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.
slavey:
That is actually literally correct. Feminism is not telling men not to get medical care. That is not a goal feminism is working towards.
I suppose it’s possible it’s not patriarchy (it is toxic masculitnity, though, since that’s tautological), but it’s certainly not feminism.
The fact that there is literally no way to disprove this doesn’t make you right. Although I realize I’m talking to someone who doesn’t think that if something he says is disproven that makes him wrong.
lowquacks:
He won’t answer. He still hasn’t come through with those legal citations I asked about.
I broke my ankle about 18 months ago. I rode my motorcycle three miles to where I was supposed to meet my roommate; after some nice people helped me get the bike back up.
I thought it was just sprained, so I continued with the day as planned (mostly; we were going to a museum, and I used a wheelchair).
When I said I’d contemplated going to the ER in the course of the night, she told me to get my ass in the car, and took me. I would have gone myself, but not as soon.
I did do all the follow up (including going in to ask for more painkillers; though I felt like I was being wimpy; even though I knew having them would mean I could better function/heal).
I still don’t do as aggressive a job of seeing to taking care of my condition, even though I know it’s not the best idea to ignore it as much as I do.
I did, however, say, “I think I need to go to the ER” as soon as I figured out I had a kidney stone.
The previous kidney stone, I tried to tough out; for a little while. So I can learn. What makes me different from Elam is that I don’t blame women for my stupidities.
And let’s not pretend like the NWO wouldn’t be laughing up your sleeves if feminism really took over the world tonight. Oh he’d put on a good somber show alrighty, but deep down inside he’d secretly agree with which ever feminist said the words you were thinking. Just like when men use state violence while washing their hands of that nasty blood, ya just don’t have the gut’s to say it our loud.
Fixed that for ya.
When I worked at my old hospital, I felt so bad for the men who came in with kidney stones. More than a few of them were in tears because of the pain. I’ve never had children but I imagine the pain level was similar.
My dad is one of those suffer in silence men who didn’t want to admit he was in pain or distress. One of his lumbar disks became herniated but he waved away my mother when she urged him to go to the doctor. “I’ve just pulled a muscle,” he would say. Then he slipped on some ice at work and barely could move afterwards. He ended up having to have surgery. The doctor said he should have come see her weeks earlier.
Later when he had a benign enlargement of his prostate, he and I had a sort of bonding. It was kind of cute. He would always ask me to accompany him to the Urologist. One day we were sitting in the waiting room.
Dad: Man oh man, I really hate prostate exams.
Me: I know, Dad.
Dad: Be glad that as a woman, you never have to worry about it.
Me: You’re kidding, right?
Dad: Huh?
Me: Dad, every year I have to have a pap smear which means that every year I have to put my legs up in the stirrups and have my vagina spread open and my cervix scraped for cells. My yearly also involves a finger up my ass as well. Not exactly fun and games. But necessary. Same as prostate exams for men your age.
Dad: …..Touche
That Groucho Marx song ought to be the official anthem of Senate Republicans.
Lady Zombie — I have a cousin who’s had kids and a kidney stone, she said labor hurt less. One anecdote and ymmv of course.
And forming proper sentences is apparently beyond me at this hour, off to bed then, night y’all
Oh look, slavey’s here! And what a surprise, the guy who says he’s too manly for safety regulations is all puffed up with righteous indignation at the suggestion that men perpetuate toxic and destructive male stereotypes.
And I suppose now’s as good a time as any to mention I’ve been doing volunteer work maintaining the grounds at the local cat shelter. I gleefully await your disapproval.
NWO said:
“As always, it’s men’s fault. Color me surprised. So which is it, toxic masculinity or the evil patriarchy? It’s definitely not our feminist, feminized society glorifying the enlightened ones to high heaven while demonizing the disposable mooks from cradle to grave.”
You are the person responsible for getting yourself to the doctor if you’re ill. Women can’t do that for you because (obviously) we don’t know how you feel or when you are ill. We are not telepaths. If men would take responsibility for their own health and well-being there would be fewer men dying of preventable, treatable illnesses and fewer men dying before women. It’s not some kind of weakness to ask for medical or psychological help if you need it.
