So, I attended the UCL debate on Tuesday 28 February and filmed most of it, although not under ideal circumstances.
I went along to support Tom Martin and was also encouraged to go by several MRA contacts who recommended it to me. I spoke directly with Tom and he also invited me down. In due course, I will incorporate some of the footage from the debate into other work, but this is to note some thoughts on the event, and more particularly, an incident which occurred afterwards.
The Main Event
I no longer generally debate Feminists for the simple reason that I have never found it to be very productive. My understanding of Feminism leads me to conclude that debate is not relevant to fighting it in any large part because the argument is already won on an intellectual basis. In fact, there simply is no argument on a rational basis. Of course, therein lies the rub: Feminism does not draw its power from rational argument, it draws it from our feelings, which in turn are drawn from our biology.
The bottom line is that Feminism works because people believe in it, not because it’s true. They believe in it even when presented with evidence showing that it’s categorically not true. They believe in it in the same unconditional way that parents love their children.
The debate was titled: “Is Feminism Sexist?”. To me that’s like a debate called: “Is Racism Racist?”
Estelle Hart (self-described radical Feminist, left), chairman (centre), and Tom Martin
(NB See end of article for a fuller debate summary)
The debate ran as I would have expected and there were no surprises. Tom Martin gave a good account of himself; Steve Moxon attempted the impossible and tried to explain the complexity of evolutionary psychology in under 1 minute (please read his book); there were a number of “can’t we all just get along?” types; a couple of male-feminists who were disappointed in the comments from men (hell, let’s be more honest; they were disappointed in being born male); lots of emotion from a couple of women about how discussing false rape meant that genuine rape was being trivialised; and the good, old fashioned man-hating types embodied by the substantial Estelle Hart.
Sigh. Nothing to see here.
The Aftermath
The debate came and went and then it was off to a restaurant for further discussion for myself, Tom Martin, Steve Moxon, and a few other guys who shall remain nameless – on threat of launching legal action against me, no less.
Yep, you heard that right and let me be clear: I was invited to the debate by Tom Martin; I took time out of a very busy day to attend an event that had little value to me as an MRA and almost zero value to my research; I filmed the event and the restaurant discussion at the request of Tom Martin to help him make a documentary. And the reaction from several of those individuals present was to threaten me with legal action should their precious mugs make it into the public domain.
They would sue me in their fight against the ravages of Feminist-ideology. This is the way they chose to treat me, with threats to one of their own trying to make as much of a difference as humanly possible. They could smile and shake the hands of any of the Feminists they encountered that night, but me, they choose to threaten. You couldn’t make this stuff up.
I don’t get angry easily regarding this business, I’m more of a quiet simmer-er who will get annoyed, ruminate on it, and then put it into a film two years later. But these guys really pissed me off.
I have heard many stories of men’s groups collapsing due to infighting and ego’s and bad attitudes and strong philosophical differences etc, and the behaviour towards me of these miserable specimens makes it clear to me how this comes about.
As the naked panic from these individuals traversed the room at the thought of publicity, I wondered if it was because they specifically didn’t want to be associated with any of my work personally i.e. “Appear in one of your rubbish videos? No thanks”. But it turned out that it ran deeper than that.
Alongside me, there was another guy there obviously at Tom’s request, with pro-video kit, filming everything too. I imagine that he was then at a loss as to what he was even doing there when 6 out of the 8 men around the table all demanded that their identities not be revealed in any way at all, even with pixellation.
Now, I myself have withheld my full identity from my work (for now), and so I fully understand the basis of the fear that these men were displaying. Livelihoods are at stake, after all. My issue, was that even when I gave assurances that the footage would only form part of my own research and would not be made public, they still harped on about my not using it and then one waste-of-space author decided to offer the threat to sue me, and then another worthless specimen decided to chime in with the same threat.
The idea that I would ever, in a million years, seek to cause harm to other men in the movement is so obnoxious, so deeply antagonistic and so utterly contemptible, that it took my breath away. I tried to keep my temper under control and understand that this was not about me personally, it was not even about my work (which would be of no concern to me anyway: You don’t like my stuff? Your business). It was the idea that I was some sort of subversive or infiltrator, rather than being someone on the same team that I found intolerable. This is just one aspect of the male condition I suppose, but it is really misplaced and I find it unforgivable.
Does the MRM even exist?
My most recent experience says no.
One idiot, the aforementioned waste-of-space author, said that I hadn’t announced myself as manwomanmyth. I said that I was invited to the debate and the meal by Tom and you can see you are being filmed. You even did an introduction to the camera for over a minute about who you were and what you believed (I didn’t speak this last part aloud), and it didn’t occur to you to think the footage might be used? And ascribed to you, the man who just gave his name and introduction on camera? Good grief, it’s great to know that the MRM has such distinguished rocket scientists on the team.
The fact is, with the limited equipment I had, the room was too dark to get valuable footage and so it was purely research material. However, even if it was top quality and usable, I would be entirely disinclined to use my time and efforts to do anything whatsoever for such nasty, acrimonious, underhand, piss-poor excuses for MRA’s.
Based on their pointless and intellectually defunct arguments over the the very language that should be used to define the MRM (yes, this was what they spent most of the time I was there discussing), these tossers can rest easy that I have no interest now, nor would I have any interest in future in hearing their opinions, filming them or even wasting hard disk space with their precious points of view.
As I packed up to leave, two or three individuals, including one of the ignorant, threatening twits, wanted to tell me that they really liked my material and thought I was doing a great job. Really? Cheers. And you know what else? Fuck you.
Right now, I feel the need to repeat something I said sometime to someone, that is clearly (and sadly) still true. The only reason I do this work (and it is a lot of work) is for me and more recently, my son.
If it was for men, or the MRM, or for characters like those people I unfortunately wasted my time upon today, it wouldn’t be worth doing.
_______________________________
PS I would like to make clear that this article does not relate to the author Steve Moxon, whom I admire greatly. It refers solely to some other unsavoury specimens I was unfortunate enough to meet after the debate.
Addendum – A fuller debate summary
NB This is from someone else and his name will be added later.
Debate: Is feminism sexist? Held: Tues 28th February 2012
Tom Martin vs Estelle Hart at UCL in London
Summary:
It was a lively debate from audience members. The MRAs had a good representation but were outnumbered by the pro-feminist students (female and mangina males). The event was filmed and was due to be continued in a nearby restaurant afterwards.
There was a sudden change of lecture theatre at the start due to numbers and I originally sat centrally in front of a row of feminist students. I moved because I found some of their talk irritating. Nevertheless I did pick up that they had classified the MRAs present as a bunch of middle aged men losers. The male students would not identify with such a group of losers and naturally sided with their female compatriots. Any young fem supporter that said anything in favour of feminism received enthusiastic applause. There was a clear division from the start.
The problem with debates is that as an audience member you only get one crack at a comment when what you need to do is engage in an exchange.
Tom Martin opened with an intense 10 minute citation of the case for why feminism was sexist. He had done a fair bit of preparation and presented a volume of statistics to support his case. Estelle Hart’s counter was basically to pour scorn on his facts, but also to plead that feminism was about reasonableness and fairness for men as well as women. The direction of the feminist attack was to try to show the MRAs as a tiny and unsupported fringe movement of middle aged men who had no case to answer and that life was all fair. However, they would not support such things as male officers in universities. They had not read, nor were interested in reading any MRA literature. They rejected or ignored any research presented by MRAs.
There was tendency to regard MRAs as non-mainstream and this influenced one or two who claimed to be neutral, but not well read.
I had warned Tom about the standard emotional feminist, who at some stage stands up to decry rape and sure enough on queue one delivered her statement with tears in her eyes. It was a bit like the stereotypical ‘pregnant woman’ you see in disaster movies.
I think it clearly shows how our young people have been contaminated by feminist dogma and see feminism as ‘cool’ and the norm. They have accepted it without questioning it. They see laws and the enactment of those laws as fair. MRAs are out-of-touch and griping about things that are not real to them. I couldn’t help but feel that some of the young men are some day going to get a rude awakening when they are accused of a sex crime or decide they would like children. The thing is though, I doubt whether any of them will marry anyway. Many will probably stay away from actually producing babies unless they are conned. All I can say is watch the video when it comes out.
UPDATE
13 March 2012
I have been contacted by one of the men at issue in this article, the first one that threatened legal action against me. He has explained at length what led to his threat, he has apologised unreservedly and says that he thinks I was justified in responding the way I did in this article.
I have since reviewed the audio recording of the meeting and I’m positive that the thrust of the article stands, including the language I use within it.
That said, his explanation goes some way towards ameliorating the situation. He explained that it was partly to do with a belief that I was from the Fawcett society which was due to someone suggesting this as a joke. I didn’t register it at the time but that ‘joke’ is indeed on the recording. However, it was clearly established later in the discussion that this was not true and I was vouched for by more than one person present. That makes this weak mitigation.
He said he had no idea who I was because he had not come across my work before, so he felt that he simply over-reacted due to not enough information about what was going on. However, the recording makes it clear that my position was known to the extent that another person even said to him after his threat that “this guy does not deserve this hostility”. But it fell on deaf ears.
So the situation is complex because all was in agreement about not using the footage, people had gone out of their way to calm things down and vouch for me, and then for no reason whatsoever, the legal threat was made.
But he’s made the effort to explain and I think he is honest. On balance, I am willing to accept his explanation and apology and that he got carried away, and I have said to him that we should put it behind us and he agreed.
Personally, I think that Tom should have been the one to sort this all out before it became a problem, and he admits as much in the recording. But he had his hands full with the debate and he was the person we were all there for anyway, so it counts as one-of-those-things that can happen in this business.
However, none of this applies to the other piece-of-work at issue here. The recording shows his complete familiarity with my work to the extent that he even recognised my voice from the videos. And a quote from him? Nameless prick says: “I know you’re one of us, you’re one of our guys”. And then the tool proceeds to threaten.
There is no excuse whatsoever for his behaviour in joining in the threat to sue. This character is precisely the ugly truth of the MRM I was so surprised to uncover. So, unfortunately for me, I am left with the reality that with certain apologies and explanations aside, the article must stand.
Wow. Sorry to hear that. I guess even some of the soldiers are a bit anzy still. I myself was glad to be filmed in support for the cause and as actual PR and advertisement.
I’m sure filming success is right around the corner. Usually success comes after initial debilitating failure. Stick with it as my painting teacher told me and it was true.
Be mad,
brush it off.
keep at it.
Exactly. Shit happens.
We need to find a way to deal with events like these. If you think about it, this was NEVER going to be a downhill slide.
That’s how we grow, as communicated beautifully by Robert Bly in Iron John, A Book About Men.
It’s how we become men, and how big men become even even bigger men.
The great RB would probably see this experience as a wonderful gift.
Brother, there is an internet full of men out there that give thanks daily for the work that you do/have done. The men you do not see who love your work far, far, far outnumber those who don’t. Your videos have raised the bar for everyone in the manosphere, not just MRA’s. They’ve helped me personally in the relationship with my previously pro-feminist (but now non-feminist) nieces. Do take heart…and do have faith. Your legacy is profound.
Cheers. Much appreciated.
wait, is Tom Martin one of these types of people you are referring to?
No, I am not referring to Tom in this article.
That sucks. Yes, there are potential repercussions – but at some point MRAs have to stand up and be counted. Having kind, decent humans declare themselves MRA in real life would go a long way to changing people’s view of men’s rights.
Plus MRAs will never accomplish much if they can’t trust each other. (Although, it is possible that the typical MRA has been burned more than the typical person and therefore less likely to trust.)
I attended the “debate” and felt pretty much the same as yourself but came away with the positive thought that, win or lose the “debate” or the court case, Tom Martin’s activities grant men licence to mention their concerns.
There was the usual shower of 20 something “right on” student ideologues and manginas in attendance but I was struck by the thought that their age group and social class prevents their having experienced the logical outcomes of the positions they avowed.
Can you imagine the chagrin those guys will experience should they one day be deprived of the right to see their offspring in the usual manner or that of the self proclaimed feminist females experiencing dismay at the treatment of any male offspring they might be fortunate to have.
