Category Archives: a voice for men
[TRIGGER WARNING; UPDATED] A Voice for Men commenter claims that the Newtown shooting is evidence of the oppression of men
Men’s Rights activists and others in the manosphere often complain that it’s unfair to link their movement to killers like the virulent antifeminist mass murderers Marc Lepine and Anders Breivik, even though the antifeminist, anti-woman ideology of these killers is oftem indistinguishable from MRA thought.
But the plain fact is that they make the links themselves. Whenever there is some sort of mass killing by someone who is driven at least in part by the hatred of women, it seems like it’s only a matter of time before some MRA steps up to, if not explicitly endorse the killer, at least suggest some sort of sympathy or empathy with him and/or to suggest that the killing in some way is an understandable or justifiable or even praiseworthy reaction to the the alleged oppression of men.
This time it seems to have happened with record speed. Over on the A Voice for Men forum, one commenter, GregA, compares the mass killer in Newtown today — whose motives are still completely unknown — with oppressed people rising up against tyranny in the Middle East:
So far the only reply he’s gotten challenges this odious comparison, so that’s a tiny bit comforting.
Naturally, the MRAs will say that this commenter is some sort of feminist troll. But he’s made dozens of comments on the AVFM forums that are standard-issue MRA stuff – he seems to be a bit obsessed with the notion that feminist commenters online are being paid for commenting – and his comments in the past (at least those that I looked at) seem to have been generally well-received there.
EDITED TO ADD: If you would like to discuss the Newton shootings without having to think about this horrible comment of GregA’s, I’ve set up a separate no-trolls, no MRAs, thread for that.
EDITED TO ADD MORE: Meanwhile, over on A Voice for Men itself, one of the first commenters in a thread on the subject blames the shootings on, you guessed it, misandry:
Meanwhile, AVFM “managing editor” Dean Esmay complains that feminists “will find some way or other to blame us in specific for this.” In case Esmay is reading this, I am not blaming the Men’s Rights movement for this shooting, mainly because we have absolutely no idea what motivated the shooter. What I am doing is pointing out that someone on AVFM’s own forum, someone who has previously posted there extensively, is comparing this murderer of children to some kind of freedom fighter, and another in the very thread you are posting in has decided (based on absolutely nothing) that “misandry” is to blame.
You may also recall the numerous comments from MRAs justifying or at least excusing, the Seal Beach shooter.
Here are some more MRA comments on the Seal Beach murders which I chose not to post at the time. These are from A Voice for Men. (In the original thread they weren’t next to one another; there’s more horrible stuff in the thread besides these two comments.)
Are these guys “feminist trolls?” No. They are both long-time commenters at AVFM.
But again, pointing out these horrible comments is not the same as blaming the MRM for that shooting, or for the shooting today.
In the case of Lepine and Breivik, people linked them to MRAs because they had (or in the case of Breivik still has) virulently anti-feminist worldviews virtually identical with much of the stuff posted regularly on Men’s Rights sites, and other “manosphere” sties generally.
Presumably we will learn more about this shooter’s motivations, and then we can decide if anyone besides the shooter himself is to blame.
EDITED TO ADD ONCE MORE: Elam has now shut down the thread on A Voice for Men; as I write this the thread on the A Voice for Men forum is still up. I suggest you take a look at it and make screenshots. Elam says it’s because I’m “using comments from the thread in order to push his lies.” It’s not clear how quoting his followers (in full, without edits) is a “lie.” Apparently he’s unwilling to let his followers continue to post comments because, we can only assume, he knows they will say more horrific things, and people outside the AVFM cult might see what those inside it actually think.
Not, at this point, that there’s much doubt about what they think.
EDITED TO ADD STILL MORE: Meanwhile, over on The Spearhead:
As most of the readers here will know, the shooter was 20 years old, wasn’t a father and the shooting had nothing to do with any custody battle.
Canada: Land of Danger for Men and Boys?
Canadian feminist trying to eat a man’s butt
I’ve seen some strange and paranoid comments on Men’s Rights hate site A Voice for Men, but this recent comment may be the strangest and paranoidest I’ve ever seen. In the comments to a post outing one of the protesters at the Warren Farrell talk at the University of Toronto, a commenter called Redfield is worried that Canada has now become some sort of death trap for men. Because of all the feminism.
