Is there anything in the world that Paul Elam can’t blame on feminism? Apparently not.
In his latest post on A Voice for Men, Elam reports on a number of health problems he’s been dealing with – or not dealing with – for years. You see, despite chronic troubles with his gall bladder and with his breathing – which led to many ER visits over many years – Elam refused to get his gall bladder removed, or to give up smoking. For a while, he confesses, he was alternating puffs of cigarettes with hits from his Albuterol inhaler. But after numerous health scares, he reports, he’s finally dealing with his underlying issues, getting his gall bladder removed and weaning himself off the cigarettes.
I’m not going to mock him for any of this. Lots of people – especially men – have trouble pushing themselves to get the medical help they need. I’m one of them: the last time I went to the dentist it was because one of my teeth had gotten so rotten that a chunk of it broke off. There are a lot of mostly not-very good reasons I procrastinate about getting proper treatment for my health reasons, from simple denial to lack of funds. (Though, as I have sadly learned, waiting to go to the dentist until your teeth start breaking apart in your mouth does not actually save you money in the long run.)
Lots of guys won’t go to doctors because, as guys, they’ve been raised to believe they should grin and bear whatever pain they face. That’s one of the reasons feminists tend to criticize traditional notions of masculinity.
But for Elam, the problem is … feminism:
We live in a misandric culture, and often times, when we are scared enough or motivated by some other powerful force, we find that the root of the hatred is in the mirror staring back at us and mocking.
We men are raised with a sense of shame for having any needs. We are told, in fact, that we already have everything, and largely don’t deserve even the most basic of our needs for dignity, respect and love. If you look around in medical literature long enough, you will even see them shaming us for not going to the doctor more. Feminists have even used our tendency to neglect ourselves as a good reason to go full steam ahead with the unabashedly pro-female Obamacare.
This last charge is based on an almost completely delusional misreading of Obama’s health care legislation by our dear friend Antony Zarat. Elam continues:
And you can watch many men nod their heads in agreement with this crap. Sure, some of it is just the typical effects of feminist ideology on the brains of obsequious men, but there is something else at play here.
Can you guess what’s coming here? Yep, you got it, the motherfucking Titanic.
What made men willing to stand on the decks of sinking ships where their betters were loaded onto lifeboats? What makes men OK with being singled out for selective service? When is the last time you heard an average man point out to a woman who is whining that her great grandmother could not vote, that even today, unless a man signs an agreement with the government to use his body as cannon fodder, that he still won’t be allowed to vote?
Never mind that “women and children first” has never been official policy, nor even widely practiced. Never mind that feminists,while generally opposed to the draft, have lobbied for women as well as men to be subject to the same requirement to register for the draft. Never mind that the draft has been dead for decades. And never mind that exactly none of this is the fault of feminism.
We often have to point out to morons that being anti-feminist is not the same thing as being anti-woman. I think we would do well to remember from time to time that misandry is often not something done to us, but something we do to ourselves.
It is a monster that can live in any one of us, and often does. I have been doing battle with my own for a while. 25 years of consideration, soul searching and bucking the system and I am just now figuring out to go see a doctor when I have a problem.
Elam, dude: Despite your overweening narcissism, I have no trouble believing that on some level you hate yourself. Narcissism is often driven by insecurity, and no one who responds to even mild criticism with the level of rage that you do could be anything other than deeply insecure. But what you feel isn’t “misandry,” and feminists aren’t to blame. All that rage isn’t healthy for you. You should really get it checked out. And I’m not even joking.
Here’s Sleater-Kinney with “Call the Doctor,” though really only the title of the song is appropriate to the situation here.
if women have pets, its proof they can only love things they can control. if women dont have pets, it’s proof they cant love anything except themselves.
like crumb said, dont worry too much about making logical sense out of owlslaves rage.
@2-D Man
I’m glad you’re ok 🙂 yes it does sound odd that you’d have a good experience with something like the worker’s compensation board, glad everything worked out!
The former is a result and subset of the latter.
NWO, I know you’re not going to believe (or, in all likelihood, even read) this, but this is what feminists are talking about when we say “patriarchy hurts men too”.
This Elam guy is practically incoherent. Even if one agreed with him, his arguments are disjointed and non sequiturs to the point where you couldn’t quote him to anyone else and have it make any sense at all.
He needs to do a basic writing course.
Slavey is pissed off by women who love animals, because he’s jealous. He wants to be the one snuggling with a woman, but… alas, they all prefer cats to him.
A little off topic, but I was just watching this clip, and it basically summarizes the MRM’s entire attitude to feminism:
I’ve donated money to an organization that shelters homeless men and also does palliative care. In the future I will be adopting a cat.
Slavey can kiss my fat ass.
like, it’s not even the ‘celebrating death is an asshole thing to do’ thing (altho it is)
i just cant imagine mustering up enough care in re: paul elam’s existence. it’s not like he actually does anything, hes just a dude who yells on the internet.
@Nanasha, there do exist many groups that face a shit ton of discrimination in the medical system, not to mention that in the US, issues of cost are a huge factor. The difference is that Elam’s not complaining that he can’t afford medical care or that he’s worried doctors will refuse to treat him, abuse him, institutionalize him, etc. His only obstacle that he seems to be really concerned about is his own self. That’s the difference.
I have to not bind, present in a more stereotypically feminine way, try to make sure I don’t slip into an accent or say things that code me as poor as much as possible, try my hardest to pretend to be neurotypical, not mention that I’m queer, etc. or actually risk doctors refusing treatment, dismissing symptoms, putting shit in my records that will discourage others from treating or dealing with my health issues, and so on. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had to delay getting certain care because of financial and medicaid issues. It took me six years to get a thyroid diagnosis, six months straight of no periods to get a PCOS diagnosis, after ten years of daily joint pain I still often see that dismissed by doctors, three years of digestive problems that are mostly ignored by doctors until recently because it got bad enough to put me in the emergency room, I can’t pretend that I don’t understand fear that doctors will not listen or be cruel, or a horrible sense of resignation to the fact of being in pain every second of your life. Though that’s not what Elam’s talking about. But a lot of your statements are coming off as dismissive towards people who avoid or have had trouble with the medical system for other reasons.
>>>Why do these guys keep confusing the concepts “society” and “feminism”.
Because their strange libertarianism posits that men are natural rugged individualists while everything that has to do with society is feminized.
i really wonder if this is even true. i get the feeling that he’s really torn between being sexually attracted to women and hating everything about them.
I had to “like” this post for the Sleater-Kinney clip. And if there was a way I could like Sir Bodsworth Rugglesby III’s Groucho clip, I would.
In typical NWO fashion he has no interest in snuggling with a woman, because why snuggle people you hate? And also snuggling would be too feminine. But at the same time women snuggling pets is objectionable because they’re not out punching each other’s noses in the street. Priorities and all.
Sharculese: I think that he’d love to snuggle with a woman, provided that she’s not an ebil feminist. Considering that 99.99999% of women are ebil feminists, in his mind…
It’s funny how MRAs have some of the same complaints about sexism that feminists do. It’s just that the feminist solution is “let’s get rid of sexism so both men and women can live better lives” and the MRA solution is “let’s add more sexism, but only against women, so that no matter how crappy a man’s life gets he’ll still be better off than a dumb girl.”
In this particular case, though, I agree with Nova: Elam seems primarily upset that some namby-pamby doctors had the nerve to tell him to change his habits so he doesn’t have to keep going to the emergency room for avoidable health problems. Apparently he’s following their advice (thank goodness), so this is just him blustering and scrambling for someone to blame to soothe his bruised ego.
@nova
that’s true for the vast majority of these dudes, but no, owlslave really seems to have a problem with women Existing At All.
I’ll bet women spend more on, and run more shelters for animals our society created via ignorance and irresponsibility, than MEN do for men.
Seriously, how many of the MRA bloggers actually try to do shit that helps people, rather than hurts? Here’s a thought, quit pissing and moaning about how horrible things are, and try to fucking do something. Volunteer at a men’s shelter. Donate to one. Try starting a men’s therapy group. Yelling at feminists on the internet is not doing anything for anyone.
And for fuck’s sake, stop pretending this is a zero sum game. People who have a larger emotional range than that of a teaspoon* CAN and DO care about a wide number of things and people, from animals who are suffering needlessly, to men who suffer needlessly because of the stupid notions hyper-masculinity promotes which feminists have been saying are harmful for a long fucking time.
*JKR quote sorta, yes
Elam wins all the irony in the comments, check this out:
“LOL, Mantitz has already done a write up on this, claiming to his dullard readers that I am blaming feminism for my health problems.
I will give the guy one thing. He always has me guessing whether he is terminally disingenuous or fatally stupid. I suppose in the end it really doesn’t matter.”
Wait who can’t read now? Who said anything about the cause of his health problems? I thought we were talking about how he blames feminism for his not dealing with them…
This is why Owly hates animals: even female tortoises are violent backbiting bitches.
Typical female. Leads a man on for 100+ years, living off his hard work repairing milking machines in order to bring home the lettuce, and then bites a chunk off of his shell just because she “wants some space.” Femalez, amirite?
@Tracy Q. Loxley
Like cult American rock groups then ? And songs about being against it? You can get all of that at once!
LOVE LOVE LOVE Sleater-Kinney btw.
@Cloudiah
At least they’re not penguins.
I dunno, Sharculese. I think that if Owly found his elusive blowup doll with a pulse, he’d be quite happy about it and that she and she alone would have a right to exist in this world. As woman who really do live in this world have needs, voices, feelings and desires… all evil feminists.
Why not just ask? Owlslave, are there any women you respect entirely or could see yourself respecting entirely? At all?
Yeah, NWO is right that all women think they are goddesses. Specifically, Diana:
http://www.shorpy.com/node/13090?size=_original#caption
I think we all know that Diana just sat down in the street and cried, wearing a very short tunic, and men did her hunting for her.
this is a doctor you don’t want to go to