Ryerson students form men's issues group

Ryerson University Students to launch men’s issues group in response to U of T protest against Warren Farrell.

“When protesters paraded into a University of Toronto lecture hall where Dr. Warren Farrell was hosting a Men’s Issues Awareness event last December, Sarah Santhosh didn’t see a peaceful protest: she saw “closemindedness” and “lots of hate.””
So starts a short article at theeyeopener.com, written by Olivia McLeod.
In a near perfect example of what appears to be an approaching cultural tipping point, blowback from the hateful activities of gender ideologues at the University of Toronto has resulted in the formation of another men’s issues group at a major university in the Toronto area. This time, it is at Ryerson University, host to Canada’s largest undergraduate business school. Sarah Santhosh, who started the group, has temporarily dubbed it “The Ryerson Association for Equality,” and is seeking ratification for the group at the Ryerson Students Union. (RSU)
I admit I had a slight twinge of concern when first reading what Santhosh had to say about the RSU group’s focus, which was, “mental health, male youth violence, misogyny, as well as gender disadvantages in education, the workplace and custody battles.”
In the comments to the article, though, she made a clarification that was settling.
 

I misspoke when I listed the issues the group will be addressing. Since this is a group that will be focused on men’s and boys’ issues we will not be discussing misogyny but misandry instead. I apologize for any misunderstanding this may have caused.

 
Apology accepted.
And this is where it gets even more interesting. I noted in the article that the names of the other two executive members of the group were Argir Argirov and Anjana Rao. Being culturally ignorant on these names I had to do some research to see if I could determine whether they were male or female. It appears that Anjana is a female name, and I was unable to make a determination on Argir.
So it appears that at least two of the three executive officers are female.
Given that there has been much discussion in the MHRM over the years about the practicality and efficacy of women playing key roles in men’s advocacy, it would appear that RSU will serve as a test tube to that effect.
Naturally, from the editorial position of AVFM, an organization that takes the sex blind approach to advocacy, we will support the Ryerson Association for Equality until given a reason to not support it; exactly the same position we take on organizations headed by men.
But of course, the first order of business is to see whether the school will allow the group to form. RSU has a fairly rigorous approval process, and there has already been the predicable male privilege card played by a vice president for “equity.”
 

Would it make sense to make a straight people center or an able body equity group?

This question was a vacuous stroke from Marwa Hamad, who is apparently unaware that men are a minority at Ryerson University, or, indeed, that the identification of any group says absolutely nothing about whether they have serious under addressed issues.
So, at RSU there is a little bit of UTSU already raring to go. Did we say that 2013 was going to be an interesting year?
I would like to invite AVFM readers to visit the article linked above and offer some words of encouragement on the formation of this new men’s issues group.
Addendum and correction: In this and a subsequent article on the Ryerson matter, I conflated Ryerson Student Union (RSU) with Ryerson University, which are two separate entities. The efforts to censor the discussion of men’s issues emanate solely from RSU and not Ryerson University. Corrections have been made to the content of this website accordingly, and apologies are extended to Ryerson University. PE

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