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The ongoing tragicomedy that is the Honey Badger Brigade’s Calgary Expo lawsuit continues to get even more tragicomical! Well, not so much the “tragic” bit, just that “comical” part.
The last time we checked in with the Brigade — that GamerGate-loving, feminist-hating gang of mostly lady YouTube blabbers — they had filed some sort of legal document charging the people in charge of the Calgary Expo with some kind of bad wrongness for tossing them out of the aforementioned Calgary Expo back in April.
They also charged The Mary Sue, a website in the United States that actually has no power over the staff of any expos in Calgary or indeed anywhere else in Canada, with somehow contributing to or causing the expulsion.
Well, The Mary Sue has responded to the Brigade’s legal filing, and the response is a doozy. Happily, the Honey Badgers have put it online for us all to enjoy.
The Mary Sue’s lawyer begins by pointing out that they are — ahem! — headquartered in New York, which is pretty clearly not located in Alberta, Canada, where the lawsuit was filed. (I am reliably informed that Canada is actually a whole other country from us.)
Then The Mary Sue’s lawyer gently reminded the court — and, more to the point, the Honey Badgers — that TIME MOVES FORWARD, not backwards, and that an article that appeared after the Honey Badgers were tossed from the Expo could not have caused them to be tossed from the Expo.
In regard to breach of contract, this claim is not just unfounded, but it is simply impossible based on the timeline of events. The Mary Sue could not have induced the Calgary Expo (“the Expo”) to evict Plaintiff because the aforementioned article was published after Plaintiff’s eviction.
Yep. Apparently the Honey Badger’s fancy disbarred lawyer got the dates mixed up. But hey, the law isn’t about these little details.
There’s more to The Mary Sue’s response, but that’s pretty much the best bit, in this Time-Space continuum at least.
Yesterday, Hannah Wallen of the Honey Badgers — she’s the one who isn’t Karen Straughan or Alison Tieman — posted their official response to the Mary Sue’s letter. It did not mention what we can only call the Honey Badger Time Paradox, but instead tried to distract readers with some new charges against the dastardly Mary Sue.
Mary Sue claims a lack of involvement in Calgary Expo’s choice to expel the Honey Badgers from the event. However, in response to questions on twitter following our expulsion, the expo’s staff referenced The Mary Sue’s article about the event.
Ok, but the Mary Sue article was published after the expulsion, so it could not have caused the expulsion.
The Mary Sue’s prior and existing relationship with Calgary Expo is further demonstrated by an April 15th article promoting the Mary Sue sponsored cosplay contest which was to take place at the event.
Ok, but the Mary Sue article was published after the expulsion, so it could not have caused the expulsion.
Mary Sue weekend editor Sam Maggs was the first person to respond to Britany le Blanc’s first tweet objecting to “MRAs in the audience” at the women into comics panel.
Ok, but the Mary Sue article was published after the expulsion, so it could not have caused the expulsion.
Sorry, Ms. Wallen, but your little sleight of hand is no more effective than this dude’s not-quite-flawless disappearing act.
Just a reminder: the Honey Badgers raised more than $30,000 to cover the legal costs of their patently ludicrous lawsuit.
In my last post I noted that
MRAs and other antifeminists … have wasted literally hundreds of thousands of dollars on causes and projects and people that have pissed away their money without accomplishing anything of value … .
This would be one of those causes.
If you’ve got money burning a hole in your wallet, here’s a much better option:
@ Orange
Orange, I am vehemently opposed to male circumcision. However, it is not a mutilation. It is an operation that is barely ever dangerous and nothing much is lost (and some studies show small benefits, even, although that’s no excuse) so to say it is equivalent to FGM is actually fucking insulting to women and girls who have experienced FGM. Feminists are fed up of misogynists derailing conversations about preventing FGM by ranting about circumcision, because they are not comparable. One discussion is not as pressing as the other.
That derail may have happened, but it is not the norm. Maybe you’re not looking hard enough, because it IS NOT the other way around and has never been.
I am opposed to circumcision because it is most commonly done while the child can not give consent, not because of the same reasons as FGM.
