Search Results for elam
Does A Voice for Men really think that firebombing is a form of non-violence?
Reading through some comments on Men’s Rights hub A Voice for Men the other day, I ran across a fairly bloodthirsty contribution from an MRA with the charming nickname Brutal Antipathy, suggesting that the Occupy Wall Street protesters needed a bit of what he called “the ol’ Tienanmen Square treatment.”
Mr. Antipathy’s rhetorical outburst struck me as fairly typical of the tough-guy rhetoric that the site’s regulars love to indulge in — though usually the targets of the rhetoric are feminists, not Occupy Wall Street activists.
So I was a bit surprised to see site founder Paul Elam respond with this:
It seems a little odd for Elam to claim to be shocked — shocked! — to find such rhetoric on his site. Elam, after all, seems to positively revel in making his own vaguely threatening pronouncements towards his ideological enemies.
In a recent fundraising appeal, for example, Elam let out all the stops:
We now have a team of individuals that goes beyond what we advertise on our pages, and we are gearing up to add a new doomsday prophesy to 2012. Let’s put it this way: The fembots better hope the Mayan’s were right about next year, because they would rather deal with that than the things we are cooking up. …
Progress for men will not be gained by debate, reason or typical channels of grievance available to segments of the population that the world actually gives a damn about. The progress we need will only be realized by inflicting enough pain on the agents of hate, in public view, that it literally shocks society out of its current coma.
Elam is purposefully vague about just what he means by “inflicting pain,” but it is hard not to read this comment as a threat of something dire.
Others on the site are similarly fond of this sort of vague, threatening language. MRA blogger Fidelbogen, recently brought on board as a contributor to AVfM, let loose in a recent comment on those who think MRAs should tone down their rhetoric towards feminists and other enemies:
Apparently, Elam believes that the deliberate vagueness of these kinds of threats makes them shining examples of Gandhian non-violence — or at least that it gives the site the requisite “plausible deniability” if — when? — someone actually moves beyond the threats to actual violence.
It’s ok, evidently, to talk about “inflicting pain” on your enemies, so long as you don’t specify just how. It’s ok to boast about frightening your enemies, to muse about “stalking” individual feminists, to post their personal information online, and so on and so on.
Heck, apparently it’s not even a problem if someone, using the personal information provided on the site, actually tracks down individuals targeted by Elam and pals and quite literally kills them. As AVfM managing editor John the Other put it in a recent post (which I wrote about here):
And what if they get killed David? What if rather than be arrested – as promoters of hate, and public advocates of murder, what if these depraved and murderous female supremacists come to harm at the hands of a citizen. If that happens, it will mean that a society’s system of law, designed to prevent hate organizations, and to allow redress of grievance through non violent due process is gone, wiped out by your ideology of violence and hate.
Nonetheless, JtO, like Elam, insists that “I do not and will not lend myself to the support of violence, or indeed, of murder.”
But all this dancing around the issue of violence is rather a moot point, given the one rather striking exception that Elam has allowed to his “no explicit advocacy of violence” rule.
And that is the terrorist manifesto he’s been hosting on his site since last summer.
I’m referring, of course, to the lengthy manifesto written by Tom Ball, a man who burned himself to death on the steps of a courthouse in Keane, New Hampshire last summer in a protest against what he saw as unfair treatment in family court.
Ball has been hailed as a hero in numerous articles on AVfM, and he is mentioned in an “invocation” in the new theme song for AVfM Radio.
The manifesto is posted on AVfM — in its “activism” category.
What sort of “activism” did Ball advocate? Hint: It involves Molotov cocktails, and government buildings.
In his words (emphasis mine):
So boys, we need to start burning down police stations and courthouses. … [T]he dirty deeds are being carried out by our local police, prosecutors and judges. These are the people we pay good money to protect us and our families. And what do we get for our tax money? Collaborators who are no different than the Vichy of France or the Quislings of Norway during the Second World War. All because they go along to get along. They are an embarrassment, the whole lot of them. And they need to be held accountable. So burn them out. …
There is no evidence that the police, courts, or government is planning to do anything different in the immediate future. And they will not do anything different until we make it so uncomfortable that they must change. Bureaucracy at its worst. So burn them out. This is too important to be using that touchy- feeling coaching that is so popular with business these days. You need to flatten them, like Wile E. Coyote. They need to be taught never to replace the rule of law. BURN-THEM-OUT!
