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.
Is it just me, or is EN not making sense more than usual? I’ve read that about ten times, and I have no idea what the hell it possibly says. *fumbles for MRA-to-English translator* GAH! I know it’s here somewhere….
There’s another good reason the MRA doesn’t do activism. They’ve already convinced themselves of their disposability, that feminism has become so thoroughly entrenched that its a huge monster waiting to eat them alive and that they are inherently worthless as they lack sex appeal or the money and power to make up for it.
Not exactly the thinking patterns build resilience from. These guys behave like a pack of whipped curs.
@ Pillowinhell
I think that’s the reasons they *give* for not doing actual activism, but the real reason is they are embarrassed about their beliefs and they know, on some level, that it is the articulation of their inadequecy as human beings.
JtO claims that the MRM is going to be talked about over the water cooler in the years to come. They might get a tiny amount of coverage the next time one of their guys goes on a shooting rampage, but that’s it.
I haven’t noticed anything else about the “Sink Misandry” debacle. OMG, that was so incredibly hilarious.
Um, no, actually, a lot of the changes they claim to give a shit about would in fact require actual activism. Shelters for men don’t magic themselves out of the dirt, prison rape (which affects women too, assholes) isn’t going to end just because, and the draft literally will require legislative effort. Changing minds is important when you’re actually the disadvantaged class (Which men aren’t), but it’s not sufficient. There’s real work involved.
Head explosion @ explore nature’s post…
I know he is FOB, but the lack of any possible comprehensible topics is driving me insane .
I’ll try to extract some sense from ENs post:
– Men shouldn’t date women that aren’t interested in men.
– MRAs shouldn’t try to date feminists.
Where he went wrong:
– He seems to think that all meaningful relationships have to involve sex.
– He seems to think all men are MRAs (or should be), therefore the “men shouldn’t date feminists”.
Also, feminazis for misandry and born again men are fucking beautiful. I love how that one dude does the happy troll dance whenever MRAs think he’s one of them.
Very much appreciate your work, but I can’t help feel that arguing with the Stupid is like screaming at an hurricane.
Only in BrandonWorld is sitting on your ass in front of the computer and wishing real hard an effective agent of change.
“In fact, just changing your attitude, thought process, world view and behaviors is enough to make change. You don’t need to lobby Congress to change something.”
Yes, why bring your concerns about fairness in rape trials to Congress, when you can simply let guilty rapists roam free to teach those lying bitches a lesson?
EN speaks a tautological truth. Men must accept women who are being consistent with male sexuality and women who want sex from men.
I point out that I have lovers who do this. 1:I am male, ergo I have a male sexuality. 2: They want sex from men (sometimes they want it from me).
My lovers are all feminists. I’d have to say that, for the past… not quite 30 years, almost all of my lovers have been in accord with feminism, and some have been pretty radically feminist (or at least a lot more feminist than I am).
A lot of them, BTW, made the first moves, so it’s not like I was “pussy begging”. This is only relevant, because it gives the lie to the idea that one has to be actively chasing the feminists, and “proving oneself” to get laid.
Hellkell: Only in BrandonWorld is sitting on your ass in front of the computer and wishing real hard an effective agent of change.
Nah, it’s common in the Manosphere (which I notice Brandon is now admitting to being part of).
Crumbelievable: Yes, why bring your concerns about fairness in rape trials to Congress, when you can simply let guilty rapists roam free to teach those lying bitches a lesson?
Thankfully they aren’t even good at that. One of the things Elam doesn’t mention in his little rant about how to subvert the justice system (the idea that Rad is so fond of), is the idea that the MRAs are going to be willing to be on a random trial. It’s not as if the charges are shared with the jury before voir dire. I had a decent idea of the issues in the case I didn’t get on, but that’s because voir dire took a week (and I only missed being empaneled because the clerk read the wrong line when calling for the last juror).
If it had been the hour, or so, that most criminal cases take, odds are good the juror has only a vague idea, because neither side wants to tip their hand.
Even if an MRA knew he was going to be a juror for a rape trial, he probably wouldn’t be able to hide his biases from lawyers during the jury selection process. Lawyers are good at figuring out who might be a stealth jurors, and MRA’s would have a hard time slipping under the radar during the screening questions.
I will say I never had a juror surprise me, in the sense of “what do you mean you nullified? I totes thought you would be allll up in convicting this defendant!” I have had many voir dire participants who thought they were being all clever at something (usually, getting out of jury duty), but who were actually being all obvious. I imagine MRAs will largely fit into that category.
