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.
And I do recognize that women’s organizations should be allowed to exist, but that doesn’t need to entail forbidding men.
Oh yeah, Moses has horns sometimes. Due to shitty Latin translation, the way I heard it.
Ikanreed
It’s not discrimination, women and other minorities need their spaces but dou*hebags like the Mras and racists want to invade those spaces instead of making their own becuase they can’t stand anything that’s not about them.
you can thank the vulgate for moses’ hornicles. oh, and michelangelo. (resist the urge. don’t add “blame splinter, too”. oh butts i did it anyway)
i feel like #notallcentaurs should be a thing.
@ Fruitloopsie
No, the Moses who works down the local garage.
Of course *that* Moses!!!!! 🙂
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yhiuduKu-KE/U6o2E8HzoGI/AAAAAAAAGMk/YTgqvubEbIY/s1600/St.+Moses+the+prophet+of+the+Old+Testament+in+the+choir+stalls+of+the+Cathedral+of+Oviedo.jpg
ikanreed
“And I do recognize that women’s organizations should be allowed to exist, but that doesn’t need to entail forbidding men.”
The whole freaking world is a man’s space, positions of power like the White House, the media, the Internet, almost everything is a man’s space can we have one thing to ourselves without misognist waffleturds taking it from us?
Alan
Umm sorry I don’t know everything.
What wankers
@ Fruitloopsie
Sorry, just reminded me of a time a mate asked “You mean the Adolf Hitler from WW2?” 🙂
@Alan Robertshaw
Thank you for the feedback.
IMHO it’s rather obvious theses clowns were acting in bad faith.
horns for sure make anything they’re attached to at least 77% more metal
Okay, guys, I know. I know it’s real shitty defending MRAs and everything, but hear me out.
When an organization is professional, and has to do with career advancement, it simply cannot be a complete safe space for an identifiable group. The natures of the two are contrary, because opportunity is something that cannot be denied to people.
Not even entitled white guys who ought to have all the options in the world elsewhere. A professional group plays by different rules than a private club. We’ve collectively had to settle that question in law repeatedly.
I absolutely value organizations that pursue promoting gender equality in tech, and giving women opportunities. Those are great. We should have more. And these assholes, if they got in, would have gotten bored and left, or done something shitty and become the bad guys. No one is harmed by them visiting.
Whoever turned them away was in the wrong. It sucks to be defending this. I don’t want to be, because they were clearly just trying to antagonize. But it was an inappropriate decision.
@ ikanreed Actually in this case your points bear less weight. If you listen to the embedded video in the Yahoo article, you will hear that Chic CEO resources are available for anyone to use (and free though you could pay to get some premium items). They have male board members, advisors/speakers and male clients.
Was the event in question a ‘women’s only’ event? Yes, but clearly this is a group that is not discriminating against men. If they really were, you would see it across the board in everything they do.
These events are to create a safe, comfortable space for women who have to typically move in male-dominated spaces in their daily lives. I don’t think of it as discrimination rather than just a place where they can get some breathing room and express themselves in a relaxed fashion.
When I was in college I wrote a paper defending a group of men suing a self-defense class that was being offered by their workplace but it was deemed ‘women only’. In this instance, when the men approached the instructor they were told that ‘men don’t need self-defense classes’ instead of a compromise being reached (like offering a separate class for men). In that instance it was a clear sign of discrimination as the instructor was excluding them based on gender stereotypes rather than anything else. The resources were exclusive only for females and there was no indication from the instructor that men were welcome in their space in any form or manner. That is how I define discrimination and it is the standard that I still follow today.
Chic CEO in no way close to it. It is clear to me that you have a stricter idea of it though, so if you don’t agree with me, then I will leave it as something we will just have to disagree on.
My humble apologies to centaurs becuase “notallcentaurs”
Alan
“Sorry, just reminded me of a time a mate asked “You mean the Adolf Hitler from WW2?” :-)”
It’s cool. Sorry too, I’m not usually good with sarcasm.
Ikanreed
Well then thank you for clarifying and I think we should change those rules so we can have private professional groups for women and minorities but then again it still would be discrimination to some waffleturds.
Hey, I’ve just realised I haven’t bombarded you all with lengthy extracts from legislation.
