Some of you may remember a piece I wrote at the end of December where I mentioned that I was being followed on Twitter by someone calling themselves The Missing Minister. Here’s a link to the piece – So much for the season of goodwill
Now at the time I thought that Twitter account had something to do with Reece Wilkes, or if it wasn’t him, someone who was allied to the same MRAs as him. You know the ones I’m talking about, those men’s rights activists who are constantly bleating on about how white men are the only real oppressed group in society and how women have all the privilege and yada yada yada….
Well anyway, it turns out it isn’t young Reece behind the @MIN4MEN Twitter account, but Tom Martin. That’s the same Tom Martin who’s currently in the process of suing the LSE for sexism after allegedly ‘suffering’ “systemic anti-male discrimination” while studying for a masters in Gender, Media and Culture there. The same Tom Martin who’s also behind the @sexismbusters Twitter account.
It was Amity Reed who made the connection between Tom Martin and the Missing Minister in her recent F Word piece – On Tom Martin’s campaign to sue the LSE.
Reed remembers answering an online ad earlier this year “for a new website exploring gender issues and sexism”, and it turns out that Tom Martin was behind the ad. Reed had some correspondence with Martin about the work on offer, and says that Martin asked her to complete a writing exercise, which she did:
“It was only then that he outlined what the website and project were about, which was classed as ‘comedy’ and entailed a group of writers creating the ‘Missing Minister for Men – the world’s number 1 men’s rights activist’.”
Now understandably, given my earlier post about the Missing Minister, I was intrigued by Amity Reed’s F Word piece. So I’ve done some digging around on the Internet today, and I can now confirm that Tom Martin is indeed the person behind the Missing Minister account. Well, according to a discussion on the British Comedy Guide forum he is anyway.
And just in case that thread disappears, here’s a screen cap of the key comment:
(click on the image to make it bigger)
The comment is by someone else who had responded to the online ad, and the text says:
“Wow, it’s been a long while since I’ve been here… been too busy to come back and post anything.
Anyways, I did get an email from the guy, responding to me that I should apologise for calling him a douche or a bad guy. Well, I do apologise for making him appear dishonest and I appreciate him apologising to me for not letting me know if I had been selected or not, even if it took a bit long.
As for my defence, however, I have to say that being in a city like this where the competition is tough, it was easy for me to think that something like this might happen. I’ve heard of people stealing material just by going to some stand-up gigs and listening to comedians complaining about it. When I didn’t get any response and saw the same advert running again and again on gumtree, I felt I was being scammed.
Apparently, Tom Martin has launched his own Twitter feed for Min4Men (http://twitter.com/#!/MIN4MEN) so if anyone of you are interested in checking what he’s doing, feel free to go there and support him!
Best of luck to you, Tom!”
I’ve also managed to track down the google cache for one of the original ads that Tom Martin posted re his ‘Missing Ministry for Men’ ‘comedy’ group: We are the Missing Ministry for Men. Here’s the full text:
“We are The Missing Ministry for Men
Our comedy group’s mission, is to manufacture… The Missing Minister for Men – the world’s number 1 men’s rights activist.
The Missing Ministry (that’s us), will choose one of our number to become The Minister, whose remit and political direction, will be based on the following core set of guiding principles:
Truth-telling
Progressive
Gender Equality-driven
Secular/atheistic
Pacifistic
Environmental
Pro-choice
Pro-abortion
Pro-prostitution regulation
Anti Gold-digging
Pro-feminism
Anti victim-feminism
Pro-civility
Anti chivalry
Anti establishment
Pro racial integration
Anti sex segregation
Anti misandry/misogyny
Pro-capitalism.Individual policies in line with these core principles will be decided democratically between the group.
All earnings and royalties will be split evenly between us too.
There may be deputy Minister(s) for Men, so lots of opportunities for any one of us to have a go.
The group is as non-hierarchical and supportive as possible.
The group will contain around six or seven members.
The group will be as gender-balanced as possible (so hermaphrodites particularly welcome).
Whilst perfecting our product, The Minister(s) will appear on gradually larger and more challenging stages. So we may start off with small, intimate media, but will be building towards widespread exposure when ready. The career path and merchandising opportunities for The Minister and Ministry will be decided by the group.
Our weekly brainstorming sessions will be filmed, as part of a making-of documentary, potentially appearing as extras, or as part of a feature in its own right. Each one of us will have the final say about release of such behind the scenes footage, leaving us free to take risks, and be as politically incorrect as we like in the creative process.
Men’s equality advocates traditionally receive a lot of flak, from women and men, so The Missing Minister for Men can expect to be heckled a great deal! This is all part of the fun, and the great news is, the heckles are extremely predictable. One of our initial tasks will be to familiarize ourselves with all the usual heckles, and develop some original and progressive-yet-hilarious come backs.
We are meeting every Monday, from 6.30 and 9.30pm, in a Central London bar’s upstairs room.
The best, most affordable long-term option might be someones very centrally located dining or kitchen table. Please make a suggestion about where you think the meetings should be held.
Over the next three months, we are mounting a street-based campaign, in conjunction with a website, to raise awareness and fighting funds, to help a man bring a sexual discrimination damages case against an elite university’s gender studies department, because he found its curriculum grounded in academic misandry – anti-male bias, rhetoric, propaganda, hostility, and anathema (typical across most media). A specialist lawyer and barrister believe the case is very strong, and await further instruction. The Equalities Commission has shown support too. This street stall campaign is designed to provide collaborators with an excellent opportunity to become fluent on all the main men’s equality issues (with all the reference materials to hand on the stall), and to interact with the public, and see what makes them laugh, lend their signatures, and donate their money. The stall will operate a day or two a week, on campuses around London, and collaborators will be free to pick and choose a daytime slot, for when they’d like to give it a go. These ‘customer’ interactions will also be filmed, and as well as being a great training ground for interactive stand up, will be high profile too, with both a Guardian and Daily Mail journalist expressing an early interest in covering the story, and other media, expected to follow in good time.
The whole premise of these collaborative opportunities might seem a bit new, odd, or even unrelated and alien to you, but rest assured, it is desirable for us to have some creatively antagonistic voices in the group too, as heated adversarial standpoints can generate great material.
The problems and inequalities men face, though sometimes hidden, are often universal, with repercussions for everyone, so The Missing Ministers’ appeal, impact, and marketability, can be universal too.
Please have a go at completing the following questionnaire in an honest, progressive and humourous way – using LESS than 20 words for each reply – so we can gauge your TRUE opinions on key gender issues, along with your COMEDIC voice(s):
1. What percentage of MPs should be women, and why?
2. What percentage of front line troops should be women, and why?
3. Why do women earn less per hour on average than men, and if you were in charge, what would you do about it?
4. How many weeks maternity and paternity leave should women and men be entitled to respectively, and why?
5. Should prostitution be legal or illegal? How can the current situation be improved?
6. Should porn be legal or illegal, and why?
7. Should the full-face veil be legal or illegal, and why?
8. Do you believe in aiming toward equality of opportunity for the sexes, or towards equality of outcome for the sexes too, and why?
9. Who should pay on the first date and why?
10. Name three gender issues you feel are too often overlooked, that we should be focusing on. How would you overcome these problems?If up for it, then email with your completed answers and contact details including your telephone number, and a further short paragraph or two giving us an overview of any skills, experiences or connections you think relevant in light of this email – and I will phone to arrange a one on one meeting.
Thanks,
Tom”
That’s the first time I’ve seen Tom Martin claim that “The Equalities Commission has shown support“ for his case – I’d be interested to see the evidence for that…..
I have to say, for someone who claims to be a ‘feminist’, Tom Martin doesn’t half spend a lot of time hanging around MRA sites: more time than I do in fact. Here’s the ‘Action Alert’ he posted on anti-misandry.com in April for example (no, I’m not linking):
The text says:
“Gender Studies Lawsuit in London seeks MRAs for Fighting Fund Stall
A pro-equality MRA in London is bringing a damages claim against an elite university’s Gender department, for discriminating against him, and men in general, during a taught degree.
