Honey Badger Radio: We came, we saw, we badgered on

Last week the world witnessed an historic event. A Voice for Men’s First International Conference on Men’s Issues (ICMI) successfully brought together men’s issues and men’s rights activists and advocates from around the world. Despite death threats, protests, and last-minute venue changes, AVfM and the men’s rights movement persevered.

The dream was realized.

By the end of our short stay, we’d forged both friendships and memories, but most importantly we opened a dialogue between the sexes.

Questions

Regarding the mainstream media’s coverage of the ICMI, which story did the best job of exploring the conference and the MRM in general?

Also, which story contained the most egregious distortions about the ICMI and the MRM?

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Is anyone going to call out the media to point to transcripts of the conference where the charges they routinely make against the MRM were validated?

Is anyone going to demand that the specific media outlets that claimed no death threats were made against the conference—and that it was a hoax to raise donations—retract that assertion?

Will anyone request that the hotel explain why the threats were used to invoke security fees but not reported to police?

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How much resistance was there to the conference from feminists? I didn’t hear any fire alarms go off.

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Any comments on the feminist troll Darkhorse Swore? Apparently, Alison and Sage were chatting with her?

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As far as I’m aware, no women were raped on stage at the conference. Was that because of a lack of resources or because the feminist journalists told the attendees not to rape?

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At a lot of political conferences, there’s often more progress between and after the official events.

Was there much real politik taking place in bars and cafés after the talks?

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So did Detroit get cold feet or just the DoubleTree? Been following the economic plight of the Motor City. Lots of implications for municipal workers and retirees everywhere. I hope the city behaved decently. Caught some of the Day 2 uploads, didn’t catch Karen though.

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Do you think that making media studies a required course for everyone would have a positive effect on the MRM? I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and one of the biggest problems is that there is a strong emphasis in the media about how women are misrepresented, but there is almost no emphasis on how men are misrepresented (Rambo, WWE, frat boy comedies, etc.). If there was equal emphasis placed on both sexes in an educational setting that every student was required to attend, would that change the way people see gender in the media and help them to understand the issues that plague both genders?

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Zapped

a review by Jess Kay

It would seem that the Disney Channel is especially busy this summer teaching girls just how awful boys are. One particular movie, released June 27, is Zapped, which follows 17-year-old Zoey—a straight-A student and skilled dancer—as she navigates the challenges of changing schools and adjusting to a new stepfather and stepbrothers at home, as well as an unruly dog. The movie is said to be based on a book titled Boys Are Dogs, which speaks volumes to the mentality the film perpetuates.

In an attempt to control at least one aspect of her life, Zoey downloads a dog training app onto her smartphone, but a series of accidents enables the app to instead control the boys around her. For starters, this film finds no remorse in blaming men for every challenge that a girl faces in life. Despite all of the evidence revealing that girls are just as prevalent at bullying as boys—if not more so—this movie for young children finds it perfectly acceptable to make the source of all Zoey’s suffering and anguish unapologetically male. From the wave of endless teasing and taunting from the boys at school to her loud stepfather and rowdy, filthy stepbrothers at home, the majority of the difficulties she faces stem from a male source.

And when her dog training app is morphed and begins controlling boys, no one seems bothered by, but rather delights in, the premise of training boys as if they were dogs. Because apparently, in the world of Disney, that is all that boys will ever amount to—scruffy animals in need of training from their beautifully intelligent but exhausted female owners.

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Rachel Edwards

Rachel is a former host of Honey Badger Radio, a recurring member of the Tales from the Infrared crew. She wanders around the web researching feminist insanity, poking people with a large stick, and keeping everyone in the silly place. When she isn't doing any of those things she spends her time doing even more blogging, grooming her rather large fluffy cat, nerding out with her favorite people, and burying herself in various fandoms. Pinkie Pie is best Pony! (You spelled "Fluttershy" wrong. -- Zen)

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