The second not-quite-annual International Conference on Men’s Issues in London didn’t get a lot of media attention when it happened in early July. Actually, as far as I can tell, it didn’t get any, aside from a brief and somewhat silly post on a blog called We Hunted the Mammoth, which, come to think of it, is my blog, the one right here.
The media blackout may have had something to do with the organizers’ insistence that members of the press pay full ticket price — £265 — for the honor of covering the conference. Or maybe no one really cared? I mean, Men’s Rights is so last year. Or maybe so two years ago.
Well, the media has finally gotten around to covering the event. A piece in The Guardian today reports, rather belatedly, that Tory MP Philip Davies gave a talk at the conference, attacking “feminist zealots” for promoting a legal system that, in his estimation, discriminates against men. Davies’ speech seems to have been rather standard MRA fare, claiming that “militant feminists” want “equality … only when it suits [their] agenda.”
“For example, we hear plenty about increasing the numbers of women on company boards and female representation in parliament,” Davies and his Amazing Haircut declared. “However, there’s a deafening silence when it comes to increasing the number of men who have custody of their children or who have careers as midwives.”
In the US, at least, men who actually ask for custody get it most of the time. And are there really a lot of men clamoring to get into midwifery? Is anyone actually blocking them from this career path?
The Guardian article devotes nearly as much time to the event’s organizer — Mike Buchanan of the spectacularly unsuccessful Justice for Men and Boys party — and the other conference speakers as it does to Davies and his speech. As The Guardian reports,
Davies appeared alongside controversial figures including Herbert Purdy, an anti-feminist blogger who has written posts such as “The exquisite beauty of patriarchy”, and who argues that [female education activist Malala] Yousafzai could be more dangerous than Bin Laden.
Also speaking at the conference? The Canadian blogger and former Twitter activist known as Janet Bloomfield, whom, the Guardian notes,
has called single mothers “bona fide idiots” who don’t care about their children’s wellbeing, and writes blogposts with titles such as “Why Don’t We Have a Dumb Fucking Whore Registry? Now That Would Be Justice.”
Hey, all publicity is good publicity, right?
As is so often the case when it comes to Men’s Rights activism, the real action is taking place in the comments, of which there are more than 3000. (The total was 2966 when I started writing this post; by the time I got back to the comments they had been closed after reaching a staggering 3130.)
As far as I can tell from my quick scan through the comments — you don’t expect me to read them all, do you? — most of the story’s readers were not exactly impressed with Davies or his MRA friends. One referred to Men’s Rights activism as being “for people who find train-spotting too challenging.” Another wrote that MRAs “are only a little above the KKK in stupidity.”
“Christ, what an insufferable bellend,” one remarked of Davies himself. Another suggested that the MP “has raised idiocy to the level of performance art.”
The MRAs who showed up for this battle responded in kind.
“Women belong in the Kitchen and in Bed,” declared one.
“About [time] there was a backlash against the pansification of the country, good on yer son,” wrote another.
Amazingly. I didn’t see any of A Voice for Men’s flying monkey internet comment spam squad (AVFMFMICSS) in the comments. Maybe they’re all bored with Men’s Rights activism too.
H/T — Too many to mention!
@ Latte Cat I learned so many from the few years I watched Top Gear. 🙂
Okay, am I the only one skeeved out here by the idea of an MRA midwife? I mean, there is exactly one reason such individuals would want the job, and it’s one of the biggest reasons they would be disqualified from ever doing it.
Just… no.
The things they already do ARE real trouble–internet harassment campaigns, rape and death threats, encouraging stochastic terrorism (which, for the record, requires very little effort on the part of the people advocating for harm to others–they just have to get into the bonnet of someone who is susceptible to their ‘reasoning’).
This is actually how the KKK works, too.
So please, just stop trying to minimize the harm these fuckwits are capable of.
There’s some truth to this–but only some. I’d say that by the time an MP is speaking at their events, it’s time to shed some light on the politician’s chosen associates.
What the mainstream media needs to avoid is any sort of ‘both sides-ism’. They cannot give any legitimacy to the views of a hate movement. And that’s something the MSM is failing miserably at these days.
@KafkaNoMore
I’d agree with you except that the article was primarily about an elected representative speaking at the conference.
His constituents need to be told how far from the pack he’s strayed, and the rest of the country needs to know that the Conservatives are harbouring people with these views.
The fact that, when challenged, he started with the “I don’t agree with everything” defence, rather than “I was there to draw attention to the important issue of XYZ” tells you how unhappy he is with the press coverage.
I call this a win.
ETA Ninja’d by Freemage!
I’ve just worked out that the day after the conference ended, Philip Davies got a new boss.
She’s on holiday right now, but I wonder what she’ll make of his antediluvian opinions?
That haircut made me think of someone who was a member of an early ’80s pop band. I must say I’m disappointed to learn Mr. Davies was not in fact a member of some such group.
More from the Guardian article:
So women don’t face sexism. Nor, apparently, do men(?). Except for the oppressed male members of Parliament(!).
Even this woman from the USA, who has heard only a few snippets of Parliament debates, knows that the male voices are heard — loud and often. “Hear, hear!” the men exclaim. There’s got to be women in there, but their voices are drowned out by the men’s.
When I showed my husband that photo, his reaction was simply “My god! Did he lose a bet?”
EJ (The Other One) – on Holiday
There was about a hot minute in the ‘aughts where Mens Rights Activist was a term used by those who wanted to be the legit male auxiliary to the feminist movement, yeah. It was very controversial at the time whether men should use the term feminist, especially when talking specifically about the harms patriarchy/toxic mascuilinity does to men themselves. It reaaaaally did not last long at all in sincerity before becoming a euphemism, though. “Meninist” was coined a few months later in the same spirit and suffered the same fate, if not faster.
Since then the argument that anti-sexist men shouldn’t call themselves “feminist” seems to have died back in popularity. The old arguments didn’t get any less convincing, necessarily, but everyone saw the alternatives weren’t super pretty… I haven’t seen any more attempts to rebrand.
Hmm. According to Davies, male members of Parliament have difficulty speaking up. And male midwives are similarly oppressed. But MP Jess Phillips disagrees with Davies. And this male midwife acknowledges that he faces some challenges, but seems to feel that they are understandable and hardly overwhelming:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/11202075/No-job-for-a-man-Meet-the-male-midwives.html
I know I speak as a woman who hasn’t given birth but I suspect that, when in labour, the most important issue is “who will get this baby out as quickly, safely and painlessly as possible”, not “first I need to check on their genitals”.
I did have a colposcopy once and, aside from wondering if a woman would have performed a cervical smear then sprayed iodine on it (easy way to find out you have an organ you previously hadn’t felt; walk home after a procedure where they expose tissue then spray iodine on it), I had no issues with the male doctor up in my bits.
@banananana dakry:
(love your nym btw!)
Male ObGyns I’ve had twice. No major complaints about either – the first gets a small “boo” for not warming up his instruments (cold speculum brrrrr), while the second gets sooo many points for talking me through two colposcopies in a way that really reduced my anxiety and distress.
Male midwives do seem to be more rare, but clearly they do exist and I see no evidence of them being disrespected – at least not by the midwifery profession. Now MRAs looking down on them as “unmanly manginas” – that could see.
Also, for Americans reading the whole midwives thing, in the UK, hospital births are primarily directed by midwives. Obstetricians are only called in for births where they might be needed.
I’ve never really understood why the Americans seem to call doctors in just to catch the baby.
It would be if they thought that equality was the “feminist agenda”, but they believe that the real agenda is female supremacy. By making it so that women are equal where men are “superior”, but to keep men “inferior” where women are “superior”. Basically, applying the spoken agenda selectively, only where it advances the “real” agenda.
There is a small kernal of truth in that. The handful of areas where things really could be better for men are considered to be *not the responsibility of feminism* by quite a lot of feminists. But neglecting one area of equality because it doesn’t fit the primary focus isn’t the same as oppression.
I’ve heard that there’s a dearth of male teachers/caretakers for younger children in part due to the suspicion that any man who would *want* to is likely to be a pedophile.
@Weatherwax:
Having had four colposcopies so far (two by a man, two by a woman), the cervical smear followed by iodine spray seems to be standard. It certainly didn’t differ between doctor’s genders in my case. Also the acetic acid (yeowtch!). I think it’s necessary to visualize possible lesions. It truly just isn’t a fun procedure. Beats missing a developing cancer, though.
@Neurite
You make me feel better that I’m not alone. Could they not have done them on different days, though? Or warned us? But thanks for confirming it’s doctors being doctors.
Thanks for posting that link about custody rates, David; I hadn’t seen those numbers and they were pretty illuminating.
I’ve had both male and female ob/gyna. The worst, roughest and least empathetic was a woman (I was having my first Pap and I was terrified) and the gentlest and kindest was a man. I commented on this, and he joked that when he was training, he just visualised someone coming at HIS bits with cold stainless steel and adjusted his technique accordingly.
Not sure that medical skills, empathy or nurturing are tied to genitals. Early training and enculturation sure is, which is why I agree – we need more male elementary school (primary school) teachers, so boys have role models in the caring professions. No one stopping them, except the poor pay and societal status of what are generally seen as ‘women’s professions’. Maybe if we fixed that we’d get more guys wanting to teach and become nurses? I know, I know, radical idea, right.
@Weatherwax:
I dunno, I figure both procedures are needed for a full workup, and they don’t want to make you come in twice/schedule two appointments. At least in my case they did warn me.
For extra happy fun times, after my first colposcopy, I had to then go in to work using the same transportation I used to get there – a bicycle. X(
I knew better the next time.
(At least that time they didn’t take a biopsy. And I gotta say, the time I needed to have a biopsy taken it was done by a woman, and she actually chided me for screaming, telling me it didn’t hurt that bad. Like hell it didn’t!)
