Several days ago, angry-MRA-dude hub A Voice for Men ran a guest post from someone identified only as Phil in Utah entitled “How I became an MRA: Domestic violence advocacy.” After Phil’s post in question drew some criticism from some of the AVfM regulars who didn’t see it as radical enough, site founder and head cheese Paul Elam felt it necessary to take Phil to task for one of the statements he made in the post.
So let’s have a quick quiz. Here are three quotes taken from Phil in Utah’s post. Which of them is the one that drew Elam’s ire?
- “[F]eminists only support the rights of women who agree with them, and have no qualms throwing disagreeing women under the bus.”
- “[T]he idea that women are hurt more than men by being abused is a load of crap.”
- “I still believe that men who brutalize women are the scum of the Earth.”
ANSWER: Did you guess #1? Wrong. While this statement isn’t actually true, Elam didn’t object to it. How about #2? While this statement is also untrue – numerous studies show that women are far more likely to be seriously injured by domestic violence than men – Elam didn’t object to it either. Nope. He objected to statement #3. That is:
I still believe that men who brutalize women are the scum of the Earth.
How could any decent human being possibly object to this? Here’s Elam explanation:
I admit I flinched a little when I read this. Clearly these are words rooted in old world sexist notions about violence; that somehow men who brutalize women are worse than women who brutalize men. It is old programming that tends to swim around in the unconscious even after the first few rounds of red pills.
Now, I should note that Phil didn’t actually say, or imply, that “men who brutalize women are worse than women who brutalize men.” Indeed, he spent most of the essay arguing that DV against men needed to be taken more seriously. If anything, he minimized violence against women, by denying the fact that women are indeed more likely to be seriously injured by their male partners than male partners are to be seriously injured by women.
Evidently, for Elam and others on AVfM, straightforward expressions of enmity against men who brutalize women are a form of “latent misandry.”
But we’re only just getting started here. As it turns out, Elam was less troubled by Phil’s “misandry” than he was by some of the nastier attacks on Phil and other
new MRA’s who are ‘getting it’ but have not had the time or opportunity to fully refine their understanding of the modern zeitgeist.
Indeed, one commenter had even gone so far as to call poor Phil “pussy-footed.” And yet another called him a “mangina/white knight.” This, Elam announced, would not do!
MRA’s name calling and shaming other MRA’s is not constructive. It is petty alpha-gaming … .
In other words, it’s the sort of thing that guys do to try to impress the chicks. And that’s bad.
[A] significant part of the dynamics that hinder progress in the MRM is the innate friction between men which is driven by an undercurrent of sexual competition. Our unfortunate programming is to apply downward pressure on each other in order to vie for sexual selection.
On MRA blogs, this is often described with the scientific term “pussy begging.” Elam continued:
Feminism is an outgrowth of chivalry. It is dependent on male sexual competition to thrive. In short, misandry, feminism, the stinking lot of it, is a human problem rooted in men’s mindless competition for women. We don’t get out of that competition by simply rejecting women or Going Our Own Way. We get out of it by identifying and respectfully challenging the elements of that competition when they prove dysfunctional, as in going after MRA’s for blood any time we imagine they are not 100% on message. This conduct, when distilled down to its essence, is just a tell-tale artifact of pussy-centric masculinity.
So, in other words, MRAs who call other MRAs pussy-begging manginas are themselves … pussy-begging manginas.
Such is MRA logic.
Brandon: “Brash and aggressive women get ignored by me, but I am hardly scared of them.
Nope, the women who scare you are the one’s who choose to sleep with you.
Also, scared of does not equal scared that the person is going to beat you up. Brandon appears to be terrified of women with any sort of backbone – not that they’ll physically harm him, just that they won’t respect him or do what he wants them to. Which is probably true.
Considering that saying “Hey, you need to grab some milk while you’re at the store” is disrespectful in his eyes, he must be horrified of pretty much every woman in the first world ever.
@Bostonian: How are they endangering others? Did they cause the cruise ship to sink? Are they going around shooting people? No. They pushed a few people out of the way. More violence has been seen at a wedding dress clearance sale or the mall on Christmas Eve…and that is to shop, not to save oneself.
These people used very little effort to save their own lives. So unless you say you would politely and orderly stand in line and patiently wait to be called on to get off the ship, you are full of shit. People panic when their lives are in danger…it’s no surprise and people shouldn’t be vilified because they proactively did something to save themselves. God forbid they act like lemmings.
Brandon: I think you could get better role models than people ready to endanger others to save themselves.
No wanting to jump into fire to save people is one thing (and it’s usually a bad idea anyway), pushing them into the fire to get out the building faster is another. (hint: one is neutral, the other is bad)
What do you want, a cookie for caring more for yourself than the rest of the world combined? For being an egoistical and pretentious prick?
@Kyrie, I think what he really wants is for all of us to say that we would behave in exactly the same way, since he thinks he knows this to be true and everyone is lying about it for some reason.
