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[TW for rape apologism and domestic violence.]
Paul Elam of A Voice for Men has responded to the Southern Poverty Law Center report on the Men’s Rights Movement with an letter to the organization’s head. Apparently, the SPLC is confused, and AVFM isn’t hateful at all! Indeed, it’s like the opposite of hateful. Loveful, you might call it. Here’s Elam:
Contrary to what readers of your site may be led to believe, the goals of SPLC and AVfM are quite similar: We both work to identify groups who seek to oppress others, and inform the public of the inequities they would perpetuate. … The work of AVfM is vital and, despite what you may think, not dissimilar from the goals and aims of the SPLC.
Indeed, AVFM might better be thought of as “a human rights organization.”
Elam also clears up a little matter of terminology:
[T]he term “mangina” is not a euphemism for “weak men,” but rather a label for men who enable and excuse female misconduct – ranging from physical violence to exculpatory false reporting of crimes … – solely because the offender is female (and to gain women’s approval).
I think I can speak for all manginas when I say, thanks for the clarification, Paul!
At the end of the letter, Elam gets all Martin Luther King on us:
Those who fear truth, and brand it as hatred and bigotry, hide behind the worst kind of cowardice – the sniveling complacency that for generations allowed the rich to starve the poor, for one person to own another because of the color of their skin, and for the officers at Nuremberg to claim they were “just following orders.” …
This movement will grow, as it has since its inception, and the time will come when the SPLC (and other groups) must admit our fundamental similarities and aspirations. I am inviting you, with open arms, to do just that.
The alternative, I fear, is that you come down on the wrong side of history, with the likes of Dred Scott as your legacy.
Inspiring stuff, Paul. Nazis, Dred Scott– you totally nailed it. Who could possibly doubt your passion, or your deeply moral vision?
Here’s a link to his letter.
Oh, wait, that wasn’t a link to his letter. That was a link to a post of his in which he tells a feminist that:
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.
Here’s the link to his letter.
Oops! That was actually a link to a post in which he suggests that “vermin” like me (and another feminist writer who has also been critical of the Men’s Rights movement) deserve to be killed. Or have something awful and permanent happen to us that would solve “the problem” that is us. He’s a little vague.
Here, at long last, is the link.
Oh, sorry, that’s actually a link to a post in which Paul puckishly suggested that October, currently designated as Domestic Violence Awareness Month, should be renamed “Bash a Violent Bitch Month.” As he explained:
I’d like to make it the objective for the remainder of this month, and all the Octobers that follow, for men who are being attacked and physically abused by women – to beat the living shit out of them. I don’t mean subdue them, or deliver an open handed pop on the face to get them to settle down. I mean literally to grab them by the hair and smack their face against the wall till the smugness of beating on someone because you know they won’t fight back drains from their nose with a few million red corpuscles.
And then make them clean up the mess.
What a wit!
Anyway, here’s the letter.
Gosh darn it. I’m not doing too well with links at the moment. That’s actually a link to a post in which Elam suggests that women who drink and go home with men are “freaking begging” to be raped:
Damn near demanding it.
And all the outraged PC demands to get huffy and point out how nothing justifies or excuses rape won’t change the fact that there are a lot of women who get pummeled and pumped because they are stupid (and often arrogant) enough to walk though life with the equivalent of a I’M A STUPID, CONNIVING BITCH – PLEASE RAPE ME neon sign glowing above their empty little narcissistic heads.
I guess that’s what they call “human rights advocacy” right there.
Ok, finally, the letter:
Damn. That wasn’t even by Paul. No, that was a guest post on A Voice for Men by a fellow named Keith, with an explanation for why men don’t just beat women all the time. (It’s not why you’d think!)
Let’s face it guys if it was about size or domination, or patriarchy or anything other than power, wouldn’t we be kicking the shit out of women on a daily basis in the streets? The only reason men don’t randomly pound the shit out of women who can’t keep their mouths shut, is because they don’t mean anything to us and they have no power over or in our lives. They are not worth the trouble! That’s the only reason there isn’t bodies strewn all over the streets.
That’s enough human rights advocacy for me for now. Here’s the actual link to Elam’s letter.
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This post contains some
I think the MRAs have all told each other that this is a lying, man-bashing site so many times that they just believe it and don’t look for any evidence in David’s actual words.
For a bunch of guys so concerned about false accusations you’d think they’d be a little more skeptical.
@ithiliana
i agree to a certain extent, but i think most of the content of the ‘range of issues’ is things that would get you jailed in the first half of the twentieth century, but not in the second half, because most of it relates back to the idea of criticizing and exposing entrenched power.
why should anyone be okay with going to jail for being a feminist (or an mra- free speech means everyone gets free speech, even people with dumb ideas). that is a very terrible reason for being sent to jail.
