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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
*although, now that I think about it, I think vasectomy reversals aren’t covered here in Canada either so stones in a glass house
I can’t read Elam’s letter without imagining America the Beautiful playing in the background.
makomk:
I genuinely can’t tell if this is sarcastic, but I didn’t need anyone else’s permission to get a vasectomy.
Obviously, I discussed it with my wife out of my own volition, but I certainly wasn’t required to, and she wasn’t involved at any stage aside from driving me to and from the clinic and taking on all the childcare during the first 24 hours (when you’re strongly advised to move around as little as possible).
I was required to attend a pre-op counseling session, but I went on my own and it was essentially a load of questions along the lines of “are you really really sure you want to do this?”.
Happens in the UK as well. Twice I’ve tried to get vasectomised, twice been refused, because apparently I might want kids one day.
God forbid a doctor should ever recognise that some people know their own minds.
Shadow: That was my impression too, that it’s well-nigh impossible to get, say, a vasectomy at 22 because doctors are so sure you’ll regret it later. But that has nothing to do with your spouse at all (although it may be couched in terms of “Is your wife OK with this?”).
Makomk, if you are running into unethical doctors preventing you from accessing basic health care, like a vasectomy, go to Planned Parenthood. I had my vasectomy there and there was no restrictions based on my age, my lack of children, or my partners wishes. They did have a little 10 minute discussion about the procedure during which they asked, among other things, if I had discussed this with my partner, and if I felt that I was being pressured into it. So while my partner’s wishes were discussed, it was in the context of making sure that the decision was mine not her’s.
@Wetherby: your mileage may vary since there’s no hard and fast rule that doctors providing vasectomies must enforce this restriction. Could I ask whether you were encouraged or pressured to bring your wife into the counseling session, out of interest?
@LBT: I’m not being facetious, and as several people have pointed out it doesn’t just apply to vasectomies. Unfortunately the mandatory sterilization requirement for you’s not terribly surprising either; the UK seems to be a bit unusual in not requiring sterilization before it recognizes trans people’s gender, largely to avoid putting guys like you through unnecessary and ethically questionable surgery if I remember the details of the parliamentary debate correctly, and there were a fair few politicians that wanted it to be mandatory.
OK, that’s a lot more believable – I can well imagine that the counseling session I attended might have gone differently if I’d been twenty years younger, single and with no kids. But I still don’t believe my wife’s opinion would have been formally sought.
I should say that I was 30 years old at the time, and they may have tried to restrict my access had I been younger.
No, not at all. I assume she’d have been welcome to come, but we’d have had to get a babysitter, so she chose not to.
Which didn’t surprise me, because she wasn’t especially bothered about the actual mechanics. As far as she was concerned the decision had been made (in fact, it was made pretty much immediately after our second child came along, but we decided to wait two years to see if we felt differently), so she opted not to be involved.
Yeah, it may well be an age thing. I’m 25, and the friends I’m referring to are all within 24-30.
Shadow, it is a job of work to get sterilized in the US. I’ve gotten the side-eye and the “you’ll change your mind” crap ever since my mid-30’s. I’m 40 and still get that, with the added bonus now of living in that great bastion of women’s bodily autonomy known as Texas.
My usual response to doctors is if I’d wanted the job in the first place, I’d be doing it already and a lot sooner.
You should follow up to SPLC and link all of these, ahem, “links to Paul Elam’s letter” to them. Just in case they briefly make the mistake of believing his oozing bullshit.
Actually, the moon beavers are not allowed to transgress the fifth dimension until they reveal the sacred scroll and comb the hair of the wolf children with no eyes.
Sorry if that didn’t make much sense, but it was about as well-researched and based in reality as makomk’s shit about vasectomies.
What’s AVfM’s connection with SPLC? Were they targeted to potentially be labelled by the latter group as one of their hate groups?
On a semi-related note, I <3 Mark Potok (sp?) brains at his level are super sexy 😉
Morgan, there was another post up on SPLC’s web site that specifically talked about AVFM (and other misogynistic/hateful sites.) (Though Elam was also mentioned in the main piece.)
my husband had a vasectomy after our 2nd child. No medical professional sought my opinion or permission. Obviously we talked about it and both of us agreed it was a good idea. He would have had the last say in it however as it is his body.
i think that if you are being questioned or counselled on your decision to undergo sterilisation, it is ridiculous to suggest that this is in some way linked to enslaving men to women’s reproduction desires. i suspect it lies more in the fact that any decision to voluntarily undergo an invasive surgical procedure, which will result in pretty severe pain for several days afterwards needs to explored so that the doctor is happy that the man is sure and clear about the decision and its consequences.
i personally think it is not for doctors to mandate who gets to access this service simply based on their judgement of the motivations, or on the age of the patient.
It’s about time someone said it, isn’t it??
This isn’t news to women who are victimized by abuse, then forced to hand their children over to the very same man to abuse further.
I guess it all comes down to what rights you believe men and women SHOULD have.
The funny thing is, battered mothers looking to protect their sons from suffering the same abuse they suffered really DO care about men’s rights – like the rights of our sons to live their lives in non-violent environments.
Looking through the comments on AVFM again. Fidelbogen’s is the winner so far. This is my favorite line:
Well, I guess you’re a perfectly decent guy then, as the law defines it!
Wait, Alec Novy is showing some promise too:
makomk : many agreed there are problems with the way sterilization is handled, but nothing that applies more to husbands more than any other group.
A little story about a couple I know. They are husband and wife but have problems because the wife feels like she never gets to make any decisions. The husband thinks this is absurd, because for example when they go out to pick furniture for their house, the husband lets the wife pick out what she likes. All he asks is to have the final say on what they end up buying.
Of course, what this means is that the wife doesn’t actually have any choice at all, because her opinion is superseded by her husband’s. Equality!
@Kirby
That arrangement could work if the veto cut both ways–i.e., if she had similar power to approve/disapprove his decisions. My wife and I will often delegate to each other various decisions while reserving the right of final approval; since the other person has done most of the work, final approval is seldom withheld without a good reason, lest the withholder be saddled with the responsibility for finding something better. Judging by your comments, however, it sounds like this doesn’t happen in their relationship.
Interestingly, John Gottman argues that one predictor of divorce is the failure of men to accept influence from their wives. For some reason, this does not work in reverse–i.e., wives who refuse to accept influence from husbands are not similarly predictive of divorce.
As far as funniest comments, I nominate Zorro with
Ah yes, that will prove to the SPLC that the MRM is reasonable and that “mangina” is not a slur. I cringe to think of the letters those guys are sending Godlwag. The MRA’s keep telling each other to contact the SPLC and keep it civil, but I think their definition of civil is different than most peoples’. All they’ll do is confirm that the report is correct.
Elizabeth,
Wow. These guys are just so angry. How does it get to this?
Maybe cases like this one which seems only the tip of the iceberg. While many in the MRM seem to have gone off the deep end – not unlike some in the feminist movement, the case in question seems in very poor taste at best – assuming it is not false propaganda. But if it is not then it seems only a little short of Auschwitz advertising lampshades made out of human skin ….
Steers, if stuff like that bothers men, they would not last a day and a half as a woman. Not till noon, I’d say. We’d try to post a link for you, but… LOL one link? Surf the net …like…anywhere but this page for starters. Are you blind?