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!
JakeFromStateFarm – that bothered me as well. Ugh.
Dean Esmay probably thinks it’s a victory because he got to ramble off a bunch of “factoids” unchecked. Any positive impacts relies solely on the hopes nobody will do the research themselves.
Anyway, I’ve been leaving comments on the Facebook page here – https://www.facebook.com/pages/FOX-2-Detroit/363658042993
@ceebase Yeah – the male host and occasionally the female host talked over the professor practically every time she tried to speak, but let him go on. She was amazingly polite.
Yeah, that’s their tactic. Say seriously fucked up shit, and then smirk and say “It’s satire!” when called on it. Never mind that they couldn’t identify satire in the light of day even if it was wearing those neon coloured safety clothing – everything is just “satire”
Check out my redundant redundancy! (Seriously, what kind of social justice movement isn’t ideological?)
Also, domestic violence isn’t a gendered issue because of gender symmetry? Dude, the theory of gender symmetry doesn’t sufficiently counter the feminist thesis that DV is a form of patriarchal violence. While the gender asymmetry of DV does indicate an institutional bias against women, one could still argue that DV is a gendered phenomenon even if men are just as likely to abuse women as women are likely to abuse men. Gender symmetry alone does not prove or disprove what feminists say about the etiology of DV. Moreover, the fact that female-on-female DV is far less common than male-on-female DV also reflects men’s privilege over women. Esmay doesn’t know shit about feminist theories of DV.
Hi there! I’m a woman who has difficulty accessing healthcare and has literally no income. I have not been to the dentist in 10 years just because of financial instability in my family. That’s because of class, not gender. You undoubtedly make more money than I do since you actually have job – does that support the feminist notion that women are oppressed by men?
It’s so easy to turn MRA arguments on their respective heads.
Because clearly domestic work and childcare are totally useless and aren’t forms of production at all. Oh wait. I wonder if this dude is trying to interpret Marx in the most MRA manner possible. I hope not.
And while we’re playing oppression olympics, let’s point out the fact that many women in poverty are under an even greater threat of abuse and sexual violence due to lack of resources, the fact that many women and girls are manipulated/deceived by men and then trafficked, and the fact that even a lot of women (including lesbians and trans women) who are sex workers often have to deal with abusive male customers and, beyond all of that, an form institutionalized oppression that reduces their opportunities for legal recourse and access to basic amenities. Oh, and the fact that women haven’t been drafted as much as men because they are actively pushed out of the military through intimidation tactics (such as rape by male peers) and male supremacist narratives.
I just don’t know what happened to Dean Esmay. He used to be one of the more liberal bloggers in the days after 9/11, and in fact got in trouble with other “warbloggers” because he went on a tear about how he would not tolerate any more anti-Muslim activity. How did he happen to fall into this particular rut, I wonder. (I quit following him ages ago when I got bored with the whole warblogger thing.)
Anyway, I have several missing teeth (well, I don’t have them), because I couldn’t afford to get them fixed. I mostly blamed myself for not taking care of my teeth better. I guess I should have blamed people with PhD’s instead!
Many women have lost their teeth over the centuries to repeated pregnancies. It also cost them their bone density. That hump old women used to regularly get on their backs? That’s from their bones turning to dust, usually from pregnancies. See, when a fetus needs calcium but your diet doesn’t provide it due to malnutrition, it takes it from your body. It still happens. Having babies is hard on the teeth and bones. Dental care being unaffordable is not just a problem men face.
These guys think every tiny problem they experience is the worst problem in the world, because they’re so entitled and self centered. They minimize other people’s struggles because they only care about themselves. If they have a headache and you have a GSW, they think their headache is the bigger problem.
Essmay thinks his horrible decision to write for a hate site as a career doesn’t bring in a salary comparable to a professor with her PHD because he’s discriminated against? That’s hilarious.
He’s luck she only smiled. I’d have laughed until I fell out of my chair.
Actually, Dean should probably take up his salary issues with Mr Elam. Well Paul, why aren’t you paying your totally worth more male staff as much as a female university professor? Misanderer.
Amen.
That’s because they don’t actually care about racism. They only appropriate the suffering of minorities when it suits their agenda.
We get alot of this in the atheist community too. The Dudebro atheists like to use the suffering of women, disabled people, LGBTQ people and POC to rail against religion. Then when you point out how overwhelmingly white, male, etc atheist events and orgs are or how much blatant bigoted harassment is coming from douchebro atheists, they do not want to hear it. How dare you tarnish the name of their (self appointed) great leaders and precious movement with the truth! Then it’s, “Simma down and shut up minorities! The well off white dudes need to pat themselves on the back again. But please, buy our books and send $ to our orgs.”
They especially don’t like to be criticized for how linked MRM and atheism are right now. They don’t want to hear that fact at all. But, the cat is way out of the bag and currently shredding their curtains and pooping in their shoes. 🙂 So, that’s good.
I find it interesting how every time there’s one of these debates, whether it’s Esmay or Straughan (yawn) or whoever… the people in the comments, whether on YouTube or elsewhere (and by people, of course, I mean MRAs here) always seem to go “Look at that feminist, look at her reaction at 2 seconds in, look at her reaction at 5 seconds in, look at how she’s smiling” – it’s always, ALWAYS, related to how the feminist (male or female) looks and acts etc. while the MRA Supreme is speaking, who of course is always praised for being “composed,” “measured,” “takes a lot of guts,” etc.
