[UPDATE: The real White Ribbon Campaign has responded; I’ve added excerpts at the bottom.]
Apparently, A Voice for Men is just itching to be sued.
Paul Elam and the gang over at everyone’s favorite Men’s Rights hate site have just launched a new website — WhiteRibbon.org — that seems pretty clearly designed to undermine and co-opt the real White Ribbon campaign, a long-running international initiative to fight violence against women.
The REAL White Ribbon campaign has a number of websites, reflecting its international reach — in Canada, where the initiative originated, as well as in the UK, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand. and other places. But apparently the organization didn’t buy up all the related domain names.
And so the little schemers at A Voice for Men have grabbed the WhiteRibbon.org URL for themselves and set up a site of their own that seems intended to, as the lawyers say, cause confusion in the marketplace and take advantage of the White Ribbon campaign’s good name for its own purpose. As least that’s how it looks to my non-lawyer eyes — and to the eyes of one lawyer I contacted.
The site has evidently just gone live, heralded by a post from Elam on AVFM declaring
Gents and ladies, I present to you without further ado whiteribbon.org and whiteribboncampaign.org. It is a website I am very proud of, and proud to say that AVfM will be investing whatever resources it takes to make whiteribboncampaign.org the most highly recognized and iconic voice in the worldwide White Ribbon Campaign.
With our resources, and our reach on Google, it is only a matter of a short period of time before we can make good on that promise.
AVFM has also set up a phony Facebook page as well. Here’s the real White Ribbon Facebook page.
A Voice for Men may pretend that their sites are an attempt to fight domestic violence “against everyone.” But evidence of AVFM’s bad faith is everywhere, and overwhelming.
On its faux White Ribbon site, for example, AVFM declares that it is the REAL White Ribbon campaign and that the real campaign … is a fake.
In a post with the title Caution: Please beware of false White Ribbon initiatives, Claire Bissett – identified as the “administrative manager of whiteribbon.org” – writes:
There is only one whiteribbon.org
First, allow me to welcome all of you to whiteribbon.org. White Ribbon is a worldwide initiative to bring awareness of the problem of intimate partner and other forms of family violence to the population at large. …
It is … my sad duty to caution you that there are numerous attempts by other entities to corrupt the message of the White Ribbon Initiative by inserting dishonest and sexist messages into this movement. …
[W]e urge you in the strongest possible terms to consider what you are actually seeing when you encounter groups going by the name “White Ribbon” whose message is gendered, as in “Stop Domestic Violence Against Women.” …
These people are much more interested in raising money than in raising awareness. …
There is only one White Ribbon Initiative that seeks evidence based, scientific and realistic ways to help reduce the problem of violence in the home. You are at the source of that initiative right now. Please help us out by donating and by passing this website on at social media sites and your own blogs.
Yep, they’re asking for money. The donation button is at the top of the page, with the perhaps deliberately ambiguous message:
WhiteRibborn.org is owned and operated by A Voice for Men. All donations for our White Ribbon effort will be used to maintain and enhance this website.
It’s not clear to me whether “this website” refers to WhiteRibbon.org or A Voice for Men. In any case, if you click on the PayPal button, it takes you to an A Voice for Men donation page, and it’s up to you to specify the purpose of your donation. There are no assurances on the page that donations intended to support WhiteRibbon.org will be kept in a separate account or even spent on that website.
Elam’s own post announcing the WhiteRibbon.org page is so extravagantly disingenuous, so suffused with self-satisfied gloating, that you can practically hear him snickering sadistically like some cartoon villain as you read it.
The people behind the White Ribbon have undoubtedly put in a huge amount of sweat equity and actual funds in branding the White Ribbon Campaign (WRC). …
Obviously, the people getting the job done on behalf of WRC really outdid themselves on planning and marketing.
Well, there was one goof. They neglected to pick up the obvious choices for domains for their program, especially given they are aiming for growth. …
As I mulled over the considerable resources we now have at A Voice for Men, and our ongoing interest in the area of domestic violence, I surmised that this was a very opportune moment to invest vigorously in the WRC project. This was confirmed when I found out that whiteribboncampaign.org, whiteribbon.org, and most of the .coms and .nets associated with that name were similarly unspoken for.
