Let’s say, hypothetically, that you run a site that appeals to raving misogynists given to launching into violent anti-woman rants at the drop of a hat. And let’s just say that you have gone to great trouble to organize a conference that is designed to play down the fact that a significant amount of your fanbase is made up of raving misogynists given to launching into violent anti-woman rants at the drop of a hat.
Well, you probably shouldn’t post a public announcement warning the raving misogynists who will be attending your conference to refrain from launching into violent anti-woman rants at the drop of a hat because someone might hear them. Because the fact that you feel it necessary to issue such a warning is kind of a giant clue that a significant number of the conference attendees are raving misogynists given to launching into anti-woman rants at the drop of a hat.
I bring this up because Paul Elam posted just such a warning on his site last night in a post that he labeled “Important Message for AVFM Conference Ticket Holders.”
[T]here will be ideological opponents to the MHRM, including some members of the media, present at the event. Some will be looking for anything they can to hurt us with. They will be listening, eavesdropping, and if they can, gathering things to harm us with.
For that reason, ANYONE sitting around trash-talking women, men, making violent statements, even jokingly, will be brought to the attention of security who will issue ONE warning (or less). After that, they will be directed by security to leave. There are no exceptions.
Please, for all here who are attending, keep this in mind with everything you do and say. Even at after-hours social events, if you hear anyone saying anything that can be used against us, or that makes our gathering toxic, pull them aside politely and say, “Hey, you are hurting us with this. If you want to hang with this group you have to stop it.”
Oh, I suppose I should acknowledge that technically Elam also warned his attendees not to “trash-talk” men either, but the only kinds of men that ever get “trash-talked” on A Voice for Men are men that Elam and his cronies have decided have shown too much respect for women.
I’ve never run across this sort of warning at any other conference I’ve been to, or read about. I’m guessing that when the American Society of Cataract & Refractive Surgery holds its annual trade show it doesn’t have to warn attendees not to bad-mouth their sworn enemies: Ear, Nose and Throat specialists. Or that the Electronic Transactions Association has to specifically forbid its convention-goers from publicly threatening to kill people who still like to pay with cash.
Maybe they do. Maybe they’re just a bit more discreet about it.
At least one of AVFM’s misogynistic fans wasn’t thrilled by the ban on overt women-hating rants.
In the comments to Elam’s post, someone called MGTOW-man complained that,
Of course I understand why attendees can’t be honest about women and men while at venue but what is to stop those ideologues from cherry-picking and distorting things said on AVfM? What is the difference?
Also, bummer! Isn’t part of the reason mhra’s are gathering…to learn more about each other, confirm similarities, discuss philosophies and potential solutions, and forge bonds, etc—especially during socializing time? It will be excruciatingly hard to do this if attendees lips must be sealed.
Will attendees have to take their talk elsewhere if/when they need to be honest but in which outsiders obliviously cry ” hate” because they do not want the truth to be told?
How come outsiders will be allowed in socializing time? Will attendees be allowed any time to gather WITHOUT snooping idiots probing for things to be mean and clueless?
I feel for these poor fellows, trying to come up with topics of conversation that don’t involve how much women suck.
In the comments here on We Hunted the Mammoth, Sir Bodsworth Rugglesby III has offered some suggestions as to what AVFM conference goerscan can talk about if they can’t talk shit about women:
- the weather
- incomprehensible poster design
- the weather
- correct etiquette for eating cold stew from a can
- the weather
- hey do you think Warren Farrell is related to Colin Farrell or is it just a coincidence
- tie knots — the Windsor vs the Esmay
- ellipses and the rule of two
- why all women are bloodsucking monsters. I mean the weather! The weather! Shit.
Hope that helps!
“A Voice for Men recently organized a conference in Detroit that gained so much backlash the hotel housing the conference insisted the group purchase $2 million of insurance after receiving violent threats.”
–National Review
This is getting ridiculous.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/380785/mens-rights-and-feminist-movements-should-get-married-christine-sisto
I wonder if anyone would actually be able to infiltrate their movement and then destroy it from within. Like an agent provocateur or something, inciting other people to do stuff like write death threats in paper letters instead of on twitter, which is somehow way more illegal.
I mean, the Canadian gov’t actually did/does some of that stuff with socialist & environmentalist groups. It’s practically standard procedure these days.
Come to think of it, organizing a big media-scrutinized public event would be pretty damaging to the MRAs…maybe Elam himself is the agent provocateur and he’s deliberately organizing an event that will doom them all?
