Tom Martin’s “anti-male discrimination” case against the London School of Economics dismissed; he responds by calling his critics “whores.”
Hard wooden chairs: Enemy of men?
Tom Martin, a former gender studies student at the London School of Economics, recently became a minor celebrity amongst Men’s Rights activists and other angry men when he sued his alma mater for alleged sexism against men.
He’s now had his case thrown out of court. Let’s go to the Camden New Journal for details:
Tom Martin, 39, who lives in Covent Garden, claimed he suffered “anti-male discrimination” while studying for a master’s degree in gender, media and culture at the world-famous university in Holborn.
Representing himself at his application for a trial at the Central London County Court on Tuesday, Mr Martin complained of a lack of men-only sessions in the university’s gym and the preponderance of posters in the corridors advertising services for women without the presence of similar materials geared towards men.
Mr Martin, who describes himself as a feminist, said “hard” chairs in the library were uncomfortable for men and that a “male blaming culture” was evident in course materials, which “ignored men’s issues” and focused on wrongs done by them.
Damn those misandrist chairs and their man-hating hardness!
The judge didn’t buy it, saying Martin’s case had essentially no chance of success. He threw out the case and ordered Martin to pay LSE’s legal costs.
Martin, welcome to reality.
On Twitter, Martin responded to the news by calling his critics “whores.” One of many examples:
But I was really discriminated against, you whores!
And, yes, his Twitter handle is indeed Sexismbusters.org.
EDITED TO ADD: Actual headline today on What Men are Saying About Women:
EDITED AGAIN TO ADD: Tom Martin has replied to this post in the comments. Some highlights:
My legal complaint did NOT involve a complaint about the seating. You have been misled by the press – The Times and the West End Extra/Camden New Journal both mysteriously got it wrong.
One year prior to joining the university, when visiting its library, I did complain, that the seating being hard created a greater disadvantage for men than for women, as men have considerably smaller weight-bearing buttock pads than women, and men are heavier too – so for men, on average heavier than women, have more weight bearing down onto a pad which is approximately four times smaller than women’s on average – according to a BBC documentary on the subject.
He then details his attempts to fight this grave injustice. Also, there’s this:
[S]everal comments here are confusing ‘whore’ with ‘slut’. A slut has sex freely, which I am all for. Freedom of association is the ultimate in humanity. A whore charges for sex. Even if a woman is a virgin, but is waiting for Mr Right to buy her something, she’s a whore.
It’s counter-intuitive, but a lot of professional feminists are whores. They expect the government and men to do them special favours. They make up stories to convince men and government to believe that we all owe women something.
But really, if someone were keeping a tab, then…
Women owe men five years pension.
Women owe men some National Service.
Women owe men some inventions.
Women owe men positive discrimination in university curricula.
Women owe men some child access.
It’s women’s round at the bar too.
For the whole thing, see here.
For more charming quotes from Tom, see this post on the blog Butterflies and Wheels.
Like this:
Posted on March 16, 2012, in actual activism, antifeminism, I'm totally being sarcastic, irony alert, misandry, misogyny, MRA, oppressed men, twitter, Uncategorized, whores. Bookmark the permalink. 1,386 Comments.
Here’s the part of the article Tommy has a problem with, from the conclusion:
I do not think the words mean what Tom thinks they mean…
Jesus Christ is he still here?
@Quackers
Yup. But look at it from the bright side. More entertainment.
Yup. Don’t when to quit, does he?
I just saw Tom’s “male monsterism” quote and had to post this footage of a male monster:
*Don’t [know]*
A post with lots of links from Tom got caught in the moderation filter; it’s up now, near the bottom of the previous page.
That ending was hilarious “Tom can be reached at…”
*goes home laughing*
Don’t MRAs always say men and women are sooooo different, and women are too emotional and interested in stupid girl things and talk too much etc. I’ve heard many men say that men and women can’t just be friends because the man wants to sleep with her? there was a youtube video on this. Not the best evidence I know, but they interviewed college guys and practically all of them admitted to wanting to sleep with their female friends and thought women and men can’t just be friends. Non-surprisingly all the women said the opposite. Also dont “nice guys” just act nice to get in the girl’s pants?
