So there’s a depressing (but very much a must-read) piece over on Yahoo News at the moment chronicling how a lawsuit by Men’s Rights activists (allegedly) led to the demise of Chic CEO, a small company offering support and advice for women entrepreneurs in the male-dominated tech world.
As Yahoo Tech writer Alyssa Bereznak explains, the whole debacle started when two men decided that they needed to be part of a Chic CEO networking event. Because, clearly, men need a leg up in the tech world.
Two men named Allan Candelore and Rich Allison, who had each prepaid a $20 registration fee on the Chic CEO website, tried to enter the restaurant. According to a legal complaint that they later filed with National Coalition for Men president Harry Crouch, Burns turned them away at the door, saying the event “was only open to women.” They took a photo, left the premises, then promptly initiated legal action, turning to a 1959 California law written to prevent discrimination against minorities and women.
So yeah. They’re like Rosa Parks, but for dudes.
Bereznak notes that this is not the first time the 1959 law has been used on behalf of the struggling, suffering male gender. Alfred G. Rava, the lawyer representing the two men turned away at the door,
has built a career around gender-discrimination lawsuits, filing approximately 150 complaints against California businesses over the past 15 years, according to CNN Money … and, as the secretary for the National Coalition for Men, he offers free consultation for NCFM members who feel they’ve experienced public discrimination because of their gender.
Rava has fought baseball teams giving out free mammograms and assorted swag to women as part of Mother’s Day promotions and has taken a stand against the evil tyranny of Ladies Night at a number of San Diego nightclubs.
And he’s often worked in concert with the other men involved in the ChicCEO case.
Candelore — who has been a member of NCFM for four years — has been the plaintiff in 10 civil cases since 2011, not including his case against Chic CEO. In nine of those 10 cases, he was represented by Rava. In eight of those, [NCFM president] Crouch joined him as a plaintiff. In seven of those cases, Allison was a plaintiff.
They’re like a “Reverse Discrimination” Superteam.
For her part, ChicCEO’s Stephanie Burns told Yahoo Tech that her company “does not discriminate against men,” pointing out that it has male clients and board members. But, apparently unable to afford the cost of fighting the claims in court, she chose to settle the case instead.
The strangest detail in the Yahoo News piece? This parenthetical aside from the author:
(Rava refused to speak to me on the phone because he said he was concerned Yahoo News would misquote him. He also later emailed me to say: “I hope you print all sides to your story, because I am sure you would not want someone to publish a story about you on the Internet labeling you a ‘predator,’ a ‘gigantic bitch,’ an ‘elitist,’ a ‘soulless harpie,’ a ‘narcissist,’ and a ‘dumb woman,’ without that story presenting facts or opinions to the contrary.”)
Apparently Rava has been taking lessons in public relations from the folks at AVFM.*
NOTE: THAT LAST SENTENCE WAS A JOKE. I HAVE NO PROOF RAVA IS TAKING PR LESSONS FROM ANYONE.
Naturally, MRAs have swarmed the comments over on Yahoo News — last I checked, there were more than 1400 comments on the post. Meanwhile, A Voice for Men has reposted a long and tedious piece by the NCFM’s Crouch presenting what he sees as the “truth” in the case.
AVFM chose to illustrate its repost with a picture of a white man in chains. Because a couple of lawsuit-happy men turned away at a women-in-tech networking event are pretty much the equivalent of actual slaves.
I can’t decide whether that little aside is pure projection or a threat.
@Fnoicby
It’s a threat. Guaranteed.
Every time I think they can’t get any more imbecilec they come out with something even more idiotic.
That parenthetical notation is definitely a threat. Like “If you don’t publish this story in a way I like, I’m going to write a story calling you all these things, then sue you when you complain. Because that’s what I do.”
Er, also, there are several pictures of a dead kid at the bottom of that article,so… Don’t scroll down to the “More articles” section.
@Fnoicby
A threat, though an ineffectual one.
“Why can’t it be both?”
Srsly, though, I suspect it’s a little bit of both.