These later life experiences bring home the reality of feminist doctrine as evidenced by Germaine Greer’s desperate efforts to become pregnant, Rebbecca Walker’s castigation of her mother’s position, the plight of grandparent’s denied access to grandchildren etc etc
I too am a single dad. I had to leave my son on his own to get to the meeting and hence couldn’t attend the meal afterwards. It is his generation that will reap the benefits of the current activity and may be able to speak about male concerns with far less shame and fear, perhaps failing to understand why “livelihoods” would be “at stake” for discussing self evident truths.
It is the courage and work of people such as yourself and Tom which will bring about the changes that will mean less courage will be demanded of others in future to discuss men’s issues.
By the by, I noticed the usual shaming tactics being employed with sniggering etc which Tom put down by directly addressing the parties concerned who promptly shut up. A good moment. The Estelle Hart’s of the world must sense that the days when they had a free hand are up.
Hurrah!
I can imagine their chagrin and I hope they wise up in time.
I will put an addendum to this article soon with more details on the debate. I wasn’t inclined to recap the event but someone else did.
I knew about this but din’t know it had a twitter hasttag ,I would have twit about it.
I think the problem with many MR groups is the fear, go against PC and feminism is like being a porn star in a Muslim country, even when they know is the true, it is like when a person know a particular religion is not more that a big business, is exposed to the light but its followers still are faithful to it for fear and because make them feel special.
It is like being a Jew in Germany, you would pretend to be Nazi because won’t bring you troubles and you’ll pass as “normal” and question what is considered “norm” will be banned as subnormal.
Shame men for the fact of being men, and let feminism redefined masculinity according to them, of what is considered a “good man” “man up” or “be a man”.
Lets pretend to redefined femininity by claiming what is considered a “good women”……………. patriarch, just the same but reverse the gender.
Good for Tom, in college where feminism is so radical and a hostile environment for men.
Well that’s depressing. I read somewhere recently men have such a difficult time forming large social movements because they are too busy competing against one another & we also fiercely defend our own particular viewpoints & methodologies even though the goals are ultimately the same.
I was recently blasted for being misogynistic by a whole subset of MRMs for my ‘posters’ – visual ‘ads’ as it were and therefore I was too much like Feminists in my acidic tone towards the opposite sex.
Their position was always be on the defensive & never the offensive. I find it impossible to defend men’s rights without being critical of all the misguided notions women have today and their actions even when they do not claim to be Feminists. There are just as many who admire what I do, but there you have it- yet another split in direction.
For me, the direction or disagreements aren’t the issue. Trust is the issue or at least some meagre appreciation that we are on the same side.
Instead, what I got was pathetic and unreasonable behaviour which I am not inclined to accept.
Agree with your point about men’s competition against one another.
If the goals of the conflicting MRA’s where indeed the same that would be a good start.. However they are not the same.. Some MRA’s believe that “equality” is the goal, others believe in other things, few of them differ substantially enough from feminists in my opinion and few of them will ever admit when they have “gained” from femistatism.. Seems like these blokes have gained a lot from the idiotology, even though they don’t actually like it much… But they know what pays there wages or dont want their wives to see it or whatever.. sad eh?
Idiotology, good word. It is the the characterization that many males are defiantly taking on in society. I guess they get laid, but it must be a lousy fuck.
Lousy? Maybe, maybe she’s a really sexy lady, a super freak, but not anything that is worth taking home to meet your mother as it where.. Rick James was right about that for sure..
I look at young men these days and I wonder what is so good about “getting laid”… Straight off, I wonder when it became the case that now the male seems to be the recipient of the action, as opposed to when I was a lad.. I.E. Back then women “got fucked” and men “fucked them..”.. Sex is pretty much loose change now, but the frightening, nah, terrifying, thought is that cheap as it is, it can have a huge impact upon a gent if he makes just a few “minor mistakes” in this area.. Any man can plonk his way through a rack of haddock these days.. But what worth is that when the fish are only fit to leave on that rack for the next bloke? Its not big and not clever anymore.. Womens best way of getting men to comply has been over-done and doesnt work so well now.. Feminism gave us easy sex, it also made it increasingly a chore for men.. I remember when it took about 15 mins to put a smile on a womans face, now she needs 27 orgasms a night and a 20 hour session before she is impressed by sirs efforts on the fish tank.. Any “ideology” that uses the power of “easy sex” to gain compliance and acceptance from men, in the hope that it would “empower” women is truly idiotic.. I guess the femifools never realised the respect that men have for the over-ridden sperm toilet was a temporary and low as it clearly is.. Oh yes, an easy woman is the best woman in the world in the eyes of a desperate man, but she had better not expect a “relationship” because no man wants the “village bike”..
I haven’t been active in this area for long (three years maybe) but my instinct is that by being defensive, activists let the feminists set the agenda. Aren’t men – unlike women – at their best and strongest when on the offensive (without necessarily BEING offensive)?
There’s so much crap coming from feminists (many of them professional feminists, don’t forget – there are no professional anti-feminists) that it’s a full-time job trying to dealing with it. So don’t. Instead, see what practical measures will STOP them. Then devote your time, energy and resources to engaging with the word with the men and women who are prepared to engage in reasoned debate.
Oh, and it’s about damned time we started shaming the men in positions of authority who always dance to the feminists’ dismal tunes. Step forward David Cameron, not so much ‘heir to Blair’ as ‘heir to Harman’.
Actually being on the defense has allot of advantages. U just gotta learn how to use it.
MWM,
Your work is much admired and appreciated by myself.
I’m sure that thousands of others would agree with me.
Have faith, people. Just because positive changes aren’t happening on our watch doesn’t mean they aren’t happening. The MRM is generating a lot of righteous anger against feminism and the serious damage it has done to society. It is simmering under the surface biding its time, waiting for opportunities to break through. There are millions of Tom Martins out there preparing for their day in the sun. If we have faith all we need to do is keep the momentum going and others will take up the cause in their own time.
Hey MWM I was invited by Tom, I am a friend of his.
I tried to make it but was working, I then rushed back to London all prepared but missed it.
I flippin got everything mixed up, but part of me thinks it could have possibly been better that I wasn’t there, because I would want to shout those spoiled mindless bitch’s down. I hate feminists and their fraudulent supporters.
I am sorry to have let people down, it is not like me to do so.
Rod.
Wow. The last thing we need is a cohesionless front. This is a pisser.
But we still need to move forward.
First of all, MWM, don’t let anyone put you off. Your videos are real CLASS. Their value to us is PARAMOUNT. To us, to the men of our country, of our continent and (yes!) of the whole world too. PARAMOUNT.
There is no value to making such gripping videos and then locking them away in a cupboard (or a memory stick in today’s language). They must be shown!
I suggest taking out the sections with the guys not wishing to be viewed. I appreciate this may not be easy because references to them might be made in other sections of the debate.
This whole event reminds me of when Tom once debated with radical feminist Cath Elliot (who writes occasionally for the Guardian) on her website. It was on the subject of his suing the LSE for sexism.
But, as you can guess, Tom was up against a thick brick wall of IDIOTS. The shit these women dribble is staggering.
So I decided to help him out. I sent in a comment to Cath’s blog supporting him.
Cath blocked it. (She knows me well, in fact, from the The Guardian’s comment board. Calls me “Lout”.)
I emailed Tom, who then complained to Cath. He posted my comment under his name. All was well.
Then followed the usual childish responses from her regular radical femwits.
I will add here that I do not normally discuss anything with feminists on their own websites. And I am not about to recommend it. WASTE. OF. TIME.
But we STILL need to get our message out to thinking men who have never heard of us. I believe these men will number millions in our own country alone. We live in a democracy (if only in name!) and our real strength will be a our numbers.
MWM, the show must go on!
Thanks for this. The show will go on.
I disagree, debating feminists is absolutley effective. History will remember this in time as a crushing defeat for feminists. Their behavior condemns them, their lack of argument to the contrary convicts them.
It may seem like a loss, but the fog of bullshit will disperse, because that is all that feminists have. Soon you will see through it, this is a big victory for the MRM!
Yes, debate with feminists — that’s not only effective, it’s an absolute must.
But do it where the whole world can see it. That is, on the Telegraph’s, the Independent’s, the Guardian’s or the Huffington Post’s discussion boards/blogs.
Do not bother with feminist blogs. No one will see your points there.
Remember we’re trying to establish contact with men who have never heard of us. We need to be seen by them.
Oh yes.. I have always wondered why so many excellent MRA’s would could do SUPER stuff I am sure, seem to spend hours daily, adding up to hundreds of hours of time, repeatedly trying to send back the tide by pissing against the ocean of femiflak on the enemies home turf..
Gotta get the message across to the masses, where folk can see the good work being done as the femifools are left sputterring..
Some strong use of language there in describing your anger at the lack of trust. Yet you yourself do not reveal your own identity or appear in your own videos? So why get upset if they wish for the same thing? Is it the case they could lose their jobs, in which case panic might be the first reaction?
Can I ask whether anyone knew who you were? In which case why would anyone have any trust in someone they did not know?
I was at the meeting itself and did not agree with most of what anyone said, male or female, nor did I comment. The subject of the debate seemed to be avoided – why not read out misandry from the core texts to debate the question?
I repeat: why would anyone trust an unknown bloke with a camera, especially given a guy was DEMOTED from £35k a year to £21k a year for saying gay people should not get married in church on FB?
Richard, good morning. I’ve chosen to reply to your particular post because I think it gets closest to the heart of the problem MWM refers to.
As an author who attended the debate, has written three books on the scourge of modern feminism, and attended both the debate and the meal to which MWM refers, may I say a few words? Oh, I also run the blog http://fightingfeminism.wordpress.com on which I recommend the MWM site (among others) and I agree fully with MWM’s analysis in this post of the pointlessness of trying to change feminists’ mindsets through reasoned debate. You would usefully seek to reverse gravity through debate.
I retired early in 2010 precisely to give myself the freedom to write books and campaign against militant feminism as I see fit. It’s cost me dearly on a financial level but I haven’t regretted the decision for one second. I hide neither my name nor where I live (the latter is on the copyright page of my books). Let the feminists do their worst. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, if I were ever to die for this cause, in my last moments I would hopefully think it had been for a damned good cause. I digress.
Most of the men in the restaurant were, like myself, of a certain age (I’m 54) and unfamiliar with the whole world of modern media. I personally had no objection to the filming – because I have nothing to lose – and told MWM so publicly and on film. The person who objected most strongly to the filming was very clear he’d lose his livelihood if his identity were made known – he works in the public sector, I believe as a contractor – so along with another person present (the author to whom MWM refers, I believe) he probably over-reacted (the author has since sent an apology to MWM – I know because I forwarded it yesterday to MWM on his behalf). I think the antagonism was partly down to surprise that a person had been filming without his identity having being known to him – Richard, precisely the point you make.
I’m truly sorry MWM was aggrieved and I understand why. This was a misunderstanding but people’s livelihoods are at stake and we cannot reasonably expect people to face financial ruin for exposing themselves.
Thank you to MWM for the great work he does, and to all of you for fighting the good fight. In the words of Mahatma Gandhi which I now put at the bottom of my emails:
‘First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.’
Best wishes,
Mike Buchanan
mikebuchanan@hotmail.co.uk
Hi Mike,
You were the last guy I shook hands with as I left? If so, thanks for the kind words and I know I should have made more of an effort to distinguish between the guys in this piece. The “f-you” above does not apply to you.
As I’ve said in the reply to Richard, I fully understand the potential consequences to livelihoods of identity exposure, but this problem arose after we all knew where we stood, and that’s why this is a separate issue to people’s legitimate concerns for their jobs.
[EDIT]
Further, I would have even understood such hostility if I had insisted that I would use the video anyway and ignored their concerns. But that’s not what happened and so the immediate resort to the nuclear-option of legal threat was uncalled for.
I received something of a shock to my current viewpoints and a massive disappointment at the same time. But that’s my own fault for believing something that simply isn’t true. I’ve learned and I’ll move forward accordingly.
I have yet to read your emails but I will get round to them soon.
This dialogue is evidence in itself of the level of oppression that feminism has given rise to.
I disagree, the point of debating feminists is not to change their mind. That will never happen. The point is to humiliate them by showing how empty they are. Sounds like Tom did that with tenacity.
The point of debating and standing up to feminists, is to show other men it’s OK to do so. That is THE reason for the MRM. But many simply can’t. And that’s OK too.
