MONTREAL – McGill University is under fire from MRActive, a group of Men’s Rights Activists that is demanding a safe space on campus to complain about the women’s safe space on campus.
“We just feel like we’re not being heard”, said MRActive leader Calvin Sanderson to a group of reporters from national newspapers and broadcasters, “All we’re asking is for a significant amount of university resources and space dedicated to us that we wouldn’t even need if we hadn’t been thrown out of the women’s safe space when we went there to explain to them why they were such bitches for refusing to engage in intellectual debate”.
Sanderson says the group is also interested in issues of high rates of male suicide and mental health issues, and custody law. “People keep saying ‘high rates of suicide and mental health issues among men are often a result of a patriarchal system in which men are made to feel that seeking help is emasculating, leading them to try to deal with their issues on their own’ but we’re not sure what that means. We really just want a room to be in”.
Sanderson is not alone in challenging safe spaces for women. “It’s a university, you’re going to come up against opposition. Women shouldn’t need safe space because people disagree with them” says Isaac Ross, a proponent of the group who has never been called a whorish slut by someone who disagrees with him. “It’s a restriction to our right to free speech, not giving us the same resources as groups over whom we have considerable power in today’s society. Why shouldn’t we get a safe space too? I mean, I’ve never felt unsafe, but maybe I will someday.”
The Men’s Rights group has had an ally in Jonathan Kay, editor in chief of The Walrus. “We need our own group too” said Kay, shortly after interrupting the only woman on a CBC panel as she expressed concern that Men’s Rights groups were often straight, white men talking to straight, white men.
The McGill student union has decided not to provide the MRAs with a space, though it does have a list of recommendations for where they can go, and what they can do when they get there.
