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.
Kendra, he’s replying to a point made in a video by a British woman, NHS has an entire post-birth support program, so it’s *really* irrelevant, the Slut Walk “point”.
And fuck, I missed pre-pregnancy — not every uterus-haver is pre-pregnant. Not. Every. Uterus. Is. Pre-Pregnant. Are you a pre-father revspinnaker? Then women are not pre-pregnant!
@Argenti Aertheri: I meant the West Bank separation barrier!
Ah, I get it now. I thought he was trying to argue that most of the women at SlutWalks are “pre-pregnant” and therefore they need to watch PSA videos about shaken baby syndrome. It’s very hard to figure out what point RevSpinnaker is trying to make.
Oh great, the rev is back, with his poor grasp of facts and his endless self-righteous fucking whining about how people aren’t doing his activism his way and that’s terrible you guys! You should like, feel guilty and such.
Vindicare, whoops! In that case I don’t know enough Israeli politics to comment.
Kendra, “It’s very hard to figure out what point RevSpinnaker is trying to make.” — I’d noticed >.<
Well let’s blow some minds then. Up here in Canada we have prenatal programs that also hand out ifo on how to raise kids without beating them. We have early learning centers and support groups for new parents. Parenting magazines of all kinds dispense advice about how to handle parenting issues without beating kids! There are a ton of books you can borrow from libraries about what to expect at each development stage and various tips on how to manage that. Low cost courses are run in many places that deal with parenting issues and how to resolve them without beating kids. Also, many people are directly responsible for reporting suspected abuse or neglect of a child. Including superintendants like myself. I don’t march for child abuse campaigns, but I do call in on tenants I suspect of abuse (and I call the cops, not just social services). When I see parents in distress I offer my time to watch ir kids while they cool off.
Right now the kids help line is doing a fundraising drive. I may very well sign up and do the walk to raise money.
@Vindicare, Which side of the West Bank separation barrier were you referring to? Please see:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/world/middleeast/israeli-girl-at-center-of-tension-over-religious-extremism.html
Wow. Is it just me, or is Antz getting steadily more and more out there? He seemed at least sorta sane when I first ran into him…
Also, urgh, Mother’s Day. Happy few-weeks-anniversary of cutting off our folks to me. Bleh.
I had to read that quote at least three times before I figured out that you were quoting NWO who was talking about feminists. I thought, for a moment of pure optimistic hope, that you were talking about members of the MRM.
ALL the projection.
Er, domestic violence = partners, child abuse = child abuse. That’s not narrow, or feminist, and plenty of organizations that look at domestic violence also look at child abuse. I really don’t get the point.
Argenti: Pecunium, are you familiar with the “all men are potentially rapists” concept he’s referring to? If so, does it offend you?
No. It, in a number of ways, is how I live my life.
All persons may choose to attack me. Based on the obvious means (Do they have a weapon? How far are they from me? Are they belligerent? Is it directed at me? etc.) I adjust my sense of risk/behavior, e.g. the first thing I do when I see a cop is determine whether that cop is left or right handed, so I know how they will move to pull a weapon (be it pistol, taser, baton, or pepper spray). It’s nothing personal, it’s just that shit happens.
That someone else does the same to me bothers me not a bit. If I don’t try to rape them, it’s no harm no foul.
Also, don’t you think, “shown[ing] video post-birth on how to handle babies…” might be more effective if shown pre-pregnancy?
No. Someone who has a child needs this. Someone who doesn’t have a child has less need, if any. More to the point not everyone will have a child; or be in a childcare position. Spending the money/time/effort to tell this to everyone would be stupid.
pillowinhell: No suprises here. Canada is light years ahead of America in terms of Children’s Rights Advocacy. There’s an excellent website http://www.child-abuse-effects.com hosted by Darlene Barriere. She was also a victim of “target abuse” by her mother. I believe Canadian Children’s Rights Advocates (CRA’s) were the first to define the term.
In America comedians like Joy Behar make jokes about “women who pick out one of their children just to hate them.” And no one critcized her for it. We have a long way to go just to understand target abuse.
There’s the Canadian Child Care Federation that presented “The Child’s Right to be Heard” at the UN Day of Discussion for Children’s Rights. The Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada and the Canadian Children’s Rights Council, which is excellent. They are responsible for the learning centers, support groups and mandated child rearing education programs you mentioned.
And you said there’s even a child welfare fund-raising walk? That’s exactly the kind of public awareness campaign we need in the US.
People who have no baby will also be much less attentive to the video.
Revspinnaker, awareness is one thing. Getting abusers to choose not to abuse is another. I do agree though, that perhaps parenting classes should be promoted more. A person may not want children of their own, but changes their mind, or gets asked to care for someone elses or whatever. The more proper parenting is modeled and taught, the greater the chances of preventing abuse and the fewer excuses abusers have.
I was the one child targeted for abuse. In my case, it was because I was a girl and because that sort of abuse had been targeted at girls in my family going back a few generations.
Here’s a thought, why not head that up yourself instead of yelling at feminists for not caring about “the REAL issues”?
Sorry, I got ahead of myself. Yes, I know the concept, no it does not offend me.
Somebody has mommy issues.
No surprise there.
The r/beatingwomen thing was probably the most transparent trolling attempt I’ve seen in recent memory. (A free hint: If you fill a subreddit with vile crap, put up graphics that implies that r/MR totally approves the stuff, and put up a *very special message of approval from Dr. Paul that was totally not done in two seconds in mspaint*, it just *might* be suspect. Just saying.)
And Elam bought it. r/MR bought it.
Seriously, this happened just after I had heard, in another thread, that Elam is kind of a big cheese in MRM, unlike some of his brethren he has *reasonable* ideas, and people should *totally* check him out. Look, he’s even in Reddit!
…and when I visit his user page, the first thing I see is him posting a knee-jerk response to the most blatant troll of the year, and presents absolutely no proof for his paranoid allegations.
Yeah. These guys don’t need any outside help to make themselves look foolish.
Ooh ooh, are we playing another round of “feminists can only care about one thing at a time”? Yesterday I cared about children. Today, I care about magnetic nail polish!
Notice how the MRAs get more batshit on lady holidays? Valentine’s day was a shameful mess of doxxing and “truth” spinning from MRAfools as well.
Anytime I’ve posted anything on MRA sites, it’s gotten deleted or held in moderation. Which is a shame, because I’m very witty.
I’m pretty sure Barbara Boxer is a feminist.
@cloudiah- Yeah, at this point in Israel’s history I’m more worried about the threat from religious fundamentalists than I am about suicide bombers (especially since Jewish religious Zionists like to promote the sort of bullshit posturing that leads to a REALLY shitty time for Palestinians, Israeli Arabs, Israeli Jews of questionable Jewish parentage, and Orthodox girls wearing colorful skirts).
@Viscaria- Yesterday I cared about horrific human rights abuses in Rikers, today I care about entrapping a man to buy me ALL THE SHOES.
The original purpose of Mother’s Day in America was, in response to the horrors of the Civil War, to champion the importance of peace, and the role women must choose to play in society in order to prevent such violence from ever happening again.
from Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation of 1870:
[blockquote]From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says “Disarm, Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.
Blood does not wipe our dishonor
nor violence indicate possession.”
[/blockquote]
Dammit! I can never keep straight which blogs I read take take which commands.
Lemme try again.
MRAs crack me up. I’m sure that the MRM will have exactly this level of freakout on Father’s Day, right, just to be fair? :p