Category: MRA

Paul Elam: All Your Donations Are Belong to Me

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date July 8, 2014
383 Comments on Paul Elam: All Your Donations Are Belong to Me

Paul Elam, in his hovel.

Heh. I’m on my annual semi-vacation this week, and was planning on keeping my postings here fairly light. But the news waits for no one. And by “news” I mean the daily parade of ridiculousness coming from the Men’s “Human Rights” camp. So here’s a quick report on the latest bit of high irony involving A Voice for Men.

Well, I was wrong. I’ve often noted that the Men’s Rights movement in general, and A Voice for Men in particular, doesn’t actually provide any real help for any real men. Sure, as far as I can tell, precisely zero of the hundreds of thousands of dollars A Voice for Men has raised from donors over the years has gone into providing actual services for men — say, funding a hotline for troubled men or some other practical program that doesn’t primarily involve yelling at women online. But never let it be said that none of this money gods to help men.

Because, it turns out, that money has been going to help men. Or at least that subset of men that consists of one Paul Elam of Houston Texas.

After being pressed for details about A Voice for Men’s finances by anonymous commenters on Reddit, a certain Twitterer named @DavidFutrelle and a journalist from MSNBC, Elam has finally fessed up and admitted that all the money donated to his website goes directly to him. But don’t take my word for it. Here’s what Elam had to say in a post from yesterday:

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MRA "philosopher" Stefan Molyneux: "If you don't have a husband … to keep the child is abusive."

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date July 7, 2014
186 Comments on MRA "philosopher" Stefan Molyneux: "If you don't have a husband … to keep the child is abusive."

Misogyny Theater takes another look at the charming philosopher-king-asshole Stefan Molyneux, who seems to be carving out quite a spot for himself in the world of the lady-haters.

In this episode, some audio excerpts from Stefan Molyneux’s frighteningly well-received talk ostensibly on circumcision at A Voice for Men’s June 2014 conference, as presented in his video “Shocking Misogynist Attacks Feminism, Defends Rape Culture.” Despite the ironic title, this is pretty much an accurate description of his talk, even a bit of an understatement.

The title of my video is a shortened version of something he says in his talk (and in my video). The full quote: “If you don’t have a husband, if you chose the wrong guy, to keep the child is abusive, almost always.”

That’s right: according to Stefan M., being a single mother is, in itself, abusive.

The audio excerpts are drawn from an hour-long talk, so naturally I did some editing. In the interests of transparency, I marked each edit with a little snipping sound.

If you just can’t get enough of this guy, see my previous Molyneux video for more exciting women-blaming.

Scissors sounds and weird background noises courtesy of FreeSFX.

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AVFM's Paul Elam posts attack on the Doubletree Fort Shelby Hotel, suggests that the alleged threats to the hotel were phony

A Voice for Men’s grandly titled First International Conference on Men’s Issues wound down a week ago. But the drama continues.

Today, in a post on AVFM, maximum leader Paul Elam set forth a series of accusations against the Doubletree Fort Shelby Hotel (where the conference was originally going to be held); against an unnamed security contracting company in Houston; and even against some hypothetical “privileged little college girls” who might have had the conference booted from the Doubletree by simply making a couple of irate phone calls, because, at least in Elam’s imagination, “privileged little college girls” have that power.

But the bulk of Elam’s complaints lie with the Doubletree, as the typically understated title of his post makes clear:

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Misogyny Theater 4: Everybody Wants to Shag the MRAs

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date July 5, 2014
240 Comments on Misogyny Theater 4: Everybody Wants to Shag the MRAs

Misogyny Theater is back with Episode 4!

If you paid any attention to A Voice for Men’s recent conference in – well, near – Detroit, you probably heard about the guy who was ejected from the conference after reportedly “petting” a reporter and a number of other men. (You can read about him here.)

In this episode of Misogyny Theater, we return to the Man Going His Own Way who calls himself Sandman to hear his highly speculative theories about this gentleman and his activities.

