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.
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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 do quite like the Men Defending their Balls poem.
I am uncomfortable with us joking at how the MRAs dress and look physically. Come on, we’re better than that.
Hearing MRAs complain about family courts favoring women really bothers me. If they knew my father’s history with family court back in the late 80’s and early 90’s it would probably blow their minds. My father, at 20 years old, received sole and full physical custody of me, his daughter and only child, when I was just 2 years old. My father and his lawyer were allowed to stipulate everything regarding my mother’s visitation rights with me, which were two weekends a month. My father wanted final say regarding everything where I was concerned (example: if my mother wanted to take me out of town, my father could say no and there was nothing she could do about it) and the judge granted his request.
For 5 years, my mother dragged my father back to court, losing each time. When I was 7, she gave up. I’m 28 years old now and I’m grateful to the judge for always keeping me with my dad. A few years ago, my mother admitted to me that she kept taking my dad back to court purely out of spite because she knew that if he ever lost custody of me, it would’ve killed him, and she wanted to hurt him in any way she could.
I know my story is purely anecdotal, but my dad is not the only father to win in family court. The courts determine custody by what’s best for the child(ren). If the mother is best, they favor the mother and if the father is best, they favor the father.
If MRAs want more fathers to have custody of their kids, then perhaps the MRAs should focus on helping single fathers improve their lives so they’re capable of caring for their kids. MRAs won’t do that though because it’s far easier to just sit at a computer and blame women and feminism.
@weirdwoodtreehugger
I like the comment up at the top of that tumblr:
Now, this may be TMI, but I have a penis. Right now I’m sat with my knees about a hand’s length apart, legs crossed at the ankle. Perfectly comfortable. Pretty sure they’re full of shit there. Either that or they’re just afraid of getting penis cooties on their thighs?
@pallygirl
I think there’s a difference between ridiculing a silly clothing style and ridiculing a clothing style due to its association with class, race, gender, etc.
TMI:
I’m an AMAB trans girl, and I have what most people call “male” genitalia. But I literally never find myself spreading out my legs all the way. I do the exact opposite. I mean, I’m extremely uncomfortable with my plumbing in general, but my discomfort has to do with dysphoria, not anything to do with how I sit.
Girlscientist: Nah–I can still draw a connection (if not an actual logical flow) between the question and answer, as they deal with objects that provide light. I think the proper form would be:
Q: how many MRA’s does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: PENGUIN WHORES!!!
*************
I despise the ‘new’ cars on the Green Line in Chicago. They consist almost entirely of bench seats, and the poles are placed in such a way that you get either one person sitting comfortably, or two squeezed together. If they’re both over 12, this is pretty much the only option. There’s precisely six seats per car that don’t automatically default to this, because they put two flip-ups facing forward (so they can be moved for wheelchair parking) and on ONE end of the benches because there’s enough of a gap between the seats and the wall that one can spill into the gap rather than into the seat next to you (it’s the same level of discomfort for someone who doesn’t fit well, but at least you’re not also invading the personal space of the rider next to you).
I’ve seen an argument over those forward-facing seats come to blows. It’s inane.
@Ally S: I disagree, because he’s being ridiculed because he’s an MRA.
@piratejennie, I used to use public transportation too, and know exactly what you mean about guys hogging space. I started wearing trousers and sitting like a guy, with my right ankle resting on my left thigh.
Seriously, their balls don’t require THAT much extra room. My hips are wider than theirs, and I am claiming my space.
Even if it was actually impossible for men to sit comfortably with their legs together, that’s a matter that might call for a different design of seats on public transportation. Men still wouldn’t have the right to take up more than their designated amount of a shared space, even if they would get more out of the extra room than other people. That’s just not how communal spaces work.
The speaker Esmay mentioned, Canadian senator Anne Cools, is an opponent of homosexual marriage.
RE: Palomar
I know my story is purely anecdotal, but my dad is not the only father to win in family court.
Yeah. One of the locals I know here has one of those child support horror stories that a lot of MRAs base their core beliefs around. (Basically, his wife went wrong and mortgaged his house without his asking, then saddling him with that debt and also insisting he didn’t pay child support when he was.) She was really awful, and although it’s technically “shared” custody, the kid hasn’t been back with her for ages, on account of last time she got molested by the woman’s other child, which she refuses to believe or do anything about.
