WITH a tea towel for a cape and a plastic sword, that's how I think of Daryush Valizadeh, the self-styled Roosh V.

A wee shouty laddie with too little self-awareness and too much time on his hands, the laptop hero of legions of other wee laddies who are too feart to be shouty on their own but flourish when some bolder misogynist tells them they're quite alright.

Mr Valizadeh, who, at the age of 36, still lives at his mum's house, has caused all manner of stooshy by trying to arrange a meet-up of like-minded gentlemen in 165 locations across 43 countries.

Mr Valizadeh is a pick-up artist or, as the kids have it, a PUA. The PUA employs a tactic known as "negging" whereby they insult a woman in order to tap in to her assumed insecurities and so make her work to win the chap's approval. The premise is that women should be psychologically manipulated into welcoming a man's advances.

You might think this is madness but it's a commonly used technique by chaps who are too daft to know better.

Mr Valizadeh is also a poster boy for the neo-masculinist movement, which taps into the primal fears of a certain type of modern man - fear of rejection, fear of blurred sexuality, fear of loss of primacy, fear of loss of control, fear of female autonomy.

From his mum's basement in Maryland, Mr Valizadeh writes such seminal tracts as The Intellectual Inferiority of Women. Last year he called for rape to be made legal on private property, but later claimed this was satire.

For his global meet-ups, aimed at facilitating the sharing of tips for coercing women into unwanted relations with odious men, attendees would approach and ask, "Where is the pet shop?"

These events, for his band of merry misogynists, are named Return of Kings. Taking the evidence at face value, you'd really just want to send them all home to their mothers.

Thankfully, that was the general consensus. Both men and women alike poured a molten stream of scorn on these meet ups, which were due for Saturday evening.

The Toronto Newsgirls female boxing club offered to turn up gloved and chat through The Return of Kings manifesto. Glasgow did particularly well with Mr Valizadeh tweeting that he had received more threats from the city than "anywhere else combined".

The Scottish Defence League said it would lend muscle to the protests. It certainly gives you a moment's pause when you're on the same side as the SDL.

Eventually, though, this PUA was forced to cancel his plans: "I can no longer guarantee the safety or privacy of the men who want to attend on 6 February."

Mr Valizadeh aimed for his global meetings to be secret and instead ended up with more publicity than he knew what to do with. What a neat little legerdemain.

Except, I don't think he's bright enough to have predicted the level of attention he garnered. And so, to Mr Valizadeh, I would like to say a hearty thank you.

Thank you for sparking a conversation about modern misogyny and how lad culture facilitates violence against women.

And to everyone else: can we keep talking, please? Can we talk about the fact that an occasional protest in reaction to a specific threat is fine but for real change we need a more consistent approach?

Our culture demonises women's sexuality while commodifying their bodies for the sake of the male gaze and we allow it.

Can we talk about the small things? Can we not put lipstick and nail polish on wee little girls, teaching them they need adornment, that they're not fine as they are? Can we not get upset at the sight of Susan Sarandon's cleavage as she attends an award show?

And can we talk about the big things: why women are assumed to have the low self-esteem required for PUA culture to thrive? Can we talk about street harassment and how only around 15% of victims report serious sexual assault to the police?

Daryush Valizadeh and his impotent meet ups have shown his theories for the limp nonsense they are but we can shut down the everyday sexism that allows the space for pathetic crusades such as his to flourish. Now is a good time to start talking.