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!
I like that whole thing with the pay gap thing. MRAs like to claim that it’s been debunked, and share good sources to show how skeptical they are, and how factual their position is. What do those sources show? Even after removing all other causes, including several relevant issues, like women just not getting top jobs as often, when all else is the same, women earn around 5% less. 5% adds up to 2.5 years worked, essentially unpaid, assuming a working life 50 years. Their own favourite sources show that the pay gap still exists.
I’m sure you all already know that… but… it amuses me. I mean, it infuriates me that it’s still an issue, but the fact that they’re so obviously wrong that their own cherry picked sources don’t support them? I love it.
It takes a really poor dresser to actually look worse in a suit.
Argenti: It’s OK, I read that wrong.
Do women not…? I mean… I didn’t know asshole was gender specific. Learning new things every day over here.
I thought this name was familiar. I was arguing with this Esmay clown back on the Usenet in the Great Floating Homosexual Flame Wars back in 1995, no less.
Women’s butts look like this (SFW).
Reblogged this on seleukosnicator10 and commented:
Way to go Dean
I think Seleukosnicator has some reading comprehension issues. Or is that supposed to be sarcasm.
Judging by their blog, I’m pretty sure they’re being sarcastic.
Ideological feminism is a multi-billion dollar hate industry funded by lies about rape and domestic violence,
I’m sorta wondering about the business plan they’ve got in mind here…
@JakeFromStateFarm
Yeah, but that’s misandry too, because… reasons.
@jayemgriffin
You have to take the “Political Correctness Gone Mad” module, which includes writing at least two papers which disagree with at least one form of bigotry. If you go further than that and openly make statements about how humans deserve basic rights, you get the added bonus of people denying that you ever earned any graduate level qualifications at all.
@Lea
Yeah, it’s funny how people do that. I’m not one for quoting the bible (except when I can point out the horrible things) but I think that Jesus dude said something about this… something about splinters, logs and eyes. But for, I guess, about six years I was convinced that the atheist community had some kind of moral high ground. Practically all of us were railing against all the cruelty, violence and hatred and, while there were always a few who came out as racist or homophobic, the community was pure! And then two people got into an Elevator, one became a feminist second coming of Hitler, and the whole facade fell away. So many of us don’t give a shit. It was all just point scoring. Blergh.
I imagine that point scoring is how they get some of their more reasonable members – they’re railing some genuine issues, so the people who suffer from those issues imagine that the MRM is on their side and wants to fight for them. Fortunately, their facade isn’t quite so well built, and all you have to do is rub against it to see through.
@emilygoddess
NASDALT! Or… I don’t know… do you count as a straight dude if you don’t identify as male and you’re slightly interested in some rare men? Never mind… *withdraws objection.*
Also around less obnoxious man-bodied people. You wouldn’t believe (actually you almost certainly would, but… turn of phrase) the number of times I’ve been sharing a seat on the bus with a guy and end up with my knees pressed firmly together, trying to take up less space than is physically possible, and making astonishing developments in cramp technology because of Leggy P. McSpreadlegs beside me. Ah, the joyous combination of personal space issues and public transport at rush hour.)
I had to scrape my jaw off the floor when Esmay claimed that AVfM does not participate in or tolerate threats of violence or hate speech and immediately bans contributors who violate these “rules”.
I’m putting together a small collection of links which contradict this statement & will be sending them to Fox News Detroit in the hopes they will follow up with an addendum to this story that addresses his more outrageous claims & false statistics.
Sarah, thanks for all your hard work and for keeping us posted with hands on information about the conference & protests as they continue. I am so grateful to you and everyone you’re working with for your bravery & commitment.
And Puddleglum LOVE the Kuroneko-sama gravatar!
Also throwing in a WTF with everyone else about asshole being a gendered slur, it’s one of my favorites becasue it’s NOT gendered.
There was a joke on Twitter:
Q: How many men’s right’s activists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Not all of them.
I’m glad y’all appreciate the updates.
Kind of frustrated that the media won’t return calls or emails or correct their stories or you know, do journalism.
BTW, they are claiming in comments now that they have to find a new hotel because of the employee issues the Doubletree is having.
Because the MRA movement is so in favor of unions, right?
@katz
That’s funnier than it has any right to be. :3
BTW, they are claiming in comments now that they have to find a new hotel because of the employee issues the Doubletree is having.
I’m fairly confident at this point that this whole conference was never actually booked at all.
…Geez, Elam just got $25K for nothing and he won’t spot Esmay a little bit to get his teeth fixed. I think I’ve located the actual source of Esmay’s oppression.
It’s misandry for men to be expected to change light bulbs. True alpha males can see in the dark. It’s only the evil wimminz who need light to admire their hard chairs, kitties, shoes and bonbons. Why should men continue to risk life and limb to change light bulbs for ungrateful feminazis?
Re: MRA’s and lightbulbs…
I always thought the answer was 0 because they prefer to remain in the dark.
I forgot, I also wanted to comment along with Athywren on the way Esmay was encroaching on Dr. Dillaway’s personal space.
As a non driver who occasionally has to rely on public transportation I have experienced this quite a bit.
Scrunching up against the side of a bus seat while the man sitting (I am not trying to generalize, I have just never had this happen with a woman as a seat mate) next to me spreads his legs and arms out into the adjoining seat. Into MY, for all the temporary nature of the occupancy, seat.
That position she was sitting in with her arms folded down and her body tilted away is very familiar to me.
And katz, you made me snort coffee out of my nose 🙂
Hey katz! I done wrote up your prompt for writeathon!
Also, aw, I have to be a purple poodle now? But purple really clashes with my skin tone…
You’re not alone PirateJennie
http://mentakingup2muchspaceonthetrain.tumblr.com/
Weirwoodtreehugger, some of the photos on that tumblr look . . .uncomfortable. I’d need a few yoga classes to position my knees that far apart.
Me too! I’m glad there are some fellow Trigun fans here. I need to watch that again…
Thanks for the link! Yep, looks awfully familiar.
It’s especially skeevy and aggravating on a largely empty bus or tram.
I’ve gotten to the point where if there is free seating I’ll just push past them and pointedly move to an empty seat.
Sometimes I get followed, which is when I get loud.
Sorry for the slight derail! It just struck a particularly personal chord with me.
Sorry, but the joke actually goes like this:
Q: how many MRA’s does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: SCENTED FUCKING CANDLES!!!
Also, Dean Esmay’s tie looks ridiculous. It’s almost like he peed himself a little and lenghtened his necktie to hide it.