Photo: Matt Boggs | The Sentinel
Sierra Hubbard, Staff Writer
“Male Students in Peril”, a conference on issues facing men and boys, was hosted by KSU Men on Saturday Nov. 1 in the Student Center.
The event featured five guest speakers, including Paul Elam, founder of A Voice for Men, anti-feminist writer and lecturer Karen Straughan, and Jonathan Taylor, founder of A Voice for Male Students. Topics ranged from social constructs and stereotypical views of masculinity to the critique of feminism. The conference closed with a panel discussion.
“I’m really happy with how it’s going,” said Sage Gerard, president of KSU Men, during the event. “Already there’s an environment where people are thinking ‘let’s talk about this’.”
According to Gerard, the purpose of the Male Students in Peril conference was to “open the dialogue on educational equity issues affecting men and boys and encourage KSU students to set a positive example to that effect.”
The event had several sponsors, including Jeanne Falla of the National Coalition for Men NorCal Chapter, the largest donor, and Paul Elam and his organization, A Voice for Men.
“We take individual cases of men in the criminal justice or family law system and we go about fighting the injustices that they’re dealing with,” Elam said, referencing cases of fathers who had wrongly lost custody of their children and even a politician who had been falsely accused of domestic violence. “The other thing we do is we are working actively to help groups like KSUM start. We [also] spread and disseminate information, we produce videos on YouTube and do radio programming – just generally trying to talk about these issues and get them out there.”
The keynote speaker, Jonathan Taylor, has written articles as a contributor to the AVfM website and is the founder of AVoiceForMaleStudents.com. His speech covered areas of the educational system that need attention in regards to the rights of male students and instances of feminist protests to conferences and talks on men’s issues.
“I do think there is sort of mutual hostility – I think that’s obvious – between men’s [rights] advocates and feminists,” Taylor said, adding a critique. “Feminism as an ideology is premised on the concept that the oppression of women is a central factor in our society whereas any disadvantage that men face is more of an incidental factor in society.” He adds, however, that no one should take what he or anyone says at face value.
“I encourage skepticism of all new ideas. I think skepticism is an intellectual virtue, being someone who is a former teacher. I do think that everyone should be skeptical.”
Karen Straughan, a freelance writer and lecturer of anti-feminism, spoke on her beliefs and clarified the label. “It’s a petition against an ideology, a set of beliefs, a set of assumptions that I don’t feel are valid.”
“I may be very critical of feminism, but I’m certainly not weaponizing men against women or anything like that,” she said, emphasizing the point that anti-feminism does not seek to create a hostile environment.
“I think it’s important to get the message out there that being an anti-feminist doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a shitty person.”
Straughan referenced the demonstration by YESbody! that took place on the Campus Green last week. “Think of the protests to this events organized by feminists here at KSU,” she began, claiming that the group did not provide a counterargument to KSUM or any open dialogue.
“It was an elaborate, artistic protest about rape and rape victims, casting this event and KSUM as a potential threat to women.” She then facetiously called the audience a “bunch of misogynists” and was answered by cheers and applause.
Sierra Kihlstadius and Carlynn Sharpe, KSU students and co-presidents of YESbody!, attended the conference and were present during this part of her speech.
“To be told by a speaker that she didn’t like our demonstration and then to have the entire room applaud – that was very intimidating,” Sharp said. “Given that none of them have seen it, I’m not really sure why they’re so upset about it.”
“I still resent the idea of them representing it as a protest,” Kihlstadius added, “and then kind of attacking it as our way of trying to silence them, when YESbody!’s intention is never ever to silence anybody.
“It’s a little insulting that she said that we didn’t provide any other information. We had their links in our binder and we had our links in our binder.”
“We just wanted to provide rape statistics and statements from survivors,” Sharp continued, “so that people could be exposed to that before they came to hear that rape is not an issue and that rape hysteria exists.”
While acknowledging valid points from the speakers, neither of the girls were swayed by the conference.
“I’m still very much holding onto my beliefs as a feminist,” Kihlstadius said.
Sharp agreed, adding that there was a focus on “the false notion that no feminists care about men’s issues”.
Sage Gerard was not only aware of the demonstration, but he donated to the fundraiser to help make it happen.
“I was actually really happy that they got the chance to do it,” Gerard said in response to the demonstration, though he did disagree with the message. “I did feel that the overall attitude was a little bit misguided on the impression that KSU Men and A Voice for Men were, in some way, trying to silence rape victims. This was an impression that they got based on this paraphrasing of the men’s rights movement position on false rape allegations which was oversimplified in this journal they had near the front.”
Future reporters take note: Sierra Hubbard is setting a very high bar
for reporting without injecting her personal prejudices into what she
writes. She knows the story is not about her, it’s about the people and
events. Well done, Sentinal, and well done, Ms. Hubbard.
By the way, we all saw photos of the protest and read the descriptions online. We support people’s right to protest us. Other than that and the fact that Karen Straughan’s name is misspelled, this seems like a very responsible and fair journalistic piece.
Thanks Sierra Hubbard for writing such a balanced article. I am truly impressed.
Isn’t it a sad commentary on the profession of journalism — and a demonstration that it has fallen so deeply into corruption — that we feel compelled to thank each journalist who know how to do a competent job on an article?
This is one of the most accurate, realistic and damming descriptions of feminist that I have ever heard. THANK YOU!
I had a great time at the conference and almost all of the feminists were well-behaved to their credit. I learned alot from the speakers and plan on attending the next one. Thank you for writing a balanced article about the event rather than slamming it like the mainstream media does.
I paraphrased 1 of the the sayings written on the display figures when speaking to Sierra Kihlstadius and Carlynn Sharpe. But I guess we never seen the work they did. I had a fairly lengthy discussion with them, 2 times. Perhaps you should ask them what I’ve experienced at the hands of gender ideologues. Not limited to but including doxing where I live within a mile of my residence, being attacked with a makeshift weapon and having my name google poisoned for exposing fallacies found in feminism. Threats against my well being from pauper and police officer alike.
Why you may ask?
Because I speak truth to power and expose feminism for profit.
I’m not the only 1 MHRA has experienced some or all of these things mentioned.
Regarding: “I’m still very much holding onto my beliefs as a feminist,” Kihlstadius said.
This is a statement of beliefs, like belief that the world is flat. More than anything, feminism is a tribal religion that holds the view that opinions and beliefs can magically eradicate facts and physical reality.
The psychology of denial and the study of the psychology of cult indoctrination can shed a great deal of light on the aberrant mindset represented by feminist magical thinking (called “critical theory,” etc.).
A story about a men’s rights conference where both protesters and conference speakers were contacted for comment? Outstanding. This is the type of journalism we need more of.
If the feminists in the audience were familiar with how accusations of misogyny are used as shaming tactics against anti-feminists and MRA’s you would understand why Karen’s comment at the conference and the similar comment by Dr. T at the ICMI are appreciated and applauded. Of course I haven’t seen the conference yet, don’t know exactly what the timing on what was said was, have little knowledge of the campus politics behind the YESbody “protest” and so should likely be dismissed.
I’m glad to see increasing dialogue on gender that is not completely dominated by feminist ideology. Both feminists and men’s rights activists (MRAs) say they are about equal rights. So why would there be a clash? Because what feminism says and what it does are two different things. It is not MRAs who wrote laws that exclude male domestic violence victims and their children from state funded services. It was not MRAs who fought against joint custody laws. It was not MRAs who supporting giving one gender lower criminal sentences than the other. It was not MRAs who argue that only one sex gets discriminated against, or that all of the problems of one sex are because of the others. It was not MRAs who tried to create a “man tax” in Sweden. It was not MRAs who mobbed the homes of the Duke Lacrosse players before they even had a hearing. It was feminists who did all that. And yet feminists say it is they who are for equal rights. Not so.
Great job writing this article and well-balanced too. See my footage of the conference:
http://youtu.be/NfmgDfLyYEU
I would like to formally apologize for that misspelling of Karen Straughan’s name! That was a sincere mistake that I should not have missed!
It’s women like you who are the hope for the future. Journalists who do solid work are always a huge threat to totalitarian tyrants. Let’s hope you have other such tyrants shaking in their shoes as your career progresses…and that includes even MHRM”s who might be tempted to pull from the feminist playbook.
Awesome article, Sierra! Thank you for being fair and balanced.
Paul Elam is a known misogynist and his website A Voice for Men and supporters are classified a hate group by many sources. Masculinity is complex but Paul and A Voice for Men peddle hatred of women and misinformation. Vice, Salon, NYT, Pew, Guardian and many more expose AVfM’s views.