Does anyone here understand string theory and dark matter and all that physics crap? Because I am seriously beginning to wonder if Men’s Rights Activists literally live in an alternate universe that only partially intersects with our own.
In the universe I live in, Canada is a lovely and somewhat uncannily polite country to the north, the home of Rush and Kate Beaton and, I’m pretty sure, a lot of bears. To MRAs it is a land under the bootheel of a radical feminist gynarchy in which men cower in elevators because they are deathly afraid of being accused of sexual harassment.
No, really.
I was skimming through an old interview with good old Erin Pizzey, A Voice for Men’s pet domestic violence expert, probably because she’s the only one who thinks jokes about eating “battered women” — you know, like batter fried chicken — are hilarious.
In the interview, she was telling Dean “Long Tie” Esmay about a speaking tour she’d made in Canada — a place she describes as “one of the worst countries in the world.” No, really. Here’s what she had to say about her harrowing ordeal:
I did a six week tour, with Senator Anne Cools, all across Canada. And there were some wonderful … uh, men’s groups, just struggling to keep going. And as we traveled and talked to men’s groups, we realized how terribly dangerous it is because it’s almost as though the entire government and the judiciary–the same people–had been infiltrated by very radical feminists out to get men. And I talked to people all the way across Canada. You know my mother was Canadian, and I’m half Canadian, and it hurt actually. See I was a child in Toronto, and my feeling as we went through is real fear. I remember I was working with Anne in the Senate and I walked in to the lift, and this man who was in the lift with me was cowering over in the corner. And I came out and I said to Anne, “What on earth was that about?” And she said, “Men are frightened. They just don’t know when they’re going to be told they’re sexually harassing somebody.”
I’ve highlighted several of the passages which I think may have entered our universe from the Bizarro Men’s Rights multidimensional wormhole of misandry.
But, seriously, what planet does this woman live on? Does she actually think something like this really happened? Was there really a man in an elevator with her who was literally cowering in the corner because he thought she would accuse him of some sort of sex crime? Was there a man there at all? Was there even an elevator? Is Canada a real country? THEN WHO WAS PHONE?
The point one Canadian posters made about us having a large personal bubble seems pretty spot on. Man or woman, its not so much that we cower from each other as that we will move to allow maximum dispersion. It used to amuse me to watch how people pick their seats in public buses. Typically, if the first in pick a seat in the front, the second will go in the back, the third around the middle. A shocker would be somebody seating right beside you if there are other choices. I did not realize that was a cultural thing until an African friend pointed to me that in his country, its totally different: people flock together in public transportation so they can strike conversations.
I guess if MRA are frightened by Canadian feminists, they should stay out from my home province, Quebec. We don’t even take our husband names when we marry. A tradition I upheld even living in another province. It seems so weird to me and its an issue I feel strongly about, in a Miller’s The Crucible way: “Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life!”
This story: someone hears that another person whom they did not see and do not know is in apparent distress. And there can be only one explanation: men are scared!
Not only does it seem unlikely that this explanation would ever be offered, but even if it were, that still doesn’t make it true.
“Someone was crying in public today. We asked Michelle Bachmann and she told us its because vaccines cause autism and they must have just learned their loved ones will be autistic.”
Well, as a lifelong Canadian, I am shocked and appalled that no man has ever offered me his back to sit on in an elevator.
Also there’s been far less cowering than I would like. Like, no cowering at all. Where is my cowering!
@ Isabelle – I was in a Canadian supermarket once (in London Ontario) and noticed how wide the aisles were and how people with shopping trolleys started swerving to avoid each other from about 10 feet away. Wider personal body-space even than the English. Even more than the Scots!
I’d never considered the large personal bubble before, but it makes perfect sense, especially in connection to our Canadian culture of politeness/apology. Seriously, getting on and off Toronto public transit, you will hear “I’m sorry,” or “excuse me,” at least a dozen times from every passenger. But when my mum, who has lived most of her life in a rural community, visits, she’s in turn disappointed by people’s manners. I think the difference in amount of personal space available, relative to the personal comfort bubble is at issue here. And yes, minimum contact with others is usually the rule. How does one of the world’s most polite and introverted country also manage to own hockey, of all sports?
Also, yeah, in rural Ontario, I saw plenty of Confederate flags and trucks with pissing Calvins. Once a kid in my school was sent home to change for wearing a confederate flag shirt. He had no idea what it was supposed to mean!
So I’m skimming one of Pizzey’s books:
*bangs head against wall*
@ToolBox
That has to be some of the worst handling of an abusive situation I have ever seen coming from a so-called advocate for abuse victims. Wow.
Pizzey seems to have really got off on the idea of herself as the wise mediator saving these poor foolish women from themselves. The more of her stuff you read the more awful she seems. As far as the idea that the victims were getting off on “provoking” their abusers, um, speak for yourself, Erin honey.
Here I thought it was ridiculous to see Confederate flags in Nebraska. Australia? YIKES. I’ll keep that in mind the next time some Southerner says displaying the flag is “celebrating their Southern heritage [author’s note: of slavery, terrorism, Jim Crow, etc.].”
“Festooned with six children”?! What, she was wearing them as lavalieres and brooches? Who talks like that?
Well, Pizzey, obviously.
Must have been awfully small children if she was able to festoon herself with them.
I find it fascinating that, despite being “half-Canadian”, Pizzey writes about Canada as if she were visiting the surface of a strange, alien planet, taking notes on the local sentient life forms.