I’ve pretty much given up on reading the comments sections of articles on Yahoo, since they’re pretty much guaranteed to be infected by trolls. 🙁
I agree with SFHC, violetvolume and andiexist that the parenthetical aside is most certainly a threat. It seems to fit into the m.o. of Mr. Rava quite perfectly. Scary stuff.
This got me thinking when I saw the original posts about it on the other thread. Over here we have and Equality Act that does make it illegal to restrict the provision of goods and services based on certain ‘protected characteristics’, gender being one of them.
There are exceptions though, so for instance you can offer employment opportunities to certain groups such as under represented ethnic minorities or people with physical and mental health issues, although not gender.
Having said that you can have private member organisations restricted by gender, so whilst it’s now established that nightclubs can’t offer different prices for men and women (although they do and nobody really makes a fuss) you could have business network groups that do seminars just for women.
Some friends of ours are involved in one. The funny thing is that now, they are allowing the chaps to attend at some occasions on a limited basis. Phew, a great civil rights victory for the blokes! 🙂
http://www.leadingwomenuk.com/leading-men-uk/
I barely may it to the end of that article, it made me want to puke. The very same law designed to protect minorities like women in tech is being used to force them out of it, it’s disgusting.
The worst part is just how smug that lawyer is, the article ends with this:
Rava, however, would like to remind Burns that the matter is not yet settled.
“Chic CEO never refunded my two clients the $20 they each prepaid Chic for a reservation for the event,” he says.
Someone needs to take this guy’s lawyer license or whatever off him. He’s so incredibly petty and childish that there’s no way he should be allowed to practice any aspect of law.
The AVFM article does whine on about how she wasn’t “objective”. The Yahoo piece did seem very fair and objective to me. I don’t even know what he meant when he said “present both sides” – he expected her to write an opinion piece calling him names etc, and wanted to make sure she included someone proclaiming the “cause” Rava’s fighting for to be worthy and just? That’s the aspect that seemed like projection to me, though I do agree he was threatening her as well.
Objective = portray MRAs and their positions completely uncritically.
Nthing that that aside is a threat. A lawyer who is basically an ambulance chaser for “gender equality” is hardly beneath doing something so slimy.
It’s about ethics in catering to manbabies’ fee-fees. The sad thing is that if he’s been able to make a fucking career out of it, it means he hasn’t had a shortage of clients. Just how many pissy little (adult) children approach him requesting his work? Jesus.
I signed the WomenVC petition linked to in the article. Like Some sort of username, I grew more disgusted the further I read. Christ almighty… if there were ever a clearer case of frivolous lawsuits, except the results of these lawsuits aren’t frivolous.
The NCFM article basically encouraged MRAs to go brigade the Yahoo article, so it’s not that surprising that the comment section is a quagmire.
It couldn’t be clearer that the NCFM guys don’t give a single toss about actually being a part of these events… they’re basically hunting for events and businesses that are vulnerable under the Unruh law and then pouncing for profit. They are one of the many, many reasons why this world can’t have nice things.
Anyone up for drawing a comic? I can’t draw, but I’ve had an idea bouncing around in my head for a while now, and it gets more and more relevant as this sort of shit comes up.
We see a room with a man sitting on the right and a woman sitting on the left, with a big line dividing the room. The woman’s side is clearly much smaller. She speaks up and says that she wants equality and demands to be able to repaint the line. The man scoffs, and claims she doesn’t really want equality, she just wants superiority.
But, he continues, he’d be willing to let her repaint the room as long as he could set up a measuring system to make sure she repaints it fairly. She agrees, and asks if she could use the same system to help her draw the line. He says no.
So she gets out a paintbrush and a bucket of paint, and proceeds to do her best to find the center of the room. Meanwhile, the guy contacts a sciency-looking dude who sets up a laser-guided measuring system that creates a laser across the center when the woman is finished.
It’s looking like she did a pretty good job, obviously being a bit conservative and having the line drawn more on her side for most of it. However, somewhere in the middle, visible my magnifying glass, is a small deviation in the line that paints it more over on the man’s side.