What is not OK is irrational fear of ‘looking bad’, or ‘causing offense’. We fight against MAINSTREAM misandry and normalized ‘oppression’….of course we ‘lookbad’ to the genpop….we’re telling them things they don’t want to admit to.
There is a difference between being concerned for your identity/job, and freaking out on people you just met for doing what you’ve plainly seen them do all night.
And speaking as a photographer, I want to make this clear…
Photography is a work for hire profession most of the time. IOW someone has hired him to be there. If you take issue with being filmed, talk to the Organizer, NOT the photographer.
I’m just sayin.
Cheers, Factory.
I write this in the middle of what I hope is 24-hour bug. Please excuse any incoherence as it’s hard to actually see the screen!
I don’t remember you from the meeting after the debate, so apologies for not knowing if we spoke or anything.
To address your points:
1) Yes, strong language, perhaps overly strong here and there. I wrote this when I got back and still couldn’t believe what had just occurred. That said, some time has passed and I’m not inclined to edit the wording at all. What happened there is very significant as far as my view of fellow MRA’s is concerned.
2) This article and the whole issue is not to do with identity or the consequences of exposure. As I said in the text, I understand that fully and there is no argument at all. What this is about is the behaviour of one MRA to another and what this means going forward.
3) The threat to sue me by one MRA and then another (in a gushy “me too!” moment), came after I said who I was, after I gave assurance the video would not go public, and after at least some of the men there should have known where I stood. That’s the problem.
What this is about is that I am working on some things to do with the MRM and one of those things is the difficulties in men working together towards a common goal. I thought I had a good handle on what this was about and what the issues were. For example, the fact that most men have not heard of men’s rights, nor could they likely articulate an example where men lacked rights if asked. And that many men – non-MRA’s – would actively fight MRA’s rather than seek to understand the issues.
However, what caught me out at this meeting, was the completely unnecessary behaviour from one MRA to another. I was entirely unprepared for even the possibility that one MRA would actively threaten another MRA in this way, when we are all in the same boat.
For me, I am now forced to rethink a few of my ideas and rework some things to adjust to what I now regard as a new reality; where even MRAs together in a room is potentially a hostile environment. The threats come not from the expected quarter – Feminists or white knights or whomever – they come from the MRA next to you. Good grief.
Gentlemen. None of this is a surprise. Indeed, it is going as Angry Harry predicted.
Harry once said that once feminism has been stamped out, there is likely to follow a chaotic deluge of disagreement amongst men on how to progress. After all, some of us are from the political left, others the right, the middle, etc.
It looks like this has happened sooner than he predicted.
I think this is NORMAL. Shit happens. We just need to deal with it. That’s all.
Let’s take on board every comment made. Richard has made a valid point. The guys not wanting to be revealed might have good reasons for it.
We are all on the same side, and we must STAY on the same side. United we are strong principled men fulfilling our individual purposes in life, divided we are a confused heap of manure serving life in a horrendous super-prison for domestic slaps and bus gropes that never happened.
The underlying principle is this. It is very important to make men’s issues more visible. Indeed, I believe this is paramount. I believe that without more exposure we have little chance of growing at a rate much more than a trickle. And we need to grow QUICKLY if we want to see real change. I believe we CAN grow quickly.
As you will agree, this does not mean debate with feminists on a feminist website. As I already said, waste of time.
HOWEVER. It is important to alert men in the street of our existence, men who are frustrated with their lives because of feminism, but through various pressures and quirks in their lives haven’t been able to consciously connect their misery with feminism. No information on the men’s movement is flowing through to them.
So the solution is this. Use a high-profile website to voice our opinion on any political issue linked to feminism. This WILL mean debating with feminists. Many are as thick as shit, true. But we need to show feminism for the nonsense that it is.
Try the Guardian, the Telegraph, the BBC and Huffington Post.
I post on most of these. I make a reference to MWM’s vids whenever it is relevant to the issue, and to other greats like Angry Harry and Rich Zubaty.
I have set up my own website to “recruit” men into our movement. I link it from newspaper sites.
By the time I made it to the end of the fourth paragraph under, “The Aftermath,” I literally felt physically sick. I am very familiar with the people you describe, especially the students who applaud at anything “progressive” and pro-feminist. Indeed, they think it is cool. You could not have said that better. I wish you were in the US. I would be extremely happy and welcoming to you and your camera here at Mississippi State and I would not tolerate other men being pricks toward you. That would have likely ended in a fight.
http://www.msstate.edu/web/media/detail.php?id=5505
A girl just made a claim that she was abducted by a male student last night. Please see the link above. MSU administration sent out a “Maroon Alert,” in the form of a text message, to over 20,000 students last night at 3:45 a.m. The girl recanted her story today. Her identity is heavily guarded.
I will not even ride an elevator with a female student or allow one in my apartment. But, when I try to fight against this type of thing, I am met with the same opposition that you have described in this article. I have even been called a rape advocate.
Cheers, Ben. No need for fights I reckon. Just be aware that the man you think is your ally, may be no such thing. How crap is it that you know where you stand with a Feminist, but you don’t with an MRA?
One more thing that I noticed… We could just as easily scorn people for discussing real rape because it “trivalizes male victims of false claims.” I wish that I could get involved more right now but I have a test in the morning. Maybe over spring break, in two weeks, I can get more onboard with this.
Look at that fat cow.. No wonder she is a man hater! Even I wouldn’t do that one..
Sorry to hear you had a bad time with those chaps..
I have always wondered why the mens movement calls itself a movement.. After all, it does tend to not actually “move” anywhere other than into strange places that seem more suited to feminists than ordinary men..
Gender studies courses being an obvious waste of time for any bloke.. Self confessed but frustrated male feminist or not!
Quite
It was quite hilarious the way all the clichés were played out.
It occurred to me that every single argument a feminist can make has been publicly presented over the last 50 years. A numbered crib sheet could be prepared and handed out to each attendee such that any argument made could be responded to by calling attention to the appropriate number.
“There’s a glass ceiling” – may I bring your attention to number 7 please.
“We live under a patriarchy” – may I bring to your attention number 13 please.
Etc, etc
Something significant did happen though. From visiting Angry Harry’s site, AVFM and others, I have become familiar with the terminology and over time have taken the concepts held within such terms as “Mangina” to be self evident. This was not the case for some of those attending.
One guy making a comment was struggling to recall this actual term which indicated to me that whole way of looking at the subject encapsulated by it’s use was new to him.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he searched for the definition at some later point.
When I stumbled upon the well known MRM sites I realized that my personal experiences and perceptions were not unique. In fact they were so common that they had already been encapsulated in short, pithy phrases, by others.
This was greatly reassuring.
The more mainstream the use of MRM terminology becomes the greater the degree of awareness of the perilous position that men occupy within our society will become.
So more debates and publicity, whilst useless in terms of changing hardcore feminist positions, can I believe, produce positive longer term results.
I think that there is a chance that feminists will eventually try to avoid “debating” the issue. They have nothing to gain and a considerable amount to lose. I had the impression that they were not particularly happy at the end of the meeting.
Aye. I have long believed in the power of words, especially single words that describe a thing or concept, or simple soundbites..
I think in order to create the necessary distance between what the mens movement chaps are about (or should be!) and what the womens movement are about one of the first things that should be done is to stop using words that the feminists have pre-loaded.
For example why use the word “sexist” when “misandric” is better?
There are many mra’s who think the mens movement should be about what the womens movement (feminism) claims to be about (“eek” quality, something a man can only have with women in a femistatist world if he hands his own balls over to madam/nanny first and becomes a squeaking eunuch mouse..)..
I don’t think the mens movement will ever achieve anything worth having for men if we need to compromise our very masculinity to get it..
There is a good glossary on this site I have noticed, folks will always use a good new term when they see one I believe! Young men are the ones who are quickest to pick up good new ideas, most of the middle aged chaps have spent too long engaging in failed strategies!
I always think, if one has spent a decade or more as a MRA, one might have just learned how to enjoy failing to get anywhere!
Manstrike!!
I agree about terminology. Words frame the debate and sometimes get us arguing about things that don’t actually exist. Arguing about patriarchy for example is like arguing about faeries at the bottom of the garden.
Yes, investing some time in applying the right words and distributing them is a very good idea.
On the subject of terminology. This taken from http://counterfem.blogspot.com/
FRIDAY, MARCH 09, 2012
Here is Something Intriguing
I came upon the following in an article posted to the Ms. Magazine blog. Of all places!
“Too often, though, instead of speaking out on behalf of women’s rights, men remain bystanders. Are we fearful we’ll be put down, castigated as a mangina instead of celebrated as a mangina warrior? Remember the bumper sticker “Keep Your Laws Off of My Body?” It’s not just a slogan for women. Deep down, men know that an assault on women is an assault on us, too. But unless more of us are willing to raise our voices, we risk ending up like the boys who were banished to the back row of middle school chorus. You know, the ones who were ordered to mouth the words while the others sang.”
The word in red font is a familiar one, is it not? Clearly, that word is making the rounds — and here we note transmigration from one political sector (our own) to another, radically different, sector. It is clearly a sign of something, that such terminology would be colonizing the kind of territory we see here.
I wasn’t much interested in the article for its own sake, but I thought this particular bit was worth bringing to your attention.
Personally on finding the various sites that could be loosely termed the MRM have been impressed by the breadth and depth of the analysis of feminism. The MRM is the zeitgeist. All these websites will lead to action in the physical world.
Maintaining the Frame…another Game concept vital to the future of men.
And no, I’m not kidding.
I appreciate we are at the tail end of all this now, but believe this is one of the most important posts I will ever write. I am in programme management, and have watched militant feminism for 30 years and believe we have reached a vital point in the last 3-4 years. We urgently need to STOP the crazy misandric laws before they start jailing all men. So please read this carefully, it may help. I have spent the last two days thinking about this debate and have gone into necessary detail as follows:
MWM – I really feel your sense of hurt and huge disappointment, especially if you feel ‘ganged up’ on. It’s a masculine thing to react strongly, but if you carry on reading there is real gold in this experience for all.
1) Firstly, and importantly, remember these men TURNED UP. A couple were pushing the angle on their books, but they travelled, they MADE THE DEBATE what it was. If they HADN’T TURNED UP, it would have been ‘a triumph’ for Estelle. I would ask reading those who had lived within say 70 miles of London why they didn’t turn up if they are against militant feminism? We cannot stay at our computers and expect ANY kind of actual success.
2) They were happy to be filmed at the debate, but not at the restaurant – right?
So – what was the difference? Think about the following:
2.1 In the meeting, they were their own man. In the restaurant, did they feel comfortable being bundled and associated? My experience of groups is that people require time to feel OK with each other. My understanding was that not all knew each other. Personally, I want to know who I sit next to before being ‘grouped’. Maybe the views of one or two were not the same as the rest – and a few thought, “hold on, I’m being ‘bundled up’ here”. Plus, was it cooped up in there?
2.2 You say you said who you were, but AFTER the filming. Kind of wrong order, and I thought at the meeting that there were two cameramen from the same organisation i.e. TOM’s only. If you declared you were a separate organisation, they may not have grasped who you were, but gone into panic mode (see below).
2.3 People these days are ‘paranoid’ and jumpy. It’s just possible that you could be a freelance who contributes to the BBC or Guardian (we know you’re not), but imagine the vid – “here are the misogynists”. After the FB incidents, everyone’s scared. This leads me to….
2.4 “They should have believed me, as a fellow MRM”. The mind plays tricks when under pressure, and the film was already in the can. It sounds as if they panicked and applied the only brake they had.
2.5 “They shook hands with the feminists”. Look, the British thing to do is be decent even when you’re opponent is a ****. You never stoop to their level of hate and hostility.
You said “one of them came up to me afterwards to say he admired my work”. Right – so the penny dropped after a few minutes and he tried to make amends maybe?
Finally on them – if these guys are fifty or sixty, they’ve got a few decades of MISTAKES at the back of their minds. Car accidents, bereavements, lack of care, sacked, divorced – all make you desperate to AVOID potential problems. Hence the unseemly rush.
Finally on these men – if they argued about how to describe themselves, I’d agree that using the most ordinary-person-friendly language is the best way forward. Words conjure up pictures, so why give a gift to your enemy by creating the wrong picture of yourself i.e. point out the brutality of the militant feminists, don’t harp on about how good the Fifties were.
