If anyone feels compelled to discuss the AVFM conference, do it here.
I’ll post links to any articles and blog posts and interesting tweets and pretty much anything of note I see about it; if you run across any, feel free to post them in the comments and I can add them to the post.
Here’s the live audio stream for the conference, which is off the air. And the video stream, which isn’t working at the moment. Apparently they’ve packed up for the day. (Friday, that is.)
There was no protest, as the organizers of the earlier protest called for a boycott
The official twitter hashtag is #icmi14. For some wonderful Janet Bloomfield PR professionalism, see @JudgyBitch1 and @icmi14.
Highlights so far:
A Detroit MetroTimes reporter says he was literally molested at the conference:
An older man came up to me and immediately complimented my hairy arms (a first). He then started telling me all this crazy shit about how he was from California and he makes movies and he wants to take me to Malibu. Regardless of sexual orientation, it was pretty weird. People started filling up the seats around us and I didn’t want to make a scene, so I just politely accepted the compliment and tried to deflect. The dude kept petting my arms.
It was at this point that I realized this is the kind of creepy shit women deal with … everywhere … every day. A part of me wondered if the feminists had planted this guy to hit on rape-apologizing MRAs to teach them a lesson about “rape culture.” If that is the case: well-played. Unfortunately I think I was just dealing with a garden-variety creep.
HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISM! On Twitter, several others said they’d also had, er, encounters with this guy.
Here’s Janet Bloomfield’s response:
Paul Elam saddened to turn away a clearly troubled man in search of human contact because of accusations of "molestation" from MSM #icim14
— AVfM Conference 2014 (@icmi14) June 27, 2014
Sworebytheprecious, despite donating the cost of a ticket to charity, has not been let into the conference, despite assurances from Dean Esmay that she would be. Here’s her twitter feed, and her explanation of what happened on Reddit.
i put on my nice heels, a dress, and did my hair and makeup. the lyft was called and i arrived promptly at 3. my breath tight, i introduced myself to the police and to security. inside was a small table, two chairs, a man and a woman. i noticed a small vaporizer on the desk. we used the same tank.
i introduced myself by first name and last name, not knowing if Esmay had put my name down. last i heard i was not allowed on the premises even with a ticket and a video declaring me welcome. no matter who i was reporting for, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. if anything else i wanted to make myself available to the MRA. im still here.
a very large, gruff man appeared and quickly asked me to leave. his bass carried. he looked like Esmay. i asked why i should leave, was cut off, and he repeated himself in a louder voice still. i thanked everyone for their time and exited the building. i took one single photo as proof i was there, and quietly left. the cops followed me out and seemed curiously bemused by my presence. i wondered who they expected.
Janet Bloomfield had this to say about Swore’s treatment:
https://twitter.com/JudgyBitch1/status/482599155986997249
https://twitter.com/JudgyBitch1/status/482608296222662657
https://twitter.com/JudgyBitch1/status/482608815758528514
Follow the links to Twitter to see even more from JB along those lines.
I will post more as I find it.
UPDATE 1:
AnimalNewYork.com has a report with a number of quotes from last night’s press conference. The reporter also quotes a St. Clair Shores police officer saying that no specific threats have been made against the conference.
By the time yesterday’s planned 3pm “press conference” got going 25 minutes late, there were only about 30 people in the audience, most (but not all) white middle-aged men. A handful of them were reporters. The rest were true believers in a “War on Men.” There was a disco ball in the center of the hall, draped with white paper streamers.
“Point the camera that way and that way only,” said one of the three security guards armed with superfluous walkie talkies, reprimanding someone taking video footage of the attendees, which was prohibited. The organizers introduced the speakers at great lengths, taking pride in their various appearances on Fox News. A Voice For Men founder and conference organizer Paul Elam stated that the cop cars parked outside were there because of more death threats. ”I’m getting tired of the death threats,” shouted a staff member.
Outside, I spoke to St. Clair Shores Officer David Burmeister about the alleged death threats. He said that no specific threats have been made at all. The cops were contracted to be there by A Voice For Men. It appeared that they weren’t there to protect them from specific and imminent danger, but to give the illusion of it.
Hmm.
@Isabelle
The info in Dox can be legally obtained a lot of the time
however the things they do with that info are significantly less likely to be legal (UNDERSTATEMENT)
pallygir: when you said con, this is what I thought of:
Erin Pizzey: As the feminists organized themselves, and they are extremely highly-organized, they moved into every… they feminized the judiciary, they feminized all the service agencies, schools, universities, and now we see 40 years of wreckage above us.
That honestly sounds like the narration to a Sci-Fi horror movie.
If I recall correctly, it starred Sandra Bullock as a cop of that feminized dystopia, Sylvester Stallone as a cop time-travelling via suspended animation and Wesley Snipes as a particularly camp mass murdering lunatic.
@pecunium — excellent analogy! 😀
@david — i have a comment in moderation in which i quoted a very specific song title of john lennon’s. the title contains what is otherwise considered a racial slur, but it is not used as such in the title. it is a word that i never use myself, unless i am specifically quoting another and make that distinction clear. when quoting, i tend to not alter the word or use asterisks etc. to ‘disguise’ it. the comment was directed to LBT and i would be grateful if you were able to take a look at the moderation queue. if you feel the need to alter the specific word in question, please do so.