The case already has the support of a specialist lawyer and barrister, but requires funding.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to join us, at an awareness-raising stall, which will be appearing on campuses around Central London.
Broadsheet newspapers have expressed an interest in covering the story, so we can expect the campaign to be high profile.
Interaction with the public will give MRA volunteers a great opportunity to perfect their stand up debating and persuasion skills, across the FULL range of men’s rights issues.
All interested in volunteering, should contact mrastandup-at-hotmail.com for more details.
This case is rock solid, so now is the time for up and coming MRAs to make a move.Please contact mrastandup@hotmail.com for more details, and spread the word to any London-based MRAs you know.”
In his recent piece for Comment is Free, Tom Martin claimed that he “enrolled at LSE’s elite Gender Institute to learn how best to combat discrimination,” and yet he only managed to stay on the course for 6 weeks. Since he left the course however Martin appears to have spent virtually every waking moment courting his fellow MRAs and trying to raise funds to launch his court case.
Amity Reed asks “Is Tom Martin’s lawsuit against the London School of Economics for ‘anti-male bias’ a genuine complaint (however eyeroll-worthy and misguided)? Or an attack on feminism from a misogynist in progressive clothing?”
I think by now the answer’s pretty obvious.
Too Much To Say For Myself 
So Men’s Rights is now a progressive stance? Oh, my. It’s almost too pathetic to take it seriously.
Hi, Tom Martin here. Yes, The MIssing Minister for Men was a comedy project. If you want me to be walking round looking miserable like the perfect victim all the time, then you’ve got the wrong person.
We had a few meetings, and came up with some good material, however, I couldn’t get enough gender-balance in the group, although some women did show up, and contributed a lot.
The court case against LSE is only a joke to some though.
I think with gender, there are very serious life and death issues at stake, say on domestic violence or honour killings etc – so it’s necessary to inject a bit of levity in between the serious messages.
Anyway, for an update on the court case which now dominates my time,
you can follow things at www dot sexismbusters dot org
But well done for spelling men with the letter z in there, ‘menz’ to make light of any male suffering in society currently being overlooked.
zzz.
Not sure who the ‘menz’ comment is aimed at there, but as you’re posting on my blog I’m assuming it’s aimed at me. In which case I have no idea what you’re talking about…
Is the @MIN4MEN Twitter account also a ‘comedy’ project? If so, I’m not surprised The Missing Minister project bombed.
@tom martin
You have a terrible credibility problem. Let’s for a moment assume an alternate universe where men are systematically discriminated against. What would be the primary resource for us men in our quest for credibility and equality? It would be people like Andrea Dworkin who wrote themselves out of destruction at the hands of the opposite sex. That you can’t see that, and that you can’t see that to get yourself anywhere near where you think want to be is by a thorough and complete immersion in the intellectual tradition of feminism speaks to your lack of imagination and seriousness.
Having said all that, your position isn’t just strategically inept. We don’t live in alternate universe – we live in the real world where women remain far more discriminated against than men, but it’s quite possible to develop a defense of masculinity in that context – there are plenty of feminists who are not man-haters. To quote Kimmel, feminists are often the women who really love men: they “love us enough to believe that we can change.”
Taking feminists for man-haters is an intellectual, strategic, and moral error on your part.
Victim-feminists, during their research, inevitably come across other research which proves the victim-feminist propaganda is only propaganda – and I accept, that feminists, having been through this process, hate men less than non-feminists. However, the casual audience of victim-feminists, the lay people – do not hear anything other than the dominant discourse – promulgated by the professional victim-feminists, that women are good and men are bad, and so the bottom line is, they are spreading anti-male bias, and they know they are.
This is beyond dispute.
It is admitted by the people I am suing.
Misandry is not acceptable. Bottom line. Deal with it.
How very very weird.
And how blinkered and wilfully ignorant to reduce the diversity of political, sociological and theoretical writings on gender that have come out of feminism and indeed gender studies to a poor caricature,”victim feminism”. As far as I can tell this label is thrown around in objection to feminists raising awareness of too prevalent and very real violence, abuse and harrassment of women and girls by male perpetrators, and of the systemic reasons why it happens and the attitudes and beliefs that enable it. The MRA reaction isn’t, “these things are awful, unjust and wrong; how can we stop them happening and support survivors?” but instead is essentially “look, men can be victims too!”. MRAs never provide any solutions or analysis of the gendered problems affecting men as men that they are so very concerned with – if they did they’d come up with critiques of gender roles that’d look very similar to feminism. No, what they seem to want is just less feminism and less focus on women. The term “victim feminism” betrays that MRAs see advocacy for victims of gendered violence as no more than attention-seeking – not as a call for violence, abuse and oppression to stop – and explains why their response is so very “me too” and why it relies so heavily on badly mimicking the terminology and discourse of feminism and other social justice movements. Feminism’s challenge to systemic gender inequality has made some inroads, but the inequality is still there, in the same direction – there are harmful and limiting effects of our gendered social system on men, but that system is still one of male dominance. To pretend that there’s been some utter reversal of inequality in the other direction is either wishful thinking or the deliberate attempt to reverse what feminism has managed to achieve so far in making women less unequal in what remains an unequal system.
You hide behind an alias on Twitter to post your comments so that the ‘casual audience’ don’t see your bile and you can keep a veneer of respectability. With your anonymity stripped it’s quite clear to anyone, from the most radical feminist to the most ardent anti-feminist, exactly what you are.
Maria thinks men ‘dominate’.
Read Aries, Elizebeth, 1996 for meta anlaysis showing women elect men to positions of dominance.
I think Cesca is looking for the perfect victim.
The fact is men are still in those positions of power with the power to make the important decsions regardless of who elected them. How many women were running in the first place? I assume that the majority of people running for elections are men and in many countries it is not beyond the norm to be presented with an all male list of canditidates. I’d be interested to see any data that states that women consistently elect men above women when both genders are repsented equally in candiates fielded for election. Even then there is the bias in society that men are seen as ‘naturally’ more suitable to positions of power and how that would reflect within such research.
And I assume you mean this book? http://www.amazon.co.uk/Men-Women-Interaction-Reconsidering-ebook/dp/B000QCS70W
You could at least provide us with the title and even a page no if you’re so keen we read your evidence!
If all you can provide is an author name and year with some vague assertion to look something up I’m afraid I’m with MariaS.
Okay, Page 52, the researcher gets a man and a woman in a group, to discuss a contentious issue and make a decision about it, then to announce that decision: But even when they took a smart woman, and put her in with a dumb man – she obviously won the argument – but then elected him as leader – to make the announcement – 91% of the time.
This experiment by Megargee, was first carried out in 1967 – and has been repeated several times since, by a number of different researchers – always finding the same pattern.
So ‘male-dominant’ cultures, are more likely female-powerful.
It’s a skanky, whorish, back seat-driving type of power which leads to economic and cultural ruin and war – a whoriarchy.
We know for instance, that women tell men what to do in marriages 90% of time – that is the same everywhere in the world.
So maybe for some of you, the penny is beginning to drop.
That’s why feminists and others are right to encourage women to speak up and be heard – but why they are wrong to blame men alone for ‘patriarchy’.
Tom Martin
You are embarrassing yourself.
The epigraph to the second volume of The Second Sex is ‘Half victims, half accomplices, like everyone else’. That was written in 1949 and the idea that feminism somehow hasn’t understood that women are complicit in their own oppression is just nuts.
Here’s some advice. Go back to school and study feminism hard. I’ve heard they have some excellent basic gender studies courses at the LSE for people who are interested but clueless. After you have put in the leg work necessary to inform yourself about the history of how gender has been discussed there might be the possibility of having a conversation about masculinity and feminism. Best of luck.
Tom Martin: “So ‘male-dominant’ cultures, are more likely female-powerful.”
