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.
Regarding David’s supposed defense of pedophilia, as I said once before, I have never heard him to publicly assert his condemnation of the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks, so he is clearly an apologist for genocide. By the way, I have never heard the rest of you say anything about this either, you crew of genocide apologists! But then I haven’t actually explicitly condemned it either, so …
As to Linda Wong, she sounds to me like a young person (I’m not willing to commit myself to the conclusion that she’s a woman) who has had a course on evo-psych but not quite digested it. A lot of what she says is probably true, but she MISSES THE MOST IMPORTANT POINT, which is a generalization of what Cassandrakitty was getting at when she said, “That’s what a modern CEO really needs, huge muscles.” The fact is that we DO have sexual dimorphism that has been produced certain kinds of sexual differentiation (but much less than Linda seems to think), but a lot of the behaviors that result from that dimorphism, which may arguably once have been necessary to the survival of the species, are now at best disruptive and destructive in the society we live in today and even threaten the survival of the species itself (e.g., wars that might lead to use of nukes). So you can agree with most of what Linda says without accepting what is apparently her conclusion — that we have to accept what (some) men have (sort of) become because of what they had to do to survive under far far different circumstances. No, we can’t accept that. Male aggression and violence, however they came about, are now the most destructive force in society.
[TRIGGER WARNING!] What I wanted to ask Linda was, “Hey, if you were beaten and raped, would you smile and say, ‘Oh, he was just acting out his sexual dimorphism’?”
By the way, regarding the pat on the shoulder as sexual assault issue, I am under the impression that most women would distinguish between a friendly pat on the shoulder and a creepy invading your personal space with sexual overtones pat on the shoulder. And if, as a man, you can’t tell when it’s appropriate, maybe you’d better keep your hands to yourself.
In fact, Jesse Ventura just won $$$ in a libel case against someone who’s dead.
http://www.twincities.com/crime/ci_26237278/jesse-ventura-wins-1-8m-defamation-case
I do not think even one evo psych course was taken, or one in evolutionary biology. A basic course in biology, maybe. Wong appeared to know the words “sexual dimorphism”. That was about it.
I’m fairly certain that I know more about evolutionary biology than our new friend does, and it wasn’t even one of my minor subjects. I’m not entirely certain that new friend has ever seen a book.
Well, Linda’s definitely going to stick the flounce since I’ve put her on moderation for her tedious derailing.
I suppose I should go read JB’s attempt to smear me as an apologist for child prostitution by blatantly misrepresenting a book review I wrote, what, 18 years ago that did not mention child prostitution once. Elam apparently did a radio show on this as well. They’re desperate.
Linda Wong, Judgybitch, and all the other female defenders of gross misogynist males: I hope the pats on the head were worth it.
My first job out of college was as a file clerk for a state agency. The office was a large cube farm, and the files were kept along the central pathway that most people used to get to their desks, so I spent a lot of time standing where many people needed to walk. This usually wasn’t a problem because there was plenty of space for two people.
But there was one larger guy who worked there who kept managing to brush up against me every single time he passed — his entire front against my entire back. Crotch to butt, everything. The first couple of times it happened I figured it was my fault, I was in the way, etc. But I quickly realized he was doing it on purpose. And it wasn’t much later that I learned that it was common knowledge among the women of the office to never be in the elevator alone with him. The entire office knew this, and no one did anything about it. In that atmosphere, being the lowest ranking staff member, I knew it was pointless for me to report him, so I had to come up with various ways of avoiding him.
Somehow I have a feeling that Linda Wong would still term my experience as equivalent to “an unwanted pat on the back.”
It’s kind of funny how scared they are of a guy who runs a snark blog. A very entertaining snark blog, but still, it’s not as if you’re filing lawsuits against them.
Back to JB, if her followers actually believed those quotes, why would they keep following her? It doesn’t bother them at all that she makes things up and then presents them as true? It doesn’t make them wonder at all whether all those women holding up antifeminist signs might also be faked?
@katz:
The explanation is in JB’s absurd use of “Poe’s Law” as a justification for her libel. They think feminists really are that bad, and the fact that they thought the quotes were real just proves how bad feminists really are.
this is a lot like the feminist breeder vs skeptical ob showdown. I hope it actually goes to court. that would be awesome.
I’m so glad Linda Wong is on moderation. The trolls who go on about rape and sexual assault being TOTALLY DIFFERENT and one is TOTALLY NOT IMPORTANT really, REALLY chaps my ass, because I’ve encountered it so often. (I, a male rape survivor, disagreeing with her! Heavens to Betsy!) In part because a lot of definitions of rape fixate entirely on penetration, which out of sheer fortune I managed to avoid having forced upon me. (Instead, I got “lighter” sexual acts forced upon me, and more often, as retribution for resisting. But totally not rape guys!)
For the longest time, I thought that I was a fuck-up for being traumatized over something that was “just” assault, and not rape. I even had other survivors tell me it wasn’t really rape.
It wasn’t until one day, after I’d been with hubby a long time, that I realized something. Due to my history, I couldn’t stand the thought of penetrative sex, and we had been having a happy sex life regardless for years. If sex could be wonderful without penetration, then why couldn’t rape be terrible without it?
