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!
“tie knots — the Windsor vs the Esmay”
I must have missed an Esmay outfit. Or does this refer to a logical knot?
The closest I’ve ever come to having this kind of memo is when I attended a protest. Because a protest is, 1) by its very nature, controversial, 2) prone to attracting tinfoil-hat-types from all sorts of ideological backgrounds, and 3) likely to draw some hostile pushback, the organizers asked us to not answer media questions on behalf of the protest. We could share our own feelings (e.g. “What brings you here? How did you hear about it?” etc.), but any questions pertaining to “What is [organization] about? What do you hope to accomplish?” was to be sent to the media liaisons.
But really, in the end, all that means is “Please don’t speak to the media on our behalf unless we have specifically given you that job,” not, “Try not to say hateful swill in public.”
I find it hilarious that none of you adress any of the arguments these mens rights activists make, instead attacking them as misogynists, rather than listen or considering what they say. It’s pretty clear bigotry to me. Bigotry and prejudice. You judge them before you even listen. It’s pretty typical of self described feminists .
Sorry, I haven’t read through current comments. Has anyone posted this yet?
@Faint Praise: Esmay appeared on a TV interview with a tie so long it looked like he might accidentally zip it into his fly.
@cloudiah
Nice!
Kinda looked like he could have wiped his ass with that tie.
There is pretty much always some sort of pre-demonstration, pre-strike talk about how to handle situations with the public and the police, but its not about looking “good”. More like, stay cool, stay safe and don’t escalate shit. I never attended any sort of conferences where you have to warn the attendees to behave. It reminds me the rumors years ago on how the KKK was coaching its member in politically correct talk.
@cloudiah
Thanks for the link that is an interesting anti mra banner. It clearly seemed to pinpoint some of the basic bigoted stances that a voice for men supports. The group that made that link is also going to have some type of mra hate watch facebook page to track their stuff down. I also like the link for the legitimate men site http://robokun.net/voice-male/ as a resource along with a male rape survivor resource. This gives people who truly want to help men in their lives but have come across mra stuff an alternative resource. Good interesting link.
The thing is, they’re such low-hanging fruit it isn’t necessary to try very hard to find something that makes them look like crap – and they’re worried NOW about their public image?
oh lorde.
you know, i got a real nice 50s style dress for the conference and everything. plan to curl my hair, wear heels, all that jazz. i can clean up pretty well. give them a nice little monster.
and here they want to deny themselves… what, their purpose? i simply don’t know how they plan to hold a conference dedicated to an organization founded, funded, and perpetuated by woman-bashing and feminist hate-mongering while going out of their way not to bash women. this would be like holding PAX during an electrical outage; you could do it but everyone would just we wondering what happened to the power the whole time. so i predict an even split here.
Farell might be able to pull it off. Cools could maybe pull some rabbits out of a hat and distract the audience with some kind of plea for Canadian rule of law. Esmay is full of surprises. Pizzey i’m sure could find the will. the rest are a toss up; that’s it though. just try making GirlWritesWhat, Molyneux, Bloomfield, and Elam toe this line. regardless of what he wants, Elam can’t stop bashing women for a single blog post. an entire conference of good behavior towards women is a hard sell to make on a man who uses phrases like “Mary Jane Rottencrotch” when describing divorcees.
and i have heard from more than (counts screencaps) twenty two MRAs who not only want me at the conference outside and want to be interviewed, but think it would be cool to see me inside recording and documenting. a bunch asked me to do an AMA on Reddit /r/mensrights for some reason. what is AVfM afraid of? what horrible thing do they possibly think they can say which has not already been said and will shock everyone into madness? is it worse or better than getting Sleazy to write a front page op-ed on Rodger?
i’m not the one who needs to do damage control here. they do. and damage control seems to be asking people to be quite. that’s never a good sign.
For anyone who doesn’t want to go to AVFM for the conference agenda, here it is minus the breaks.
