UPDATE: In a new post on his blog, Marshall explains what (he says) actually happened. See below for details.
UPDATE 2: AVFM says “Oops!” (See end of post.)
I just hope none of you were planning on attending the Great Vancouver All-MRA Debate on whether or not feminism has “gone too far.” Because the already strange story of this debate has taken an even stranger turn, which seems to involve a large degree of blatant lying from someone, or a bunch of someones, connected to the debate. Which, by the way, isn’t going to be happening, at least not any time soon.
A Voice for Men yesterday announced that the much ballyhooed debate would be “delayed due to outside interference.” The announcement told a dramatic tale:
Chris Marshall, a father’s rights activist and the manager of a Vancouver business where a scheduled debate addressing the question, “Has feminism gone too far?” reported that he has just been fired from his job, and escorted from the premises by Vancouver Police after 30 months of employment. The timing of Mr Marshal’s ejection comes 48 hours prior to that scheduled event.
You remember that big MRA-vs-feminists debate in Vancouver we were talking about the other day? The one later this month? In the car dealership? About whether or not feminism has “gone to too far?” Oh, and which doesn’t, so far, seem to involve any actual feminists?
In case no feminists decide to show up to a debate organized and moderated by MRAs, promoted only on MRA websites, and taking place in a car dealership run by an MRA, one Reddit MRA has a suggestion:
Yep, he really did just suggest that MRAs debate themselves, and then, with no sense of irony, say “Let’s not turn this debate into a MRA circlejerk.”
It’s hard to imagine a more perfect encapsulation of the Men’s Rights movement than this. MRAs are always eager to debate the imaginary feminists that live only in their own heads. Straw feminists are really the only feminists they know.
You might also enjoy TyphonBlue’s heroic special-snowflaking in the Reddit thread.
So I’ve been mostly avoiding writing about the whole Men’s Rights postering controversy in Vancouver, because it’s such a tempest in a teapot. The tl;dr: Some posters got torn down, and some of the people tearing them down yelled at the blabby MRA videoblogger and A Voice for Men second fiddle known as JohnTheOther.
MRAs: Given that virtually none of you have any experience as actual real world activists, you may not be aware of this, but POSTERS GET TORN DOWN. It’s annoying, and I don’t support it myself, but it happens all the time. Sometimes, you may actually run across people tearing down your posters, at which point there is usually some sort of awkward confrontation that may include yelling.
You know what you do when this happens? You put your posters up again. You know what you don’t do? Compare the experience to rape. Because, on the list of the grand injustices of the world, having posters torn down is pretty far down the list, somewhere around “stubbing your toe” and “kitten farts on you.”
So I wasn’t planning on commenting on this mysterious little Men’s Rights protest that managed to draw a meager seven protestors, with only two signs amongst them, one of them impossible to read at a distance. I mean, despite the poor turnout, they’re actually making an effort to do something in the real world, right? And that’s something, even if the person posting this picture didn’t bother to tell us when this happened or who organized it or even what the protest was about. (Circumcision? Or Men’s Rights generally?) But, hey, baby steps, right?
Like your arse, men’s rights are massive right now. Of course, this has been “a thing” since the Fathers4Justice superheroes first scaled a public building, reiterating in one fell swoop that irresponsible, life-endangering behaviour and silly costumes are not only newspaper-friendly, but are also not qualities many women look for in a potential birthing partner. Then we had Tom Martin suing the London School of Economics’ gender studies programme for sexism, one of his complaints being that the chairs they sat on were too hard and not suitable for the comfortable positioning of his goolies. Poor Tom.
…
A Voice for Men is essentially the EDL [that is, the Islamophobic English Defence League –DF] of the mens’ rights movement, positing as it does such statements as “a single mother is a woman who in most cases chose to have, or to raise a child without a father. This demonstrates terrible, selfish values”, and “fake boobs are a sexual advertisement. If your wife or GF wants them that means she’s seeking to attract heightened male attention.” It’s extremist, bitter, and encourages men to “not get fucked” by taping every conversation that they have with a woman, like a troop of paranoid angry, ninja spies.
Naturally, MRAs are up in arms about this horribly unfair completely accurate (and if anything rather understated) description of their “movement.” I added some thoughts of my own to the discussion on Reddit here. Here’s one of the responses:
EDITED TO ADD AGAIN: On the Men’s Rights subreddit, the battle rages on, but alas I can contribute no more, having just been banned from there, apparently for mentioning The Spearhead too many times, or something. Separate post on that in a second. But in the meantime, here’s my favorite comment from the whole thread, from someone who apparently didn’t enjoy the New Statesman piece as much as I did:
If anyone knows of any sorority newsletter that reads like that New Statesman piece, please let me know, as I would like to subscribe to that newsletter and/or join that sorority, if my status as a mangina qualifies me for membership.
