This is an extra-special edition of the Monday Roundup, with an Exciting Fucking Announcement on the bottom!
Noah Brand
On the Good Men Project: is the Violence Against Women Act sexist?
The Weird Porn article, which first ran on NSWATM, has been rerun on Jezebel and AlterNet. AlterNet has the most delightfully assholish commenters of all time; check it out if you’re into that sort of thing.
Other
If you’re a man trying to get a woman to commit, email Clarisse Thorn, because she wants to write an article about you. Email her at clarisse at rolereboot dot org!
EXCITING FUCKING ANNOUNCEMENT
dun dun dun dun… drumroll please..
NSWATM is moving! Soon, we will be under the Good Men Project umbrella. This has all kinds of awesome benefits (mostly for me):
1) Better hosting!
2) Untold riches from advertising, or at least enough money to buy my girlfriend one of those petticoats she keeps drooling over!
3) Noah feels less guilty about having to go work his Real Job and can come write for us more!
4) I get to use the official Good Men Project teleporter (only alternate Thursdays)!
But even though we’re under the GMP umbrella I will still be able to give you all the awesome menzblogging, gender theory, random rants about things that piss me off, statistics, and funny pictures you’ve come to expect. Actually, there will probably be more posts because if there’s one thing that motivates me it’s greed and/or my girlfriend in fancy petticoats. And you do not have to worry that the GMP’s more, erm, excitable commenters will comment on NSWATM, because I’m still allowed to ban people who annoy me too much.
So yay! NSWATM Moving Day approaches!
Hmm… the top part should have been in the open thread…
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/May/12-ag-635.html Search this for “female”. … I mean seriously is the random sexism really needed? Also Lamech’s guide to stopping Prison Rape 1) Camera’s everywhere. They are cheap as hell now everything should be recorded. 2) If their is a complaint check the camera. 3) Press Charges against the guilty party. Not any of this administrative in house crap. Its a crime use the justice system. Oh and separate them from the rest of the prison population. This is trivial you have video evidence. 4) Make sure you have decent rape laws. Also prisoners can’t consent to sex with prison… Read more »
@Lamech: in practice, I don’t think that there is any effective obligation for the government-funded services to serve men too. Apparently a lot of them have been caught automatically treating male victims of domestic violence as abusers and sending them to advice lines for abusers, for instance. Besides, any attempt to sue them in order to make them actually provide services to men gets portrayed as some kind of evil misogynistic attack designed to take resources away from victims of domestic violence, because of course women are the only victims of domestic violence that actually matter. It doesn’t matter how… Read more »
I have…really mixed feelings about NSWATM moving. I feel like the two sites have a VERY different feel and attitude and attract somewhat different crowds (though I admit I have not been to GMP much since the Noah move-in) and I am super afraid of NSWATM becoming more GMP-like.
How will NSWATM differentiate itself from the rest of GMP? I mean, thinking of it in the terms of a newspaper with sections…what does NSWATM have that thematically/content-wise sets it apart from the sections at GMP? Is it just the particular writers?
@BlackHumor: Yeah, no. An awful lot of the money handed out is grants for programs. That section doesn’t bar someone from making a program that refuses to help men. It merely means that programs aren’t barred by the law from helping. Nor does it do anything to require a program to actually advertise itself as helping men. You don’t try to buy shoes at the dentists office do you? Even if it did require programs (which it doesn’t) to help, most men won’t realize they can get help at a “woman’s shelter”. So nice try. But no, still sexist. Not… Read more »
Kristine: @Danny: Good post. I think this “I wish that was me” is a rape fantasy (hey, women have them, why not men, too?). And maybe the men saying it for some reason (perhaps the general expectation of men to have lots of sex?) don’t see that reality is very different from that fantasy. Oh yeah there are guys that have rape fantasies but honestly that hadn’t even crossed my mind. But even so making a fantasy out of someone actually being raped sounds a bit cold to me. And I’m not sure if its men that imagine a fantasy… Read more »
I have to say that the statement BlackHumor refers to sounds just like laziness. It is also an implicit admission that there exists language in the law which is problematic in the sense that it can be construed to prohibit services and benefits to male victims. Why not make the name and text gender neutral through and through rather than to slap on a band-aid? As it is now it is kind of like a user with the nick WhiteAryanPower claims that nothing s/he write shall be construed to be racist. I have only skimmed through most of it and… Read more »
Noah is correct, but not for the reason he thinks he is.