I think the right wing is courting MRA’s now to try to get their votes and possibly get more otherwise apolitical men to vote for them. I knew some people who were into the MRM in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, pre-AVFM. The MRM grew out of the Men’s Liberation Movement (MLM) beginning in the late 70’s at least and it has been nominally left wing until the late 2000’s. Most traditionalist and social conservative anti-feminists were not interested in the MRM since they were concerned more with making divorce harder to get and opposing pornography and gay rights (while the MRM was traditionally pro-porn and pro-gay rights).
Most of the MLM stopped supporting feminist groups in the mid-1970’s because the feminist groups started focusing on violence against women and violent masculinity in culture rather than focusing solely on legal equality and deconstructing gender roles. Since then, the MLM continued focusing solely on legal equality and deconstructing gender roles (the “success object” stuff), so it quickly became irrelevant to society at large and the left except for a few brocialist Trotskyists. MRA’s split off from the MLM and became somewhat more relevant to society when they started blaming feminism for men’s supposed oppression, so they essentially tried to copy what the feminists were doing and made shit up as they went along.
There are still a few groups that focus on male gender roles who are not anti-feminist (or the organizations are very confused about whether they are pro-feminist or not), but they’re tiny compared to MRA’s. MRA’s experimented with being on the left a bit, but the mainstream left completely rejected them. At least since AVFM, there’s been more of a “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” relationship with the political right and right libertarianism. The MLM variety of 1970’s liberalism is pretty much dead, so they’re allying with anyone who doesn’t like feminists.
Male midwives are extremely rare here in Aust. (there are only around 10 registered, nationwide). Men who want to do midwifery certainly don’t face any formal barriers, but they do have to contend with silly attitudes (not from so-called ‘feminazis’ but from other men and some women). Personally I’d like to see more midwives of whatever gender because they are brilliant.
In teaching there’s a long-standing pattern: primary school teachers are mostly women, except principals/deputy principals; in high school there’s more of a balance, but a lot of segregation re subject (more men in science/maths/IT; more women in English/languages/art).
In my experience, feminists have always been concerned with labour force segregation of any kind – not simply getting access for women. The whole idea of ‘male work’ and ‘female work’ was identified as a problem decades ago.
@Snowberry – yes, that disgusting idea that men interested in ‘caring’ professions must be paedophiles still has currency 🙁
I posted this before but I’ll post it again
Problems that men’s rights activists can discuss and solve:
*Provide therapy to rape, abuse, etc male victims and men and boys who have addictions
*Teach men and boys about what’s rape, abuse, etc and how to support victims.
*Help single fathers by how to listen and be there for their children and even do hobbies of what the children like to do and be sure to teach their kids not to follow what society wants them to do (ex. boys like sports and girls like ballet)
*Help guys in sex work. There’s addictions and human trafficking
*Raise money for homeless, etc shelters
*Raise money and awarness for cancer, etc
*help veterans and honor them
*discuss and help orphans to find homes
*Discuss racism, colorism, etc in the Native American community, black community, Hispanic community, Jewish community, etc
*Discuss homophobia, bi-phobia, etc
*discuss transphobia
*discuss ableism
*Talk about toxic masculinity- teach boys and men that it’s ok to seek help and to cry, they don’t need to have sex, etc and teach toxic masculinity is rooted in misogyny
*etc
BUT NOPE! What do Misongynistic Rapey Assasins teach, discuss, etc instead?
*How to beat, rape, murder, harass, etc women and girls and get away with it
*Make memes on why women and girls deserve everything bad that happens to them and should be blamed for everything and tell us how privileged we are and never been opressed
*Silence, threaten, etc women and girls whenever they talk about their problems with ‘not all men’ and ‘what about the men?” And invade and take over female spaces
*be hypocrites on how no one cares about men and boys but bash guys at every given opportunity when it involves them being raped, abused, etc by giving them advice to get revenge or congratulating them for getting lucky with a hot chick and bashing female victims as well saying they’re just lying, etc
*call women and girls misognynistic slurs
*Get together to talk about how much feeeemales suck
*The Friendzone
*Female MRAs- “I’m not like those other feeeemales!” *being exactly like those ‘feeeemales’ they complain about oh so much* Is what they boil down to.
*etc
Misongynistic Rapey Assasins are not activists at all but terrorists and they’re no better then the kkk and Nazis I really do apoligize to the victims of these terrorist organizations but all that bigotry, etc that the men’s rights activists, manospherians and other misognyists I have seen and heard that have spewed and commited, I really don’t see any difference with MRAs and kkk and Nazis. Actually some MRAs are Nazis and kkk members so it’s not in fact lying and being insulting to the victims at all.
I asked my wife (a former midwife) about male midwives, and her plausible theory is that the comparative scarcity is a combination of the job’s image as being “women’s work” and the fact that it’s desperately underpaid relative to the level of skill and responsibility involved.
Which is why my wife got out of the profession – she was sick and tired of arguing with far better paid doctors over medical matters whereby she had at least equal and in some cases superior expertise (since she was a specialist, and they generally weren’t).
That haircut looks like he had a fight with a lawnmower and lost.
MRAs and the Taliban are both afraid of Malala and for the same reason.