Thursday, June 26th
13:00 — 17:00 Warren Farrell, Ph. D. – Workshop: On modern fatherhood
15:00 — 17:00 Press conference
Friday, June 27th
08:45 — 09:30 Registration
Men in families
09:30 — 09:45 Paul Elam – Welcome
09:45 — 10:30 Hon. Anne Cools, Senator – The law: Fathers, children, and their well-being
10:30 — 11:15 Erin Pizzey – Domestic violence and feminism
11:45 — 12:30 Dr. Tara Palmatier – The crisis relationship
12:30 — 13:15 Mike Buchanan – Let’s get political!
Men in society
14:30 — 15:15 Fred Jones, JD – Cultural bias
15:15 — 16:00 Barbara Kay – Misandry in media
Men in their personal lives
16:30 — 17:15 Tom Golden, LCSW – Men’s unique way of healing
17:15 — 18:00 Paul Elam – Blue collar invisible man
Saturday, June 28th
08:45 — 09:00 Attila Vinczer – Welcome
What are we doing about it?
09:00 — 09:45 Warren Farrell, Ph. D. – The Men’s Movement
09:45 — 10:30 Karen Straughan – Antifeminism
What is the law doing about it?
11:00 — 11:45 Carnell Smith – Paternity fraud
11:45 — 12:30 Robert Franklin – Family courts
What are we doing to our kids?
13:45 — 14:30 Terri Pop – Men in the military
14:30 — 15:15 Dr. Miles Groth – Young men in education
15:45 — 16:30 Stephan Molyneux – Circumcision
16:30 — 18:00 Panel session
You must be new here.
Barbara Kay is a journalist for the National Post, a prominent right-wing Canadian newspaper that’s published blatantly racist, transphobic, and misogynistic articles and opinion pieces. MRAs love her and flock to the comments section when she writes about teh poor menz or “rape culture hysteria”. Reading her condescending bigotry makes me very, very angry.
I predict she will wring her hands over the “politically correct” media not telling the real truth about men’s issues.
Oh look. Another butthurt mister. You call those hateful screeds arguments?
We have addressed the arguments. We did it a long time ago and don’t feel a need to rehash our address of them every time the MRM does something new. When you advance new arguments, David notes it and we do discuss them.
I’m surprised Molyneux isnt hosting a panel on some form of economic crankery, but knowing him he’ll probably go into some ridiculous anti-Semitic/Muslim tangent
I enjoy the exclamation mark at the end of Mike Buchanan’s lecture title (Let’s get political!) I feel it adds some can-do spirit without sacrificing gravitas.
He’s got the podium for forty-five minutes; I wonder how many times he’ll manage to mention his blog.
BRB, swooning from Sworebytheprecious’ awesomeness.
@Swore: for a bunch of guys who keep saying their group isn’t built on hate, and they are just trying to disseminate ideas, they sure are determined to keep out the sunlight, aren’t they? Is Vice still covering the event, do you know?
Their press conference is two hours long. Do you think they will be able to follow their own “don’t talk normally” instructions for two hours? LOL
I’m curious to know who will be at the press conference, talking, from the AVfM/MRA side. And which press.
Right, so Paul posts a notice which effectively says that bigotry and hatefulness will not be tolerated, and this gets him mocked on We Hunted the Mammoth. It’s good to know what is considered mock-worthy around here. Meanwhile, the AVfM staffers will be hosting a human rights conference in Detroit.
If I were a journalist I would try to bait them every chance I would get at the press conference. Probably some will because if you ask a kid to keep away from the cookies, chances are that kid is not going to keep away from the cookies. You know some of those MRA’s are just itching to spout off to the press. This is their time to shine like the misogynistic diamonds they are. Cameras will be on them and every one of them wants to be a star!
@woody: come on, you have to actively try to miss the point that hard.
We’re not mocking him for saying bigotry won’t be tolerated – we’re laughing because he’s trying to pretend that his entire group isn’t BUILT on bigotry. If you have to tell your followers to keep their traps shut so some of their hatred against women doesn’t slip out, because non-believers might overhear it, then you’re not honestly representing your group, you’re trying to sugar-coat it.
Robert: nobody has to bait anybody. It’s like a Tea Party rally: all you have to do to make them look bad is give them a chance to speak, and quote their words verbatim. But I’m sure there’ll be some claims about “gotcha journalism” and “entrapment” and other garbage when some reporting from this conference does get out.