The experiment you cite doesn’t demonstrate that at all. Is that the conclusion that the author draws from it? Your description isn’t very clear, but seems to be that a group of people (number & gender unspecified here) heard a man & a woman debate a topic, and even when the woman clearly made the better argument the group still tended to view the man as more authoritative, as shown by them either favouring his argument and/or selecting him to be the spokesperson, by majority voting. This tendency has been demonstrated in several similar/identical experiments. (If I am summarising it correctly).
Without having the actual account of the experiment and the author’s conclusions to hand, I can only say that to me it sounds like the experiment demonstrates socialised bias towards viewing men as more authoritative, and women as less so. Men and women alike are socialised into regarding men as authority figures. From the book’s description on Amazon it seems that the author’s intent is to challenge the idea that gender differences are natural, essentialist and inevitable, but instead are the product of socialisation: a very feminist perspective.
It’s a skanky, whorish, back seat-driving type of power which leads to economic and cultural ruin and war – a whoriarchy.
Lovely. Very anti-sexist that. Very objectively reasoned.
We know for instance, that women tell men what to do in marriages 90% of time – that is the same everywhere in the world
Care to give a source for that? This is so far from a solid counter-argument to feminism that it’s not worth considering. For a start, where exactly does this 90% figure come from? How do you know that this is the same everywhere in the world? You don’t, you pulled it out of thin air based on a distorted MRA view of the world. How could you be aspiring to study gender at postgraduate level if you come out with something as ridiculous as that assertion? Finally – not all relationships are marriages. Not all relationships are heterosexual.
I second thoroughly what translated said.
Sorry I forgot to mark up the third comment excerpt I was quoting there:
“We know for instance, that women tell men what to do in marriages 90% of time – that is the same everywhere in the world”
Okay, to clarify. Put a man and a woman in a room, then, whilst taping their conversation, ask them to discuss an issue, come to a conclusion about it, then elect a spokesperson to announce the decision. (The volunteers think the experimenter gives a damn about their opinion, but that is irrelevent).
What matters, is that even when they take a high status women – articulate, intelligent and so forth, and put her in their with a low status man (stupid), the pair typically debate the subject, the more intelligent woman wins the argument, because she’s smarter, but then she elects the stupid man to deliver the verdict of the two person group, to the researchers.
So, when men go around saying they’re head of the household, and have the final word, it is false.
Muslim men I speak to sometimes say ‘In my country, men are head of the household’ – and then all I need to do to break the conceit is just say,
‘… but they’re not really.’ – and then typically go into floods about how in their country, women are really the boss.
Some men may announce the final word, may… but they’re doing what women want.
Murray Strauss (1986) found men have ‘the final say’ on decisions in only 10% of couples.
A 2007 Harvard study which I can’t find, shows a similar finding, women make 90% of decisions in happy relationships, be they big or small.
Now, proper feminists do acknowledge and investigate female recalcitrance to equality. Mary Wolstencraft was quite critical of women, back in the late 1700s.
But these days, the texts in gender studies courses do not investigate female accountability properly.
The zeitgeist among professional victim-feminist scholars, is to dance around cyclically, saying ‘what menz?’ – as a ‘playful but earnest’ incitement to those currently excluded from the programme. Saying ‘of course our silly statistics and perspectives make sense, silly. What are you going to do about it?’
People here defending the gender curriculum as full of legitimate and accurate perspectives, don’t get it. The texts acknowledge the conceits, or ‘stories’ themselves – and recommend the use of such anti-male bias.
That’s how slack they were, confident nobody was going to sue them, because they thought all gender students would be toadies, more interested in towing the line.
I didn’t sign up for that, which is why gender studies is getting sued.
If you think I don’t know what feminism is, you’re very wrong.
The trouble is, gender academics are not feminists, they are perpetuators of the status quo, as they wish to preserve the perceived need for their continued tenure.
Who wants to lose their livelihood? Gender lecturers don’t so they defend the victim-female lies to the death. Honest appraisals of the effectiveness towards equality of such denials, is corrupted by the need to serve the victim-feminist customerbase – brought up on lies about women being good and men being bad – as spread by the gender elite in the first place.
This corrupting influence, happened to me the other day. I argue that Critical Studies on Men (CSM) is putting men off academia, and I want equality, so we should be encouraging more men in, 59% of undergrads female to 41% men, the gap getting wider.
So, when I heard that boys were doing better in education, this ruined my argument that they were struggling, and my initial reaction was ‘damn!’
I didn’t want it to ruin my legal argument. Screw the fact boys are doing better. So if it can happen to me, it can happen to a woman on £40,000 to keep the poor woman stories going.
As it turns out, boys got fractionally more top A star grades at A Level, but across the board, boys results are getting worst still than girls.
Just because a professional feminist is being very nasty about men, there is a tendency to assume she must be doing it for some very important reason we couldn’t possibly understand.
The newsflash is, feminism is not perfect.
Gender studies is a discipline, so a little more discipline, where male-bashing lies are ruled out – won’y do it any harm – and might make it more relevant in the future.
You just don’t get it do you?
How on earth is a secondary power of getting your own way in relationships (on what the colour of the curtains? ) in any way, shape or form equal to having power IN YOUR OWN RIGHT? How is being head of a house hold equal to being a politican, world leader or CEO?
Yes women may have access to this secondary source of ‘power’ but it is a power that has to be filtered through MEN to exert any real influence on the world. It’s like saying it was fine to be a woman in the 1800s becuase women like the Brontë’s wrote books, regardless of the fact they had to lie and be published under male names. That’s not power, that’s desperation and an attempt to grasp what little chance is offered.
I’m interested in what ‘Muslim countries’ you assert women are ‘really the boss’, Saudi Arabia perhaps, where women can’t drive or leave the house without a male escort? Or perhaps Afghnaistan where teachers who educate girls are murdered and as a result female access to education is severly curtailed?
Are you even considering the socialisation of gender stereotyping that all of us, even feminists, are exposed to since birth which tells us men are naturally the ‘powerful’ ones and so we should listen to them and not ‘skanky’ women? (or do we just make it all up with our masisvely powerful scary female hive brains to confuse the poor menz who are so sad that cleaning product adverts make them look stoopid? Or are they terrified that the said women might be menstruating and all their dairy products will curdle? Were any suspicious animals in the vacinity acting as familiars?) Perhaps these intelligent women know that men are more likely to be taken seriously even if it’s the woman’s ideas? (I think it’s called ‘Hermione Granger syndrome’ in some quarters) The notion that a woman will suggest an idea and it’s ignored yet a man will present the same idea and itll be taken seriously due to DUH sexist preconceptions of gender roles and strengths.
But I assume this is as futile as arguing with a brick wall. Anyone who uses the term ‘whoriarchy’ and the term ‘skanky’ is clearly a reasonable and un biased sort who isn’t at all engaging in a rather pathetic publicity stunt.
Chloe,
Right out of the gate, you assume that women just pick the colour of the curtains, but ask any estate agent, and they’ll tell you its the woman of the couple who has the final say on whether to buy the house or not.
Women make 90% of couple decisions big and small, according to a 2007 Harvard Study I can’t find, but is out there somewhere.
The next thing you’re doing, is presenting the domestic sphere as separate from the political sphere.
Women in the home have access to more political debate than men do in the workforce, as women at home have more access to media.
Whether they then decide politics is hard work and to stay at home instead, is an educated decision. Sad, so few women step up to the plate and make the public political arena theirs.
To claim women’s power is ‘secondary’ is a strategic frame, but it does not reflect women’s attitudes about what constitutes power.
Don’t blame ‘patriarchy’ for that.
The line about women not being allowed to leave home without a male escort, in some muslim countries, just isn’t true. They can leave the house with a female relative escort.
But yep, restricted movement and the veil are the price some women think is worth paying, as long as they don’t need to get a job.
Women can’t drive in Saudi, but they do have chauffeurs.
And most of those who can afford it, choose a chauffeur.
Muslim women are really the boss in the home, and fascism starts in the home.
In a whoriarchy, in the same way you don’t need to drive to control where the car goes, you don’t particularly need an education either, as long as you know how to steer a man, but these whores don’t, which is why their countries and cultures are failing.