Ohhkay, one more thing:
On a personal level, the one man that I know in real life who might have had MRA-like leanings (vocally against male circumcision, spoke out about prostate cancer funding levels way before it was in the common discourse, very about father’s rights, and has now made a mid-life career change to work with the overwhelmingly male population with specifically combat-induced PTSD) also now stridently and publicly speaks out against the current incarnation of the Men’s Right’s Movement as a bunch of vitriolic misogynists camped out under what could be a worthwhile banner.
(He also has a few epic rants under his belt about Red Pillers).
And, honestly, his assessment – especially given that he’s a strident supporter of the MRM’s “public face” goals – carries more weight with me than anything you could post.
I understand that that’s not fair – how are you to respond to something that you can’t see? – but *shrugs*
Oh, but thank you for your civil responses, Orange. Its much more relaxing debating on here when the person you’re debating with is like that!
It’s comical how close this whole discussion was about to end in (what seemed like) a mutual understanding.
Then, WWTH points out a small fracture in the well-constructed veil and suddenly the mask shatters, revealing a sealion underneath.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdhhQhqi_AE
Also, EJ, I’m saving that essay. You echo my thoughts :).
@ Moocow
I know! I was about to cease challenging Orange when they just wouldn’t accept they were wrong, then they did a massive u-turn. Now- the chaos is back!
Uuuuuugh. Yes, thank you for telling me things that I already know. I wish I hadn’t brought it up as an example. More fool me.
Edit: and also what nparker said.
I do hope I wasn’t coming across as trying to police how people were engaging with orange tango.
I typed that last post quickly on my break and looking back it sort of looked like I was telling you to basically shut up and that wasn’t my intent at all.
I was just wondering why I seemed to be the only sealion spotter 🙂
I do have to wonder how many MRAs have done anything like started a letter writing campaign to legislators about the male circumcision issue. Or anything more likely to result in change than whining about how feminists must not care about it because we focus on FGM more.
I’m guessing approximately zero.
@Viscaria – I totally (respectfully) disagree. I think there are lots of MRA statements, that on the face of, I would agree with and that I think are ‘good things’.
Men should have more access to their children post separation. You bet. Unfortunately that’s not what the MRA arguments descends into – and their arguments ultimately depart from reality. I would have more respect for them if they actually supported men who get into arrears through bad circumstances rather than bad faith. Mainly it’s used as an excuse to deprive women and children of family support. My MRA dickhead, abusive ex wants 50:50 custody, not because he wants to spend time with his kid – he certainly didn’t before, but because he’s bought into the ideology where he doesn’t want to pay me any child support.
We should do something about men’s mental health and suicide and physical health. Absolutely. And women’s, too. Investment in men’s mental and physical health services might look a little different for many men than women. My grandfather died from prostate cancer because he was a dr. avoider as many men are and probably wasn’t comfortable discussing ‘down there’ issues. This doctor avoiding disproportionately affects men, but I don’t think feminists are against differentiating services to support different segments of the population who have different needs or access services in different ways.
Men are victims of domestic violence, too. Do we need shelters for men? I do think it’s an under-resourced issue. I don’t know if that’s the right support, but I think we should find out and what other forms of support can help men. But I don’t think the fact that there aren’t men’s shelters is caused by feminists. . (And though there’s more awareness for DV on women, there’s not enough effective support there either.)
Infant circumcision, yes, I think it’s not a good thing. I chose not to circumcise my son. I’m not keen on people making life long decisions about other people’s bodily integrity esp. when they are not in position to speak for themselves. But I have no problem saying that fgm is much, much worse. One thing you don’t much (at all?) see is anti-fgm activists bursting into discussions about male infant circumcision. Mention fgm in a forum where there’s a comment section and there will always, always be some dude saying “What about the menz?”
…and so on…
My problem with MRM is that once you scratch the surface it’s always woman-hatin’ underneath and you don’t have to scratch that hard. Or that there are many issues that they bizarrely think are men only – like dangerous dirty work. Many women do and always have worked in dangerous and dirty industries, ignoring that is just profound foolishness. Were they different industries? Yes, often they were – and the women were worse paid than the men even when they worked in the same industry. Or that men are the only ones affected by war. This is a late 20th century American and maybe European view. We Americans were lucky that our civilian population wasn’t much engaged in the big conflicts of recent living memory. But that’s not so true of Europe (to wit – see former Yugoslavia for post WWII conflicts) and definitely not true in many places in the world.
So, do I think there are issues that affect men differently and deserve some advocacy? Yes, I definitely do. But that’s not what the MRM is about – otherwise they would do that and they would find common ground with feminists where there is common ground (hint: there’s a lot).
@EJ (the other one)
I found your essay really intriguing.
As a woman who has not always embraced stereotypical femininity, I felt it often was women and not men who pressured me to conform to those standards. I had problems with men in other areas, but not so much in that one. I’ve rarely had men say “Why don’t you wear a little make-up?” or question some of my more stereotypically masculine interests directly to my face. For much of my life I was more comfortable in the company of men/boys (delete as age appropriate) because I felt awkward and unfeminine with some women. This has become less of a problem as I’ve gotten older, but it was something I struggled with when I was younger – even to the point of sometimes questioning my gender identity. I mean, I don’t worry about it now, but I can remember worrying about it. It’s helped that I’ve found other women like me and can be a woman as I define it myself!
Oddly enough, I’ve had the opposite experience.
Well, not entirely opposite.
The people who disapprove of my lack of ‘girly’-ness are first and foremost little old ladies (the 60+ crowd). Seriously, I heard the little old church-ladies remark multiple times (disparagingly) that I was my Dad’s son and my mother’s daughter.
Middle aged ladies are the second most disaproving demographic.
For my own age group, though? In the recent college grad crowd, it’s been exclusively guys who asked questions of the ‘nudge towards gender conforming’ type.
For example:
“Are you sure you’re a girl?”
“It’d be a shame to cut your hair. You’d look like a dude!”
…among other things.
Yeah. Never really had a woman of my age try to con me into being more womanlike.
Anyone else kind of noticed a generational split?
Edit: Not that women didn’t subtly try and get me to be more girly. It was just more subtle. Well, not always subtle.
My girl scout troop got dissolved and reformed by the troop leaders to weed out the undesirables, and me being tomboy made me one of the undesirables who was not invited back.
Women were more likely to push me to conform by exclusion.
Just, face to face interactions? Always dudes.
@rugbyyogi, I don’t actually think we disagree on your main point, if I’m correctly paraphrasing it as “MRAs want some things that are good or fair on the surface, but those things are all tied up in a soup of women blaming and toxicity.” I just didn’t express myself terribly well :).
What EJ describes as what happens to boys who don’t conform is basically exactly what I went through, so I can share what it’s like:
TW for descriptions of violence and abuse
Throughout pre-highschool life, I got bullied relentlessly by boys for acting feminine (anything from ‘having an emotional reaction’ to the way I crossed my legs when I sit. No really; I got made fun of because I crossed my fucking legs ‘like a girl’). I would get teased constantly, laughed at, humiliated, physically attacked, etc… I would lose friends after people would be too embarrassed to be seen in my presence (their own sense of masculinity threatened), I got into fights where if I run away, I’m a [slew of gendered slurs] coward but if I fight and lose then I’m a [slew of gendered slurs] who’s also a failure. And of course, if I cried (or showed ANY reaction) during any of this, I got mocked and humiliated even further.
The advice I got from adults was “well just ignore it” “you’re enabling this by reacting” “just stop being so sensitive and it will go away” (which I know have learned is called victim blaming). From that, I ended up having very low self-esteem and, at certain times in my life, no friends whatsoever. I’ve lost track of the times I saw someone who I trusted and thought of as a friend… suddenly just join along with the bullying, a heartbreaking experience that made it very hard to trust people. I would see new kids arrive at our school and within a day they were already teasing me just like everyone else.
On a ski trip in 7th grade, for example, I was sitting quietly playing my gameboy. One of the boys came by, yanked the cartridge out and ran to the back of the bus. Of course, this was a game that a friend had lent to me, so I had to go back there and get it back. At which point, I was tripped, pushed down and physically restrained using the seatbelts. A couple of extra seatbelts were tied around me just so they could pull on them and watch me wince in pain. Every now and then (or if I tried to call out for help) someone would throw a punch in my face or stomach while I laid there terrified, just waiting for it to be over.
Eventually, after they’d had enough, they gave me my game cartridge back with all the save data deleted. After going back to my seat, I discovered they had gone through ALL of my games and deleted every single save I had on any of them. At this point I just was sobbing, picked up my stuff and walked downstairs where all the girls were. Within a second, they asked what happened to me and after I told them, they helped cheer me up and I’m very thankful they were there (I wish I had tried to be friends with these girls more, but anytime a boy shows interest in a girl, it’s assumed that OOOOH YOU LIKE HEEEEER! making things awkward at best and ruining friendships at worst). That whole ski trip incident was one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had to go through and it’s one that I haven’t shared with a lot of people, even my family.
Fortunately, I moved to a different school for high school, which did help. I did have some friends, but I still got plenty of abuse thrown my way (no longer physical, this was a private school, but plenty of verbal). Once, on a retreat, I had two roommates who spent an entire night calling me every single gendered and homophobic slur they could think of, gleefully sharing the experience with classmates the next day in front of my face.
“Well moocow is just bad at getting along with people” was the verdict that I was told, and eventually started to tell that to myself. Ugh, it was dreadful.
I’m happy that the past is behind me. And I’m happy to have learned, thanks to feminism, just how damaging gender roles really can be. I love what you wrote EJ, because you’re right on the mark.
…but hey, all I should have done was let them know that I have a bigger penis than them and none of this would have happened, RIGHT WALTER?
orange, I will listen to that bit from the show.
But I’m not sure why you think the HBB is better than AVFM. Admittedly, I don’t listen to their show regularly, and have only managed to force myself to listen to bits and pieces of it, but I’ve read numerous things by Alison, Karen and Hannah that have been truly awful. If you search through the archives here you’ll see some of my reactions to specific things they’ve written.
As for their show, well, a couple months back I decided to give an episode of HBB a listen. Not that long into the show, to my great surprise, they were all talking about how terrible they imagined my sex life to be. Is this a regular feature of their shows?
Moocow, I’m so sorry that those awful things happened to you. It’s heartbreaking.
I’m glad that you picked up your heart, put it back together, gave it time to heal, and moved along in your life in a positive way.
BTW, if you had been my son, I believe that I would have invested in self-defense classes for you.
@WWTH:
The thing is, you were right.
My hope was to engage orange tango drinker and thereby to show xir that at least one feminist is a patient human being who’s willing to work with xir and talk neutrally, thereby making it difficult for xir to swallow the poison of “all feminists and liberals are evil and hateful.” This is an approach I’ve taken before with religious people and with MRAs, and it does work: they’ve never met one of us before, just heard of us via their leader’s screeds, so once they actually meet the enemy and discover that they’re human, it makes them question the rest of the propaganda too.
However, as soon as the veil was rent, xe returned to sealioning and arguing in poor faith, and I realised that I was getting nowhere. So you were the smart one, not I.
@Moocow:
I’m glad that I could write something that resonates. Please, feel free to use that essay.
My sympathies go out to you for those incidents of bullying. That sounds really harsh. I’m sorry to hear it. I would offer hugs but
we’re surrounded by straight nerd women who would totally slash itit wouldn’t be appropriate. I’m glad you’re in a better place now.Maleness is what we make it. The hostility, competitiveness and obedience which saturates my gender is something I have no time for, and I hope we can create a properly strong male feminist community by removing it and releasing one another from the suicide pact.
@rugbyyogi:
@contrapangloss:
Congratulations on escaping your own gender policing. I’ve never been female and so can’t comment on what it’s like, but it sounds like there were difficulties in both directions.
@David:
How does Karen Straughan know anything about your sex life? Are your cats secretly spying on you and reporting back to her?
Or does she just spend a lot of time thinking about your dignified, manly physique? In that case, perhaps there’s something she needs to confess.
David, I think orange is trying to say that HBB is better because they invite feminists on to their show to assert their superiority or some such nonsense.
