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!
Ally S and Kittenserf thank you both very much but I’m sorry Ally S I don’t understand why you were assigned as male. If it’s personal you don’t have to talk about it. And also I’m born a female so I’m cis I believe?
Thanks, pallygirl!
Ally s, Kittenserf and Marie thank you I’m still confused even after reading but I’ll still do research and I’m sorry for using the term hermaphordite I’ll avoid it from now on.
@fruitoopsie
Ah. There’s nothing wrong with asking questions, just that people aren’t obligated to answer them.
Fade sent me this link. for more info, if you want it.
Most people are assigned as male or female depending on their external genitalia. I was assigned male because the doctors examined my plumbing and saw it as proof that I’m male. But as I grew up, starting from a very early age, I realized that I wasn’t actually male as everyone – my family, my friends, etc.- said I was. I realized I was a girl instead. Part of sexism is the idea that some genders are associated with certain bodies, but the truth is that there are all kinds of genders out there, and there are all kinds of bodies of people who have those genders.
And you are cis if you were assigned female at birth and you still understand your gender to be female.
link borked.
link?
@fruitloopsie
Here is my favorite trans 101 article: http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/asher-not-your-mom-s-trans-101
I agree with pallygirl generally, but that tie is massively stupid looking.
Ally s and Marie thank you again and love the article Marie! I understand a whole lot and happily will learn even more.
That’s an interesting article, Ally, thanks for the link.
*points at nym* there are a bunch of 101 pages linked from the Borg.
Ally — I think I got that one, but if not, feel free to add it!
Thank you ally s that was great! I’m slow but like I said I will happily learn even more.
::snrk:: I just looked at a bit of that video. World’s longest tie, or what?
Also, with the body language – does Deano look almost scared, the way he’s sitting so stiffly some of the time? Could he be expecting a horde of box-cutting feminists to attack him any moment?
Imagine if the interview went like this:
Esmay: 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 mis-
Evil trans woman feminazi ice cream thief: DIE CIS MALE SCUM! I AM HERE TO STEAL ALL OF YOUR ICE CREAM! OUR SISTERS ARE LICKING THEIR CHOPS AT SIGHT OF THE BEN & JERRY’S IN YOUR FREEZER, AND THEIR MISANDRIC STOMACHS ARE GROWLING WITH FIERCE AGONY. SURRENDER NOW!
Interesting thing about sitting: upper class brits (and James Bond) sit with their legs crossed, “like a girl” (according to the dudes with lava balls).
“All your ice cream are belong to us” reference from this:
http://youtu.be/FVsijmCFs50
@fruitloopsie
Talk about a nostalgia blast! I shamefully admit that I still find the song catchy…
I mean the song from this video (a few parts are kind of NSFW): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fvTxv46ano
Ally, I love it! 😀
pecunium – sitting with legs crossed being a girly/incredibly painful thing seems a very recent bit of nonsense, doesn’t it? These dudes don’t seem concerned about it, either.
Lutenist by Abraham Bosse
Lincoln
American generals
Washington
For great justice!
Did I complain on here yet about the guy earlier this year who sat beside me on the bus, then spread his legs so widely that he managed to move my whole body so that my leg was pressed into a metal bar? I had a big-ass bruise after that.
JFC, what an asshole.
Yuck, Viscaria, what a turd!
Ally s
I was just listening to that right before I put up the video!
Pecunium and Kittenserf
nothin wrong or painful about crossing legs I see boys/men cross their legs and I see high class guys back in the 17th-18th century do it too. Hmmm… Must be betas.
@Kitteh
See, what you’re forgetting is that those pictures were taken in the days when we thought that testicles were flat – we’ve since discovered, by the use of trigonometry and verification through circumnavigation, that they’re more a kind of oblate spheroid.