Most of the police stations built in New England over the last 20 years are stone or brick. Fortunately, the roofs are still wood. The advantage of fire on the roof is that it is above the sprinklers. But even the sprinklers going off work to our advantage. There is no way they can work in a building with six inches of water. And I am certain we will disrupt their momentum once they start working out of a FEMA
At this point the AVfM editors cut Ball off in mid-sentence, and insert this “Editor’s note”:
Editor’s note:
Several paragraphs in this copy of Mr Ball’s original letter have been omitted. The omitted paragraphs contained detailed instructions on the manufacture and use of simple incendiary devices.
If you are really interested in seeing the omitted sections, you can find the complete manifesto elsewhere in the Mansophere.
Ball was quite serious about all this, and hoped that his self-immolation would inspire other “activists” to “manufacture and use” his favored sort of “simple incendiary devices,” as the AVfM editors gingerly put it. Ball himself was a bit more blunt:
I only managed to get the main door of the Cheshire County Courthouse in Keene, NH. I would appreciate it if some of you boys would finish the job for me. They harmed my children. The place is evil. So take it out. …
And bring a can of spray paint to these fires. Paint the word COLLABORATORS ( two L’s with an S on the end) on the building before you burn it.
Ball frankly acknowledged that if others followed his suggestions, people would die:
There will be some casualties in this war. Some killed, some wounded, some captured. Some of them will be theirs. Some of the casualties will be ours.
How does Ball’s explicit advocacy of terrorist acts directed at government buildings, acts that if carried out would almost inevitably mean the deaths of people within those buildings, square with Elam’s purported no-advocacy-of-violence policy for his website?
You’ll have to ask him. I have no fucking clue.
The All-Singing, All-Dancing Men’s Rights Movement
Not a picture of Jade Michael and the FTSU Crew
The Men’s Rights Movement now has a theme song! A couple of talented young men calling themselves Jade Michael and the FTSU Singers Crew have put together a catchy little grunge rock number they call Go My Own Way, which will now serve as the opening music for the A Voice for Men internet radio show.
As AVfM head cheese Paul Elam puts it, straining his prose-generating abilities to the breaking point as he attempts to find words eloquent enough to describe this new musical masterpiece:
Jade Michael, artist, professional musician and MRA, founder of Artistry Against Misandry, has taken his talent hammer and given it a mighty swing to our benefit. He has forged, in the fires of his own passion, the new theme song for AVfM Radio, titled Go My Own Way. It is not to be confused with the similarly titled offering from Fleetwood Mac, Go Your Own Way. No, not in the least. Jade, with his band, Jade Michael and the FTSU Crew, have produced a veritable anthem for the red pill crowd. It is replete with a great, purist rock sound, a touch of humor, attitude, and a ton of gut level, red pill honesty. Pay close attention to the end for the invocation of Thomas James Ball.
Without further ado, here’s the song:
You can find the full lyrics on YouTube and on AVfM. But I thought I’d share a few of my favorite bits.
The song starts off by addressing one of the most savage injustices faced by men today: evil ladies who expect men to hold doors open for them.
And we’re through with holding doors
Entitlements abound
You say that we still hold you down
And you cop that attitude
No remorse or gratitude
Seriously, ladies, would it hurt you to say “thank you” once in a while, to the men who literally enable you to walk through walls, by holding open the doors you would otherwise be unable to open? To paraphrase Barbie: Doors are hard!
Then there’s this bit:
You’re obsessed with my ability
I won’t be your utility
I’ll never carry you
And I sure won’t marry you
Women around the world, consider what you’re losing here: no longer can you expect to marry guys who hate you so much they made a song about how they won’t hold doors open for you!
And let’s not forget:
Cos’ the time has come to fuck your shit up
The time has come to fuck your shit up
The time has come to fuck your shit up
Perhaps I’m missing some of the subtleties here, but this sort of suggests to me that Jade and the Gang are not so much Men Going Their Own Way as they are Men Still Hanging Around Acting Like Assholes — not MGTOW but MSHAALA.
