A Voice for Men’s media blitz continues apace. On Sunday, fresh on the heels of his colleague Robert O’Hara’s often cringeworthy Al Jazeera interview, AVFM “managing editor” Dean Esmay appeared on the unfortunately named “Let it Rip,” a news show on the local Fox affiliate in Detroit, to discuss that upcoming “Men’s Issues” conference we’ve been hearing so much about.
The excitable Esmay, wearing a tie at least a foot longer than necessary and facing off against a far more polished Heather Dillaway, a feminist sociologist from Wayne State University, did not exactly dispel the notion that the Men’s Rights movement isn’t ready for its close up just yet.
Esmay robotically rattled off an assortment of the sort of phony “factoids” that go over well only in the echo chambers of the Men’s Rights movement, and responded to questions not with answers but with rapidly regurgitated talking points — at one point declaring, to the bemusement of Prof. Dillaway and the rest, that
Ideological feminism is a multi-billion dollar hate industry funded by lies about rape and domestic violence, and they are the cause of a lot of very civil-rights trashing laws like the Violence Against Women Act even though we know that domestic violence is not a gendered issue.
Yes, he did say “a lot of very civil-rights trashing laws.”
Esmay also set forth a few arguments that he seemed to have made up right there on the spot, and which probably could have used a bit more workshopping. When the female half of Fox News’ tag team of hosts asked him “do you think you’re at a disadvantage because you’re a man,” he replied
I think many men are at a disadvantage specifically for a man. I’m certainly a working-class man. You see me sitting here with a missing tooth cause I can’t afford to fix it. This lady [gesturing at Dillaway] probably makes four times what I do.
Never mind that whatever differences there might be between their salaries have prety much nothing to do with gender and everything to do with class, and education, and probably most of all with the fact that Esmay is working for a dude who’s evidently bogarting all the donations for himself. Never mind that women still earn less than men for the same work. (And yes, MRAs, they do.)
Apparently, as long as there’s any woman in the world who makes more money than Dean Esmay, men are oppressed.
Let’s just call this the Esmay principle.
Anyway, I’m not going to bother to transcribe anything more. The only other memorable remark from Esmay was one he slipped in at the very end, suggesting that A Voice for Men might possibly be pulling out from the Doubletree hotel. What this means for their conference, I don’t know.
Back on A Voice for Men, meanwhile, Esmay was treated as a returning hero for facing down “two raving lunatic feminists and one Purple Poodle” –that last term the AVFMers’ new synonym for the old standby “mangina.”
“Standing O for Dean Esmay,” wrote his boss at AVFM, Paul Elam, in the comments. “Perfect delivery of our message and our attitude. Well done, brother.”
Susie Parker, meanwhile, wrote:
I thought Dean was pretty great. Measured, thoughtful, implacable. Any one of us feel we could have gotten more people on the Titanic lifeboats, but Dean was the man who held his cool and actually did the heroic deed.
I just hope the “people” she imagines Dean helping into the Titanic lifeboats were men! No “women and children first” for the AVFM crowd!
The reviews for Prof. Dillaway were a little less kind.
“[S]tupid ignorant bitch,” wrote one.
“What a self-centered bitch,” another agreed.
Others in the comments, and on the AVFM Forums, described her as a “cunt,” “the jabbering feminist liar,” the “smirking feminit [sic] professor,” and “the feminastie ‘Prof,”’ among other epithets. Indeed, perhaps half a dozen commenters referred to her professorship in derogatory terms, or put the word “professor” in scare quotes.
Some of the commenters were especially galled that Dillaway reacted to some of Esmay’s most ridiculous flights of fancy by … smiling. Several saw this as proof of the depth of her feminist depravity. Mike Buchanan remarked indignantly that
Early on, while you were outlining a number of areas in which men’s and boys’ life outcomes are so poor, the ‘professor’ was smiling through them all. As always, these damnable women don’t even PRETEND to care, so deep is their misandry.
Yeah, that’s not why she was smiling, dude. At that point, I was smiling too. That’s what you do when your opponent in a debate basically soils himself onstage.
Even those who offered – almost invariably mild – critiques of Esmay’s appearance couldn’t bring themselves to say anything positive about his opponent. Wrote PlainOldTruth:
At least we can say Esmay earned his paycheck here. Mopre than you can say fort the Princess Studies professor whose every paycheck represents an act of larceny and fraud: a slap in the face of people who do real work and who, when they teach, teach the truth.
Not that anyone at AVFM would recognize the truth if it came riding in on a Purple Poodle. Indeed, Darryl Jewett managed to win himself more than a dozen upvotes from his comrades for his distinctly revisionist precis of world history:
Throughout history and in every society including all of them today, women are and always have been the most privileged demographic. Where ever and whenever you hear women whining that they are oppressed, men are oppressed far worse. And usually by the women . On average, women consume way more than men and produce far less. To replenish those resources which women consume in great excess, men are sent to fight endless wars and forced to work as slaves long past the time they should be working and can. Children are often used as excuses to force men to work under threat of imprisonment even if they can’t anymore.