Also, GOD I hate that stupid testosterone bullshit. I WENT on testosterone. It did not affect my risk-taking, my aggression, OR my social dominance. (Unless my dose was too LOW, in which case I’d go into rages. But that doesn’t fit in their stupid bullshit argument.) And I was on a scientifically measured dose every fucking day for a couple of years. But oh well, I guess my ovaries meant I magically turned testosterone into gentle butterflies and sparkles.
RE: Bina
First link that came up was a porn star born in 1951, died 1987.
Aw, she died pretty young. That’s so sad.
“What, is Bootsy from SCP or something?”
That’s Josie, the half cat. Though Bootsy reminds me of one of the -Js that’s so cute it turns everyone into gibbering idiots.
Nathan, did you get a welcome package? http://artistryforfeminismandkittens.wordpress.com/the-official-man-boobz-complimentary-welcome-package/
When they resort to argumentum ad hominem and libel, you know they’ve got nothing left.
Bootsy borders on unnerving to me. She’s like a Chuck Jones drawing come to life.
You folks might like Trillian, whose cuteness tends to have a funny component what with her bobtail:
https://www.facebook.com/TrilliansGuidetotheMewniverse
I am kinda late, although not too late, but damn the comments move fast here.
About sexual dimorphism that was brough up by Linda Wong:
Yes, humans are sexually dimorphic. But, sexual dimorphism isn’t something that is found in every aspect of human existence.
What do I mean by this? Linda Wong says “Explain to me why men are bigger and stronger”. This is a very popular gambit amongst the “men and women are different and should have different roles in society” crowd. Contrary to their assertions, the study of “Men and Women Are From Earth:Examining the Latent Structure of Gender” by Bobbi Carothers and Harry Reis finds that:
1) yes, physical strength and anthropometric measurements show such results that they are taxonic by sex. In layman’s terms, you can draw a non-arbitrary line separating the genders by these traits.
2)however, you cannot do the same with psychological indicators (there is a whole lot of them and I will give a link at the bottom). Yes, the average results of all men and all women will be different, but these indicators aren’t taxonic by sex. They overlap by such a high amount that you cannot divide genders among these lines. As they write in their abstract:
“Average differences between men and women are not under dispute, but the dimensionality of gender indicates that these differences are inappropriate for diagnosing gender-typical psychological variables on the basis of sex.”
http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2012-28536-001/
http://www.psych.rochester.edu/people/reis_harry/assets/pdf/CarothersReis_2012.pdf
JudgyBitch suffers from penis envy — she’s trying to be as big a dikk as Paul Elam. I don’t think she has quite lofty enough rage, though.
That came out wrong:
“Yes, humans are sexually dimorphic. But, sexual dimorphism isn’t something that is found in every aspect of human existence.”
should read as
“Yes, humans are sexually dimorphic. But, sexual dimorphism isn’t something that is found as having equal effect in every aspect of human existence.”
Can we not? She’s an asshole, full stop.
Re “men will die of stubbornness.” My father did and my brother was in dire shape recently for the same reason. It’s a real thing as far as I’m concerned.
I doubt it would be worth it for Valenti to sue JB but I sure wish someone would sue AVFM or one of its followers. It still pisses me off that Elam got away with all his bullshit about the DoubleTree in Detroit.
Also, the importance we humans ATTACH to those differences are totally social.
Okay, so say men ARE universally stronger than women. So what? Why does that mean they should get paid more? If strength = $, then why aren’t laborers, construction workers, and movers paid the big bucks? They’re the ones who do the heavy lifting!
Let’s say men ARE universally more aggressive and risk-taking. So what? We don’t want our teachers to be aggressive and risk-taking with our children, who are the future. Hell, most of us don’t even want our leaders to be aggressive and risk-taking, because that can lead to disaster! So why are all the presidents in my country’s history men but most of the teachers women? (Until you reach college, when suddenly it U-turns and mostly men are professors.) That doesn’t make sense.
Even if what Linda was saying is true, that doesn’t mean that those differences should be valued the way they are. The value system isn’t biological; it’s cultural.
Also, if it truly were all about sexual dimorphism, why would trans people face any problems? Wouldn’t their biology mean they just effortlessly slot into the existing system?
The other thing that MRA-types frequently forget is that even if (cis)men have a genetic predisposition to more muscle mass than (cis)women, that doesn’t mean that all individuals will show that.
At least I hope not, considering that I’m too weak to change the water in the water cooler at work and if I’m still stronger than the average woman then something is seriously wrong with how heavy everything is.
The silliest bit of the troll’s attempt to use sexual dimorphism (physical) to explain behavior (heavily socialized) is that human brains are plastic, especially in infancy and childhood. If you socialize a child to believe that they’re supposed to have mechanical aptitude, give them mechanical toys to play with, teach them how to do mechanical stuff, and so on, and then take another child and discourage them from any interest in mechanical things, then by adulthood, shocker! Child A. will probably be better at mechanical stuff than child B. If you reward child A for socially dominant behavior, and punish child B for exactly the same behavior, guess what happens when they grow up?
Men being taller than women on average is a natural result of sexual dimorphism. Men being CEOs is not.
What’s weird to me is, if feminists really were the monsters they say we are, they wouldn’t HAVE to make that shit up. The act of doing it proves the reason for doing it wrong.
Too logical, I suppose.