It’s the same empty argumentum ad hominem that they use ad nauseam.
Also invented fire, the wheel, and (of course) HUNTED THE MAMMOTH!
I love this quote:
So, apparently, only men have anuses? I guess that goes along with the whole “Ladies don’t poop” thing?
I watched the whole thing, and I agree with the point about why she was smiling. She was just sitting back and enjoying the show, as he dug himself deeper and deeper.
Men going to prison without being convicted, based on a civil case? He said it happened in specific cities, but how about giving us a name or two?
Also, in the twitter comments, someone said he spouted statistics, which they all ignored. I never heard any statistics from him. I heard generalized statements. Very few actual numbers.
HA! The very first comment was the same as mine. I ought to read comments before posting, but I just HAD to point that out.
Second one, too?
You know, this might just be a T-shirt quote.
@Howard Bannister
BWAHAHAHAAAA!
I always love your comments, Howard.
Maybe this was hopelessly innocent of me, but I thought everyone had an anus. Also, for the longest time I was pretty sure calling someone a prick was like saying they were like a poke from one of the spikes on a prickle-bush.
Singularly unpleasant, but really really nasty with lots of other pricks.
I was sad when I was informed otherwise.
@grumpycatisagirl
ROFL! I think you nailed it.
Only in MRAland could “asshole” be gendered. I’m guessing he doesn’t understand they come factory installed for everyone.
Oh, I didn’t know that lies actually have monetary value. Can I go on a false accusation spree and buy a polo pony?
Oh! A “women don’t produce anything” comment! That means I get to pull out my favorite sci-fi passage about that topic!
Lois McMaster-Bujold gives the best description of this problem in Ethan of Athos. (For the non-Bujold fans [ed. what are you people doing with your lives? 🙂 ]“Athos” is a society entirely of men, where babies are generated using cultured ovarian tissue and grown in incubators. It has been many generations since it was founded, most Athosians have never encountered any women, and they are raised on stories of how aggressive and terrifying women are. Ethan, having left Athos to complete a task, is talking to a woman, Elli, and basically asserts that no society could raise an army from scratch, the costs of rearing the soldiers from babies being enough to bankrupt the society if they were then wasted in such non-productive activities as war.
I would have smirked — then I would have held up a little sign to the camera that read, “WTF???” I mean, she had the time, since everyone kept talking over her.
Also, this is a little funny if you read it in Christopher Lloyd’s voice:
“As always, these damnable women don’t even PRETEND to care, so deep is their misandry.”
It’s also a little funny since misandry isn’t a real thing.
Do these MRA people have secondaries that chime in when critics get really pissed at them? Like, their job is to remind the talking heads to claim all their unchecked and hateful talking points are satire when things get heavy. Their websites are up and open for public consumption — anyone can find out that their beliefs are in fact beliefs and not satire.
And, whoa mamma, what a seriously stupid tie.
Maybe MRAs think Barbie dolls are anatomically correct? Blow up dolls don’t have anuses either I’m guessing.
@weirwoodtreehugger who says
just in case you ever need an amusing visual — from the delightful blog ‘craftastrophe’
http://d2tq98mqfjyz2l.cloudfront.net/image_cache/1256176392175799.png
Oh, yeah. This is just… I have no words.
Body language assessment?
Male host — interested, but not terribly, couldn’t tell if it was real interest or the kind he fakes daily because that’s his job
Female host — spent the first half as far away from Esmay as she could get while staying in her chair, tried asking if some of these issues weren’t because of men’s choices (e.g. sure more men are in jail, but do they commit more crimes), got shot down, seemed to relax thereafter? Like, idk, “well I might as well not bother so I’m just going to enjoy the show”?
Esmay — LOVE the “let me tell you what!” body shake at the beginning, and the eye rolls when he *gasp* isn’t talking
The professor — lots, and lots, of facial expressions that read as “he’s wrong but I’ll hold my tongue to say why”, but she never got to (also seems to be trying to sit as far from him as possible, though this might be because he’s stealing her arm rest)
Literally the only point anyone but Eskay got to make was when the Prof commented “but that’s racism”. Really love the claim that any hints of violence get you booted from AVfM though, Esmay took full advantage of the fact no one would have time to fact check his shit.
And yeah, how do you screw up tying a tie that badly? He’s more than tall enough that it shouldn’t be hard to get it to fall somewhere between the back tail showing and “dude, it’s supposed to end before your pants”.
@Arete – Oh, Bujold! I simply adore her works, all of them! The entire Vokosigan saga is brilliant. I have a special place in my heart for the infamous couch confrontation scene in “A Civil Campaign.”
Oh, have you read “The Curse of Chalion?”
Ethan of Athos was really interesting in how it used a completely misogynist society to teach feminist messages. The whole book was quite fascinating, but that particular scene – yeah. If it’s a man doing the work, it’s valuable.
Interesting to have an MRA come on here and be so instantly completely clueless.
First: get your PhD. Then work your way up the promotion ladder in your department, until you get to Professor. Which is a very senior position and one that commands respect.
So fuck off with the notion that you can just say crap on the internet and get the title. We all know you’ll never get there.