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!
@ Holly: and it’s not even all beautiful women. It’s “all beautiful women who don’t talk or have opinions.” See: how many times women get insulted as fat ugly bitches after turning down a guy who is trying to sex them.
Also, penises are ADORABLE or HAWT, depending on context :3
Might be a little wake up call to some pampered white girls. Get them to check their privilege.
Oh, so now write privilege exists MRAL? Just not for you? You hypocritical asshole.
i know i’m an atheist because if i ask myself whether i think god exists the answer is ‘i think not,’ and ive never really thought about it beyond that
@ MRAL- Wouldn’t it be better if nobody thought that any part of any body was hideous and awful? If we could all think that boobs were awesome and penises were awesome and vulvas were awesome (protip: they all are)? Why is your ideal world one in which everyone is miserable and self loathing?
… also, I like how the analogous body part of penises to you is breasts. Because addressing the existence of vulvas and their awesome-tude would be too much like right for you.
@Holly
Gotcha 🙂
White privilege absolutely exists for me, I’ve never denied it. It doesn’t mean all black people have it worse than me (most have it better than me), but it’s *in spite of* my white privilege. I also have straight privilege, though again, most gay people have it better than me on the whole… in spite of my privilege in that area.
I do in fact call out pampered white girls on their privileges, for example I did it today when I backed up a friend who was discussing racism in Disney’s Pocahantas. It’s not privileged white girls being called out on their privileges we have an issue with, it’s that you take the group even more privileged than them, privileged pampered white boys, and expect the privileged white girls to cater to them. That’s because “female privilege” doesn’t fucking exist, mral.
M Dubz, I’m talking about SRS here. And I’m just saying, if they really wanted to go legit “Bizarro”, they’d be roleplaying as straight-female-defaults. And straight-female-defaults would find other women’s bodies to be, I don’t know, I’m conjecturing, but probably gross fatty blobs with no hardness or definition or shape. Fucking repulsive, is probably what they’d say. How could anyone be attracted to amorphous slugs like that? It’s the weirdest thing.
But they don’t have the (sorry) balls to do that.
Because that would be recognizing that gender privilege is more complicated than they want to admit. It’s not the same as racial privilege or straight privilege.
They’re sheltered in their own puffed up psuedo-progressiveness, basically.
When I said “fatty blob” by the way, I meant the whole body. As for vulvas, they’d say… hm. Disgusting axe-wounds, maybe. They’re creepy and wet and they bleed and they’re gross. Not like penises, hard and simple and dry. Women are so disgusting.
Is what they’d say.
MRAL, would you like a WAHamburger with a side of cries, little oppressed one?
@hellkell- cry little oppressed one!
MRAL, SRS doesn’t actually hate white men. They are sort of taking all the slurs that are directed against feminists, anti-racist activists, etc and turning them around and pretending to be the demons people already assume they are.
Holly, I think I’m an I’m-totally-not-sure-but-that-could-be-it member of whatever you call that pantheistic thing you’ve got going on.
Also, eventually humans will be replaced by cyborgs, but they’ll carry on the human tradition so it totally won’t be like us going extinct. It’ll be awhile, though.
M Dubz, that kitten is being oppressed! By the cute! HELP!
No straight doesn’t refer to cis people only. Sexual orientation and gender are separate. I don’t know where you got that idea( a lot of straight people are cis though). What did you think straight trans people described their relationship as? O_o
Well, okay, but no one has addressed my point of female-as-default thinking women are gross. Until they do that, they’re nothing but little pissant posers.
I’m not mocking you for not knowing I just seriously have no clue how else you would describe straight trans people.
And so MRAL completely ignores my post. Of course.
Lauralot, I read your post, but I don’t see where you’re coming from. Men AREN’T PRIVILEGED, so it’s not the same thing!
Summary: MRAL is oppressed because he is ugly and has no money (I don’t count the ‘man’ part).
Isn’t he 19? Work hard (you’re white, male and ‘have a high IQ’ so you shouldn’t have problems getting a job), work out, get a facelift.
You’ll be a rich Adonis by the time you’re 25.
If a gross tranny (i.e. an ‘ugly man’) like me can afford to buy a vagina, then why can’t you sort your shit out?
With your high IQ and all.
@ David- this leads me to wonder, what will the cyborgs have to say about God?
In the beginning the Network created the 0s and the 1s. And darkness was over the face of the Power Grid, and a spark from the Network traveled over the face of the Circuits. And the Network said, “let there be an ON SWITCH!” And there was an ON SWITCH.
Summary: MRAL is oppressed because he is ugly and has no money (I don’t count the ‘man’ part).
Isn’t he 19? Work hard (you’re white, male and ‘have a high IQ’ so you shouldn’t have problems getting a job), work out, get a facelift.
You’ll be a rich Adonis by the time you’re 25.
If a gross tr@nny (i.e. an ‘ugly man’) like me can afford to buy a va-jay-jay, then why can’t you sort your shit out?
With your high IQ and all.
A facelift? Are you fucking kidding me?
I tend to casually call non-queers “the straights,” sometimes, because “the cis straights” takes too long and if I say “the cises” people will assume I mean LGB people too. >.>
But, yeah, straight generally means having sex with people of the other binary-defined gender.
Things Ozy Is Confused By: if someone is attracted to a nonbinary, how does that affect their orientation?