Somehow it doesn’t surprise me women prefer spending time with other women more. Its not because of misandry, it’s because plenty of guys make it pretty obvious they just endure women for sex or hang out with them in hopes it will get them closer to sex…with friends like that who needs enemies?
Thanks very much, random6x7 and cloudiah.
Predictably, Tom’s response was to gush away with a Gish Gallop. Bets on whether any of those other claims will stand up to any scrutiny?
I’ve started referring to my kittens as “cute little whores,” because they are always wanting things from me: food, ear scratches, belly rubs, lap space, etc. I no longer know if it’s good or bad that I am so desensitized to the word… They seem unfazed by it.
Does anyone else suspect Mr Martin’s “idea” for videoing every sexual encounter is actually trying to form the basis of a possible defence in court (“You see, your honour, I was only trying to protect myself from a false rape allegation…”).
Quackers:
I suspect the basic flaw in that methodology is highlighted by the words “college” and “guys”.
I’m a man, and I most definitely don’t want to sleep with my female friends - in fact, I can think of maybe two in the last decade besides my wife, and in both cases this was easy enough to suppress.
But I’m twice the age of the average college guy, and very happily married (and feel free to read “happily” any way you like), so I have no incentive to fantasize constantly about other women - my imagination is far more profitably spent doing other things.
For instance, like coming up with interesting subjects for conversation, which may be a reason why I almost certainly have far more genuine female friends than the likes of Tom Martin and John the Other.
Hey Tom, what can I do to stop being a whore?
I think you have to renounce prostitution as a minimum - though of course that’s “prostitution” using Tom’s rather wide-ranging definition of the term, so that might be a bit of a philosophical challenge.
And I suspect that even if you pulled it off convincingly, it may not be enough.
@Wetherby
That’s a good point. Age is definitely a factor…and I also noticed that many of the women in that video were also very conventionally pretty.
Don’t get me wrong I do think men and women can be just friends. I myself have male friends and every woman I know has male friends too. I guess the internet is making have a cynical perspective on things recently :/
The nice guy™ behavior thing really ruins things though. People who do that (and it does include some women too) are being dishonest and manipulative. Then when things don’t go how they want it too they get bitter and start hating on the entire opposite sex. Like romantic relationships I think friendships should have clear boundaries too…well I don’t know if boundaries is the right word. But it should be made clear that the two people are friends only.
Which to me is just mad - and usually symptomatic of a very limited knowledge of the opposite sex. I’ve had relationships with women who turned out to be genuinely dishonest and manipulative (thankfully in the low single figures, but I’ve certainly had them) - but in those cases I simply extricate myself from them and move on.
In fact, I was rather impressed with my ruthlessness with one girlfriend: once I’d established beyond any possible doubt that she’d told me a direct lie about something important, I pulled the plug on our relationship there and then. And I met my wife within a fortnight, so I’m actually rather grateful to her in retrospect.
Yes, absolutely. In fact, I was furious with a fuckbuddy of mine after my female flatmate complained to me that when I was out getting a takeaway for the three of us she’d been given the third degree about whether or not we were really “just friends”.
First of all, yes we were - we’d known each other for about eight years, completely trusted each other not to have underhand motives, and had started living together mainly out of financial convenience. Secondly, since the fuckbuddy in question was shagging at least two other men at the time to my certain knowledge (which is why she was a fuckbuddy rather than a proper girlfriend), what business was it of hers?
I started to answer every that Tom said, but I’m gone for a night and now there is way too much BS to be answered.
I might be wrong, but has he gone into meltdown? It’s hard to say since his normal more is “whore whore whore whore whore whore whore whore whore “, but it sound even worse now.
I’m really torn over this.
On the one hand, Tom is by far the funniest troll we’ve had since Arks first emerged - absolutely no contest.
On the other, I’m increasingly coming to suspect from his behavior in this thread alone that he may have genuine mental health issues - and he also has a massive near-$60,000 debt as a by-product of all this, which he presumably can’t come anywhere close to paying.
So while I’m normally more than happy to point and laugh, in this case his all too evident real-world problems are giving me pause.
@Wetherby - he’s also claimed before that his whole thing is part of a comedy project, so I find myself wondering if he’s a prankster, particularly with the little quips he makes at the end of his posts eg. “I’ve also made daisy chains”. But I’ve worked on the UK stand-up scene in the past and I’m struggling to think of a comedy promoter or stand-up who would not be utterly horrified by him - and I speak as someone on friendly terms with Frankie Boyle, so that’s saying something!