I appreciate the efforts of Jade Michael and the MSHAALA, but I can’t really help but think of this little song-and-dance number, from the excellent Belgian horror film Calviare (The Ordeal), as the Men’s Rights movement’s unofficial anthem.
In case you’re wondering, this scene makes a little bit more sense in the context of the movie itself. A little bit. It’s actually quite a brilliant little film with some interesting gender stuff going on in it, if you can deal with fairly violent horror films. But, oh my lord, TRIGGER WARNINGS for pretty much every trigger there is.
NOTE: In case you’re wondering about the song’s reference to Thomas Ball: Ball burned himself to death outside a courthouse in Keane, New Hampshire last year in a protest against what he saw as unfair treatment in family court. He hoped that his suicide would inspire other men to start firebombing courthouses and police stations. (This wasn’t mere rhetoric; in the lengthy manifesto he left behind he provided tips on how to make effective Molotov cocktails.) Naturally, many in the MRM have hailed him as a martyr for Men’s Rights.
“And what if they get killed?” A Voice for Men as an antifeminist Witchfinder General
So John the Other has responded to my post about A Voice for Men’s “bounty” on the makers of the SCUM video. It’s a fairly unhinged rant, even by his standards. Here’s the money quote:
It’s a bizarre bit of circular logic: if some deranged asshole literally kills one or more of the videomakers, this is proof that the Swedish justice system isn’t working, which therefore justifies the deranged asshole’s actions. So the existence of vigilante violence justifies vigilante violence that justifies vigilante violence.
Since when is making a video a capital crime?
After all this, John rather bizarrely claims that “[u]nlike David Futrelle, I do not and will not lend myself to the support of violence, or indeed, of murder.”
That’s because, according to his daft logic, shooting the videomakers would count as “self defense,” because evidently someone posting a video on YouTube that you don’t like is equivalent to someone coming at you with a knife.
While challenging AVfM’s “bounty” — without actually defending the video in any way — apparently means that I support murder. Go figure.
Vincent Price as the Witchfinder General
But dwelling too much on the specifics of this one case is to miss the larger point. A Voice for Men has essentially set itself up as a sort of antifeminist Witchfinder General. In the 1968 cult film of that name, you may remember, the corrupt Witchfinder tested whether the accused were witches by lowering them into water; those who floated were judged guilty, and burned at the stake. Those who sank were innocent, but dead.
Paul Elam and his sidekick John have a similar approach. They intend to do feminists harm, to “fuck their shit up,” regardless of what they’ve done or said. None of those who have been placed in the Register-Her “registry” as “bigots” deserve to be smeared or harassed (or put on the phony “registry” in the first place). But if you look at what they are ostensibly there for, well, you’ll discover that it matters not at all to Elam whether they sink or float. The point is to harass feminists; almost any excuse will do.
One of those on the “registry,” a radical feminist who posts online as Vliet Tiptree , has indeed said some fairly vile things about the male gender; she is the only one who might conceivably be described as a “bigot.” But others are there on trumped up “charges” based on highly tendentious readings of some of their writing; it’s clear that they’ve been targeted mainly because they have been publicly critical of the men’s rights movement.
Meanwhile, another of the alleged feminist bigots is not a feminist at all, but rather a traditional-minded “mom blogger” who aroused Elam’s fury by saying that she didn’t want male daycare volunteers taking her daughter to the bathroom, and for suggesting (incorrectly) that men make up 99% of abusers. (She has since apologized, but remains on the “registry.”)
And one recent candidate for inclusion, a feminist blogger whom Elam has pledged to “stalk,” seems to have made it on Elam’s naughty list simply because she has helped to highlight how pervasive harassment of women and feminists is online. Complain about harassment; get harassed. But Elam’s “critiques” of her are all suspiciously vague. It’s not clear if he has read even a single one of her blog posts. Nonetheless, he promises her that
by the time we are done you will wax nostalgic over the days when all you had to deal with was someone expressing a desire to fuck you up your shopworn ass.
In a post from some months back, Elam offered a similarly psychosexually charged justification for his campaign to “Fuck Their Shit Up.” Directly addressing the “feminazi scumbags reading this right now,” he declared:
I am not going to stop. You see, I find you, as a feminist, to be a loathsome, vile piece of human garbage. I find you so pernicious and repugnant that the idea of fucking your shit up gives me an erection.
