UPDATE 10/25/16: If you’ve come here after reading about a petition to cancel screenings of The Red Pill, I ask you to NOT sign any such petitions. It’s just free publicity for them. Read more of my thoughts on the matter here.
Dear Cassie Jaye,
Congratulations. You surpassed your Kickstarter fundraising goal yesterday, more than two weeks before the Kickstarter campaign was scheduled to come to a close. You’ve funded the postproduction work on your long-delayed documentary on Men’s Rights activists, and then some.
But I’m not sure that the person I should be congratulating is you. Last night Paul Elam of A Voice for Men – the central subject of your film – was doing his own victory lap online. And no wonder, because he seems to be the real victor here.
In a post on his site that managed to be giddy and vindictive at once, he offered his congratulations to you, then, well, to himself. “Even though the victory goes to Ms. Jaye,” he wrote, in an awkward attempt at modesty, “I have the need to offer up some thanks.”
And then he spelled out why he thinks your “victory” is really a victory for him.
For the past six years AVFM has had mud kicked in its face by a corrupt, left-wing media. Bottom feeders like Adam Serwer, Jeff Sharlet and Mariah Blake have performed endless unscrupulous acts, directly lying to their readers in order to attack AVFM, this movement and me personally.
Their work was not just to harm me, or to damage a website but to make sure if they could that the message we carry never found its way to the larger public. Their intent was and is to paint an indelible stain on all of us so hideous that we would never be taken seriously by enough people to matter.
They have failed, and I can now predict that they have failed miserably.
In other words, Paul Elam thinks he and his friends in what he ludicrously calls the “Men’s Human Rights Movement” have bought and paid for a feature-length advertisement for them.
And it’s not hard to see why Elam – and the other manospherians who’ve rallied around your film in recent days — think this. After all, they are the ones who have rescued your film from oblivion by pouring tens of thousands of dollars into your Kickstarter.
And all it took for you to unleash this torrent of money was an interview with one of the sleaziest figures in right-wing journalism, Milo Yiannopoulos of Breitbart.
In the interview, posted on Monday, you complained that “I won’t be getting support from feminists. They want a hit piece and I won’t do that.”
There was more than a little bit of irony in the fact that you were saying this to a man infamous for his many hit pieces on so-called “Social Justice Warriors.”
You also complained about an intern on your film who, you said, “had a lot of crying attacks and emotional experiences. She claimed everything I was showing her was triggering her.”
A young feminist “triggered” and crying. This is red meat to the Breitbart crowd, and I have to assume you knew this when you told Milo this story.
To an outside observer like me, this shameful pandering looks a lot like a Hail Mary play on your part. Having failed to convince most potential funders of the film that you would present anything close to an accurate picture of the Men’s Rights movement, you told Breitbart what its readers – and the broader manosphere – wanted to hear.
And it worked. Men’s Rights activists, self-professed “Red Pillers” and other assorted antifeminists rallied around your film, and the money started flowing.
On Reddit, the moderators of the Men’s Rights subreddit “stickied” an appeal to donate to your Kickstarter to the top of their front page, urging MRAs to open their wallets in order to show skeptics that “we can take part in some actual activism and not just post stuff in here.”
Even the regulars in the violently misogynistic Red Pill subreddit agreed to help bankroll your film.
And it wasn’t just Men’s Rights and “Red Pill” Redditors who organized support for your film. One right-wing Red Pill blogger, notorious for his harassment of ideological enemies, pledged to match donations up to $10,000, describing your documentary as “the Movie SJWs Do Not Want You to See.”
Meanwhile, on her blog, AVFM’s “social media director” Andrea Hardie (an internet bully better known under her pseudonyms Janet Bloomfield and “Judgy Bitch”) not only rallied her readers around your Kickstarter but also set up a gofundme of her own, raising money in hopes that it would buy Breitbart’s Yiannopoulos a producer credit in your film. (I hope that is out of the question, even if she raises more than the paltry amount she’s raised for this purpose so far.)
And then there was Elam himself, on Twitter, calling on his followers to, in his words, “Help fund #RedPillMovie because fuck feminists!”
https://twitter.com/AVoiceForMen/status/658700057311506432
Accepting money from these people would seem to be a pretty clear violation of the principles you set forth in your own Kickstarter video, in which you declared that
in order to keep this film non-partisan, and respectfully show all sides to this debate, we won’t accept funding from organizations that inevitably have biased agendas.