The single most important question is why did so few MRMS (including the guys reading this) not attend? Your vids are spot-on, but only really useful if people TAKE the information and USE it face-to-face with the feminist fascists.
Thanks for listening.
But MWM that isn’t all. You’re the best video producer on the ‘net.
I will think on some of the points you raise here. Obviously, you are a man who seeks to understand even (what I would regard as) the inexplicable! I also appreciate your compliment.
The bottom line, is that all knowledge is good, even when it feels like a kick in the teeth. It’s too early for me to draw conclusions, but following from this experience, I think the MRM is perhaps a misnomer. The MRM is clearly no band-of-brothers, although it might still qualify as a non-associated, loosely similar, fiercely independent, non-obligated, non-trusting and unreliable number (but definitely not a group) of individuals who, when they are not being antagonistic to each other, sometimes think similar things. They are of the same species, but would aggress against another of their kind as easily as they would an enemy.
This will definitely inform future work and I already need to modify one of the new films concerning the men’s movement and another one on the male condition. What I thought is simply wrong.
You ask why more MRA’s didn’t turn up? This is the very heart of what I’m talking about here and what was exposed at this meeting: an MRA clearly does not identify with other MRA’s – what would they be turning up for?
There are lots of explanations and possibilities for a person’s behaviour, as you have illustrated. But what interests me is how things can move forward. Accepting the truth of what an MRA actually is (and is not), is simply part of that.
In my view it’s partly about female v male psychology. Women are hard-wired to collaborate together to pursue their gender’s interests against the opposite gender, traditionally often co-opting men to do their bidding e.g. in divorce settlements, using the state to mug their former partners.
Men’s psychology is different (I refer the interested reader to Prof Simon Baron-Cohen’s ‘The Essential Difference’ in particular) and I struggle to think that we’ll make much headway trying to campaign for our rights in the way women have campaigned for theirs. It’s unlikely to resonate with enough men to get ‘traction’ or, as importantly, funding to get anywhere near feminist funding.
The lack of understanding of ‘men’s issues’ outside MRAs is astonishing. But then, I guess I was in the majority of unaware men just three or four years ago. When life’s going well you don’t see some of the realities that are only too visible when life gives you a bit of a kicking. And on that upbeat note, fellow gender warriors, I wish you all a good weekend.
I was going to turn up, but I was in prison on recall.
I got nothing to lose, so the feminists have no job to make me loose. I am going to have to be self employed, no public sector work for me! lol
Even prisons are full of female staff members. The public sector is one big pro female gravey train!
“there is real gold in this experience”
I second that. I felt compelled to get up there and just breathe the same air as these brave and committed guys.
I am not aware of many other opportunities to do so and despite the “bumpy” nature of the experience there has been much valuable thought provoked.
Tom Martin’s activity has given us something to coalesce around.
I look forward to the next chance and will be dropping links to and monitoring this post for some time to come.
I’m a friend of Toms and have been for a few years now.
As I explained further up in the comments. I missed the debate I expected to be there but was working out of town and got everything mixed up. I am still bewildered with myself I could have done that.
About 2 years ago or so I put the call out to any man interested to attempt an antifeminist think-tank in the London area, mainly on Mensactivism and Mensnewsdaily (I think).
Tom wasn’t involved because at the time he never called himself an antifeminist.
Maybe it was my writing style that put men off or the term antifeminist was to radical. Rich Zubaty was involved in the men’s movement in the 90s (I think).
He said small men’s groups all around America and Canada all seem to be reinventing the wheel. Rich Zubaty was in every ones face doing real stuff everywhere. I recommend his books and Erin Pizzey too.
I spoke to Angry Harry about my attempt for a group too.
Times have (and are) changing thanks to this site and others, many others. Tom has got real traction with his endeavor.
I will have another go at starting an antifeminist group when my work situation is settled.
If your reading this maybe you could start a think tank or support group in your area.
Again MWM sorry I was not there to meet and support you and Tom on the night, that unpleasantness is unnecessary and I am sorry it happened.
Rod.
Around
Thanks, Rod. I’m sure we’ll meet one day.
One thing to keep in mind…
All that ‘reinventing the wheel’ stuff amounts to experimental replication in a way…many countries coming up with similar culprits and solutions independently says a lot about the strength of the claims, does it not?
I was communicating with a good gent by the name of ivor catt some years ago and he stated how every “new generation” of mens activists seemed to go through the same experiences and end up in the same position.. Re-inventing the wheel indeed..
His RETREAT STRATEGY is, super and highly reccomended for anyone in the family court scenario..
The default position between all of us has to be one of mutual trust. We cannot detract from that. Start from THERE, and move away only if you have to. But always keep it in the mind’s eye as a target to return to as soon as possible.
Otherwise the men’s movement is not going to work. Mistrust, competition and mutual ego-bashing make up the nature of manholes.
I would say then Tom Martin WON THE DEBATE! It may not seem that way by the sentiment and the zeitgeist. However he WON hands down if this report is correct. If there was nothing more than an egotistical sentimental response as rebuttal to the argument then the whole crowd was defeated by one man. Which is a common place historical archetype preceding the moment of breakthrough.
Tom Martin WELL DONE!!!
I’m very sad and annoyed to hear you were treated so badly by certain individuals at this event. I can only imagine they have no idea how influencial your work is online. I haven’t a clue who those individuals might have been, but I know of you and your work, which I come back to to watch again and again. That alone shows who is having the most influence. Don’t be disheartened by those idiots, I suspect that one day they will apologise and thank you for all you have done.
As the author of several sub-categories of feminism, from moral+feminism to cult-feminism, a very observational conclusion about this movement can be summed up by the comments made by Judy Rebick, American born Canadian feminist.
+++
Judy Rebick
Chair: Christina Ho
DISCUSSION
Questioner: I was just wandering what the influence, the participation of lesbian and queer women were.
JUDY: Yeah, thanks, I’m sorry I didn’t mention it. Yeah, lesbians are the heart of the women’s movement, always have been. And, you know, for a long time in Canada, lesbians weren’t, their issues – they were invisible in the women’s movement, even though they were always essential, particularly in the anti-violence movement and the pro-choice movement. Their issues were invisible and then there was – lesbians were the first group that struggled to shift power in the women’s movement in Canada and that happened in the rape crisis centres initially. And then at the national level. So lesbians have always played a major role and a leadership role and they continue to do so. And I’m sorry I didn’t mention that.”
+++
If Judy Rebick is correct, there was always a hidden agenda, from a non-described perspective. If one really looks at the history of this movement there are many clues to this. For one this is no mention of the incomes shared by husbands and wives, and with family, or children. That should have been a clue.
I might recommend learning the many new types of half-truths, and half-truth logic, truths that lie, being used in our society and within the cult-feminist movement, check out wikipedia, and original research can be found in “The Jesus Christ Code – THE LIGHT; The Rainbow of Truths”
You’re sounding WAAAAAAAAAAY too paranoid.
Also, Wikipedia is not a good resource.
Thanks MWM for the red pill.
It is always difficult to go “against the grain”, but you never really know how big a tree grows when you plant the seed – please keep up the good work.
Great work man. You are a hero.
MR is still very outside of the mainstream and people can pay a high personal price by associating with it. Slowly, and steadily, we will reach more and more young men.
Thanks for the response MWM – yes, all knowledge is good. I have an urgent request of all on here. Please re-read my 09:51pm post from Mar 01st, and respond to the salient points therein. They contain what is probably close to the truth of the matter on the night
Vitally important points are:
1) MRMs need to develop away from the keyboard and grow into the public arena. This means speaking out in public, cogently, fairly and in a non-misogynistic way. Unless we do this now, my guess is that we will have compulsory DNA testing for men, and AUTOMATIC jailing i.e. no bail of up to a few days if accused of ANYTHING by a woman. Is that what you want? Did those men turn up in person to the debate? Yes – THEY did. So can the readers and writers on this site do the same? THERE IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO SUPPORT TOM MARTIN ON TUESDAY 13th MARCH (see sexismbusters.org). If people hate the sexism of feminism, can they not show up in person?
2) There is an MRM movement – take heart: Traditional MRM (support family and mother as the main carer); fighting for men (but not anti-feminist – The Men’s Network – Brighton); fighting the legal issues professionally (Parity-uk.org) and the innumerable blogs and web-sites. If you JOIN the aforementioned two organisations, that’s a great start to YOU being PART of a REAL organisation!
3) I’m truly sorry about the issue of trust hurting. My question is that: is this 100% – totally – valid in the light of day? If they did not know who you were, had never met you, were thinking you were possibly INADVERTENTLY indiscrete….they just had a bout of nerves in that moment. It literally was nothing personal.
4) At the meeting, the author MRMs were very different to the ‘stop hurting men MRMs’. I myself would only ever want to appear on film with the latter, and then only after discussing with them for a few hours beforehand.
Take heart from this, and be of better cheer.
So…who will be there on the 13th?
Anti-feminism and non-misogynism are poles apart. I am VERY anti-feminist. And I adore women who are anti-feminist as well.
I would like to hear more about this forum. I can’t be there because I live in Germany, but it could be the step to take our case into the public domain — what we’ve needed since we as a movement came into existence.
I mean, some great books have been written and there are great websites to view. But no one is going to read them or view them unless they are actively looking for them. I discovered the men’s movement in 1998 only because I was wondering whether something like it existed. That prompted me to look for it.
Then in 2000 or so, I discovered Angry Harry’s site. This would do it, it would change things, I thought.
But progress has been slow. VERY slow.
Yes, we need some “real” contact, firstly amongst ourselves and secondly with the men we want hear us.
That’s two different scenarios. The second is what will push the MM to the next level. I think meeting face-2-face will also help drive us to the essential second level.
Hope we can one day have an “international” meeting. Maybe in some country on the west of Europe where the atmosphere is more relaxed than the UK, a country like France or Belgium, where you can be a man and not feel day on day you have to apologize for it. That’s an idea to bear in mind for the future.
I will be there.
I just wish to address the issues of what is the MRM to me, rather than the question of trust and threat. I hope it doesn’t seem off topic, but I respond so as MWM did seem to question his regard of what the MRM is.
I certainly don’t see it as a group of advocates/activists with a great sense of camaraderie or unity, far from it. There may be a few individuals who coalesce to do collective work, but overall, the MRM just stands as a convenient label of various people concerned with opposing misandry, that’s all. Within such a movement there are going to be those that show a total lack of the concept of loyalty and respect. I don’t want to sound dismissive and matter of fact about it as my own experiences over the last decade have given me many moments that fill me with serious despair, and even rage.
However I would say, that I do make a distinction between the MRM and FRM (Father’s.R.M) which I notice is just concerned with the family courts and generally has little interest in feminism, and often ignorance of the word misandry. I believe there is a serious problem with lack respect and camaraderie in both MRM and FRM, but from what I’ve seen it’s not as bad in the MRM. The thing is though, unless this problem is reduced, I only see slow progress against feminism, if any.
Perhaps we think more of the MRM than it deserves.
I
How can you trust someone you’ve only just met? Or haven’t even been introduced to with a camera? Who you don’t know? Whilst sitting with other people you’ve probably only just met with whom you may not have a good overlap of agreement?
After careers have been destroyed after a few careless words selected out of context by feminist publications who rob the video (from a good site in itself but wide open to man-haters on the internet)?
Hello? Anybody listening?
I think this has been elucidated as much as it’s going to be. I think the threats were unnecessary, you apparently don’t.
Enough said
There are diplomatic ways of making concerns known without actually expressing fear through sanctions of this sort or that.
I know London. I come from London. There’s something about it. It is a very uptight place. From late night pubs with bouncers on doors to people visibly racing each to grab available seats on a tube trains.
This mindset is feminine. And this may have something to do with being ruled by one queen for pushing 100 years and then another for currently running at 60. We had a woman prime minister for 11 years during the reign of this recent queen.
Not good. I believe this is at least in part responsible for the maddening feminine petty-mindedness that prevails. It’s why I moved out the country.
If a man is scared to death over an issue then he could show it with humility. If I’m a top cameraguy who wants to film some bloke who is trembling he’ll lose his job, I’ll feel a real empathy for him. I won’t film him.