Let’s repeat that last bit for emphasis:
the idea of fucking your shit up gives me an erection.
Does anyone still doubt that the aim of A Voice for Men and Register-Her.com in publishing personal information of their enemies is to intimidate – indeed, to terrorize?
Does anyone still doubt that their campaign is driven by hate?
Does anyone still doubt that they don’t give a shit if their actions cause someone to be physically assaulted or even killed?
Men’s Rights site A Voice for Men offers $1000 “bounty” for personal information on Swedish feminists
A Voice for Men, one of the most influential and popular Men’s Rights websites, is now offering a $1000 “bounty” for anyone able to track down the personal information of several Swedish women involved in a tasteless video advertising a theater production based on Valarie Solanas’ SCUM manifesto. As the anonymous poster calling himself John the Other – the second-in-command at AVfM – put it in a posting yesterday (emphasis in original):
We are asking for the full legal names, home addresses, places of employment, email addresses and contact phone numbers of the women and man who produced and starred in the video described above. We will pay 1000 dollars to any individual who provides and confirms this information, to be paid either directly to themselves or to a charity of their choice.
John explains that this information will be posted on the AVfM-affiliated site Register-Her.com, an “offenders database” that is being used to vilify individual feminists and “Fuck Their Shit Up,” as AVfM head honcho Paul Elam likes to put it. John notes that Regsiter-Her.com also intends to post the “government identification numbers [and] drivers licences” of the women they are able to identify.
John admits plainly that posting such information may put the physical safety of these women at risk from vigilante violence. As he puts it (emphasis mine):
Some individuals may criticize the intent to publish not only names, but also addresses, phone numbers, employers and other personal information – on the grounds that such exposure create a risk of retributive violence against individuals who openly advocate murder based on sex. It is the considered position of the editorial board of AVfM that any such risks are out-weighed by the ongoing hazard to the public of these individuals continuing to operate in anonymity.
The comments posted on the article at AVfM suggest that such “retributive” violence is a real possibility. Indeed, here’s the very first comment (which currently has 17 upvotes from readers of the site):
A commenter called Xnomolos, in another upvoted comment, adds:
i would love to hunt down these women myself.
JinnBottle responds to this comment by advising “all men to start carrying guns.”
The commenters on AVfM have already uncovered the identities of all of the women involved in the video. The blogger Fidelbogen has been the most active internet detective so far.
There is no question that the video itself is offensive, and designed to provoke. You can see it here; I’m not going to embed it on this site. If you don’t want to watch it: it depicts a young woman shooting a man in the head for no reason. Afterwards the woman and her gleeful, giggling accomplices do a victory dance, then lick the blood from the dead man’s head. A message at the end urges viewers to “Do Your Part.”
Every feminist I know who has seen the video has been appalled by it. I’m appalled by it. It’s hateful, and it’s wrong.
But John the Other, and the other commenters on AVfM, claim that it is more than this: that that the video of the staged murder, intended to provide publicity for a theater production based on Solanas’ notorious SCUM manifesto, is quite literally an open call for the murder of men. As John the Other puts it:
Open advocation of murder cannot be allowed in a civil society, without that society devolving into a culture of brutal violence.
Evidently he has no problem with, or has somehow not noticed, the comments on AVfM fantasizing about shooting and killing the women involved in the video.
Is the video a literal call to murder? Is it, as one AVfM commenter puts it, evidence of a “conspiracy to commit mass murder?” No. Violence and murder have been dramatized in the theater since its beginnings. No one accuses Sophocles of advocating fratricide and incest, though both are dealt with in his play Oedipus Rex. No one accuses Shakespeare of advocating mass murder, though many of his most famous plays have body counts that put many horror films to shame.
Does the tag line at the end of the video – “do your part” – transform the video from a depiction of murder into an open call for it? No. The “threat,” such as it is, is vague; it’s not aimed at any specific individuals. It might be seen as akin to someone wearing a t-shirt that says “kill ‘em all, let God sort them out” – tasteless and offensive, but not a literal threat. “Kill ‘Em All” is actually the name of Metallica’s first album. While a lot of people see James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich et al as pompous idiots, they have not been jailed for conspiracy to commit mass murder. That would be ridiculous.