Ah, I see Tom has graced your blog with this presence, Cath. We’ve been having delightful email exchanges over the last couple days, which he asked me not to publicise, presumably because he shows himself to be the clueless bigot he has demonstrated so superbly here. So don’t worry Tom, I won’t publicise the details of our correspondence. You’re doing a stellar job at making yourself look quite foolish already.
This is priceless. You literally couldn’t make it up.
‘whoriarchy’, lol.
Who left their cheese sandwich unsupervised at the keyboard? Because I think it’s typing.
WoW.. just wow..
All women are whores, eh?
Things I have learned from Tom Martin in the past two days: 75% of Muslim women are ‘economically inactive’ and therefore whores, unlike their Western/Christian sisters who are mere ‘sluts’; 70% of domestic violence is initiated by women, according to a dude on YouTube; he has the right to post anonymously on Twitter because people get killed for saying the kinds of shit he’s saying so how dare I out him; male premature ejaculation is EXACTLY like miscarriage.
There’s a lot to be said for giving enough rope… and I agree with translated and Amity that he exposed his ignorance and hateful misogyny all by himself. But I just wanted to stress how utterly twisted and abhorrent I find his views and I hope he gets no more space here to share them with us. You’ve done enough in this great post to expose his hateful mind and spurious enterprise absolutely and definitively.
Amity Reed says I am racist and misogynistic, when I criticize a religion, and prostitution. Go figure.
Tom, I was about to continue responding to your odd ideas about the nature power and the notion that even in Saudi Arabia women are really just choosing to have their lives restricted (including the baffling idea that if a woman can go out in public escorted by another woman by a man, then that’s somehow proof of absence of oppression?)
But then you come out with more blatant misogyny with an extra dash of racism, making the disingenuousness of all your guff about being pro-feminist and anti-sexist crystal clear – this is just plain vicious and nasty :
I’m still curious as to the substance of your argument against the gender studies course, as you haven’t provided any specific examples such as an excerpt from one of the books you read and why you think it is sexist, or a description of an incident of unfair treatment in a seminar, or of a feminist tutor displaying bias.
Well, if you want to hear a bit more about it, show up in court. I have voluntarily agreed not to mention any lecturers in this pre-trial phase,
As for the texts, they are public knowledge, and I would rather not give those anti-male authors any more oxygen for the time being.
If you are in any doubt about the veracity of my claim, pick up any book on gender, go through it line by line, and consider whether when referring to males or females, they are doing it favourably or not – and accurately or not.
If you feel there is any anti-female bias, I recommend you file a lawsuit.
It will take you around 1000 hours of work over an at least two year period.
I would say the victim-female orthodoxy in gender studies is anti-female, because it encourages women to believe they are helpless victims, and that does not sound like much of a game plan.
I would say the victim-female orthodoxy in gender studies is also misogynistic, because it assumes that female students will be happiest when fed misandry and victim-femalism.
.
Now there’s an invitation I may not be able to resist. Let us know when the date’s set, I could do with a good laugh.
Is that an academic term, or more shit you’ve just made up?
I want to stop associating feminism proper (remember the egalitarian type?)
with victim-feminism, the stagnant or counterproductive type, so yes, I thought it best to make up a new term, victim-femalism. It sounds useless and stagnant – and I know there are some real feminists out there who will appreciate the move. The ones interested in gender-developmental progress, even if it does mean giving up the game.
So, Tom, you’ll graciously accept that feminism can exist if no one ever refers to a woman as a ‘victim’, ever? How very gablargle of you.
And if someone ever mentions that a woman was victimised, they aren’t a Real Feminist? And you’re the arbiter of what constitutes Real Feminism? Why Tom, with all this manly knowledge you are spoiling us! (I could totally eat a Ferrero Rocher right now.)
MariaS wrote: “I’m still curious as to the substance of your argument against the gender studies course”. So am I – and now Tom’s given us “victim-femalism”. In a comment at the Amity Reed piece on this somebody already wondered if what Tom Martin is doing is a kind of performance and I’m starting to think this has got to be some sort of wind-up.
When I first read in The Guardian about what Tom Martin had done I was interested because there is a cacophony of anti-feminist noise out there whose point of departure is the failure/refusal to take feminism seriously. If someone is actually suing the LSE for anti-male bias in a gender studies course, I thought to myself, maybe there’s the possibility of them actually having engaged with the academic tradition of feminism to try to produce a credible anti-feminist argument. That might be a wrongheaded and impossible enterprise, but it would be a step up from ridicule and abuse. Tom Martin hasn’t even tried.
Whether he’s pretending to be a wronged man, or whether he really believes what he’s saying, he has performed a useful service by reiterating how completely unserious and bereft of critical insight anti-feminist men’s rights “arguments” are.
Great job Cath!
Feminists sometimes tell the truth, in which case, no court case.
As soon as people lie, in order to make women look like bigger victims than they are, or men bigger perpetrators than they are, then that is no longer feminism, but anti-male victim-femalism.
It is a negative stereotype, which is harassment.
It is bias, which is not protected under the academic immunity principle.
It is a breach of university regulations, which makes it a breach of contract.
It is misleading advertising, if this agenda wasn’t made clear in the prospectus.
You cannot reason, with the unreasonable. Those addicted to the unreasonable assertions that men are bad and women are good – who refuse to acknowledge any new positions, even in light of overwhelming evidence, should not call themselves feminists.
Furthermore, I did not sign up for a degree in feminism, but one in gender – which LSE personnel acknowledge should be about men and women – but which behind the scenes, they try to make all about women.
Some people think ignoring men and men’s equality debates, decade on decade, whilst simultaneously blaming men for women’s lack of progress, is a joke.
Not to me – or, I posit, any other real feminist.
Tom Martin you did less than 5% of the course. Perhaps you would have learned more and sound less ignorant now if you had kept at it a little longer.
honestlyAbroad – the opening 5% is not allowed to be sexist either. That is the most important 5%.
The idea that things will get less sexist towards men as we go along, is a known ruse, within gender academia.
The truth is gender’s ‘others’ remain others.
It’s a perpetual game.
As MLK points out, when they tell you to wait for equality, that means never.
I hope the LSE’s legal team get a look at this comment thread. It would be really interesting to see how “In a whoriarchy, in the same way you don’t need to drive to control where the car goes, you don’t particularly need an education either, as long as you know how to steer a man, but these whores don’t, which is why their countries and cultures are failing” sounds when being read out in court. I’d say your case might last about 5 minutes when they hear what you really think.
Tom, given that you regard women as “whores”, the idea that you are actually presenting yourself as any kind of feminist is astounding.
It’s tiring the way that you keep returning to this comment thread yet refuse to actually argue your case in any substantive way.
Please give us an example of a lie that makes “women look like bigger victims than they are”, that occurred in your course reading material or was asserted in a lecture or seminar. Describing & commenting on something that you found problematic in a lecture/seminar does not require naming any individual.
“As for the texts, they are public knowledge, and I would rather not give those anti-male authors any more oxygen for the time being.
If you are in any doubt about the veracity of my claim, pick up any book on gender, go through it line by line, and consider whether when referring to males or females, they are doing it favourably or not – and accurately or not.”
Make your argument. Present an excerpt from one of the books you read that is an example of the bias and inaccuracy you are criticising. Explain how it is biased and show why it is inaccurate.