It’s a huge clusterfuck horror show, but he’s been taking care of his kids as best he can, and he’s with a good woman now who also has had a rough history, and they seem pretty happy together. I’m really, REALLY glad that he has the kids.
RE: MY PENIS HAS ITS OWN SEAT
Guys, you need to get over your dick. It isn’t the center of the world. It doesn’t require THAT MUCH SPACE. It’s really not that big. Trust me, I know. I’ve got one. It is not the size of a basketball, which you guys are sitting like. If your junk is so incredibly sensitive you need two whole seats for it, you might want medical assistance for that.
Can you imagine these guys trying to tuck? *eyeroll* And guys are supposed to be so tough. Honestly.
(Also, for writeathon I just wrote a story regarding forty-six hours on a bus. Guess what obnoxious guy the characters have to sit next to?)
I’m actually wondering something, regarding the Spreadosauruses… how many of them wear tight underwear?
TMI again, but I do find things a lot more uncomfortable when I’m wearing Y-front type undies, which is why I almost never do. So… do they have these problems, apparently including the sticky sweatiness, which… I don’t even… because they’re locking themselves away in a penile prison? Because, if that’s the case.. dudes, just wear boxers.
Fox seems to just accept the AVfM narrative: “That’s because the confab has received several death threats from people who say it’s a gathering of woman haters.”
Pallygirl:
Dress is something one can (usually) control. I normally don’t dress for TV; I care little about fashion, at least my own (I admire individuals of all genders who can turn out sharply, but I just can’t be bothered to make the effort myself). But if I were going to be appearing on TV, I would take steps to ensure I was at least moderately presentable–my beard would get a trim, my hair would be pulled back into a tail, I might even finally get someone to shave the crown, rather than looking like I’m trying to do some sort of combover with the dozen hairs that still hang on tenaciously to my former widow’s peak. And I would consult with someone who knows how clothing should look to look good, and take their advice.
While Esmay’s choice of tie isn’t particularly poor, it was either tied very poorly (you get the dangling tie effect if you misjudge the distance and only put a little bit in the back), or it was just too damned long. Either way, it has the effect of constantly pulling the viewer’s eyes directly to his crotch. It takes a special type of arrogance to be so assured of yourself that you don’t even look to check for such things. Hell, even if he got to the studio and discovered the tie was too long, there’s fixes, and I’m sure the studio would’ve been happy to help–among the easiest would be to adjust it until the front hung to a more typical length, and then tuck the back tail into his shirt. I’ve done that one myself, and it’s discrete enough to work.
This IS something he could have controlled, but he chose not to, and it’s fair to both mock the results and speculate on the causes for his choices. I haven’t seen anyone here mock his weight, which WOULD be out of bounds as a subject, because you never know what factors lead to a particular person’s body-type.
********
Pallomar: Your comment actually highlights a curious truth–while yes, more women are granted custody, the fact is, when men contest custody in the first place, the numbers are either a fairly even split or even favor the fathers. There’s a couple reasons for this, including the fact that a lot of men are scared away from even trying by their lawyers, so the cases where they do fight tend to be more legit in the first place, but the fact is that it’s a very complicated and nuanced situation, and not the slam-dunk that a lot of “Father’s Rights” types insist the numbers reveal.
How does one “desperately deserve” to be called a slur? That doesn’t even make sense.
http://movethefuckoverbro.tumblr.com/
Another one for the fireballers (I forget who coined that term for dudes whose balls were on FIRE and they needed to spread their knees as far apart as possible on public transportation).
I am completely uncomfortable with mocking anyone for how they dress (apart from, when they’re being racist with their attire).
My eyes were not pulled there, I was more watching him take over the Professor’s chair space, and his body language towards her.
I’ve been bullied in the past, and badly so, for how my mother dressed me when I was younger, and so I am sensitive to these type of comments. I know this is different because Dean’s an adult and it’s Dean’s choice what he wore, but given that people’s gendered and/or ethnic dress is being negatively commented on by bigots I really think we should be taking a high moral ground here.
