The International Conference on Men’s Issues has come and gone, leaving confused and disoriented reporters bobbing in its wake.
Most of the press coverage cherry-picked for maximum drama and offence: painting the conference as a den of murderers and rapists out to steal all that’s good and wholesome in the world just to shove it in a hole and poop on it.
But are we really that bad? I jest. Of course we are!
News
A 17-year-old boy is being brought up on child pornography charges after responding to nude pictures his 15-year-old girlfriend sent him with a sexual video. Authorities forced the young man to endure invasive photographing of his genitalia. But police are trying to obtain a warrant to take even more pictures, saying that they want to induce an erection with medical injections to obtain evidence of wrongdoing.
The teen faces two felony charges: possession of and the manufacturing of child pornography. If charged, he could be incarcerated until he’s 21 and have to register as a sex offender. The case was initially dismissed when they failed to mention that he was a juvenile. But police immediately filed new charges, obtained a search warrant, and forcibly took pictures of his genitals.
The teen was told that he needed to plead guilty or face another search warrant, in which they intend to induce an erection through penile injections. These police officers are using taxpayers’ money to abuse a minor for trading explicit images with another minor. This is probably the best argument for sex-offender law reform.
The teen has since plead not guilty to all charges.
Show Segments
MSNBC says FeMRAs are attention-seeking
As predicted, an MSNBC segment discussing AVfM’s International Conference on Men’s Issues completely misses the point. They describe men’s rights activists as being a group of men who are merely angry for losing power and traditional roles. They feel that women are finally “getting a seat at the table,” and that men are somehow upset at this, and that this is the reason that AVfM spent thousands of dollars to set up the conference. They simply cannot fathom how anyone might have a problem with feminism on an intellectual level.
They go on to portray feminism as an innocent movement and men’s rights activists as narcissists who care nothing for the opinions of the women in their lives. Because that’s easier than actually asking a men’s rights activist what it’s all about. Probably the worst moment is when they mention that the women at the conference must be doing this for attention. “I wonder if it is that these women have never successfully been smart, interesting, charming, and fun?”
It is probably for this reason that the interview of two Honey Badgers was omitted from the official article by MSNBC. Because acknowledging that we aren’t a bunch of self-hating women trying to get money and attention would disrupt their narrative. I think we speak for everyone when we say that this news segment is everything wrong with modern journalism. Because in lumping all women together as members of the sisterhood, Lizz Winstead makes it damn near impossible to criticize the women who are harmful.
She places the women who are violent and manipulative as being beyond reproach, because of this mentality that the very act of criticizing some women is somehow bad for them as a whole. But only when men do it, because as we all know, when women disagree with the sisterhood, they are merely misguided attention whores who know not what they do. Because as we all know, MSNBC likes to keep it classy.
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/mens-rights-conference-feminism
“Purple Heart’s Final Beat”
Terrence Popp’s presentation on veteran suicide at AVfM’s First International Conference on Men’s Issues was both moving and gut-wrenchingly sad. He describes the suicide he had planned to carry out, only to find that his friend, Major Lance Waldorf, had ended his own life first. He describes how this motivated him to help himself and others. During the presentation he aired a short film entitled “Purple Heart’s Final Beat”—a brutally honest look at the problem of veteran suicide.
Despite all this, Monica Hesse of The Washington Post had nothing favorable to say about the presentation. In fact, several conference attendees reported that she had been playing on her phone throughout the presentation. Which might explain how she reported the award-winning short film as follows:
“One presenter, a military veteran speaking on the treatment of veterans returning from war, put up a PowerPoint slide alleging that 70 percent of men returning from war get divorced, and 90 percent do so within five years. When asked about the source of this statistic, he said, “That particular statistic is from my personal observations. I’m just speaking here as a dude.” ”
The truth of the matter is that Terrence Popp is not just a dude. He possesses not only a bachelor’s degree in public administration but also a bachelor’s degree in science. He is a decorated officer and has interviewed over 3,500 veterans since 2007 on the topic of divorce and suicide. His estimate comes not from a mere guess but after looking through statistics for many years only to find that the government wasn’t tracking many of the problems veterans face upon returning from war. It was a personal assessment based on various statistics on both veterans and divorce, but it was an educated guess, to which he admitted.
