Over on A Voice for Men, our dear friend Paul Elam has come up with an interesting new way to celebrate Mother’s Day – with what is essentially the longest, least funny, and most rage-filled “Yo Mama” joke ever. (Indeed, it’s so rage-filled I should probably put a Trigger Warning right about here.)
Elam starts off by addressing the mothers of the world, suggesting he’s got a “a socially conscious twist” on the traditional Mother’s Day celebrations. Mothers, he argues, should gather together the flowers they’ve been given by their loved ones and:
Place a bunch of daffodils at a dumpster near you, perhaps one in which one of you, or one of your kind, has tossed an unwanted baby, leaving it there to slowly die alone in a pile of trash.
Perhaps you could lay a single rose at the base of a bridge that has been used by a mother to throw her baby into an icy river. Perhaps you can lay it there with hands that have beaten or shaken a baby to death.
You probably didn’t see that coming, did you? He goes on.
Now perhaps some of you could place large, colorful arrangements at the abortion centers where women go to have children cut out and laid to rest in those colorful and attractive biohazard containers that are all the rage in the clinics. …
Maybe you can lay virtual flowers at your computers to honor all the children that you and your sisters have pimped out to pedophiles, or perhaps the blossoms could be placed in your child’s room, which also doubles as your preferred place to abuse your own.
Oh, but you say you haven’t done any of these things, and that abortion isn’t actually the same as infanticide? No matter. Elam has an answer for that:
This is not a request for some mothers, or a percentage of them, but all of you. In fact, you don’t even have to be a mother. If you have a vagina, the blood of all those children, who are abused far more at the hands of women than men, has stained your skin and caked around the cuticles of your fingers.
If you are a mother, particularly one of the many abusers, or just one that has remained silent as your sisters have beaten, choked, stabbed, burned, drowned, abused, neglected, dumped, tortured and otherwise done the unspeakable to the most defenseless among us, then I hope to see those flowers in your murderous hands, paying homage to those that have been unfortunate enough to be placed in your path. …
In Daffodils for Dumpsters the gash gets you in, and you don’t really have a choice.
You see, Elam has decided that we live in an era of “collective guilt,” and that the evil (straw) feminists who go around blaming all men for the actions of a few – through such dastardly things like rape awareness seminars – deserve to find themselves collectively blamed as well.
Except that Elam’s post goes well beyond an ill-conceived and ill-intentioned attempt at “turnabout is fair play.” This isn’t a piece of Swiftian satire. He actually believes all this hateful nonsense, and says as much:
Now, do I really mean all this? Yes. It is not that women deserve to be collectively regarded as child abusers and killers. Most aren’t. Most are actually very good to their children and can even be trusted with the children of others. But that truth is not what is important here.
What is important is the children, or the principle, or whatever other bullshit we make up to convince ourselves it is not about demonizing women when that is exactly what we are doing.
I have to confess I have no idea what he’s trying to say in the second paragraph here. Did he mean to say “men” instead of “women?” If so, this is an interesting little slip.
He continues:
The fact is that mothers are more dangerous than fathers where it concerns children. They always have been. It is only a few percentage points in that direction, but of course in a White Ribbon way, it is more than enough to justify pointing a finger at your entire sex and feeling superior as we watch you atone for the unspeakable acts of a minority.
So, suck it up ladies. If you knew about White Ribbon and said nothing to object to it; if in general you have remained silent or actively participated as the image of the male half of the population has been reduced to that of a depraved threat, the step up and get your flowers. You deserve every last petal, stem and thorn.
I imagine Elam chuckling a bit as he typed that final word.
And a happy Mother’s Day to you, too!
Oh, and if you found yourself wondering about that “White Ribbon” thing, Elam is evidently (as best I can figure it) referring either to the women who, during World War I, handed out white ribbons to men who didn’t enlist in the army. Or he’s referring to this contemporary campaign to fight violence against women. But I don’t live inside Elam’s head, so I’m not sure what he meant, or why he seems to think that all women would know about either campaign, much less have any responsibility for them.
NOTE: Elam is also celebrating Mother’s Day by suggesting I had something to do with creating Reddit’s appalling “beatingwomen” subreddit as part of a nefarious plot to make the Men’s Rights movement look even worse than it manages to do on its own.
You may notice that Elam presents no actual evidence to back up his claims. There is no such evidence, because Elam’s accusations are utterly and completely untrue.
