Saturday, November 17, 2012

Attention of Toronto feminists of UofT, regarding yesterday's protest:


  • Instead of forming a physical wall preventing those interested in civil discussion from getting to a talk...
  • Instead of calling us rape apologists, rape supporters, rapists, and perverts...
  • Instead of violently assaulting people attending the talk, neutral journalists, and the cops trying to protect us...
  • Instead of screaming at all of us that we perpetuate rape culture...
  • Instead of yelling that a centre dedicated to the gendered issues that males face in school is a danger to all women in the university...
  • Instead of claiming that we are all sexist, homophobic, racist, horrible and evil people...
...consider actually joining in the conversation.
Yesterday, November 16th, 2012, at the Medical Sciences Building of University of Toronto, Dr Warren Farrell held a talk focused on why boys are dropping out of school more, failing school more, applying for school less, committing suicide at higher rates, etc. This talk was not an anti-feminist speech in the least.
Once we finally got to start the talk (over an hour late, due to the blockade), Warren praised feminism and the womens rights movement in 5 separate occasions. He delivered a message of peace, compassion, love, and interest in our society's boys. By all accounts, he was undeserving of all of the hate he received outside. He is a caring, soft-spoken man, and he did his best to answer any question that were asked of him.
If any of you had the patience to actually listen to what he had to say, you'd have felt like fools. When I was denied entry by those of you linking arms, I was able to talk to many of you. With almost every single point I made about mens issues, we reached agreement - but you insisted that any discussion of male issues outside of what feminism allows is hate speech, and firmly believed that you should be able to stop us from taking part.
Just because there are more of you, and you are stronger and louder, does not mean what you are doing is right.
If you want feminism to remain as a movement for equality, you seriously might want to reconsider your anti-male stances. And before anyone here claims "Not all feminists are like that", I'm not saying that they are. But I am saying that these people identify themselves with a term that you hold dear. If you are letting them take feminism and twist it into a violently sexist movement of oppression and censorship, as we saw yesterday, then that's on you, not on us.
I know many of you who were there truly believe in equality. Take a second and actually consider what you are standing for when you protest a conversation simply because boys are the focus and not girls. It is both hilarious and sad that we have come to this.

23 comments:

  1. I sincerely hope the violent, and apparently reality-detached feminist protesters continue to behave like maniacs and crazed baboons in public. Each episode of this sort does more to advance the cause of human rights for men and boys than any 2 dozen reasoned and researched arguments from a rational men's rights activist.

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    1. I fear for the innocent people who are harmed at the hand of this violence, but I know what you're saying, and sort of agree. By reacting so intensely emotional to such petty topics that are of no threat completely exposes the true nature of some of these people.

      I would love to see feminists calling out other feminists for their bad behaviour, but they largely seem unwilling. If they refuse to remove the bad apples, the whole bunch will be spoiled, and it will be there for everyone to see.

      Unfortunately, the unaware public will be seeing this as a "men vs women" struggle, rather than the "feminism vs egalitarianism" conflict that it is. I should have pointed out that there were equal numbers of men and women in the protest AND in the talk.

      Will you make a video about this, John? If you do, I'll be glad to watch it.

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    2. IOW, that they'll see it for what it is. I would call myself a masculist, but masculism has to be complementary to feminism, not adversarial. Want to talk about the special challenges of being male in today's societies? Great! Trying to solve those problems independent of a serious critique of the patriarchal conditions that create them? Well ... good luck with that. By starting off with a dichotomous straw-feminism as a premise, you consign anything else you go on to say to irrelevance.

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    3. That's exactly what the talk was, though.

      The premise of the talk was "men used to have a violent, strong, leading role in our society - now that our society is changing, we need to teach boys differently so men may adapt into something more loving to women and themselves", and it totally followed through.

      It was a critique on old masculinity exactly how you defined it, and the author and this talk was not anti-feminism or anti-women. It was extremely pro-both. There was no dichotomy here... Until censoring self-identified feminists showed up and felt they could strong-arm us into not talking. "Hate speech", they called it. It was disgusting.

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    4. Geoff,

      There is no "straw-feminism" being discussed here, unless "straw" means "demonstrably real but embarrassing to honestly acknowledge in the context of this conversation."

      I'll start entertaining the possibility that more than a few extremely marginal feminists think talking about the special challenges of being male in today's societies is "great" when they can be bothered to disapprove of fellow feminists who become vocally enraged at people who try to do just that. Or at least have the decency to refrain from chastising people who do actually care about the challenges of being male for attacking "straw-feminism" for daring to point out that the vocally enraged contingent does, in fact, EXIST.

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    5. @ John Markley

      Thank you. I was indeed addressing real-life people that self-identified as feminists. The police officer who was punched in the face a foot from where I was standing would surely agree with you and me that these people exist.

      I wrote this in reply to a comment on another site, but I feel it is very relevant here:

      A "feminist" is someone who identifies as a feminist. You can say they are not a real feminist all you want, but you really have no right to define them any more than they have a right to define you as not a feminist for not being there beside them.

      Words mean exactly what people use them to mean. Language evolves to reflect the society that uses it.

      If you want to quietly sit back as people all over the world turn the word feminist into meaning violent, sexist oppressors without even stepping out to condemn their actions, then at the very least you shouldn't be surprised why "real" egalitarian feminists are starting to avoid the stigma behind the term.

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  2. Feminists don't want equality. They want special rights and privileges for women only. FUCK FEMINISM: http://manhood101.com

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    1. While I might not agree with your statements, I'm going to do something pretty cool and *not* delete your comment.

      Why? Because I would like people to be able to have discussions, exchange points, and maybe inform the casual observers of what is actually going on.

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    2. JAZ that behaviour is something completely opposite to what one might see on SRS

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    3. Responding to stupidity with equal stupidity just makes the argument stupid.

