Jessica Valenti – Guardian columnist, Feministing founder, non-man-hating feminist – has been fending off an unending torrent of harassment and abuse since she tweeted a picture of herself wearing an ironic t-shirt a couple of weeks ago.
Last weekend, a seemingly innocent tweet from her– asking her readers if they knew any countries that provided free tampons – set off yet another wave of abuse. Her question, and the cogent column she ultimately wrote on the subject, arguing that there are legitimate health concerns that justify government subsidies for tampons, inspired countless thoughtful comments from her critics. Like these:
https://twitter.com/skzdalimit/statuses/497828918851043330
https://twitter.com/adam_mcphee/statuses/497892354331000832
These sorts of comments (and there were many more along these lines) are sadly typical of the sorts of things feminists – particularly those of the female variety – get whenever they happen to state their opinion about anything online. (If you click on the second one you can see the Tweeter defending his vagina remarks against assorted critics.)
But a reader pointed me to something, well, interesting about that second tweet: It came from a fellow named Adam McPhee, a self-professed “egalitarian” who just happens to be a board member, and the official spokesperson, for a group we’ve discussed here before: the Canadian Association For Equality (CAFE).
CAFE has won itself a certain notoriety in recent months. In May, you might recall, the group’s planned E-Day festival fell apart after its sponsors and some of the musicians scheduled to perform at it discovered that they had unwittingly signed on to a Men’s Rights event.
The group has also organized talks by antifeminist speakers, including the now-notorious appearance of Warren Farrell at the University of Toronto, which inspired some, well, let’s just call them counterproductive protests that we’ve been hearing about endlessly ever since.
But CAFE has been working hard to gain itself a bit of respectability. It somehow managed to win itself charity status from the Candadian government, and has raised money to start up some sort of men’s center. And it has been trying to distance itself from one formerly close ally, A Voice for Men.
Indeed, McPhee himself recently gave an interview to the Toronto Star in which he described AVFM’s harassment of some of those who protested Warren Farrell’s talk as “completely wrong.”
So it seems just a tad ironic, to say the least, to see McPhee happily harassing Jessica Valenti on Twitter.
PS: Adam, I agree with Jessica on that whole tampon thing. So feel free to Tweet me your thoughts about my gaping vagina.
OMG, teh stoopid is strong with these people. Menstruation is not a wound; you can’t “stem the bleeding”. You can only catch and dispose of it.
And vaginas are made of muscle. You know, that super-duper-strong, elastic stuff that can stretch to let a baby’s big fat head through, and then contract back down to more or less what it was before the woman was even pregnant? Yeah, that stuff. It does NOT retain the size and shape of whatever was in there last, either. It just does its own sweet thing.
Gawd, these people need anatomy lessons in the worst way.
More MRA PR. That these people feel it is acceptable, even beneficial to share their vile thoughts… kind of proves the widespread cultural misogyny they don’t believe in.
The response to Jessica Valenti’s original tweet was amazing. She hadn’t voiced any opinion at that point, only asked if anyone knew of any countries that provide free or subsidized sanitary products. And the stupid gallery got wind of it and vocally complained at her, much the same way Adam “Gaping Vagina” McPhee over here did. It’s as if someone tweeted “Are there any countries with purple flags?” and was assaulted with a barrage of “WHY DO YOU WANT 2 CHNG TEH MERRICAN FLAG YOU BITTTTTCCHHHH!!!!1111!!!”
God, sometimes I wonder how these people are able to switch on a computer and log into Twitter in the first place.
giant gaping vagina.
Wait, wait, wait, wait. So, these chucklefucks think big dicks are the best, right? And they apparently think that vaginas are like old sock elastic and get stretched out of shape after a while.
So… is it apparently a PROBLEM that women bang big dicks? Does this mean they should only bang men with small dicks? Should they never give birth or have vaginal sex at all? I’m so confused.
(Also, dude, my cup is WAY bigger than a damn tampon, and I STILL can’t get much else up there. Anatomy works in unusual ways!)
AND WHAT WOULD BE WRONG WITH A GIANT VAGINA ANYWAY? Big dick + small vagina sounds like it’d = a world of hurt!
They’re just human-rightsing all over themselves.
Seriously, they’re the easiest reactionary movement to organize against ever. They shoot themselves, with their words & actions.
God, this shit is so human rightsy I can’t take it.
I’ll never cease to be amazed at the fundamental lack of knowledge about female anatomy and physiology amongst anti-feminists and misogynists. Todd Akin’s comments about “legitimate rape”, Rush Limbaugh suggesting Sandra Fluke used so much birth control because she was having so much sex (THAT’S NOT HOW THE ORAL CONTRACEPTIVE PILL WORKS OMG YOU IDIOT), asshole PUAs talking about “spermal bonding”, anybody who trots out a weak evo-psych rationalisation for why men are better than women …
In an information age, it’s hellishly impressive to maintain that level of ignorance. I’m pretty sure by the time I was starting high school, my classmates had a grasp on at least the basics of contraception. That people making sweeping pronouncements (and in some cases laws!) regarding women’s bodies without knowing how they work is a real indictment of our society.
Oh fuck not the good old “vaginas stretch permanently from sex myth” jokes. It’s not just ridiculous and uneducated, it lacks creativity. Though these guys have always been pretty low on that when it comes to insults. All . Their creativity is siphoned off into their bullshit “women oppressed me in Starbucks” stories.
