Keep your distance from A Voice for Men’s conference at its new location in St. Clair Shores.
That’s the basic message the organisers of the original June 7th protest against the AVFM conference want to get out to anyone thinking of protesting the conference this Friday and Saturday. In an open letter posted on Amanda Levitt’s Fat Body Politics, the original organizers urge would-be protesters to boycott the conference and stay out of St. Clair Shores.
While the original organizers reaffirm their opposition to the conference and to “the horrific and vile hatred that A Voice for Men spreads on their website,” they are concerned about the safety of anyone who might be considering protesting:
We have had numerous people reach out to us to let us know of the very real danger we could be in by protesting. Due to concerns for physical safety we have decided the best way to oppose the conference that is now going on in St. Clair Shores is to keep our distance. With AVFM’s history of attempting to provoke protestors, harassing individuals by following them to their cars or home, and filming or photographing them in order to release their private information online we don’t feel that protesting at the VFW hall could keep people reasonable safe.
While there may be others who decide to protest the conference, we want to make it perfectly clear that there are real concerns for safety. If you are planning to protest the conference, please make sure the people who are coming are informed enough about the kind of vicious tactics that AVFM has used to derail and trivialize the response to their own ideology.
Be in solidarity with us this weekend as we ensure the safety of our organizers and other protesters by tweeting to #NoMRA about why this conference and the beliefs of AVFM shouldn’t be tolerated.
Emphasis added.
I should say that I agree with this approach: DON’T protest AVFM’s Conference in St. Clair Shores this weekend. Speak out against AVFM’s misogyny, and against its efforts to intimidate its critics — on social media and any other way you can.
But unless you are covering the conference as a journalist, don’t go to St. Clair Shores. Not only do you risk being doxxed and harassed by AVFM and its supporters, but you also will be giving AVFM what it wants: a confrontation, and yet another excuse to play the victim.
Make no mistake: AVFM and its supporters want to see protesters at their conference this weekend. Don’t give them what they want.
You will be far more effective critic of AVFM if, instead of confronting them in person, you speak up online, through letters to the editor, and by spreading the word in other peaceful ways that don’t involve actually going to the conference.
I don’t personally oppose AVFM’s conference taking place, but I think it’s very important to show the world what AVFM, its supporters, and its invited speakers really stand for.
I urge you to do what you can to publicize the video I helped to put together in collaboration with Mancheeze.com that highlights the hatefulness of a number of those scheduled to speak at AVFM’s conference– link to it, embed it on your blog, whatever you can do.
You can also help to spread the word by posting the graphic I’ve pasted in below, after the jump, which collects together the statements quoted in the video. You can click on it for a larger version.
You know when it’s so hot you can’t bend your legs because if the back of your calf and thigh come in contact there WILL be accumulation and serious drippage of sweat? Or same deal at your elbow? Yeah, back of knee sweat ftl.
How about when the sweat from your back runs straight down into the crack of your ass? I get that a lot when I run (or cook in my tiny kitchen after 5pm) and it gives me the screaming meemies every time.
My boobs aren’t big (high b to low c) but boob sweat plagues me no matter what I wear. Tank top, exercise bra, cotton bra, blended fabric, nothing at all…no matter, all result in sweat. This sometimes results in a rash, which is the utter pits.
TMI- my black & dark grey jog bras literally have salt delineations that will not wash out. They form this kind of oddly cool looking mineral pattern.
I go without a bra mostly in hot weather; I’m a D cup, and my bras are all the moulded variety, so they really are too warm to wear then.
Oh yeah, the accumulating sweat in bendy bits. Number of times I’ve had chafing and rashes from that.
Worst for me is the thighs rubbing; even without sweat as an issue, I’ve had serious chafing there. That’s another thing to hate about summer: I have to wear bike shorts or something like that, because any time the thighs touch each other, chafing starts.
AAAAAAAHHHH yes! ::scritches furiously just at the thought of it::
Lanacane anti-chafing gel is good. I keep stashes of it at home.
Wow. What timing!
I’ve been off-line due to a painful boil in one of those sweat-collecting areas. I get them a lot, because of the sweat-collection, and it’s darned HOT here. Now, I come back, and read about all the other poster’s problems with that area. Yay!
