Culture

Junk Explained: Who Is This Return Of Kings Douche, And Should He Be Allowed Into Australia?

He's most likely getting knocked back for a visa, but could that be a missed opportunity to teach him a lesson?

by Hannah Hawkins  2 February 2016

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This post discusses sexual assault.

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By now, you should have noticed the raging, all-consuming media storm around Daryush “Roosh” Valizadeh, the US-based founder of pro-rape “neo-masculinist” group Return of Kings who intends to visit the country next month to meet with his Australian supporters for the first time. Valizadeh is also the author of several self-published books that give men advice on how to have sex with women in various different countries. Spoiler: one of his hot tips is “no means no, until it means yes”.

As you would expect from someone who advocates the legalisation of rape on private property and thinks “a woman’s value significantly depends on her fertility and beauty”, the articles he publishes are horrifically misogynistic (and often also racist, homophobic and transphobic). You’ll see headlines like, “8 Reasons Why Swedish Girls Are Undateable”, “How Women Train Men To Rape” and “59 Powerful Quotes That Reveal The True Nature Of Women” (excerpt: “Beauty without chastity is a flower without fragrance”).

Return-of-kings-article

Oh, and this charming piece.

He’s also a fat-shaming cyber bully, and is the organiser of an international fat-shaming week. Last year, he appeared on American talk-show Dr. Oz to talk about why he is totally unashamed to spend hours at a time harassing women about their weight on the internet. After filming the segment, Valizadeh said he was “backstabbed” by the show’s producers to look like a monster, if that tells you anything more about this person’s warped sense of reality.

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Where Do These Jerks Keep Coming From?

Far from being a really dedicated professional troll pulling the world’s most elaborate hoax (I seriously considered this when scrolling through the Return of Kings Facebook page), Valizadeh and his followers seem to represent a small radicalised percentage of increasingly hostile men’s rights activists — a movement which exists purely in opposition to feminism. Just like the abusive Twitter army of MRA trolls, Return of Kings primarily focuses its attention on disempowering, demeaning and harassing women, instead of addressing any real issues men face.

Despite his attempts at a Canadian tour last year (his “State Of Man” lecture was banned from venues and denounced by city councils), this Saturday marks the first of Valizadeh’s annual “tribal meetings”, which span across 43 countries, and include Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. According to a post on his website women, transgender men and homosexual men are not invited, and each event’s host — who have been thoroughly screened to avoid feminists infiltrating the group — will reveal the real location after supporters arrive at the decoy one.

The announcement that these meetings will be held inside Australia has been met with significant backlash, and an online petition posted on Change.org yesterday has already gathered over 52,000 signatures. “Australia already has a widespread problem with rape, abuse and violence against women and does not need any more encouragement to harm women from people like Roosh V and his followers,” the petition reads. “What these men are advocating is, and should legally be considered, a hate-crime. Not only should the police stop this event from occurring — they also need to inspect the men attending this event.”

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The Effects Of The Hype

This has only excited Valizadeh further. Originally intending to appear at the Washington DC event, he has now decided to attend the meet-up in Sydney’s Hyde Park after seeing the extent of the outrage he has triggered in Australia.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton responded to the public outcry this morning, saying he is likely to block Valizadeh’s visa. “People who advocate violence against women aren’t welcome in Australia,” Dutton told Fairfax in a statement. “In the past people advocating violence against women have had their visa refused or cancelled.” Australia has cancelled the visas of a string of men in the past, including American rappers Chris Brown and Tyler, The Creator, pro-sexual assault “pick-up artists” Jeff Allen and Julian Blanc, and hard-right anti-abortion extremist Troy Newman.

As it turns out, Valizadeh hasn’t even applied for an Australian visa, and claims he doesn’t need one. In a series of ranty tweets outlining his ingenious plot to arrive by boat because our borders are “weak”, he also implies that Australia will let him in because of his Muslim heritage.

Obviously, he hasn’t been reading up on our treatment of people who arrive by boat without a visa — or our treatment of Muslims.

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To Ban Or Not To Ban?

But despite the potential illegality of his trip, should we ban this guy? After similar visa cancellations in the past prompted progressives to praise the immigration department’s actions, people have pointed out the hypocrisy — and often pointlessness — of them. These officials are the same ones who lock up thousands of asylum seekers in reportedly tortuous conditions each year; they’re not exactly shining beacons of human rights.

There’s also the argument that allowing vile misogynists like Valizadeh into the country promotes debate; and ultimately, he’s a part of a pretty small minority that will only look smaller when he’s greeted by a wave of opposition at the airport. And he will be met with opposition: there’s already been a huge response to the counter-protests set up for Saturday, which would likely see anti-Return of Kings attendees far outnumber supporters.

Founder of feminist activist group “Mad Fucking Witches” Jennie Hill told Fairfax she expected hundreds of her group’s members to turn up to the national meetings. Australians Against Misogyny‘s Natalie Pestana, who helped lead the campaign against the Australian tour of Julian Blanc’s misogynistic Real Social Dynamics, has also organised counter-rallies for Sydney and Melbourne. “We have plans to freely assemble to counteract that group or those individuals who believe in such abhorrent views towards women,” she said.

Cancelling Valizadeh’s visa probably won’t slow him or his movement down — if anything it will just fuel the popular MRA view that feminism is suppressing men’s rights — but thousands of people showing up to his events and protesting his abhorrent teachings might. And whether he physically attends the Australian meetings or not is moot: his Australian followers have been here the whole time.

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