According to the National Review:
“The men’s movement, as it stands now, is not sophisticated enough to have an impact akin to the impact that feminism continues to have.”
So staying in front of it is all that may need to be done. Destroying it may require a lot of wasted energy.
RE: Jean-Francois
maybe Elam himself is the agent provocateur and he’s deliberately organizing an event that will doom them all?
You’re giving the dude way too much credit. They can’t even get their movement off the ground; I doubt they’d NEED an infiltrator.
If LBT is Zarat, but we’re all David, then David is Zarat!!! This site is a sham set up to trick feminists into making fun of MRAs, but we’re all David, who is Zarat, so we’ve been making fun of ourselves all along!
what?
EVERYONE IS EVERYONE
OH GOD
“Dean Esmay claims he is a liberal”
Dean Esmay is one of those right-wing libertarians who claims he’s a “real liberal” or a “classical liberal” and that modern American liberalism is just socialist and horrible.
never mind that classical liberals and modern libertarians are somewhat different as well in outlook and analysis, what matters is what the word meant 150 years ago, not today.
@Chaos-Engineer
I don’t doubt there would be unrest, if AVFM tolerated any dissent.
“Dean Esmay is one of those right-wing libertarians who claims he’s a “real liberal” or a “classical liberal” and that modern American liberalism is just socialist and horrible”
Yeah I remember some mra bloggers mocking Esmay with because he had a long beard and calling him a hippie. However, Esmay can try to sound articulate and that he is an advocate for genuine mens issues like suicide and rape but he refuses to acknowledge the hate coming from his movement. This is just pure foolishness on his part. The scary part is I read somewhere that Esmay is being so called mentored now to take over a voice for men as Elams getting old. Avfm is nothing but atrocious.
Oh my Dog, this is hilarious.
‘Please, for all here who are attending, keep this in mind with everything you do and say. Even at after-hours social events, if you hear anyone saying anything that can be used against us, or that makes our gathering toxic, pull them aside politely and say, “Hey, you are hurting us with this. If you want to hang with this group you have to stop it.”’
Dear MRAs: this is almost word-for-word the advice given to men who wish to make a difference in the negative beliefs their friends have towards women, and to try and change attitudes towards consent (good!) and sexual assault (bad!). Allow me to demonstrate:
‘Please, for all here who are attending, keep this in mind with everything you do and say. Even at after-hours social events, if you hear anyone saying anything that suggests they think consent is optional, or that makes our gathering intimidating for women, pull them aside politely and say, “Hey, you are hurting everyone with this. If you want to hang with this group you have to stop it.”’
IFTFY 😀
strivingally, it’s only misandry when it comes to consent!
That’s a lot more palatable than John Hembling. He’s one scary dude.
Obviously the only way to be “honest” about women is to trash talk them.
But if anyone quotes these honest comments that are truthful and philosophical and the entire reason for attending the conference, they’re “cherry-picking” and “distorting.”
It’s so much fun to see Zarat again. I see he’s developed special feminist-spotting powers that no other MRAs possess. Good for him.
So, do they have an actual harassment policy? (For either men OR women?) If so, is it as strict as their “no trashing women” policy? Enquiring minds want to know! This is getting really interesting.
To every commenter who directed their note to “MRAs”:
You just proved this quote as legitimate:
“[T]here will be ideological opponents to the MHRM, including some members of the media, present at the event. Some will be looking for anything they can to hurt us with. They will be listening, eavesdropping, and if they can, gathering things to harm us with.
For that reason, ANYONE sitting around trash-talking women, men, making violent statements, even jokingly, will be brought to the attention of security who will issue ONE warning (or less). After that, they will be directed by security to leave. There are no exceptions.”
He’s just one man, and you portrayed his beliefs on every person in the Mens Rights Group.
And despite this being hilarious:
“I’m guessing that when the American Society of Cataract & Refractive Surgery holds its annual trade show it doesn’t have to warn attendees not to bad-mouth their sworn enemies: Ear, Nose and Throat specialists.”
Those groups aren’t analogous at all. Those specialists wouldn’t be enemies, people don’t choose between their Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat specialists. A better analogy is a Liberal convention sending a message out to their members not to say disparaging things about the Conservatives. Which happens all the time.
Ergo, this isn’t news. It’s a circle jerk.
@Shaenon
Really, the constant claim that their words are being “distorted” and “cherry picked” is getting old. All this blog and most other people who have researched and thus speak out against MRAs do is quote them verbatim. They might as well just say “don’t tell others my exact words!!!”