Then again, he argues for hours and hours and he seems to absolutely *relish* the attention he’s getting. I honestly don’t know what to make of him at all…
True - and of course if this whole thing is some bizarre comedy/performance art stunt I can readily appreciate why it’s impossible for him to admit it, since that alone would completely torpedo his appeal.
(Stating the obvious, I meant legal appeal, not appeal in general - that’s already been comprehensively sunk below the waterline).
Yes, it has! If it is all a big joke as well, it’s just not…funny. It’s funny at first in a “I can’t believe you’re saying these things.” kind of way, but after a while the whole whorewhorewhorewhorewhore thing just gets a bit boring.
RE: Quackers
The whole “men and women can’t be friends because of SEX” thing is bollocks. I mean, reverse it just for a sec for gay men. “Men can’t be friends because they always want to have sex with each other.” Do you seriously believe no gay man can be friends with another man without wanting to bone them? I assure you, it’s not true. (Also, seeing how you can get bashed, gay men who DO get attracted to the wrong men usually can keep themselves from ogling, staring, or anything that might end up with them getting a beer bottle to the face.)
It’s horseshit. I’m mostly ace here, and I still think it’s horseshit. I mean, by that logic, bi men can’t be friends with ANYBODY!
-Rogan
LBT
I think its astoundingly egotistical when straight people presume that of course the person who is gay is automatically attracted to them. And its that presumption that drives a lot of discomfort with the gay community. Strangely, when you ask the straight person if they think someone of theopposite sex is going to fall all over them, the person can give qualifiers for why that may not happen. And they get pissed when you point out that gay people have the same needs to choose based on their own personal preferences.
While filming his video I could help but notice Tom walked past scores of men and women sitting together in groups, or walking together (while he of course was alone). All he really would have to do to realize that men and women are friends is look around.
Seeing him he’s not got the look of your typical living in the parents basement troll that a lot of mra’s have, it’s a pity he’s so lonely.
Kavette I don’t pity him at all. If he wants to rigidly maintain such a toxic set of beliefs and assumptions and he’s lonely as a result, as far as I’m concerned that’s just divine justice. He’s been trolling blogs for quite some time now, and people have presented a great deal of evidence that should at least make him question himself. Yet he refuses to do so. He made his own misery and with equal effort (probably less since he wouldn’t have the emotional burden of resentment) he can umake it.
RE: Pillowinhell
Funny. Only time I’ve encountered that were cis gay men who were worried I might be attracted to them.
LBT why does the word irony spring to mind?
Slight TW for homophobic statements
I’ve known a few straight men who “justified” their homophobia by saying gay guys were going to hit on them all the time and that’s just the worst thing ever. “It’s not that I have a problem with what ‘those people’ do or anything, y’see, it’s just that they shouldn’t be forcing it on me by hitting on me.” Turns out, it doesn’t really hold water as an explanation for homophobia, since when you ask them why being hit on is so incredibly terrible, they’ll almost invariably say “because they think I’m one of THEM! I’m a real man! I ain’t no prancing fairyboy! I like girls, you hear me, girls!” showing they have incredibly negative attitudes about gay men in general. Besides, most of these guys also really dislike lesbians and it’s not like lesbians are going to be hitting on them all the time.
That TW was probably silly, since I took out the uglier parts of my comment before I posted. But, whatever.
RE: Pillowinhell
I totally misused the word irony there. (Ugh! One of my pet peeves too!) It just strikes me as odd as how it seems to be the direction of that fear of hitting on goes. The cis straight men fear getting hit on by cis gay men because they aren’t like THOSE guys, the cis gay men fear getting hit on by trans gay men because they like DICK, DICK, do you hear me, and so on.
LBT, just. Wow. Its amazing how humans are always so ready to push people away. Having ideas about what you like in a partner physical or otherwise is fine, but why the fear and hatred I’ll never get. At least not when it comes to hating on groups or individuals that have never done you harm.
Sorry to hear you’ve had those expiriences though.
