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!
Mum had the same experience with the four-footed canes. Her balance is shot after having a few mini-strokes, and she finds a single-footed rubber-tipped cane the best. She likes the curved handle type.
I use a cane to take a bit of the weight off my fractured-cartilage knee. I like the sort with an ergonomic handle. My current one is this style – I forget who the evil person was here who put that image up, and MADE me buy it. 😉
I think I’ve looked frail using it, and not. That is, when I was first using canes, I was in a lot of pain with that leg and walking very slowly. These days it’s more preventative; if I go out without the cane, my knee soon tells me This Was Not A Good Idea. I walk at pretty much my old speed now, but still get offered seats on transport (mostly). Best of both worlds, you might say!
There really is no such thing as a pretentious gender identity. It’s simply an important part of who you are. Anyway, whether you are trans up to you. I assumed you were trans because you said you were non-binary and to me that’s obviously different from your assigned gender, but what matters is what you think about yourself. And of course remember that you can identify as trans even if you don’t have dysphoria. There’s a common misconception out there that trans people who don’t experience dysphoria aren’t really trans, and it’s very harmful.
Brittersweet
“A fag is a cigarette”
I did not know that thank you for the fact!
Michelle
“Did you get your welcome package?”
Yes I did thanks!
http://youtu.be/0ByJHRt-RgQ
My boobs are huge. I should totally be allowed to take the middle seat on a bus/plane and claim full use of both armrests, right? The bits want to be free!
Tiny baby kittieeeeeeees!
::melts::
The person feeding them raw meat doesn’t know what danger they (the human) are in. We gave baby Hadji raw meat on our vet’s advice when he was a little older than this … and he refused to eat anything else for the next fifteen years. That’s a lot of meat to be cut up!
This is one of those things that took me an inordinately long time to figure out.
Regarding intersex vs. hermaphrodite.
I never heard of intersex until just a year or two ago. However, my sister has been dear friends with a “true hermaphrodite” for decades. I say true hermaphrodite, because that was the preferred term this person used to my sister.
He/She (sometimes she feels like a woman, and sometimes he feels like a man, and so her/his pronouns change literally depending on how she/he feels at the time) has fully functional masculine genitalia and feminine genitalia, and could, by collecting his own sperm and injecting it into herself, impregnate herself, were she not infertile (which seems to actually be a separate issue). She/He has an extremely understanding husband, who considers himself straight, but keeps getting hit on by gay men, and apparently sending off “gay vibes.” Maybe that’s because when his spouse feels like a man, they don’t let that stop them in bed. But he fell in love with her as a woman, and he’s not attracted to any other men, so he feels straight. Legally, she is a woman. I think this couple is a good example of “soul mates.”
This person says that it is very rare for someone with her/his “condition” to survive past childhood, but did not say why. I haven’t spoken directly with him/her, but only got my information second-hand through my sister. Personally, though, my theory is that they don’t live long, because of abuse. They are prone to abuse, including from bigoted relatives who can’t accept them as they are. Failure to thrive, as well as childhood bullying, could account for an awful lot, really.
I did read a bit on the subject, though, and found that most of the time, the doctors will ask the parents to assign the baby a gender, and then perform surgery to MAKE the child conform to that gender, physically. I read about a case where the child told the parents, at about 10, that they chose the wrong sex, and demanded they fix it. The parents realized they should have left the child alone, to make the choice him/herself at a later date. But that is really rare, as most parents want their child to be “normal,” and most doctors would prefer to do the surgery early, apparently.
And that is pretty much the sum total of my knowledge/experience on the subject. If I know any other intersex people, I am unaware. It’s not really the sort of thing I ask about, because unless the intersex person chooses to announce it, and thus make it my business, it’s not my business. Like pregnancy or sexuality. That’s their thing to choose whether they want to share it, or not.
My opinion is that with more and more intersex people either being born or just surviving to adulthood, it would be good to have a legally recognized intersex gender. It’s difficult, but I believe that we will, eventually get there. That would require opening up marriage to allow for it, as well.
Regarding “normal” –
I was brought up to believe that “normal” was bland, boring, and not something to which I should aspire. In my family, it was considered an insult.
“Weird,” on the other hand, was considered a compliment.
Abnormal, however, was a clinical term, to describe something like test results, and not to describe a person.
“Normal” is like “mean” and “average” – mathematical terms that have no actual bearing on human beings. We’re all too darned different for anyone to fit the “norm.” And that’s the way I like it.
Embrace the differences! Celebrate the differences! They add spice, color, and joy to our lives.
KITTTTEEENNNSSSSS!!!!!!! SQUEEEEEEEEE
@Michelle
Yeah, intersex people do face a lot of abuse and hatred, and the extent that you describe isn’t uncommon. I know a few intersex people who have severe trauma due to the abuse. It’s really sad. 🙁
Intersex is really broad. There are so many variations.