And yeah. To them “telling the truth” is claiming women are cunty whores destroying civilization for sleeping with bad boys, (unlike such nice misogynists themselves)
Let them speak, let them conference and if there are protests, print their articles straight from their sites and paste them on signs or hand them out to passerbys (or perhaps set up a table with them?) If there is any ounce of humanity left in a society that, for the most part, doesn’t hate women, then AVFM and MRAs will be destroyed by their own words.
MGTOW-man continues:
“I understand that there are some hateful people who despise the truth we speak that will buy tickets and then get inside to trash women or men so to make it look like all of us are bad, bad people. Anyone doing that should be immediately removed as well as any suspicious “media” that is peculiarly tagging along (cohorts). Also, in my opinion, any media person that is suspected of being a cohort of such a lying troll should HAVE to relinquish any recording(s)…since it is dishonest…and should have pre-consented before entry into the conference.”
Elam is now asking for “donations” of $20 a person for the live youtube feed, and states:
“Additionally, select tweets will be displayed on the video feed (but not who they’re from). Remember that this is live television that bears AVfM’s logo, and constructive tweets free from profanity are more likely to be chosen than others.”
In a post describing Janet as their social media director.
LULZ.
Man, I wish I could construct a racket on Elam’s level. That money would be good!
Probably not enough to pay for the cost of my ethics, though.
Also I bet 5 scented candles that they wont be able to keep their mouths shut from saying rude things if any of the protesters are overweight, non conventionaly attractive. Oh who am I kidding, even if they are conventionally attractive!
But it’s perfectly okay for them to make prohibited audio recordings of a panel discussion at Queen’s University after promising they wouldn’t.
What a racket. First they said they’d need the entire 30K they raised for security. Then Deano said the surplus would be put toward next year’s conference. So if there is a surplus, why not pay for the live feed costs from that?
@Taino
LOL, that quite an understatement from the National Review. The MRM have the grand total of one book sort of associated with their movement, which was written 20 years ago and is a fucking disaster. No recognizable conservative critic of feminism, such as Christina Hoff Sommers, would touch them with a ten foot pool. Not that they could afford Sommers even if she was willing to go slumming with these losers.
Talking about destroying the MRM seems a bit melodramatic, even if it were possible IMO. It really isn’t an actual movement, it’s just a bunch of virulent anti-feminist reactionary cranks who found each other on the internet. I think by highlighting their bullshit we can facilitate their tendency to reveal their hate group mentality and publicly discredit them.
:: waves HI at Quackers ::
“Also I bet 5 scented candles that they wont be able to keep their mouths shut from saying rude things if any of the protesters are overweight, non conventionaly attractive. Oh who am I kidding, even if they are conventionally attractive.”
Ahhh that explains it .The other day I ran across a comment from one the mra bloggers I think it may have been mens rights reddit where some mra’s were telling that other mra that they were going wear nice suits and urging other mra’s to look their best an be well groomed.
These guys are trying to do damage control to portray themselves to the news media. It just seems Elam is getting more paranoid and secretive about what is going to go on at the conference
Obviously these idiots are more and more cunningly trying to promote the various seminars that will go in there as some sort of groundbreaking breakthrough that will help men. Geez this is going to backfire on them. Elam claims a big turnout which in a way gives a better chance for any of these morons to say something bigoted and stupid. The more stupid bigoted comments that is published in the media the better chance a voice for men will be revealed as the hate group it is.
I confess that I will be impressed if they are able to get their armchair activists to show up at a conference. Tragical that ANTZ cannot attend. I am sure he would be as big a hit there as he was here.
@Jordon
That actually never happens. I’ve been to conservative, liberal and leftist gatherings and people criticize their ideological opponents at all of them nonstop. I’ve never been to a hate group get-together however and that’s where self-censoring your hate speech is essential, if you are pretending to be a non-hate group.
Insurance. Either these people have never owned a house or a business or they’ve never actually read their policies.
My house insurance covers $2 million for injuries and other liabilities for guests and casual household workers. When we ran our business, the absolute minimum coverage for personal injuries there was $20 million.
Everybody who owns or runs anything has to be covered for the possibility that someone may fall on or off something, someone may slip on something or walk through a sheet of glass or a gazillion other potential mishaps and be seriously injured and/or permanently incapacitated.
There’s nothing special about $2 million coverage. Not even about $2 million special or extra coverage. (I would have thought the personal injury risk for any conference would be higher than this amount. All you’d need would be for someone higher on a staircase to fall and thereby knock over a few people lower down. Given what we know about US health costs, $2 million would barely get you out of the gate.)