Instead, you have chosen to take money from people who see your film as a chance to say “fuck you” to feminists. You have chosen to take money from the actual subjects of your film.
You are making a film about Men’s Rights Activists, funded to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars by Men’s Rights Activists. You are making a film about A Voice for Men funded in part by A Voice for Men.
Does that not trouble you at all? It should. In your interview with Breitbart, you noted that “films that support one side and act as propaganda do better than those that try to have an honest look.”
You said this, presumably, to set yourself apart from such propagandists. Now you seem to have cast your lot in with them.
Which I suppose makes sense, since the clips of your film that you’ve posted online so far look a lot more like propaganda than they do like any sort of honest look at the Men’s Rights movement,
I felt uneasy about your project from the start, concerned that you had been pulled in by the soothing but misleading rhetoric that MRAs spout when they are trying to sound more respectable than they really are, rather than on what MRAs actually say and do when the cameras are off of them.
But I knew you had a good reputation as a filmmaker, and heard good things from several feminists who knew you better than I did. So I held my tongue and tried my best to give you the benefit of the doubt, even when you posted clips from your film that portrayed AVFMers as heroic underdogs rather than the misogynists and malicious harassers that they really are.
When I wrote you a little over a week ago with some of my concerns, you assured me in the phone call that followed that the clips you had posted were only part of the story, that you were well aware that the MRAs you had interviewed were on their best behavior when talking to you, and that the real story of the Men’s Rights movement is far less rosy-hued. Against my better judgement, I continued to hold on to some kind of hope that you would live up to your reputation in the end.
And now, frankly, I feel like I’ve been played.
Unfortunately, it looks like you have been played too, much more spectacularly than I have. I suspect you are doing far more damage to your reputation than you even know.
One thing I have learned in five years of watching, and writing about, and dealing with, the Men’s Rights movement, is that if Paul Elam is happy about something, that thing is almost certainly terrible.
I suspect, sadly, that you will ultimately learn this lesson yourself, the hard way.
PS: In our phone conversation, you suggested that if you were able to fund your film, you might be able to finally film the interview with me that we originally had planned to do, but which fell through due to financial and other practical obstacles during the original filming of The Red Pill. At this point, I am sorry to say, that is completely out of the question.
Yeah, I don’t really expect to be able to persuade trolls because they don’t come here in good faith. No point in trying. It’s futile. Especially since this one doesn’t seem capable of responding with anything but calling me mean.
I guess he thinks I was trying to persuade him and not just using his whiny ass as a chew toy
@Andy
You can add “fuckoff that should be with their children instead of being an ass on the internet” to the list of names I’ve called you, which is what you’re listing.
@wwth
Yes. You usually end up being right about these guys.
The thing that kills me is that the “true” denizens of the manosphere probably think MRAs who claim to love their children are barely tolerable betacucks that they have to cultivate, anyway, because they are also the only manospherians with anything to say that is remotely sympathetic to normies. Those MRAs who are actually sincere, but are too stupid and stubborn to examine their own biases, are easily used by the rest. I’m still not sure if Andrew is one of those or if he’s one of the actually evil ones.
@ everyone on this site, my original point (if you have forgotten) was about the gender bias which exists in the Family Court system. Other than quoting some weak stats nobody on this site appears to have any personal experience with the Family Court system. Some of you have tried to claim that there is no gender bias against men in the Family Court system. When faced with info that supports my premise most fall back on the “it’s all the fault of patriarchy”.
There has been some recognition of biases here against men but little offer of any solutions to fix these. There is legislation in place to deal with some of the inequities/imbalances which impact women. There are ad nauseam coverage of items as trivial as women paying more for dry cleaning in media but ask the media to cover more obviously impactful issues such as the high male drop-out rate in school, the growing gap in male suicides when compared to female suicides; the growing mortality rate for men diagnosed with prostate cancer and the minimal funding for research this “male” cancer receives when compared to breast cancer and men are told everywhere they turned that they are “privileged”.
I call bullshit on the claim of “male (white) privilege” and I say most on here are piling that bullshit even higher when they point fingers at men for the discrimination they encounter.