In Canada, there’s these Human Rights Tribunals which can fine you and make legally binding rulings for controversial speech. Most of their targets are below the poverty line. I think England’s judiciary even barred Micheal Savage from their country a few years ago and have jailed people for publishing books.
It’s funny that biggest threat to free speech now comes from the left, or “liberals” as they call themselves. Goes to show you how much organizations change over time 🙂
I would pay good money to watch Holly debate any one of the MRAs they care to put forward. I finally got around to reading David’s debate with Elam; Elam was so outargued at every stage, you could actually start to see the signs of panic in his writing…
cloudiah, David left that debate. Nice try, though.
i did a bad job of articulating that. what i was trying to say was that feminism attacks entrenched power in the form of privilege (and in subsequent iterations, a vast number of kinds of privilege) and that this kind of speech used to be off-limits in a way it no longer is. although obviously the success of feminists is crucial to the change in the perception of feminist speech, i think it’s also attributable to the increased respect for criticism of entrenched power (i.e. privilege)
Oh, yeah, and in Rwanda the genocide denial law is being used to imprison government critics. That’s probably one of the more notable social justice debauticals.
england (and i guess canada, too? someone smarter than factfinder help me out here) places a lower value on free speech than the u.s. does. i think theyre wrong, but this isn’t an issue of discrimination, its an issue of the value of free speech.
yeah… no. the threat isnt from the left, it’s from countries that haven’t traditionally put a high value on free speech. the first amendment is pretty radical, it’s one of my favorite things about america, but you can’t blame any particular ideology when other countries don’t share that value. i think you should be able to say whatever the fuck you want, but i recognize that not everyone thinks of ‘free speech’ that way.
although obviously the success of feminists is crucial to the change in the perception of feminist speech, i think it’s also attributable to the increased respect for criticism of entrenched power (i.e. privilege)
Unless the privileged group happens to be feminists. It’s kind of how the French and Bolshevist revolutions were supposed to make everyone equal and happy but just ended up killing the rich and intellectuals and putting some new thugs on top.
It’s a shame, the intellectuals just sit around philosophizing and drinking tea and they’re always the ones who get buried alive/encased in molten wax/etc. whenever a social change comes about.
Empathiclogicalism (not realy logic?, just logicalism?): Im not about to wade through the comments… ok…..but did he SAY anything?
If you were willing to read the comments, you’d know. That might be the, you know, logical, thing to do.
Esp. as we have to presume it’s a rhetorical question, a “verbal hand to forehead gesture” with “wry observations, cute insults*” etc.
If you want to take the effort to put some substance in the rebuttal, we’ll still be here.
*I’m being generous
Oh wait, you did read the comments… but the ones which rebut, you ignore. The others you pretend (by ignoring the context), are lacking in substance.
I’m so glad you aren’t defending me. Elam is really getting his money’s worth from you.
FF/IR David left the debate because Elam changed the agreed upon terms, and at that point, David had already won. Elam couldn’t, and didn’t really even try, to refute his arguments. How’s your video game working out?
Holly, it’s pretty clear that the vast majority of MRAs who talk about this site haven’t actually ever read anything on it.
Yes, IR, after it was clear Elam wasn’t actually debating me, but instead arguing with an imaginary feminist in his head, and was also being a complete asshole (as per usual, I’ve come to realize), I decided to walk.
I did actually write a response to Elam’s final post in the “debate.” Did you read it? Turns out that his grand closing argument was based on a really obtuse misreading of one of the biggest DV studies ever conducted.
put another way, factfinder, i agree with your basic concerns about free speech, i just accept that i’m saying that from a u.s. perspective and that not everyone is working from that perspective
so… do you want to have a serious conversation about speech rights with me, or is this just an excuse for a right-wing wankfest. because i will totally have that conversation with you if you will hop off your ideological pedestal for even a fraction of a second.
The first wave feminists debated a wide variety of things but their main concern was always the vote.
One of the funnest debates was over free love and why are there so many sirens outside my window?
debate? I did debate. The MRA types would so lose. One of the important points of debate… one has to be arguing the same resolution.
One also has to substantively rebut opponents. If a point is, “dropped”, it stays dropped, and the side that doesn’t drop it gets to count as stipulated because the other side decided not to engage it.
There are other rules, relating to arguments which expand on the resolution being connected, one to the other, in some sort of plausible rationale. One of the things we did was spend evenings eating pizza, drinking beer and making sure we had, “squirrel killers” to deal with all the bizarre possibilities people would come up with (e.g. any restriction on advertising being a certain recipe for nuclear war).
