexual coercion.
Yeah, I’m with Katz, I’d much rather this go on the shelf of “things that just make everyone angry” than have another exodus.
Fromafar — idk about TERF, but I’d imagine the underlying attitude is the same — “real” lesbians have no sexual contact with the peen, no matter how many lovers removed it is or whether it was attached to a woman.
Damn, this whole mess must really leave intersex people in a lurch huh?
Cats have the right idea — you give me pets, I like that, and this spot is comfy, so I’ll curl up with you until I change my mind. I may have a cat next to me.
@ Shadow
Thank you. You phrased that much more neatly than I did.
And I’m not saying that people like you are transmisogynistic. I never meant that, even though earlier I was articulating my views poorly.
@ Shadow
This is NOT transmisogynistic. This is like a better and more well thought out example 2 from my post above. 🙂
Sorry, I totally realized after I said it that was a really bad way to say that. I didn’t mean that what people are doing here is childish at all (and FWIW I’m with you on this one; I think we should leave people’s pantsfeelings alone); I just meant that when people left in a huff, that was very childish, and I know that all the people around right now are generally reasonable folks and I hope we can find a space between “everyone is angry at everyone else” and “half the people leave and never come back.”