What a fantastic time, I told myself, for the AVfM organization to figuratively join hands with White Ribbon Campaign organizations worldwide and to help them spread the unyielding truth about the problem of domestic violence in this culture.
So that is exactly what we did.
Wow.
As I said before, I’m no lawyer, but someone who is a lawyer tells me that what AVFM is doing is such a clear violation of trademark law that the real White Ribbon campaign could not only sue but win its case. The evidence of AVFM’s bad faith is so clear and overwhelming, the lawyer notes, that the judge hearing such a case would likely “choke.”
Not only that, but AVFM seems to be acknowledging upfront that their new “initiative” is an attempt to divert money from the real White Ribbon campaign and into AVFM’s coffers. The reader comment chosen as the “featured comment” for Elam’s article is from a longtime AVFMer saying that he will be taking the money he would have donated to the White Ribbon campaign and sending it to Elam’s initiative:
Other commenters praised Elam’s “genius” and did little victory dances, their comments indicating that they understand full well that Elam’s claims to be “figuratively join[ing] hands with White Ribbon Campaign” are transparent bullshit. Here an an assortment of comments taken from the 100+ now up on the site.
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Some commenters took it a bit further. Shrek6, so gleeful in the comment above, earned some upvotes with a violent rant against the original “white feather” and the White Ribbon campaign that he sees as its modern equivalent:
If I had the power and I could, I would arrest every single white feather wielding coward, strip them of all their female clothing, put them in army greens and send them directly to the front line to have their heads blown apart by high powered bullets or shrapnel. Or they can watch as their female friends get their bodies blown into many parts by a bomb of some sort.
That is the only way to treat the lowest form of scum on this planet. You have to make them actually experience the hell they are shaming men into.They are nothing but murderers and the most vial and foul thing to walk on 2 legs.
Knowing this white ribbon campaign is nothing but an extension of the white feather campaign, we must show them our indignation, our hatred and our anger. We must do all we can to beat them down, even if we have to get into their filthy nest to do so. And having this website is hopefully going to achieve that end.
(Emphasis mine. See a screenshot of his full quote here.)
A fellow by the name of Mike Gibbs added:
Traitorous white-knights and mangina’s are exponentially worse that feminist and as such, both should be eliminated.
(See a screenshot of his full quote here.)
One commenter responded, for some unknown reason, with a graphic photoshopped picture of … Anita Sarkeesian with bruises all over her face, as if she had been severely beaten. Screenshot here.
If you plan on “fucking up the shit” of a large international organization by infringing on its trademark, it seems to me, it’s probably a bad idea not to announce this publicly – and gloat about it.
And if you’re trying to pretend that you care about ending violence, you should probably not be posting comments calling for violence against your enemies.
UPDATE: The real White Ribbon campaign has responded to AVFM’s campaign. Here are some excerpts of their response, which you can see in full on their web site.
Today, White Ribbon (www.whiteribbon.ca ) became aware that a “so-called” men’s rights group has launched a copycat campaign articulating their archaic views and denials about the realities of gender-based violence.
Their vile sentiments – which include disparaging comments about women’s shelters and victim blaming survivors of rape – are completely incongruent with our values at White Ribbon.
Their misguided attempts to discredit others only make clear the extent to which they see the success of our equality-driven, evidence-based, ally-focussed work on gender justice as a real threat to their ill-informed, isolated views on this issue. This latest example is clear evidence of their insincerity and lack of commitment to developing compassionate solutions for the issues they claim to care about. It also showcases their real focus: attacking, harassing and directing anger towards others. …
Allies and supporters: do not to be fooled by this copycat campaign. We are exploring all of our options, but we will not be engaging with this group in a public screaming match. They can remain a shrill minority. We will continue to engage with the vast majority of men who believe in gender justice, and want to be part of the solution.
Their tactics are basically identical. Up is down, feminists are the real sexists, and GamerGate totally doesn’t dox anyone but they deserved it.
I know someone mentioned ICANN above, but since it was mentioned earlier in the thread that the domains were registered with name.com, I checked their TOS, which reads, in part:
Full TOS here:
http://www.name.com/policies/registration-agreement
So it might be worth it to reach out to them. Also, if they’re taking donations through Paypal, it seems like they could be violating the “Restricted Activities” part of their TOS as well:
https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/ua/useragreement-full#9
Protip: If your “men’s human rights movement” has to trick people into supporting it, it’s a good sign that your movement might be bullshit.
what basis do they even have for the claim that white ribbon is “an extension” of the white feather movement? just because they both have the word “white” in them?
come on, dudes.