RE: fauxmy
I know the song you’re talking about. Engh.
@ marinerachel
Yeah, whenever anyone posts images of themselves here I’m always fighting the urge to jump in and go “um, are you sure that’s a good idea?”. I really don’t think it’s a good idea. I get the desire to share things with a community that people enjoy being part of, but it would be wise to always remember that some very bad people are reading too.
@House Mouse Queen: Elam said the creepy guy touched the back of his hair and then said, snappily referring to the Detroit metro article, ‘I didn’t consider him a MOLESTER!’ He was just a man that needed some attention.
“And then he took me out into the parking lot and ripped my short off by force, but I was probably asking for it by wearing my shorts too tight…”
All the AVfM fanboys and fangirls really do fall in line on Twitter, hurling accusations of “quote-mining”, “satire”, “out of context” and “gendercide” without any examples other than the ridiculous Agent Orange AVfM piece. I’m impressed that David can find the will to continue to argue with nitwits who have no argument, especially when their nonsense is positively headachy.
My fave moment of today:
Spoiler: He’s not much more zen.
I won’t even post picture of my cats, especially since I have no idea how internet security works.
@brooked
Pics can be tricky because of the exif data. You can use this site if you want to post pics more safely: http://www.verexif.com/en/
@Isabelle
Thanks, I’ll check it out.
I’ve got a new post up on the conference today.
marinerachel, glad that you enjoyed the care package, and the photo shoot, sorry you can’t post the pics. These people truly are awful.
The worry with photos is actually a “reverse image search”. it’s pretty easy to strip exif data (all things considered) once you know what/where it is.
But if there are tagged images of you, which link to your name Tin-Eye, or Google can (more often than not) find them if people ask them to.
It doesn’t boggle my mind that they apparently consider RadFemHub as somehow representative of mainstream feminism, as if it was Ms Magazine’s online presence. But that they peddle that malarkey in public without being laughed out of countenance – THAT is boggling.
These people go so far beyond awful. I literally cannot share my identity for fear of unprovoked harassment by these people. Neither can anyone else here. How fucked up is that? It would be perfectly reasonable if I were assaulting men and not being held accountable for it. I’m not though. I’m a target of abuse and harassment because I post on this blog. I wouldn’t do that to someone who posted on Stormfront unless I knew for a matter of fact they were presently guilty of perpetrating crimes and not being dealt with by authorities. I spent over a year being emotionally abused by an insecure manchild and I haven’t sent any of the discussion logs to his mom or his school or work yet I’m in fear of exposing my identity lest I be harassed for just existing and thinking MRAs, AVfM in particular, are fucking disgusting.
I’ll figure out some other thank you gift for you guys.
Cassandrakitty summarizes the conference in:
Now I imagine Paul Elam complaining afterwards: “When I told the attendants to pony up, I did not mean cosplay.”
XD
I can’t speak for everyone else, but if you enjoyed the package and the photoshoot, that’s enough thanks for me 🙂
pecunium: thanks for the song, I’ve been having a bad night with having to see the doctor tomorrow about the cancer meaning that I am losing myself in Civ 5 into the small hours to try to mentally escape.
Songs are appreciated, particularly ones that I don’t know. I’m not that familiar with Evita as I haven’t seen the musical.
Re the photo, a few of us have shared email addresses so it it works that way instead of posting. You’ll still need to trust us, but I think a number of us have your email address now. 🙂
Please don’t kill me! I can produce small amounts of glue on a sustainable basis!
…I think I just grossed myself out.
“Look, I’m NOT your father!!!”
Remember when Facebook groups had officers, and people who were listed as such would give themselves custom titles? That’s what I think of whenever we talk about JB as “PR head” or any of the other titles they give themselves at AVfM. Just ’cause you call yourself “News Director” doesn’t mean you know what you’re doing.
Overall, I’l a little disappointed. I was really hoping this conference would be lulzier. I mean yeah, the disappointing turnout and seeing all that money spent on nothing really schadens my freude, but I was hoping for a little more drama. Oh well, I guess I have next week’s “mission accomplished” posts to look forward to, when they go and proclaim what a great success it all was.
David posted a few months ago that unpaid state taxes had or would cost Elam his nonprofit status in Texas, but I don’t know the current status of that.
Or rather, continue bringing the misogynists out. They were definitely simmering merrily away during the primaries last time around, and there has been grumbling since she was First Lady (probably because she never hid her own ambitions).
What the fuck is this comment?
Did you read the SPLC article? Apparently Elam teared up when he announced that he’d booted the guy.
I know some black women who would have a real problem with this. It’s definitely still a slur, regardless of Ono’s intent or the fact that you’re just quoting.
Would it almost always be best to replace one or more vowels within a slur with ‘*’, including in direct quotations? Or maybe replace it with something like [slur redacted]?
If nothing else, it makes sense to censor the slur to keep the post from going into moderation. There’s debate on whether or not it’s appropriate to quote or censor slurs. Some people don’t want to see them printed in full or hear them ever. Some people find that pointless because everyone already knows what the slur is anyway. I’m in the latter group. At least when it comes to misogynist slurs. It’s not my place to decide what’s appropriate when it comes to slurs that I’m not the target of.