The other day I suggested that perhaps it was unfair to the Men’s Rights movement to allow them to handle their own public relations, given how terrible they are at it. Today I wonder if the same principle might also apply to MRAs trying to handle their own lawyering.
A case in point: the lawsuit that antifeminist lawyer, “Ladies Night” hater and hip-hop dance enthusiat Roy Den Hollander has just brought against Australian journalist Tory Shepherd, who wrote about the involvement of Den Hollander and others with links to “men’s rights extremists” in a proposed set of “male studies” courses at the University of South Australia.
It’s still not clear to me if these courses had ever been formally approved – the university says they weren’t – but Den Hollander thinks that Shepherd and another Australian reporter got them cancelled by writing about them. And so he figures that they should compensate him for losing him his teaching gig.
You may vaguely remember all of this. A Voice for Men, heavily involved in the courses, famously denounced Shepherd as a “whore” shortly after AVFM’s Paul Elam indignantly called her a liar for suggesting that A Voice for Men regularly calls women whores. (Which of course it does; Elam himself used the word “whore” 28 times in a single post about Skepchick’s Rebecca Watson.)
Anyhoo, so Den Hollander, acting as his own lawyer, has served Shepherd with the lawsuit. And it’s a doozy of a document, at least going by the excerpts Shepherd posted in a column Wednesday.
Somehow we doubt that this lawsuit is going to enhance Den Hollander’s reputation as a fair-minded analyst of gender relations.
Here are some of the best bits, as presented by Shepherd in her column as “some lessons from Mr Den Hollander, who will not be paid to give lessons at UniSA.”
Lesson 1: How to censor a journalist by accusing them of censorship.
“Two modern-day, book-burning, Bacchae reporters from down-under authored and published false and misleading information concerning Plaintiff (Den Hollander) with the intent and result of harming his economic interests and interfering with a prospective economic advantage by causing the University of SA to incinerate the section of a proposed male studies course that Plaintiff would have taught,” he writes. But wait.
Lesson 2: How to personally attack a journalist by accusing them of personal attacks.
“The two reporters, Tory Shepherd, AKA “Tory the Torch” for The Advertiser and Amy McNeilage, AKA “Amy McNeuter” for The Sydney Morning Herald, used their power as reporters to do what weak-minded ideologues have done throughout history — employ personal attacks to prevent the spread of knowledge and ideas that they disagreed with.”
Lesson 3: How to prove you are not an extremist by sounding like an extremist.
“If these two feminist book-burners had not jumped on their broomsticks and scared the bejesus out of the administrators of the University of SA, students there would have had an opportunity to acquire information and consider views not available anywhere else in higher education.”
Yeah, I’m sure that sort of thing is going to go over great in court.
Elsewhere in his lawsuit, Den Hollander denounces “yellow, female-dog-in-heat reporting,” takes a swipe at “girlie-guys,” and offers this intriguing take on Australian military history:
Thank goodness for Australians that Tory was not around for Australia’s battle against the Japanese. Her anti-gun advocacy for men might have even resulted in her and Amy ending up as Japanese “comfort girls.”
The case does at least promise to be highly entertaining, so I guess we have to give Den Hollander credit for that.
Can they seriously not get through a single “article” without fantasizing about the women they don’t like being raped? That comfort women comment, oy.
I don’t know much about Australian law but this is definitely the kind of frivolous lawsuit that would get thrown out in American courts.
This kind of thing is why the MRM is so terrible at satire. They’re totally serious about things that seem so absurd they can’t be real. It explains why one of the misters (Esmay I think?) thought that the “feminist sues the patriarchy for not giving her a job” lawsuit was real. MRAs literally think they’re entitled to jobs and it’s a crime if they don’t get one.
I think MRA’s are bad at satire because good comedy usually punches upwards. A bunch of straight, white, usually middle class or higher men mocking women everywhere is pretty much the definition of punching down.
And oh dear they’re here as well, at least it’s not NT, we’ve got enough social strife as it is without organised MRA bullshit.
Wait. Are these quotes from the lawsuit itself?
Ahahahahaha, comfort women. Isn’t it funny to wish rape on people?!?! /s
As an Asian woman, fuck you. Fuck you for trivializing a despicable series of events just so that way you can have a sick fantasy against two journalists. Fuck you.
I’m reminded of that Sovereign Citizen case where the judge wrote dozens of pages on the whole movement as well as the case in question. And tempted to reread it. Does anyone have the link handy?
He has to prove:
1) The university would have held the courses without the journalists’ pieces.
2) The university would have hired him, and would not have canceled any job offer for as any reason but the articles.
