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.
Someone’s mad enough to Shap their pants. Now THAT’S approach behavior.
Shapman, I’d like to add to your comments about child custody, that when a parent, usually the mother, denies a father access to his children she also denies the children access to their father. Once heard a divorce lawyer, who was female if that matters to anyone here, that when relationships break up some mothers will use the children as a weapon to hurt their ex-partner. That also, of course, hurts the children.
There’s this article, which contains a much more personal story of a woman being neglected in the healthcare system. Surely since you believe your story about the family court system screwing you over means that the entire system is biased against men, this one story will be enough to convince you that the entire medical system is biased against women, right? Right?
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/10/emergency-room-wait-times-sexism/410515/
No? That one story didn’t convince you?Aw, that’s such a shock. Well, here, let me get you some more empirical examples for you then.
Here’s an article with a bunch of relevant links and whatnot:
http://www.themedicalstation.com/site/blog-doctor-north-york/2016/07/28/gender-bias-in-healthcare
Or another:
http://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/info-2016/womens-health-gender-bias-cs.html
Though I suppose I’m being generous in assuming the troll is even going to click the links I provide, aren’t I?
If gender inclusive means society is equally sexist against men and women, then no, I’m not interested in that conversation. Because it is untrue.
And how did I know the medical funding would be a whinge about breast cancer funding?
You know what happened there? Women were dying from breast cancer because it was considered a shameful thing to even talk about. So activists started campaigns to educate women about the symptoms, encourage mammograms and get research funding. Breast cancer didn’t get funding because people care about women’s health more than men’s. It gets funding because the women who cared about the issue worked to get it.
Same thing with women and heart attacks/heart disease. Women got together and campaigned to make other women aware that the symptoms were different.
If men want to improve education, screening and funding to fight prostate cancer, they should put together campaigns. In fact, some have started to. I don’t see feminists objecting to that! If the MRM didn’t simultaneously blame us for men’s problems and expect us to fix all their problems, feminists wouldn’t oppose them. Expect for of course the bullshit “problems” like men having to obtain consent for sex.
John, I agree with you wholeheartedly. I have presented here much of my own personal and researched gender bias against fathers which permeates the Canadian family court system and I either get “I don’t believe you” or “the patriarchy is leading to this gender bias” in reply. It is quite frustrating to deal with this type of closed type of dialogue on the issue.
Lol. There’s a sign of privilege if I ‘er did see.
Women get rape and death threats for years for making videos about misogyny in video games or expressing a wish not to be hit on in elevators at 4 in the morning.
Women are subjected to street harassment often, even daily for the crime of going out in public while female.
Women go dancing in gay clubs in hopes of avoiding being groped on the dance floor only to have straight men catch on and start going to the gay clubs to grope women on the dance floor.
In my country, 3 women are killed by their husband or boyfriend every single day and 1 out of 5 of us will be sexually assaulted at some point in our lives.
If facing some snark in a blog comments section is the most aggression you’ve dealt with, you have led a charmed life.
Woody, again, read! where did I use the word “equally”. One of my original points was that some issues have been “claimed” by feminists as women only issues despite all the evidence to the contrary (spousal abuse and body image issues are just two examples). What I am saying is that a holistic approach which recognises that boys/men should be part of the discussion. We are not the enemy nor are the vast majority of men looking for anything other than equal treatment for ALL not one gender or the other but it seems some feminists don’t believe that is part of their “agenda”.
WWTH, I wholeheartedly agree with that. I, myself, have seen a MRA state quite emphatically “Until feminists start working on men’s problems, I don’t want to hear from them. I don’t believe they’re interested in equality at all!”
And this is after full, meaty, substantial refutations and explanations and citations, some of them in this very thread, that are dismissed as irrelevant because it doesn’t correspond with their deeply-held predjudices.
I have never seen the level of spiteful misogyny leveled towards women as I have in this very comment section by the people David profiles, nor the level of extreme broflake whining in a blog whose main purpose is to mock such misogyny.
Why is this objectionable to you?
Another question, why haven’t you gone after Jerry for suggesting that women are the only ones who can change diapers? I’ve never once heard a feminist say that men are incapable of child care. The only one on this thread to suggest that fathers aren’t child care givers was Jerry and you defended him.
Shit like this is why we doubt your sincerity.
@ shapman
Hi. Hope you don’t mind if I chip in on this one. Now obviously I can’t say this has never occured; but I’ve never never known it to happen; and neither has any other lawyer I know.
Now I can understand why you might be sceptical about that; but perhaps I might be allowed to explain why it’s such an unlikely event.
I’m guessing you won’t be persuaded that lawyers actually do take such ethical considerations very seriously; although you might be surprised. But maybe you will accept the more cynical explanation as to why coaching witnesses is complete anathema to us. It’s simple, such coaching is really easy to spot.
Now it’s common enough for witnesses, whenever they find themselves in a sticky situation, to claim “my lawyer told me to say that” even when it isn’t true. That’s one of the reasons we have certain protocols in place so we can demonstrate that’s not the case (such as ‘endorsing the brief’). We’re certainly not going to encourage the possibility of that happening by actually coaching them.
But even if the witness wouldn’t grass you up, an experienced cross examiner can spot coaching a mile away; regardless of whom might be responsible.
A key case used in advocacy training is the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. It’s used as an illustration as to how you demonstrate coaching. So we’re all well aware of the risks.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire
The consequences of being caught coaching would be disbarment at a minimum and possible prison for perverting the course of justice. We’re not going to risk that just to benefit some random client. Especially as we get paid regardless of the outcome.