Oh my god! White Power also has white in it! Neo-Nazis are also tools of the Feminati!
Why?
Wow, Todd Minerson (who wrote the WRC response) sure doesn’t fuck around.
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BarnBurner sez:
I’d almost like to see Elam try, considering that WRC seems to be an organization that focuses on men and boys and deconstructing toxic masculinity. There is no way Elam would succeed in spinning WRC’s activism as them wielding feminism against men. WRC, on the other hand, has the standing to expose Elam as a petty bigot who hurts men rather than helps them.
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Catfish sez:
Exactly. They’d see the WRC as a group to ally with and as a model for engaging men in gender-based social justice activism, not a group to undermine.
Fraud and grifting is the important project that has been in the works for months? This is what Elam has been bragging about all this time?
Oh, and please keep sending people to our pages, where they can learn the difference between a fucked up, bigoted campaign to address family violence, and a campaign that relies on solid, proven information which offers the possibility of real solutions.
Um…even if someone believed the WRC was bigoted/one sided/whatever, how would donations that only pay for a website offer “the possibility of real solutions”? What solutions would those be, pray tell? No money is going to be used for shelters or hotel rooms or therapists or counseling or even a DV phone line. How does anyone fall for this?
Ack…I lost my quotes, the first paragraph was a quote
Because it’s not “true equality” unless every organization focuses on helping everyone equally, of course.
The thing is, that sort of false egalitarianism, when taken to it’s logical conclusion, would mean that there shouldn’t be ANY charities, programs or organizations that focus on specific groups, as being “egalitarian” means they must help everyone (“How come there’s no food stamps for rich people??” “How come there’s no programs to get more boys and men in tech??!!”). That’s not equality, that’s denying that some groups are disproportionately negatively impacted by certain issues.
Another thing is that since the White Ribbon Campaign seeks to provide an alternative to toxic standards of masculinity rooted in physical aggression and violence, men/boys would also stand to benefit from that anyway, as men and boys are often the victims of male violence themselves. Less violence committed by men = Less male victims of violence/homicide.
@Why Pixie?
Have you received your Welcome Package yet?
http://artistryforfeminismandkittens.wordpress.com/the-official-man-boobz-complimentary-welcome-package/
First off, they are definitely liable for fraud. Probably for defamation, especially since they are claiming to be the “real” White Ribbon Campaign. And how much would anyone want to bet that they haven’t even bothered setting themselves up as a 501(c)? ALL OF THAT is HIGHLY illegal!
I hope to hell AVFM is sued into bankruptcy. The White Ribbon Campaign isn’t about ‘domestic violence’–it’s about male violence against females and anti-feminist violence specifically, started and maintained as a memorial to the female engineering students who were murdered by Marc Lepine in 1989 after he excused the male students from the classroom. The White Ribbon Campaign isn’t a organization that demonizes men–it’s a men’s organization that supports men. I can see precisely why AVFM would hate the WRC. The WRC promotes ideas of healthy, non-toxic, and decent manhood and masculinity that are exactly the opposite of the philosophies that grow like poisonous bacteria in the hot, desperate undergrowth of the internet that are the MRA, PUA, GamerGateDudeBro, and Return of Kings communities.
Regarding that post at AVfM, do you think Pauly realizes that his pants are unzipped and his rageboner is sticking out. I mean, you want to convince people that you’re a serious charity, you might want to leave “shit” and Z”fuck” and “motherfuckers” out of it.
“Oh, and please keep sending people to our pages, where they can learn the difference between a fucked up, bigoted campaign to address family violence, and a campaign that relies on solid, proven information which offers the possibility of real solutions.”
Just a small comment on the bolded part – if this was said by damn near anybody else I would assume that it was just poorly worded, but no. He really thinks that working to stop domestic abuse is a horrible thing no matter what, and that the definition of “Bigot” can be stretched to cover “People against domestic violence.”
… Erm, and I know that everybody here’s aware of that already, heh, the wording of it just struck me as being particularly jaw-dropping.