Seriously, I feel so much better, knowing that I’m not alone in this.
Cornstarch does seem to help with the rashes, I must say. But as for swollen sweat glands, SIGHHHHHH!
And since my desk chair is covered in VINYL, I must, at all times, wear long pants if I’m going to be online, or else my skin sticks to the chair, and I can actually lose the upper layer when I stand up again. Delicate skin, doesn’t like bandaids, either.
Ah, well. At least I can be happy that I’m not in any way involved in that awful AVFM conference.
Off to cool down now. I just popped in for a short visit. It’s too hot to do much more at my desk right now.
I’m a DDD and I hand wash my bras. I also find baby powder helps with making you sweat less. I get the unscented stuff (the normal baby powder makes you smell like dildos) and it works like a charm.
Boob sweat is the worst, followed up by swamp ass (especially when you are wearing shorts and are sitting on a leather couch or car seat).
I have heard that this stuff is awesome for preventing boob sweat and chub rub! 😀
Oh god back knee and inner elbow sweat! Such icky feelings.
Also, not gonna lie, I so do not miss my boobs at all. If nothing else, boob sweat is no longer a problem.
Ahoy, Michelle! I found a good short academic piece about Mr K the other day, I was just waiting for you to pop back in.
http://pacificcresttrail.wordpress.com/2011/10/07/louis-xiii/
Hey, I just noticed that JudgeyB has a AVfM Conference 2014 twitter handle, “#icmi14 is for general info and @icmi14 is for messages you want posed directly to conference speakers”. For a second I thought she might actually show a modicum of professionalism, but then I read the tweets. She starts the festivities with a shout out to her personal account, because why not, “@JudgyBitch2 This account is going to be for tweeting the conference”.
Apparently “general info” includes calling out enemies including “privileged white brats” from Wayne State, “SRS hatemongers”, random critics on Twitter and Emma “Super Fun” from Facebook (JudgeyB uses Emma’s full name, natch). David sadly only gets attacked for his “ties to genocidal maniacs” in retweets of Esmay. She retweets pissy tweets from her personal JudgyB handle, including one denouncing “feminazis”, and retweets someone else gloating how “femirroids you have failed to stop the @icmi14 in Detroit”. Classy as ever.
She also retweets several posts denouncing #endfathersday, so apparently they’re pretending all the articles about it being a 4chan hoax don’t exist. They got more mileage out of that hoax when the whole AVfM gang recently argued with two obvious troll accounts, Modern Leftist (@ModernLeftist2) and Sarah Goldhirsch (@sassingheeb), because straw feminists are their favorite kind of feminist.
I am absolutely certain that, should I ever have breast cancer and require a double mastectomy, for at least a while I won’t have reconstruction. I’ll just experience what it is not to have breasts. I want to know that feel.
I don’t want breast cancer or to ever require a double mastectomy though. Sorry if that sounded insensitive. Obviously, the troubles of big boobs are nothing compared to dealing with cancer.
So I guess I’m going to Lush. NO MORE BOOB SWEAT!
I got a J cup, and while I wouldn’t wish the hassles on anyone else, I actually love my boobs. They fed my kids, they are always happy to see anyone, and they tend to behave well provided I do pilates and lotion them occasionally.
Your boobs are well socialised, then, Shaun! XD
They really are. They love attention. Not the creepy stranger who can’t tell me how many eyes I have (why do they all guess “Um…blue?”), but the welcome “I really like you” kind from adults, and the happy “You’re the best milk maker ever” from my children, and of course kitten cuddles (she rests right on top of them when I’m sitting down).
i’m still here. i’m still going. i’m not turning back.
Good luck, sworebytheprecious!
I admire your courage and determination, Sworebytheprecious. Good luck!
The REAL purpose of all soft/cuddly portions of human anatomy: Furrinati comfort!
So much awesome.
The Anatomy of a Men’s Rights Activist
They are STILL trying to pretend David is even slightly connected to radfemhub?
that is really pathetic.
Are they all David, too? I don’t know how he does it.
@Aunti Alias – I wonder if *that* is the Vice coverage about which JB was bragging so smugly?
Because if so: hahahahahahahahaha!!!!!