Shut the fuck up, Manby. You can leave now.
And our job is to offer solutions to you because … ???
maybe because this is not a war but clearly you folks think otherwise. You truly are a bunch of brainwashed losers.
@Andy
So feminists have to fix men’s problems, in addition to fixing women’s problems, because if we don’t it’s war?
(Also, feminists totally already do this.)
Shorter Bambi: Hockey is expensive, therefore random women should gimme money.
Oh, so feminists looking after feminism, rather than looking after men, constitutes a war. So you think that anyone who has concerns of their own, that don’t involve you at all, is at war with you.
That must be a very sad way to live. Maybe you ought to reconsider your position that the world revolves around your problems and only your problems.
hey Imaginary Petal, have a nice day!!
last time I checked feminists were trying to achieve “equality”. If something is inequitable it should not matter which gender is experiencing the discrimination. I think I see what is going on here. I said earlier this is a zero sum game for most of you and I think I have my proof in the statement above.
wow! read what you said again, especially the second quote. Do you see the contradiction (why should I even ask. of course you don’t)?
Hint: you appear to say that the world “revolves around feminism”. What other explanation can there be for not speaking out against issues that are outside the domain of the feminist agenda?
So women need to solve men’s problems for men, and men need to … do what exactly? What is the role of men in your model? What are they doing while feminists put feminism on hold to tend to men?
“I shall make a straw argument and declare myself winner!” -Andy
There is no contradiction, unless one decides to use bad logic by inserting some unstated premises that are absurd. Is that something you’re doing?
@Andy
*sigh* I know you are unlikely to listen, but I’ll put this out there anyway.
First, this article addresses most of your points and what I think of them better than I ever could:
http://www.timwise.org/2013/05/whine-merchants-privilege-inequality-and-the-persistent-myth-of-white-victimhood/
I actually did mention my experience with divorce, but it’s true that I have no actual experience with the “family court system.” Not in America and certainly not in Canada. What I do know about it in America is that only a tiny percentage of the most contentious and bitter divorces ever actually see the inside of court. The vast majority (some 90% or so) are settled in mediation or litigation settlements. Although I grant that what people are willing to settle for in litigation can be based on what they think they may be able to win in court.
It’s an incredibly complex system which in my opinion, too often favors whichever person (of either gender) happens to be the biggest asshole. No single “personal experience” can encompass it. Thinking your “personal experience” gives you vital insight into its whole can only possibly lead you to bias.
Solutions? I agree that in an ideal world, the court would be unbiased on the question of gender. It would be ideal for shared custody and responsibility to be the default and the only truly overwhelming consideration to be the best interests of the children. Currently, I think the only time that comes close to happening is when two reasonable adults put aside their bitterness, consider their children’s wellbeing first, and try to be fair to a spouse they are probably mad at. Those types of settlements happen far, far from family court.
I also think that allegations of abuse cannot and should not be ignored. It’s much better to be careful about such things than it is to potentially put a child back into an abusive situation, despite the possibility that there may be some horrible people out there who make false allegations. And I don’t think it’s likely that people who are that horrible are a majority of either one gender or the other. And you have not presented any actual evidence to the contrary.
Also, personally, I don’t point fingers at men, as a whole, for discrimination. Despite my feminism, I’m actually rather uncomfortable with the term “patriarchy.” While I believe men are the primary beneficiaries of this system, I don’t actually believe individual men are any more likely to perpetuate this system than individual women are.
Guys, I went back and checked. Andrew has been wanking for nine pages. Nine pages it’s been the all about Andrew show. And he has the audacity to whine about how feminists don’t make things about the menz enough.
Men don’t need to actively perpetuate patriarchy to benefit from it as a group and women are still harmed from it as a group even when individual women do perpetuate it. The fact that a lot of women internalize the misogyny they were socialized to have isn’t an argument that it’s not a patriarchy.
I’m also not so sure I agree that men don’t usually perpetuate patriarchy. Only a minority of a men are the kinds of misogynist you see in the manosphere. That’s true enough. But IME, very few men acknowledge that they have male privilege and the majority passively go along with patriarchy without really thinking about it. In general, I don’t think privileged people should get an easy out. Like, as a white person I feel that if I’m not actively opposing white supremacy, I’m participating in it.