Meanwhile:
The university is looking at his lawsuit, and thinking ‘Thank ceiling-cat we didn’t hire this incompetent fool!’
He’s literally making the ‘why you should not hire me’ case.
TRIGGER WARNING
Also extreme sarcasm.
MRA Logic: Feminazgul all have «*« rape fantasies, therefore rape fantasies are good! Not letting us have our *actual rape* fantasies is MISANDRY!
«*« misnomer. The vast majority of the so called “rape fantasies” women tend to have have absolutely nothing to do with rape.
Ah, Roy den Hollander, approved AVfM submitter.
Also didn’t the university reject these courses a year before Tori wrote her article? I’d sy she has a defamation lawsuit against the lawyer who doesn’t understand either the law or a calendar.
I don’t know how Australian law differs from American law, but in the US you can’t be guilty of libel if what you wrote is true. So not only would he have to prove that the articles were the reason the courses got canceled, but he’d have to prove that the reporters knowingly included false information in the articles.
Oh I wish this suit had been brought in the US.
Somehow I doubt I’m the only person who would love to see this go into discovery.
Oh my goodness. Like Warren Farrell, he didn’t even bother to find out about Australia.
The Japanese never intended to invade us. No one would be comfort women, guns or not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_Japanese_invasion_of_Australia_during_World_War_II
Roy Den Hollander is a lawyer? Did he pass his bar exams? And the way he writes:
So they ripped out the section and held a public book-section-burning? WTF?
LOL at this:
Yeah, because they’re not “information” or “views” supported by research, i.e. the thing that universities do besides teaching.
Their criticism of Professor Heather Dillaway, in sociology, as being basically unqualified for a university position due to her research interests is another example of their (MRAs’) hypocritical attitude. In their view, it’s fine for a university post to “teach” “men’s issues” but not fine for an equivalent post with respect to female issues (and I’m going to assume they’re not that okay for a post teaching LGBT issues).
But then standards, science, and being consistent aren’t their strong points.
I’m not commenting on the other bits in the post as others have said what I would have said, only better.
It almost seems unsporting to argue with such a witless, clueless person.
Does he really think his arguments will ever get him anywhere with anyone who does not already believe in the total depravity of feminists?
Looks like someone wanted to challenge Tom Martin!
Oh yes, go ahead and make light of comfort women.
Well done. You sure showed them there, by comparing them to women taken from their homes and made sex slaves in times of war. Great way to advance “men’s rights”.
Next I suppose he’s going to compare feminists to the inhabitants of Nanking.
Does David provide a link to Shepard’s column? I can’t find it in this post.
I always think Colbert should do a “Difference Makers” piece on these MRM and MRM-adjacent types, like Esmay, Judgy Bitch or Elam. I see (as David provided a link above) that he’s already done one on this guy. *snicker*
Random — Alice, you aren’t a Yaley are you? It’d be WEIRD if you’re who I had dinner with last weekend!
@brooked:
Men’s rights campaigner Roy Den Hollander attacks The Advertiser’s Tory Shepherd in bizarre legal writ filed in New York County
It just beggars belief that somebody could think that kind of passive-aggressive persecution complex crap was appropriate material for a legal document. I hope the legal system gives this case the regard it deserves, none. (which will no doubt be evidence of MISANDRY!!~!~~one!!, sigh)
Oh and IANAL (I Am Not A Lawyer) but from conversations I’ve had with people who are, Aussie defamation law has changed in the past 10 years – it used to be that truth was NOT an absolute defence against defamation in Australia the way it is in the USA (as you can still unfairly shred someone’s reputation by taking true facts and publicising them out of context or without mentioning mitigating circumstances). Now a claim of defamation can be defended against if the claims are “substantially true”.
Of course there’s a loophole:
“To use the defence of honest opinion you do not need to prove the truth of your comment. In some cases this is not possible, especially if it is an opinion rather than a fact. You only need to convince the judge or jury that your comments were your honestly-held opinion and that it was:
– clearly a matter of opinion and not a statement of fact and
– it related to a matter of public interest and
– it was based on ‘proper material’ (i.e. substantially true or based on privileged material)
The defence can be defeated if the plaintiff can prove that the opinion was not honestly held.”
So if someone says “Joe Hockey is the worst economic manager this country has ever had!” that can be construed as an opinion, but it *sounds* like a fact. Which is pretty much the entire Daily Telegraph/Sun Herald/Fox News business model.
I’m an American lawyer, not very familiar with Australian practice, but I can’t imagine that sort of language is going to go over very well with the court.
This guy is a lawyer right? Wonder how the bar association looks upon its members when they do shit like this.
This lawsuit was written for the media, not the courts. This is almost Orly Taitz level stuff.