Y’know, despite the fact that they have a huge ideological overlap with AVfM, and pretty much agree with everything Elam says, but still believing that they’re “not like other girls” and are somehow safe from Elam’s bile.
@orange tango drinker:
A PRAAT is my misspelling of a PRATT, a Point Refuted A Thousand Times. Those are the arguments which have been made endlessly and for which the answers can be found via Googling them on any search engine.
An example of one of these arguments is “I don’t think that MRAs are misogynist.”
If someone makes a PRATT, and especially if they phrase it as a question as you did, one must assume that they have deliberately chosen not to Google the answer instead of asking me. This means that they are either too stupid or too lazy to Google, are so naive and self-centred that they genuinely believe they’re the first people to make that argument, or are arguing in bad faith and are simply trying to waste my time by demanding that I jump through their hoops.
Having interacted with you, I can see you’re not stupid, I don’t think you’re arguing in bad faith (people who argue in bad faith seldom concede points or stick to the topic, as you’ve done) and I don’t want to think of you as naive. However, those really are the only options. This is why I am disappointed in you for the PRATT.
@orange tango drinker
Here are two new challenges for you:
1. Quote three terrible things that three different feminists have said. We’ll need the complete citation: name of the book or article (and the journal, if applicable) and the page number. Valerie Solanas’s SCUM manifesto doesn’t count. Her views are widely seen as extremist and unacceptable by feminists. It’s more of a document of how she was feeling after many years of rejection and a bitterly hard life.
2. Transcribe five particularly important minutes of a Honey Badger video for us. We’ll need a complete citation for that too: the name of the video, the date, and the minutes you are transcribing.
I don’t know about other Mammothers, but I know that I’ll read what you say on these subjects, as long as you include complete citations.
As it is, you’re dragging this conversation out with hints. Nothing but hints as to what is on your mind. Are you doing this for lulz? Or do you actually have something to say? On this website, we’re serious people, although we also enjoy jokes and cat videos.
The whole thing was great. But truly, thank you so much for the Gif image at the end, it just really made my night* and it summed up the level of HoneyBadger fail so perfectly.
*I’m saving it in my ‘Funnies’ folder!
@Kat @EJ
Thanks for the encouragement! I’m happy to be able to share these experiences and not feel ashamed of them. To this day, I’m still not sure what was the ‘right’ way to handle these instances would have been. I felt like I had exhausted every option and each one just lead right back to the same outcome.
It’s kind of why I think feminism came naturally to me, I can completely empathize with being treated like shit by dudes and then have society tell me that it’s my fault for being myself.
EJ, it’s also interesting that you describe ‘obedience’ as a characteristic of masculinity. I never thought of it that way but I definitely see it.
Moocow,
Hugs and kittens.
http://36.media.tumblr.com/7084776f1e66dc02de18251634bf7757/tumblr_mr2i6yda2O1scv6i0o1_500.jpg
David,
Funny how MRAs think it’s a human rights violation when a woman turns a man down for sex. Women are supposed to have compassion for rapists and murderers if they’ve been rejected by a women a lot because not getting any is just as bad, if not worse than being raped or killed.
Until it’s a man they don’t like. If they think a man they don’t like can’t get laid or can only get sex from women that are man oppressingly ugly, fat, tattooed etc. than it’s the funniest thing ever.
EJ,
I hear you. I don’t personally have the patience for that though! I guess it helps that you’re a man and people are more likely to listen you. For me, arguing with a man or misogyny internalizing woman about misogyny is either going to be like smashing my head against a brick wall or it’s going to devolve into them calling me crazy, bitch, cunt, ugly spinster, blah blah blah no matter how calm I am. Or perhaps I just suck at debating.
Moocow: Bullying is the worst! I absolutely know how you feel about it seeming like no matter what you do, it turns out the same. I’m sorry you had to go through all that.
@Moocow
http://www.acuteaday.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/loving-mother-cow-and-calf1.jpg
@Moocow
I think you handled those terrible situations in the absolute ‘right’ way. In my opinion at least, the ‘right’ way is the way that gets you through it, whatever that is. Coping with abuse is hard and is different for everyone, and expecting anything more from a person is expecting omniscience. I think you did great, and I’m glad you’re able to look back with perspective.