Paul Elam has apparently become something of a comedian – though not on purpose. In his latest post on A Voice for Men, he takes on the atheist community for being too in thrall to (wait for it) feminism.
I’ll let him explain:
[T]hey are too religious. Yes, I mean that literally. For when you wipe away all the bombastic bellowing about empiricism and the strident mocking of those who choose a life of faith, what you are left with is a population of people that surrender their reason and cognition as though they were at gunpoint; that hit their knees as fast as any Catholic…to worship at the altar of feminism.
His proof? Several years ago someone at Atheist Nexus posted a link to a Men’s News Daily column of his, and – get this! – some feminists responded!
You can go here to see all the horrible things these evil cultish feminist atheists said. Like, for example:
I guess I’m a feminist, but I really like men and these are some of the things I love about them:
Protectiveness is a positive trait in men that women who want to have babies look for. We also like passion and some recklessness, but you won’t get me to admit that to my daredevil husband…..
Confidence; men usually have more of it and it is mostly a postive trait.
The ability to make decisions quickly.
Physical strength and endurance are helpful in many family situations. Ahem.
Penises. You have them, lots of us like them. I know it’s not technically a “trait”, but I had to put that in.
You can practically taste the man-hate there!
Elam, I should note, ignores that comment. No, what’s got his underpants in a wad is this comment:
The whole web site mensnewsdaily.com is a sad overreaction to the growing equality of women in society.
Evidently he’s been stewing about this remark for more than two years.
In fact, if you go and take a look at it, the discussion on Atheist Nexus wasn’t … really … all that feminist. Yes, several people criticized Elam and mensnewsdaily as “extreme,” but one of those people also criticized radical feminists as similarly “extreme.” Some of the commenters explicitly identified themselves as feminist; others explicitly criticized feminism. Nonetheless, the discussion somehow managed to be the politest conversation about gender I’ve run across online in a long, long time.
Seriously. Go take a look at it. Then consider how Elam sums it all up:
Apparently they can’t even handle 50 years of loud mouthed arts majors without drinking the Kool-aide and going brain dead. There was scarcely a voice among them that did not wallow in the ersatz enlightenment so common to feminist ideologues.
And then he moves on to whatever this is:
Feminism, as far as ideology goes, has been very effective at using human reproductive realities to co-opt other movements. In fact, from the American Civil Rights Movement to Occupy Wall Street, feminism has progressed without paying its own way, but rather by sending women in to other social arenas and wheedling men into supporting them. The Borg would be proud if they had emotions. Resistance is Futrelle.
Ho ho! Futrelle rhymes with futile! Sort of! Lest Elam and co. become too overwhelmed with pride for this clever wordplay, I should note that some junior high schoolers beat him to the punch back in the late 70s. Or maybe it was grade schoolers. I really don’t remember.
I’m less clear about the rest of his argument about “human reproductive realities.” Apparently it’s a fancy way of saying that dudes only support feminism so they can get laid. Another highly original notion.
Elam’s other piece of evidence that feminism has taken over the atheist community? PZ Myers.
He quotes this evil athio-feminazi ideologue arguing that if male atheists want to get more women involved in the atheist community, they should:
Learn to shut up and listen. Seriously. You want women to find your organization pleasant and interesting and worth contributing to? Then don’t form panels full of men trying to figure out what women want, talking over women who try to get a word in edgewise, belittling women’s suggestions with jokes, and trying to determine how We Well-Meaning Men can give Those Women what we think they want. You are assuming an authority and presuming that it is in your power to give it to the minority, when what you should be doing is deferring to that minority and giving them your attention, letting them speak and shape your organization.
God – or, if you prefer, Imaginary Entity – forbid that male atheists actually listen to women explain why they might feel unwelcome in the mostly male (and not particularly feminist friendly) atheist community.
You really think feminism has taken over the atheist community? Take a look at Reddit’s Atheism subreddit, where, recently, a woman who recently described how she had been raped was attacked as a liar and a slut in a thread filled with rape jokes. Or go back a little further to the Elevatorgate brouhaha, where an atheist blogger who politely mentioned in a podcast that she doesn’t really like being hit on by strange men in elevators at 4 AM drew the ire of countless angry atheist dudes, including Richard Fucking Dawkins himself? (In case you want to revisit that bit of nastiness, I wrote about “Elevatorgate” in several blog posts; here are some reactions from decidedly non-feminist atheists.)