@everyone, we’ve thrown around the idea that Brandon never managed to develop a theory of mind, yes? I feel like it would explain a lot.
@Kyrie: Can you prove that the men weren’t just pushing people out of their way but pushing them off the boat itself? I highly doubt the men were going up to the handrails and pushing the nearest women/child over the bar into direct danger.
People that endanger themselves frivolously aren’t role models. It shows they think very little of themselves and would sacrifice themselves so a stranger can live.
I don’t think it is being egotistical, I think it better reflects actual humanity. The idea that these men would place “women and children first” is socially constructed and when you strip that away, you get raw humanity which is “every person for themselves” or “me and my family first”.
Kyrie, I would send him that cookie if it meant he’d never darken our door again.
Of course you don’t think being a selfish prick is egotistical Brandon, you can’t see beyond your own nose.
It’s like the Egotistical Energizer Bunny…just keeps going and going and boring.
My opinion is that people that risk their lives to save others are heroes. Look at Chris Lucas, the manager at the Rangeline Pizza Hut. He gave his life to save the lives the other employees and the customers during the Joplin tornado. A waitress also died but that was after he was already sucked into the tornado. Chris Lucas, hero
You want another reason to not just focus on saving your own ass during an emergency? It’s not worth the survivor’s guilt. I would give anything to be able to go back in time and save my neighbor’s life last year. I have a million scenarios in my head where I could have prevented her death, if I had only had more time. Perhaps you would look at this issue differently if you survived a disaster while people around you died. It’s something to think about.
@Hellkell: Let’s reverse the genders shall we? If the ship was sinking and women were pushing men out of the way…I doubt members in the MSM or feminists would vilify them. They would most likely say those women “had to do what they needed to do in order to survive”. But only men get called cowards because they tried to save themselves.
Fuck those imaginary women in your head! They’re always doing horrible things in the imaginary scenarios in your head.
And what’s worse, the imaginary feminists in your head have the gall to defend them!
@Kendra: I have no problem with you and others thinking Chris Lucas is a hero. I do have a problem with calling him a coward if he just stayed outside and watched the destruction happen.
It’s not often that I make a comment consisting of “no1curr” and nothing else, but seriously:
No1curr.
Oh my God. It’s worse than I thought. Not only are imaginary women running rampant, but imaginary men are the recipients of untold imaginary discrimination!
This is the worst hypothetical injustice in history.
How could he just go outside and watch the destruction happen? Being outdoors is more dangerous than being inside during a tornado. At least if you’re inside, the building you’re in has some walls separating you from flying debris and the suction of the vortex. That’s why you’re supposed to go to the most interior room away from windows in the lowest level of the building.
Brandon, even your imaginary scenarios are boring.
“Hey guys, remember that time when all of those feminists roasted men alive and ate them?” “What!? That never happened and it’s really really terrible of you to pretend that it did.” “Oh, right. Hey guys, remember the time when I imagined feminists roasting men alive and eating them?” “…What?” “Yeah! Feminists suck! Cannibals!”
Brandon, you also said that people that risk their lives are NOT role models. You said they risk their lives frivolously. If someone sacrifices hirself to save lives, then it’s not frivolous. Lucas decided it was worth sacrificing his life to save a dozen other people. Now you’re saying it’s okay to call Lucas a hero, but before you said that self sacrifice wasn’t role model worthy.
@Holly: That’s funny since women and feminists have supported things they claim to oppose. Things like domestic violence…just as long as it was a woman hitting a man (Elin Nordegren hitting Tiger Woods).
Nobody in the media calls women that trample other women while shopping cowards. They might say the overall incident is tragic, but they rarely (if ever) come out and call the women cowards for treating a wedding dress or a child’s toy as more important than the safety of the other women around them.
Men on the other hand get called cowards and pathetic when they do not rush to the aid of women.
Brandon, I hate to break it to you, but those feminists that approve of Elin Nordegren and of women who trample other women while shopping?
Also imaginary.
(Actually, the entire “women trampling women” narrative is imaginary; the two deaths from Black Friday stampedes were men trampled by a mixed-gender crowd. In no case has a group of women screaming over wedding dresses* trampled another woman.)
*Are they all getting married on the same day? Do you not realize most wedding dresses have to be tailored and/or special-ordered? This doesn’t even make sense.
Feminists didn’t find Elin Nordegren attacking Tiger Woods funny anywhere outside of your imagination.
God, even your imagination is dull.
Where were feminists praising Elin Nordegren? I don’t know of any feminists except the ones in your head that would cheer any kind of DV on. Nice try though. Wanna back that theory up with something concrete?
That’s not true. At feministing they condemned Saturday Night Live for making jokes about Elin’s attack on Tiger Woods. Feminists are against ALL types of domestic violence.
Holly, I think he’s talking about the one day Filene’s has the wedding dresses on sale. Never heard of anyone being trampled to death there.