Woah! Just wanted to pass along this news from the Motor City Muckraker:
A controversial conference for a men’s rights group in Detroit appears to be in jeopardy after a fallout with downtown’s Hilton DoubleTree, which planned to host the event from June 26-28.
The inaugural conference at the DoubleTree has been canceled for unknown reasons, and organizers of the first International Conference on Men’s Issues haven’t said yet whether it will be moved to another hotel and conference center.
“At this time, they are not booked with us,” Larry Brown, manager of the DoubleTree, said this morning. He declined to elaborate on the cancelation.
There’s nothing on A Voice for Men about this latest development, though Esmay hinted during his Fox News appearance that they were possibly going to reconsider the Doubletree. But as of right now, AVFM is still selling tickets, as if the Doubletree convention is still a going concern.
Are they going to try to book the convention elsewhere? Or are they going to take the $29,000 they raised for “security” and, I dunno, send Esmay to a better stylist?
One other, ah, interesting detail in the Motor City Muckraker story:
When asked Tuesday whether the event would be moved, an organizer responded: “The DoubleTree GM (general manager) actually said that he has ‘feminist phobia’ and sort of laughed but in a nervous way. So its being discussed.”
It’s questionable whether this conversation ever occurred because the general manager is a woman.
Yeah. Seems like a lot of things about this convention have been pretty questionable from the start.
UPDATE: Well, one thing’s a bit clearer now, though. I called the Detroit Police and they confirmed that the Doubletree did indeed report to them that it had received threats. Who sent them, we still don’t know, but I think we can all agree that whether the threats came from some misguided feminist or “progressive” or from an MRA trying to stir shit and make feminists look bad, whoever made the threatening calls is a shithead who deserves to face the legal consequences for what they did.
UPDATE 2: According to the Detroit News, Elam says they’ve got another venue:
“We have scheduled another venue and will make an announcement on the site this evening,” group founder Paul Elam said in an email Wednesday.
So far no announcement on AVFM; I’ll post about it when there is one.
Hello Mr. Buchanan,
I’m a regular reader of this blog but it’s only the second time I’ve commented. I just popped in because I keep getting weirded out about your comments on government grants. I’m from Mexico, which is even less progressive than the US, let’s not even consider the UK. My mother is a linguistics professor and one of the four people in the world studying and recording the indigenous language Cora. She had government aid during her PhD and has had numerous other grants throughout her career.
When I was born she kept on teaching. My father is also a linguist, who ALSO had government aid during his PhDs and afterwards. He never gave up work either. He specializes in semiotics.
They are divorced and my mother never asked for child support legally, though my father did pay it until I turned 25, as required by law here.
I guess you could argue these are isolated cases but… I’m honestly not the only child of my generation or among my parents’ friends with this sort of family life, so it just baffles when people talk about the academic establishment the way you do. It’s just not been a common experience for me or the people I know
It is especially strange to me that you seem to imply that grant money is wasted if people don’t pursue the career they studied. Lots of grad students make tons of contributions DURING the time they are getting their degree. The work they help accomplish during their PhDs or Masters is not gone. Furthermore, it’s strange to me that you seem to think people don’t leave a profession for a couple of years after childbirth and then come back to it.
I don’t know… it just seems like you haven’t spoken to many researchers.
I love this show
http://youtu.be/HZxZWqhFCvw
I get the sense that Mikey B doesn’t speak to, let alone listen to, many people outside the Misogynist Honking Rage Association bubble. Has he brought up the Frankfurt School or cultural marxism yet? I bet he has.
Anyway, I must admit I’m kind of disappointed that Elam was telling the truth, at least insofar as the fact that threats were reported is true. Although the constant terrible circus this whole thing is entertaining, it’s unfortunate that anyone gave Elam any kind of external legitimacy by bothering to threaten him or his conference, not to metion how fucked up it is to send people death threats.
Thank you, Gary, for also demonstrating that you have no fucking clue what “radfem” means.
sarah, I don’t know when the threats were supposedly made. It’s possible that the hotel reported threats that had been made earlier.
Who did you talk to at the hotel? I contacted the PR folks for the chain but by that point they were saying nothing, they wouldn’t confirm or deny the threats or the letter.
Considering it’s been nearly two weeks since threats were alleged, I would hesitate to say they *have been* telling the truth, even if threats were reported since the police and hotel originally denied them.
I talked to the general manager, and left a message for the sales manager, who never called me back.
“Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that focuses on the hypothesis of patriarchy as a system of power that organizes society into a complex of relationships based on the assertion that male supremacy oppresses women. Radical feminism aims to challenge and overthrow patriarchy by opposing standard gender roles and oppression of women and calls for a radical reordering of society”
Two seconds googling. Wanna try again, guys?
What would we ever do without Gary graciously mansplaining feminism to us.
I thought Gary T’s gross self was banned. Maybe that was just wishful thinking.