Someone claiming to have been involved in the SCUM-inspired theatrical production in question has posted several detailed comments on AVfM, explaining that those involved in the production are “not out to get you” and that the video itself was “meant as a viral “wtf?!” to give attention to both the questions that it raises and the play itself.”
By contrast, AVfM is targeting specific individuals, and intends to offer information that would allow anyone intent on doing them harm to quite literally track them to their homes and workplaces. Those fantasizing about killing these woman are not simply making a joke along the lines of “women, can’t live with ‘em; can’t kill ‘em.” They are fantasizing about killing real people, and providing would-be evil-doers maps to their doors.
AVfM is an American site, in English; these specific women live in Sweden. While it is a real possibility, it seems unlikely that anyone reading the site will literally find and murder any of those involved in the SCUM production. At least I hope that this does not come to pass.
I don’t believe that either Paul Elam or John the Other literally wants any feminist to be killed. The real intent behind AVfM’s publishing people’s personal information, it seems clear, is to intimidate feminist writers and activists into shutting up, to make clear that if they post something that offends the internet vigilantes at AVfM they will face the possibility of some deranged individual quite literally showing up at their door intent on doing them harm.
Paul Elam and John the Other claim that they’re not advocating violence. But they are playing a dangerous game here. If some deranged individual, inspired by the hyperbolic anti-feminist rhetoric on AVfM, and armed with information provided by “Register-Her.com,” murders or otherwise harms a feminist blogger or activist or video maker, Elam and his enablers will have blood on their hands. As will those MRAs who continue to publicly support and/or link to AVfM and/or Register-Her.com.
This is not the way a legitimate rights group deals with those who disagree with them. This is what hate groups do.
Stare me up, stare me down
That bitch in the white boots -- what the fuck is she staring at?
Women truly are devious creatures. Over on MGTOWforums.com, a young fellow named Deano exposes yet more evidence of their accursed misandry: the dreaded stare-and-sneer!
Let’s let him explain:
[M]any women have trouble making eye contact when they approach a man who they know to be perfectly harmless and friendly. As they come within the range where a male acquaintance would simply look you in the eye and nod or say “Hi”, our female friends will stare down and sneer as if you’re a giant slimy turd they cannot bare to look at.
I confess I haven’t run across this so much, but let’s take him at his word: this happens ALL THE TIME! What’s even worse, those pretty princesses often do this even after you’ve spent the whole morning Going Your Own Way helping out cute girls in case this might lead one of them to give you a blowjob.
You may have just gone out of your way earlier that day to fix her hairdryer or carry something heavy up 10 flights of stairs but all of that is forgotten when she sees the opportunity to show what a sulky little bitch she really is.
But Deano is ready for them.
I like to point at the spot they’re staring at as I walk past – as if I have some special powers to direct their gaze. I don’t do it all the time, but it can be piss funny especially when other guys watching are in on the joke.
In your face!
Surprisingly, the story got a bit of a mixed reaction from the other fellows over there. Stonelifter, a true blue MGTOWer, responded with a terse:
I don’t have female friends
Dr. Poon, a medical doctor Going His Own Way who for some reason seems to have specialized in the ickiest parts of a woman, was a bit more supportive:
It is counter-intuitive, but you are doing everything right.
NEVER avoid a woman’s gaze, let HER break the eye lock first and look to the side or to the ground. The establishes DOMINANCE on your end and SUBMISSIVENESS on hers.
LivingFree has a simpler approach:
I usually avoid looking at them during passing. I dont want to give them any impression I value anything about them.
Exactly! That’s why, whenever I spot a girl, I run and hide in a bush. Totally puts them in their place.
I am glad I gave up that whole feminism thing yesterday. I am learning so much about these foul creatures I used to worship.
EDITED TO ADD: I found the picture above here. I added the little red arrow.
