On Saturday in Detroit (that is tomorrow my friends) a group will protesting the Men’s Right’s Activist convention taking place this weekend at The Double Tree Hotel in Detroit. The group will meet at the Grand Circus Park and march to the Doubletree Hotel. If you read this blog you are familiar with the violent and harassing tendencies of the MRA movement who often target women who identify as feminists whom they blame for pretty much everything.
And if you are aren’t familiar with the MRA movement I suggest catching up by reading this blog: We Hunted The Mammoth and at this very moment you can follow the #NoMRA hashtag on twitter. But be warned, the anti-feminists are fighting back by harassing those who tweet.
If you are in the Detroit area and care about violent misogynists gathering in your fine city and spreading hate, then do consider joining the protest. More info on the rally and the conference can be found here on the Ms. Blog.
There is also a petition you can sign asking the Double Tree Hotel to cancel the conference. As of posting the petition has over 3,000 signatures.
Angry dude sculpture (photo by me.)
I hope that protestors will also be bringing materials on local groups and resources to help men and boys actually address the issues that MRAs purport to care about: depression, suicide, sexual & domestic violence, etc. One of the reasons that MRAs are flourishing is that men who are earnestly looking for resources wind up finding this hate movement instead. If we can make sure information on those resources get to the men who need it, we can nip a lot of problems in the bud.
Ooooo, you mean feminists are just so mean. Trying to keep men from getting together and talking about legitimate concerns, and you know complaining about all the women who are against us. Man, you are going to added right my list.
/s
I am no expert on this, but I am pretty sure that all the MRAs will do at their conference is rage against women and trash the place. Maybe there will be some false-flag stuff (i.e. high status MRAs doing violence against lower status MRAs and blaming it on feminists).
Unfortunately for them, Double Tree is a big and competent corporation and they will have sufficient security to handle everything, and will bring charges if the MRAs break the law. There won’t be anonymity there because the reservations and bookings require credit cards.
Before UCSB, I thought they were a mild annoyance. Most MRA activity consists of harassing feminists (or any women they declare hurt their feels) online. That can be quickly dealt with; kill files exist, after all. The worst part being that men who deal with whatever legitimate grievances they harp about (but really don’t care about) get erased in the mean time.
After UCSB, I’ve had to reevaluate them. (And no, my opinion of them hasn’t gotten any better.)
Damesl Indetech has a point. Once those guys get inside, they’re going to hear from every speaker that the reason feminists are protesting is because they’re trying to help men. It’ll be nice if they see somebody who actually cares.
haha “the violent and harassing tendencies of the MRA movement who often target women who identify as feminists whom they blame for pretty much everything” which is not all like rallying the troops to harass a bunch of people to try denigrate their right to free association and speech because you disagree with them, even going so far as to try and get their booking with the hotel to cancel on them. do you honestly not see even a smidgen of hypocrisy there?
Yes, protesting a hate group is *just like* hounding women with rape and death threats and publishing the personal information of people who sign up to protest that hate group, then trying to get them fired.
Care to false equivalence some more, or are you done?
So like, you do realize that if THEY have free speech, SO DO WE? Which means we can protest them? THAT IS HOW FREE SPEECH FUCKING WORKS.
Protesting against hate groups is a really important action, because hate groups grow power by feeling like they are expressing a community’s “true” feelings, and having a community come out against them takes the piss out of them. That said, I really hope the protesters take a policy of total non-engagement. One of the main reasons these guys bother with conferences is the hope that they get into confrontations with feminists, confrontations they can film and selectively edit to create the illusion that they’re “violence” against them. Remember that they appeal to men who desperately want to believe a woman talking back counts as “violence”. They certainly aren’t having conferences because they enjoy each other’s company. They’re such a noxious group of men that I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hang out with them, even their comrades in misogyny.
“Remember that they appeal to men who desperately want to believe a woman talking back counts as ‘violence’.” Case in point, the comment above by nunchucks, who automatically and un-self-consciously equated protest with harassment.
Well, not to be pedantic, but they CAN be equated: I would consider abortion clinic protesters to be engaging in harassment. Context, and the power disequilibrium, are always in play. But nowhere did the author or any of the commenters say that a bunch of sad malevolent whiny little MRAs aren’t free to strut around outside a NOW conference.
Well, if we’re going to engage in pedantry, I would consider what such abortion clinic “protesters” do to be simply harassment under the cover of “protected speech”, and not protest at all.
I second the point about non-engagement. Those carefully edited videos are a really important recruiting tool for MRAs.
I’ve been writing a series of articles on MRAs. What I’ve learned is that they tend to fail intersectionality. Basically an MRA would read To Kill a Mockingbird and conclude the central theme was “women lie”.
Albert,
Then don’t be pedantic. Protesting a hate group holding a convention at a hotel is nothing like screaming in women’s faces that they are murderers as they try to get into the doctor’s office.
I really hope the protest goes well. MRA”s have threatened to be there today taking videos and pictures of you. They do everything they can to get your personal information and then harass you, your work, etc. I always recommend sunglasses, hats, and anything that can make you harder to identify. This is how dangerous these guys are. I hope you achieve your goals.
http://www.mancheeze.wordpress.com
You know something strange is going on when your entire movement can’t pass the Bechdel test.
Counter-demonstrating is one thing, but is it really appropriate to ask Doubletree to deny the venue if the MRA’s have rented out a convention hall? I am uncomfortable with endorsing this sort of corporate veto, even over groups that I despise, such as neo-Nazis, PUA’s, “purity balls”, etc.
Interesting. I thought the capitalist idea of spending money the way you wanted was always a good thing, perhaps I was wrong. In fact, every time liberals try to get legislation enacted to protect consumers, conservatives say they you should vote with your pocketbook by taking your money elsewhere, apparently that’s not acceptable either. Well shit.
I think Phillip is making a criticism from the Left, so I’m not seeing a contradiction. The argument goes, I believe, that we strengthen corporate America when we rely on corporate fiat to determine what speech gets heard. I don’t necessarily agree with that line of reasoning–you can look at it as holding corporations to community standards.