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.
Also this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malicious_prosecution
Its funny how he refused to have the phone conversation because he was afraid it would make him look bad, but than sent an email that made him look worst.
From what I hear they do let men attend their events, that one they just turned them away because the building was at capacity. So they legally couldn’t let them in :p
@ bvh
Generally a frivolous or vexatious lawsuit is one with no basis in law. If you’re accused of bringing one showing good faith i.e. you thought you had a case can be a defence against sanctions, whereas showing bad faith prevents that defence.
If the claim has a basis in law then it doesn’t matter if you have a “collateral purpose” for bringing the claim. It’s quite common for people to bring claims to highlight an issue or get a definitive court ruling on an issue.
We had a case here where some people asked a religious Baker to make a cake with a pro gay marriage slogan. They knew the Baker was unlikely to comply but they wanted to establish that religious belief did not provide an exemption to our Equality Act.
So pesky as the cases are, they are lawful.
I admit that any time I read a story like this, a little part of me dies inside (doesn’t help when I mistakenly read comments like the ones in that article), and I’ve previously considered simply shutting myself away from social media and preoccupying myself with video games and online videos so I don’t have to think about crap like this and feel awful.
But if I just ignore this kind abuse that some people go through, I might as well join the abuser’s side. I don’t want to part of the privileged group if that means that my comfort comes at the expense of those less fortunate than me.
I’ve finally decided to actually do something about it, so I’ve signed and donated to the WomenVC petition.
Somehow I can’t help but think that in a dank and dismal room somewhere in America, there’s a mgtow/mra announcing to himself that the revenge is only just starting while staring at the poster-sized image of Gloria Allred that he got off the internet.
Our university got around this by having open talks about issues such as “managing work and family”. Men were welcome to attend but by about half way through most felt a bit lost because although the language was gender neutral, they felt discussions on how to balance child care, housework and work etc really weren’t relevant to them. I am not sure if that is progress or just depressing.
While I can see the advantages of just inviting men and talking as if they weren’t there, I wouldn’t dare discuss any sexism with my male colleagues, it would make them angry (because they don’t like women mention sexism).
Those Misognyist Rapey A**co*ks are such professional victims falsly accusing the poor women and stealing their hard earned cash, those devious centaurs.
“A better more inclusive business culture”……in a field already overwhelmingly dominated by men. “Fixing our economy”…because women are holding back innovators with their exclusive, discriminating ways!
This isn’t even remotely about inclusiveness. It’s about the opposite of inclusiveness. It’s about targeting and harassing women, and organizations that do anything nice for women. (I mean, come on….suing the Oakland A’s because he wasn’t included in a Mother’s Day promotion? How douchey can you get? What’s next, suing amusement parks for height discrimination?) It’s about trying to extort companies and silence women underneath a fig leaf of equality. It’s about deterring other organizations from even trying to do anything special for women, lest they get slapped with legal action. Rava is the bawling manbaby in the cartoon who already has more ice cream than he can handle, and gets upset when one of the scoops goes to a woman.
Pear_tree, maybe you’re on to something there. Maybe they should hold these events and open them up to men, but have the first 15 minutes be devoted to slideshows and graphic discussions of menstruation. That’ll weed out the trolls real fast.
I’m also Nthing the tone of threat in that email. The dude’s a jackass, and he and his buddies deserve to be dragged in court in front of a jury.
Actually, it was stated in the article that the women did, in fact, actually consult a lawyer beforehand:
Yup. But obeying the law when men don’t want you to is misandry, don’cha know.
Oh, but Anita Sarkeesian! She’s not suing everyone, she’s just talking about how she’s been harassed, but she’s a professional victim! These guys are just fighting an unfair system! [/sarcasm]
(And how very dare you drag centaurs into this. They are majestic, noble creatures who deserve better, Fruitloopsie.)
Something told me not to read the comments on that article yesterday, because I thought that I would end up turning green and tossing the cars in my neighborhood block around.
I really hope that that ambulance chasing “lawyer” gets disbarred or something. Or at least close the loophole in that law so it doesn’t get abused like it did here. Absolutely disgusting.
So…”I won’t give you my side of the story, but you had still better write about all sides in your story, or else!” What wondrous manly man logicks.