“SEE?” He shouts. “I KNEW IT! You just wanted supremacy all along!” And with that, he vetoes the new line and things go back to inequality.
Feel free to take some liberties.
This douchecanoe reminds me of patent trolls and the WBC.
Resulting in the same question I have for the other two: Why do judges allow this? Technophobic/homophobic/sexist, paid off, just impossibly awful at their jobs, what?
From what I could tell there doesn’t seem to be a large number of clients that he represents, just a few very dedicated clients that go around looking to be discriminated against to file lawsuits. It’s actually ridiculously sad and pathetic. They accuse feminists (and women, really) of being professional victims and they are *actually* professional victims!
It’s no different than people “slipping” in front of businesses or “finding” things in their food to sue companies, except they are ruining the lives of women in the process. How do these people live with themselves? I’m guessing they are all estranged from the women in their families and have no real relationships with any other women.
AVfM sure get excited over their keyboard activism aka their only form of activism.
That’s not actually interesting.
Preach brother! And by preach I mean puff up your nuisance lawsuit to a ridiculous degree.
“Maybe even fixing our economy”. Sure, maybe.
The comments on the article are definitely not worth reading . . . “affirmative action is racism!” wow. . . ok,
How is it so hard to realize that doing nothing (aka ignoring skin colour, like that’s even fucking possible) about the history of discrimination that has created the disparities between different races in north america only serves to maintain those disparities?!
Bombarding comment sections on anti-MRA news pieces is really their only form of activism, isn’t it? . . . how sad. Do they realize they are mostly just talking to themselves anyway?
The lawyer is a sleaze with an agenda.
Women considering starting a company/organization addressing women’s issues need to consult a lawyer to help them set up in the most litigation proof way possible, including unreasonable, frivolous suits. One shouldn’t have to, but now MRA types are using predatory practices, people should take more precautions. Perhaps consider the non-profit route.
I used to go to a kung-fu dojo owned and run by women. They had one day a week of women only classes. This was not considered a problem by anyone, but then it is a kung-fu dojo.
I have signed and donated to this petition. Thank you for bringing this to our attention, David, and my heart goes out to the victims of these abusers. It is stories like these that convince me that there are minions on the other side who are truly unfeeling, unremorseful and blind to the harm they inflict.
It is one thing for them to shout in their echo chambers their absurd and ridiculous notions, and another when they do decide to act out their ideas – in this insipid, cruel and ugly fashion. I am glad the story is gaining traction and is reaching a wider audience as people need to be made more aware of this festering wound in our human collective.
@brooked:
Oh yeah… it’s totally the existence of women-only events and women-centric services that is preventing the business world from becoming more inclusive. If only these orgs just listened to men more, maybe they’d be able to “foster innovation” and otherwise actually do stuff.
He’s just one step away from that onion article about how feminism suddenly was successful once they let a man take charge.
@ SFHC
Essentially it’s because first instance judges are bound by the law. Where a statute is drafted in gender neutral terms, judges have to apply the legislation in a gender neutral manner; even if the act was originally aimed at remedying a problem specific to one gender.
At appellate level judges can take two basic approaches.
Strict construction – i.e. just reading the plain words of the statue without considering the history or the context.
Purposive construction – looking at the ‘mischief’ the act was drafted to redress and interpreting the law to facilitate that.
The purposive approach though is seen as undesirable as it can be considered that judges are infringing on the separation of powers and creating rather than interpreting law. The legislature is considered to be sovereign and there’s a concept that if the legislature had intended an act to apply to one gender only they would have stated so. Judges will say that, if the act is to be restricted it’s for the legislature to pass laws to that effect, not for judges to read words into a statute that aren’t actually there.
Forgot this link: Frivolous Litigation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frivolous_litigation
Even if it doesn’t cover this situation exactly, the fact the lawyer and plaintiffs are acting in bad faith (they never had a serious interest in the seminar or the organizations goals) should count for something.