Internet Inactivism and the MRA Paradox
MRA in action
As I’ve pointed out before, the vast majority of Men’s Rights Activists aren’t really activists at all, if by “activists” you mean people who occasionally get off their asses and try to engage in political activity in the real world. As I put in in my piece for the Good Men Project on misogyny in the Men’s Rights movement,
Men’s rights activists aren’t much like any other activists I’ve ever run across. For one thing, for supposed activists they are almost completely inactive. Sure, they complain endlessly about things they see as terrible injustices against men. They just don’t do anything about them. While some of those who consider themselves fathers’ rights activists—a slightly different breed from your garden-variety MRAs—try to influence laws and legislatures, MRAs do little more than cultivate their resentments.
MRAs seem to be good at one thing, and one thing only: posting angry comments on websites, whether their own or on those of their many enemies – whether that’s on blogs like this one or in the comments section on various mainstream media sites they consider “misandrist.” (Actually: that’s not entirely fair – on a few occasions, MRAs have been moved to make threatening phone calls as well.) They don’t raise money for anything but their own web sites and their pet projects. They don’t organize demonstrations that involve more than a tiny handful of people. Like, for example, this one, involving one dude dressed like Batman who climbed up onto a highway sign:
Or this one, which involved a dude dressed up as Batman and a dude dressed up as Robin, climbing up on a bridge.
If your protests typically involve fewer people than, say, the line of people waiting to use the Redbox video rental kiosk outside your local supermarket on a Friday night, I think it’s safe to say that yours is not a mass movement, at least not yet.
Am I being unfair in demanding MRAs actually, literally,get off their asses before I consider them to be activists? Perhaps.
But, as it turns out, MRAs aren’t much good at sitting-on-your-ass activism either. Case in point: For quite some time – weeks? months? — MRA elder Paul Elam has been urging readers of his blog A Voice For Men to sign a petition to disbar a District Attorney he and other MRAs have decided is corrupt. But despite his repeated pleas to his readers to sign the thing, it has not yet garnered the required 1000 signatures, even though at least a few of his readers have talked about signing it more than once. [Edited to add: it has now gotten more than 1000 signaturesd.]
Today, this particular example of internet inactivism prompted Elam to lash out at his non-signing readers. Declaring himself “tired and frustrated” and “sick of this shit,” he once again begged his readers to sign. Then he went a step further, suggesting that he might limit commenting on his site to “activists that are contributing to this site in one way or another” as a way of encouraging activism and discouraging those who are “sucking up air and doing little else.”
I don’t think further exhortation on his part – or limiting the comments there to “real” activists only – is likely to make much difference. [Edited to add: Nagging a few more people to spend two minutes signing an online petition is one thing. Actually transforming them into real activists is another.] Elam is running up against the inherent paradox of Men’s Rights “activism” – the fact that most of those complaining the most about alleged injustices against men are not in fact interested in changing anything. Their “activism,” as it were, is little more than an excuse to wallow in their own bitterness, and to blame others for their own problems.
If MRAs really cared about domestic violence against men – as opposed to using the issue as a rhetorical weapon against feminists – they would be raising money and devoting their time to actually building shelters, like the (mostly) women who built the first shelters decades ago, and the (mostly) women who keep these shelters going today. If MRAs were really interested in stopping prison rape, instead of simply complaining about it, they’d be donating money to or working with the advocacy group Just Detention or other groups concerned about the treatment of prisoners. If they were really interested in helping those falsely accused of rape or other crimes, they’d be working with The Innocence Project or some other group fighting for the falsely accused or convicted. Or they would be starting real organizations of their own.
But that’s not, at heart, what the MRM is about. For all but a tiny handful of real activists, it’s not about changing the world. It’s about creating a space where men can kvetch and blame and cultivate their own sense of martyrdom. Actually trying to change the real world would involve , well, going out into the real world, a place where their assertions about the alleged oppression of men are seen as the nonsense they are, a place where their bitterness and hatred of women is seen as bitterness and hatred rather than the righteous anger they like to imagine that it is.
When MRAs do venture out of their self-created bubble they tend to either make fools of themselves – like Batman on the highway sign in the video above – or to reveal themselves to be the angry fanatics they are. Elam, for his part, sometimes even has trouble making his case in the relatively sympathetic environment of the Men’s Rights subreddit on Reddit, and is quickly reduced to sputtering rage when anyone disagrees with him. In the end, sputtering rage seems to be what the MRM is really all about.
