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.
Event, not even.
Hi NWO. I just wanted to remind you that you suck. In case you’ve forgotten.
The thing is, I think a lot of the gendered stoic-ness tends to cross genders, especially when the person who’s health is in question is poorer, has no insurance, or is often by society seen as somehow “deviant” (POC, LBGTQ, fat). I fell and am pretty sure I broke a few fingers (pinky and ring at least) a few years ago. I didn’t go to the hospital partly because of my upbringing (we didn’t have a lot of money to afford frequent doctor visits when I was a kid) and the way my mom would say to my sister and I “you’ll live” when we’d hurt ourselves. And partly because I was embarrassed, I’d fallen flat on my face because I was hammered. But there have been other times I’ve not gone or tried to not go just because of the “you’ll live” mantra I kept repeating to myself. I nearly refused to go to the hospital when I split my leg open on a broken coffee mug when I was 20 (12 stitches). Heck, when I was 23, it took three weeks of me hardly being able to stomach ginger ale and saltine crackers before I took myself to get looked at, which might have been part of the reason why it took so long for people to even test me for anything, nevermind that they never figured out what the eff was wrong with me.
I also tend to think a reluctance to go to the doctor happens in women when problems occur in the privates because there’s still a lot of stigma and shame about people’s bits and sexual health, especially uteri. I myself am currently debating whether to go to the doctor because I’ve been bleeding for about two and a half weeks and shouldn’t have even been on my period to begin with according to my pill pack. Part of me knows this probably means something is wrong and should get checked on so it can get treated, the other part of me is afraid a doctor visit will mean only shame (“It’s because you’re fat”, “it’s an STD” etc). And for good reason, I’ve had doctors comment on my weight during gyno exams (extremely painful ones where I swear they weren’t paying attention to where my bits were or weren’t) even after they knew I’d been sick for months and had lost a lot of weight and when my fat had no bearing on my sexual health. I’ve had doctors imply my yeast infection was from being a dirty slut, before I was even sexually active. And there are real doctors in the real world really turning women away for gyno exams if they tip the scale at 200+ lbs.
So while I hate the macho stoic guy bit that keeps guys from seeking medical help when they need it, I’m pretty annoyed at the implication that the very American idea of “just power through it” in regards to a whole host of problems doesn’t hurt people besides men. It does. And feminists have been saying for a long time that it’s harmful for everyone.
“Also, why does Hot Doctor have some sort of exciting astrological even happening directly behind his head?”
That one I can answer — that looks to be a painting with his hair the same color as the background, it’s to keep the two areas from blending together. In less technical things, I think nurse in blue may be dismayed to be discovering that room is not actually empty.
Can’t win with NWO huh? Tell him it’s not feminism or women’s fault that men don’t go to the doctor often enough, that’s just misandry because umm….Tell him women (or feminists) have to tell men to go to the doctor it’d be how adult men can take care of themselves and misandry!!
Yes NWO, when a man doesn’t go to the doctor it’s his own damned fault, ditto when a woman doesn’t, and since you bring up pets, you know who’s responsible for them? Their owners, because unlike adult humans they cannot take themselves — similar to how a child’s health is the responsibility of parent(s)/guardian(s)/whatever.
(He’s going to flip shit I’m not insisting all children have 1 mommy and 1 daddy isn’t he? >.< )
Yup! I still remember being a kid and not knowing that vaginas were supposed to start producing secretions at some point – I spent about two years deeply worried that there was something terribly, horribly wrong with me because obviously I couldn’t tell my parents or my doctor about things happening down there.
And, I mean, I’m an adult now, but I’m still months overdue for getting my yearly gyno checkup, because I know that when I do go in I really ought to ask my doctor about a specifically sexual problem I’m having, and while all the sensible, feminist, rational parts of my brain know that is a completely reasonable thing to do, there’s a little shrieky voice at the back of my head going, “Nooooooooo you can’t admit that you have SEX! DIRTY BAD SLUTTY! SHAAAAAAAME!” Sigh.
@ostara321- I know where you’re coming from- I’m a large person as well (228 pounds). I’ve encountered weight discrimination and a lot of other bullshit from medical “professionals” and when I was younger, I just “took it”….I hung my head in shame and went home in tears. But that’s the thing about practice and experience, eventually you learn after having to deal with it a bunch of times how to develop skills to manage it.
Eventually, I got tired of being treated like this by doctors. I read the immensely helpful book “Health at Every Size” by Linda Bacon and then downloaded some of her free weight bias letters to give to my new doctors and have it put in their charts:
http://www.lindabacon.org/HAESbook/excerpts.html
And I started firing my doctors.
I didn’t have to be controversial and confrontational about it, but I got into the habit of telling the doctor that I did not appreciate their weight discrimination behaviors and I was looking for another doctor. And they lost a patient. And I made a note on Yelp or any other site on the internet to proclaim that this person was not a fat friendly doctor.