Sandman also warns Men’s Rightsers and MGTOWers that if they get together in large groups, they will inevitably attract opportunistic sex-seekers eager to take advantage of the man surplus for their own perverse ends. Apparently, angry dudes who hate women are like catnip to gay men and straight ladies alike.

The audio for this little cartoon of mine comes from Sandman’s video “Men’s Rights Molester.” I have indicated edits in the audio with little scratchy sounds. And I’ve bleeped out the name of the alleged molester. Otherwise it’s all straight Sandman.

My previous Misogyny Theater episode featuring Sandman can be found here.

Crowd chatter and buzzer sounds from FreeSFX.

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Defenders of A Voice for Men tell Time magazine reporter "we have to SCARE you into listening," you "stinky … human monkey."

The High Council of Feminism holds a meeting.

Jessica Roy, a reporter for Time magazine covering A Voice for Men’s recent :”Men’s Issues” conference in Detroit, found herself the target of a vitriolic tirade from AVFM maximum leader Paul Elam before she even sat down to write her account of her time amongst the MRAs.

Elam, evidently incensed about a handful of sarcastic remarks that Roy tweeted during the conference, denounced her as, among other things, a “hack,” “a liar and bigot” and a practitioner of “journalistic scumtardery,” whatever that is. Commenters on A Voice for Men happily joined in the hate, denouncing her as an “airhead,” a “disgrace and a liar,” “lil’ miss hair-o’or-her-eyes,” and a “little asshole [who] will look like a right nazi in five-to-ten years time.” Amazingly, no one pulled out the c-word. Evidently AVFMers are still on their best behavior.

Roy’s “What I Learned as a Woman at a Men’s Rights Conference” appeared on Time.com on Wednesday. Far from the hack job Elam and pals were predicting, her piece turned out to be a long, thoughtful and nuanced account that, while skeptical of AVFM and its brand of hateful nonsense, displayed considerable sympathy for some of the troubled men she met at the conference, men who could benefit from a movement that truly tried to offer solutions for men in difficulty instead of encouraging them to scapegoat feminists and women.

Reflecting on her discussions with several conference attendees, Roy wrote,

advocacy of violence all about the menz antifeminism are these guys 12 years old? creepy grandiosity literal nazis men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA not-quite-explicit threats straw feminists

E-mail manifesto writer proclaims THE MENS REIGHTS [sic] REVOLUTION IS AT HAND

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date July 3, 2014
178 Comments on E-mail manifesto writer proclaims THE MENS REIGHTS [sic] REVOLUTION IS AT HAND

The Hate Bus, not to be confused with the Peace Train or the Joy Jitney.

So in my email inbox yesterday, alongside a nagging reminder from my dentist to schedule a checkup and my latest marching orders from the Gynocrat Central Committee, I noticed an email from an unknown correspondent with the intriguing subject line “The Holy War against Feminism.”

Clicking on it, I found an angry little manifesto from someone calling himself Mortago Black. It started off with a bold all-caps claim:

THE MENS REIGHTS REVOLUTION IS AT HAND.

The revolution will not be spellchecked.

But apparently, if Mr. Black has any say over things, it will be “liked” on Facebook: our manifesto-writer followed his bold headline with a link to a Facebook page – which, by the time I got around to looking at his email, had been taken down, probably because it contained stuff like, well, the rest of his manifesto.

Mr. Black continued:

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Fox News host Jessie Watters channels Warren Farrell (and NWOslave) with inane comments on the government as a substitute husband

Fox News host Jessie Watters: seemed to be channeling Warren Farrell with some particularly obtuse remarks he made recently on the Fox show “Outnumbered” on the “single ladies” vote.

Hillary Clinton needs the single ladies vote. I call them ‘The Beyoncé Voters’ — the single ladies. Obama won single ladies by 76% last time, and made up about a quarter of the electorate. They depend on government because they’re not depending on their husbands. They need contraception, health care, and they love to talk about equal pay.