If they get into voir dire for rape cases at all, that is. If you crunch the numbers for those, the chances of that happening are actually vanishingly small. You’re far more likely to sit on a civil jury than a criminal one, and far more likely to sit on any other criminal case than a rape trial. And if the rape has gone to trial, it’s because there are genuine fact issues involved and/or the defendant is so absolutely adamant about zir own innocence that there may be no need to “nullify” because the evidence actually does not support a conviction. .
Also, I’m amused that MRAs think just one of them on a jury would be sufficient to nullify. It’s actually not. Sufficient to hang the jury in a felony case, yes. Sufficient to nullify, no. Learn the difference.
@ Dani
Dani, with respect, WTF are you to point out the obvious truth to MRAs? Don’t you realise what you’ve just done? You’ve impinged on the masturbatory fantasies of a few dozen sad case bloggers. That’s what you’ve done.
I hope you’re feeling good about yourself, Dani, look at you with your *career*, probably think you’re self sufficient. Well I’ve got news for you, YOU AREN’T. Paul Elam says you’re aren’t and him and others are frickin’ your shiz up by not marrying you!
Now I’m amused at the thought of an MRA lying their ass off and saying all the right things during voir dire (although, as Dani Alexis says, I’m sure their idea of “all the right things” is cartoonishly fake), then having to serve on the jury for a protracted dispute between an oil and grease corporation and a factory manager claiming the machinery at their production plant was irreversibly damaged by the plaintiff’s products which were specifically stated to be safe for this application.
Dani: I know a few people who could slip onto a jury. They belong to a fairly limited group, and the odds of them doing it to nullify are slim.
But they don’t care about the facts, when it comes to rape. They think any man so accused is being railroaded. They also think that hanging a jury is as good as setting him free; because they are sure no retrying of the case will happen.
Elam has said it (and Rad confirms it), they will actively vote to acquit a man they are convinced is guilty of rape. They see this as an act of protest. A “blow to the system”. Which means they are unlikely to keep their mouth shut after they hang the jury (to say nothing of the other jurors saying, “the case was solid, and this guy refused to say anything but not guilty.”
When you look at how they define rape (basically violent stranger rape) you have to assume they aren’t really interested in justice (since they aren’t doing squat in the way of actual activism. As with Brandon, they think that “changing the way they think, and attempting to persuade others; on the internet” is effective activism).
What worries me is that they believe the sorts of tropes which make rape so hard to convict, and in any case that isn’t “Rape rape”, they might manage an acquittal, because of how prone people are to say, “what did she expect? It’s just her word against his anyway.”
Then I think of the debating skills I’ve seen them use, and I worry less.
Yes…always a terrible blow to the system to do things that ensure the status quo remains running smoothly.
I am sorry if this turns out to be long but I was rolling it around in my head on my way in to work, and I think I need to get it out of there if I am to be able to focus today. I read the Lordpopinjay essay that Brandon linked to. Lordpopinjay positions himself as self interested, but it seems to me that he is more concerned with opposing other people’s interests than supporting his own.
The mugging thing stood out to me in this respect. He says that if he were to see a person getting mugged he would walk on past. By doing this he promotes a world where the group of people currently being mugged have less support, and while he is not now a member of the currently being mugged group, membership in that group is not voluntary, so he could at some other point be in that group and find himself lacking support. He is also making mugging people easier to accomplish, by removing some of the obstacles to carrying out a successful mugging, thus increasing the total numbers of muggings and thereby his likelihood of being the victim of a mugging. I am not suggesting that he must rush into a physical fight with a mugger, but if he were to call out, or call the police when he sees a mugging he has a reasonable chance of driving the mugger off simply by making the mugging slightly more difficult.
I do not think that the only, or even the best reason to try to stop violence that one witnesses is self interest, but to deny the benefit one gains from being a member of society seems foolish to me.
Yes but that line of thinking only works when you haven’t convinced yourself that you receive not only ZERO benefit by being a member of your society, but in fact are forced to contribute to society to your own detriment. Which is exactly where these idiots stand.
When Elam makes his grandiose stands on “I’d never convict a rapist!”, does he actually specify “a man who’d raped a woman”?
Or is that just implied because MRAs constantly forget to care about male rape victims?
Either lordpopinjay is Brandon, or it’s where he gets the majority of his talking points. If not, they’re both fucking tedious.
Holly, they forget about male rape victims until it’s time to make “jokes.”
@Happy: Okay, fine! It’s true! I cry into my appropriately girly cereal every morning because Elam refuses to marry a caricature of me! ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?!?!
/lol