I think a lot of people have fluid boundaries for friendship, so they’re perfectly okay with sleeping with their friends. I notice that it comes up a lot on feminist writings about “I used to be a nice guy” posts and Friend Zone posts, where a lot of male and female feminists counter that with anecdotes of friend that they sleep with, or friends that become lovers. For me, OTOH, I have a strict Friend Zone. If someone becomes a friend (rather than just a friendly acquaintance), then sex is completely off the table AFAIC. However, like 85-90% of my female friends range from conventionally pretty to conventionally beautiful, so if someone were to ask me if I would want to sleep with them in the abstract, I would definitely answer yes. Practically all of my female friends are my “type”, but I have zero desire to risk my friendships for sex.
Personally, I think the “Men and women can’t be friends because sex.” thing is self-fulfilling. If you’re only interested in getting to know someone because you want to fuck them, then of course you’re gonna have a hard time being “just friends”.
RE: pillowinhell
Thankfully, it’s only happened once. I’m married, monogamous, and a good chunk ace, so the one time it DID happen, I was kinda boggled. (Also, the guy was kinda a twit. Why would my rusty old hormones surge for him?) These days, I hang with so few cis gay people (I swear to god, all of my friends these days are frickin’ bi) that it doesn’t come up.
RE: Shadow
My husband was a friend first, but my sexuality is rigged so I CAN’T be interested in anyone otherwise. I can’t comprehend any other way.
@Rogan
Yeah, and I know a lot of people that go that route even when it’s not part of their sexuality per se. And I get why, I would trust starting dating one of my friends much more than I would a relative stranger. I just trust friendships much more than relationships, so I hold my friendships to be more sacred. Other people are willing to risk friendships because they consider relationships to be “something more” or “the next step”, so it’s worth taking a chance for them. Different strokes and all that
Homophobia: The fear that a gay man might treat you the way you treat women.
RE: Shadow
Ah! That makes sense. I get that. In my case, I often see the relationships as equivalent, but the romantic ones have more physical stuff. If I can’t be friends with someone, there’s no way in hell I’ll be able to stand them touching me. (I have a personal space larger than some European countries.)
RE: giliell
But men and women are DIFFERENT! Women LIKE that (unless they’re whores).
I know it’s catchy, but doesn’t it seem appropriative as fuck to anyone else too?
Ladies and gentlemen, the Men’s Rights Movement in a nutshell.
I’ll add, that the idea for lie detector tests is bad, not just because it fuck’s people civil rights, but because it’s inefficient. Haven’t lie detector tests been ruled inconclusive/insubstantial evidence in courts? But of course, that’s probably a result of the gynocracy, because, whores.
Also, I’m really at a loss as to how Tom thinks the majority of straight, cis/het relationships work. I’m currently at an age where a lot of my friends are getting married and/or starting families. I don’t know ANY new fathers who have this all-consuming paranoia that the DNA in the children they call their own doesn’t match.
Rather, they are thrilled to be fathers at all. And oddly enough, trust their wives. Fucking bogus, I know.
I agree with the catchy part , though it’s incomplete, that’s not all there is in homophobia. It seems however like a good definition of this kind of expression of homophobia. But I’m not sure what you mean by it being appropriative.
Hand on heart, there was not one single millisecond during the gestation of my children when it crossed my mind that I might not be their father. Their actual birth established their paternity beyond any possible doubt (in fact, it was really quite unnerving holding my son for the first time and effectively seeing a shrunken version of me), but even during the nine-month build-up it never occurred to me that it would turn out any other way.
In a word, yes. In a bunch more words, I think that men being afraid of other men hitting on them does, in many cases, have some connection the misogynistic idea that being hit on is the woman’s role and womanly things are bad, and that femmephobia is a common aspect of homophobia; but there’s a hell of a lot more going on with homophobia than this, and when straight women (and mostly straight women, like me) bring it up as the most important or only aspect of homophobia we are centering ourselves.
Viscaria: thanks, I needed the longer version.
I think part of it is also the shortcomings of our language. Because we group everything under homophobia, with no subsets, you can’t refer to the various subsets in particular without going “Straight men who are scared that gay men will hit on them, thus treating them in a way that treats them as feminine”
BTW, if Tom is still around, here is the luckiest man there was:
http://www.explosm.net/comics/1944/
@Rutee Katreya
It was not meant as an exclusive definition.
It was made in response to a comment that told of such an occurence, hence there was context.
I do fully know that there is more to homophobia than this, that the reasons in heterosexual women are different, and so on.