From the 2005 revision to VAWA: “Nothing in this title shall be construed to prohibit male victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking from receiving benefits and services under this title.”
@Myself: Thanks for the link to the 2011! I was looking at the link that Noah gave in his post, which was the 2005 version. It looks like Sec. 41305 has been repealed in its entirety, so scratch that. Looking into this more, it looks like this is just one proposed update to the bill. I admit I haven’t been tracking the VAWA renewal stuff very closely. But I get the impression that there are at least two conflicting proposals right now, but I’m not sure where to find them or what the status is on them. Can anyone who… Read more »
One explanation I saw, is that the difference between sex and rape is like the difference between eating chocolate ice cream and having it shoved into your face.
@Danny: Good post. I think this “I wish that was me” is a rape fantasy (hey, women have them, why not men, too?). And maybe the men saying it for some reason (perhaps the general expectation of men to have lots of sex?) don’t see that reality is very different from that fantasy.
Yeah I’m pretty skeptical about the move too, but I’ll keep reading. Trying to see it as a move toward making the GMP better.
@L: I’m taking an innocent until proven guilty type approach. This whole thing seems more like an advertising and hosting arrangement, rather than a true merger. Besides, the only thing keeping those self-same woman-haters from NSWATM at the moment is the rigorous comment moderation, which will no doubt remain.
@PsyConomics: I’m not saying that the quality of their writing will decline or… that ads and revenue will somehow ruin NSWATM, but rather I just won’t be contributing to comment threads because I’ll be drowning in women-hate and stupid if I did. Unfortunately, the comment threads are most of the reason I come here, actually. Well see.
Oh yeah:
http://dannyscorneroftheuniverse.blogspot.com/2012/05/do-you-really-wish-it-had-been-you.html
Just taking a moment to go over the whole, “Gee, I wish that was men!” mentality that guys fall into when it comes to female against male rape and I offer how (I think) they should be thinking about such cases.
It will be nice to have some more sensible feminists hanging around GMP to say the least.
I’m really gutted about the move. I love NSWATM and I’d hate to see it turn into anything like GMP. I have my fingers crossed that it all works out 🙂
Heh, I saw that one coming from a mile away. Awesome stuff, it’ll be nice to have NSWATM be promoted some more, and I’m not too worried about any flood of asshole commenters. It’ll work itself out, I’m sure (Hopefully with only minor graying of Ozy’s hair).
@L If it is any consolation, I’m a little skeptical too. I trust the bloggers here so I am willing to give it a shot and see how things turn out, but I have seen good bloggers get consumed by larger umbrella sites. Now, the umbrella site in question is a pretty bad MRA site and I don’t think GMP has nearly as strong a political spin, but yours were not the only ears raised when reading about the move. I guess at the end of the day I’m willing to trust Ozy and Noah to do their jobs. They’ve… Read more »
Yeah, ditto on the autorefresh, it’s seriously annoying. I do hope this blog manages to sustain its unique character under the GMP banner — I often find that site a bit sex-obsessed and patronising. (Somebody once called it “Cosmo for guys” — a bit harsh, but I can see why.)
@Ozy: Still, you’re likely to get way more regulars from GMP commenting. The vast majority of whom I can’t stand and whose bullshit I have no time for, so like I said, you’d have to ban like, everyone.
@Schadrach: Thanks for the link to the 2011! I was looking at the link that Noah gave in his post, which was the 2005 version. It looks like Sec. 41305 has been repealed in its entirety, so scratch that. From a brief skimming, it does indeed look like the 2011 version is far more gender neutral, along the lines of what I would like to see, which is nice. Whether it is implemented in a non-discriminatory way remains to be seen (and I’m highly skeptical), but IMO that’s a different issue. I would still like to see the title changed,… Read more »
Congratulations on the move, it will be great to have 2 of my favorite internetty places in one spot. Don’t spend all of your money on petticoats, make sure you buy something fun for yourself too.
Seconding the call to ditch the autorefresh. That’s the sole reason why I never visit GMP. When you flip between tabs as much as I do it’s impossible to finish an article without multiple interruptions from refreshing, and it’s really irritating.
You couldn’t get me over to the GMP with the promise of a ten foot high puppy pile. You couldn’t even convince me to lurk.
Good luck, and I’ll be sorry to see you go.