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By David Futrelle
UPDATE: DeVos met with MRAs Thursday; here’s what she told reporters afterwards.
The Trump administration has given a lot of fringe political weirdos a certain not-quite-legitimacy. We’ve seen “alt-lite” conspiracy slinger and bobblehead salesman Mike Cernovich given White House press credentials; meanwhile, Twitterbanned right-wing pseudo-journalist Chuck Johnson seems to have become entangled in one of the developing Trump/Russia collusion scandals, working at the behest of a longtime Republican donor (now deceased) who was apparently willing to drop big bucks to help Trump by somehow uncovering Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails.
Now a notorious Men’s Rights group — the National Coalition For Men — will be meeting with Education secretary Betsy DeVos to discuss the campus rape epidemic that MRAs claim doesn’t exist. DeVos will also be talking with rape survivors and college officials, but the fact that the NCFM will be part of the discussion is appalling, even by Trump administration standards.
Despite its long pedigree (it’s been around since 1977) and almost respectable-sounding name, the NCFM has, I would estimate, roughly as much legitimacy as a civil rights group as the Men’s Rights hate site A Voice for Men or the Men Going Their Own Way subreddit. Which is to say none.
Indeed, the NCFM site clutters its sidebars with videos from the likes of AVFM founder Paul Elam and antifeminist gadfly Girl Writes What, while the main page touts articles accusing feminism of destroying the family, suggesting campus “safe spaces” are “havens of misandry” and asking “is feminism killing young boys,” with the last article written by a regular contributor to AVFM.
The group has also won a certain notoriety in feminist circles for posting pictures of alleged “false accusers” on its website. I also ran across this lovely picture and caption on the NCFM site last year, illustrating a press release on Senator Patrick Leahy and the Violence Against Women Act.
As I noted at the time, “the Joker is [apparently] supposed to represent Leahy’s supposed feminist puppetmasters; regardless, it is a jarring image depicting violence against an elected official as somehow humorous.” If you can’t quote believe that a supposed civil rights group would run such a thing, well, make a quick visit to the group’s website; the picture is still up. (I’ve archived it here just in case.)
This is hardly the only time the NCFM or its officials have offered, well let’s just call them disconcerting takes on the issue of violence.
In an interview with Pacific Standard’s Ted Scheinman a couple of years ago, NCFM president Harry Crouch offered this take on Ray Rice, the (former) football player who knocked his then fiancée out cold with a punch famously caught on video.
I’m not saying he’s a good guy. But if she hadn’t aggravated him, she wouldn’t have been hit. They would say that’s blaming the victim. But I don’t buy it. And anyway football is always happy to put on pink suits to celebrate women. Why can’t they have a week, or just one day, where they celebrate men?
It’s no wonder that Jess Davidson of the group End Rape On Campus, told the HuffPost that she considers the NCFM a “hate group.”
“They have viciously and very intentionally harassed rape survivors online by exposing their identities and posting pictures of them,” Davidson told the HuffPost. “From our perspective, they really have no place in a conversation about civil rights.”
DeVos will also be meeting with representatives of the group Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE), a group the Southern Poverty Law Center once described as devoted to “roll[ing] back services for victims of domestic abuse and penalties for their tormentors, while working to return the focus to the ‘true victims of abuse’ — the falsely accused.”
SAVE has long worked hand-in-hand with hate site AVFM to fight for men they believe have been “falsely accused.”
The meeting is scheduled to take place July 13th.
It is not known if any bears or their representatives will be attending the meeting.
H/T — Thanks to everyone who sent me links on this story
@Laugher
If you’ve become disillusioned with conservatism and see the stupidity of the Alt-Right, then you should consider patriarchy. Not the feminist conspiracy theory. A genuine, civilized patriarchy. Jews aren’t the problem. Globalists aren’t the problem. Women aren’t the problem. The system is the problem. The decline/stagnation of western civilization results from our abandonment of the balanced and fair system of soft patriarchy we once enjoyed. Restoring the link between authority and responsibility is the answer.
He is not trying to represent you. He is taking the stupid shit the manosphere says verbatim and puts them up for us to mock. Because that is what this blog is about.
Tracking misogyny and mocking it.
So if you do not want to be mocked, don’t say stupid, misogynistic shit, here. Pretty simple, actually.
What would that entail? What’s a specific time and culture that is a “civilized” patriarchy and what makes it better than what we have today? ETA: Not that we don’t have a patriarchy still, but there’s far more gender equity now than there has been in “western civilization” before.
Nice attempt at sounding moderate and non-misogynist. No sale. How is a system in which half the population is denied full equality fair? Patriarchy is fair and balanced like Fox News is fair and balanced.
@Big D
Congrats for missing the actual points of most of the people in this thread.
About the “genuine, civilized patriarchy”, do you have any still existing examples? Civilization does better when every sex is represented in the power structure.