Ok, I will do as you suggest, partially. The indicative reading on one of the compulsory modules on your course includes Gender Trouble by Judith Butler, and I have this to hand. Here’s an excerpt from page 9 of the Routledge Classics edition:
“If gender is the cultural meanings that the sexed body assumes, then a gender cannot be said to follow from a sex in any one way. Taken to its logical limit, the sex/gender distinction suggests a radical discontinuity between sexed bodies and culturally constructed genders. Assuming for the moment the stability of binary sex, it does not follow that the construction of ‘men’ will accrue exclusively to the bodies of males or that ‘women’ will interpret only female bodies. Further, even if the sexes appear to be unproblematically binary in their morphology and constitution (which will become a question), there is no reason to assume that genders ought also to remain as two. The presumption of a binary gender system implicitly retains the belief in a mimetic relation of gender to sex whereby gender mirrors sex or is otherwise restricted by it. When the constructed status of gender is theorized as radically independent of sex, gender itself becomes a free-floating artifice, with the consequence that ‘man’ and ‘masculine’ might just as easily signify a female body as a male one, and ‘woman’ and ‘feminine’ a male body as easily as a female one”
I’ve no idea if you have read Gender Trouble or not, or if it was part of the 6 weeks of the course you attended – because you haven’t bothered to indicate what you have read or were taught in that time that you found objectionable. But it’s a book I have to hand. Yes, it’s not most accessible book and what I’ve quoted may or may not be relevant to your argument, but you haven’t told us which books you found problematic. So, what did you think of Gender Trouble? Feel free to put forward another book that is more relevant and we can discuss that instead.
Dear Amity Reed,
Make Tom Martin’s emails to you public! I like a good joke – and I must say, this has been an excellent one and of long duration – but you do not work for him and do not owe him your discretion or protection. The courts and lawyers on both sides need – nay, deserve – the [belly laughs] full disclosure which these great tracts of wisdom and fierce insight could give.
As for Tom Martin, I want to know, it is obvious what he is against. What is he campaigning for? The women’s movement campaigns for women’s biological, economic and emotional self-determination, safe birth, supported childcare, an end to labour and sexual exploitation, belief and trust from authorities to whom we report abuses against us, a nonviolent world for our children, the right to go about our business or travels free from harassment or abuse, equal pay, participation in public life and cultural life and much, much more.
Which policies or initiatives would Tom Martin like to see being put in place?
If you go to 36 minutes into the following radio interview, you’ll find an interview of me by Paul Elam:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/avoiceformen/2011/09/21/what-do-women-want-and-an-interview-with-tom-martin
I first heard of this guy on Butterflies and Wheels. And the whole “whoriarchy” thing, wow. How delusional and hateful.
On the basis of his comments here and elsewhere, I can’t quite understand how anyone is taking Tom Martin’s claims seriously. My reaction to his comments isn’t so much outrage as disbelief and a raised eyebrow. His arguments are so poor that they make me as a philosophy graduate want to cringe inside out. Is this really what debate on gender in popular culture has come to?
From the comments on CiF it seems like his views are shared by a lot of bitter men in the UK, but if he is the best representative they can come up with, the intellectual emptiness of their ‘movement’ seems pretty obvious. I think we just need to stop giving him the attention he craves.
Hannah,
You’re using the ‘sour grapes’ charge, which is a bog-standard anti-male shaming tactic.Google the phrase to find out how predictable you’re being.
From my experience, people use anti-male shaming tactics when they have no argument.
Have you listened to my interview on AVFM yet?.
People, he’s pimping his interview! He’s pimping his interview! Tom, why don’t go off and transcribe it for us? Secretarial work has always been the domain of women – no doubt this is one of many female bastions you would like to storm, along with cooking, cleaning, housework, family admin, childcare, care of the elderly and voluntary work with charities. I would certainly like to see equal numbers of men participate equally in these types of work.
Now is your opportunity to try some out and hope that it fits you a little bit better than a Masters at the LSE did. Judging by your avid activity on the Internet, I’m sure your typing skills are just super. And remember…everything on the Net has a permanent record which the LSE’s lawyers can access.
Oh Tom, I managed to listen to about 2 minutes of your epic whine in that interview. It basically boiled down to you complaining that you got kicked out of the LSE gym because there was a women only session on (I suspect that as with the course you deliberately went at that specific time knowing that you would get kicked out so that you would have something else to moan about), and complaining that as men were in the minority on the course you expected some kind of extra special welcome when you arrived, and you didn’t get one. 😥
Then I got bored. Well actually no, I was already bored by that point. Let’s just say then that at that point I reached a state of complete ennui.
Hi Tom, I haven’t listened to your interview because I have a PhD to be studying for. Some of us stick it out in academia even when we find our views aren’t accommodated by the prevailing consensus – eventually, if people think your challenges are bold enough, then you can get funding to argue your point of view in an honest way through a studentship, not through taking an institution to court.
Cath,
Your answer is boring.
And Hanna, make sure you don’t use any code purple anti-male shaming tactics in your PhD, like you have in your non-debate here.
It’s a non-debate because you haven’t made any substantive arguments for people to answer, Tom. “Anti-male shaming” – again mimicking terminology of feminism, interesting.
As am off work with flu I had a listen to the Voice For Men programme. The interview does give a bit more information about Tom’s case.
The programme as a whole is about 1 hour 20 mins. I recommend skipping ahead to the interview, 36 mins in as Tom says, which takes up the whole of the latter part of the show. The first part of the show was interesting as an insight into MRA preoccupations, but I wouldn’t put yourself through it if you aren’t terribly curious. Extended disdainful & creepy section on “what women want” and how women are the selfish greedy gatekeepers of access to “pussy” and how hapless misguided men jump through hoops to try and give women what they want, cos they’re in thrall to the “vagina vortex”. The other reason men try to figure out what women want btw is “to shut them up”. (The other bit that I remember was about how the gender-neutral nursery in Sweden was a totalitarian idea, and it would be hard to think of worse things to subject children to. Good grief! Providing an environment that counters gendered beliefs & expectations is in fact liberatory.)
Here are some of the points that Tom made in the interview about his experience on the gender studies course, (as much as I can remember).
The walls of the Gender Institute student common room displayed posters about women’s issues and none about men’s.
Tom was turned away from the LSE student union gym because there was an unannounced women-only session. Though he did go on to say that he found that this was “something they did every year”.
(Currently the LSE SU gym web page shows 3 hours a week that are women-only. http://www.lsesu.com/gym/ )
He was one of only 5 men on the course (out of about 80-90ish students in total? Not sure if am remembering total number correctly). He was the only “openly” straight man. He felt he was picked on as a result of being in the minority.
When he tried to raise men’s issues, lecturers critically questioned the “what about the men?” question. There were other students who asked “What about men?” and were interested initially in what Tom had to say, but as the course went on they went along with the lecturers’ line on this , like “sheep”.
Part of the course aimed to use a cyclical “women’s” way of learning and thinking that was in contrast to a linear masculine-associated style of thinking. Menstruation was cited as a cyclical aspect of women’s lives. It was either asserted that men would not be able to think this way because they didn’t menstruate or Tom took it to mean this, and that therefore it would not have been possible for him to pass this part of the course at all. (Perhaps you could have tried to actually understand and use the “cyclical” method? Sounds like an interesting subject, to examine how far what is taken to be the standard style of academic discourse is in fact a male gendered style of discourse).
Tom referenced the course texts but still did not specify what they were. His website now has an additional page about what his case argues, and one of the arguments is that the “key” texts were compulsory reading and discriminatory. But he doesn’t list them. (The course module web pages list indicative reading, they don’t show which are the key texts.) Anyway Tom’s objections to the course texts remained very generalised in the interview.
With regard to “victim femalism” Tom did give an example of what he was referring to. When a lecturer talked about the trafficking of women into the sex industry Tom countered with reference to raids that found no trafficked women and which meant that there was either no problem or not much of a problem. (Presumably this: investigation of Operation Pentameter http://m.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/20/government-trafficking-enquiry-fails?cat=uk&type=article ? That investigation questions the statistics generally quoted at the time about trafficking victims, but mainly shows that there were no trafficking convictions resulting from that operation, and says that the people who were convicted of trafficking were not caught during that operation.) The lecturer refuted that assertion, saying that there were criticisms to be made.
Why deny that women and girls are trafficked into the sex industry? I see news reports of traffickers being convicted pretty regularly. I’ve read plenty of testimonies of survivors of trafficking. This web page includes many examples of links to both:
http://unchosen.org.uk/newsarchive.html
It is a problem worldwide. There is also internal trafficking of girls within the UK.
The ACPO report August 2010 “Setting The Record” gives the current estimated figures for the UK http://www.acpo.police.uk/documents/crime/2010/201008CRITMW01.pdf It found that
http://www.traffickingproject.org/2010/08/setting-record-straight.html
See also http://m.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/aug/18/brothel-users-forced-prostitution?cat=society&type=article
Sex trafficking is an especially abhorrent form of sexual abuse. The victims are subjected to multiple sexual assaults day after day. They are terrorised into submission. And all in order that someone profits off it. According to that ACPO report there are at least a couple of thousand known victims in the UK. Worldwide there must be a great many more. It’s a lucrative, systematically organised criminal activity. Why is it lucrative? Because enough men pay to sexually use the victims. When we address the problem of sex trafficking gender is absolutely fundamental to explaining it and so to tackling it. It is part of the larger sex industry that overwhelmingly makes its money from providing women to sexually service male buyers. A feminist perspective sees that this is all predicated upon a hierarchical relationship between men as a class and women as a class that results in people acting as if women exist for the benefit of men, and treating women as the property of men or as use-objects for men. Feminism challenges these beliefs about women & girls, asserts that they are not property or lesser beings, and wants the all too real violence and abuse that’s targeted at women and girls to end.
Tom presents feminism’s and gender studies’s foregrounding of abuses like trafficking as attention-seeking. I don’t know how anyone who learns about any kind of oppression and atrocity doesn’t feel compelled to speak out about it and centre on it in order to help end it. In the interview Tom Martin seriously suggests that gender studies academics don’t actually want violence against women (whose existence or extent he doubts or minimises remember) to stop, because then they’d have no jobs, and would lose the “$50,000” salaries they enjoy.
Maria S… is that the same Maria who has lectured or ran the odd seminar at the Gender Institute?
If you are that Maria, I think you are one of the alright ones.
I thought you were, until I read your overview of my interview above. You’re misrepresenting everything!
Anyway, shame to see you’re going with the old ‘sex slavery is very real’ approach.
You know as well as me, that they manufacture the very odd ‘sex trafficking’ prosecution by throwing the book at anyone who ‘controls women for profit or gain’. The truth is though, these women are not conscripted into sex slavery, but actually volunteer for it.
So a soldier who volunteers for the army, does not have the option to leave once he’s signed up. Is he a slave? No, because he volunteered.
A hooker makes a deal with a ‘trafficker’ to get her a fake passport and transport her to the country and into the brothel, and then yes, she has agreed she does not have the option to leave – but to service X number of men before she covers the cost and gets into profit territory – but she was not forced onto it. She volunteered – knowing full well what the job entails.
Tell the truth Maria. There are not 80,000 or 25,000 sex slaves in Britain,
or 2000…
Despite Operation Pentameter 2 finding no sex slaves, Channel 4 did a three part documentary following that nationwide police op, and faked it, to make it look like they were interviewing a ‘sex slave’, face blacked out, when it later emerged, she hadn’t been found on that operation at all.
So, Channel 4 faked a documentary, in line with the establishment liars, like Maria – who want to perpetuate the falsity.
That’s why you people are so ignorant about it.
Also, tell women to stop charging men for sex. Put the price down to zero – and prostitution will be no more. You are women. You tell them.
Anyway, if you want to hear what I actually have to say on AVFM radio, then my interview starts 36 minutes in on the following page:
blogtalkradio.com/avoiceformen/2011/09/21/what-do-women-want-and-an-interview-with-tom-martin
Maria seems to be a bit confused about me, and criticizing me for mirroring feminist lingo, but , to clarify – I am a feminist and a men’s rights activist.
I want equality.
Some people really do have to read up on the full range of perspectives or strands within the men’s rights movement a bit more.
I think we should just stop feeding the troll. Tom is clearly NOT a feminist, no feminist would use such anti-women terms such as ‘whoriarchy’ , refer to women as ‘sluts’ in such a derogatory way and insist prostitution is because of women charging men for sex and if we stoped it’d go away (which is possibly the stupidest thing I have heard ever).
He has proved consistently he can’t argue his way out of paper bag. We’re not going to persuade him of anything, certainly not using well constructed arguments and common sense.
Yawn.
I agree Chloe.
In fact just to explain to regular readers who may be wondering why I’m allowing this misogyny on my blog: I’m only allowing Tom Martin’s comments to stand as I’m hoping they’ll prove to be of some use to the LSE legal team.
Chloe,
To clarify, my position is… sluts good, whores bad.
Same position as Jessica Valenti’s.
And Cath,
Saying that a men’s rights activist is a ‘whiner’ as you do, is a code blue anti-male shaming tactic:
Charge of Hypersensitivity (Code Blue) – The Crybaby Charge
Discussion: The target is accused of being hysterical or exaggerating the problems of men (i.e., he is accused of playing “Chicken Little”). Examples:
“Stop whining!”
“Get over it!”
“Suck it up like a man!”
“You guys don’t have it as nearly as bad as us women!”
“You’re just afraid of losing your male privileges.”
“Your fragile male ego …”
“Wow! You guys need to get a grip!”
Response: One who uses the Code Blue shaming tactic reveals a callous indifference to the humanity of men. It may be constructive to confront such an accuser and ask if a certain problem men face needs to be addressed or not (“yes” or “no”), however small it may be seem to be. If the accuser answers in the negative, it may constructive to ask why any man should care about the accuser’s welfare since the favor will obviously not be returned. If the accuser claims to be unable to do anything about the said problem, one can ask the accuser why an attack is necessary against those who are doing something about it.
Don’t mention it Cath.
No, no connection with the Gender Institute whatsoever.
I listened to the programme in its entirety. Not sure how I’ve misrepresented anything. While I added some remarks of my own, I tried to summarise what you said as best I can from memory. It’s not everything of course, but I was aiming to include most of the things that you were describing as evidence of discrimination or bias. Please do correct any inaccuracies.
So, again your actual argument is that any human rights abuses against women are illusory because they bring it on themselves or enter willingly into them:
NO – no one “volunteers” or consents in any meaningful sense of those words to sex if they are in debt bondage or coerced in some other way. No one owes another person sex. Even if they are freely and willingly in the sex industry – and this is not who we are talking about here – they can consent or refusal of consent to any particular instance of sexual activity and should be able to have that respected.
To seriously argue that its ok that a person gives up their freedom until they’ve performed however many sexual acts for the profit of the person they’re indebted to – that’s sick and inhumane.
Here it seems a lot like you are saying that women should should not refuse men sex, and if so that’s damn scary:
You come across as pretty angry whenever you out of nowhere come out with stuff like calling women “whores” (and “sluts”, in your emails to Amity), and seem so particularly exercised by the subject of prostitution and of women’s sexual availability. Seems like something completely beyond a mission to bring a discrimination case.
Tom Martin:
“Some people really do have to read up on the full range of perspectives or strands within the men’s rights movement a bit more.”
Bibliography?
And this goes back to your radio interview – you mentioned texts that you had to read on the LSE course and said they were an “absolute nightmare”. What would you would have as core texts in their place?
Bidisha made a great point when she said “it is obvious what he is against. What is he campaigning for?”
You are being frustratingly evasive.
Doh, I should have replaced “refusal of” with “refuse”.
There are colour codes! These glimpses into the workings of the mens rights movement are fascinating. Also disturbing.
@Cath, thought he was getting away with rather a lot, but that makes sense. Also, he is the topic of the post after all.
@Chloe I know, I know. But I would really like to know why he can’t for example simply list the books that he objects to, and give some examples of what he objects to. He hasn’t even got anything to say about Gender Trouble. It’s almost as if he’s not actually interested in showing the strength of his case, (which he is soliciting donations for), and thinks that he’s entitled to our agreement and acquiescence to everything he says, however vague and unsourced, just because he says it.
I am making a video next week, which will focus on among other things, the core texts we had to read. I will simply flick through, stop at a page, and quickly analyse what it says about males of females.
