One last AVFM Conference update, with links to two more stories about that historic event.
The first, a gently skeptical Washington Post story by Monica Hesse titled, with a certain irony, “Men’s rights activists, gathering to discuss all the ways society has done them wrong.”
The whole thing is worth reading. My favorite bit:
One presenter, a military veteran speaking on the treatment of veterans returning from war, put up a PowerPoint slide alleging that 70 percent of men returning from war get divorced, and 90 percent do so within five years. When asked about the source of this statistic, he said, “That particular statistic is from my personal observations. I’m just speaking here as a dude.”
Ah, the prestigious Journal of Statistical Dudeness!
The second, well, it’s a bit more disturbing. DarkHorseSwore – a regular in the AgainstMensRights subreddit who raised money to go to Detroit to cover the convention only to be turned away at the door – managed to finally get an audience with some of the conference attendees and organizers – after the convention, as they celebrated at a bar and then in a hotel lobby. She got this access because none of them knew who she was. (Eventually Dean Esmay showed up and had her escorted off the premises.)
Now DarkHorseSwore has set up a website – DarkHorseSwore.com – and has started posting about the strange 5 ½ hours she spent amongst the AVFMers. She tells the tale of a strange encounter with one of the Honey Badgers and then an even stranger tale of an even stranger encounter with an old man and his camera. You’ll have to go read it. Be warned: It’s creepy as hell.
Oh, and she picked up some amazing conference swag as well. And by “amazing” I mean “possibly the worst conference swag I’ve ever seen, I mean, what the hell, and also why are they all beige?”
How to fail at logos/icons — leave a bunch of people familiar with your movement guessing at what your logo/icon means.
They didn’t even make their own merchandize? They just bought it from Café Press? LOL.
Free tip for guys – if you’re trying to make a pass at a woman don’t tell her that she reminds you of your daughter (you creeper).
cassandra: Damn… I was planning to use that, as soon as I got rich, so I could sweep up all the HB10s i deserve.
Before the misters get upset at this criminally gender specific advice! Ladies, don’t hit on younger men by telling them that they remind you of your son either. It’s creepy, and may cause permanent libido loss.
Pecunium — first you need to have a daughter. And let me spoil her. I love kids, I just don’t want any of my own. REPRODUCE DAMNIT!
How about don’t compare someone you’re hitting on to any relative? Particularly not children // nieces/nephews // other younger than you people.
Pecunium, really, have a kid, I promise not to spoil them too rotten. Just the right amount of ice cream before dinner and sure you can play with worms, just wash your hands after.
I’d go one further and say don’t compare someone you’re hitting on to anyone. At best it sounds trite or phoney.
“Your eyes remind me of a…”
“Just stop, OK? You’re embarrassing yourself, and everyone else.”
Apropos of nothing, apart from this being an MRA thread, LOL: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/music-news/10937764/Robin-Thickes-Twitter-disaster-the-best-of-AskThicke.html
Could make some good replies, of course …
“Really? Your eyes remind me of the time I had conjunctivitis.”
I saw that yesterday, pallygirl – it was LOLworthy indeed!
Idk, honest comparisons could be fine. Like, idk, comparing someone’s sense of humor to a comedian that they remind you of, or any trait to a friend, e.g. if their music collection reminds you of a buddy of theirs.
YMMV of course, but I don’t care for being compared with other people. I’d like it even less if someone did it while hitting on me, even if I liked being hit on.
Please, how can I check if my own “widget” is on? i never heard of that
“Signal boost for Auntie Alias’s link on Farrell blaming Elliot Rogers’s mother. Remember that this is the intellectual heavyweight of the MRM, such as it is, and its most compassionate face. ”
That one is straight from Stefan Molyneux playbook who did a popular youtube vid (400K views) on the topic. Its at 1h28min on “The truth about Elliot Rodger”.
@Auntie Alias
It hadn’t occurred to me, but that sounds extremely plausible.
I think he was doing the “implied threat”..we have your picture..she mentioned on her blog he commented about knowing what state she lived in..but idk the circumstances of how that entered the conversation. Also he was degrading her,intentionally with sexual overtones to her face..and he made sure she knew it..All with a veneer of paper thin courtesy.If she had spoke about it there..they would start screaming elevator-gate 2 or something..I think they want to provoke something that can be exploited. Swore handled the whole scene like a boss I thought. I’d really like to know though..isn’t the bar of a hotel public..how did they get her thrown out?
Ditto, thewatchingdog, I’d like to know what I should be sure is off on my blog.
@Isabelle
How long is Molyneux’s “Truth about Elliot Rodger” and did you actually watch it? I’m both impressed and horrified if you subjected yourself to it in order to call out Molyneux and his grotesque bullshit. Listening to that misogynistic ass sound off at length about Eliot Rodger has to be soul-crushing at best.
@Aunty Alias
Ok, I’m trying to wrap my brain around this. Esmay is saying that, emboldened by the supposed success their ramshackle conference, AVfM is going to attack a DV charity? They don’t like it’s feminism, so they are going to attack it’s approach to DV services? I like how he admits that this is really just an act of revenge. I guess they’re bored with doxxing individual women and want to smear a whole organization. JFC.
What are they hoping will happen? Do they want to debate domestic violence on TV with their staff? Do they really think they are better versed in DV literature and have better thought out “evidence-based and solution-oriented programs” than an actual charity with a 4 mil budget? I guess they want a lot more people to know just how obnoxious they are. They really think being a public nuisance is activism. What a bunch of goofs.
@brooked
The vid is 1h58min. Molyneux has been a bête noire of mine for many years. The misogynist schtick is a new twist for him so I stocked up on ibuprofen, slipped into a hazmat suit and l and watched the whole godawful thing. He has been preying for years on young people, mostly young men with libertarian leanings, to hook them up and pay fees to subscribe to his webpage. Same crowd that falls for Ayn Rand, another one of my nemesis. He is just one of those people who give me the heebie jeebies until I can figure why. That’s an unfortunate tendency as over the years, I ended up reading a lot of unsavory stuff like, Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto, fascist writings, some of Rand nauseating crap, etc…My take on it is that behind all the ideological window dressing, the spiel works because it appeals emotionally to the worst in human nature.
QFT. That kind of philosophy speaks to the inner adolescent: you’re special and misunderstood, everyone else is a useless waster, you deserve everything you have because of the clarity of your vision and the sweat of your brow. The fact that most of the people I’ve met who subscribe to that kind of worldview pretty much walked into their place in the world is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter that I’m cis and white in a heteronormative white supremacist society! It doesn’t matter that I was born into comfort! Success is a marker of virtue!
I feel your pain, Isabelle. One of my favorite high school teachers was an Objectivist and a libertarian. I read Ayn Rand’s We the Living as part of his AP European History curriculum, and then went on to read the rest of her greatest hits over the course of college and my early twenties. The good thing is that I now have first-hand knowledge of what the Randians are spouting. The bad things are that I wasted hours of my life reading Atlas Shrugged, and that reading Ayn Rand in public tends to draw in a certain school of dudebro that you usually want to repel with garlic and concentrated sunlight. Poor little honeybuns! They’re always so confused when you’ve read and understood the tenets of their pet philosophy and still fail to be enthralled. Could it be because the same people who swear they will never live for another man will often in their next breath argue that a woman has a moral imperative to carry every pregnancy to term? Nah, couldn’t be that! Must be some failure of intellect or virtue on my part.
Ya. The randroids are against supporting moochers, unless that means they can force a woman to do so? I am shocked, I tell you.
Just like they support the freedoms of corporations to limit the freedoms of actual people.
Not at all, I got that same feeling when I saw it.
Like, really? Kiss abuse goodbye? Like it’s a sweet friend you’re gonna miss? Or should we kiss our abusers goodbye? WHAT THE FUCK, ASSHOLES WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.