Doctors, just like car-repair people, are YOUR employees. People pay an assload of money to see the doctor, so as far as I’m concerned, even though doctors do have more training than the average mechanic, it’s your right to fire them if they don’t perform adequately.
I understand that there are many factors at play here- especially those whose youth or past experiences with doctors has tainted how they perceive the doctor/patient relationship. However, I think that just like in most situations where there is massive injustice and mistreatment of citizens that there is always something that you can do- you’re never truly powerless (also, I’d go mad if I thought that was the case).
And finally, I would never blame all men or all women or all koala bears for my own experiences. There are multiple factors at work when it comes to health, some that are more controllable by you than others. However, it’s silly for people like Elam to actually say that toxic masculinity is the fault of feminism and then blame his poor health on feminists.
Ok, so this is seriously awesome: A multi-part comment (with hilarious quotes) on the Men’s Rights scene, from A Voice For Men to Men’s Rights forums http://www.zug.com/live/89389/The-Mens-Rights-Experiment.html
The conclusion is “I’ve explored a lot of fringe Internet communities, but the men’s rights movement is far and away the most vile.”
It’s not unproblematic, but most of it is built from sad/hilarious quotes.
Nanasha, to be fair, since that absolutely horrible experience with the doctor who was IMHO unnecessarily rough with my bits AND fat shamed me, I’ve only gone to Planned Parenthood for my sexual health needs and they are absolutely wonderful. No shaming, nothing like that. In fact, even though I too tip the scale at about 220 (though people often seem shocked at this, I think because I’m rather tall, still, the BMI says “fat fat fatty!”) the woman who performed my last exam commented on my chart “oh how wonderfully healthy you seem!” and was very gentle and respectful when listening to what I wanted in a BC.
So while I’ve had a an assload of shit experiences, I’ve also had some awesomely positive ones, and am basically just continuing to seek out the places that give me positive experiences. It helps though that in this case, they’re an affordable place covered by my health insurance. I’m all for the “fire your doctor” approach, but sometimes people just can’t. I’m really dreading the day something is wrong that my PP clinic can’t fix because I haven’t bothered to seek out a new doc in this city because for a long time I didn’t have insurance. Now that I do though, there’s still this dread that my doc will be a shitface. And even if I will be able to fire them and find a new one, the process of having to fire and find a new one (possibly multiple times) seems exhausting. I know I might be lucky and find an awesome doc on the first try, but then, I might not be and encounter another doc who just tells me when I have back pain so severe I cried when I bent to tie my tennis shoes (and still had to be persuaded to stay home from work that day!) that it’s because I’m overweight.
I’ve read Bacon’s book and loved it, I’ll have to look into giving new docs that letter. I never have because I’m non-confrontational to a fault, but I know that’s something that needs to change too. What kills me is that none of these MRA guys seem to realize that there’s the stoic-ness thing that happens for ladies too AND a societal expectation ingrained in ladies to not make a fuss if someone treats you like shit. Ergo, a lot of ladies I know skip out on going to the doctor altogether to avoid the shitty confrontation. I don’t blame men or women for people’s health, I do blame the shitty social constructs we have that are based on a kyriarchal narrative.
Jessay:
Famously, and tragically, Natasha Richardson also waited before getting her head injury seen to.
But part of the problem is that many people just don’t want to waste doctors’ time if they don’t think it’s serious. Even when it is.
Sure Elam, keep telling yourself you’re bucking the system.
I was trying to find his bio. a few nights ago to see if he had ever been married or had children. Seems like he was always kind of lazy.
Note to dude who keeps trying to comment here and is complaining about “censorship”: Try commenting using a name that is not a reference to a real person with the word “cunt” worked into it, and see what happens. You’re welcome!
This is a huge part of the reason I don’t go to the doctors (that and lack of health insurance). I’ve yet to find a local doctor who seems interested in investigating my problems and they always jump straight to depression and medicating that. Meanwhile, the medication they’ve prescribed in the past actually worsened my feelings of depression and caused side effects that were unbearable. And every time I’ve brought them an idea of what might be wrong with me through personal research, family history, etc, they shrug it off. I definitely struggle to trust that doctor have my best interest at heart and aren’t more concerned with pushing these unhelpful drugs.
If you want, women can treat men like helpless animals. We can give them flea baths, take in strays, get them neutered “for their own good,” teach them to sit and stay. I mean, if you can’t see the difference between caring for an animal WHO CAN’T CARE FOR ITSELF and caring for a man, you have more problems than I thought.
But if you must insist that women don’t care for men, you’ve overlooked reading a bunch of the comments already made where women state how they make their husbands go to the doctors, make their appointments for them, etc. Then you want to pretend like we don’t wait on our so’s when they’re sick in bed. I know that, when not living with bfs of mine, I have made them care packages to get them through illnesses, come over to help them after work, etc, and when I have lived with them, it’s “What can I get for you? Do you need me to go to the store and pick up xyz, here let me make you some lunch.” That’s what people who care about each other do.
