Thursday, November 20, 2008

"The Anti-Dworkin", aka John Dias

As we await John's reply to a recent post here, I wanted to give visitors to this blog some information about who John Dias is and what he does.

John is listed at the "anti-man-hating" site as being 38 years old and refers to himself as "The Anti-Dworkin".

He is the founder of the website dontmakehermad.com. It's motto is: "Stopping False Allegations with Surveillance Technology".

I am linking to two pages from his website with more info about John. The first, here, is his FAQ page. The main function of his site it to get men who live with women to purchase surveillance equipment so that if a man is falsely charged with domestic violence by a woman he lives with, he'll have proof that it was really she who is the abuser or, at the very least, a liar.

The story about why he created that website is linked to here.


He joined antimisandry.com on July 13, 2006, which, though a while ago, is not when the site was hatched. The site's first listed member, Marx, has a "join date" of Nov. 5, 2005. That antimisandry website also has members ranked according to what they term reputation. This appears to be similar to a ranking system found in Scientology, in which Tom Cruise is first or second most reputable. At the antmisandy site, reputation appears to connote one's commitment to the Men's Rights Movement, antifeminism, and related activism and writing, including postings on their site. John Dias is listed as among the most reputable members. [Note: I am not making any other comparisons between this antimisandry site and the Church of Scientology. For one things, antimisandry.com doesn't appear to ask its members to hand over all their money.] From what I can tell, members are primarily from North America and the UK; most are male, but not all, and most are white.

John is a skilled debater; he's no novice as we can note here, on a page where he gives Men's Rights Activists an opportunity rank themselves.

He is practiced in scoring points when debating on feminist and Men's Rights issues.

John tends to use liberal argumentation.

Another regular at antimisandry.com, dyslexic banana argues similarly here, about prostitution.

There are things that outrage me in the course of a day. Sometimes it's the latest news story about the latest battered and killed ex-wife, usually by the man who "loved her" [here meaning wanting to completely possess and control her]. Sometimes it's the news of a woman coerced into sexual slavery. Sometimes it's the news from yet another woman or gay man leaving an office workplace, who has been harassed on the street, yet again, and followed by a predatory man after she or he made it clear, usually far too respectfully, that s/he did not welcome any contact. Sometimes it's blatant or subtle white male supremacist racism in combination with misogyny and heterosexism, which shows up in too many ways to name here.

According to this post, there was a particular Diamond Ring billboard that really angered John. I'm not sure how he reacts to the far more numerous billboards, print ads, and online industrial strength pornography, which relentlessly and virulently depict women as things that apparently exist for [hetero] men to exploit, f*ck, and rape. Perhaps he'll address this too, in his reply.

2 comments:

  1. Hey, I'm here by way of Heart's blog. *waves*
    I just wanted to thank you for doing what you do and for calling these ass hats out. Somehow it has a bit more impact when a man does it.

    "Oh noez! What about teh poor hetero white menz! The world we created through dominance, violence and genocide no longer pleases us! It must be everyone else's fault!"

    I'm going to lurk about some more now because you have some fantastic stuff on your blog!

    Best,
    Evo

    ReplyDelete
  2. Welcome, Evo.

    (Waving back!)

    Please stop by any time!

    The level of white men's willful self-centeredness, arrogantly self-serving focus, and endless self-pity, about the actual conditions women of all colors and men of color live in and with is astounding. I'm not surprised, for as you well note, that's what politically privileged determination to be ignorant about human suffering (of those other than that the white man in the mirror) does to a person.

    Lurk away, and please comment whenever you are motivated to do so. It is my goal that this blog be a (relatively) safe space for all women, where no woman will be verbally attacked in any manner.

    It remains to be seen whether a man calling men out has any greater effect. But regardless, I think it is what men who are in the midst of other men ought to be doing.

    I despise and accept the fact that, on matters of male supremacist oppression, a sizable percentage of men will only listen to criticism from another man, not from a woman.

    To me it is a given that any woman's voice, speaking from the perspective of one who is being oppressed by men's actions and institutions, ought to have more legitimacy than the men who oppress her. I believe her humanity, and possibly also his, would best be supported, as Pearl Cleage says, by him adopting "a posture of listening" when being challenged by those he harms.

    I appreciate your support.

    Take care!

    ReplyDelete