Now that I think about it, that may be part of why I am tolerably able to deal with internet idjits. One of the tricks of the game is to find a way to distract the opposing debater/team into dropping arguments.
Because debate isn’t about being right, it’s about form, and “winning” inside the rules.
As such, it doesn’t apply to real life.
Another example of early feminists discussing various things: The Woman’s Bible!
@Sharculese: We probably agree–I think?–i.e. the reason that feminist debates today (and I am speaking primarily of USian feminists because that’s what I know) cover more topics is because of social changes–in part caused by earlier feminist activism and work.
That’s probably one of the more notable social justice debauticals.
No, no, it’s only a debautical if it happens at sea.
oh, we definitely agree on that point.
what i was trying to say is that i also think that a major contributing factor to increased feminist reluctance to being jailed, beyond the successes of feminism, is that USians in general have developed the idea that it isn’t proper to jail someone for their views, whatever they might be. to put it another way, i think it’s in part an achievement of feminism but i also think that it’s in part a reflection of a general increase in free speech rights.
@Sharulese: OK, yes, RIGHT! I see.
However, in this context (meaning Trolllogic’s point), it’s useful to point out that women rights activists are being jailed (and worse) in other countries: let me go get the cites!
OK, for incredibly stone ignorant and arrogant Troll Dude:
Google results for “women activists imprisoned”:
women activists imprisoned
Now, you may quibble these aren’t ‘feminists’ and I might actually agree that not all would call themselves that — but if your point is that women (activists) aren’t willing to be jailed for their beliefs any longer, I think Sharculese’s point, which I now understand, is relevant. Context! The USian system isn’t as likely to jail people for speech these days — but of course that says nothing about women in other national contexts (where the oppression both legally and socially) is much more overt not being jailed.
Because they are.
So, Trolldude, any links to any brave MRAs who have been willing to go to jail for speaking out against the Oppressive Feminists?
@Sharculese: Oh, and generally, I think all social changes are due to MULTIPLE factors–many of which are not anybody’s conscious intent/choice/action (i.e. I no longer buy in Great Man OR Great Woman theory of historical change). Complex social changes are not caused by single events!
good point. i wasn’t think about the non-first world context, so thanks for bringing that aspect up.
@Pecunium: I dropped out of the debate club in high school (the “smart” kids were supposed to be in chess club or debate club or student gov’t and I hated them all, but got shoved into them by my father). I sucked at it–was very shy then.
So I never learned the formal debate structure or skills–but I have been standing in front of classes for over twenty years, not to mention academic conferences–I got over my shyness/reluctance to talk in front of people in graduate school (I had friends who couldn’t/didn’t, and had to stop teaching). I actually quite enjoy that (equally artificial) situation (though am mostly teaching online now, so not ‘standing in front’ as much as I used to).
Sharculese: Well while we’re not all USian (heh), most of us are in industrialized countries, and I’m fine with that being the default most of the time–and I certainly don’t expect any of our mratrolldudez to know about the various womanist, feminist, and women’s activist movements in other nations (a number of which are quite critical of elements of “Western feminism,” and I doubt the troll dudez know that either). But it’s good to remember every once in a while.
And for others not aware of the history of women participating in debates about rights: Other Voices in early modern Europe.
Women. Writing. In 1400-1700. In multiple languages.
<blockquote)
In early modern Europe (about 1400 to about 1700), women began to write and sometimes publish in their native languages, and their writing established the presence of female voices for the first time in world history. They wrote in many genre (dialogues, essays, letters, plays, poems, treatises) and in their native languages—Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Latin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Ukrainian. At the same time, they pressed for a wider recognition of women’s intellectual and moral capacities, a campaign in which they were joined by a few male advocates and defenders.
The series “The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe,” co-edited by Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr., established itself at the University of Chicago Press where, between 1996 and 2010, 60 volumes were published in the series. As the Chicago list reached its end, the editors found a new publisher at the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies (CRRS) and Iter, both at the University of Toronto. Titles that had been on the Chicago list were moved to the Toronto list and a new co-editor was added, Elizabeth Hageman, to develop an English list for the series. The Toronto list currently stands at 117 volumes, and the combined Chicago and Toronto lists at 177 titles, the vast majority by women. The first CRRS/Iter series publication appeared in late 2009, and by the end of 2011 14 had been published and 8 are currently at various stages in press. This website lists all books from both series. As books are published their cover images are added. A click onto a cover image makes possible the ordering of that book.
Suck on that, trollz.
Rats: corrected blockquote: