They Told Me Feminism Was a Mental Illness…
…and I couldn't help but wonder, who's the crazy one here?
I was emailed a press release yesterday, unsolicited, from an organisation whose mailing list I never signed up to, something that has happened a lot since I moved to the US.
As someone who worked in media and, shortly thereafter, in marketing, around the same time the GDPR legislation was enacted in Europe, I never thought I’d say this but: all is forgiven. Come enact your legislation worldwide; I miss it so.
Anyway, I usually waste no time in sending unsolicited emails to spam, in the vain hopes that Google will start recognising them as such and doing the sorting itself (instead of what it likes to do, which is to send emails from companies I actually like – offering discounts I find truly enticing – to the spam folder for no good reason whatsoever).
This one, however, sucked me in with the subject line: “‘I am full of rage:’ NYC Meeting Reveals Why Feminism is a Form of Mental Illness.” (Who wouldn’t open this email?!)
I was even more intrigued by the signature:
Edward E. Bartlett, PhD
President
DAVIA: Domestic Abuse and Violence International Alliance
Internet: http://endtodv.org/davia/
It seemed… odd, to say the least, that a domestic-violence-related charity would send on a press release1 that suggests that feminism – “the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes” – is “a form of mental illness”, so I dug a little deeper.
A quick search reveals one of DAVIA’s favourite hashtags, #GenderEqualityForMen, while some more digging shows that DAVIA enjoys using the Depp-Heard trial to somehow “prove” their assertion that 70% of domestic violence incidents involve a female perpetrator.
Furthermore, DAVIA has spearheaded campaigns including “International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Men”, “Parental Alienation” (you can probably guess which parent they’re worried about) and “Stop False Allegations”, a campaign that opens, once more, with the disproven assertion2 that Johnny Depp was wrongly3 accused4 of domestic violence by Amber Heard5.
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