>If you don’t agree with me, angry dudes will kick your ass
>
Anyone who’s seen Taxi Driver will remember Travis Bickle’s late night soliloquy on the “whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, [and] junkies” he saw every night driving his cab. “Someday,” he told himself, “a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets.”
Of course — SPOILER ALERT! — what he really meant by “a real rain” coming was that he, Travis Bickle, would lose his shit and start shooting people.
Bickle wasn’t the only one to mix his predictions with a heaping helping of threat. Those who predict the end of the world at the hand of gods or men or some vague terrible cataclysm are all too often rooting (secretly or openly) for the civilization-destroyers they are ostensibly warning against. We saw this the other day amongst those MGTOWers who are now talking giddily about how complete economic collapse will serve to put foolish women and their “mangina” pals in their proper place.
And we see it again and again in the Men’s Rights movement, when MRAs sternly warn their detractors that if people don’t start listening to them, and pronto, the men of the world will rise up and, well, kick the shit out of everyone who opposes them. This is a warning only in the sense that a mafioso telling someone that, if he doesn’t pay what he owes, his legs just might possibly get broken, is a warning; by all reasonable definitions, it is a threat. As opposed to the leg-breaking, the threats of these MRAS aren’t very specific threats, but they’re threats of violence nonetheless.
I ran across one recent example of this sort of “warning” in the comments to Paul Elam’s piece on misandry — or at least what he labels misandry — in the Good Men Project’s package on the Men’s Rights movement. (My own contribution to the debate is here.) Here’s “Factory,” responding to another commenter who pointed out that some of his wording in an earlier comment had been awfully violent:
Who said I was interested in proving I wasn’t violent?
In point of fact, I continually warn people that if these issues are not MEANINGFULLY addressed, and soon, there will be a LOT of violence (see: Middle East) that we MRAs won’t be able to stop.
And frankly, if it comes to that, society (and all the women in it along with the men) flat out DESERVES whatever is coming.
Your hubris as a movement is causing a lot of men to be angry. You all vastly underestimate both the anger, and the ubiquitous nature of this anger.
We MRAs do nothing except act as weather vane and map. That’s why we have no central authority, or funding, or organization of any kind. We are average guys mad enough to stand up like we do. There are a LOT more guys that are just as mad, but content to let others lead.
And there are a growing number of men that take Feminist (and ‘official’) dismissal of mens issues as indication that ONLY violent revolution will lead to change.
And speaking for myself, if it ever comes to violence, I will stand aside, and feel bad while all manner of nasty things are done…but I won’t lift a FINGER to stop it.
Just like people like you are doing right now.
Notice the not-so-subtle, and rather thoroughly bungled, rhetorical sleight of hand here. Factory paints the violence as something he won’t indulge in (but won’t stop) — forgetting that in the very first sentence he admitted that he was himself violent. He refers to MRAs as little more than a “weather vane” for male emotion — but somehow later in the paragraph they are leading things. He claims that he will “feel bad while all manner of nasty things are done,” but this is only after stating in no uncertain terms that he thinks “society … flat out DESERVES whatever is coming.”
So, yeah, this is as much a “warning” as the hypothetical mafioso’s reference to broken legs.
Naturally, Elam himself stepped up to second Factory’s emotion, declaring that “[m]en, when disenfranchised and pushed to the edge, have frequently become violent.”
On his own site, Elam has been much more frankly threatening. Recently, telling off one commenter who had the temerity to actually question the gospel according to Elam, he finished off a long rant about male anger with this:
I would not suggest that treating half the population, the stronger half at that, with too much continuing disregard is a very good idea.
Thinking they will never come out swinging is a stupid, stupid way to go.
This kind of logic might best be called the Appeal to an Ass-kicking. The structure of this argument could be broken down as follows:
1) Source A says that p is true
2) If you don’t agree that p is true, Source A (or perhaps some other dudes) will do you bodily harm.
3) Therefore, you’d better fucking agree that p is true.
This is probably the oldest and crudest form of logic there is, and one that is popular amongst many animals as well. (My cat is a master of it, at least when p = “you will give me treats now.”)
Perhaps the best way to respond to it is the way that the commenter calling herself fannie responded to Factory on the Good Men Project:
You’re arguing that men are going to be so angry they’re not going to be able to control their rage and are therefore going to start inflicting mass amounts of violence upon others.
