Yesterday, A Voice for Men published an article so extreme, so hateful, so beyond the pale, that even Paul Elam, the site’s founder, was taken aback by it. Elam, who said he hadn’t read the article before other editors on the site posted it, claimed in a comment that when he finally did read it, it made him literally sick to his stomach.
Today, he took the extraordinary step – for AVFM – of taking down the article and offering an apology for publishing a piece so “counter to every aspect of our mission and values.” (It’s still up, for the time being, in Google cache; the original can also be found here.)
So what did this terrible, terrible article say? Brace yourself.
It said that Emma Watson’s recent United Nations speech on feminism … made some good points.
While the author of the piece, a tech dude turned “dating expert” named Jeb Kinnison, took the standard MRA swipes at the alleged evils of third-wave feminism, he argued that Watson’s version of feminism represented a kind of “equity feminism which is equally concerned with men’s rights.”
Then he described Watson as “very, very smart, and wise beyond her years … .”
I know, I know. Horrifying.
But that wasn’t even the worst part of Kinnison’s piece. In his conclusion, he actually suggested that
The smart and civilized aren’t spending their time nursing grievances based on sex, gender, race, or religion. If only the most intelligent voices were as amplified as the voices of ignorance and hate promoted by the grievance-mongering misandrists of third-wave feminism as well as insecure male misogynists.
Yes, that’s right: An article in AVFM actually acknowledged that some of those in the Men’s Rights ranks might actually be – gasp! – misogynists.
Naturally, such heresy could not stand. In the comments, a fight broke out between those who hated the article, and those who also hated it but felt that criticizing AVFM about anything was terrible and counterproductive and, hey, remember to donate to AVFM during the Fall Fundraiser!
In the former camp, the most outspoken critic was Nick Reading of Men’s Rights Edmonton, posting under the alias Eric Tiberius Duckman, who bluntly warned that
This article is disgraceful. If uncle Jeb here imparts any more of his mangina wisdom on AVFM, I’ll be seriously considering pulling my support and encouraging others to do likewise.
Elam was having none of this – very poor taste, especially during AVFM’s Fall Fundraiser! He responded to Reading’s threats to take his ball and go home with an indignant comment defending the editors who ran Kinnison’s piece and tearing into prodigal Nick:
[O]ur editors did their job and I am 100% supportive of that.
To be even more frank, even less appealing to me than this article is tantrums and ultimatums from readers attempting to exert editorial control by threatening to leave if they see content they don’t like.
Then apparently Elam decided that he didn’t support the editors 100% after all. In another comment, he declared that
This is the most overly generous, myopic interpretation of Watson’s speech I have seen, including feminist websites. It is literally embarrassing in its reductionist dismissal of issues unique to men and boys. …
I could write an entire article on what is wrong with this piece, but I am just too busy right now.
Throwing up.
Once he finished up with this, he took the piece down.
And AVFM’s Fall Fundraiser was saved!
Emilygoddess:
My husband has a relative who says he was told by a guy in HR, after he tried and failed several times to get into a management position, that he wasn’t going to get that kind of job because he wasn’t “diverse enough.”
Knowing the guy, I strongly suspect that it was one of these two things:
He was told he didn’t work well with a diverse group of people and that he needs to understand diversity more. He thinks, of course, you can only manage women or minorities if you are one and understand the crazy way they think. Unless you’re Dr. Dolittle and can talk to the animals. So there aren’t enough women and minorities in management because it taxes their wee branes but you can’t put men in those slots, that would bust the quota.
More likely I think this was just the way the HR person had of getting rid of him. The HR person didn’t feel like saying, you’re not ever going to be a manager unless you get a personality transplant so stop asking me. So he blames Political Correctness, “man to man.” It’s an easy excuse and no one’s going to report him for it and if they do he’ll deny it.
“could you knock off the updates from your boner?”
If “Updates from my boner” isn’t a Tumblr already I’d be very surprised.
I read Ms. Ford’s piece and found it very honest. The fact remains that, when women mention the realities and statistics when talking to many men, those men tend to back away as fast as they can. Men, in general, do not like it when the facts are brought up. Oh, they are fine with hazy generalities, but they hate it when women speak honestly about what our lives are like and what happens to women and girls in many countries. They say that we are being mean, or that those things are happening “over there,” not here – as if that makes a difference.
I have had so many conversations with men…so many times when they try to shut me up with “Why do you focus on the negative?” and “What are you complaining about? Your life seems good.” They do not get it…they do not WANT to get it. It IS about power. And I am SICK to DEATH of all the exhortations to be nice…speak sweetly and we may listen…you sound like a harpy when say those things. Invite men to the struggle? No…no…not anymore. Those men who see themselves and women as human first are already there for the long haul.
The rest can go rot, for all I care anymore.
Well, yes, I suppose it would. What would you suggest? Oh, and the link did not work. 🙁
Speak too directly and you’ll be dismissed as an angry, aggressive, scary bitch. Speak too indirectly and they’ll just ignore what you’re saying, other than the bits that don’t involve them giving up anything that they want or changing their behavior in any way.
There’s no point trying to play this game, because it’s always been rigged so that women lose every time. There is no right tone to adopt, because what many men take issue with isn’t really the tone, it’s the content. So, if you’re going to be criticized no matter how you phrase things, you may as well do so in the way that feels most natural and authentic to you.
So here’s something weird. Remember that troll Sean? He just showed up by commenting on an article that someone in my extended network likes (“Emma Watson Sucks”)
… I’m actually tempted to get all sarcastic now. Six degrees of
Kevin BaconmisogynyI like it, yes I do. Male Privilege Meatheads. Has a nice ring to it.
Late to the comments, but I want to the chorus of people who were completely fooled by the cut!
Does anyone at The Good Men Project identify with the MRM or as an MRA? I’m not going to slander them by doing so.
This FTW.
Occasionally you see feminists going on about how other feminists should phrase things… Some believe men will listen to us if we’re nice enough and others that they will listen if we’re angry enough, but really, there’s no point to such criticism, we should just let other feminists be who they are.
Regarding the Good Men Project, I used to read some stuff there way back, and thought that they occasionally had good articles about real problems facing men. BUUUUUUT then came the infamous rape apologia. I’m NOT gonna google these articles up and link to them, but the first one was written by a rapist who basically claimed that when people get drunk and party together, rape happens sort of by accident, so if we’re gonna accept that people get drunk and party we also have to accept a certain amount of rape.
TW RAPE DESCRIPTION
He wrote about how he’d once forcibly kissed a girl at a party and then shoved his had up her vagina so hard that she was physically hurt, and he wrote that off as a silly misunderstanding, and oh how was he supposed to know that she was both physically and psychologically hurt by that event until she told him explicitly that she was much later on?
The second article was written by a woman who wrote about how her male friend had raped a girl.
TW AGAIN FOR RAPE AND HORRIBLE VICTIM BLAMING
The woman wrote that this other woman had been flirting with her male friend as a party, and for all we readers know that might have been true. But later on this other woman passed out drunk, and the author’s male friend then raped her in her drunk state. The author wrote that her male friend couldn’t possibly have known that he did something wrong, because a) we live in a rape culture that condones that kind of behaviour, and b) the bitch was asking for it anyway since she had been flirting with him earlier. I’M NOT MAKING THIS SHIT UP!!!! SHE REALLY COMBINED A AND B!!!!!
Lots of readers of the site were outraged, but the authors and site managers just doubled down and refused to acknowledged that they had done anything wrong by publishing these pieces… They just kept repeating over and over and over again that they published these pieces in order to understand why rape happens, and if we want less rape in the future this is really important. Um, yeah, it’s important to know why rape happens in order to prevent it, but here’s a suggestion; maybe looking at actual research about rape is more fruitful than looking at what apologies rapists and the friends of rapists make for their behaviour?
Anyway, totally lost fate in the Good Men Project after that one.
Yeah, even putting aside the “sane” part, framing the Good Men Project as the good guys in comparison to MRAs? Nope. The disingenuous guys, maybe.
@emilygoddess – I actually just finished my sexual harassment training. It was done online through the Chamber of Commerce website this time, rather than by HR. They showed videos of sexual harassment examples, and the harassers were equally male and female. Not sure if this is the same everywhere or if they normally feature mostly males in these scenarios – I live in Santa Cruz, CA, which is a pretty progressive city. Of course, it did make me laugh because the acting was so horrendously bad and over the top!
I did not know where else to post this, but AARRGGHH!!!!!!!!! I am SOO ANGRY that I could spit nails! It is STOOOOPID!! It is INSULTING!!!
It is sooooo typical….sob
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/sep/25/fox-news-mock-female-pilot-isis-sexist-jokes
Yeah. I always thought letting people be who they are was the kind of the whole point of feminism anyway.
“Boobs on the ground” doesn’t even make sense in that context. She was a pilot. Her boobs were in the air.
Which made me think of flying tits. (SFW).
Googling for that brought me to this GIF:
http://hugelolcdn.com/i/136946.gif
Hehehehehe Thanks for that, cloudiah. I needed a gentle laugh after the horror of the Fux News Guyz to put things into perspective again.
Seriously, though, I am sick to death of the constant put downs of women in ALL fields, even the ones the dudes want to keep us in. I remember the hurt and confusion I felt as a kid, learning that no matter what I did or how well I did it, the Penised Wonders of the world would always let me know that I was no good. Even the priest in my church did a sermon about how the only way that we could ever be loved by the Cosmic Thunderer was to become boys.
Ah, well…sigh. I did love the Bouncings Tits, tho…:)
I didn’t know before that tit is also a bird. 🙂
Well, they particularly have to demean women pilots, since that’s a branch of service where you can’t fall back on sexual dimorphism* to say women can’t do the job. So they are practically forced to reduce her to her body parts, since they can’t really point to any other grounds for keeping her out.
*Not that that’s valid in other branches of service, it’s just more obviously irrelevant in flying.
Dvärghundspossen, I have two friends who are avid birders, and while hanging out with them I hear the phrase “great tits” frequently.
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/data//tits.jpg
@lordpabu – Wouldn’t mandatory classes on gender studies need at least a uniform curriculum? Given the US differences between red state and blue state science, I shudder to think of how such a course might have to look to get the nod in deep red localities.
RE: Bina
Any particular recommendations?
I’ve heard this stuff is awesome!
RE: Dvarghundspossen
Um, yeah, it’s important to know why rape happens in order to prevent it, but here’s a suggestion; maybe looking at actual research about rape is more fruitful than looking at what apologies rapists and the friends of rapists make for their behaviour?
Yeah. I’m reading up on a lot of incest stuff lately, and I’ve found I actually get kinda tetchy when the books go into explanations of the molesters’ behavior. Just because I don’t CARE why our grandfather molested fucking everyone, he obviously was never going to stop, and I just want to be able to recover without spending even more brain juice on his feelings and rationalizations.
Is it permissible for me to refer to the Fox Presenters as “Boobs on the Air”?
Well, sure. I went to look up the word “boob” just to make sure:
boob- 1905-10, Americanism; back formation from booby
noun
1. a stupid person; fool; dunce.
2. British. a blunder; mistake.
verb (used without object)
3. British. to blunder.
Have at it!!
blalistic, it wasn’t a good joke so don’t worry.
Teh menz hunted the mammoth, you made the mammoth stronger, therefore you have completed your daily act of misandry. I was congratulating you.