I also find this particular anecdote particularly distasteful in light of the Rebecca Watson/Elevatorgate mess. Watson mentioned, calmly, that a man had acted in poor form by hitting on her in an elevator, and she got lambasted for it. Pizzey perceived a man to be cowering in fear of all women everywhere in an elevator, but poor soul, it isn’t his fault and feminism really is that scary.
The contradiction. It burns.
@bluecatbabe Once you start noticing the thing about Canadian personal space, you just cant stop, its everywhere. I got no clue where it comes from.
The American civil war had a complex influence in Canada, people were divided across religious, political, and plain self-interest lines. Canadians ended up joining on both sides and fighting each others. Here in NB, you had people from Saint John rooting for the South, while Fredericton was aligned with the North. Go figure…
One thing I noticed is that the perpetrator of the recent shooting in Moncton (the one who killed 3 mounties), had talking points coming straight from US right wing libertarian playbook and owned a confederate flag. I lived for the past 15 years in Atlantic Canada, and I can honestly say that I saw a Confederate flag maybe once. I would not think its part of the rural culture, maybe only a very small sub-culture. I saw way more Newfoundland and Acadian flags floating in the boondocks than any other. Sad to say, there is also lingering racism in some part of Atlantic Canada, so maybe there is a link there. 🙁
There are all kind of weirdness creeping in the Canadian society in recent times. Its like social progress has been stopped in its track. Like, I was surprised that we have our very own MRAs groups…At the risk of generalizing, I feel this goes hand in hand with the growing influence of Alberta at the national level. They don’t have a culture rooted in history, in the same way than the Eastern provinces do and they appear to borrow everything from the US Bible stomping right wingers. Even their religious brands seem different, as most religious groups in Canada leaned toward socialism, maybe not in terms of woman rights, but definitely they were on the side of the angels for labor rights.
Oh man, confederate flags…short story — I was speaking a weekend with my BF and stopped by my parents’ to feed to fishkins, pull up and what is covering the front door? If you said confederate flag, I still have Reese’s, enjoy! I say that I bet my mother hasn’t seen that yet and it will be gone five minutes after she does. Lo and behold, it was nowhere to be seen the next day.
The neighbor’s directly across the street are black, and my father hates them, mostly for that (I’d say fully, but I get annoyed at middle of the night screaming fits, except, to him, it’s because of their race, not because smoke people are assholes [including him])
I was going somewhere with that, I think, I need coffee…
But yeah, that flag, in New England? Might as well get “I am a racist” tattooed on your forehead. I can’t imagine seeing it in another country, much less someone innocently thinking it’s a thing like daisy dukes (the shorts, made popular, afaik, by the same movie)
*spending, not speaking
*some, not smoke
Thank you autocorrect, I need coffee, I know.
Right? I watched Due South in high school (long after it was done in Canada), and I barely recognized him when I watched Slings And Arrows a couple of years ago.
Sorry, what are “smoke people”?
Whoops, nvm. I can read good.
I recall seeing a Stars and Bars (which isn’t the original flag of the confederacy, it’s based in on the battle flag of the Army of Virginia, and as used [with the rectangular aspect] it’s more like the naval jack of the Confederate Navy: which makes it worse, as it was drawn from a flag used to actually fight for slavery, as stated by a laudatory editorial about the adoption of the second national flag of the Confederacy: As a people we are fighting to maintain the Heaven-ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race; a white flag would thus be emblematical of our cause, but I digress), in a window in Ottawa.
All I could think was, “I’ll be avoiding the residents of this house”.
Oh… and about the “confederate flag”. Part of the reason it’s so well known is the CSA Veterans’ Organisation chose it as their flag, and copyrighted it. Interestingly it was used by some units in WW2 as an unofficial flag. This wasn’t well received, and by the end of the war it was pretty much eliminated. An example was in the Pacific. A company of Marines had raised it over a hilltop and the commanding general (a descendent of a Confederate general) ordered it removed, because it wasn’t emblematic of the US.
Wow. This woman has some serious problems with strange perceptions of reality. I don’t know about elevator etiquette in the US, but I imagine it’s largely the same throughout the world as it is here in Canada: people typically wedge themselves into the first available corner, and if that’s not open, they either back up against the wall or stand carefully so as to take up as little space as possible. In this person’s twisted nightmare world (Canada is ‘one of the worst countries in the world’?), I suppose that could be interpreted as cowering.
Interestingly enough, Australian racists seem to be adopting the kinda-similar looking Eureka Flag, previously associated mostly with the left in general and unions in particular, just because it kind of looks similar. Reminds me of a facebook image macro thingo that went around a while back that recalled the glory days when Australian children would salute the flag (which did happen) and say the Australian pledge of allegiance. Guess if you’re just making up a nostalgic history, you can stick whatever you want in it.
@Argenti
As an issue of pedantry, Dukes of Hazzard was a television show rather than a film.
Originally. But then it got made into a film, a few years ago. Complete with the shorts.
Aah. Didn’t know about that.
WHTM – come for the mocking, stay for the trivia 😉
I don’t think Paul Gross looks that different these days. :/ You know his family only has one car? The rest of the time they take public transit. It’s an environmental initiative.
Men with Brooms is my favourite piece of cancon. It’s where I fell in love with Mr. Gross. I’m unable to share it with American friends though because the uniquely Canadian humour just doesn’t register with them. You gotta be familiar with Our Fair Country to get that.