[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.
–
–
–
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.
Apart from copying someone else’s site, setting up a similar URL with the explicit purpose of misleading potential donors, and trying to pretend they’re the real deal? What more evidence do you want?
@Bina
Don’t forget the part where Elam’s openly stated that not one red cent of the donations will go towards anti-violence work or helping victims, even male victims, so it’s a scam on top of everything else.
It’s not men who are the problem, it’s men like you.
There has been some discussion about what Paul Elam means when he calls people like David F bigoted. I suggest that his definition of “bigot” is anyone who does not recognize that white cis/het males are the most persecuted minority in the world today. Isn’t paranoia swell!
Brandi: You’re gonna have to cheerlead harder if you want to make the Honey Badger squad.
Pauly’s idea of bigotry is anyone saying women are human beings, that men don’t get to own us, and that men don’t get to beat or rape us without consequence.
Fuck off Brandi. Paul Elam’s fraudulent website is not going to help any male DV victims. Nobody thinks you’re really a woman either. Piss off sweat sock.
Brandi sez:
Why don’t you try responding to what I wrote instead of repeating the idiotic, dishonest AVfM party line. A group interested in addressing violence would invest resources in helping victims and/or educating perpetrators. It could, for instance, offer funds to put battered men up in hotel rooms temporarily or develop a program for use in schools to educate both boys and girls about what DV against men looks like. It would not work solely to tear down a long-standing and genuinely effective organization over bogus political disagreements while trying to siphon donations from them.
No one’s saying that. No. One. Certainly not the real WRC or anyone on WHTM. That’s your own ludicrous strawman. For fuck’s sake, do you even realize that WRC is an organization run by men? For men? Their mission is to show men that masculinity doesn’t have to contain anti-woman elements or resolve conflict with violence.
If masculinity doesn’t demand contempt for women, then men won’t have to fear that asking for help and admitting they’ve been victimized emasculates them. If masculinity doesn’t encourage violence as a resolution to conflict, then male-on-male violence is automatically reduced as well. Those are the ways WRC incidentally helps male victims of violence even though their focus is ending violence against women. Those are the things AVfM would seek to reinforce and amplify if they were at all interested in actually helping men rather than merely obsessed with hurting feminists.
What the fuck are you even on about? First, I was talking about a cat rescue. It’s not a vet; it’s a type of charity that takes in stray or unwanted cats and finds them homes. Second, no one ridicules someone looking to help a dog (much less ridicules the dog itself). No animal rescue of any kind is indifferent or hostile to dogs. If they’re a cats-only rescue and someone contacts them looking to help a dog, they will look up a rescue or two that works with dogs and refer the person there. Doing so is easy because rescue organizations are heavily networked.
Do you really not get this? Because this is how all legitimate aid organizations work, whether they’re for animals or humans. They’re the opposite of antagonistic toward one another.
If your intent was to use me as an example of civility against the other people on WHTM, you can go eat a bag of raw, salted assholes.
So now it’s bigotry to not let a dog stay at the cat shelter?
Aside from ridiculing the poor dog, which is just silly to imagine, how would anyone see this as a problem? The dog gets referred to the appropriate resource and everyone gets helped.
I wonder if Brandi is that guy who made the video of his phone call with a DV hotline claiming it was proof that men were being denied help when he wasn’t allowed to stay in a women’s shelter. Of course he was offered about a thousand different kinds of help, including connecting him with a place that would put him up in a hotel immediately, but he refused them all.
First of all I am not a man.please be more original than that.
Secondly, besides China I have failed to find one white ribbon campaign that works to help male victims. They continuously bring the conversation back to female victims. If you have an example, please share.
Third, not all statistics or surveys are equal. A fact that AVFM and others has continuously tried to point out. There is a growing number of female on male DV cases and those numbers are being disregarded to keep the narrative going.
Fourth- whiteribbon.org is very clear in their statement that they are an informational website and donations go to keeping the website running. They are not lieing or taking funds from anyone. Intelligent people are perfectly capable of donating to any other organization that helps victims and preventing DV or violence of any kind. But I’m sure it does piss people off that they may get that information and then help men and not women. And that’s the real issue here, not helping only women. If
these groups truly cared about helping victims of DV they would not use women as a selling point for funds. They would help ALL victims and educate ALL people about how DV or any violence against another person is wrong. They would include statistics that cover all victims, such as the large number of women who are child abusers. I get that you all hate that they “copied” the site and they provide a different side of the data, but they are trying to prove a point that it’s not just women. Not that women aren’t important or that they deserve abuse, but that men and boys matter too. What does telling all men that they are the cause of abuse and can stop it do when they are being abused? Do you think it might have the same repercussions as telling women they deserve to be raped for wearing certain clothes? Sounds like a perfect comparison. When you constantly bombard someone with ideas about who they are, they start to believe it and believe they deserve certain treatment. It’s the exact reversal of what men have done to women.
And I wasn’t using you as an example of civility. I was saying thank you for providing me the same civility I provided you. If you can please provide links to evidence that these programs work with programs that help male victims I would appreciate it. And in leaving I offer this https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&ei=ABJNVPPkH4ac8QHfz4CoCA&url=http://www.saveservices.org/pdf/SAVE-VAWA-Discriminates-Against-Males.pdf&ved=0CCcQFjAF&usg=AFQjCNGbpycLEeyOaGD7ZOpILkp3lETTPQ&sig2=Qasugj0OirDLC71UfC0Hcw
Did paragraph breaks kill your dog or something? Why the grudge against them?
Seriously?
Come on now, that high faluting article of yours references the Jezebel article oh-so-famous for being the go to punching bag of the manosphere. Let’s play some more “What’s That Reference?”
7 – internet page, ifeminist… but is actually a recap of the Jezebel Article: “Have You Ever Beat Up Your Boyfriend?” (Color me surprised)
6 – “Amy Whinehouse Beats Up Her Boyfriend When Drunk”.
Nice, that’s statistically significant.
8 – A book about Abraham Lincoln? Errr, sure.
several references are explicitly to people pointing out the bill itself is meant to be gender neutral, apply to everyone, cover all forms of abuse… and others are for men being turned away from shelters.
The logical conclusion here is that some people haven’t read the rules of their bills, but apparently that don’t real, because the real conclusion is that:
Sorry, equal treatment under the law does exist, it’s the unequal interpretations you have to deal with.
Like newspaper article reference 44 that explicitly points out the unfortunate implications of a society in which people are raised to believe female->male violence is less serious.
Oh, also, your SAVE services has a cool little video called “Campus Sex Under Affirmative Consent” that features such terrifying concepts as two people negotiation the kinds of things they’ll do to each other in bed.
TERRIFYING, I TELL YOU. At some point they talk about what they like! And don’t like! And don’t expect the other person to do to them, and this will all lead directly to:
Why won’t someone think of the children (having sex) who have to communicate about what they like in bed through this terrible affirmative framework?! I don’t go out and talk to people and get them into my bed just to talk about what kind of fun we can have, that’d involve appreciating the personality of someone else.
But I digress.
I hadn’t even heard of White Ribbon until this whole thing happened, so I have no idea what they do or don’t do. Even if they do only help female victims (and according to other commenters, it doesn’t sound like they do), that would be ok. It’s ok for a charity or other organization to focus on only one issue, or on one subset of victims of an issue if they want to. Why is that so hard to grasp?
It’s also totally ok for AVFM to launch a website that focuses exclusively on male victims. The problem is when they steal the name and reputation, and maybe donations, from an existing organization to do it.
Oh, you’ve been to China? And you’ve done extensive research there?
http://img.fark.net/images/cache/300/E/E1/fark_E1tgCV_k7Igkv1i4ocaQcxxxGQU.jpg
And the fact that any donations only go to maintaining and improving the website. The AVFM copy site doesn’t actually help anyone, not women, not men, not children. In order to help someone, those donations would have to actually do something (pay for counseling, pay medical bills, pay for hotel stays or shelters, pay for a freaking DV phone line with trained staff to help victims get free of their abusers).
@Brandi
I see you’re not interested in actually engaging any of the points I’ve made, except to express skepticism at the idea that the WRC would network with other men’s groups, even though that’s standard behavior for any legit organization¹ that helps people or animals. Nor have you shown you grasp what WRC does since you’re still babbling about DV victims and insisting WRC tells all men “that they are the cause of abuse” (which I already told you was a strawman).
As I said, you have no idea what a site that was actually supportive of male victims of violence would look like.
And no, you’re not being civil. I don’t care how many “nice” words you use; genuinely civil people deal with with their opponents’ points instead of almost entirely ignoring them in favor of repeating lies. You’re so dishonest and so ignorant (and so resistant to having your ignorance fixed), there’s no point in trying to communicate with you further.
……………..
¹ Another example of a non-legit organization would be a pregnancy crisis center run by forced-birthers. They exist to misinform pregnant people about their full options and, of course, refuse to refer to abortion providers or help get someone emergency contraception. They’re also infamous for copycatting real organizations and saying “they provide a different side of the data” as a defense against telling women things like abortions cause breast cancer and depression.
@ Brandi – is it hard to keep all those strawmen away from open flame?
Chevrolet sez:
Well, it’s okay for anyone truly interested in helping men to do that. I don’t think it’s okay for AVfM to try because they’re so incompetent they, like Brandi, can’t figure out how helping men and ruining feminists are completely different, mutually exclusive goals. And they’re so hot to do the latter, they’ll forever sabotage any efforts towards the former.
~*~*~*~*~*~
@Skye
Hell, even if it was just an informational site, that would be something, but it would have to provide accurate, unbiased information and point men to services that do the things you listed. The WHTM sidebar does more for male victims than Elam’s little con.
Well, true. I don’t think any site they put together is actually going to do much to help men. But I don’t really get why they think they have to even pretend to be neutral, with the whole “end violence against everyone” thing. Or why any group that focuses on women’s issues is “bigoted” for not also focusing on men. (I mean, I do get why; it’s just stupid.)
Trolls come to this site using female names when they’re actually men. If you aren’t a misogynist MRA man, congrats! You sure sound like one. Quite an accomplishment.
35% of woman in the world have been or are being abused. That’s more than two billion women globally. Why is it an enormous surprise that some orgs focus of female victims? Why would it bother you? Are you such a terrible person that you don’t want women being helped unless the org devotes exactly half their resources to men, even though women are more likely to be victims and the abuse is more likely to be severe? It’s not like anyone is stopping you from organizing to help male DV victims either. Orgs have limited resources and it’s ok for them to focus on a certain segment of the population. All orgs have to narrow their focus.
What surveys and statistics are wrong? And why are they are wrong? You’re just making a statement and not backing it up with evidence. Are you only accepting studies that back up your own bias?
They are lying. They said they’re the real White Ribbon site and the real site is fake. They’re trying to disguise themselves as someone else’s org. That’s very clearly a lie. And yes they are fraudulently taking funds from people if they think they’re donating to the real WRC. That little disclaimer doesn’t change that. Also, you’re implying that it’s okay to defraud someone if they aren’t intelligent. That’s so human rightsy!
Nobody is pissed off if a group focuses on helping men. You’re just pulling that statement out of your ass. We’re pissed off that Paul Elam is committing fraud in order to line his own pockets, which doesn’t even help men at all. Any actual non-profit that can help male victims without throwing female victims under the bus by downplaying violence against women is going to be just fine with everyone here. Also, any org trying to help male victims need to acknowledge that a lot of the men in need of help are going to be gay. AVFM is more interested in painting women as villainous than actually helping men so they tend to ignore victims who are gay men because it’s hard to blame women in that situation.
Interesting bit of projection here. You’re assuming that groups that focus on women don’t care about female victims and are just using them for PR. You have no evidence that’s true. I work for a non-profit. It’s hard, high stress work and the pay isn’t great except for the people at the very top of the largest orgs. The vast majority of people who go into non-profit work do so because they care about the issue the non-profit focuses on. Unlike, Paul Elam most people who fund raise for non-profits don’t put all the funds directly in their own pockets.
I also don’t see where the WRC or any other anti violence against women group is teaching anyone that it’s okay to abuse men or that violence in general is all right. Do you have any evidence of this?
Do you have any idea how social science works at all? It’s not the job of researchers to manipulate the data to make you and your fellow MRAs happy. The reason it looks like female on male violence is a smaller problem than male on female violence is because it is.
What does child abuse have to do with this? Although partner violence and child abuse can and do occur in the same household, they’re separate issues. WRC is focused of violence against women. That’s why they aren’t focusing on children. There are separate orgs that focus on child abuse.
I’m unaware of any government agency or major org that is making the claim that only men abuse children or turning away children that were abused by women. Do you have any evidence at all that this is a phenomenon that exists? Again, you’re just trying to prove that women are violent, you aren’t interested in actually helping any victims. Otherwise you wouldn’t need to say “large number of women who are child abusers.” That’s got nothing to do with partner violence.
Who hear has said any of that? Where on the actual WRC website does it say that? And no, pointing out that violence against women and misogyny is a problem is not equivalent to telling rape victims they were asking for it.
I’m confused. Are you saying that when we talk about violence against women we cause men to want to commit violence against women? It’s the fault not of men who choose to be violent but the people who advocate for victims? Classy. Again I say, so human rightsy!
Don’t ask other people to do your homework for you. You’re not a member of our community and nobody asked you to come here and spout tired MRA talking points. Why do you think anyone feels they have to prove anything to you? This is a misogyny mocking site and that’s what we’re here to do. That and post cat videos and talk about Doctor Who or knitting. Any debating we do with you is at our own leisure. You don’t get to tell us to look up links for you.
It’s not that I’m not addressing you’re points, I just think they fall along the typical biases. My point is that men and women, TOGETHER, should be the focus of assistance to victims and prevention.
That statistics do not show that women are the overwhelming majority. And the majority of funds and grants are allocated to the services of women only.
Yes, I do know what a men’s abuse site looks like because, despite their rarity, I have seen one. And they have vast differences from sites from women.
And yes, I am being civil to you and others on this page. Just because I do not agree and provide valid documentation for my point, does not mean I’m being uncivil. Sorry I do not address your points the way you like.
I understand that any group can be formed to help whoever they wish, but this is an issue that is predominately aimed at helping women. If other organizations drew a line like this and only assisted one gender , such as focusing only on AIDS awareness for men, there would be a huge uproar. Seriously, look st Movember, feminists are having a shit fit because (most) women can’t grow mustaches, but fail to realize all the other ways to bring awareness to men’s issues through that organization. Besides educating men not to abuse, what other assistance is there for men in WRC? You still never answered that and it’s available online that China is the only one who has opened male services.
This really is my only point, men and women need to work together for all victims and to spread prevention awareness to all genders.
AVFM used their tactics to get attention to this problem and it’s working. People are talking about and getting educated. They are not blaming men or women and they are not saying men are the only victims. They are saying it’s biased and it is and everyone needs to work to help all victims.
Feminist say they are about equality( “it’s the definition”) but when someone tries to point out inequalities that are not on their side , everyone of them gets mad. There is a problem with that. You shouldn’t ignore a while group just to provide ” equality” because that’s just what you’re saying men have done to women. OK. That’s all. I’m not replying anymore . have a good day and hopefully someone will see some logic in this.
Feminists no curr about Movember, tedious asshat, and a bunch of people going “wow, I can’t believe AVFM did that, how obnoxious of them” is not the same thing as their tactics “working”.
SO. FUCKING. WHAT?
Did you also piss and moan about the ice bucket challenge because it was all about ALS and no one was raising money for alzheimer’s?
Do you piss and moan that the organizations dedicated to helping abused men aren’t helping women?
You’re such a fucking liar.
My favorite thing about this particular “argument” (“If you flipped the script there’d be an uproar!”) is that in most of the cases when people try to use it, it’s easily proven false. For example: are you aware what gender the majority of AIDS sufferers used to be? Are you aware that specifically male-oriented AIDS organizations existed and continue to exist because the gay male community was and remains one of the hardest-hit demographics? JFC, is there no end to your ignorance?
Focus on EVERYTHING! Anything less is misandry! English class should include French, German, and Swahili, or else it’s doing a disservice to Spanish speakers!