Founded is an online publication that features innovative entrepreneurs trying out new ways to get companies off the ground. Rupa Parekh, a Wharton grad, founded the site. She curates nominations, suggestions, and findings daily. Featuring “rule breakers and risk takers from around the world,” we can’t say we’re surprised that they interviewed our leader, Lisa Hickey.
They described GMPM better than we can:
This magazine has no arbiter, no code of what’s right and wrong. It’s neither conservative nor feminist. It’s simply a place where men and women can read stories about men grappling with life’s challenging moments through honesty and a lot of humor.
Check out the full interview from December 30, 2010, here.
About the Editors
Bravo, Lisa. You’ve got my vote.
Well…
I’d say that the magazine has a fair struggle with the idea that it has no idea of “right or wrong”. It preaches free speach, but I get the feeling that some opinons are definitely more welcome than others around here. Certain posts get censored with no explanation, others, equally or even more rude and problematic, are let through.The Good Men Project Magazine WANTS to be seen as promoting and safeguarding free speach, and yet it also wants discussions to be “safe” and “civil”, which is a bit of a contradiction, especially when there are no clear guidelines as to what constitutes “safe and civil” speach.
Some of TGMPM’s moderators, for example, seem to think that it’s an ad hominem simply to challenge the science brought up by authors to support their views on, say, sex addiction or porn. Meanwhile, I’ve seen self-proclaimed feminist bloggers flat-out state that nothing a man says on a given issue is valid simply because he’s a man (and MRA authors say the same thing re: women). This, somehow, ISN’T an ad hominem. TGMPM’s censorship seems to work based upon how many people complain about a given post or comment: not whether said post or comment actually breaks the rules.
Also, it seems pretty clear to me than many folks on TGMPM’s staff are full-fledged believers in the radical (reactionary?) notion that certain types of sexual activity are bad and physically addict people. We see an article published about this almost every week and so far only one of these has been challenged in the comments section – two attempts to challenge others have been actively censored. During one of the latest tiffs, I discovered that anti-porn and anti-sex activist Marnia Robinson was given complete control over the censoring of her own comments section. As far as I’m aware, none of the pro-sex authors here have been given that power.
That sort of editorial decision, in and of itself, ammounts to a kind of “soft” censorship.
I’d be much more comfortable if TGMPM simply took the bull by the horns and let the opinions fly: put their money where their mouth is, so to speak, on the free speach issue. But, apparently, the editors want “constructive” commentary and what is considered “constructive” varies article by articl – in some cases comment by comment.
From what I’m hearing around the edges, by people closer to the decision makers at TGMPM, the “solution” to this dilema may be to give every author control over their own comments section – which, of course, will kill any free exchange of ideas on the site.It DOES, however, have the saving grace of not letting authors get pissed off by commentators and, seeing how the company’s value is based on its authors and not it’s commentators, that might be the “safe” and market friendly way to go.
Finally, the idea that the only two political positions out there on gender are “conservative” and “feminist” – or that at least these are the two relevant pole – is pretty ridiculous and marks something of a political and moral position of its own.
Where, for example, does the sex workers’ rights movement fit in? Or the trans rights movement? Or, hell, even most of the gay movement? None of these movements can be defined as “feminist” or “conservative”.
I’ll say, however, that TGMPM at least TRIES to make all points heard, at least once, which is a shot and away better than most of the MRA or feminist blogs out there, where you’ll be quickly banned if you don’t toe the party line. The fact that this makes TGMPM unique – when it should be a given in discussions about gender – is a sad reflection regarding how reactionary the U.S. and Canada are getting when it comes to these issues.
It’s neither conservative nor feminist.
I do not think, the opposite of ‘feminist’ is ‘conservative’.
Anyway, the GMP improved a lot during the last 2 months or so.
Thaddeus Gregory Blanchette says:
November 4, 2011 at 11:04 pm
…..I get the feeling that some opinons are definitely more welcome than others around here. Certain posts get censored with no explanation, others, equally or even more rude and problematic, are let through.
I do not think the GMP ‘censors’, but this GMP has a confusing blog-like design. It is difficult to find the articles again and difficult to find out which comments are posted or not.
I would prefer the GMP to be changed in a forum-style design, where you can open your own threads after registration as a member and see yourself iif your threads and comments are really there – in case moderators disagree, they can make the thread/comment later on invisible or delete it.
I have to admit, I made some comments and later on I could not find even the thread anymore….
How to search through this GMP?
Thaddeus Gregory Blanchette says:
November 4, 2011 at 11:04 pm
I’ll say, however, that TGMPM at least TRIES to make all points heard, at least once, which is a shot and away better than most of the MRA or feminist blogs out there, where you’ll be quickly banned if you don’t toe the party line.
This is not true.
Feminist forums, yes, they delete everything which does not fit the party line.
However in general MRA-Forums are not into deleting and banning. Why should we do that? Out of what reason?
In our MRA-Forum we have a section called ‘opposing views’, feminists are welcome to sign up and to open their threads and post their comments even if MRAs disagree with them.
There are also many MRA-blogs where you can post your ‘opposing view’ and it will not be deleted, including my little blog.