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!
Ledasmom — yep, and then you get the “well you must’ve passed crosswalks you could’ve used”. Yeah, ok, you stop and wait for a light when maybe you can catch the next one and that’d mean having to pick the groceries back up. Easier to just keep moving.
My favorites though where always cross walks not at a light, when there was one just around a blind corner. My favorite of those? A sorta-highway exit/entrance ramp, under a bridge — cross there, cling to the cement embankment until you can hop the guardrail into the grass, laugh at this being an actual honest to god pedestrian route, turn the corner onto the bridge and enjoy having a sidewalk. Until you get to the other side where there’s a side street entrance/exit with more path options than a river delta and no cross light.
I continue to be amazed at how many times I did that route without being killed. Do not ask me how someone who can’t run across a street and climb a guardrail is supposed to do it. It was under construction when I moved, so I can only hope it’s dangerous now.
Not Pittsburgh proper of course, a case of “the MOMENT you cross into a suburb, fuck you”.
I just noticed this: “I’d already conceded my words were misconstrued”.
That’s wrong. You alleged. You may even feel, but to concede means to admit you did something. You may have mis-spoken, which may have led to your being misunderstood. It’s possible we misconstrued your meaning (I am not going to say I misconstrued the actual words you used; because words have meanings, and sentences have structure, and those combine to convey things: I read your words, and took them as read).
One doesn’t get to “concede” any miscontsruction one didn’t make.
If this is supposed to be about men’s issues then why again is feminism even being brought up? Gods, can’t these folks just focus on men’s issues alone, entirely, without bringing up feminism?
Dean is ….unpleasant.
BECAUSE FEMINISM = MEN’S ISSUES DURRRRRRRR!
What? Ask boys to touch their penises in the shower? How on earth will you manage that?!
This is clearly a nonsensical plan. 😛
I just watched this video. What a HOOT!
Hasn’t Esmay been using that device about his tooth for quite some time now?
And when will AVfM learn that Esmay and Elam are the last people in the universe that should be offered up for interviews that are to be shown to normal people?
How ironic that the best writers for their site are women, the best public spokespeople are women.
While I’m tempted to take a cheap shot at someone like Esmay who cooperates in doing detestable things to people who take positions against the man who won’t pay to have his tooth fixed, I have to draw the line at the length of his tie.
As someone of half his size I know that you simply can’t wear normal clothes when you can’t see south of your belly button. There simply is no “right” length for something that is ultimately just going to hang out into space. Again, I’m speaking of myself here. Until or if I decide to resume my svelte college days appearance I’ll just wear baggy clothes with no tie. I also wear loafers instead of shoes that need to be tied and do so unapologeticly.
Nobody except the brainwashed AVfM masses are fooled by the organization’s phony mission statements. They are nothing less than money making group who victimize the people who they purport to serve. Time after time they stage these troubled events and then use “circumstances beyond our control” as an excuse to hit up the base for donations. The VFW hall no doubt rents out for far less than the Doubletree ballroom does and not a dime of the savings will go to fixing Dean’s tooth. Blame women!
If you want to understand AVfM’s business model and likely future you only have to go as far as the history of “The PTL Club”. Same type of people, con-men and true believers, same type of results. Maybe there will be some legitimate Human Rights organizations (without emphasis on one race or sex) to pick up the pieces if AVfM doesn’t totally poison the well of human generosity.
RE: Lea
My kids are on a Lilo and Stitch binge and I sit with them murmuring curses at Disney into my soggy handkerchief while my husband laughs at me.
Lilo and Stitch is ROUGH! I didn’t realize how much until I became an adult. (I kinda take care of my younger system members and holy fuckballs have I had plenty of my Nani moments, because I really wasn’t emotionally equipped to start caring for kids when I was a teenager. I’m pretty sure Sneak loves the movie so much because zie really connects with protagonists who are raised by beleagured older siblings.)
RE: titianblue
TW: death of a furry,
I… read something COMPLETELY different from what you intended here, I’m sorry.
RE: enhancedvibes
…oooooookaaaaay.
(Sings drunkenly)
Have I told you lately that I love you…
RE: cassandrakitty
Sometimes, that’s really all there is to be said. I’d say it was an ‘odd’ exchange, except I’m still coming down from that bizarre creepery of JB going on about how we should “warn” some random dudette.
SO GLAD it wasn’t just me.
RE: emilygoddess
I just… I imagined this archetypal film noir movie poster with a victim lying face-down in the street, only the victim was in a fursuit and…
I’M SORRY IT WAS A SAD STORY BUT THE IMAGE WAS SO ABSURD
…I was thinking of Willy Loman in a badger outfit…
We’re clearly all just terrible people.
Okay, I confess, that was my first thought too.
I was thinking more bright orange nylon fur, though.
LBT, I honestly thought the comment was gonna be about the time a famously wanky furry (“fuck you I’m a dragon” guy) was murdered. But that’s probably because I was thinking about it the other day.
Whoa, I totally did not know or hear about this. D:
It was kind of a big deal on Fandom Wank, because we had all enjoyed a laugh at the original wank, but while most of us were suitably somber about the news, there were a few who felt that this, too, was funny. Not one of our prouder moments as a community.
Wait, what? Who murdered him, and why? Do we even know?
An ex-boyfriend and “friend”, for reasons not made public.
Ugh, that’s ugly. I really don’t like it when folks who enjoy wank forget that it actually involves human beings.
LBT,
It hits all my buttons.
Lilo and Stitch remind me of some people I love very much.
Now we’re watching the series and everything Lilo and Stitch. Luckily, I have plenty of handkerchiefs.
Death of a furry made me think of that one CSI episode.
I admit, when trying (and failing so hilariously) to compose that TW, I too thought of that one CSI episode. I too am a bad person.
I third the reminded of a CSI episode, and I avoid that set of programmes like the plague.
Perfectly asinine commentary from someone that is ignorant of the most pressing issues. Reminds me of when Paul Elam spanked your ass in that October debate on domestic violence in 2010. You cried, wet your pants. And quit.
I saw that. Elam wasn’t debating, and he bailed.No one was crying (save perhaps those who actually studied rhetoric)