Sorry, must be slipping.
Here’s the bit in our Equality Act that allows women only events:
158
Positive action: general
(1)
This section applies if a person (P) reasonably thinks that—
(a) persons who share a protected characteristic suffer a disadvantage connected to the characteristic,
(b) persons who share a protected characteristic have needs that are different from the needs of persons who do not share it, or
(c) participation in an activity by persons who share a protected characteristic is disproportionately low.
(2)
This Act does not prohibit P from taking any action which is a proportionate means of achieving the aim of—
(a) enabling or encouraging persons who share the protected characteristic to overcome or minimise that disadvantage,
(b) meeting those needs, or
(c) enabling or encouraging persons who share the protected characteristic to participate in that activity.
Yes, but clearly something was missed. This is not exactly a new problem in California. To quote a friend of mine in the tech industry who read this article yesterday and compared it to the minimal problems Curves has, these people need better lawyers.
There’s a difference between prepared for the reasonably possible lawsuits and being prepared for litigious predators.
Next, suing dogtors because they only administer treatment to the sick or injured. Because that is SO unfair to the healthy.
@ikanreed
No one is arguing that the organization itself should be a safe space. But holding a specific conference for women only is not “professional discrimination.” They are neither refusing to hire men/paying men less, to my knowledge nor discriminating in order to get profit. Those are… the only definitions I can think of for “professional discrimination,” and it’s clearly neither of those.
Especially if it was at or near max capacity, in which case giving the people the conference is *for* priority is common sense, not discrimination.
Ikan, if you’re okay with defending an MRA for harassing a feminist conference with lawyers, then you can be okay with that. But if you want to be an ally, then maybe *don’t* start justifying MRAs’ awful behavior when it’s against people you think did something wrong.
It’s not about ethics in conferences. It’s about harassing people with the legal system.
@Ikanreed:
I’ll try not to add to any potential pile-on… but my office recently hosted a “Girls who Code” event, where highschool girls were invited to come see software demos, some presentations, and a panel on women in tech. (Fun fact! I was on the panel for hilarious reasons, but that’s an aside…)
I’d imagine it was a girls-only event for the attendees. At the very least, I didn’t see any highschool boys attend. If it was, do you think such an event, which is bit less intense than a full professional advancement program but still is a career-focused thing, would be discriminatory in a similar way as the orgs beings sued in the OP?
I’ve been to tech conferences before that have had women-only events, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. The idea of having entire exclusionary conferences that males aren’t allowed to attend, I can understand and can condone on principle (so long as they make allowances for transgender individuals, though even in that case I don’t try to storm the gates), but I don’t think are terribly good ideas, as it feeds even more into the idea that feminists don’t want equality they want reverse discrimination etc etc. There is a difference between male-dominated spaces and exclusionary ones, after all.
From simply a practical point of view, I think the people who need to hear unadulterated perspectives on women in tech the most are not other women, but men. I think it’s more effective to send the message that men are as welcome in feminism as women. It’s important that these “women in tech” panels actually include women and not men, however, that is one things that some conferences get wrong from the beginning.
It was a threat. All of us women in tech know what can happen to us.
“filing approximately 150 complaints against California businesses”
I assume that many of these complaints were successful and that’s why Rava keeps filing them. I don’t understand how a law intended to protect women and minorities can be used by White men though. Plus, I assume that some clubs are private and thus exclusive and can bar attendance by anyone not fitting their membership criteria.
I just wanted to vent that today in a business meeting in the above-mentioned totally inclusive to women tech industry, a guy I had met 5 minutes earlier put his hands over my ears to shield me from the phrase, “shitty implementation” and of course I basically had to go along with it and laugh at his “joke” because he’s an important stakeholder even though I’m extremely uncomfortable with touching, even from my family.
Because women immediately turn to dust if we hear the word “shitty.”
Good gad, what century are these people from?!
“I assume that many of these complaints were successful and that’s why Rava keeps filing them. I don’t understand how a law intended to protect women and minorities can be used by White men though”
Usually, those laws just say “may not discriminate on the basis of race/sex”, so they do apply in these situations. That and when they don’t actually apply it’s still usually cheaper to pay up and make it go away than to fight it in court.