This is a movement that “worship[s] at the altar of feminism[?]” Not really seeing it, dude.
But again, congrats on the whole Futrelle/futile thing. Genius!
Ugh. Body image. When I was a child, I very very skinny and short. Now I just a bit taller and a lot fatter. Not very fat, though, but the difference lead to a lot of anxiety. I went to agile, light to slow and… I don’t know, bobling. Again, I don’t think my body is that bad, objectively (though I don’t do nearly as much sport as I wish) but feeling one person inside with a pretty and romantic image and seeing this other body outside, that I couldn’t control… Plus the fun of breasts growing. Which was ok at first, until they start getting down. I won’t go into details, but again, anxiety. (and discomfort) And I haven’t anything about zits, who are definitely not judged the same way on a girl or a boy.
All of these issues are all still alive, though mostly under control. (depression doesn’t help because I eat very badly when I feel bad) And I speak as a tom-boy-ish woman, who always hated fashion and beauty care. I think I felt very early it was toxic for me, and tried to keep myself away from this culture of clothes, make-up, endless regimes,…
Still jealous, college boy?
*(just to be clear, I certainly don’t feel any less of someone for caring about clothes, make-up and the like. I worry it might sound like that, because that’s what I used to think : “those girls are shallow” but I know -now – that it’s way more complicated than just saying “I refuse beauty standard!”)
Ami:
http://geeks.thedailywh.at/2011/09/07/unrealistic-comic-book-pose-of-the-day/
MRAL:
I used to be convinced in undergrad that my professors actually hated me, they were just hiding their boundless contempt for my work for fear I’d snap. You know what helped? Druuuuuugs. Professional help: you need it.
Until then, you know we know that nobody ever actually “just flips out” in print right, genius? It takes thought to compose a message with proper grammar and spelling and hit “send.”
I was stressed out enough at the end of last semester that I was eating something like a croissant every day if I remembered, plus whatever food I could choke down the 3 or 4 nights a week I spent with my partner — maybe half as much as I might eat otherwise. I lost 10 lbs in 3 weeks, off a frame that was pretty thin to begin with (certainly thinner than is the norm for women my age). I’d been feeling fat and ugly for a while. After that, instead of being glad to be lighter, I was worried my boobs had become too small.
I decided to say something about it on Facebook, emphasizing that it was seriously unhealthy and reminding everyone to eat. About 1 out of 3 responses was someone congratulating me for the weight loss.
But I’m sure if MRAL lost 10 lbs through starvation and warned people to be careful to avoid the same, he would ALSO be told how awesome it is that he’s more attractive now (because that’s the important thing) PLUS everybody would make fun of him for being short and male! Misandrryyyyyyyyy!
You’re trans now?
You can still be a bad ally to other flavours of trans people. Just because you might identify as other than cis, doesn’t mean you’re the same as me.
I might be totally misreading you, Scar, but it seems like you might be implying that ozy just declared zirself trans, like… right now, in order to have a stronger position in this particular discussion >.>
I don’t think Ozy or anyone else would have an issue with you not knowing before this point (though I obviously can’t speak for anybody) but I hope you don’t think zie’s making it up as some sort of bargaining tactic.
Again, maybe I’m totally misinterpreting? Apologies if I am.
No, you fucking twit, I didn’t say that you wanted to fuck every woman. I’m saying that when you talk about women and privilege you only consider the women you want to fuck. You think they’re privileged because you want to have sex with/be them. You acknowledge the privilege of someone like Johnny Depp because you want to be/be like him, essentially because you imagine that the women you want to have sex with, want to have sex with him.
Your entire concept of gender privilege can basically be boiled down to the fact that you can’t get laid and you think it would be easier if you were a woman (white, thin, under 25) or a different kind of man. And maybe it would be. I’d argue that it would be easier for you to get laid if you weren’t terrified to talk to girls and had a significantly less repellant personality but that’s beside the point.
My point is, by ignoring all of the women who don’t fall into the category of “young, thin white women who live in or near Boston, whom MRAL wants to stick his dick into” when you discuss women as a “privileged class” you’re negating the real world of experiences of every other kind of woman.
Don’t fucking tell me that because I’m a woman of color, I can’t/don’t experience -among other issues- sexism, sexual harassment, and sexual assault.
It is certainly true that different groups of trans people can engage in problematic behavior towards other groups of trans people, it is also the case that trans people can engage in problematic behavior towards their own subgroups. Ozy deserved to be called out on hir erasing of/failure around issues of hetero trans people, but the term “ally” implies an outgroup and erases hir identity as trans.
I never mean to be a bad person. I’m sorry.
MRAL, if you want people to stop saying that you hate women, have you considered not saying idiotic shit about women?
“Your entire concept of gender privilege can basically be boiled down to the fact that you can’t get laid and you think it would be easier if you were a woman (white, thin, under 25) or a different kind of man.”
Well, it would be easier for him to get laid if he was a different kind of man – one who wasn’t a misogynist prone to screaming tantrums aimed at women any time he’s having a bad day, or tired, or high. Similarly, it would also be easier for him to “bond” with female authority figures if he wasn’t an angry misogynist.
“I never mean to be a bad person. I’m sorry.”
No one here cares. Go away.
MRAL- no. You are not sorry.
IF this were the first time you’d pulled a stunt like this then said you were sorry and IF you meant it and IF that meant you stopped doing it- then I’d think about believing you.
However- if you do something that is offensive and people say ‘dude, not cool’ and you say you were just trolling or lying or had bad day then say you’re sorry without ever actually indicating you understand what was wrong with what you did (stand by for capslocking + swears) AND THEN YOU KEEP FUCKING DOING IT OVER AND OVER AND OVER WHENEVER YOU HAD A BAD DAY (stand down from capslocking, probably swears) then
1) I don’t believe you
2) I don’t care why you are being a dick
3) Watching you ignore the help and patience people here have granted you makes me want to scream
4) You really really really need to get therapy and go the hell away, not necessarily in that order.
MRAL, kindly take your apology, print it out, roll it into a ball, and shove it up your ass until you cough and it comes out in your hand.
That’s the nicest thing I think of your apology.
@ hellkell
That’s the most novel form of recycling I’ve seen in a while. Also efficient, since it comes out in his hands, which are what he’s going to use to type his next set of rants about the evil wimminz and their privilege. It’s the circle of troll life.
It is! XD
Hope he stocks up on hand sanitizer.
Hmm. Rebecca Watson tweets that Paul Elam thinks it’s fun to joke about PZ Myers being anally raped:
Wow.
(I’ve b0rked the Paul Elam link to avoid trackbacks; it’s a new article on A Voice for Misanthropes.)
Men’s Rights Activist Lieutenant | February 9, 2012 at 3:45 pm
I never mean to be a bad person. I’m sorry.
What are you sorry for? When have you been a bad person? What specifically are you sorry for and tell us what was wrong with what you did and why you won’t do it again.
What you said isn’t an apology. -_- It’s as much of an apology as “I’M SORRY I’M SUCH A FUCK UP” which as some people have noted, can also be used in abuse, or false apologies. You’re not apologizing for anything you’ve done, you’re self-flagellating (and again trying to win back some slack so you can go on another rant again).
Also nobody cares if you MEAN to be a bad person. Apparently, you never mean to do anything yet you keep hurting people by doing it.
You said above something that you didn’t like about yourself and said “I can’t help it”. Forget if you can help it or not, do you WANT to? Is this something you want to change? On the forum you seemed to imply you didn’t like who you are now, specifically that you’ spend your time being an “abrasive” douchebag on feminist sites. Again, you act like you have no choice in these matters. If you don’t want to be an abrasive douchebag, then don’t. If you find you can’t read feminist sites without blowing up and abusing people, then don’t read feminist sites. If you care about the people you keep hurting in your explosions, then stop interacting with them if you “can’t help it” once you start interacting.
Take some responsibility for yourself for once.
I won’t do that stuff again.
Thats what all abusers say…..
That might be convincing if you didn’t say that after every tantrum you throw.
You’re not even a convincing liar. Get the hell outta here already.
Whatever, MRAL. Go away and get a life.
Yes you will, dude. You can fool yourself, but you’re well past being able to fool us.