I’m not suggesting coaching never occurs, I’m sure it does. But I can say with some degree of certainty it’s not tne lawyers.
But his feelings are so very important and legitimate, ewe guise…
Woody, again with many of the issues you mentioned men/boys are also impacted. Maybe not to the same degree as women but why in the hell are they not given a seat at the table to discuss these issues? Why are all men painted as abusers (by the way most rape statistics support the fact that less than 5% of males have ever engaged in a sexual assault. meaning 95% of us would never do something that horrible)?
https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/10/28/an-open-letter-to-cassie-jaye-director-of-the-red-pill/comment-page-20/#comment-1521979
I mean…
It’s kind of boggling to me that Andy here is passionately arguing that fathers are every bit as good at parenting as mothers – something that none of we regulars even disagree with – and yet he defends the guy who said this.
It’s almost like opposing feminism is more important to him than anything else, including the issues he claims to care about.
Jerry,
it’s nice to see you walking back from yet another ambit claim to authority, when your position is challenged. It would be nicer to see you admit that you (yet again) made baseless and unevidenced statements which you are not prepared to back up.
I don’t know what you mean by this statement, since you have ignored every counter argument to your previous fallacious propositions, and tossed out new fallacious ones as a distraction from your previous fails.
Jerry, really, is this a rational approach? Is this debate?
Also, sorry to hear you are a bigot colonist economic migrant to the country I live in. My country deserves better. Everyone everywhere deserves better.
Is it just me or do the particularly insistent trolls who always return after they’ve been banned always seem to have an obsession with WWTH?
I’ll admit Shatman’s posts are just making my eyes glaze over, though. When someone is so obviously not here to have an honest discussion, why do they act so indignant when we don’t treat them seriously?
@Andy
Say what you mean, fam
@John
You encountered aggression here because you were deliberately antagonistic. You made your first post (on page 18) and Tizio and WWTH replied. Both of them broke down your comment and replied to each point individually. I went back and read Tizio’s reply to your first comment. Aside from one bit of sarcasm at the end, it was a very level and reasonable response to your claims. WWTH’s reply was more sarcastic (which is pretty normal for WWTH), but still addressed and refuted each one of your claims.
Your response to these replies was this:
You did not reply to any of their statements. If you wanted a reasoned debate, you could have replied to their arguments. Instead you tried to delegitimize their comments by calling them “angry sacarcam.” It’s a tactic we’ve seen before and shows you’re not here for a reasoned debate.
I have never seen a feminist say this. I’ve seen Manuresphere types claiming that feminists say this, or feel this, or believe this, but never an actual feminist. The closest I’ve seen is TERFs talking about trans women, and that wasn’t even very close.
I never said men aren’t ever sexually assaulted. I was saying that the misogyny the typical woman faces throughout her life is far worse than anything we ever say to trolls here. If someone thinks this is the most aggressive site ever, they are privileged as fuck because they personally have clearly never dealt with the shit that marginalized people deal with on a consistent basis.
Women worry about arranging their commutes to work with minimum street harassment in mind. Black people worry that they’ll be murdered by cops for no reason. Trans people in the US see their president openly advocated discrimination against them. John here worries that people are mocking him in an old thread on a misogyny mocking blog. You’re going to tell me that’s not a sign of extreme privilege?
They aren’t. Just because some MRAs told you that feminists think all men are abusers, doesn’t make it true.
I don’t believe any of this current crop of necromancers were ever banned, but yeah, they seem to particularly hate me
I think I know why.
Okay. That was too hyperbolic. I just seized on an excuse to reference one of my favorite Buffy moments.
But it is true that my informal writing style is pretty assertive and no nonsense. When I put samples of my comments here into gender guesser programs, they always read me as male. I’m not meek like a woman should be. I don’t worry about being perceived as nice like women should. I speak to troll dudes as if I have the same power and authority that they believe only men should have. This bothers them.
When they say that this site is the most aggressive and mean place on the internet, what they mean is that this is one of the few sites where female voices aren’t overpowered by aggressive male voices.
“misogyny” has become the word du jour for feminists. Like many reasonable people (both men and women) I tire of hearing the word over and over every day. I am made to feel guilty for being born a white male by people like you. I am made to feel that when I see injustices which may impact men that I should just ignore them because according to you I am “privileged” just by the nature of my gender and my skin colour. I can tell you that I do not feel privileged as a man when I sit in a family court and a judge with presumably years of training makes the assumption I am NOT a primary care-giver (but according to you I should just ignore this because I am “privileged”). Again, I have said it is shitty to be a woman in some instances. I have a daughter and I will have to have certain conversations about protecting herself which I will not have to have with my son. That sucks but that is the world we live in. As I said before based on the current climate on campuses in North America I am far more concerned that in ten years my son will be discriminated against then will my daughter. That does not mean that I am still not more concerned that my daughter will possibly be harmed by some monster. We will never rid the world of all the monsters in the world just don’t try and tell me from your soapbox that those monsters are always men.
@Catalpa
Though I suppose I’m being generous in assuming the troll is even going to click the links I provide, aren’t I?
Is everybody here addicted to sarcasm?
Tone deaf whilst tone trolling. Fabulous.
If facing some snark in a blog comments section is the most aggression you’ve dealt with, you have led a charmed life
Why make snark comments mannatee?
@dr.ej
If you wanted a reasoned debate, you could have replied to their arguments. Instead you tried to delegitimize their comments by calling them “angry sacarcam.” It’s a tactic we’ve seen before and shows you’re not here for a reasoned debate.
I didn’t ‘deligitimise’ anything. Said they should drop the sarcasm. Why be sarcastic?