What I want to know is why AVFM hasn’t said shit about what’s going on. Esmay drops a little hint that they’re having some sort of issue with the Doubletree in his Fox interview, but nothing on the site about it. Now he’s confirmed in the comments on the motor city muckraker site that the doubletree isn’t hosting it, but says he’s too busy onj the phone to give deatils (?), meanwhile nothing on AVFM, which is still advertising the conference as a going concern as if none of this happened.
If I were going to a conference I’d want to hear these things from the organizer, not learn about them from news sites or reddit or, you know, an “enemy” blogger.
I just banned Gary from talking about his case; he’s on moderation.
Before attacking an ideological opponent, one should understand what their ideology and philosophy is. Otherwise you just end up looking like some kind of knee jerk reactionary.
Just saying.
And wasn’t Caroline Criado-Perez the woman who wanted to get a woman on one of Britain’s currency notes and got a lot of death and rape threats for it? How does that make her a liar?
I can’t say why AVFM hasn’t said what’s going on, but I imagine they are finalizing details about the new venue and don’t want to release anything public until it’s secured and the ink is dry on the deal. If they are smart, they will keep the information to attendees only so they don’t have to deal with more threats and protests and people harassing the venue with pointless requests for information in an attempt to badger them into shutting it down.
As for why it was cancelled, likely the venue got cold feet after threats (now confirmed), or they have simply garnered more interest than they expected and have decided to move to a larger venue instead of not selling tickets.
A little patience and likely all this will be answered in a few days. I very much doubt the cancellation is for any of the reasons you are hoping for.
You may now commence calling me mysoginistic scum and ridiculing everything I stand for.
Paul, way to stick the flounce. When you leave, you should stay gone, or else people will think you’re totally full of shit.
Commence? Dude, have you been paying attention? This is a blog specifically dedicated to ridiculing everything you stand for.
😀
To be fair, we already knew he was. This is just the giggle sprinkle of the joke sundae that is Paul’s credibility.
@paul: I’d guess the same. As far as keeping any new location to only attendees, I doubt they will. One the one hand, they don’t want to hide, because the publicity does them nothing but good, and people deciding “I hate your political perspective so much that I’m going to threaten violence against you and anyone who dares to let you speak” is certainly a wide and deep well of publicity. On another, it depends on how likely they are to have to relocate again — relocating in a pinch is never fun. On still another, what would stop whatever group of “misguided” feminists felt the need to make the threats from buying a ticket to stay apprised of the current location, then disseminating the address?
Hey guys, I won’t be on later tonight, but if any of you folks see katz, tell her I’ve posted her story about Lilith and Cain!
RE: Mike Buchanan
radfems – and their male poodles
Well, damn. I guess I have to tell Fibinachi I can’t be a White Knight Mangina in our RP anymore, I’ve been demoted to poodle.
On the plus side, this means I won’t shed on the furniture, and I’ll be a vicious attacker of pests! Also I will be adorable and fluffy.
They’re all fiercely intelligent and independent women who don’t want the power that comes with claiming victimhood status.
That’s funny, since I’m a male victim of sexual abuse, and come from a family where other people were victims of sexual abuse. Our intelligence and independence has nothing to do with our history of molestation, because children get molested regardless of their personal qualities. Why are you correlating the two?
RE: Paul
I can’t say why AVFM hasn’t said what’s going on, but I imagine they are finalizing details about the new venue and don’t want to release anything public until it’s secured and the ink is dry on the deal.
As someone who has spoken and been selling at cons for years, I would want as much information as possible if my venue suddenly dropped out mere WEEKS before the con. People travel huge distances and pay substantial money to attend conventions and groups; these guys really aren’t gaining anything by keeping stuff to themselves. If I were a speaker or seller at this con, I’d be PISSED.
hellkell. I said I was done with the previous chat in the other thread. I never said I was gone. That’s just wishful thinking on your part.
However I won’t base myself to the common denominator here and respond with insults as seems to be the standard practice here 🙂
Wait a minute. In the other thread you were claiming not to be an MRA. Just someone neutral who happened upon this site and were appalled by what big meanies we are.
You sure dropped that pretense quickly.
Weak inconsistent trolling + failure to stick to several flounces.
I’m giving you a -3/10 so far.
@LBT — you seem to have missed my point. Just because the information hasn’t been made public about the cancellation, doesn’t mean it hasn’t been made privately to people who are already going. We do live in the age of mailing lists after all.
Paul: That’s OK, you’ll leave eventually, one way or another. You assholes always do.
@weirwoodtreehugger — I’m still not claiming to be an MRA, I just think they have every right to hold their conference, and I also don’t think they are ‘hate groups’ as the evidence supporting that claim is flimsy and mostly based on quotemining.
You guys love to make assumptions!
Whatever, Spock. Fuck off.