It is only a catchy phrase in the appropriate context.
This is how every man I know who is a father feels. Even my own father, who’s got some sexism issues and who’s marriage with my mother hasn’t been the best, isn’t stupid enough to suspect that that I’m not his daughter. Not just because I’m basically him, lady-version, but also because in spite of all their rocky relationship issues, my parents DO trust each other and always have.
And I’d bet my bottom dollar that a paternity test to “prove” my relation to him wouldn’t magically fix everything between them and bring about world peace.
Also, totally unrelated, but the chair thing, he does know that academic institutions have been using cheap, totally fucking uncomfortable chairs since before lady-types were even allowed to attend them, right? To what does he account this “misandrist” use of hard chairs in times when the only folks attending higher institutions were all these heavy, bony assed dudes?
I know, I know, whores. The answer is always whores.
Yeah. If it turned out that my father wasn’t genetically my father, he’d still be the guy who carried me around Boston on his shoulders, who taught me how to ride a bike, who ran me to the hospital when I got hurt, who hugged me and said “I love you no matter what” when I was in trouble, the guy who’s bethe my father and my teacher and my friend for twenty-six years.
What’s a SPERM next to all that?
To be honest, if a man don’t want kid and wont participate in raising it except by giving money to the mother, it’s really better to know if the DNA matches. But that doesn’t make it worth spending 400$ * 90% of the population of the world for nothing.
2 520 000 000 000 $.
Governments helping single parents so that they don’t have to rely on the other genetic parent sounds a hell lot cheaper.
Tom: The pre-sex contract could be a simple, quick, application on a mobile phone which records the man and woman’s voice, or videos it, so eradicating fraud. It does not to be a four page document in triplicate.
Where is it stored? How is it authenticated? Can it be unilaterally revoked? When? How? Since it’s a contract what are the considerations given by each party to the other?
What if, as with me, one has a moble phone which doesn’t do apps (seriously… my phone is good for one thing, and one thing only… talking to people. No camera, no texting. It has an alarm clock, and a really arcane “reminder” system, a calculator, and a calendar. That’s it).
Contracts are not simple and easy, even when they are straightforward. Breach of contract is a thing. Revocation is a thing. Withdrawal is a thing. Negotiating them is a big thing, and far too often surrendered in boilerplate and EULAs.
You know so little about so much. It’s a wonder to behold.
Molly the difference with the TSA screening pictures, is that they weren’t automatically scrambled (and no, I don’t give a shit about someone perving at an x ray, because I’m smart enough to look at the bigger picture)
Like making everyone take a paternity test in which something less than three percent of the results are going to say, “He’s not the one” and less than that are going to be people who would otherwise care.
But you want to make it a worldwide thing, so you can sleep easy at night. That’s some pretty big picture; keeping it all in perspective thinking going on there.
And the mask comes off. It’s not about what’s right, or wrong, or good policy… it’s about, “fucking their shit up”.
fuck your civil rights you lying whores
That’s all you need to see to know what Tom’s about. It’s not the chairs. It’s not the problem of men not being welcomed into largely female programs… it’s that he wants to strip the civil rights of women, and those who think they have rights.
Maybe after being sent to prison for a crime you didn’t commit, you might change your minds about the seriousness and extent of falseys (and misandry). I’m all for sending manboobzers to prison.
False accusations about rape… bad. Putting people who have committed no crime in prison, just to prove a point… fine; if they are feminists.
He’s not fighting for equal rights for men. He’s fighting to make sure women are second class citizens.
Unfuck you, for the rest of your life.
The chair thing is still fascinating me: it’s the only original troll though I can remember since I’ve been hanging out over here. My sense was that in fact the chair historically was pretty much barebones (but still only for the elites! peasants, serfs, slaves, etc. stood).
So some links on chairs:
Wikipedia: History of the chair
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_chair
Random History: From Benches to Barstoold
http://www.randomhistory.com/2008/11/11_chair.html
THE HARVARD CHAIR:
http://www.everythingharvard.com/chairstory.htm
Social history of the chair (photograph):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/theurbansnapper/2588182342/
Yup, chairs are connected to social standing (or social sitting ahahahha)
http://www.articleonlinedirectory.com/398348/the-history-of-the-chair.html
*original troll THOUGHT
He could had taken a better route