Toxic masculinity is part of patriarchal thinking. It’s not a case of it being one or the other. They feed into one another. Men are not “mooks” and they are not disposable. If men would permit women access to the military, which at the moment is highly restricted, women would be participating, so there’s no point blaming us for men being the ones mostly being killed and injured in warfare.
“And let’s not pretend like the gang wouldn’t be laughing up your sleeves if Elam kicked the bucket tonight. Oh you’d put on a good somber show alrighty, but deep down inside you’d all secretly agree with which ever feminist said the words you were thinking. Just like when women use state violence while washing their hands of that nasty blood, ya just don’t have the gut’s to do it yourselves.”
Well, obviously you must be the telepath here if you’re so familiar with how we think and feel “deep down”…oh wait, no you aren’t, you’re just a hateful person trying to impose your fantasies of how we think and feel.
“Basically, a lotta men just don’t give a shit anymore. Hell, last post ya’ll bragged about how much ya care for the health and happiness of dumb animals. I’ll bet women spend more on, and run more shelters for dumb animals than they do for men. I wonder what’ll happen when most men just don’t give a shit anymore? I guess we’ll find out.”
Yes, many women are involved in running animal shelters, however, that is because animals can’t take care of themselves if they’re sick, abandoned or lost. Men, however, are quite able to build and run their own shelters, just like women run shelters for women. If they choose not to do that why should women be spending their own scarce resources on building men’s shelters when men need to be doing that themselves? You just want to sit there and whinge because you don’t really want to help men, you just want to blame women. If you really did care you’d be out there applying for funding, handing in proposals and lobbying like crazy. The way we do.
Paul is crazy, going to the doctor rocks. I had my tonsils taken out in middle school and got to miss two weeks of school, and there was free bad food. Plus, people feel sorry for you. I bet he gets an uptick in donations after this little confessional.
I’ve been told by three women who’ve done both, that kidney stones are worse.
Having had two (and one without meds… the second. The onset was slower, the stone (I suspect) smaller, and the hospital much less efficient. About the time they got drugs into me, was about the time it passed) , and helped deliver three kids, I have a theory.
I’ll guess the actual pain isn’t that much different. But labor is spasmodic. The pain comes, peaks, then goes. It returns, but the individual contractions aren’t more than a few minutes (for most women).
A kidney stone… doesn’t stop. It pulses, sometimes it’s worse, sometimes it’s not so worse, but the pain is a grinding agony that doesn’t ease up until it, suddenly, abates (the trauma means it hurts, in a different way, for a few days after, but when it changes, it’s as if the pain just stopped).
So subjectively (which is, after all, all we can measure) the kidney stone is worse.
I once ruptured a testicle playing Judo. I tried to avoid seeing a doctor for about 12 hours until the pain became unbearable. When I arrived at the E.R., a woman doctor worked tirelessly to preserve me reproductive capacity, and prevailed.
Hooray for feminism.
@darksidecat- Holy fuck no, I’m not trying to minimize the problems that people have with the medical community at large for various reasons (such as not presenting as cis, being fat, etc). My PCOS was blamed on “eating cheeseburgers” and dismissed by at least 5 doctors when I was going through hormonal imbalance hell and gaining weight even though I was working out several hours a day 7 days a week and practically starving myself to death.
I know *EXACTLY* what people face, discrimination-wise from the doctor (and am aware that it can get even worse than what I experienced personally, not to mention those who do not have access to care, live far away from a medical establishment or simply have no insurance whatsoever). But what I am saying is that if a man breaks his leg and then limps around complaining that his leg is broken but he’s too afraid to go to the doctor to get it set because he’s afraid about how he *MIGHT* be treated, there’s really no excuse for that.
Most people know that smoking is really bad for your health. If you’re going to choose to smoke, then you have to accept that fact, not simply wish that cigarettes weren’t cancer in a stick, and then blame the medical establishment for not beating you over the head and forcing you through nicotine withdrawl until you stopped smoking, and it’s CERTAINLY not ok to say that all the wimminz everywhere made a smoking conspiracy to keep you addicted to the ciggies.
I think the worst part here isn’t that this guy didn’t go get medical treatment out of fear and social pressure to “be a man” and “suck it up” but that he took his own lack of even taking the risk of going into the doctor when not going into the doctor might be worse for his health and then BLAMES IT ON FEMINISM/ WOMEN.
It’s one thing to say, “yeah, there’s a lot of systematic problems in how we run healthcare” and quite another to start blaming vaginas for why he just “couldn’t” go into his primary care physician and just *HAD* to wait until he needed emergency room care to start changing his behaviors. I mean, let’s at least call a spade a spade. This MRA is merely complaining because he likes to blame women for being “nags” who make men go to the doctor while also blaming women for not wiping men’s butts and scheduling doctor’s appointments for them and reminding them when the appointment is going to be as “proof” that women must actively want to see men get sick and die. Seriously, where is the personal responsibility? If these men “hunted the mammoth” and “do all the meaningful work” doesn’t it seem somewhat hypocritical if he cannot get his act together for two second to give the doctor a call when his body is suffering a serious medical problem?
*gives Mr Futrelle an e hug*
I am sorry, you have touble with paying for your health problems.
My doctor now is good, but my family practitioner when I was a kid pressured me into getting acne medication even though I said I didn’t want it. It gave me an esophageal ulcer. She also wouldn’t show me the exercises to help my bad knee because she said “You won’t do them anyway.”
The Hippocratic Oath needs to include “I will not be a dick.”
I don’t even have a problem with “lack of personal responsibility”… there is a time and a place for blaming society. If everybody always just blamed themselves we would never change anything.
The big problem is that if Elam is gonna blame society, put blame where blame is due. It’s not feminists that tell men to keep a stiff upper lip when their bodies are disintegrating – it’s rather a stupid macho ideal. And feminism generally criticizes stupid macho ideals.
Why not just ask?
I see NWO is still using his “Misandry!” refrigerator magnet set to write his comments without bothering to read either David’s entry or any of the comments above his.
I wait forever to go to the doctor too. If I already didn’t buy into gender role b.s., I’d be convinced I was really a man.
Yeah, I’m generally the one telling my male friends/bfs to get their health in check. No idea how this is somehow the fault of feminism.
@ pecunium
I’m a little late to the game here (that’s time zones for ya), but I wanted to add that for many women, the pain becomes diminished after the fact by the joy of having the kid, which would make them remember the experience differently.
There was an interesting episode of Radio Lab about the placebo effect, and it covered a study done on gunshot victims. Soldiers who had been shot were reported to have felt less pain than civilians, the proffered explanation being that soldiers who get shot have something to look forward to in the aftermath (finally going home, possibly a reward for their injury, being honored, etc) and a civilian just has the suckitude of getting shot to look forward to. This same idea might apply to the labor vs. kidney stones debate.
Paul will be pleased to see this then:
http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/interactive/news/men-may-soon-outlive-women-id801347536-t116.html
I so hope this happens. It will give MRAs one less bloody thing to whinge about.
“This last charge is based on an almost completely delusional misreading of Obama’s health care legislation by our dear friend Antony Zarat.”
I love you too.
How do YOU explain the presence of the word “women” 148 times (compared to 2 times for the word “men”) in legislation that is about HEALTH? Men already face far worse outcomes than women, and 2/3 of all healthcare dollars are spent on women’s health.
They’ll find some other aspect of it to whinge about, don’t worry. 😛 Like.. living longer means they’re forced to work longer to sustain the comfy living of women… or something.
Can I confess that I’m fascinated by the picture associated with this post? Hot Doctor and Hot Nurse In White are clearly gettin’ busy, as Hot Nurse In Blue looks on, dismayed. But does Hot Nurse In Blue have something going on with Hot Doctor or with Hot Nurse In White? Is this a betrayal of her trust? Or do they know nothing, as Hot Nurse In Blue watches them from afar, unable to tell the object of her affections about the love she feels? Also, why is Hot Doctor pretty much stripping Hot Nurse In White right in the hospital/practice, regardless of the fact that it is a workplace with — presumably — some patients and at least one other employee? I smell lawsuit, you two.
Also, why does Hot Doctor have some sort of exciting astrological even happening directly behind his head? Maybe Blue Nurse is concerned for his safety.