But if instead this bloke threatens to sue — when he should be on the same side as me — of course I’ll still not film him, but it will leave me with a very bad feeling inside. It will leave me with ill feeling towards him and I might make the mistake of linking that feeling to the men’s movement as a whole.
This collective feminine mentality makes men less humble and more aggressive.
Sounds to me like a misunderstanding. We all need to be better communicators for sure. And I include myself in that criticism.
Sorry to hear of your poor experience, MWM
I think I would have been more than a tad pissed off if I’d been there getting that response. It’s like ‘ here, take this smack in the mouth, but don’t take it personally’
Unreal mate! Well, know that there are many who appreciate what you do and what you have to say. Regarding the femmo fascists, it appears you are right in how so-called men have embraced it and don’t challenge it for the sake of peace. Like Bill Burr says, which is so true, ‘ no one corrects them because they want to F#@k em’
Yes, Bill Burr is brilliant, and thankfully well-received.
To conclude my point on this, within the internet-based MRM, there are a lot of people typing, but if they haven’t turned up in person to challenge militant feminism (e.g. taking part in a debate), nor produced any videos, nor blogs, nor contributed to men’s charities, I wonder how their typing efforts are going to produce any benefits, or reduce the harm that militant feminism is doing?
Perhaps they can produce a list of actions they are going to take in the near future? I am not being rhetorical in this query, merely questioning the ongoing use of the keyboard as the sole means of countering the gigantic machinery of militant feminism.
The question should be what do you do for male rights? I’ve not heard of you or or seen anything you’ve done before. I know what I do on a day to day basis, and typing gets things achieved, so I’m not sure where you get your ideas from. I have many guises across the web in many areas, and have recently been successful in the removal of some misandric adverts in the UK.What have you achieved.
The debate might be pointless, but at least this is a good publicity to everyone in the world that male rights exists and can’t be cast aside. Good job, MWM, Tom and similar people out there.
It wasn’t a debate it was a question.
I have read this thread again because one of the posters (who I know personally and have spent much time supporting in his direct activism which has indeed grabbed media attention..) has requested that I make a mention of an opportunity for any potential “collaborators” regards a major project he has been considering for some time now..
This project can be briefly described as being a campaign that will, if the strategy works, take the MRM and the anti-feminist, anti-misandric concerns to a level of media attention on a par with what fathers 4 justice achieved half a decade ago..
Folk often get highly frustrated at the very major difficulties encountered when trying to work with other “activists”..
Personally, I have witnessed much of the common problems in this regard in my time in the cause and I can only make a few suggestions as to how to REDUCE the likelyhood of major problems with collaborative work.. And perhaps how to IMPROVE the difficulties encountered with one of the most paradoxical areas of the web-based movement.. COMMUNICATIONS..
We have so much communications technologies available and they can be immensely useful.. But what happens?
They are USUALLY used in such a manner that they end up becoming more of a problem than a solution..
Communications failures, I believe, are the main reason that the movement does not develop, progress and grow as well as it could..
Coordinating activists and volunteers for writing and keyboard work is no easy task..
But all manner of collaborative projects need to start from a good base of understanding as to the following:-
1. What are the commitments of the people to the project?
There are too many part times, and remarkably few “full timers”.. Indeed, most MRA’s have other priorities that mean they cant devote as much time as they often THINK they can spare.. 15 hours weekly of dabbling on facebook and forums etc doesnt translate well to even half of that time spent on focused, specific tasks needed, for example to research and compile needed stuff for a campaign..
2. What “weaknesses” or “limitations” do the folk have?
Too many MRA’s are “broken men”.. As a great MRA famously said, “this is the only army that is comprised almost entirely of the wounded”..
Depression, paranoia and many other major mental (or even physical) health problems are endemic in the movement and they seem to afflict folk at all levels of experience..
3. What are the “personal reasons” for the people being involved?
I have always believed that it is much better when collaborators do not have overwhelmingly personal reasons for their activism..
Too many folks are driven solely by “their own case”, as is frequently seen especially in the fathers movement.. (Which is in my opinion not going anywhere good for men anyway as it is far too warped by the “hermophradising” equalitarian approaches.. Frankly and in plain language.. the FRM is a feminist based, statist begging campaign that will do more harm to the majority of men and fathers if they get what they campaign for than what currently exists!)
Failure to consider and appraise the folks you intend to collaborate with, and getting terms of engagement agreed, is a very common cause of failure for groups to gain traction and progress..
Everything in this cause, is far more work than one would imagine.. If one is to get it right, one has to be prepared to put a lot of hard effort and concentration in..
And the pay is not good either!!!
Sorry, didn’t read the other comments. Just dropping a quick comment.
While I think those guys went too far, at some level I can understand how their psyches went there. They’re used to being back-stabbed by manginas, and they live in paranoia wondering where the next male-traitor is.
Also, it’s possible they don’t know (your fame with the man-woman-myth series)…
Re: Middle-Aged Men And Young Guys
There are just as many young guys who are pissed off and angry with feminism. The difference is that 20-something men are scared sh*tless of voicing non-pc views. I got into MRA at 25… most of the video MRAs are in their twenties too.
It takes men a few decades to gather the courage to speak up in real life. So this whole “oh, you a buncha middle-aged man” makes no sense. How is that a negative btw?
“Oh, you have a bunch of life experience, you don’t count” 
I personally know many young men who seem to be indeed very scared of speaking up, even in their own relationshits.. I hate to think that they will only get round to thinking it is worth making a stand when they themselves get the shaft driven in deep.. Every generation of men has to work out what is now most relevant to them, as times change and sadly many “older” men do not appreciate how very different the environment now is for the young men compared to what it was for them.. Young women have vastly more power than young men now which hugely tips the balance. What I really like about the younger men is the way they show great respect for some of the attitudes that older males can display when it comes to dealing with the ways of the ladies. All very macho stuff though that does not seem to go down as well with my own generation of chaps in the main. The young can teach the old some good stuff too I think!
I support three men’s groups both financially and in person, I attended the first conference on men in November in Brighton and have always chipped in to any debate on men without fail over thirty-two years. I’ve dialled in to radio shows, and I’ve exhorted my fellow man to stop being so damned quiet on this.
On that point: man-bashing could be serverely curtailed overnight if just 6 or 10 men rang in or turned up to all debates. You really need to admit – that if you are not showing up, or writing in, or doing something IN PERSON – you are 95% of the problem in giving man-bashing a free rein. Watching a video – and saying ooh that’s spot-on – doesn’t really cut it.
Please explain HOW watching a video helps?!
Hi M.W.M,
Tom Martin is on the radio tomorrow Woman’s Hour.
Wednesday March the 7th 2012, 10.30 am BBC Radio 4,
Topic: “Has Feminism Left Men Behind?”
Rod.
watching a video or reading some good shit can educate a person. I dont watch or read much these days because I learned it all ages ago! I have watched only a few on here, but I have seen enough to realise that MWM knows his shit so I guess the basic theme runs through them all..
There are not many variable factors in MRM work and once you understand AND ACCEPT the basics of how these factors interrelate, consequential things become relatively simple to understand and deal with..
Many MRA’s are just trying to “finish off what the feminists started when they said they wanted equality”..
Thats not good enough.. they lied.. we cant hold them to a deal they neither meant nor can follow through on..
I and a few other high profile MRA’s I know did not attend the Brighton bash because it looked suspiciously well organised..
The agenda looked a bit “statist” too..
Statist “Feminism for men” is not for me!
“Watching videos educates a person”. Yes, but I asked HOW it helps STOP militant feminism. Only today there is news that wolf-whistling will be moving towards being a criminal offence.
Soon we will have women-only bank holidays; women-only train carriages, compulsory DNA testing for all men; curfews for men…this is all coming your way. But hey, there’s that great video to watch, my online identity to use, and then a big smile for the feminists in the real world.
It’s YOU that’s making it like this. Oppressive laws, men doing ****-all, both sides of the same coin.
Remember the female typing pools of the Sixties? Remind you of anyone?
I agree with what you are saying about most men doing nothing richard but if they are not educated well about what the problems are they can actually end up doing the WRONG things because they misunderstand the bigger picture..
I personally have hauled my ass many times and indeed put a lot of personal time, money and effort in to the cause but frankly I may as well have not bothered because most of the folks I was supporting where pushing a femistatist agenda without even being aware of it.
There is no comparison between the mens movement and the feminist movement regards the scale of participation.. MRA’s are outnumbered by a factor of hundreds, and I would estimate that many of them are hardly any different from the feminists in that they keep talking about “eek quality” as if it is the only sound they can make since they removed their own nads in order to compete with women whinge for whinge..
I remember a great MRA saying that the only way to deal with the onslaught of the femistate is NOT to slow that process down.. But to SPEED IT UP!!
SLowing it down will just mean it will take another, say, 40 years to come to the point when society collapses into a heap of dysfunctional shite..
Then, when it comes to rebuilding it, there will hardly be anyone who can remember how a good society worked..
“Herstory” will ensure that!
No. Hasten the process of feminist domination of everything.. Bring the collapse on! There are people around who can remember how things used to be and when the collapse happens they can show the way forward!
Already men are living lifestyles that are a reactive way of thriving under the rule of the femistatists.. These men are doing it under the radar, but their numbers are increasing.. They are not MRA’s they are just men who refuse to support a system that is geared to shafting them..
Every MRA and especially FRA I have ever know has been constantly dissapointed by the futility and lack of results for their efforts..
I say they are looking in the wrong direction for “success”..
For God’s sake man, do you realise what you’ve just said?
You’ve supported the takeover and practical enslavement of men in the hope that there might be a rebellion?!
Is that what Britain did in 1939? Let’s hope Dad’s Army can start a rebellion?
Do you want MORE humiliation and gender-specific punishment? How can you even start to fight back when the laws criminalise your gender?
THE ONLY WAY AHEAD IS TO TAKE PART IN THE FIGHTBACK NOW. IN PERSON. NOW. SHOW UP.
Tom Martin isn’t thinking like you. Thank God. Neither is ‘girlwriteswhat’ on Youtube.
The other folks who can enslave men are other men. Those men who are paid to uphold the law and take the shit will only uphold the law up to a certain point. I know this because I have spoken to many police officers, army vets and others who are pig sick of misandry and of the 70% divorce rates in their own professional groups.
Tom Martin, with respect, is beefing about “gender studies” being misandric..
No shit sherlock!
You think reasoning with feminists and the state will make a difference?
Nah! The rebellion has already started my good man.. Or have you forgotten the riots last year?
Waiting for the pigs to save us? The same thugs who arrest men on the whim of women, no thanks.
By the way Richard, I haven’t seen much of girlwriteswhats stuff but I have seen enough to know that she recognises the concept of bringing on the collapse and how “certain” groups who are often associated with the MRM are having great fun doing that and recruiting a damned lot of followers who will pay for the advice! Is not the “zeta male” concept popularised by Paul Elam not remarkably similar to the same thing?
I have to say, I agree WHOLEHEARTEDLY with Richard. He’s DEAD right.
We must all involve ourselves in some way. My opinion possibly only differs with Richard’s over the detail. I believe every man should do everything that’s within his individual nature and abilities. So, for example, if one of our men has good engaging pub-talking skills, then he could use that to convince new friends and acquaintances of the sinister direction we are moving in. He’d do it well.
The crucial point to take on board is this: we must get the message out to men who have not heard of us. That’s the key issue. Discussing it amongst ourselves might well be a good way to shed shit off our chests. (I love it for that reason.) But it will not change things.
I still believe the internet is a good medium for achieving that. It will mean, however, getting involved in discussions with people not in the MRM. Playing to the choir will achieve nothing. Also, as I have already indicated, don’t bother with feminist blogs. Playing to the deaf will achieve nothing either.
I wrote to Angry Harry about this 10 years ago. He believed (and probably still does) that websites for men will be enough. I disagree with Harry, although I have nothing but the highest respect and admiration for him. The reason I disagree is that no one will look at these sites unless they are looking for them. (It’s how I discovered the MM.)
But if you are involved in discussions with potentially new MRM members, you can link sites like Harry’s or books like Warren Farrell’s and Rich Zubaty’s.
We now need to push the MM to a new level.
An idea. Tom recently appeared in a BBC Women’s Hour radio show as Rod has indicated. Why not write to the BBC for more programmes on men’s issues? You can find an email contact point here. Let’s all mail-bomb them! I am going to do that next.
Listen to Tom’s radio discussion to get a feel for what you can say.
Why not write to the bbc for more programs about mens issues?
Great idea.. I may as well write to Germaine Greer and ask her to do one on mens issues too..
I read an interesting article by Paul Elam recently, I think the basic thrust was pretty clear, speaking to the public is premature and a waste of time. What is more useful, building “the army” by educating MRA’s or sending a few weak troops out to chat to the public and get them to agree for a few minutes that we dont have “gender” equality for men.. Which will last for about as long as it takes before some woman tells them about how women suffer blah de blah while waving her tits in his face.. The MRA has no frontline force to be reckoned with and until it has we are pissing in the wind.. It cant grow because most men will not accept the futility of demanding “equality” from the all powerful femistate.. If men want to be equal to women, which they don’t anyway if they are honest, the answer is obvious.. Go have a sex change operation!
Because the BBC is supposed to be neutral territory. It’s supposed to serve men’s interests as much as women’s. I agree it has been hijacked by feminists. But surely then one important job for us is to recapture it?
Paul wants to build an army of MRAs. That’s exactly what we all want, surely? And this is surely the goal of using television as a medium.
Our army might well be growing. But — at least to my mind — it is growing too slowly. It needs a boost.
My idea (and Richard’s too) is to find that means to give us that boost we need.
Indeed – but an army of Men’s rights ACTIVISTS have to DO something and STOP typing or at least ACT as well as TYPE.
Anyone who does fight back is a hero in my view. The “typist warriors, me I know best, I’ll start when the gunfire gets going” are totally deluded or just making the worst kind of excuse.
It’s kind of like asking a 17-year-old to try a bottle of 5% with you. “Oh I only drink 20%, my friend, there’ll be one at Tony’s party but I’m not telling you when that is”…..
See my comment on the next page.
Gents, in order to grow the MRM numbers to enable more men to want to participate in it, it has to be made attractive to them, young men especially..
Young men don’t usually get impressed by whiney crap and begging for “rights”.. Serious turn off!
I have formally complained to the BBC on a number of occasions. Specifically about their “serious” news programme Newsnight.
Each time any topic that may be considered to have some bearing on women is in the news a “feminist” commentator is brought in to pronounce upon it.
The BBC has a charter which insists on balance in it’s programming apparently, so guess who they bring in to “balance” the feminist.
Another feminist.
So we have the unappetising prospect of a pair of haters discussing various angles of their fucked up ideology on a flagship news programme of the state run television company, unhindered by any informed questioning of their whole premise.
So far I have always been fobbed off with the usual “thankyou for your comments” response but they have a charter and if enough MRA’s complained consistently they would be bound to act.
I have requested that they invite Paul Elam or Angry Harry to balance their programming. They are not there to promulgate an ideology.
It has got so bad I hardly watch the shitbox anymore.
Hi Drex
I think most of us would love to see a proportionate reaction (i.e. finally open, finally honest and really strong) to the years of misandric s*** we’ve had. I just don’t see it in real life. It’s on the internet, but that’s no use. You say the police forces etc. are moving that way, but there’s no evidence they’re acting any different, they’re still bundling men into cars at the slightest allegation. So that’s a non-starter unless you can prove otherwise.
“Don’t worry – hardcore justice is coming – stop tinkering at the edges” needs some proof!
If Tom can win the case tomorrow – it would stop universities being so misandric in their course material. That’s a great start!
You seem to be saying: “Me, I’m hardcore, me” but you’re still sat at your computer and haven’t told us what the plan of action is.
The riots were a mixed bunch of people having a laugh and on the rob. NOTHING to do with fighting misandry. At all.
No-one’s begging for rights, but arguing back. I do it, I like it. If ten more people – per meeting – did it in these councils, universities, MPs surgeries etc. – we wouldn’t have this misandric crap.
Like I say – “talking real revolution here pal” doesn’t cut it. ‘Cos you’re still just talking. Sorry, typing.
Whether I talk on the web or talk in a bar or meeting with other mra’s or talk to feminists and try to compete with women for the glories of victim status, it’s all the same..
Its boring, sad and pointless..
I have done plenty of action in real life, much more than the average MRA for sure, attended many meetings monthly, many weekly even in major groups..
And fewer and fewer men are doing this now..
And they dont need to, to make the difference..
Action without thought is nothing more than clueless stupidty..
If you think the rioters are not in any way related to the cause then think again..
I don’t think a single high profile MRA I can think of in the UK has failed to take advantage of this “reactive response” to the shit that has resulted from a feminist domination of the lower end of the social hierachy..
The best thing about the rioters is that they did more for the MRM than anyone in the MRM has ever done (providing the cause with many reasons to exist for one thing!).. And also that they were, as you noted, NOT actually MRA’s!!
Beggars cannot be choosers.. Who is going to give men their “rights?”..
Duty is what must be considered..
Get rid of “womens rights” and poxy pointless subjects like “gender studies” and all that worthless crap at universities and men will be in a better position all round.. They will certainly not be supporting so much femistate employment racketeering crap and can have some control back in their own families!
Anyway chaps, we could talk about this forever..
I am not your enemy and you are not mine..
Men often achieve more by doing NOTHING than by acting in the wrong direction..
Consider what the results of you actions will be before you do them, is all I can suggest..
Drex
I’ve never read such directionless and unsubstantial piffle. “Men achieve more by doing nothing than by acting in the wrong direction” Er, what? What is wrong about protesting feminism? Isn’t that why MWM makes his videos?
“The rioters provided the cause with many reasons to exist”….sorry?
I went to Oxford and have a post-grad in English and Philosphy in 1968! You are talking absolute drivel and make no sense. You have provided no references about any groups you attended, any named MRAs, any clear link between rioters and MRAs (apart from perhaps the inferred Daily Mail link to fatherless youngsters…)
WHICH MRAS ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT WHEN YOU SAY “HIGH-PROFILE ONES TAKING ADVANTAGE”?
You’re the man leaning on a bar saying you could “take out 20 of them, but you’re going to watch a much bigger fight when it comes”. Like the old loner saying softly “I don’t need to fight to make a difference”, as he’s spat on. People guffawing as they walk out at the pretension and cowardice!
So this is my challenge to you. WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT TO MAKE IT ALL OK, WITH MEN DOING NOTHING AT ALL?
I wonder if we can hit 100 comments!
What I’ve been doing is this. I’ve tried to promote Rich Zubaty’s book Want Men Know That Women Don’t at the Frankfurt book fair (the biggest one of its sort in the world). I live in Frankfurt. I’m in Frankfurt typing away right now.:)
The important point to bear in mind is that we must externalize our message. To me, it doesn’t matter whether we do it face-2-face in person somewhere (like with some of the facetious bitches and manholes working for American and British publishers I have had to talk to) or online. It’s talking amongst ourselves that will achieve nothing — other than sound off some anger and frustration.
I also argue regularly on newspaper comment boards. I started a blog to link from these comment boards. It has pathways to AH, MWM and other men. The idea is to give the MM exposure to men who have never heard of it and who would be delighted to see that it exists.
On the Guardian talkboard I helped Tom out against some childish and imbecilic feminists complaining to him that “he had an agenda” (by suing the LSE). A number of them seemed obsessed with the word “agenda”. It’s strange how women can get hooked on a word.
Many of my comments got deleted by moderators and so did one or two of Tom’s.
And, of course, I’ve written to the BBC on occasion. (More than once.) I’ve written to my MP.
I wish Angry Harry would come in on this one. He’s not only a passionate believer in the internet, but also that the MM will pick up momentum on its own — if I read him right — through chance discovery.
Tom’s case is tomorrow. Eagerly awaiting the outcome.
Mr. Manwomanmyth –
You’re doing a great job. I have watched every one of your videos and read every one of your articles. You are way ahead of the average guy when it comes to the level of consciousness regarding men and women. You are ahead of many MRAs as well. Your contribution is in fact that much more powerful because you are out ahead of most men.
Rather than being idiots, I submit that most men are terrified of women, the gigantic influence of women in their lives, and how women control much of their daily lives. Their concern about going public is an indication of that terror, not that they don’t care, and not that they can’t contribute to the movement. I appreciate your frustration, and of course I have felt that too, but to be effective in getting the word out, we need to work with men where they are right now.
Suggests to me that the most important task for any brotherhood must surely be to tackle that fear that men have of the power of women. The first thing to realise of course is that every woman who has power has it for reasons that are to do with how you relate to that woman and the power of the people she can convince to do you over. Few men are truly dependant on women, some men are trapped in less than ideal situations with particular women, but in most cases they can be dealt with by avoidance strategies and not letting the women set the agenda.
I have updated the article with the following:
I have been contacted by one of the men at issue in this article, the first one that threatened legal action against me. He has explained at length what led to his threat, he has apologised unreservedly and says that he thinks I was justified in responding the way I did in this article.
I have since reviewed the audio recording of the meeting and I’m positive that the thrust of the article stands, including the language I use within it.
That said, his explanation goes some way towards ameliorating the situation. He explained that it was partly to do with a belief that I was from the Fawcett society which was due to someone suggesting this as a joke. I didn’t register it at the time but that ‘joke’ is indeed on the recording. However, it was clearly established later in the discussion that this was not true and I was vouched for by more than one person present. That makes this weak mitigation.
He said he had no idea who I was because he had not come across my work before, so he felt that he simply over-reacted due to not enough information about what was going on. However, the recording makes it clear that my position was known to the extent that another person even said to him after his threat that “this guy does not deserve this hostility”. But it fell on deaf ears.
So the situation is complex because all was in agreement about not using the footage, people had gone out of their way to calm things down and vouch for me, and then for no reason whatsoever, the legal threat was made.
But he’s made the effort to explain and I think he is honest. On balance, I am willing to accept his explanation and apology and that he got carried away, and I have said to him that we should put it behind us and he agreed.
Personally, I think that Tom should have been the one to sort this all out before it became a problem, and he admits as much in the recording. But he had his hands full with the debate and he was the person we were all there for anyway, so it counts as one-of-those-things that can happen in this business.
However, none of this applies to the other piece-of-work at issue here. The recording shows his complete familiarity with my work to the extent that he even recognised my voice from the videos. And a quote from him? Nameless prick says: “I know you’re one of us, you’re one of our guys”. And then the tool proceeds to threaten.
There is no excuse whatsoever for his behaviour in joining in the threat to sue. This character is precisely the ugly truth of the MRM I was so surprised to uncover. So, unfortunately for me, I am left with the reality that with certain apologies and explanations aside, the article must stand.
It is a spiritual discipline for MRAs not to take these incidents personally. It is not easy, but it can be done.
Did the guys at the table after Tom’s talk act poorly? No question they did. Does this need to in any way reflect poorly on Mr. Manwomanmyth? No. Those guys have their own stuff about going public. Getting in front of a video camera is an intimidating thing to do if an MRA has not been publicly “outed” before.
These guys are educable, but to be successful with our awareness raising education, we need to at least entertain the thought that we can turn them around. Back-biting and bitterness within the movement, maintaining grudges, and going on and on with tit-for-tat retaliations will not further the men’s rights cause.
I am relieved there has been some mitigation on this.
You say that the protocols were missing in the restaurant – sounds likely.
Something struck me however as a little inconsistent here.
The two men were worried about some kind of exposure which could harm their reputation and lose income. The first guy did not know you and the “Fawcett Society” gag set the wheels in motion for some panicky verbal sword-crossing. No-one was being a wimp here.
You’ve now used the audio recording to EXACTLY demonstrate the sequence of events, and PRECISELY who said what, to whom. Sort of like evidence in a legal courtroom. The second guy has ended up being called ‘a prick’, ‘a tool’ and a ‘piece-of-work’! Wow.
So in some ways his concern about the use of the footage was justified given you’re using it to lay into him!
OK, so half-way through he recognises your voice.. THIS IS THE INTERNET. He doesn’t know that two years down the line a new colleague of yours could give it to someone else. Or you could form a company, sell the company – and it’s material – in 5 years that then broadens it’s remit and goes freelance to the major broadcasters. He doesn’t know that you could put together something brilliant but the other guys make comments he’s unhappy with but associated with. If you’d spoken to each other for an hour beforehand, you’d probably be fine with each other.
