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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
Right wingers ain’t half up themselves, are they? You’re not worthy of a more in-depth dressing down that actually explains in detail what lackwits you are. When you say ludicrous, hateful horseshit like Elam does, your own words will do the job of crucifying you for us.
I mean, you want to talk forensics? Is that really where you want to go, given that Elam only rarely cites any evidence that isn’t another misogynist twit? Evidence is actually important in a debate. So is having a minimum standard of knowledge. Like Creationists, you idiots fail that minimal standard. You are ridiculous because you lack substance.
What I don’t understand is: what exactly needs to be rebutted here? The claim that women who are too drunk to consent deserve to be raped if they go home with someone? That Elam hates feminists? Or that the only reason that men don’t beat random women in the street is because they don’t care about them?
Which of the above quoted posts aren’t repulsive on sight?
you’d have to say something before we could rebut it, dawg. childish wish-fulfillment pseudo-burns don’t really have what’s it called… oh yeah, content.
also, you are bad at words. at the very least, look up tangible. it does not mean what your are trying to make it mean.
related to this, i’ve been on a markymark kick today and earlier this week he posted what he called ’empirical proof’ that women shouldnt be allowed to vote. what’s his idea of empiricism? genesis. no, really.
http://markymarksthoughts.blogspot.com/2012/03/empirical-prima-facie-evidence-women.html
Actually, my mom and I do our best to catch vermin and then release them in more wooded areas. If I were you Dave, I’d carry a charged GPS on my person at all times, just in case the revolution does come
What about people who aren’t Christians? Why are we supposed to care about Genesis?
(Not that that argument would be valid if you were a Christian either, I’m just saying.)
I used to rescue mice from my old cat and take them outside! He didn’t try to eat them anyway, just scared them to death, so if I caught him at it I would capture them and release them outside.
All bets are off if we’re talking rats, though. I’m not going to try to kill them, but I’m not going to pick them up to trap and release them either, because they might bite me and those teeth are sharp.
The fastest and surest way to get screwed over economically is to be female and have a kid. To have a kid when a male, you gain since you are perceived as needing to “support a family.” As a woman? You are perceived as being less likely to be able to be there for the company no matter what. Which means, economically, being female and having a child is where a woman shows her sacrifice.
Men have the same choices as women do when it comes to families really-they just think they do not because of the same problem that feminists fight against-that perception of what men should do when they have a child.
Yes, if the father is not the one cleaning up the puke on the ceiling or doing the fifteenth load of laundry while at the same time trying to keep the kid from clambering onto the top of the nearest bookcase…then no, the father is not doing the bulk of the childcare. The contributions financially are important but they are not quite the same thing as the parent who is doing those other things I mentioned and more.
Financially they are pulling their weight…grunt work wise? no. If that is the case, why should any court give the father any custody at all?
You tell me. I do not think so but some men do.
Fixed that for you-the men who do not get awarded full custody are usually the ones not doing the full amount of grunt work at home.
They may have been. They may have been doing part of the work, half the work or most of the work. That still does not mean that they get 100% full custody because well why would someone who does not do the grunt work even want full custody?
America has one of the lowest death rates of any nation on workplace deaths. Usually if men die on the job they have been failing to follow directions. That cannot be blamed on women even though I know you wish you could.
If pointing out that men, as a whole, do not do as much child care as women, pointing out that men, as a whole, do not bother to speak up about how they would like to do more in terms of child care, pointing out that women should not be punished economically for the decision to be a responsible parent and pushing for policies and belief systems that let men have the chance to be more involved in their children’s lives is attacking, you need to go reread the dictionary’s definition.
If you want to be a part of the movement that helps men get to be better hands on fathers, great! Wonderful! Go do it. But stop blaming feminists for demanding that women not be forced to do all the child care and compensated work or have custody stripped from them for getting a divorce.
I am tempted but I will resist pointing out that there is no taxation without representation-that is one of many reasons women have the right to vote.
Man, the trolls have gotten really smug and pretentious lately. And a lot of them just skip the arguing and go straight for the gloating.
But I’m really not sure what they have to gloat about.
they got a single provision stricken from a pre-committee draft of a re-authorization bill for a law that isn’t going anywhere. why shouldnt they gloat?
Well, there’s that, I suppose.
@empathologicalism
Like many “rightists” you sit on a high chair and use “advanced” language to sound clever and profound, when in reality you are very superficial.
Our mockery is not discourse, neither do we pretend it to be. Who would honestly have a “discourse” with people like Paul Elam and most other MRAs? They are hateful fanatics so dogmatic and dishonest they are completely immune to reason. Having a “discourse” or some other “reasonable debate” with them is pointless.
Empthological: in a judged forensics contest
I was, WTF is a judged forensics contest? Then I Googled (since I, unlike our trolls, can do that), to learn something new today: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individual_events_(speech)
Speech contests! Oh, well, hell, what’s the point of bringing that sort of formal, organized, debate with judges up to evaluate informal discourse on the internet? This isn’t a formal contest; there are no rules; there are no trained, authorized, etc. judges.
You think your crap above would win anything in that kind of contest? I doubt it (English teacher, not speech, but still).
Parody. Satire. Improv. Perfectly valid forms of discourse! And again, it’s JON Stewart (I don’t know about competitive forensics competition, i.e. they probably can’t count down for spelling errors in oral performance, but do they count down for the equivalent, i.e. mispronouncing words, esp. names?). Saying “omg you aren’t following the rules for judged forensics contest” which are SPEECH contests on a blog where a bunch of people hang out to mock misogyny is a pretty ineffective speech act: i.e. you don’t have the authority to make this judgement stick. You have no formal authority (who made you the judge of us? Nobody), and you have not gained any ethos in your postings here for multiple reasons (showing no knowledge of the history and types of discourses here, focusing solely on male feminists when a bunch of us are female or gender queer, and you don’t even define what “feminist” means).
Can you understand that discourse communities online often set up their own conventions and rules, and really don’t give a flying fuck about people yelling that they r doing it rong?
empathlogicalwhatever…I mean Spock:
HAHAHAHA. Forensics? For someone who wants to sound smart, you can’t read for comprehension. Look at the header of the site and tell me where structured, judged, debate comes in.
I’ll wait.
And here I thought hateful fanatics were the ones who wrote off reasonable debate.
Early feminists like Susan B Anthony were willing to stand up and debate their opponents in court, and if they lost they would go to jail. Modern feminists can’t be bothered to acknowledge, let alone respond to the slightest criticism of feminist dogma because they’re too fickle and lazy. I guess power and politics corrupt and all that.
Uh… feminists should debate MRAs in “loser goes to jail” matches? What?
…Actually I’d totally take that deal.
Where did you get that about Susan B Anthony, PreggoPunchout?
Susan B. Anthony “debating”:
I suspect it’s some distorted version of Anthony being charged and tried for OMG THE CRIME OF VOTING:
The Trial of Susan B. Anthony for Illegal Voting
by Doug Linder (2001)
“Susan B. Anthony is not on trial; the United States is on trial.”–Matilda Joslyn Gage
And, oh, I don’t know, while Fluke didn’t appear to be in any danger of being arrested for speaking before a Congressional committee, she did face a lot of vicious backlash. There are feminists willing to speak up and present their ideas in a number of public settings: since it’s now legal for them to do so (as illegal, i.e. women abolitionists were arrested for public speaking under local laws back in the day).
or, y’know, the work of people like susan b anthony got us to the point where it’s not a crime to express the idea that women are people.
this isnt even a feminism thing, it’s more of a ‘we as americans have taken a dimmer view of jailing people for their opinions’ thing. 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.
Modern feminists can’t be bothered to acknowledge, let alone respond to the slightest criticism of feminist dogma because they’re too fickle and lazy. I guess power and politics corrupt and all that.
Oh, I don’t know–feminists are testifying all over the place in all sorts of venues.
But they probably aren’t likely in paying attention to losers who try to pimp crappy games like, oh, I don’t know, Preggo Punchout.
Are you mad my widdle widdums that the feminists aren’t paying attention to you? AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW, here have some cheese with that whine.
Re: feminists speaking.
I’d also say that the social changes over the past century or so have also resulted in feminists addressing a whole range of different issues (rather than the ways in which the single-goal discourse of earlier perods worked: i.e. “get the vote”), so that there feminists all over in all venues and media (and don’t give me that crap about the internet not being an important media of communication–if the MRAs and white supremacists and other hate groups are using it, as they are, for recruiting, then they think it’s good enough to use), doing all sorts of different activism. I’m not a fan of the current feminist blogosphere (i.e. the white, cis, straight, mostly fairly young to my elderly eyes group of feminists that are best known) myself–but that reflects my choices.
FEminism is a lot more fractical, a lot more complex, a lot more divided, and a lot more diverse than the MRA’s seem to grasp though I don’t supposed that should surprise any of us.
I know you’re really heavy into your substantive debate groove here, empathologicalism, but this was written by someone who also came here to argue with feminists. The second iteration is a regular quoting the original. *rolls eyes*
So basically FF/IR is proposing a balloon debate in which instead of metaphorically being tossed out of the hot air balloon the losers go to jail?