A “Genuine, civilized patriarchy” is as likely as a “Totally working communist system”, which is to say, we have no real examples of either, at least not that last for very long, or never change adjectives.
The joke when I was in school was that, the more of the following were in the name of a country or organization, the less likely any of them were true.
Glorious, Democratic, Peoples’, Republic, Socialist, Workers’, Communist, Revolutionary.
At the time, and still in most cases today, anything calling itself anything like the “Democratic Republic of X” was neither.
“If you’ve become disillusioned with conservatism and see the stupidity of the Alt-Right, then you should consider patriarchy.”
This is sort of like saying “if you’ve become disillusioned with religious fundamentalism and see the stupidity of the KKK, then you should consider being a second class citizen.”
Don’t you have seagulls to hunt or something?
Late to the party, but, ?well done @Imaginary Petal! I started my Masters last year at the age of 33. Got another year to go but I’ve already found more confidence and it’s been quite an experience going back into education after 12 years.
Big D
I’m interested (well, okay, not really) in who has authority in this “soft patriarchy” you’re advocating and who is subject to that authority. What happens to those who overreach their authority? How would someone subject to authority report-fight back-get redress concerning that person’s exceeding of the bounds of legitimate exercise of authority?
What exactly _is_ this link between authority and responsibility you’re so enamoured with?
That’s legitimately hilarious.
“If you’ve become disillusioned with being shat on for your socioeconomic class, and see the stupidity of being shat on for your socioeconomic class and your race, then you should consider being shat on for your socioeconomic class, your race and your sex*”. Hooray!
* terms used may also include other attributes not listed on the label.
@JS
@WWTH
Patriarchy worked for thousands of years. Unless or until our biology is significantly altered, it’s the only thing that can work in the long run. Patriarchy will return one way or another. I’d prefer if it happened peacefully and without the collapse we’re currently headed for.
@mildlymagnificent
I’m moving on from this thread. It’s already gone way off topic. But this video should answer all your questions: http://bit.ly/2uq79kS It’s directed at men (since what the future holds is almost entirely up to us and what we decide to do) but it’s a good introduction for both males and females to the basic vision for a healthy society.
This article gives a different take on the same subject and offers a more optimistic outlook: http://bit.ly/2ugDUAD It’s from the perspective of those who still see hope in politics and think total collapse can be avoided. I’m in the pessimism camp. But as my initial comment indicated, Mrs. DeVos and the gang might prove me wrong. I still doubt it.
@Big D
Well, by most standards, I’m a man, so I guess you think I would support this. Without sending me off onto lots of links which I don’t have time for, can you explain to me what you mean by ‘patriarchy worked.’ In what way did it ‘work’? Was a South American patriarchy the same as a Danish or Norwegian patriarchy, or a Chinese one? Who did it ‘work’ for? What should I look for as markers of its success?
As a counter-argument, can I recommend you read ‘Woman, Population and Global Crisis’ by Asoka Bandarage, which posits a rather different reading of ‘thousands of years’ of history to the one you seem to subscribe to.
“Patriarchy worked for thousands of years.”
For some men, yes. Usually the rich and powerful ones. Are you omitting the downsides out of ignorance, or are you hoping we won’t notice them?
What is this supposed to mean?
@big d
What collapse? Why are you and your MRA mates convinced society will collapse? There are no signs of this happenning, short of environmental disasters, which are the result of unbridled capitalism and climate change denial. The moral decline myth is just a myth made up by end times preachers just to scare you. In fact, morals have generally improved, if you don’t believe me, look back at the stuff that went on in the middle ages, the Victorian age, right through to your glory days pre civil rights in the 60’s. Would you like public lynchings to come back in style? Yes, shit happens, but it isn’t because of feminism, LGBTQIA+ rights or immigration. It’s because some people are shitpipes, and always have been. Human nature, simple as.
Hi Big D,
You’re new here, aren’t you? After the first page and a half, our threads tend to go radically off topic. It’s not considered poor manners to deviate further. On the other hand, refusing to answer a direct question with a direct answer may be considered poor manners.
Like DanHolme, I’m extremely curious as to what you mean by patriarchy. Like Virgin Mary, I’m also curious as to what you mean by total collapse. The world is doing pretty well nowadays; indeed when we look at the parts of it where most people live, we’re doing better than ever.
Just linking to a video isn’t considered an acceptable answer, by the way. Some of us are on phones here, or are otherwise unable to watch video.
@Big D
What do you mean, “we”, white man?
I was going to respond to the ignorant troll, but I haven’t got the spoons to deal with the wilfully ignorant (and the things I wanted to say would break all sorts of comments policy rules, as well as being impolite). I prefer reading the knowledgeable writings of the regular commentariat. Going off topic is one of my favourite things about this place. You’re all so interesting and I come away from here learning something new almost every time.