And anyway, in short, both of you sound like fiery characters who are quick to have a right go at the other.
lol. You’re an interesting character as a few of your comments here have demonstrated, including the one I trashed because you became needlessly offensive to a long-time commenter here.
Now you seek to present the argument that the nameless tool/prick/piece-of-work was even partly justified in his concerns about me because of my response to his threats.
So, your reasoned conclusion appears to be that it all amounts to nothing and it’s just two “fiery” characters in the MRM. It’s clear that I’m as much at fault here as anyone and someone (you, perhaps?) should just clash our heads together and tell us to shake hands. lol.
I’ve made my case. That you want to over-reason the affair and even find a way to support the behaviour from this specimen with tales of what may have been fluttering through his mind, is mental-gymnastics of the first order.
Your prevarication reminds me of a scene from Austin Powers where he’s being given back his stuff (paraphrased):
I’ve noticed your rudeness and high handedness. Enough said.
As I say, I think the first position between us MRAs should be one of mutual confidence. (I am avoiding the word “trust” because it has too many senses and will lead to inevitable misunderstandings.)
What’s crucial is that we remain an inclusive club open to all men. This means we must keep the MM an attractive band to join.
Gentlemen,
Tom’s case today is in the New Statesman.
It doesn’t seem to give the latest information, but you can comment on it at the bottom.
Support Tom!
Bad news gentlemen. Tom has lost his case.
I am very angry. Is there no limit to the corruption of these courts? The evidence Tom had was sterling.
I’m glad someone is concentrating on something important today. The fact that Tom Martin is – on the face of it – £38,000 out of pocket, plus the hundreds of hours work seems quite significant. Concentrating on a verbal spat late at night in a bar from weeks ago seems insignificant to that.
Could you give a link to where it says Tom lost his case?
I found it on Twitter. There is currently little else on it. But FreeYChromo seems to be well up on it.
The court didn’t want to touch the role of determining the content of an academic course. This was a fundamental issue.
The defence was well represented with costs awarded in their favour which will be in the region of £38,000.
Tom made some excellent points and the dragon who appeared to have some role in the content of the course was really not happy.
More to follow.
This may be interesting. Tom might have grounds for appeal on this point. (Amongst possibly many others we have not heard yet.)
Suppose you buy a bar of chocolate. But it’s below standard. It’s not what is promised in the ad. Suppose instead of cocoa beans they used soil as the main ingredient.
You sue the manufacturer. Can the court claim that it’s not their business to interfere in how a manufacturer makes its products?
The decision sounds corrupt. This could be a point on which to mount an appeal.
Another line of the defence was that the reading list for the course was recommended to be studied by everyone on it and was therefore non discriminatory and that it was in the nature of an academic course to include material that one might disagree with.
Tom’s response was that the materials were themselves discriminatory, deliberately so, and chosen with this aim in mind.
He also spoke of the oppressive atmosphere within the seminars and the fact that he was deliberately ostracised in response to asking awkward questions. He mentioned the “code orange” charge. His being accused of being threatening in some undefinable manner was circulated by email within the department but later retracted.
There was a concerted effort to prevent the case becoming a “platform” by the judge and the defence and the public interest was not given the weight that it might be considered to have merited.
There was the tantalising prospect of calling some of the authors of the course materials to answer for their various bogus claims. Can you imagine the joy the MRM would have watching these people cross examined under oath.
Tom was ready for this at the next stage of the proceedings and cited a few examples but obviously this has been closed off. This on the premise that his personal claim against the LSE had no prospect of success on a legal basis and that to prolong the proceedings would merely increase the costs involved.
It seemed to this observer that what he had really needed was expert legal assistance from the outset. There was criticism of the presentation of his case and the defence cited numerous cases of legal precedent which made it difficult for anyone other than a barrister to counter.
This is what £38,000 can buy you.
Maybe the crux of it was that the LSE is funding a course that promulgates “hate” and it is on this point that they should have been attacked directly rather than on the difference between a course advertised as “Gender Studies” when in fact it was run as “Women’s Studies”. The subtleties implied by these titles may escape many not concerned with this field possibly including the judge.
Tom did his best and it was pretty good but he was virtually singlehandedly taking on the huge resources available to the feminist hierarchy.
He made the interesting point that if he were allowed to dissect the claims made within the books of the reading list the level of misandry would be blindingly obvious. He contended that this maybe down to the fact that for 40 years feminist falsehood had been untrammeled by opposition. He was stared at with what I took to be hate by the elderly woman on the defence team at this point.
They won the case – this time – but there must be the feeling in the air that their number is up. The possibility of forensic examination of some of the claims of feminist academia in a court of law looms large.
We need more MRA’s on the ground. Maybe a mailing list somewhere so that we can be contacted for support.
Tom Martin – a man who put his money, courage, time and energy where his mouth is. I salute him.
Thats a superb idea.. I am sure the lawyers would love to have an appeal..
I am sure the MRM supporters could tip almost as much money down this dead end as some of them throw at the family courts in a futile quest for justice..
An appeal? nah.. what is needed is something much more imaginative and media grabbing..
Drex
I’m all ears my friend!
Let’s come up with something we can do, something which will involve outsiders one way or the other.
Media is great. Remember I suggested mail-bombing the BBC a few days ago?
We should strike while the iron is hot. THAT’S whay I say write to them. They can only tell us to fuck off. But the more of us write, the stronger will be our message. The more chance they’ll be inclined to sit up and listen.
True, we’re all powerless arses. But we ought to try something.
Other ideas? Fire them away. I’m all ears.
I note your keenness, for alternate campaigning ideas, and to strike while the metals hot from the publicity Tom has gained so far. Unfortunately, it is not prudent to air some ideas publically, so if you’d like to drop a line here purplescape@hotmail.co.uk I can elaborate.
I know tfb is a man of action, proven in the field and also a man of considerable wisdom in this area.
There is little I could suggest that tfb would not be a better man to put the talk into practice!
Sorry Dick,
(Hope you don’t mind me calling you that Richard.)
If not, my apologies and you can refer to me by my full name too, which is Andrex..
While you were apparently doing some girly subject at some out of touch ivory tower I was but a young boy who was to eventually learn to read and write by the age of about 9 or so. However, I was a mathematical genius and all round clever scientific sort of chap, good at everything other than reading fictional crap and talking shit.. (I have become better at the latter in recent years, as a result of dealing with homo sapiens on its own piss-poor terms ever since I retired aged 30..)
English is not my first language. You could say logic is as I got my degree in computing and worked as a systems analyst until I decided that logically I could have a better life as a man by rejecting the system that was telling me I was responsible for children I could have no significant influence over and women who could use the state to rob me legally..
You may have read a lot of books, I have read enough to count on one hand unless you include the ones I read to my young kids at bedtime now and then, but you don’t seem to have read the writing on the wall above the pissoir which says quite clearly..
“While you are looking up here, you are pissing on your feet”..
Anyway, I don’t need to prove myself to you or anyone in the MRM.. If you think I am a wanker, no worries, I get paid a good fee at the sperm bank for it so why would I complain?
Im just saying, my deluded friend.. Todays (yesterdays) MRM beliefs, aspirations, attitudes and tactics aint cutting the mustard by any stretch of the imagination and if you folks think the state of the mrm (mostly dominated by the sort of folk who seem to want “feminism for men” given to them by the state.. I.E. deluded dreamers..) is good enough then carry on campaigning in the same way that has failed for the last.. How many decades?
35 years or so of sliding ever backwards does not represent anything other than a huge fail..
Until the folks know what the score is regards the issues that affect men and how things relate to natural masculinity then as I have said.. Better that they DO NOTHING than act stupidily and prematurely and just because THEY personally have a beef! (The usual reason 95% plus of all activists ever take an interest!)..
I would not say Steve Moxon is 100% spot on in his suggestions as to what we can do.. (he doesn’t suggest anything if I recall from his book)..
But I would say his book is a good analysis of the shit..
If the work (videoes etc) on MWM is anything like that sort of analysis of the situation.. (And from what I have seen so far it looks like it) then it represents an excellent way of educating future campaigners..
I will not refer to the future more-likely-to-be-successful-campaigners as “Mens Rights Activists” because I do not think it is wise to take on board labels associated with failure..
From the MRM and other groups may well come a more clued up, more libertarian and less statist way that will appeal to the young men we need..
I do not call myself an MRA because I don’t feel particularly that I have a great deal in common with most MRA’s/FRA’s I have met.. But that is personal I guess..
So, I maintain that doing nothing is better than clueless failure!! Conservation of energy is not a bad thing, one can learn and be ready and not burnt out within a few years from the frustration..
Oh, by the way, shame that Tom the Feminist lost his case. Would have been a major step forward for any feminist men wanting to study girly stuff at girly universities.. A great advance for the MRM of course..
Pftt!
Of course he failed, because is damned obvious that the system would not let it win!
Why do so many folks think they can use the same law that oppresses men to help men?
The analogy of the Jews asking the Nazi’s for a fair trial comes to mind..
One of the main reasons the main fathers groups do not make challenges, do demonstrations etc anymore, is because the leaders in their wisdom recognise that if they don’t produce the goods, they act as “shows of weakness” rather than shows of strength..
So, Tom and all those who supported him are now hit with a £38k bill eh?
You really should have known..
The only folks who profit from legal challenges like this are the parasitic lawyers who will almost always uphold the status quo for their femistate providers..
What could have been done with £38k that would have done more damage to “the enemy?”..
Well, for one thing, could have paid for a lot of cement to tip into the drains of many family courts and the men who would be willing to do such for the price of a few lines of sniff..
But, I am sure the fine upstanding and all round super folks in the MRM who like to meet for tea and crumpets with feminists and statists, would not know where to find the sort of chaps who would be willing to do a few hours of real work..
They prefer to threaten their own troops than the enemies it often seems to me..
Be nice.. It’s the best way..
Interesting comment as always, Drex.
I have not weighed in on the Tom Martin case because of some of the points you make here and because I think staying quiet on certain things is sometimes the more positive thing to do.
I have yet to reach an understanding of the interest someone might have in a gender/women’s studies course and I admit to finding it a strange thing to battle over. Such courses were created specifically by Feminists for Feminists to promote Feminism. Tom was right to have taken issue with it, but to my mind, it maybe should have been about why it exists at all rather than making it fairer. What could be won in reality? A women’s studies course that hated men a little less? I think pursuing the male studies idea is the stronger one.
Please be clear that I think this was a worthwhile endeavour, the same as the man who took British Airways to court over their presumption of male paedophilia on board planes. It’s another line of attack, so it’s always better to do than not.
My top concern is the content of Steve Moxon’s excellent book, which you reference, and also the MRA/MRM problem discussed in this article which now looms large in my mind.
Steve indeed doesn’t present an answer to the perhaps impossible question of how we can treat men fairly in a universe that simply doesn’t work that way. Steve could no more suggest an easy way to kick water uphill than solve the misandry problem, especially because of the enthusiastic complicity of the bulk of men. But he does suggest that we can make things better by understanding the relatively simple truth of men and women and embracing of the science. Personally, I don’t think people want to accept the science, the current ideology is more comfortable for most.
This project was completed without reference to Steve’s book (in fact, before it was published), but there is much that mirrors his narrative. It couldn’t be any other way once you look at the evidence as it is rather than through blinkers. His work is streets ahead of mine because he was not just theorizing from observed evidence, he came at it from established biological principles as well.
The MRA/MRM situation is a big issue for me and I suspect that I may end up dropping those terms going forward, although I’m not yet sure. I’m mindful that great minds in this area stick by these terms and I’ve still got stuff to learn.
I was seriously rocked from that meeting because as cynical as I am, I was unprepared for how wrong I was about certain basic principles. Whether people understand or not, this was not some personal grievance for me, I’m made of sterner stuff. No, this is about the whole philosophy of absolutely everything that I’m doing and how I spend a large portion of my life, a lot of energy and a significant amount of money as well.
I need to decide what the best onward course might be, because I have established for myself that I have been plain wrong about more than I realised.