Thanks for telling about how the term hermaphrodite should not be applied to human beings. My sister’s friend did claim the term for him/herself, but that was the friend’s choice to make. Fortunately, I have never had a situation arise where I used the term in regards to anyone else. My experience with it has been limited, and I did not know it was a hurtful term.
Add it to the list, and if it ever comes up, I know to use intersex, now, unless the person specifically says otherwise.
It’s like fat. I am fat, and I claim the word, and have no problem with it. As far as I’m concerned, it’s descriptive, not pejorative. However, I know plenty of people who have a real hatred for the word, and need other synonyms. I don’t like “People of Size,” though. For one thing, it feels derivative of People of Color, and for another thing, ALL people have size. If you don’t have a size, you don’t exist in three-dimensional space. Also, thin people are curvy, too. No human being is a straight stick-figure. We are made with curves, even if they are subtle. Now, voluptuous? That is a word I can really enjoy.
@Marie – thanks for the link! I’m bookmarking it!
Well, hermaphrodite is a very specific term, and most intersex people are not hermaphrodites. That along with the word being closely associated with really gross attitudes (surprise!) is why it’s not something you use unless it applies to you.
I know what you mean, given that for a short time I identified as genderqueer and hated myself for it because I thought I was trying to be a special snowflake (even though all I was doing was trying to understand myself).
Eventually long after I realized I was female, I acknowledged that gender doesn’t have to be limited to binaries or even ternaries. The gender binary is unstable, so any gender identity that deviates from it isn’t really abnormal or weird in the first place. I know plenty of trans women, in fact, who identify as non-binary trans women, and their gender is just as valid as anyone else’s simply because there is no such thing as a “right” gender.
For some reason I read normal and started thinking of Abby Normal. /youngfrankensteinmoment
Everyone keeps telling me to watch Young Frankenstein and I’m just not watching it. I really want to see it but I am just horrible with procrastinating with films these days.
Clearly, those high-class men from history, like Lincoln and Washington were being oppressed by their vile, monster-women wives! It couldn’t possibly be that these otherwise-powerful men actually practiced good manners. No. It’s MISANDRY!
It’s not like you haven’t got other stuff to do, and it’s not going anywhere, Ally! 🙂
http://youtu.be/yH97lImrr0Q
@Viscaria – You have just as might right to your personal space and comfort at those men do.
What a jerk. I hope the bruise healed quickly.
@Athywren – I don’t know you from before, but I like what I see so far, so welcome back.
Also, yeah, I’m glad I wasn’t drinking when I read that. You are funny!
Since my boobs are really huge and need space, does that mean I can plop them on the head of whoever is sitting in front of me on the bus/light rail to take the weight off my back? If guys can spread their legs for the sake of their testicles I should be able to plop my boobs down on whoever is near me right?
@Athywren – I’m cis, so maybe I don’t have the right to say this, but I do NOT think you’re trivializing. You have a body that doesn’t fit into society’s expectations, and that makes you uncomfortable. I say, do whatever you need to feel comfortable, and if that means passing, then pass. If it means something else, then do whatever works for you.
So long as you don’t harm other people, do what you need to do. Dealing with your own real issues doesn’t trivialize other people’s issues.
My sister apologized profusely to me, a few weeks back, when she was in severe pain, and dragging from being through a very bad session at her dialysis. She said, “I feel like I was hit by a truck,” then gasped and apologized to me, because I actually WAS hit by a truck, and she felt so bad. Then she said how bad she felt whenever she said she was hurting, because it couldn’t compare to mine. Pshaw.
Pain is personal and subjective, and you can’t compare your pain to others’, because no one really knows how anyone else actually feels. Also, you having pain, and admitting to pain does not in any way take away from my own feeling of pain, nor does it invalidate my feelings of pain, or say that I feel less pain than I said I did, because you claimed some of it for yourself. It’s not a pie that can be cut up, nor a zero-sum game.
Your issues are yours, and they are real.
cassandrakitty – yes, it’s like Fresh Air Fund for body parts. Free the bits! To heck with other people’s comfort!
I wish airlines/buses had a “no recline” section. I know some people do need to recline their seats for medical reasons, but it still feels like someone expanding their personal space at the expense of my already very limited personal space. And then I have nowhere to put my legs, and there’s a stranger’s head practically in my lap, and I spend the rest of the trip feeling claustrophobic and mildly panicky. I’d gladly pay a little extra to guarantee that the person in front of me keeps their distance.
kittehserf – love that movie! It’s much quoted in our household.
ZOMG!!!! The Toygers are the cutest thing EVAR!!!!
Thanks for that!
OK, now I want ice cream and a kitten. Well, the ice cream I can get.
Goodnight, all.