I will do this a few times in a row – and in the presence of some antagonistic v-fem vox popper who wants to justify the ‘women good/men bad’ stories, or deny their existence.
Also, I will post some core readings on my website, and reading lists, along with the analytic method I am using to measure the bias.
Maria S,
You go on to use another anti-male shaming tactic (in lieu of an argument), when you say you are ‘disturbed’:
Charge of Endangerment (Code Orange) – The Elevated Threat Charge
Discussion: The target is accused of being a menace in some undefined manner. This charge may be coupled with some attempt to censor the target. Examples:
“You guys are scary.”
“You make me feel afraid.”
Response: It may be constructive to point out that only bigots and tyrants are afraid of having the truth expressed to them. One may also ask why some women think they can handle leadership roles if they are so threatened by a man’s legitimate freedom of expression.
Also Maria,
You use another anti-male shaming tactic, when you say I am ‘angry’:
Charge of Irascibility (Code Red)
Discussion: The target is accused of having anger management issues. Whatever negative emotions he has are assumed to be unjustifiable. Examples:
“You’re bitter!”
“You need to get over your anger at women.”
“You are so negative!”
Response: Anger is a legitimate emotion in the face of injustice. It is important to remember that passive acceptance of evil is not a virtue.
Also Maria,
You left out my point about male volunteers in armies, who do not have a choice to leave, because they volunteered. They are not slaves. It is a regrettable choice to be a soldier, just as it is to be a prostitute – but you have to stop treating women who make this choice with kid gloves – or they’ll never grow up and get a proper job.
To be clear, I am all for equality of opportunity, and outcome. Egalitarian societies are much more productive, and the women much more civil.
Academia is currently full of anti-male bias, designed by people who appear to be having second thoughts about equality.
Some of you may be too young to remember, but feminism promised a lot more than it is currently delivering.
Tom, it’s not working. The more you write, the more convinced I am that it’s not so much that you can’t make a strong case for yourself, but that you don’t have a case to make.
Translated,
What would I need to do to convince you of the veracity of my claim, so that you would then be happy to donate $20 to the appeal?
Yours sincerely,
Tom
P.S. Since posting that last message, two more people have donated £20 each. Thanks to them. We are getting there. Don’t let the bitches (male or female) get you down.
I studied with Tom at LSE in 2009/2010 (for the short while he was there). In person, he is just as angry with the world as he is online. He made it clear to co-students from the beginning that he had personal problems and had to use aggressive provocation to get attention. He approached women in seedy manners, told professors that he was better than them and did not wish to be educated. His lawsuit is opportunistic and staged. Already in 2006, he states his wish to conduct a public experiment that highlights “proof of what I will call male discourse denial” (Martin, T. (2006). “Letters to the Editor”, Transitions, Vol. 26:13-14). (Some of us stayed at LSE long enough to learn how to reference.)
Just like he did in class, and just like he is in court, Tom is representing himself and only himself.
Don’t waste any time on his ramblings. He hijacked my learning environment with incoherent personal vendettas for weeks but I still feel sorry for him. The rest of the class spent our time learning and went on to gain a respectable degree from one of the world’s best social science institutions, while Tom is still fighting his rejection issues.
Hello,
A huge, enormous thank you to LSEGraduate for doing promptly, clearly and eloquently, what I had hoped would happen, which is the gathering of witness statements and testimonies from students, peers and LSE lecturers which will be examined in court.
Slut, whore, bitch: these are all misogynistic terms and as ever I want to thank Tom Martin for his transparency. With every word he helps the case against him.
I am not providing you with a curriculum, nor am I writing an academic essay, nor am I debating here in an academic environment.
LSE was suppossed to provide us with an education free from discriminatory learning materials, bias, harassment, stereotypes, and victimization.
It failed to do that, then denied everything in a cover up internal report, then acknowledged there might be discrimination by saying said discrimination would be justified.
Corralling Gender Institute graduates to say nasty things about me, is of little weight, as their in-group bias, and propensity to go along with an anti-male curriculum – as at LSE, disqualifies them from the realms of reliability.
Much of my evidence is in black and white in the core texts, as chosen for us by LSE personnel.
What came first, the anti-male academic orthodoxy, or my reaction to it?
Tom,
Einstein didn’t come up with E=MC squared by suing the Newtonians.
Even if I had sympathy for your cause (I’m still unclear what that cause is) I wouldn’t support you because you’re not serious. If you were serious, you would demonstrate a thorough knowledge of and engagement with the history of how gender has been discussed in an academic context. You would be aware that men are often made to feel uncomfortable in that context because of the nature of the material and to expect a course on gender to be man-friendly would be like the Queen expecting to thoroughly enjoy a course on Marxism. Furthermore, if you were serious, you wouldn’t reflexively resort to insult and evasion.
You talk on the radio interview of the gullibility of your fellow students, yet you also talk about of your feeling of having been discriminated against when you are shut out of an all-women gym session. Who’s gullible, Tom?
Up-thread Chloe kind of begged people to stop feeding the troll. I’m guilty of ignoring that plea, but in a way this thread hasn’t been completely pointless from my perspective because it’s got me thinking about the intersection between your personal inability to make a convincing argument and the incoherence of the very idea of “men’s rights” after feminism. The history of disillusioned men who embraced feminism and have rejected it is as long as feminism itself and books and books have been written by such men trying to securely ground the idea of “men’s rights”. None of them have amounted to anything more than an inexorable and mean-spirited drift towards the far right.
Maybe accusing you of not being able to argue your way of a paper bag is nothing to do with your own abilities, but to do with the nature of the paper bag of “men’s rights” you’ve climbed into. It’s very tough for anyone in there to make any sense, so I guess it’s unsurprising you are so completely lost.
I understand people not ignoring him and I am not critiscising anyone who hasn’t! I just felt I had to point out my frustration at any ‘argument’ being pointless as any questions we asked were replied to with vague ‘look up a ‘core text’ book (no titles were given) and a barrage of sexism! And the stubborn mule in me didn’t want certain people to assume I’d ‘given up’ because their ‘argument’ was superior.
I am proud of all the feminists who have argued here and proven that Tom is very likely to be talking out of his arse.
Code puce: derailing any discussion by refering to shameless self promotion of own website/video/radioshow which will ‘explain everything p.s give me money’
Coincidentally I’ve been browsing some old threads on ‘mansplaining’ on the interwebz…
@Chloë. Fair enough. I hadn’t really meant to imply your call regarding feeding the troll was wrong – I was just getting absorbed in the idea of “men’s rights” as a species of trolling writ large and in that sense TM is engaged here in a kind of trolling x trolling. In any case, you’re quite right – that’s more than enough mansplanation from me : )
I just looked at the Butterflies & Wheels blog; Tom Martin’s comments there are even worse:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2011/09/the-minister-for-the-menz/#comment-5950
Tom – your army volunteer analogy made no sense. For one thing for it to work it relies on agreeing that trafficking victims are volunteers, which I do not. For another, it plainly does not follow that because someone has volunteered for something they then cannot leave that situation. The concept of volunteering inherently suggests free choice. For
soldiers in the army (male & female alike), what obliges them not to leave is their employment contract, to serve for four years. That doesn’t stop them leaving even so – they leave either within the terms of the contract or in breach of them.
@LSEGraduate – thanks. I’d wondered if Tom’s participation in the course had been disruptive, based on how he has acted here, and it’s depressing to be proved right.
@Chloe – code puce – excellent!
I’m in pre-production for a video now, so don’t have time to unpick your comments one by one.
In the meantime, renounce prostitution in all its forms, and I’ll get back to you with a video by Thursday of next week.
I am about to start a Master’s degree in Gender at the LSE. At first, Tom’s claims intrigued me. I know the university has a outstanding academic reputation however, since I have no previous experience with the Gender Institute, I figured that his accusations deserved some looking into. After all, there is a great variety of opinions amongst feminists (thankfully!), maybe Tom really had come across rare radical man-hating feminists, or even those he calls victim-feminists, and maybe those views were mainstream at LSE (always healthy to criticize the course content).