If we ignore the implicit racism of his castigating “Beyonce voters” for being welfare “takers,” Watters is more or less rehashing an old, bad argument that Farrell made in The Myth of Male Power. In a section of the book called “Government as Substitute Husband,” Farrell wrote that “when divorces left women without husband-as-savior, many women looked for substitute saviors … .”

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One Last Damn AVFM Conference Update: Man With a Camera Edition

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date July 1, 2014
225 Comments on One Last Damn AVFM Conference Update: Man With a Camera Edition

It wasn’t this guy.

One last AVFM Conference update, with links to two more stories about that historic event.

The first, a gently skeptical Washington Post story by Monica Hesse titled, with a certain irony, “Men’s rights activists, gathering to discuss all the ways society has done them wrong.”

The whole thing is worth reading. My favorite bit:

One presenter, a military veteran speaking on the treatment of veterans returning from war, put up a PowerPoint slide alleging that 70 percent of men returning from war get divorced, and 90 percent do so within five years. When asked about the source of this statistic, he said, “That particular statistic is from my personal observations. I’m just speaking here as a dude.”

Ah, the prestigious Journal of Statistical Dudeness!

The second, well, it’s a bit more disturbing. DarkHorseSwore – a regular in the AgainstMensRights subreddit who raised money to go to Detroit to cover the convention only to be turned away at the door – managed to finally get an audience with some of the conference attendees and organizers – after the convention, as they celebrated at a bar and then in a hotel lobby. She got this access because none of them knew who she was. (Eventually Dean Esmay showed up and had her escorted off the premises.)

Now DarkHorseSwore has set up a website – DarkHorseSwore.com – and has started posting about the strange 5 ½ hours she spent amongst the AVFMers. She tells the tale of a strange encounter with one of the Honey Badgers and then an even stranger tale of an even stranger encounter with an old man and his camera. You’ll have to go read it. Be warned: It’s creepy as hell.

Oh, and she picked up some amazing conference swag as well. And by “amazing” I mean “possibly the worst conference swag I’ve ever seen, I mean, what the hell, and also why are they all beige?”

A wooden necklace thingy, symbolizing who the hell knows what!

A “What Would Honey Badgers Do?” button!

And last but not least, a Shrink 4 Men chapstick! It’s minty!

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With A Voice for Men’s conference over, Paul Elam has found a new woman to hate.

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date June 29, 2014
138 Comments on With A Voice for Men’s conference over, Paul Elam has found a new woman to hate.

Paul Elam: Voice of reason in the gender debate?

You’ll all be glad to hear that Paul Elam has returned to normal. Well, normal for him.

After several days of doing his best impression of someone who isn’t a rage-filled attention misogynist, he’s back to his old woman-bashing self. You’ll also be happy to learn that he’s found a brand new woman to hate: Time reporter Jessica Roy, who is apparently quite stinky.

elamJessica

I’ve heard rumors that most females are stinky, actually.

Roy, who is covering the conference for Time, hasn’t even published her account yet. Her crimes so far? She tweeted some appalling quotes from some of the talks at the conference and made clear that she was not having a good time amongst the assembled ~~assholes~~ human rights activists. A selection:

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The Chuckles Turned to Guffaws: AVFM conference Saturday wrapup

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date June 28, 2014
299 Comments on The Chuckles Turned to Guffaws: AVFM conference Saturday wrapup

Janet Bloomfield PRs up a storm.

Well, the AVFM conference is over. I thought I’d post links to some of the media coverage today. I’m not sure Paul Elam and co have quite attained the level of respectability they were going for with the conference. It probably didn’t help that their PR gal, Janet Bloomfield, kept posting about “whores” and then, during the final panel discussion, delivered a passionate defense of “doxxing.”

Anyway, here’s the press coverage today: