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.
http://misscfromdsd.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/w-into-the-wild.jpg
HOLY BALLS MY ICON IS NO LONGER A GREEN SPLOTCH.
AT LONG LAST I AM A PERSON AND NOT A BLOTCH.
The, the, the green blotch! It’s GONE!!!!
*Hides in corner, because the world is no longer in it’s proper disorder*
I kid. Congrats on being a “Oh, No! Emotion!” running person!
🙂
I agree that guinea worms are about as shuddery as you can get. Note to gross everybody out completely, but they leave your gut and bore through your body and cause a blister, usually on the lower leg, and then release eggs into the water. The good news is that the species only parasitizes humans and due to peculiarities in its life cycle, if you can keep it from infecting anyone for a year, it’s history. Cases were down from 3.5 million in 1986 to 148 in 2013, so its effective extinction may not be too far off. Unfortunately the extinction of guinea worm personality disorder in humans make take a bit longer.
“never underestimate a dude’s ability to think his genitals are at the center of the universe”
I guess maybe I should be more impressed by my package, but I’m probably too old now.
My first wife used to sing a little tune that starts out like this: “Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, Guess I’ll go eat worms!” Since this seems to be a good approximation of the attitudes of at least some MRAs, I propose “Wormeaters” as a possible epithet.
So, biologist here:
In general, male mammals are larger than females. This is not universal, and it is less common in other types of animals (fish, for example, are just fucking weird). So, knowing that, and knowing that humans have similar levels of dimorphism to our closest cousins, our dimorphism actually isn’t evidence that there has been any selection for gender dimorphism in recent human history. So you have two “null hypotheses” you’d need to disprove to prove that our dimorphism means anything:
First: It was at one point adaptive, but hasn’t been for a long time but hasn’t been (completely) selected against, either.
Second: Since the increased height and muscle mass of people with testicles and a penis is mostly a result of higher testosterone, and this developmental link is old, human dimorphism may be a result of the necessity of testosterone for fertility in people with testicles. Extra height and strength is just a byproduct.
IIRC, there is some evidence that modern humans are less physically dimorphic than our ancestors, so there is some evidence that it could be a holdover.
As well, I suspect that the general trend for mammals has more to do with the fact that mammals with uteruses have additional constraints on energy use, since they have to bear young–which is a costly endeavor. They just may not have the energy to devote to growing bigger and stronger, or growing fatter might be more beneficial. A lot of evolution is actually about dealing with those kinds of resource constraints. This would explain slight dimorphism in species where the males and females live almost identical lives, like wolves and dogs. It may also explain human dimorphism, especially given how costly human reproduction is.
Frankly, I think this explanation has been unjustly ignored because of male biases in science.
So jumping from “Men* are bigger and stronger than women!” to “So they evolved to fight and hunt and be in charge!” is actually a huge stretch, even before you get into “And therefore everything about modern gender roles is 100% biological and can’t be changed.”
* Besides the conflation of high testosterone, testicles, and a penis (which do not necessarily coincide) with being a man.
So the TLDR: Evopsych troll is full of shit, there are lots of reasons for dimorphism, some of which mean absolutely nothing in terms of human behavior.
@”Linda”
OMG, OMG, OMG, OH MY FUCKING GOD, I DID NOT KNOW THAT. This news is a game changer, how do I donate to
PaulAVFM?Wait, never mind, I have heard about that Jezebel article before, which is terrible but misrepresented in Linda’s hyperbolic description.
(I’m catching up, I can’t believe I missed a JudgyB cameo.)
Aw, you left out the SUPER FUN PART! Aka how it ensures you put your foot in water. That blister? The pain and burning makes people, understandably, try using water to make it hurt less…at which point…BAM, RESTART LIFE CYCLE!
Fortunately, the getting into humans in the first place is less, uh, conniving? Sinister? Anyways, you have to drink the eggs to get the fucker in you, which means simple filters are enough to prevent infection.
As for polio…argle-Pakistan-bargle. Just what the Middle East needed, Pakistan’s endemic polio to go sightseeing >.<
Cue rant about how the US caught Osama…fucking fuck fuck that is not how you fucking ARG GENEVA CONVENTION!! You don't pretend to be health care to catch anyone, or for anything, no pretending to be doctors, period, end of discussion. You most CERTAINLY do not do a fake vaccination campaign in a part of the world that's both scarcely gov'n controlled and already not inclined to trust westerners! Extra super YOU SUCK points when the region is one of the last on the damned earth with endemic polio!!! We can do this, IF PEOPLE TRUST IN VACCINES!! Which they won't when we pull shit like that!! / white hot fury
Lancelets? Sea squirts? Hagfish?
Linda: I’m not the greatest fan of Paul Elam…
Woody: Damn skippy!
“fish, for example, are just fucking weird”
TRUFAX!!
Corydoras? Catfishie fish, with larger females. It’s that way in most catfish, or at least among the species kept in home aquariums. Otoh, egg scatterers? I’ve yet to find a species with dimorphism. And then you have mouth brooders, and anglers, and clown fish, and freshwater angelfish (similar to clown fish), etc etc ad omg fish are weird.
And, according to QI, they don’t exist.
I propose guinae worm.
my go to is “shitweasel”
I propose that evo-psych be banned for a decade. yes, I know not all of it is in the septic tank, but at this point the signal to noise ratio could benefit from a time-out in the corner.
and I believe that among raptors the female is universally larger than the male.
That T-Shirt was Misandry pure and simple. She not only did herself huge damage by wearing it, but she knocked feminism back big strides by wearing it as well. Why the hell would you wear something like that ? Completely sexist.
Sigh. Janet, the origin of the “male tears” thing has been explained in this very comments section and — surprise — it’s not “misandry.” Read more.
Dammit, Janet! Reading is fundamental.
In general, male mammals are larger than females. This is not universal, and it is less common in other types of animals (fish, for example, are just fucking weird). So, knowing that, and knowing that humans have similar levels of dimorphism to our closest cousins, our dimorphism actually isn’t evidence that there has been any selection for gender dimorphism in recent human history. So you have two “null hypotheses” you’d need to disprove to prove that our dimorphism means anything:
Well, there’s this theory.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v272/n5654/abs/272610a0.html
As I understand it, it wouldn’t apply to “recent human history”, but suggests that homo sapiens considered as a primate species is mildly polygynous.
But only suggests that
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2408790?uid=363847021&uid=3738776&uid=16739464&uid=2&uid=3&uid=67&uid=62&sid=21104449358777
(last sentence of abstract)
Well, Argenti, there are literally fish in the sea that are closer relatives to you and me than most other fish, so I guess diversity should just be a given with that much genetic divergence.
(No joke: lobe-fin fish are more closely related to tetrapods than they are to ray-finned fishes, which they are more closely related to than sharks, etc.)
Janet, dammit: A t-shirt is setting back feminism? Get over yourself.
It’s an extremely powerful t-shirt, hellkell, and being posted on twitter only increases its magical properties.
Well, shoot. I guess it was a good run while it lasted, but the Jessica Valenti had to go and wear a t-shirt and set feminism back. By big strides.
Big strides
Because of a t-shirt.
Actually, because of sexual dimorphism, those strides aren’t as big as they could be.
(Kidding.)
Phoenician,
Based on who our relatives are, less “mildly polygynous” and more “fans of orgies”. Both bonobos and chimpanzees are similarly dimorphic to humans in size and muscle mass, and both are promiscuous. That is not the same thing as polygyny, because the females are getting into the act, too.
Actually, in the bonobos, females seem to be in charge, which really blows the “Men are taller and stronger and therefore in charge” out of the water.
I just decided to stencil “Male Tears” onto something.
Dear Nathan,
I’ve noticed your trickery in your comments.
First you assert that feminism and the MRM must be held to entirely different standards as seen below.
(Linda… “I bathe in male tears” does not have horrible harassment/abuse/patriarchal baggage attached to it. We live in a patriarchy, where women are not treated as equal to men in all ways (including opportunity and outcome). Women are raped more than men, abused more than men, make less than men, don’t have the same opportunities as men, and so on.)
Aside from the obvious bullsh*t that is the “pay gap”, “patriarchy” and the proven-false claim that women are abused more (http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm), what difference does it make who is abused more? Do the male victims just not matter? Because they may be less numerous, mocking them is acceptable to you? I’m guessing you’ll answer “yes”.
Oh, wait, suddenly it’s not mocking them? Couldn’t the MRM apply the same logic?
Also, most of us are atheists and don’t believe in original sin.
And then you go on to assert that feminism has the moral high ground, when you hold them to no standard of behavior whatsoever, yet have exacting standards of the MRM? That’s akin to, as you always say, starting on 3rd base and claiming the same accomplishment as someone who hit a home run.
Cute…very cute.