Man Boobz readers would like to offer support for A Voice For Men’s doxxing victims in Toronto
A Voice for Men has doxxed another student who was at the Warren Farrell protest at the University of Toronto. Her “crimes,” aside from going to the protest? She posted jokey comments on Twitter and a picture suggesting that it’s a good idea for people to get consent before having sex with other people. The Men’s Rights hate site has pledged to reveal the information of as many (female) protesters as they can find, and place them on Register-Her.com, its phony “offenders registry” which features feminists targeted by AVFM alongside convicted murderers and child molesters.
Readers of Man Boobz, in Toronto and around the world, would like to offer whatever support they can — moral or practical — to the targets of AVFM’s hate campaign. If you are one of the victims, or know how to get in touch with one of them, please contact me at futrelle [[at]] well [[dot]] com and I will pass their messages along to you.
EDITED TO ADD: If anyone has any messages for Sophia, the latest victim, I have a way I can pass them along to her. Just email them to me, and let me know if you want me to pass your email address along to her as well. Anything you want confidential will be kept confidential.
MRA Videoblogger JohnTheOther, Hypocritical Defender of Doxxing, Doxxes Himself
This guy, who enjoys outing anonymous college students and making videos featuring his own endlessly talking head, wishes to remain anonymous.
Some months back, I made a post in which I referred to the mysterious JohnTheOther by his real name. I didn’t think this was a big deal, since John — whom regular readers know as the number two man at Men’s Rights hate site A Voice for Men – had previously used his real name, and linked it to his online pseudonym, in various writings of his and on YouTube. But he asked me to remove his name from Man Boobz because, he said, he was being harassed. So, out of courtesy to him, I did.
Now, frankly, JohnTheOther is making me feel like he played me for a sucker, and is making me wonder why I continue to pay him this courtesy.
MRA Paul Elam Launches a Hate Campaign Against a College Student for Attending a Demonstration and Making Twitter Jokes
Paul Elam, Poster Boy for a Hate Campaign
Paul Elam is a 55-year-old man who once told a feminist foe that “the idea of fucking your shit up gives me an erection.” Today he’s launched a campaign of defamation against a college student that’s clearly intended to intimidate her and other feminists into silence. The alleged crimes of this woman, whom Elam identifies by name? Possibly attending a demonstration against MRA author Warren Farrell at the University of Toronto, possibly tearing down posters for the event, and making a couple of jokes on Twitter. Oh, and she also once suggested that Farrell was a misogynist.
Elam has not yet revealed what effect this new campaign has had upon his penis.
While her (apparent) attendance at the anti-Farrell demonstration is what brought the young woman to Elam’s attention, he seems particularly puzzled and enraged by two jokey comments she made on Twitter. In one of them, she joked that her “political position” was “kill all men hail satan.” In the other, she said she was thinking about getting knuckle tattoos that spell out “misandry.”
These jokey comments have evidently convinced Elam that
She doesn’t just hate men; doesn’t just want them dead or silenced or marginalized or ignored. She at least entertains the idea of permanently marking her skin with that hatred, like a convict signaling gang affiliation.
Pretty harsh words from someone whose YouTube handle used to be TheHappyMisogynist. (Check the URL here.)
So what exactly is the point of publicizing her name, which will give the assholes now posting rape threats and other violent shit about the demonstrators at that Warren Farrell protest the real name of a real, live person to harass?
Elam, while carefully avoiding any direct incitement of harassment and/or violence, makes clear that his aim is to “stop her.”
[She] is not going to stop. And no one at the University of Toronto is going to stop her. We can figure that one out by the fact that they chartered clubs to enable that kind of conduct.
For that reason, we bring her to public attention here at AVfM.
Additionally, over the next two days, she will be listed on register-her.com as a known bigot, and her image and name will find a place on our display of featured offenders.
Elam promises to do the same, by name, to others who attended the protest as well.
The best way to strike back at Elam’s campaign to shut up critics of his hateful Men’s Rights ideology? Make more noise.
If anyone is interested in reaching out to the student and any others who may be targeted by Elam, please contact me or leave a comment below. And if anyone knows how to contact her, please send me an email.