@MrFancyPants
Unfortunately, it would seem that to most MRAs all women deserve it simply by virtue of their gender unless they conform to a constantly moving target of arbitrary standards.
But yeah, not making sense is an Olympic level sport to the MRM.
I admit that when I am on an airplane or a bus or anywhere like that, where the person sitting next to one has the potential to impinge on one’s space, I make a point of taking up all of my space if I’m sitting next to a fellow who appears to have impinging potential. Sometimes this means actually coming into contact with their leg, which I find excruciatingly uncomfortable, but I am just stubborn enough to insist on my space.
I have noticed that at the local Panera’s, where there are sometimes groups of men and groups of women enjoying a coffee and pastry at the outside tables, the men tend to sit way back from the table and lean back; the women lean in towards the table. In this particular case, due to the space available, they do not impinge, but they certainly do spread out.
Pallygirl — my train of thought when I commented on his tie — maybe he didn’t know wtf he was doing because he never has to wear one because he doesn’t have a white collar job, but then surely someone could’ve fixed it for him, oh, probably a woman, can’t have a woman help him with anything. At which point I decided his appearance was worth noting. Now, I might be wrong that his hatred of women caused a failure to get anyone to help him, but it seems a distinct possibility. As freemage noted, surely someone at the studio could’ve fixed it.
pallygirl: I’d make fun of that tie no matter who was wearing it. Yeah, there is a bit of schadenfreude over it being someone I think is spouting ridiculous nonsense, but that’s not the issue.
As someone who likes decent sartory, and someone who understands that when one goes on television, up on stage, etc., one is trying to sell one’s message, and part of that is how one looks. Esmay, with the schlubby look of his outfit, and the ungodly overlong tie (the design was also a bit busy) looks ridiculous. It (which is a problem) undercuts his messgage.
He would have looked just as silly had he been wearing white tie, or a frock coat and ascot. In those circumstances he’d look affected. Here he looks clueless, and careless. If he was aiming for the, “working man, salt of the earth” (which I think he was) the thing to do is eschew the tie; not wear one which looks as if he has no idea how ties are presently worn.
If it were someone I agreed with, I’d be bemoaning the folly of the choice, but I’d still be poking some fun at it.
Women are the over-the-top consumers, huh?
Oh, ok, I’ll pretend most men I know don’t have their large flat screen TVs, oversized pick-ups, gun collections, cottages up north (it’s a Michigan thing), boats, jet skis, hunting trips every fall with the boys, every tool and gadget known to humans, extensive DVD and video game collections, plus play stations and wiis, and let’s not forget their man caves. And we’re not talking wealthy men, either, though that’s relative.
As a penis-owner, I can verify that there’s no bio-mechanical reason to sit like that. That’s fucking dumb.
I have clear memories of being socialized to sit like that as a little boy. “Don’t cross your legs, that’s how girls sit.” “Don’t sit like a f*****,” etc. Or, as expressed in a line from the poem; “i was born with a penis, and therefore i have to sit big and masculine. i don’t have the privilege to sit however i want to. i have to sit like a man.”
I wonder how many of those dudes are sitting like that because they’re afraid not to, on some level. It’s always seemed to me that much of “masculinity” is really just fear of the feminine.
As a person, I like some room when I sit. If I have some space, I take advantage of it. I tend to sit a bit back from the table (at home, and when out). Some of this is from wanting to be able to stand/move in a hurry.
I also, I confess, tend to plop my stuff next to me on the bus. On a train I put it in front of me (on the NY Subway, it’s a citable offense to use more than one seat; and a couple of years ago they were being hyper-aggressive in enforcing it; things like someone using the seat next to them to search in their bag for something; when the car was mostly empty).
When I’m on the subway the only time I evince, “lava balls” is when some asshole is trying to impinge my space. I lock my legs a bit wider than my hips and refuse to yield. Often they move; which I think is because I’m male. I get the feeling the dudes who do this to ,me are making a dominance play, and when it backfires they feel they need to get away.
That’s some toxic masculinity.