Going from that description alone, I suspect even if his* posts had got through we’d have had trouble taking them seriously. Therefore MISANDRY or something.
(*educated guesswork, but I bet I’m right)
Zarat, I just did the same MS Word search that you did, and every instance of the word “women” in the Affordable Care Act occurs in reference to:
— Pregnancy (this is the vast majority of instances)
— Breast cancer
— Domestic violence
— “Women” as part of the phrase “women and men”
Okay, sure, congratulations. You’ve uncovered the government conspiracy to promote healthy pregnancies, fight cancer, and stop domestic violence. It’s very sinister.
Antz we have already answered this question from you in multiple threads in the past, showing that health issues for men and boys are covered equally in the ACA. You have not provided any information to rebut what we’ve already said. Ball’s in your court…
In Antz’s defense, none of those first three happens only to women.
Not that I’m holding my breath for Antz to take up that cause.
AntZ, I explain that 148 mentions by pointing out to your dumb, dishonest ass that men are already the default in healthcare.
You all are being too harsh on hot doctor! He’s clearly just innocently checking her neck for injuries (such as vampire bites)! You lot and your dirty minds, thinking all men are only out for sex! MISANDRISTS!!! XD
Since most MRAs seem to view potential legal recourse against a man who beats on his wife as the WORST LOSS OF RIGHTS EVAR I’m pretty sure they probably DO think measures against DV are sinister. And measures for healthy pregnancies and against breast cancer. Can’t have those ladies living past childbearing years, cause it’s MISANDRY to have to look at the old ones amirite? /sarcasm
I come here to comment and ALL the good ones are taken 🙁
david got congress to throw that shit in just to fuck with you, obviously.
*waves hand* My PCOS was ignored for 2 years by my OBGYN despite GIANT RED FLAG SYMPTOMS going on. It was pretty clear she was disgusted having to deal with my fat body, and if I hadn’t had a close call with cervical cancer once before I wouldn’t have gone back to her, but I needed to get my PAP done yearly.
It was finally diagnosed when I woke up one morning, barfed from the immense pain in my abdomen and drove myself to the hospital. They did an MRI and discovered an 8cm cyst. I lost the ovary. (Dear Republicans, I take birth control pills to preserve my remaining ovary, so fuck you, you fucking fucks, for trying to take them away.)
And when your comments are finally allowed, could you please explain to the group how the MRM is not a hate movement?
Hey, I just think it’s kind of funny that Dave’s comment was at 2:30.
This means c-man hasn’t been able to think of a name that doesn’t use c**t for 2 hours
I’m actually a bit stupid about going to doctors as well.
When I was a child, I took horse riding lessons. Despite being a very female-dominated area there’s a lot of macho attitude in horse riding. Like, never show fear, never show you’re in pain, never complain. You’re bound to, as a kid learning to ride a horse, get violently thrown off time to time, and that HURTS. So you’re gonna sit at the floor/ground, you’re six or seven years old maybe, and you’re entire body feels like broken glass and tears are streaming down your face and you’re terrifed, and the riding teacher will just go “GET BACK UP ON THE HORSE AGAIN!”. And that eventually teaches you not to show pain or fear but just GET BACK UP ON THE HORSE.
So anyway, I was twelve, leading a horse by the reins, and the horse stumbled on something, and the edge of its hoof landed on top of my foot. It wasn’t the FLAT surface of the hoof, but the EDGE that bore straight down into my foot. It hurt so much that I couldn’t help but crying out, and everybody turned around to look at me and were like “What? A horse stepped on your foot and you cry out about it? Being stepped on is nothing!” So I shut up and jumped out of the stable skipping on one leg, since I couldn’t put weight on the foot.
I rode for one hour, although I couldn’t stand up in the stirrups because of the foot so I had to sit down all the time. Then skipped back into the stable on one leg and somehow managed to drag my boot off despite the foot starting to swell.
During the following weeks the foot went really swollen and a bit bluish and I always had to skip about on one leg. It was summer, however, so I could wear sandals when normal shoes didn’t fit. Eventually the foot healed. My parents should probably have dragged me to a doctor, but they sort of have this macho attitude to injuries as well and thought I was just being brave about the whole thing.
Many years later, when I was an adult, a friend whose a nurse (or I’m not certain if her profession translates as “nurse” in English – she has three years in med school) looked at the foot when we were sitting barefoot in the grass, and went “That foot looks a bit weird. It looks like you once had a bone broken in it, and it wasn’t properly tended to”. I told her the story, and she said that foot is probably gonna give me trouble as I grow old. It doesn’t yet, fortunately enough.
But that’s MY stupid “not going to the doctor” story.