Also, not sure if I’ve mentioned it here before, but here in Oz we have a 10% tax on most things you buy. This tax (the GST) is not levied on many things deemed “essential health items” including condoms, lubricant, folate supplements, incontinence pads, nicotine patches and sunscreen.
But not sanitary items. Pads, tampons, and moon cups all cop the 10% GST. Here’s a really good article about the debacle, written before the change of government late last year.
Do they think vaginas are like socks made of inferior material that doesn’t spring back into its original shape when you wash it?
None of this has anything to do with rights, and everything to do with trying to turn the clock back to the Middle Ages. These men, and I apologize to all of the real and true men in the world for using such a lovely term to reference vile scabs, want mommy back. They want women to devote themselves utterly to them…to making THEIR lives easy and comfy, while sacrificing our own lives and futures to do so. And we are supposed to agree to never mention our own concerns, needs and dreams. After all, they see the world as a zero sum game – if I have anything, then they have less. Same basic idea as that which the uber-wealthy often have.
They have never forgiven their own mothers for weaning them and telling them to get lives of their own, so they are trying to make all women pay for their tantrums.
If someone’s vagina is that displeasing to them, they could always perform other fun sex acts. But that seems to make them equally angry, so whatever.
LBT,
Think about who we’re talking about here. They do not want their partners to enjoy sex.
They should only bang men who are them. whatever their dick is like, that’s the only dick to fuck. It only matters that it is theirs and no one else’s.
What a well balanced and thought out reaction -__- In no way whats-so-ever.
So, let me get this straight. Jessica Valenti wrote a column about difficulties facing women worldwide from lack of sanitary products:
And these guys thought that the appropriate response to this is to make fucked-up jokes about her vagina?
Yeah, but they don’t hate women. Not in the slightest.
We all know what a pain in the ass that is to get out of clothing and upholstery.
Christ, she asked a question, she didn’t demand free tampons. I bet these assclowns would love free viagra though.
Misplaced rage spewed by the small-minded who feel threatened by women, men, hell, pretty much anyone. If only people like that didn’t blunder sometimes into leadership positions. 😛
In some ways, this is even weirder than the BC freakout, because while a person could chose not to have sex (not that I think that poor people shouldn’t have sex, but it is a choice) but I can’t stop bleeding from my vagina–unless I skip the forth weeks of the pills they don’t think my insurance should cover, of course, and that only works until I forget two days in a row… Then it won’t fucking stop.
I have actually missed a couple of days of high school because of hellcramps. Then I decided to risk the wrath of The War on Drugs (TM) and Zero Tolerance (TM) and started carrying Tylenol around in my purse, because fuck it. Also I’m white and middle class and I figured my chances of getting searched were basically nil.
OT: It really gets my goat when people who are promoting parental notification/consent for abortion use the “aspirin in schools” thing, because it is ridiculous, and anyway a ten year old with some cash could walk into a corner store and buy some tylenol if they wanted to.
This is Jack’s completely shocked face. Maybe the MRM would do better without spokes-people and PR managers.
Oh, fer fuck’s sake…
“Hey, I just have a random question I was curious about and want to ask if–”
“WHY DON’T YOU JUST SHOVE IT UP YOUR CUNT!”
“Um, did I say something wrong?”
“WHAT ABOUT MALE SUICIDE RATES, HUH?!?!”
“Wait, how did this come into the–”
“STOP ACTING SAD OVER ROBIN WILLIAMS, YOU BITCH!”
“I’m really confused right now…”
“YEAH, THAT’S RIGHT – YOU CAN’T DEFEAT MY MANLY LOGIC!”
Yeah, that’s totally “egalitarian” right there! What next, is he going to argue that humanism and feminism aren’t related at all – like every other misogynistic cretin who’ve adopted the term or petulant young Republicans calling themselves “libertarians”?
What women pay for sanitary products is an important men’s rights issue. That goes without saying.
In fact, maybe pads and tampons should get a special tax placed on them to make them more expensive. Just think about how much that would help men. Somebody needs to start a petition.
Lea already said this, but:
That’s probably the point…
Anyway, good job, Mr. McPhee, on setting yourself and your cause apart from AVFM. You’re so not like them at all.
For some reason, HTML won’t let me put in a /sarcasm in brackets.
@bittersweet:
You can put the brackets by doing < and > for the < and > signs!
Oh jesus, I second all this posted by strivingally”
“I’ll never cease to be amazed at the fundamental lack of knowledge about female anatomy and physiology amongst anti-feminists and misogynists. Todd Akin’s comments about “legitimate rape”, Rush Limbaugh suggesting Sandra Fluke used so much birth control because she was having so much sex (THAT’S NOT HOW THE ORAL CONTRACEPTIVE PILL WORKS OMG YOU IDIOT), asshole PUAs talking about “spermal bonding”, anybody who trots out a weak evo-psych rationalisation for why men are better than women …
In an information age, it’s hellishly impressive to maintain that level of ignorance. I’m pretty sure by the time I was starting high school, my classmates had a grasp on at least the basics of contraception. That people making sweeping pronouncements (and in some cases laws!) regarding women’s bodies without knowing how they work is a real indictment of our society.”
MRAs love pop evolutionary theory. It maintains the whole, “Cavemen times legitimizes my sexism” unsophisticated dudebros love to subscribe to. If they believe it, they don’t have to examine their actions or insecurities. They’re right because they’re men — white men.