However, Monica Hesse did not come away with an understanding of the real problems he spoke of. She came to the VFW to write a hit piece and not to listen to the plight of men in our society. Which only goes to show what counts as journalism these days. To her, his story, and that of other veterans, will always be expendable.
Lee DeVito gets molested
Lee DeVito of the Metro Times describes his first impressions of the men’s movement through the experience of a gay man hitting on him and invading his personal space. Which should be a tip-off to anyone paying attention that the men’s movement isn’t merely a bunch of conservative traditionalists.
What he fails to understand is that this man had done the same thing to other men he’d come in contact with. Those who saw him could tell that he might have been suffering from a mental illness. Needless to say, DeVito never reported his incident to conference security or the police as sexual harassment.
Meaning that it took conference staff longer to handle an issue that could have been dealt with immediately. What he doesn’t know is that the man in question was expelled from the conference for his behavior on the first day and was not welcomed back. Conference staff resolved the issue quickly and made certain that everyone felt safe for the remainder of the event.
Which he would know, had he bothered to do his job and ask questions. But it is clear that he, like the rest of the “media,” came for a purpose. He, like the other “journalists,” was simply not ready to hear our message or to see us as anything aside from a group of misogynists. Which only goes to show that they are only after stories that sell, and a story about peaceful men discussing issues in a VFW isn’t one of them.
http://blogs.metrotimes.com/news-blawg/molested-mens-rights-conference
How to Build a Better Boy
A review by: Jess Kay
In 1985, when Hollywood pursued a story about a pair of geeky high school outcasts who hack into the government mainframe to create the perfect mate who is wholly devoted to them, they had the decency to title it inoffensively as Weird Science. But we can’t be surprised when Disney recreates the story in 2014 with the genders reversed and calls it How to Build A Better Boy.
The plot of the Disney version is essentially the same as the 1985 version, following your standard shallow teenager who paints a superficial picture of their ideal mate being tall, strong, cute, and of course modest. I give Disney credit in this regard for at least not insinuating that females are any less capable of being superficial than males. But because the derisive representation of men in the media is far more acceptable than a female counterpart, the 2014 version has no problem presenting nearly every male character in some level of buffoonery. From the gawky, foolish, fanatical brother, to the simple-minded football coach, to the inept father who has no idea what he is doing in regards to parenting, Disney doesn’t hold back when it comes to denigrating men. And of course, the “better boy” robot? Well, his value is derived by how happy he can make girls.
A major difference between the 1985 film Weird Science and Disney’s 2014 film How to Build A Better Boy is that the 1985 title does not attempt to place fault with women. In Weird Science, it is pretty well understood that the male geeks’ lack of sexual appeal is the cause for their inability to attract girls, thus causing them to create their own ideal girl. However, in How to Build A Better Boy, the implication in the title is that it is boys’ fault for not being attracted to geeky girls who lack sexual appeal. But that makes sense, because everything is men’s fault, right?
In closing, can we please appreciate the hypocrisy in the trailer for How to Build A Better Boy on YouTube being sponsored by the Dove campaign title #LikeAGirl, which is meant to empower girls against supposed gendered insults? Nothing says gender equality like female empowerment and male denigration in the same space.
Further articles on the conference
MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/mens-rights-conference-feminism
West Hawaii Today
http://westhawaiitoday.com/news/nation-world-news/men-s-rights-activists-say-society-has-wronged-them
Refinery29
http://www.refinery29.com/2014/07/70393/mra-mens-rights-conference
Jezebel
http://jezebel.com/the-most-inane-moments-from-last-weekends-mens-rights-c-1599277038
Flavorwire
http://flavorwire.com/465191/mras-arent-just-terrorizing-women-theyre-hurting-men-too
Time
http://time.com/2949435/what-i-learned-as-a-woman-at-a-mens-rights-conference/
Huffington Post
http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/segment/53ac688a02a760c29d0001e3
Metro Times
http://blogs.metrotimes.com/news-blawg/molested-mens-rights-conference/
rhrealitycheck
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2014/07/08/mens-rights-conference-host-says-women-drink-dance-begging-rape/
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