What went down at the Milo Yiannopoulos debate

It was 7:10pm on the second floor of the Michigan League Ballroom. The floor was littered with “Students For Trump” flyers that had previously been on all the seats. The room was packed, every seat was filled. The room was also unequally split — people who supported Milo Yiannopoulos, self-proclaimed “most fabulous supervillian on the internet,” outnumbered those who aligned themselves as feminists.

This became especially apparent as the debaters took the stage: The applause for Milo’s entrance was deafeningly louder than the applause for Julie Bindel, an avid second wave feminist activist. Both Milo and Julie have been banned from college campuses for the same reason: they are not liked by feminists. Julie has been described as “Islamaphobic, transphobic, biphobic and polyamoryphobic.” Milo prides himself on how anti-feminist and offensive he can be. Both don’t like modern day feminism, calling it “entitled” and “fun feminism.”

20 minutes before the event began, most seats were filled and I sat in the back

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But before the debate even began, the people in charge of the event, the Michigan Review, had some words to say. The Review is a news service on campus that considers itself the “opposite” of the Michigan Daily. They said they invited Julie and Milo to debate because it’s important to “stand for the counterculture of traditional views” against the “culturally Marxist views” held by the “self-righteous liberals of this school.” For context: The Michigan Review recently published an article called “Would you rather your child have feminism or cancer” which was banned from Facebook — something they were very proud of.

Donald is always showing up to the party uninvited

The big question

But, I digress (which is also what the debate did). The question of the night was “Does feminism have a free speech problem?” And that’s where we started.

Milo said it did. He implied that modern day feminists like to control the conversation, not allowing people who “don’t conform to your prejudices” to speak. He said modern day feminism cares “more about who you are and not what’s in your head.” This means they care more about protecting people who identify outside the supposed norm than they do about hearing new opinions. He called feminists “entitled special snowflakes.”

Julie agreed that modern day feminists are “entitled” and said they merely sit behind computers, not fighting for the real things. She said that true feminism, the feminism she subscribes to, does not have a free speech problem. Her definition of feminism was the fight to free women as a sex class from the oppression of men as a sex class.

But from there on out the question of the free speech problem was debated no longer. It merely turned into a back-and-forth about hot button topics that cause tension between feminists and anti-feminists.

Julie Bindel and the moderator, UMich Professor of Women Studies and Political Science, Lisa Disch

Thoughts on: the wage gap

Julie said it was real, while Milo said it was not. Julie brought up that not only are women paid less for the same work, they are also treated more harshly. Milo said the wage gap was due to the fact that “women are cognitively different than men” and that women just don’t work as hard. He also at one point — possibly as a joke, but probably serious — talked about revoking women’s right to vote. He claimed women don’t vote in their best interest. (Because every single man is an informed voter, and women are just stupid losers, right?)

Thoughts on: affirmative action

Julie said it was “something feminists hate but it is necessary because rich white men in power are just going to keep hiring rich white men.” Milo said the time for affirmative action has passed, especially since there were now more women in school than men, and they were scholastically outperforming men. Julie pointed out how this is because women do work hard, despite what he had just said in his statements on the wage gap.

Thoughts on: rape culture on campus

Julie, whose work focuses on helping women and girls who are victims of violence, said this is a real problem. Milo said “rape culture is like Harry Potter… fantasy.” He harped on the definition of sexual assault being too broad, saying an unwanted kiss was “just ordinary human sexual interaction and exploration.” Julie countered this, saying no one is taking unwanted kisses to court. Milo continued his argument: “Women now are too sensitive, back in the day if men were to grab their boobs they’d tell them to fuck off.”

Julie countered by saying women literally die because of sexual assault and most men who are tried in court merely get repeatedly acquitted. Milo said women should be taught which situations are dangerous so as to avoid them, and they should stay away from unsavory people, saying “upper class white boys aren’t the ones raping.” (Even though most sexual assaults are perpetrated by someone the woman knows, and upper class white women are not immune to sexual assault.) He said he finds men’s aggressive sexuality “exciting” as a gay man. (I personally think it must be really nice to be excited by something that I perceive as a threat to, you know, my life.)

Spotted: Donald Trump look-a-like

Fun fact about Milo

Throughout the event, Milo referred to Donald Trump as “daddy,” causing his supporters to erupt into a chant of “Trump.” As a note: Milo was sporting blonde hair and was dressed as Trump for this event. Milo says he prides himself on his appearance yet styles himself after someone who has been compared to a troll doll. Yeah, the things with the really crazy hair. Those style icons.

Closing remarks — both theirs and mine

In their closing remarks, they finally came back to the main question: Does feminism have a problem with free speech? Milo reiterated his initial yes, saying “liberal people are the biggest threat to free speech.” Julie said there wasn’t a free speech problem with “true feminism,” and that the greatest threat to free speech was “rich right-wingers who are buying up media outlets.”

So a “meninist” debated a feminist, but who won? If you ask me, no one. This wasn’t a debate to change people’s opinions. Rather than fostering actual debate, the event simply seemed to rile people up, and that’s not going to change anything. Real debate isn’t about two largely disliked personalities reiterating the same old spiel. Real debate — debate that fosters real change — is sitting down, person to person, and talking openly about our beliefs. As a feminist, I don’t think “debates” like this are the way to go. Egging on “meninists” by giving them a platform on which to be the ‘bad boy’ isn’t going to show them that their opinions on women are toxic. People listen best to their peers, and talking to them honestly shows that feminists are people, too.