Live action from York Vision on International Men’s Day 2015.
University officials are facing a fresh backlash over plans to host a controversial speaker on campus.
Milo Yiannopolous, a journalist and entrepeneur, could come to the university to speak about men’s issues and the recent controversy over the decision by officials not to mark International Men’s Day. Writing on Twitter, he said the demand was “huge”.
York Vision understands that even if the university blocks plans to host him, he could speak at a nearby off-campus location.
Meanwhile, the other key developments in the ongoing row over International Men’s Day 2015:
+ A decision by the university to cancel marking the day has been branded “disgusting” and “shameful”.
+ A petition calling for the day to be marked passes 3,000 signatures.
+ Parenting rights group Fathers 4 Justice say they have been contacted by students intent on staging a walkout at midday today.
+ University Radio York has been forced to apologise after controversial comments were aired about the event during a live broadcast.
+ Splits have emerged in YUSU after a statement issued by Women’s Officers Ananna Zaman and Katherine Mellor said that one side of the argument was airing “misogynistic” views that YUSU President Ben Leatham was not taking account of.
+ Students could face university and YUSU investigations over harassment claims linked to the event.
+ MPs will later take part in a debate on International Men’s Day, with one member speaking because of events at the university.
+ Senior management stands by decision to cancel marking the event in a fresh statement to students issued by email.
+ A BBC radio presenter has branded the dispute a “soap opera” as bungling university bosses continue to make headlines nationally and internationally.
Keep up to date with the day’s happenings via our Live Blog below. Coverage provided by Thomas Butler-Roberts (TBR) and Jack Gevertz (JG).
[liveblog]
It appears to me that the organizers of the open letter which shut down the event are claiming that anything negative said as a result is “hate speech”, that allegations of rape and death threats should be treated as factual enough to panic over without bothering to so much as verify their existence, and that therefore this entire thing has turned into a Monty Python sketch.
They say that women are the only ones facing systemic discrimination, and i say that only one gender has a federal budget and their own *entire department* at university.
David Levene,
Screw you.
Men do suffer from systemic discrimination far worse than women do.
The list of issues and statistics is too long, check out the run down at
http://www.realsexism.com/
If having the government spend 1/4th as much on your healthcare, give you 60% longer prison sentences, deny you custody of your children, and continue to provide special assistance to the gender that is already ahead in education, what on God’s Green Earth WOULD constitute systemic discrimination!? What could be more systemic than the state!?
What a beautiful day. Even the BBC ran a pro male article without the usual ideological crap they usually reserve for Mens Rights. Feminism and it’s drivel is dead. Just too stupid to lie down.
What a beautiful day. A Jessica Valenti, Clementine Ford sandwich couldn’t piss me off today.
This has all turned into to such an incredible farce, men of course suffer from problems that definitely need to be acknowledged. Women across the world are of course are subject to systematic oppression not being able to take certain professions or access education etc.
But the way this has been handled i think everyone can see has been hilarious at best and appalling and sickening at worse. neither (extreme) side should have anything to joke about and should not come out with their heads held high. To dismiss the issues men suffer from as simply their own fault as part of the patriarchy and to dismiss the people who are fighting against the systematic oppression of women as nazis are simply proving godwin’s law (As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1).
The fact that people are scared to speak out, due to the fear of being branded a misogynist or worse, or simply being dismissed as being just, whatever gender they identify as, is just not acceptable and i think thats one of the few things 90% of people can agree on.
This needs to be a unified front and if both parties actually cared about the betterment of society then it already would have been made as such.
This is just going to be a slanging match and maybe we should start doing something to remedy that and maybe try to help the situation rather than just trying to prove points.
I encourage Mr. Levene to completely rethink his position.
“They are not a liberation group, because as a group they have disproportionate political power.”
–Except that men are not a “group” in any meaningful sense. Sharing genitals does not suddenly mean that the enormous percentage of men who have zero political power beyond one nebulous vote are magically empowered.
“International Men’s Day has problematic origins, with the founders clearly having an agenda of belittling the fight for women’s equality.”
–This is fraudulent, if it is not an outright lie. In any case, what difference should it make? Since Mr. Levene cannot identify these scalliwags, presumably he doesn’t think it makes a difference, either, beyond its value as handy, disparaging rhetoric.
“The issues men disproportionately suffer from – suicide, depression, addiction, homelessness – are in no small part caused by a patriarchal system that mainly serves to subjugate women and enforce gendered roles.”
–So its men’s fault, is it? This is the most shameless, even disgusting sort of victim blaming. Furthermore, it is men for example who are systemically discriminated against in the criminal justice system, where for identical crimes they are punished far more severely than women.
The idea that the oppression of ordinary men is not systemic is belied by every fact available to us.