I’m sure these guys would really be helping their court case by publishing an article labeling anyone they didn’t like as a “gigantic bitch.” 9_9
Paradoxical Intention
“And how very dare you drag centaurs into this. They are majestic, noble creatures who deserve better, Fruitloopsie.”
Really? I read they symbolized brutality, violent lust and even the devil. But I guess even they don’t deserve to be compared to Mras.
The Centaur was also one of the coolest Land Rovers ever to go into production (sooooo want one but can’t quite justify the 15 grand)
http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/thempirestwilight/images/7/7d/Normal_Centaur.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130506083512
Technically, this is illegal. I’m not going to let my disdain for the MRA position on this shit get in the way of the fact that this is professional discrimination on a protected class.
They’re right. Petulant. But right.
As a rule, pretty much any pre-Christian deity or mythical figure ends up symbolizing the Devil. Like how Satan’s horns are probably based on statues of Astarte or Asherah where she has a crescent moon on her head.
Though centaurs were supposed to be rowdy and unruly, they weren’t “evil”, just animalistic. I think “satyrs” might be a better fit, since they’re mostly just obsessed with their penises.
Basically, a SLAP suit. It’s too bad they weren’t countersued under any applicable anti-SLAP statutes and for vexatious litigation/abuse of process. I think I smell extortion, too.
@ Binjabreel
Isn’t Moses sometimes portrayed with horns?
@ ikanreed On a completely technical terminological understanding of the law, yes, they are right. The judges who ruled in their favor look like they agree with you.
The trio described understand it too, and that is why they are more than happy to leverage this law against women’s events and groups. However, if you instead look at the law in context and what we can infer to be its intent, that is where you can find the problem. I highly doubt the law was drawn up to be used to attack minority groups and events by opening their safe spaces and harmless events to participants that want to disrupt/destroy them. Just look at what events the trio are targeting and the people they want to take down. Judge the trio by their intent and ideas and you can see the issue here.
Can and should the law be used to prevent minority organisations from discriminating against the majority? Sure. But when the law is used to attack organisations that are clearly not discriminating a group, only that they have a preference for their minority, then you open a can of worms for EVERY group out there.
Any group that creates a ‘guys only’ event, like say a bowling club, would be open to litigation. If a book club decides to create a ‘male readers of Twilight’ section, they can also be targeted. What they fail to understand is that by applying the law in such a liberal fashion is that it can be easily turned against them – and they should. By actually putting themselves in their victims shoes they can easily understand how absurd their intentions to be.
That is why Women VC are working for a modification of the law rather than a repeal of it. They understand the implicit actual purpose of the law and want to make it stronger and more directed thus preventing it’s abuse.
That is why I say they (the trio) are NOT right, because looked at in a broader sense, they really are not anywhere close to being right.
@ikanreed:
I disagree. The whole point of rules trolling is being “technically correct” while subverting the spirit of the system. At some point there’s no purpose in highlighting any technical correctness of these lawsuits; they aren’t “right” to pursue them.
It’s not like they’re actually trying to join these groups but being prevented from doing so. They’re just looking for harmless technical-violations that they can take advantage of. This alone hugely colors my reaction, and I think taking that context into account is valid.
The ninja always strikes after the refresh.
“you could have easily avoided all of this bullying and outrageous harassment had you simply let us have our way just because!” seems to be a line of bullshit that assholes the world over use on a regular basis. the piddling, dong-waving power games on display here would be merely pathetic and shameful to witness were it not for the fact that the resulting negative impact on people’s lives is often disturbingly profound.
Binjabreel
I never seen any deity or mythical creature seen as a symbol of the devil unless they are evil and I think its very disrespectful to deities and mythical creatures being compared to the devil simply becuase they look scary or have features of the devil himself. So no they shouldn’t be called Devils becuase of that.
Centaurs are known to rape women that counts as evil but then there’s Chiron so I guess “notallcentaurs” I’m just going by what I read.
Alan
The Moses who split the sea and led the Hebrews, that Moses? I never heard of that.
@kirbywarp @ReallyFriendly
Intent of law to solve problems is all well and good, but I can’t condone discrimination. Under no circumstances do I view it as okay. At best a power+prejudice framing tells us this isn’t as bad as the systemic bias that pervades tech.
That didn’t make it right.
I’ll side with a shitty, awful, rules lawyering MRA before I side with someone professionally discriminating. Some things are just zero tolerance for me, you know?