In the meantime, I have added The Vagenda, the online home of Rhiannon and Holly, the authors of the NS piece, to the “Antidotes to Boobery” sidebar.
I wanted to reveal just how twisted these men can be in the pursuit of their agenda so I came up with a story they could not resist. …
The spermjacker trope is irresistible to “men’s rights” activists because they believe they are perfect Darwinian examples of masculinity and as a result are irresistible to the hormonally irrational schemers that make up womankind. Narcissism and misogyny collide to make a toxic brew.
Oh, and I added the twist that this man punched his girlfriend so hard in the stomach that she bruised. Surely such fierce proponents of “gender equality” would not support violence against women. Right?
Well, we all know how that turned out. Ineedhelpnow1234/the blogger Eschatology continued:
The “men’s rights” movement is morally bankrupt. It is made up of people who support hitting women. It is made up of people who refuse to say it is wrong to hit women. It is made up of people who are so paranoid of women that they think people actually talk like this:
You fucking bastard, how dare you punch me for what I’m entitled to! Call me the minute you get this god damn message or I’ll call the fucking police and end your future. CALL MEEEE.
Attention MRA’s: You have all exposed yourselves as rotten human beings and you have discredited your movement (again). …
I wrote this story by stitching together nearly every cliche I have ever come across in the “men’s rights” movement. I tried to see if the MRAs had any line they would not cross. Apparently they do not. Looks like the SPLC made a good call.
He panicked and hit her. Sure he should have just have restrained her and took the condom out of her hands but we’re human and its not like he continually beat her into a pulp.
Yep, no big deal, “its not like he continually beat her into a pulp.”
The comment containing that line got 11 upvotes, and zero downvotes.
The Men’s Rights Movement, beyond the pale — but also beyond parody.
EDITED TO ADD: The Men’s Rights regulars respond to the big reveal here. They are apparently determined to learn absolutely nothing from the whole episode. At the moment this is the most highly upvoted comment:
EDITED TO ADD AGAIN: Ineedhelpnow1234/Eschatology posted about this in the TwoXChromosomes subreddit, Naturally, a small horde of r/mensrightsers invaded the thread and pooped all over it.
On this lazy Sunday (why can’t every day be lazy?), I present to you without comment this lovely little rant I found over on The Spearhead, where it received more than two dozen upvotes for its lively mixture of misogyny, Islamophobia, and rape-as-comedy-fodder. (It got a decent number of downvotes too, I’m guessing less for its views on “femiskanks” or Islam than for its straightforward endorsement of White Nationalism; I’ve edited out some of the Islamophobia for space reasons.) Take it away, Bryan the cracker-loving woman-hater:
Ah, american femiskanks, where would we be without them?
In a nasty way I almost look forward to the rise of Islam in the West/USA because it will be amusing to see feminism crushed under the boot of Sharia. There is no room for feminism, gay rights, etc, in a Sharia land. …
I think that being a man who is disgusted with western women, I’m going to spend a bit of time laughing at the thought of femiskanks being raped by Muslims for taking part in “slut walks” and having acid thrown in their faces for making their typical femiskank claims about how men are worthless. …
I look forward to the day when police stop responding to requests for protection orders, emergency protection orders, etc… If a woman is truly in danger from a man then she should be able to seek protection via her brothers, her male cousins, and stay in her father’s house. If her brothers don’t want anything to do with her that speaks to the sort of woman she is.
Along similar lines, I look forward to the day when police stop responding to domestic “violence” calls unless it has crossed into the realm of disturbing the peace or creating a disturbance for the neighborhood. When some femiskank calls 911 and tells them, “I see a man raising his voice with his wife and telling her it is time to leave the store they’re in, this isn’t right” said femiskank should be told, “why don’t you just drop dead, this line is for serious calls, get off the line or we’ll arrest you.”
There are too many mangina police out there who are all too ready to physically assault and even kill other men, at the behest of crazy power-tripping women, simply because they care more about making $50,000 dollars per year and gaining the approval of random femiskanks in the community, than about doing what is right and what is healthy for the nation.
Women realize the incredible power they have, be it political, social, economic, judicial, or extra-judicial. If a woman makes a false rape claim she can ruin a man financially, socially, politically, legally, and often she can have him attacked, perhaps killed, by an outraged mob of manginas in shining armor. …
A Roman father had the legal authority/power to have any of his daughters PUT TO DEATH, yet … I cannot cite a single example of the law being applied in practice.
Can you imagine how terrible things would be if women had the codified and unquestioned legal power to put a male relative to death merely by word/command? The male population in the USA would easily be less than half of what it presently is. The only reason women might refrain from engaging in mass purges against men is because on some level they realize they need men for economic reasons. Even still, that realization might not stop them as they are incredibly short-sighted to the point of being so hateful and bitter that they cut off their nose to spite their face.
Yes, we have seen it time and time again, they have restraining orders taken out to keep their ex-husband away from his children, thinking, “ha, that will show him who is boss, let him cry about it!” and they give no thought to the fact that their children are almost certain to grow up with tremendous problems. Either they do not realize it or they just do not care. I tend to lean towards the latter being the case, they just don’t care whether or not their own children suffer, as long as they can “make that jerk (ex-husband) suffer” and make him realize “I am woman, hear me roar!” that’s all that matters.
Yes, I’m sure that’s the reason. I’m pretty sure that if I lived in the same town as you, I’d try to get a restraining order against you just for this comment alone.
Apparently Burger King is also a whore. The ultimate one, in fact.
Evidently I posted that last Tom Martin post too soon: the self-professed sexismbuster – who recently had his “anti-male discrimination” case against the London School of Economics thrown out of court — wasn’t finished telling us about how women are all a bunch of lying whores. (Sorry: All but 3 percent of women, that is.) So here are few more pearls of wisdom from Tom, all collected from the comments here since the last post a couple of days ago.
As you read these, remember that Mr. Martin has been something of a cause celebre in the Men’s Rights movement, hailed as a fighter for true equality.
Click the titles to see the full quotes in context.
[M]ost women and feminists absolutely hate the idea of compulsory paternity tests.
Even though paternity tests would reduce male paranoia and controlling behaviour, as they’d have automatic verification the child was actually theirs, we can see my these reactions, women would rather perpetuate “the patriarchy” by perpetuating male uncertainty. …
If we tell women to find the father and get him tested and verified pronto – or face a huge fine and a six month spell of National Service – she’ll find the father every time.
Every time a woman has sex, she’ll be thinking I better get this guy’s details, or I’m going to the Gulag. She’ll get the details.
I pointed out in an essay on hard seating in a museum, that the discomfort for men is compunded by not only having smaller weight-bearing buttock pads than women, but by being heavier than women, so having more weight bearing down onto a smaller area – and that the problem is compounded further still, by people not taking the complaint seriously.
This inhabitants of this website are compounded shite trying their best to block equality wherever it might happen.
A pre-sex contract would … go a long way to eradicating many false rape allegations.
It would also make people think about the consequences of unprotected sex, so reduce unwanted pregnancies and children in the first place.
It would also end the entrapment culture, where a women tries her best to get knocked up by someone rich then hit them up for huge child support payments.
It would also reduce instances of sperm theft – as there would be less incentive to impregnate oneself this way with an unwilling and financially inoculated against entrapment father to be.
It would also reduce women’s motives to lie about being on the pill when not – as less incentive for entrapment – so less unplanned pregnancies for men to deal with.
The pre-sex contract could be a simple, quick, application on a mobile phone which records the man and woman’s voice, or videos it, so eradicating fraud. It does not to be a four page document in triplicate.
It takes one word to establish when sex is not wanted, “No” so it need not take many more to establish whether in the event of an unwanted pregnancy, the protagonists agree to the normal financial and caregiving responsibilities and consequences or not.
Currently, because women have all the contraception options and men only one, it should fall on the woman to establish whether effective contraception is being used or not – where as, the current system says men should ‘keep it in their pants’ which fails to acknowledge that the woman equally fails to keep it in her pants, and has effective contraception and abortion and adoption options, where the man doesn’t. So, the woman should be held a bit more accountable than she currently is for unwanted pregnancies. It’s win/win (but whore lose).
[I]f you want to eradicate absolutely all false allegations, and eradicate the chances of acquaintance rapists getting away with it too, then you need an app on your phone which can record the sound and picture whilst people have sex, but which cannot be played back, as it is instantly scrambled, and sent to a central data agency, where it stays scrambled, and can only be unscrambled by a police investigator in the event of a false I mean in the event of a rape allegation.
If people don’t make a rape allegation within a few weeks or whatever, the scrambled data is automatically deleted anyway.
So, I’ve just cut the rate of false rape claims and the rate of rapists getting away with it.
We will only ever know the precise rate of false rape allegations when fMRI lie detector brain scans are administered on everyone who claims they were raped (which I am all for – fuck your civil rights you lying whores).
Seriously, its so demoralizing working on a rape unit, that the cop who processes the rape claim now gets moved onto another case, so they don’t get corrupted by the realization that so many women are lying and then miss the odd real one due to overwhelming skepticism.
Fem whores will always resist anything that holds rape accusers to account.
In today’s episode of “upvoted on the Men’s Rights subreddit” we have a fellow calling himself Dude0987, with some interesting thoughts on women — sorry, “females” — and vampires.
Give the link a click. I think you will find the discussion this comment inspired to be very, well, instructive.
