15 Nov 2020

"BLM - Blokes Lives Matter!" ICMI20: Glass Blind Spot - Canaries In Chicago: Snapshots From ICMI19

Justice for Men & Boys, & the women who love them: The Glass Blind Spot describes the phenomenon where people consciously or unconsciously ignore information relevant to a conversation or debate about equality because it would significantly undermine or detract from their preferred narrative. We all have our own little biases or blind spots but a ‘Glass Blind Spot’ is so big that an elephant could hide in it.

The Glass Blind Spot Project has been pointing at those elephants since 2015 and documenting examples of damaging disingenuous dialogue, duplicity and double standards displayed by public figures purporting to champion equality and human rights for all. Karen Straughan calls it the most criminally undersubscribed channel on You Tube which features a number of acclaimed collections including: ‘Gendered Violence' Through the Prism of a Pandemic; Government’s Hate Speech; Virtual Abuse; Problems with Men and Talking Sense Not Sensibility. [For a fuller profile, check out the speakers page https://icmi2020.icmi.info/?page_id=27.] This video is one of 120 videos published for the sixth International Conference on Men's Issues (2020) http://icmi2020.icmi.info, a conference originally planned for Sydney, Australia, but later turned into a virtual conference due to Covid-19. From #metoo to the American Psychological Association’s guidelines pathologizing “masculinity” as harmful, to Gillette’s razor adverts blaming all men for the actions of a damaged few, ideologically motivated groups have used unchallenged narratives of female victimhood to promote damaging stereotypes about men and boys, masculinity and men’s relationships to each other. More than ever before, recognition of men’s issues is needed. Men and boys deserve compassion, they deserve consideration for their unique needs, and they deserve our support. Men and boys also deserve respect for their unique contributions to society and an end to the promotion of unkind stereotyping of being harmful, abusive, toxic, selfish and hateful. We would not tolerate this stereotyping directed towards any other group. We are in an era of unprecedented ideological conflict. By reducing men’s ability to take a positive identity from their masculinity we are encouraging young men to pursue ever more radical ideologies to find a place to belong. In turn we are also encouraging young women to embrace an identity as society’s victims rather than its equal co-creators. The inaugural conference was held in 2014, and since 2016 the conference has been held annually: - Detroit (2014) - London (2016) - Gold Coast, Australia (2017) - London (2018) - Chicago (2019) Playlists of all 100+ presentations at the conferences (as well as the 120 at this one) are here, along with playlists of the presentations at the Messages 4 Men conferences in London (2017-19) and the (UK) National Conference on Men's Issues, “Domestic Abuse is a Men’s Issue, Too” (2020): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKhX... The conferences deal with the social and legal issues that disproportionately (or uniquely) affect men and boys. This year’s conference is being held online, with the publication of 120 videos (one per hour, every hour) from midday, Saturday, 14 November, to midday, Thursday, 19 November, 2020 (International Men’s Day), Sydney time. Our thanks to Tom Caulfield, Technical Director at Justice for Men & Boys, for his impressive launch video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bC13...

 

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