Using foul language does so much to convince people that you’re sincere and thoughtful.
First of all, comments are closed for this article on DONOTLINK.COM “white ribbon.org” because of inappropriate responses. Secondly, any person with half a brain and knows how .org sites and the internet works knows it’s not the original site. Lastly, if someone wishes to contribute to any organization that fights to stop violence against all persons, that should be just as good if not better as fighting violence against women and girls only. I don’t see how so many people can be upset over a “copycat” site that actually provides useful and factual information about domestic violence and violence of any kind, especially because it calls out that men and boys are victims also and that women are perpetrators also. No one is safe from violence and NO ONE should be exempt from getting help because of gender, age, race or sexual preference. That’s equality. When the majority of wording in these groups and movements focuses on women and how people, particularly men, need to help them, we are ignoring other victims and letting female perpetrators off the hook. This is not equality.
I would like to correct my previous comment. You’re link does not go directly to whiteribbon.org, but that is their website. It is in fact the correct link outside of you’re page.
it’s amazing how there isn’t a single comment in disagreement with the article. absolutely objectivity is it?? AVFM and MRM do not have any point at all?? Seems weird when focus is clearly on female existing or perceived issues while no man issue is ever discussed or acknowledged.
@Brandi
Not all groups have to cater to everybody at once to be fair. A lot of groups like WRC are networked with other focus groups who specialize in different but complementary areas. It’s the larger community that ought to serve all people, not this one group or that one group.¹ If men wanted to make another group dedicated to helping male victims, the real WRC would no doubt be happy to ally with them.
But then, you have no idea what a site that was actually supportive of male victims of violence would look like, do you? Here’s a clue: It wouldn’t focus on trying to downplay violence against women, and it sure as fuck wouldn’t rely on discredited, cherry-picked studies to try to show men have it worse. Basically, it wouldn’t be about one-upsmanship at all.
What’s really sad is that given how the WRC’s mission mostly involves working with men and boys to deconstruct toxic masculinity, it would be really easy to design a complementary program that does the same thing with the aim of helping male victims come forward and get out of abusive relationships without stigma and helping non-abused men to accept that male victims aren’t failures of manhood who deserve to be abused.
…………
¹ I worked at a cat rescue for years. We specialized in cats, but since all rescues are heavily networked, we could refer people to other kinds of rescues if they had non-cats in need of help.
@a. Noyd,
Those are interesting observations. What it seems to me from my research is that there are very few abuse programs aimed at helping men and are more about stopping men from committing violence against women and children. Whiteribbon.org is not trying to “one-up” anyone. They are pointing out that there are massive flaws and bias in DV statistics and information. They are trying to address violence against all persons, not just women, unlike a majority of DV groups and orginizations. By focusing on DV or any violence against women as only perpetrated by men and being able to be stopped by men, we are ignoring a large group of victims and causing anger towards men and telling men they are the problem, period. How does this help the idea of “toxic masculinity”? By condemning all men as toxically masculine and abusers. This is isolating men from women. There are very few sites that target men as victims in abuse and even ones with gender neutral wording have women and children plastered on their websites, no men. AVFM is trying to show people that conversation has gone horribly wrong and all victims need to be acknowledged, not just men or just women.
And your example is perfect, it’s like having a vet clinic that only helps cats, but if you’re a dog and you need attention, you’re probably going to get ridiculed and sent elsewhere. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3175099/
These programs are mainly manned and run by women who claim to want to end stereotypes for men also, so what does this data tell you?
And when you have to give men a list of ” men friendly” shelters and abuse programs, there is a problem.http://www.batteredmen.com/bathelpnatl.htm
Thank you for being respectful during this discussion.
You can play the sad trombone all day but you cannot make 93% male perps equal 7% female perps.
You don’t see how Elam’s site is blatant copyright infringement?
You don’t see how Elam’s site is blatant misinformation and disinformation?
You don’t see how the overwhelming majority of DV victims are female, and the overwhelming majority of perpetrators male?
You don’t see how you are perpetuating false equivalence here in defence of a site whose sole intent is to exploit idiots for Paul Elam’s own fun and profit?
Your idea of “equality” needs some work, dear.
Brandi’s a dude, right?