@EJ:
Unable or, as WWTH said, unwilling.
I’ve got better Youtube videos to watch than some MGTOWRAPUA talking head who’s liable to start spewing sexist/racist/transphobic/homophobic bullshit two minutes in that is blindingly obvious to everyone who isn’t already deep in the manosphere.
Not that I’m surprised, though. From what I’ve seen, alt-righties are literally incapable of actually contributing to discussions. When they’re directly confronted, all they do is deflect by linking to videos as if they’re evidence, or trying to change the conversation to how horrible feminists and “SJWs” are, or just by “winning” through spamming so much vapid text that the other person just gets exasperated and gives up.
That’s why I didn’t even bother addressing the content of their first post; when the username is a dick reference, they’re clearly far enough into the rabbit hole that they’re certainly not going to see any reason.
I figured you would answer this way. They all do. You’re so predictable.
What this answer means is that you probably believe that paleolithic life looked just like a Flintstones episode and then after that, it looked just like a Leave it to Beaver episode. Until mean old 2nd wave feminism came along and caused us to deviate from those natural gender roles we all unquestioningly loved so much.
If you think that, you’re incredibly ignorant about history. Gender roles have varied across cultures and time periods. This is why I asked you for a specific time period and culture and this is why I asked you why this particular culture is better than what we have now. We can be the US, as that’s where this blog is based from. Or if you’re not USian, you can define we as your country. Take your pick. Because, guess what? Gender roles and the level of rights women have still vary across cultures.
Given that gender roles have varied so much across cultures and are constantly evolving, can you explain how biology neccessitates patriarchy? You’d be better off using evolutionary biology or genetics for your argument, but if you want to use evopsych, go ahead.
We’ll all have fun mocking that.
Ah yes. The good old protection racket. We can voluntarily submit ourselves to you or you’ll beat, rape and kill us into submission. Lovely.
I don’t know why you were whining about how much David misrepresents MGTOW. You sound exactly like every other misogynistic and ignorant trouserstain he writes about here.
Flouncing already? Weak. I know you’re out of depth here, but you could have at least tried. I’m very disappointed in you. Since you guys often have trouble sticking to the flounce, I did answer you. If you do come back, I ask you again, what specific culture would be an example of a genuine civilized patriarchy? Why was it better than now? Describe in a paragraph or two what genuine civilized patriarchy looks like. That’s really not asking too much. Unless you know, you never thought this whole thing through and are just parroting misogynist talking points.
Does he think that marketing it as “soft” patriarchy is going to allow it to slip past our defenses? Are we supposed to be all, “At first I was opposed to giving up all control of my own life and body to a bunch of men, but then I learned about soft patriarchy. How could it be bad? It’s soft! Women like soft things!”
@ viscaria
I’d never really thought of patriarchy as a gendered product; but do you think women might go for patriarchy if there was a pink version that was a few quid dearer?
@Big D, I will reply to you once I am done with a work meeting. It will tragically be a bit long, but this is how it goes. It ain’t a meeting unless it’s wasting everyone’s productive time, right?
I realize you said that youre moving on, if you don’t want to continue that’s fine. I will write for the benefit of my friends and colleagues here too. I will also extend to you all of my powers of rationality and try to reconstruct your argument in its very strongest form! So do chime in if I get it wrong at that point.
I will not be watching your YouTube videos though. Video is an extremely poor medium for conveying contentious ideas for discussion. It’s a very good medium for conveying contentious ideas as if they were not contentious though! For this reason I will ask for primary text sources only. I’ll work with what is there. The Nietzche is a good start. He’s got a few good ideas pickled in that creamy horse poop prose after all.
(As a note for the future: if your best argument is from centuries ago, you are probably wrong. Or at the least you need to be more critical and read some takedowns.)
Excuse my typos, I am on my phone. Mea culpa! Will reply properly when I can.
@EJ I’m also curious what he means by “Western”. Because the way that Proud Boys founder and local bearded git Gavin McInnes was using it as a substitute for “white” when asked to repeat the “14 words,” I guess that means that Mexico doesn’t count as “Western” does it? How about Jamaica? Haiti? Chile? Brazil? Cuba? Honduras? Belize? Peru?
Or is it just everything north of Florida?
@Gussie
“Western” means “White” even outside of the Nazisphere – remember that Australia and most European countries are considered “Western” but are very much in the Eastern Hemisphere.
@BIgD
Jumping Jehosophat!! One of those videos is by someone who, obviously voluntarily, calls himself Turd Flinging Monkey and the other is from the one and only Roosh V in person.
NO! None of my questions about the proper – and properly controlled-limited-restrained – exercise of authority were answered. Not even attempted. Let alone anything about the posited link between responsibility and authority.
-20 points for the flounce. This kind of flounce at this kind of point in a discussion is heavily penalised.