I’m not sure a feminist could be more defamatory of men than you are being.
MRAs sure are misandrist.
I, and feminists like me, think men are better than that.
Me too.
–
If you enjoyed this post, would you kindly* use the “Share This” or one of the other buttons below to share it on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, or wherever else you want. I appreciate it.
*Yes, that was a Bioshock reference.
>Rocking Panda Says: Check out the Good Men Project today (and tomorrow)
>
The Good Men Project Magazine is running a bunch of articles on the Men’s Rights Movement this week. My contribution to the discussion, looking at misogyny in the Men’s Rights movement, will be going up tomorrow. But in the meantime, check out what they’ve got up now, including pieces from Amanda Marcotte, Hugo Schwyzer, and, at the other end of the spectrum, Paul Elam, who seems to be trying to tone it down a bit, at least for this audience. (More thoughts on that later.) Rocking panda will be waiting here for you when you get back.
>Shovel ready
>
 |
| The Ideal Woman, apparently. |
Freud asked: “What do women want?” Mel Gibson answered the question in that movie in which he could read their lady minds. I never saw it, but I’m guessing based on Gibson’s behavior since making the film that women want lots of drunken anti-Semitic tirades and verbal abuse.
Anyway, over at A Voice For Men, MRA elder Paul Elam doesn’t really give a shit about what women want. But he knows what they deserve, and what they don’t deserve. Which turns out to be shovels and love, respectively. As he explains in a recent comment:
We don’t need to teach young girls to marry for love; we need to put shovels in their hands and put them to work in ditches, digging their way to self sufficiency. We need to leave them to their own survival devices so that they can learn some humility …
But what we most need to teach young girls is that until there are social pressures established that place firm boundaries and limits on their hypergamous instincts, that they cannot be trusted with love, as women in this culture have been proving for 50 years … .
Keep shoveling, Paul.
–
If you enjoyed this post, would you kindly* use the “Share This” or one of the other buttons below to share it on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, or wherever else you want. I appreciate it.
*Yes, that was a Bioshock reference.
Godwin’s Law, upside-down and backwards
>
Meet Stu. Stu hates feminsts. But he hates manginas even more. You might even say that Stu hates manginas the way Hitler hated Jews. No, I’m not comparing Stu to Hitler. He happily compares himself to Hitler in this comment on A Voice For Men.Phew, I’m glad you [Paul Elam] said feminist hating is an honorable and viable political act because I certainly hate them. … The real object of my hatred are those that enable these people. The ones that are actively engaged in creating the environment of misandry that we live in now.
For those people, career feminists and manginas, my hatred would be on par to Adolf Hitlers hatred of a super rich gay jew who was raping his arse. Out of these, I hate career manginas the most. There would be no mercy for these arseholes if I could be dictator for a day, they would soon be living what is left of their lives in extreme misery.
Emphasis added. This comment, Hitler and all, got more than three times as many upvotes as downvotes from the assembled mob site’s readers. Of course, Stu’s comment is in response to a post titled “The Scourge of Rape. Yeah, whatever,” which means that these upvoters are people who enjoyed a post titled “The Scourge of Rape. Yeah, whatever” so much that they stuck around afterwards to compliment the author, so, you know.
This, by contrast, is the sort of comment that gets downvoted on A Voice For Men, and which inspires the post’s author, Paul Elam, to tell the commenter “fuck that, and fuck you. Let me say that again. Fuck you.”
EDITED TO ADD: When I posted this piece last night, that second comment had virtually no upvotes; you had to click a link to even see it. I hope at least a few of the upvotes it now has were from the regulars on that site.
Another heartening sign: the critical response Elam’s “Rape … whatever” screed got on the Men’s Rights subreddit on Reddit. His response to the criticism is rather telling. I’m generally not a fan of the Men’s Rights subreddit, as you might imagine, but there are some decent people who comment there and it is much less hateful than almost all of the other MRA/MGTOW/etc sites I regularly read.
–
If you enjoyed this post, would you kindly* use the “Share This” or one of the other buttons below to share it on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, or wherever else you want. I appreciate it.
*Yes, that was a Bioshock reference.
