A Voice for Men’s “social media director” Janet Bloomfield is proving to be quite the innovator in the world of public relations. You may recall her cheeky approach to publicizing the recent AVFM conference, which involved awarding herself “whore points” for calling critics of AVFM “whores.”
Now she’s moved on to straight-up libel, making up fake quotes in order to make feminist writer Jessica Valenti look bad, and then bragging about it on her blog.
This whole sordid episode began several days ago when Valenti, on vacation, decided to send a message to “all the misogynist whiners in my feed today” in the form of a photo of her on a beach wearing a t-shirt saying “I bathe in male tears.”
The AVFM social media attack squad seized on this at once, with Bloomfield telling her followers, wrongly, that the picture had been posted in response to a question about male suicide. When Valenti corrected her on this point, Bloomfield offered a half-assed apology (“My bad”).
Then Bloomfield, demonstrating just how insincere her apology had been, decided to up the ante, concocting four “quotes” from thin air and attributing them to Valenti.
[EDIT: JB’s Twitter account was suspended, so here’s a screenshot of the tweets; I’ll keep the original links up in case she’s ever unsuspended, though that seems unlikely.]
https://twitter.com/JudgyBitch1/status/495366752168329216
https://twitter.com/JudgyBitch1/status/495367262187302913
https://twitter.com/JudgyBitch1/status/495367996337295360
https://twitter.com/JudgyBitch1/status/495374177013346304
Naturally, as you’ll see if you follow any of these Tweets back to their original context on Twitter, many of Bloomfield’s fans assumed that these quotes were real.
Needless to say, some responded to Bloomfield’s dirty tricks with all-too predictable harassment of her target:
https://twitter.com/JessicaValenti/status/495559012449267713
https://twitter.com/JessicaValenti/status/495559068841680896
After brazenly libeling Valenti, Bloomfield went on to boast about it on her blog. In a post with the smug title “Jessica Valenti is not having a good day,” she wrote:
Now, these fake quotes may have been “utterly plausible” only to those who are ignorant of Valenti’s work, but in the hothouse world of the Men’s Rights movement there are people who would probably believe that Valenti eats babies. As I noted, JB’s followers had no trouble believing them.
Later in the post Bloomfield added, with more than a hint of maliciousness:
It’s not clear how having made-up quotes attributed to you counts as “owning your shit,” but I guess I just don’t understand Bloomfield’s higher morality.
Needless to say, in the real world, deliberately publishing false information about someone in order to harm their reputation is libel.
When confronted with this on Twitter, Bloomfield offered some inventive excuses:
@JudgyBitch1 @JessicaValenti JB, "I didn't like her shirt so I lied about her maliciously to harm her" isn't an acceptable defense for libel
— David Futrelle (@DavidFutrelle) August 2, 2014
Later on she attempted to prove that her libelous fake Valenti quotes didn’t matter … by making up things about me:
https://twitter.com/JudgyBitch1/status/495684048237633536
As I noted,
@Alzael1 @virtuarat @JudgyBitch1 I'm pretty sure that "well, I lied about David Futrelle too" is not an acceptable libel defense either.
— David Futrelle (@DavidFutrelle) August 2, 2014
Of course, I’m no lawyer. I can only hope that some people who are lawyers are taking a good hard look at Bloomfield’s lies.
I would encourage you all to screenshot or otherwise archive Bloomfield’s self-incriminatory blog post, as well as her tweets, just in case she decides to talk to a lawyer and take them all down.
At this point, I think it’s probably safe to assume that anything and everything anyone from AVFM says should be taken not with a grain but with an entire shaker of salt.
Yay! Let’s hope you have enough influence to have MSM pick this up.
You do realize that “male tears” refers to all males including males who have committed suicide no? Why write “male tears” on a t-shirt and not “misogynist tears” if you are not a misandrist?
This is hilarious.
MRAs, you know how we’re always telling you that you don’t understand satire? You don’t understand satire.
PS “maisandry” – not a thing.
Or “misandry” even. /rolls eyes
Shaker of salt? I take it with all of the salt in the entire ocean, plus all the salt in the Dead Sea…
And Linda… it’s a spoof… a lot like my personal catch-phrase “I hate straight, white, cis-gendered, able-bodied men” (all of which I am).
“I used Poe’s law”
…
“I used Poe’s law”
…
What. The. Fuck.
Could Valenti pursue a libel case, citing harassment etc.? I’m not familiar with USA law, but it’d be nice to see JB being held accountable for the obviously malicious lies. Bet it’d cost a fair bit to pursue though…
Wow, JB is pathetically hungry for attention, isn’t she? Maybe she’d be happy to have a whole libel trial focused on her, in that case. (I doubt Valenti will bother, though.) It’s sad.
And then you remember she called trans people mentally ill — she actually said this, this isn’t something I’m making up — and it becomes impossible to feel sorry for her.
The problem is that Valenti would probably be considered a public figure by a court, and in many states if the plaintiff is a public figure he/she not only has to prove malicious intent but also that he/she was harmed as a result of the libel. She may not have a strong enough case.
She’s very focused.
I mean, laser-like focus.
I’m really starting to think that her whole job at AVFM is to be as controversial as possible, to get them any attention they can get. And to somehow paint Paul Elam as the moderate.
And this is the “social media driver” for Women Against Feminism.
hahahahahahahah. Pauses for breath. Hahahahahahahha.
ACTIVISM!
If you’re so concerned about the wellbeing of men and boys why does all your effort go into harming women? That’s a roundabout way to accomplish nothing (aside from harming women. Which I think may be of far more importance to you than any betterment to the lives of men and boys. Just MHO.)
Famous last words from one who wouldn’t know irony if it bit her. Which it just did. ON THE ASS.
Ugh… Although I would never choose to wear a “male tears” shirt myself, I’m not going to cry a river is someone else chooses to. Seriously, with a history of women being institutionalized because of showing emotions when men don’t want them to (hysteria anyone?), I don’t think a male tears shirt on anyone is that big of a deal. JB should get a hobby becaus she is obviously bored. It’s good to know she is at the same maturity level as my brother when we was six years old on long car trips…
I think it probably is her job to be more overtly absurd than Elam in order to make him look reasonable/honest/thoughtful/grounded.
It might work too. It’s not a terrible tactic.
More “activism” from JB: lying about David Futrelle on Reddit.
Snurk. To use the “popular” MR(B)M phraseology for over-the-hill feeeeemales, this one has just hit the wall. Any traffic WAF gets in future will be due to mockery and lulz, not sincere mainstream interest. Good job, Jan!
More like her job to be the person they can point to and say “see, women really are as horrible as we keep telling you they are”.
BTW, even the misters are pushing back on JB on that one. Well, most of them.
She certainly is doing her part to support the stereotype that “women lie about everything.”
So it’s only a spoof? Well how if a MRA would pose with a shirt saying “I bathe in female tears” you do know that you all would have reacted very differently? If you say your for equal treatment o the sexes it would be a good advice to start to treat them equally.
Oh and btw, equality of outcome and equality of opportunities are not the same thing. Just to remind you before you start bitching about the lack of female CEO:s
Those made-up quotes say a lot more about what Ms. Bloomfield thinks of men than what any feminist thinks of men.
And Linda Wong: “male tears” refers to the crocodile tears men “cry” when confronted with their misogyny. But I realize that sarcasm flies right over the heads of AVFM followers.
God, that Today Show interview (from the photo at the top)…
And now we turn to Janet Bloomfield, broadcasting live from her underground bunker in an undisclosed location in the rocky mountains, where the chemtrails and fluoridated water of the feminist-CIA secret police can’t get her…
Anyways. MRA’s lying is like the sun coming up. I’d be more surprised if it didn’t happen. They know that truth and reality don’t agree with their “philosophy”. Quick tip, fellas and ladies who are really really desperate male attention, if you have to bullshit yourself into believing the things you believe, it might be time to reevaluate.
I actually don’t care for the “Male Tears” novelties, specifically because anyone who’s not in on the joke won’t get it. But then, we’re talking about a site that thinks graphically describing Paul Elam’s beating women wank fantasies is “satire”, so, uh, they have no right to criticize literally anyone else on the planet.
Oh crap, there goes yet another irony meter. These people keep breaking them. I should send them the bill!