@wwth
So true. Nine pages of bad faith, stubbornness, and whining about people calling him names, all the while never making any attempt to address points outside his worldview or demonstrating a single moment of humility or questioning.
I’d still hesitate to call it the “all about Andrew” show. I got a lot of amusement and learned a lot from other people here, like you, despite Andrew’s stubborn obtuseness. 🙂 In fact, that’s the main reason I haven’t emailed David and asked to ban him.
At least he’s contained it to one thread. Unlike the MRAL/Steele days when half the threads were all about him. I enjoy batting around trolls sometimes, but it would get tiresome to do it all day everyday!
@wwth
I did not say this. I said that I didn’t think men were “more likely” to perpetuate it than women. I should have said I didn’t think they were “much more likely.” If the recent election is any evidence, at all, among white voters, only something like 10% more men voted for Trump than women, for example.
I agree that it may be a minority of men who benefit from privilege and are willing to recognize it. All I’m saying is that the percentage of women who are willing to recognize that men benefit from privilege isn’t that much bigger.
And yes, there’s no question that it hurts women the most, but even excusing women’s misogyny as “internalized” while just flat out calling men’s misogyny “misogyny” misses, in my opinion, the fact that it may be almost equally blatant or internalized in either gender.
Many men are likely to hate “certain types of women” while thinking their wives and daughters are paragons of virtue. Many women are also likely to other the same “types” of women and think women should just aspire to be the kinds of women that men love. I just don’t see the two standpoints as being significantly different, I guess.
I guess I’m not seeing how the fact that patriarchy has been successful at turning women against women makes patriarchy an inaccurate term?
“Because other people aren’t actively campaigning against things that affect ME specifically, they must be against equality! In order to be for equality you must support all causes at the same time the exact same amount (but obviously expend more effort on problems that affect ME specifically, since there aren’t enough people focused on that compared to other problems and therefore it’s not EQUAL).”
I’m sorry you’re dealing with the awful stereotype of men being unable to drive automobiles, Andrew. That must be tough.
Keep pestering feminists to fix your problems though. I’m sure we will see the error of our ways eventually. It’s definitely the feminists that run the family court systems and thus the ones who are in the best place to fix whatever problems you have with it. Definitely not the judicial branch of the government or anything. No point in petitioning them; feminists on a mockery blog, they’re the ones with the real power.
@wwth
Ah, sorry, I get that. And I’m probably going to be incoherent, now. 🙁
My thinking is more along the lines of, well, women are mostly equal, now, in terms of law. My thoughts about the term “patriarchy” are all kind of related to legal questions like “only men can own property” or “inherit” or “vote.” So I’m feeling less comfortable thinking about our society in terms of the traditional definition of “patriarchy.”
And women have always helped perpetuate “patriarchy.” How can it be otherwise? But these days I’m questioning whether men perpetuate it very much more than women do. I’m kind of seeing the women who tell me they love working with men or prefer a man as a boss as almost more antagonistic than most men I work with (although some may not feel that way, at all, and some may just be afraid to say so). I’m definitely not questioning whom it privileges most.
So yeah, probably all incoherent. Sorry. The term just makes me a little bit uncomfortable these days, because the legal associations are mostly gone. And even though society privileges men more, I’m not terribly convinced that men are, statistically speaking, very much more to blame than women, at this point, for upholding the society that privileges them.
You said:
I agree with this. But I’m not convinced that “white supremacy” and “patriarchy” are semantically equivalent terms. Maybe “white supremacy” should be used as representative of our entire system and everyone who participates in it, but it usually isn’t. Patriarchy is.
I also think that sexism is a very different struggle from racism, partly because of its intersectionality, and partly because I think that, as feminists, we have to recognize that there is a terrible percentage of women who are basically “fighting for the other side.” I might be totally wrong. But with racism, I think, maybe, there is some 30 to 40% of privileged (white) people joining the cause, combined with some 70 to 90% of PoC. With sexism, I think there is some 30 to 40% of men joining our cause, combined with some 30 to 60% of women.
Anyway, my statistical guesses are probably totally off base. But I guess my discomfort with the term “patriarchy” has less to do with who I think is considered privileged than it does with whom I perceive as being an actual ally in the cause. Sorry so long, and please feel free to school me. I always learn a lot from you. 🙂