Now that I’ve carefully read what Tom Martin had to say, on this blog as well as others, I can only tell him one thing: thank you for publicizing your views so openly online! It made the task so much easier. It is now clear that you are a fool.
You have repeatedly ignored constructive criticism and dismissed it for “man shaming”. You have rarely been able to support your claims with any evidence (please, please, do give us examples of gender-based discrimination towards men). Your theories on women’s agency in history and throughout different countries clearly demonstrate how far away you are from being a feminist (as if the concept of “whoriarchy” wasn’t proof enough).
As I look at a very basic bibliography for gender studies (Gender 101 would include authors such as Foucault, de Beauvoir and Butler – and the institute recommends them before classes start), I can only come to the conclusion that either you didn’t understand their train of thoughts, or you never bothered to even read the books. As for your Youtube experiment (I have read about it elsewhere) proves, academia was never for you.
Anyone with half a brain would know not to take you seriously, and I sure hope you make a fool of yourself in court (if you ever get there). May you find a better purpose in life after all this is over.
I’ve just had an email from a supporter, who says his comments are being blocked from this site.
Here is his comment:
Angry with the world? Since when was the feminist establishment “the world”?
One of the founding fathers of the Men’s Movement is Angry Harry.
My goodness! Somebody angry involved in a social/political movement?
Whatever next!
Professors of Gender Studies? I understand Beatrix Campbell was one such professor. (And might still be for all I know.) Tom is not alone in knowing more than professors these days.
LSE is reputable. But Gender Studies is NOT.
And now we’ve come full circle: Tom’s fight is about raising standards to MAKE Gender Studies reputable.
What does feminism have to lose if standards are raised?
(Answer in a whisper: everything. Tell no one!)
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Code: brown.
As Ray says, this is priceless!
Some of the comments here are so hateful, i can only hope he says them in court or the LSE legal team access them.
You come across as profoundly ignorant of the issues, and with no real aims or beliefs or causes.
Sorry to be posting this comment very late in the thread, not sure if anyone’s still reading it, but here goes…
I feel very outside all of this – I’m a man, but not connected with the LSE or academia. I also have to say that I find some of the lurid language that Tom Martin uses pretty off-putting. in terms of where I’m coming from, I guess I’d like to live in a society where both men and women enjoyed parity and equity in terms of their life ambitions and opportunities, and were treated equally with respect by the state and all other institutions.
I’m afraid I also feel that something’s not right or fair in terms of how men are perceived and treated by society and the state at present. Above, one commenter says: “give us examples of gender-based discrimination towards men”. OK – in 2011 a total of 1,097 men were imprisoned for non-payment of child support by British courts, for an average of eight weeks. The total number of women imprisoned for breaching court-orders and not allowing men to see their children is far lower. How low? It’s zero.
My request to the administrator is that she publishes and allows comment on the following:
This is an exceptionally interesting and worthwhile debate, but most people seem to be missing some vital points as follows:
1. Any gender analysis – by definition – has to take into account relative sexism, against both genders (see point 6 below). This seems to be missing (so far).
2. Tom is wrong to suggest that Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan are anything other than militant patriarchies. The notion that managing your husband’s power is any kind of freedom in the context of those countries is not one you can seriously hang onto. If we all agree that, how can we change those cultues, and is it lamentable cowardice on all our behalves that we do not try?
3. There have been several ‘ad hominum’ attacks on Tom, which have grown repetitive and a tertiary-education quality debate deserves so much more. Having said that, using the word ‘whoreocracy’ was the firecracker, and again in the context of SA and A, invalid. I’ve not heard it before. If you apply it to the women who chase after footballers in those ‘footballer clubs’, it has a touch of truth. Why aren’t those girls chasing interesting but impoversished intellectuals like myself with really good ideas :).
4) On the subject of ‘women steering men’, I would simply ask that the readership looks at their parents. Alternatively, go into House of Fraser, John Lewis, on a Saturday afternoon – it is 90% female purchasers buying expensive stuff for the house or to make themsleves more attractive. This is a HUGE business, and one that is impacting the environments and in the case of cosmetics, animal welfare. Women do make most of the household decisions, and woe betide any man who doesn’t want to spend any money on it, book holidays or drive his family to places they need / want to go to. Is it the readership’s experience that older couples (say late Twenties, Thirties and Forties) live the old adage that ‘women marry – or cohabit – up’?
Why after 40 years of the Equality movement is this still (even more) the case? Men are criticised for patriachial behaviour – but your rock and music (esp. rap) star, and rich men – are idolised, chased after and not criticised.
5) Tom does not seem to have included much detail or references on this site. If they are all on his sexismbusters site, they can be easily transferred over to here? He has used the term ‘victim feminism’ – his opposing debaters here need to therefore counter with the other types of feminism they have read about or practice.
6) One poster queried how men are discriminated against: ok – if there is a divorce, the guy usually loses his home and access to children; any allegation at all indicates the police HAVE to arrest (a bit Kafkaesque surely?); the media portray men as idiots needing the most basic help and as sex objects – most ‘medical educational’ programmes would not show or discuss women in graphic detail and no-one complains about the Chippendales; their health outcomes, suicide and death rates at work are much much worse than women’s; and positive discrimination programmes are always pro everybody but them (are the sins of the Alphas from the Fifties are being taken out on the younger Beta males of today?).
I truly hope in the interest of my understanding, and a more useful debate, that this can be posted and answered with the readership’s full and frank views.
Peter,
You are coming across as a stealth MRA (Men’s Rights Activist – aka male supremacist) – do you want a pat on the head for thinking the term ‘whoreocracy’ has no place in any reasonable debate? Do you think we should be impressed by that?
You are contradicting yourself more than a little re. men’s representation in the media, if sometimes men are portrayed as ‘idiots’ and sometimes idolised, that suggests that men are portrayed as a wide spectrum of varied human beings, ie there isn’t a problem in male representation. Where are men portrayed as ‘sex objects’ and how does that compare to the constant objectification of women as valued only through their appearance? Have you not noticed how practically everything is advertised with a naked or near naked woman?
Your statements about divorce also betray your MRA leanings, how dare men be expected to pay for their children? How dare society not lock up women who refuse to drag their screaming hysterical children to see the father who terrifies them?
Men do not routinely lose access to their children after divorce, access is denied to fathers in less than 1% of cases. Men with convictions for domestic violence, or who are suspected of sexually abusing their children can be granted unsupervised access to their children. Women have been killed by their exes because they were forced into contact with them through child visitation.
We don’t need you to lecture us on consumerism or the environment or animal welfare, real feminists know about this stuff already, and you are just repeating Martin’s claims about women being in charge really, based on what? Your own observations from lurking around shops?
“No-one complains about the Chippendales; their health outcomes, suicide and death rates at work are much much worse than women’s”
Which women are you comparing them too? Some actual stats to back up this claim would be helpful. If you think the Chippendales are being horribly exploited, why don’t you do something about it, start a blog or a petition, why is it our job, as feminists, to ‘fix’ this ‘problem’?
“Positive discrimination programmes are always pro everybody but them”
That’s because men, or at least white, ablebodied, middle-class men are the ones at the top, they don’t need positive discrimination because the system has for so long been skewed in their favour. Really, look at the world around you, who’s runnung the goverment, the banks, the media, universities, big business, art, science? Can you point out one area (one that isn’t low-paid, low-skilled, and with low prestige), which isn’t dominated by men?
“Why aren’t those girls chasing interesting but impoversished intellectuals like myself with really good ideas”
Because you’re whiney and arrogant and boring would be my first guess
Sarah you say why is it the feminists job to fix the chippendales issue. Well if feminsim were advocates of gender equality wouldn’t there concerned about mens rights as well?
Ad why is anyone who is a MRA labelled a male supremacist. I don’t go around calli feminists as female supremacists, but your comment does suggest you don’t care if the people in chippendales suffer so maybe you in particular do only care for one gender in particular.