I have nothing whatsoever to do with r/beatingwomen. Nothing. I don’t know anything about who created it, or what their aim was beyond laughing at pictures and videos of violence against women. As I’ve said before, it’s a vile place. I think Reddit should shut it down.
MRAs are a lot more hostile towards dissent than I’ve ever seen feminists be.
Here’s a better game: Can you find me a popular feminist saying that the idea of fucking up her opposition’s “shit” makes her sexually aroused?
I’ve also never heard feminists say, “If you oppose us, things will get really violent. And lots of people will die”.
@ideologuereview — I have the decency to spell your SN correctly, you will have the decency to do the same for me. It would be condescending to explain as requested? But shorting my SN and getting all “I won’t answer because that would be condescending” isn’t? Let me ask a more precise question since apparently you can’t handle inferences — define “dissenting comment”.
As Crumbelievable said, I’ve never once seen a feminist say ze’d get violent, for any reason. Nor have I ever seen a feminist even hint that they enjoy fucking with the opposition, hell, I’ve never seen a feminist define “the opposition” as anything besides the sum total of society’s fucked-up-ness.
So assuming you mean a polite, well thought out disagreement with the author, I suspect you’ll find feminists a whole lot more willing to hear out your argument. If you meant random insults directed at the author, than those may well be more tolerated on MRA blogs. Requesting respect does not make feminists all ideological sycophants.
To everyone not ideologuereview — oh gods the mommy wars, someone please make it stop! (Translation for the MRAs: feminists can get down right angry with each other, we’re really not a monolith)
*shortening my SN
at least that appears to be my only typo
@argenti, I agree the damage done by either parent is damage done, and really when we start talking about motivation it’s so much chaff to the victims. However, it does make a difference in terms of prevention, and much family violence is very gendered.
My own experience involved my father as the main attacker but mother as a complicit enabler. How much of that was due to her fear of being left homeless and poor is a moot question now but one that can in general be assessed with policy/social options.
however, this thread started with a discussion regarding women’s role in child abuse, no real discussion of this topic can ignore the elephant in the room that is sex roles and their impact on both behavior and legal responses.
We probably agree much more than we disagree argenti, as I am assuming that we both find the “mothers day” screed from MRAS ville both vile and inaccurate?
PS argenti , the best research (meta analysis of multicultural studies) is that family violence is affected by gender assumptions with a particular rise in violence against both women and children from those that hold “traditional” ideas of male and female roles.
In no way am I excusing any one for any reason that assaults their children.
“We probably agree much more than we disagree argenti, as I am assuming that we both find the “mothers day” screed from MRAS ville both vile and inaccurate?” — oh goodness yes that rant is vile. And I agree that gender roles should have bearing on social supports — that quiverfull mother is likely to need education/job training to be able to leave her husband for example, whereas a quiverfull husband generally has the education to walk away if he wants to. Also, even in my anecdotes above, afaik only my father got physically violent, whereas the mothers were emotional abusive and neglectful — different types of abuse require different policies and responses.
Considering that “traditional roles” generally includes “spare the rod spoil the child” I am in no way surprised (semi-off-topic, my best friend is Jewish and swears high and low that Christians get that verse wrong, to the point he laughed when I said parents follow that, until it sunk in wtf I meant)
Got to this article from Cracked (it was written by a Cracked contributor). It’s a comedic write-up of the MRM. The author visits a popular MRA forum and comes away shaking his head in digust. There’s nothing new to anyone here, but it’s still worth reading for a laugh
http://www.zug.com/live/89389/The-Mens-Rights-Experiment.html#1054224241
disgust*
@ BlueBee:
“Where do the MRAs keep pulling that mothers abuse their children more than fathers stat?”
Here ya’ go.
Article maternal murder
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42634832/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts
Katty Kay-Morning Joe
http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/most-children-who-die-from-abuse…
Also try the Center for Disease Control and American Psychiatric Foundation.
Even Phil Donahue conceded that “saying more women kill children is like saying more men hit home runs.” I guess women kill children for sport.
Also, if men collectively were more abusive to children, don’t you thiink Eve Ensler et.al. would have blathered at men about it endlessly every Valentine’s Day? Isn’t the reason you don’t know the stats testament to the narrow feminist definition of “domestic violence” that excludes any mention of violence against children?
Cloudiah:
Wow, the rampant hypocrisy of AntZ little spiel makes my head spin.
@Argenti Aertheri – if you think that just because I didn’t type the words that I hoped Elam’s mother had lived a long and peaceful life that I wasn’t expressing that sentiment, you’re barking up the wrong goddamned tree.
What I was implying was that the man is so vile and hateful that I hoped his mother was either dead so she wouldn’t have to live with the knowledge that her son actually hates her, or, if she’s alive, she simply doesn’t know.
But yeah. Thanks for that FTFY
Harboring hate is a bad thing, but did you ever think his mother may have given him every reason to hate her?
And so his mother being a shitty person is supposed to be an acceptable reason for the venom he spews on every other woman?
My mother was a horrible mother. We’re still not close to this day. Doesn’t mean I hate her. She shouldn’t have had children but did anyway because that’s just what was expected of women. It also means I don’t hate other mothers because I’ve projected my mother’s faults onto all women. Elam, for whatever reason, has declared all women, regardless of if they’re mothers or not, suck and are responsible for bad things happening to children. Fuck that shit.
@revspinnaker — “American Psychiatric Foundation” — the what? Do you mean the American Psychiatric Association?
Your first link makes no comparison to fathers, but rather talks about needing to treat parents who kill as mentally ill. The second link is a 404.
Clearly I am not Phil Donahue, but I would guess that’s a terrible analogy intended to mean what I said above about opportunities to abuse — women spend more time with children than men do, men spend more time hitting baseballs than women do — it’s a terrible analogy though because no one kills for sport. (Well, someone somewhere probably does, but I’m just going to ignore that possibility as I much prefer HUMAN HUNT to be a sci-fi reference)
Shorter version, oh scroll up would you, I just dissected the actual statistics!
@Lady Zombie — no, I wasn’t assuming you wished his mother ill, I’d just figured you’d not quite found the words you were looking for.
“And so his mother being a shitty person is supposed to be an acceptable reason for the venom he spews on every other woman?” — THIS! idk if Elam has any sisters, but if he does, wouldn’t they most likely have equal cause to hate their mother? And yet his rant puts them as just as bad. (This is a hypothetical, I have no idea if he has sisters or if his mother was abusive or a saint or somewhere in between)
Oh, so I lack a command of the English language and am unable to express myself adequately. Good to know. I shall endeavor to correct that in the future.
That’s not what I meant — the post I was replying to in the first place, where you initally hoped his mother wasn’t aware he hatred her, you started it with how you realized it sounded horrible, I was just trying to make it sound less horrible. And as it’s kind of getting to be sleepy time for me, *my* command of the English language is questionable.
initially* >.<
Argenti: I just did an MSN search for “Morning Joe child abuse” and the following comes up first on the list.
Morning Joe: Most children who die from abuse in US under age …
video.ca.msn.com/watch/video/most-children-who-die-from-abuse-in…Oct. 21: The BBC recently investigated child abuse rates in the U.S. and discovered some alarming statistics: 1,770 children were killed as a result of maltreatment …
The video is still online and I recommend everyone on this thread watch it. I’d love to hear some proactive solutions.
Also the American Psychiatric Foundation and Associations are two different organizations.
Ugh, ugh, ugh. I feel dirty. I looked up the r/beatingwomen subreddit. Bad idea, even if you don’t have a specific trigger for that kind of thing.
I’d kinda been wondering what the Mother’s Day post was going to be about here and what the MRAs think of their mothers and other female relations.
This video? And neither the APA nor APF sites are turning up anything for either child abuse or domestic violence, so I’m not sure what you were trying to get at there.
Lady Zombie — I was agreeing with you, I’m sorry if it came out as if I wasn’t.
Before I dive into the comments:
This is the man Emma says doesn’t hate women.
Got it.
Notes from the video:
higher child abuse deaths in US
higher teen pregnancy and incarceration rates as well
not much post-natal care or preschool
66 deaths from child abuse weekly in industrialized nations, 25 of those are in America
poverty and young single moms — correlation to child abuse
“stressed out mothers don’t have the safety net to support them”
correlation to economy, programs being cut
simple and inexpensive fixes — shown video post-birth on how to handle babies for example
So the closest to a gender link there is higher rates of teenage single mothers are correlated with abuse rates. Am I missing something in the video?