Unfortunately, as distressing as your experience was on the night in question, I have certainly found a lack camaraderie and mutual respect all too often in the F/MRM over the decade. Perhaps my greater frequency of such experiences comes from being quite frequently involved in face to face meetups with activists/advocates over those years. Certainly bad experiences can be not just upsetting, but occasionally downright debilitating too. Perhaps by the nature of your work, many of your working hours are spent alone and this leads to fewer personal interactions with F/MRA’s, whilst the nature of my activities means that many of my working hours are spent interacting with advocates/activists in such face to face meet-ups.
For those not familiar with the combined acronyms I’m using, I would say that they stand for fathers and men’s rights activists/advocates/movement, (F/MRM). For those who feel they are one and the same, I differentiate them because years of personal experience with them has lead me to the view that the two groups are very different in their outlook and awareness of the issues. The MRM might consider the FRM as part of their movement, but I have not found that to be the case, and indeed, most FRA’s don’t even know or want to know of the MRM and issues of wider cultural misandry.
In specific response to you post and in particular your last sentence, ‘I need to decide what the best onward course might be…’, I would like to say that I am quite intrigued by this statement. Would I be wrong in wandering that it sounds like something of a watershed in your outlook? Of course, you mention that you are facing a decision in which way forward, and no doubt that is a matter for yourself, but could you elaborate on some of the relevant factors you see?
Still thinking about it and I take my time about these things!
But for now, it does feel like a big change in the game. To be honest, I’ve been changing more than a few opinions about this business lately, this is just another one, albeit not something I anticipated.
Why is the men’s movement totally divided why feminists are absolutely faithful to women, no matter what?
Feminists are united. Feminists defend murderous women who shot their husbands in the back, while sleeping. Or who lopped their men’s penises off while they slept. Unconditionally, they form fan clubs, form psychological theories like “battered women’s syndrome”. No man dares to counter with “despised man’s syndrome”, “family court rage”, “sexual frustration rape syndrome”.
No man would ever create an organization to defend Jack the ripper as a victim of an abusive mother and women who openly despised him in the work place.
Most men would not even defend a man jailed for possessing, on their computer, 5 files of 0 and 1′s that depict “child porn”, which contains neither a child under 15 nor any porn, rather non-nude dancing (Knox vs. USA). Or a man that religiously checked a woman’s ID before intercourse, but that was mistakenly emitted by the State of Nevada due to the woman fraudulently bringing other people s birth certificate to the DMV.
Never would MRA coddle and invite authors of gendercidal SCUM. Women have no problem with this, I think they even have a yearly conference and government officials speak there.
For the sake of women. Man’s history is the story Adam and Eve repeating itself and repeating itself ad infinitum.
Men, for the sake of women, go out to work. They do the riskiest, most dangerous, most dirty or most pressurized complex, work for the sake of women.
In a free market economy, this inevitably means competition. Through the millenia, men have become conditioned to competing with each other.
This means NO mutual support.
And this is self-destructive. Man is destroying man.
But the wheel is now turning. For the first time — perhaps in hundreds of years — men have recognized they must support each other if they are to survive and if homo sapiens is to survive as a species.
That’s why I believe the Men’s Movement has some of the wisest men you’ll find on the planet. (And that inevitably means the wisest people.)
MRAs have seen the dangers awaiting us. Other male persons — mostly manginas — have failed to.
Fighting the LSE raises the profile of the anti-feminist case because the broader picture is unavoidable. Tom sues the LSE, but he also brings to light key issues behind the MRM.
The New Statesman article (which is typically biased against men and reason) has drawn a significant amount of interest. So far over 50 comments.
Most on our side. Join in.
Still you’re all typing, not doing anything. Still using names from school (both to hide behind and to be abusive).
A good man has been hit with a £38k bill – not too much sympathy from our typist friends.
I’m certainly out of here.
Much is being done Richard and don’t think there is a lack of sympathy for an undoubtedly good man who has been hit with an unfair bill.
Personally, I feel bad whenever a chap expends a great deal of effort making a very valid point as Tom as done and ends up getting a poor outcome.
It is my view that such things may have some long term value, but generally, are best avoided.
Choosing ones battles is the key, and also not fighting under the rules of the enemy and only using what they allow you to use is also very important to consider.
Banging ones head against a brick wall rarely results in anything other than a sore head..
It may leave a stain on the wall but it won’t knock it down..
I suggest dissolving the mortar of that wall will weaken it sufficiently to allow such head banging attempts to work in the future when they have more chance of success.
Now, how do we weaken the cohesive forces that keep this wall of misandry standing?
If you think I spend a lot of time typing, that is all you see and you don’t see even half of what else I do.
I have seen nothing but words from you either Richard, but I am sure you do more than that too.
The cause will go on and if you don’t like the way it is going then indeed you will not need to be part of it, your choice..
I find it strange that so often the online comments pages of mainstream media feminist shit sheets are supportive of the MRM position and yet the articles they comment on are negative. Masses of pro-mra comments bouncing off brick walls.. Wasted energy.. Usually out of every 100 comments there are only 2 or 3 basic things being repeated by every commenter.. And who has the time to read them all anyway?
Feminist bog rolls seem to exist as “sponges” to mop up and dissipate the energies of MRA’s who would otherwise perhaps spend that time finding ways of working with other MRA’s in devising strategies that have some actual effect..
I avoid commenting on anything other than pro-male articles or websites because I prefer to support the work of those who push the right message.. That will inspire them and hopefully give them a feeling they are achieving something..
Why waste energy on femitards? They don’t give a toss about what we think, because in their paradigm, its all sorted and approved and anyone who thinks otherwise is just a daft bugger… Best ignored.. As they do..
They would love all the energies of the MRM to be directed at brick walls forever.. Then laugh as the mrm’s own troops get hit down by the frustrating rebound effects..
I am sure that Angry Harry gets a lot of mail from supporters..
I am sure that MWM gets a fair bit too..
Where do we have to look to see an “activism wing” that is geared towards finding strategies, organising the “troops”?
I have tried, unsuccessfully, to “herd the cats” and get the keyboard warriors of my favourite MRM forum directed and organised.. With the support of the webmaster who himself is a keen activist. His appraisal of the chances of getting the KW’s to work in an organised and structured manner regards “general activism” proved more accurate than my own optimistic hopes.. “This place is a whinefest” I recall him saying.. He didn’t mean that in a detrimental way to the many posters, more that he had noted that folks preferred chat to action.. And most of that chat was of course moaning about the woes of men..
Many times I have resolved to turn my back in disgust at the lack of true desire of many MRA’s to ever “get organised”.. A small group of only a handful can actually do quite a lot to gain valuable publicity and show the way.. Here we see ONE MAN, Tom, has managed to make a stand.. So, that is all the evidence we need to know one doesn’t need to be Matt O Connor and have “12,000 supporters” before making a splash..
I don’t support the idea that feminist men can ever achieve much of value by trying to make feminism “man friendly” but I support Tom because he is making a stand and proving a very valid point.. In the words of a feminist man “feminism IS sexist”.. I prefer the term “misandric” because of a personal refusal to use terms that are usually associated with feminism..
But as we know, the worlds most successful “cat herder”, Matt of f4j, is a one-trick pony who concentrates one simple manifestation of misandry and has, in case anyone is smart enough to see it, a very naive suggested solution that basically suggests that the state allocate equal child minding duties to parents who are mostly very unequal in all regards due to the nature of family life and the benefits systems, feminist and misandric biases etc in the UK..
Is it possible that the few proven MRM supportive FRA’s who have shown their mettle in F4J style actions can convince the MRA’s that it is worth following similar tactics used by matt o connor to successfully grow an action based group?
I believe it is.
But that will only be possible when MRA’s make a concious (and difficult) decision to quit wasting their energies banging their heads on brick wall feminist forums (and newspaper comment areas) and instead of COMMENTING ON THE NEWS, start MAKING THE NEWS..
One of the reasons matt managed to grow his group, was because he insisted on his troops keeping focus, not wankfesting on forums etc when they could have used that time to work on specific needed business..
Good communications practices, basically..
I think if MRA’s can crack that MAJOR PROBLEM, they could well find what they need to grow their action legs..
Starting from a good web site base, a forum for activists who agree to rules that are based on commitment to activism and good communications practices, a platform for focusing MRA’s and responding to the input of interested members attracted by the media gained from protests could become established and self-maintaining when folks see the value of it..
If matt could do it for f4j, then it is possible that one man, or even a small group of no more than a handful of committed chaps could do it for the wider MRM..
Et voilà messieurs!
Drex hits it on the head.
Men: think about this. Let’s make efficient use of our energies. I mean, I yesterday posted a criticism of feminism in an article by Naomi Wolf on the Guardian website.
It got blocked. All it did was DISAGREE with the writer. The sticking point was probably my statement that men and women have different brains. That’s the only thing they could have found offensive, even though it’s an indisputable fact.
Free speech my arse. It’s totalitarian.
Energy wasted. Bounced off of the wall.
yes, by the time one has diluted the message enough to get it through the PC censors it has lost 90% of its raw impact..
Brick through the window becomes a paper plane at the lace curtain..
Sure, but it was all there was at our disposal for many years. It was good “in its day”. If the MRM grew in these years — albeit at some trickley rate — it would have had a role to play.
But now that Tom has raised the profile of the MRM, the game has changed. Now electricity has been discovered, as it were, we can ditch steam.
So onward.
‘Brick through the window becomes a paper plane at the lace curtain..’
I like this, it’s a good proverb for the MRM to consider.
TFB — Please check your email.
I would like to add here, we must at all costs avoid shaming each other. That’s a sure sign that feminization is creeping in.
Remember we are standing up for MEN. How can our fight against feminism and bad government look genuine if we are playing their game? There are good ways of expressing disagreement without resorting to shaming.
Shame the politicians, the manholes and the feminists who are seeking to destroy our lives to promote their own ego-centred interests. But save it for THEM.
this is somewhat off topic but please take a look at this article. The disgusting bigotry against men in it and the comments are just horrible
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2012/05/women_are_better_than_men.html
It’s not productive to value human worth in the way that joker attempts in that dire article. But for some reason, there are a lot of women – probably most – and also many men that believe something along those lines to a greater or lesser extent.
It’s fine to comment on relative abilities in fields of endeavour, e.g. work or sport, but intrinsic worth as a human being? That can only seek to be hateful and indeed, Ebert is being hateful.
But he’s playing to an eager audience.
He (and all too many commenters) is simply displaying the male condition which afflicts men just as the women display an equivalent female condition.
Men and women genuinely do feel that women are intrinsically better than men; a class apart; worth saving ahead of a man etc. And they will list 101 supposed reasons why that’s the case, whilst ignoring the 101 reasons that tell a completely opposite story. Number one on that list is the very web page on which the hateful article appears: the internet after all, is the work of men.
A very sad business, but also very typical. Because misandry is the norm, not the exception.
I discovered the recent post at…
http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/07/when-steve-met-tom/
I have been aware of your work for some time as I have seen many of your youtube videos. I was not aware you attended the discussion , Is Feminism Sexist and does the MRM even exist? at UCL.
Thank you for attending.I was present also, as someone who has only recently (3-4 years)become interested in the MRM I was fascinated to listen to feminists and non-feminists discuss issues.I have never been in such a discussion before.Whenever I have tried to discuss mens issues with female friends they dont take it seriously, laugh and say silly remarks ad hominem.
There are many MRM issues which distress me , the way the media treats men , family law ,false rape, statistics manipulation etc.
I dont know how the MRM can ever make any substancial progress to address the many issues which you and others point out but I wish you luck in your pursuit of true equality.
Kind Regards
Much appreciated. The MRM road is a murky and arduous one. But there are quite a few people progressing along it steadily. Even if it turns out to not have an end.
It is indeed extraordinarily difficult to “herd the cats” in the MRM.. Every good MRA sooner or later realises they are trying to build a house with broken bricks..
http://antimisandry.com/chit-chat-main/building-house-broken-bricks-48396.html#post304663
Good luck to all who try!
You are exactly right. Most of the self proclaimed Men’s Rights Advocates fully support most of the feminist agendas that have become law over the past 160 years. Female suffrage, female custody of our children, and “rape” or even “touching” a woman as a serious crime. With MRA’s like that stabbing us in the back and supporting feminist hate, we have to wonder if the Men’s Movement even exists.