The strangest reaction of all, though, came from a commenter called DEDC, who used the occasion as an opportunity to attack, er, me, and to suggest that the real problem was that MRA’s weren’t using the words “bitch” and “cunt” often enough.
No, really.
The whole reason we are a hate site is because fucktards like Futrelle, failed journalist (see Bart Sibrel) that he is, keeps seeding these attacks based on nothing other than that we refer to some women as cunts and bitches (who desperately deserve it). Nobody, not even US, say that calling a man a prick or asshole (gender specific) is misandric just on that basis. The level of projection and hyper-sensitivity and denial are mind-boggling in magnitude. Just look at that entitlement. It shocks us to use these slurs against a woman because they have never really encountered them before.
It is like I say with Islame-O fascists: the answer to their hypersensitivity to jokes or cartoons of their prophet is MORE! It shouldn’t even be a second thought at all to call a female a cunt who IS a cunt.
I’ve rarely seen any group of people so determined to learn less from their mistakes.
—
If you actually managed to sit through more than a minute or two of that TV segment, you deserve a reward. So here’s a video for the song Nunki, by the band Dva, off their album NIPOMO, which I was listening to on repeat while writing this. The animation in the video was all done by children!
In a lot of ways, I feel that it’s safer to jaywalk as long as I’m careful enough to confirm no cars are coming than it is to cross legally. You’re never really safe when a car is coming towards you. Just about every close call I’ve had has been when I’m crossing the street legally or on the sidewalk crossing an alley entrance/exit. And I’m white and able bodied. Apparently it’s even scarier for others.
I base whether or not I feel safe to cross on what I actually see in terms of oncoming vehicles rather than on what the street lights say, because it’s not the street lights that might hit me.
Ok, here’s another reason not to sit “politely” and take up lots of space: short legs!
I didn’t even figure that one out until I saw an interview with Peter Dinklage, and instantly recognised the way he pulled one leg up onto the chair and curled the other around it. I knew immediately that he did it because it is damn uncomfortable to sit in a seat where your feet don’t touch the ground. I do the exact same thing. Probably everybody under 5′ does something like it. I’m most comfortable sitting cross-legged in chairs, personally, because I hate foot dangling, and because my loose, stretchy dancer-hips like it.
And now I just need to sing the praises of Peter Dinklage. Such an awesome actor, with such beautiful, soulful eyes, and such wit and style. I never dreamed I’d ever see a little person first billed on one of the most popular shows around, and treated like something of a sex symbol even. I certainly never thought I’d see a little man on the covers of GQ and Esquire, looking like a short James Bond. You’re so cool, Peter, and you make the rest of us short-ass smart-asses look cooler than we are.
Sorry – celebrity crush moment. Won’t happen again.
I do think that pedestrians should have the right of way all the time, whether they are in crosswalks or no, and I try very hard to live up to that when I’m driving. I don’t really like the idea of making someone on foot go all the way to the end of the block to cross.
Our sidewalks are consistently crappy, and so most of the people I see who are in wheelchairs are using the street, and it’s terrifying enough to watch – people in my particular state do not have the reputation of being polite drivers.
It’s even worse in winter – although most businesses clear out the sidewalk in front, nobody seems to have responsibility for making a clear passage to the street, so in order to get to the next segment of sidewalk anyone using a wheelchair would have to go out into a major road, go around the mountain of snow that’s obstructing everybody’s vision, cross the street, go around another mountain and finally reach relative safety. And very often there is no clear path to the pedestrian-signal button for anyone, on foot or on wheels. The only really good and reliable stretch of sidewalk is in front of the hospital.
I sit cross-legged in office chairs sometimes (I do take my shoes off first, btw). Short people fistbump.
I sit almost any way but straight up by preference. 5’4″, inseam between 25 and 26 inches – my mother used to take all my pants legs up so I could wear them, before I discovered the joy of petite sizes.
I have a 30-31 inch inseam (just over 5ft2), and I still find straight up in most office chairs less than ideally comfortable. Maybe I’m just slouchy, I dunno, but the ergonomics of them never feel quite right to me. If I must sit properly in a chair I’d prefer one of the wooden ones with a straight back.
Um, for some reason my comment went to moderation. I think I figured out why and will try to repost.
Winter Walker,
I can’t speak for anyone else here but Peter Dinklage talk is always OK with me. He’s been absolutely k*lling it on GoT this season and we haven’t even gotten to the finale which (without spoiling too much for people who watch but haven’t read the books) will have a huge important scene. I can’t wait!