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  3. manhood101 is a scam site that spams men's right's communities. I agree that it would have been much more useful to the protesters outside if they bothered to consider the message they were protesting. They won't though but I won't be dissuaded.

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  4. Feminism will never reconcile with men and become a movement for equality. If it really did that, then it would lose its main power base: chivalry. Without that, feminism would be just as small and fringe as men's rights movements.

    I know it's tempting to want to find common ground and work together. I know that the sane sounding voices among feminists seem to be an indication that cooperation is possible. But those "sane sounding voices" must first explain why they call something "feminism" that aims for equality. Until they can justify that, they should not be considered sane.

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  5. There is almost no respect for open discussion left in this country. No one should protest basically any speaker. No one should have objected to even someone like Ann Coulter speaking. Never mind the incredibly reasonable Warren Farrell. Most MRA's (myself included) despise Jessica Valenti and Rebecca Watson and friends but I hope none of us would ever actually try to stop them from speaking even if we could.

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    1. Totally agree. The greatest threat to free speech today is the ability of groups to propagate propaganda and protest through the media to effectively block dialogue among the moderate majority.

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    2. Let's be careful about advocating the removal of protest as a legitimate form of free speech, no matter how misguided.

      Besides disagreeing with it, I'd have no problem with this protest if they had stood back with their placards without restricting access to the event or physically harassing people.

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    3. @ Peori

      Of course, protest is their right, and I wouldn't say they can't or that the motion itself is wrong. My suggestion was to reconsider the idea that they should protest this matter. So many of the ones who picketed that night had the right mindset - they were just misinformed about the nature of the talk.

      My message isn't "don't protest", it is "take a moment to think about what you protest".

      Well, that and "don't form a wall blocking people from assembling and don't assault those people, either".

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    4. Yeah I was responding to Anthony Deluca who said "No one should protest basically any speaker."
      I'm very sensitive about this issue because the UK, where I live, is becoming painfully restrictive of free speech.

      Not to be sycophantic, your write up was excellent and I agree with your message wholeheartedly.

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  6. "boys are dropping out of school more, failing school more, applying for school less, committing suicide at higher rates"

    Feminists have a legitimate concern about Dr. Warren Farrell guys. How can you not see it?

    Clearly he wanted to reduce these statistics relative to girls by forcing girls to drop out of school, fail at school, apply for school less and commit suicide more.

    What did you think he wanted? To reduce these numbers in males while also reducing these numbers in females? That would be too moral for a male to comprehend.

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    1. This is satire, isn't it? It must be satire.

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  7. I don't know why feminism needs to exist anymore? Men are the ones being discriminated against in the 21st century. Once political correctness protects you, you gain the upper hand in this society. Currently, females are protected by political correctness. Just like you would AUTOMATICALLY be accused of being a racist if you CORRECTLY accuse someone of a certain race of doing something that is associated with a stereotype, you will AUTOMATICALLY be labeled as misogynist if you don't support females having RELATIVE ADVANTAGES over males. This was demonstrated when that police officer was FORCED TO APOLOGIZE for saying something like 'if women want to lower their chances of getting raped, they should stop dressing half-naked.' Then that illogical 'slut march' or 'slut walk' was performed. Such is the reality of our society. There is free speech only in theory. If you choose to express yourself in a polite manner, you will be lose your job and worse.

    Men are told to respect women, refrain from touching or making an 'inappropriate comment' to a woman that comes in their faces and acts seductive while wearing seductive clothes on purpose, because it is the woman's RIGHT to do so. There is no such thing as a slut anymore because it is a woman's RIGHT to do what she wants, when she wants. But men have to still be a 'gentleman,' otherwise they are AUTOMATICALLY branded as PIGS and SAVAGES and RAPIST DOGS! Yea... let us completely ignore FACTUAL, BIOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES between the sexes when setting social norms and standards.

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  8. An excellent write-up and summary of the protest and the actual event itself. I was also in attendance and would agree 100% with your assessment of Dr. Farrell. One of the nicest, soft-spoken, balanced and intelligent persons I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.

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  9. Assuming that these women are trying to seduce you, mr.anonymous, is a great example of what these people are seeking to eliminate. I do see sexism against men accusing them of all being like you apparently are, but the fact that people are justifying this sort of thing is exactly what these people are thinking they're reacting to. They're afraid of people like you spreading this idea that if you think she's seducing (based on the way she's dressed and your perception of her "acts") you, you shouldn't have to hold yourself back from touching them or making inappropriate comments... This issue isn't about creating or taking away "advantages" but rather eliminating disadvantages. As for Tyciol's sarcastic suicide comment, take into consideration that women are more likely to attempt suicide then men, they're just more likely to use less violent methods, resulting in fewer actual suicides... Just saying it's not as simple as we think sometimes... no one, however should be in that position.

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  10. Just as with the protests against and tearing down of AVFM's "men's rights are human rights" posters, I see the feminist knee-jerk, blind protest of Dr. Farrell's visit as confirmation of something I've been saying about them all along.

    They didn't want to hear what he had to say because it didn't matter to their cause. Their cause isn't fighting to right wrongs within the concepts they articulate as women's issues. These concepts are largely inventions of the movement, not to describe real, existing phenomena and circumstances faced by women, but to use as weapons in a gender war against men. Feminists don't fight for rights; they fight for power. The MRM doesn't threaten women's rights; it threatens feminist power.

    That is why their response to efforts at promoting gender equality is to spew hatred and vitriol, level false accusations regarding the nature of the movement in general and whatever specific event they're protesting, and deliberately mischaracterize the participants. They cannot tolerate a movement which actually does what they claim as their purpose, because success in that effort would take away from their political power.

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