(Also, at one point Elam describes Farrell as “an individual who has dedicated a lifetime to helping children in trouble.” Oh, is that what he was doing when he was working on a book that he said would highlight the alleged “positive” aspects of incest?)
EDITED TO ADD: Just to make clear, this woman is not the same woman that Elam and JohnTheOther were talking about in their previous posts; it’s a different woman, who appears only briefly in that video. It’s not clear if they have the other woman’s info, but if not they are certainly still looking for it.
FeMRA TyphonBlue: What if the men who seem to run the world … AREN’T REALLY MEN?
Women ruling the world?
When confronted with the simple fact that men hold the overwhelming majority of positions of power in the world – in government, business, culture, and pretty much everything else – MRAs like to pretend that the actual gender of those in power makes no difference because, well, the men in power are probably a bunch of manginas doing the dirty work of the women who really run the world. Or something like that.
Indeed, some MRAs have even managed to convince themselves that the very basic historical and sociological fact that men in power, by and large, tend to represent men’s interests more than women’s interests is some sort of locical fallacy – something that they’ve labeled “The Frontman Fallacy.”
Now A Voice for Men contributor and YouTube videoblogger TyphonBlue has done these guys one better in terms of sheer antifeminist loopiness. In the comments on one of the Warren Farrell protest videos I recently wrote about, she argues that men in power don’t really push male interests because … they probably don’t even think of themselves as men.
Here she is, writing under her other nom-de-net Genderratic:
I don’t even know what to say to this. I mean, WHAT?!
PROTIP: You’re not going to convince anyone you’re a great ally of trans* people if you refer to them as “it.”
JohnTheOther of A Voice for Men Seems to be Completely Losing Touch With Reality
The imaginary feminist conspiracy plots against JohnTheOther
I am beginning to wonder – seriously wonder — if JohnTheOther of A Voice for Men has completely lost touch with reality.
Take a look at this angry, delusional tirade he posted on Reddit yesterday after a couple of his AVFM comrades were banned from Reddit, possibly for their promotion of “doxxing” – that is, their attempts to find and reveal the personal information of a Toronto feminist activist. In this embarrassing public meltdown, JtO turned on the regulars in the Men’s Rights subreddit for criticizing AVFM’s doxxing campaigns – and accused them, astonishingly, of being a gang of closet feminists.
A Voice for Men’s Attempts to Find and Publicize the Personal Information of a Toronto Activist Could Threaten That Young Woman’s Safety
[TRIGGER WARNING: RAPE THREATS]
The Men’s Rights movement has been described by some as “the abusers’ lobby.” I don’t think that’s fair, but there are certainly those within the movement that fit the bill – not necessarily because they themselves are abusers, but because, among other things, they lionize abusers and advocate on their behalf.
In the case of hate site A Voice for Men, there is another way in which the term applies: the “activism” of the site and its followers, insofar as it consists of anything more than self-promotion, often mirrors the actions of abusers – AVFM is known for harassing individuals, usually women, and exposing (or threatening to expose) personal information that could be used to stalk and harm them, in an attempt to intimidate them and other feminists and shut them up. Indeed, the site on several occasions has offered $1000 “bounties” on the personal information of its foes.
Splitsville! A Voice for Men and Bernard Chapin are having a sort-of-hilarious feud
(Tempest not pictured.)
If you stuff a bunch of angry, narcissistic, egotistical twits into a “movement” the size of a teapot, it is perhaps inevitable that there will be drama. So I’m pleased to report on a dramatic BREAKING STORY in the Men’s Rights “movement” – a split between A Voice for Men and the bald, blabby, bigoted far-right videoblogger Bernard Chapin.
Well, I’m not sure how much of a BREAKING STORY it is. It happened about three weeks ago, but I only just noticed it yesterday.
The Coming Single Mom Crime Apocalypse: Not Really a Thing
Manosphere misogynists love fantasizing about a coming apocalypse, invariably caused by the bad behavior of feminists and/or women in general, and invariably resulting in feminists and/or women in general lost and forlorn and realizing their mistakes, returning to men begging for help and asking for forgiveness. Like Doomsday Preppers waiting for the planet to suddenly shift on its axis due to the sudden reversal of the magnetic poles, most of the apocalyptic misogynists don’t seem to have the faintest idea of what they’re talking about.
