[quote]To attempt to silence a man is to pay him homage, for it is an acknowledgement that his arguments are both impossible to answer and impossible to ignore. ~ JBR Yant[/quote]
If you have been around AVfM or other men’s rights websites for very long, you have likely seen feminism referred to as an ideology of hate, with violent leanings. It is a charge quickly pooh-poohed, and often openly ridiculed by gender ideologues who would prefer that you view the men’s movement as the real source of hate and potential violence.
This is their stated position, despite a long history of violence and hateful rhetoric stretching back for more than a century of activism “on behalf of women.”
As recently reported in an outstanding article here by Andyman, we discover that the Women’s Suffrage Movement, long touted as a righteous push for across the board equality by fair minded women, was actually a matter of highly organized and systematic violence including arson and physical assault. We also learned that their platform was not one universal suffrage, but of preserving the right to vote for the elite and affluent land owners, much in keeping with the traditions of the system, against which they claimed to be rebelling.
A general understanding of history also compels us to understand that women like Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger was not so much an advocate for women’s reproductive autonomy as she was a genocidal racist intent on wiping African Americans and other “inferior undesirables” from the American landscape.
She was, in effect, a predecessor to the now emergent Radfem community of women who openly advocate for the extermination of half the population, eugenics and male enslavement to a system of feminist governance.
In more recent times we know of the struggles of Erin Pizzey, the founder of the world’s first shelter for abused women, and how, when her research came into conflict with the modern feminist narrative of women only victims and male only perpetrators of domestic violence, she was stalked, received multiple death threats and even changed the continent on which she resided to escape harassment and threats.
Similarly, when world renowned domestic violence academicians and researchers Richard Gelles, Murray Straus and Suzanne Steinmetz conducted research concluding sexual symmetry in the incidence of intimate partner violence, each of them received death threats. Bomb threats were phoned in to the schools at which they were scheduled to present their findings.
This is the track record of gender ideologues who call themselves feminists and who claim to represent a peaceful movement for the empowerment of all human beings.
This does not include the proxy violence of state functionaries that feminists have inspired through biased, sexist legislation, but their own direct violent actions targeting individuals whose only threat to them is expressing views that do not meet their approval.
With the exception of the Suffragettes, most of their violence has taken the form of threat, rather than the actual acting out of physical hostilities. We do have exceptions like Valerie Solanas, the much revered murderess of “Scum Manifesto” fame. Also, we have to note the box cutter wielding members of Atheism+ and their public display of destruction of property and intimidation in order to silence the idea that men are human beings who deserve equal rights.
But these have been the exception rather than the rule, which has been to either make threats or to enlist others to conduct violence on their behalf.
However, any ideology predicated on the justified use of violence to attain goals that are considered essential will always devolve into violence as a preferred method of expression.
And this has begun to manifest in 2012.
Last Friday, Warren Farrell, author of the seminal book on men’s issues, “The Myth of Male Power,” spoke at the University of Toronto. His subject matter was concerns over the deteriorating state of men and boys in education, male suicide rates and the phenomena of young men’s “failure to launch,” or, more accurately concerns over why young men are remaining in the home of their parents far past the time they would be normally expected to move out and take ownership of their lives.
While these are very, very important subjects, they pale in comparison to many of the subjects covered on this website. The reaction of campus feminists at the University of Toronto was violent.
I will speculate at this time that there is a reason why Warren Farrell’s appearance on a major university two years ago would not have resulted in this near riot. It is because of A Voice for Men and other sites like it.
More accurately, perhaps, it is because we have been so successful in getting the MRM message on the public table and the reaction of feminist bloggers like Amanda Marcotte, Jessica Valenti, PZ Myers, Matt Dillahunty and David Futrelle has been to encourage violence against it. It has been because websites like Jezebel.com, The Good Men Project, and organizations like the SPLC have done the same.
By feeding the already violence prone ideologues that further feminist doctrine a steady diet of histrionic distortions, irrational fear and calculated misrepresentations of the men’s movement, they are inspiring many of these people (most of which are naïve and impressionable young people) to react, even to the presence of the very tame and soft spoken Farrell, as though he were a Grand Dragon of the KKK.
Since none of the afore mentioned bloggers, nor the management teams of those websites (e.g. Lisa Hickey and Tom Matlack) and organizations like the SPLC (Arthur Goldwag), have any moral compass directing them to correct their own actions, this will undoubtedly worsen in the future.
Recently Girl Writes What informed us that there are now some colleges and high schools starting to use her videos in classrooms. It is a great move forward because it means that the real MRA message, not some watered down version of it, is starting to make its way into the academic world. It may not be long before she is asked to speak, and woman or not, her message will not be near as palatable as Farrell’s. Which is to say that her message is the one that needs to be heard in those places.
Physical violence against the MRM on the streets is on the way.
And all of this is happening because websites like A Voice for Men have put men’s issues on the map.
While we are not going to stop (in fact, we take this as a cue to ramp up our operations) I do want to say on behalf of the management team here, that this is also the time to more tightly embrace our views of non-violence and peaceful protest. As you saw in the video, it is better to let them prove their hatred and tendency toward violence completely on their own.
If they are to be cracked on the head, let it be with a police baton, and not because any of us took action against them. Let them sit in jail cells together, and not alongside MRAs. They will do the dirty work of taking themselves down, as long as we are smart enough, and principled enough, to allow it to happen. And it appears at this point all we have to do to ensure that is to keep doing what we are doing.
After all, we don’t have to use dishonest propaganda to paint them as violent bigots. All we have to do is point at their actions.