I’ll be cranky if he doesn’t get the Emmy even though I think Breaking Bad’s final episodes are eligible and Aaron Paul is also great.
I ride public transit a lot, due to not driving. Many riders, of both genders, take the aisle sear and leave the window seat vacant. If I need a seat, I will walk up and politely request that they make room so I can have the window seat. I know they’re doing it just so nobody sits next to them.
I haven’t noticed a lot of the ‘oh my massive balls’ sitting style. The pictures on the tumblr remind me of a gay humor book from last century, The Butch Book, that included a guide to how to sit Butchly. “My package is so huge, if I crossed my legs I’d probably castrate myself” was the intended message.
@ledasmom
I am all sorts of no on this point. I used to be a claims adjuster. Pedestrians only have the right of way when they are in the crosswalk, and while we can agree to disagree here they will never have the right of way just any old place because….liability. A pedestrian can indeed be the proximate cause of their own injuries. On campuses the rule is generally that the pedestrian has the right of way anywhere, and that is unbelievably dangerous even when campuses have 10mph speed limit. It is much easier to stop walking and/or look before crossing than it is to stop a vehicle. Drivers should be alert for any potential person running out into the street, kids for example, but I just think it’s wrong to always assume the driver is at fault and I think it sets a dangerous precedent to instill in pedestrians the “right” to step out into the street wherever they can. Ok, pullin off my adjuster cap now and jumpin off my soapbox.
I agree with you on that wheelchair part though, and I am always cognizant of bikers in the street where I live, there just aren’t all that many.
Oh goody, I’ll wait with bated breath.
Will it be like that TV appearance that was supposed to have happened like a year ago? I can’t remember who it was or what show they were on anymore but I think I recall feminists somehow being responsible for it not airing.
Lies, damn lies, and MRAs. As usual.
I think it was more “Elam acted like himself, so it wasn’t aired”
Marie:
Could be. I think I should have used “insult” instead.
Michelle:
I assume you got a feminist soapbox?
(/goofy joke)
It’s funny because I just realized how conscious I am of the space I take. I do everything I can not to touch people around me when I’m in public and keep from encroaching on their space. At the same time, I do tend to walk “big” consciously, and I think that’s something that I picked up when I hung out with my shadier friends and from going out to large parties and clubs.
I do tend to spread my legs as wide as I can without crossing into the next seat (if someone’s next to me), although that’s more to do with having long legs than any worries about my balls.
RE: asshole being gendered
IME experience, for most of m life asshole has been a functionally gendered insult for the simple reason that asshole women always had gendered slurs thrown their way instead. So women were never assholes, they were always “bitches” or “twats” etc. It’s only been recently that I’ve noticed more people using asshole for women as we slowly move away from using gendered slurs.
Why, hello there redundant “experience”! Fancy meeting you here
I think most women are pretty understanding about dudes who take up a lot of space just because they’re tall, or they have big shoulders, or whatever. It’s the ones who’re all LOOK AT ME, OWNING ALL OF THE SPACE who we get annoyed with.
@Cassandra
Oh yeah for sure, and I very rarely find seats so narrow that I have no way to keep from encroaching. There have been times when people get pissy that I’m spreading my legs when there’s an empty seat next to me, but that hasn’t been gendered. I think it’s partly because I take up more space than people realize. I have a pretty slender frame, and I’m 5’11” so I look even thinner, so sometimes people don’t realize how much space my long limbs take nor how wide my shoulders actually are. They only realize that I’m not being a dick when they see that I’m actually sitting the same way they are loll
I’m a fairly large dude, who takes up a lot of space naturally.
But becoming conscious of my body language and position I’ve begun to notice that I don’t take up the same space all the time. And how I position my body in public versus in private is interesting. How much space I take up when I feel insecure vs. when I feel secure.
The ways I have been socialized to sit. The space I have been taught to claim as mine.
What do you do on planes? I always wonder that when I fly within the US, because if I feel cramped with a 30 inch inseam it surely must be awful for people with really long legs.
I don’t know what tall people do on planes, I’m 5’8″, and Delta and Boeing have conspired to take every last micrometer of space away from you. Most uncomfortable flight I’ve ever been on.
I flew one time on US Air and felt like my knees were being crushed against the seatback in front the whole flight. How do people who’re 6ft+ manage?
My dad, who’s taller than me, has a survival mechanism; find a mis-matched seat in the back or front that gives you a little room.
Or suffer for the whole flight and ice your knees when you get where you’re going.
Eventually he was able to get out of flying for work, and therefore isn’t going to be flying any time soon if he can help it…
The weird thing about my last trip is that the Delta planes that were made by Airbus were orders of magnitude more comfortable, even though it was a smaller plane.