Paul Elam, head misogynist at A Voice for Men, is mad at the ladies again, his wrath provoked this time by an overheard conversation in a local coffeeshop between two women talking about recycling, and how the world would be a greener place if women were in charge.
Elam seems to take deep personal offense at any suggestion that men aren’t the absolute best at every single fucking thing, so he quickly scurried off to his computer to bash out a 1500-word screed that began with him insulting the women as bobbleheaded “latte lappers who were more likely than not completely clueless about how a single thing on the planet with a moving part works,” moved into high gear with some not altogether wrong (if rather trite and woman-blamey) critiques of the diamond and fur industries, and wound up with a stern warning that WOMEN ARE DESTROY9ING THE EARTH WITH ALL THEIR SPENDY SPENDING!!1!!!
So let’s just skip ahead to that part, shall we?
Take it away, Paul:
The thing that drives the bulk of pollution, wars, white collar criminality, cruelty to animals, human slavery and the like is consumerism. Consumerism, especially the market of unnecessary, embarrassingly vain and useless goods, is a woman’s world. It is primarily the consumption of fashion, via cosmetics, plastic surgery, excessive clothing, jewelry and other vanity items. Women drive a world of pain and damage to the planet. And men, to their shame, do the heavy lifting to get it done.
Ah, damn you ladies! God damn you all to hell!
The so-called Planet of the Apes was Earth all along!
Oh, wait. Sorry. SPOILER ALERT.
But Paul, don’t men buy a lot of expensive useless crap, too?
I mean, I just did about a minute of Googling and found a goddamn fishing rod that’ll set you back $4600.
I cannot think of a single item consumed by men en masse, with high social acceptance, that does not also have utilitarian value. e.g. leather items come from food source animals.
Oh, I see. You can use a $4600 fishing rod to catch $4600 fish. My bad.
Essentially it is not that much different from Native Americans using buffalo hide as well as the meat.
Yeah, he really did just say that.
And many of the things men do consume that might appear on the surface to be excessive are things that women size up and measure them by in the process of sexual selection.
Ah, and these men are utterly helpless before these greedy, earth-destroying women and their evil feminine allure.
Most money is still earned by men.
This is true. In part because of that whole wage gap thing you MRAs don’t believe in.
Most money is actually spent by and on women, mostly on consequence-ridden products whose only use is to bolster their egos. That is about as green as a fucking oil spill.
The sex driving the world’s ridiculous over consumption, and therefore decimation of everything, is not men. In fact, women’s level of over consumption is so outrageous that they cannot even maintain it with their own resources. It takes both sexes to feed the excessive appetite of the one.
Ah, but that’s not quite true. Or really true at all. For one thing, while women may spend more than men, that’s in part because women still tend to do more of the shopping for things like, you know, groceries. They’re not spending all this money on themselves.
And women may not really be spending as much as you think. It’s often said that women are responsible for about 80% of consumer spending. But if you ever start trying to track down the source of that oft-quoted statistic, as I did while writing this post, you’ll discover that … there really doesn’t seem to be one. It’s one of these things that’s assumed to be true simply because it’s repeated so often – especially by people claiming to know how to market to women. The Wall Street Journal’s Carl Bialik looked into this 80% claim last year and found that
In addition to having murky origins, the number appears to be wrong. Several recent surveys suggest that men have nearly equal say on spending, and that when men and women live together, both participate in spending decisions. In a survey conducted last year of nearly 4,000 Americans 16 and older by Futures Co., a London consulting firm, just 37% of women said they have primary responsibility for shopping decisions in their household, while 85% said they have primary or shared responsibility. The respective figures for men were similar: 31% and 84%.
Let’s return from the land of reality to plunge again into the tempestuous torrent of Paul Elam’s testosterone tantrum. (See! I can write as crappily as Paul Elam if I really try!)
If we wanted to save the environment, be less cruel to animals, have less wars, less slavery and less forced labor of children then the best first step we can take is to start raising girls to get over their vanity and their entitlement. We would also do well to teach our boys to assist in the process.
Elam followed up this soul-stirring call to SAVE TEH PLANET with a post castigating male truck drivers for being too nice to lady truck drivers. No, really.
If you’re interested in learning more about saving our green planet, and even if you’re not, I suggest you take a look at the trailer for the excellent if unclassifiable Korean film called, naturally, Save the Green Planet.
And BTW… Only in Paul Elam’s world is leather used for men’s wallets utilitarian but leather used for women’s purses frivolous. They’re not frivolous because they’re for men, you know.
I hate it when people claim that women and minorities have a leg up on colleges because they find is easier to get in.
Of course you know who really finds it easy to get in children of people who make “donations” to the school, sport athletes ect.
There is a really well done comic about this, but I don’t know where it is.
And on the topic of EVIL FRIVOLOUS PURCHASES!!1eleventy!!!1!! I not only bought a pair of sneakers today, but they have been officially approved by the Shoe Police Cat.
(Sorry about the crappy quality, I filmed this on my phone.)
http://youtu.be/UkUYjXp3AYU
I used to have… I think about 4 Earths a couple of years ago, and that’s when I was flying about 24000km per year for over half a decade, in 2000km bits. I was a strict vegan and everything organic foodwise and kept other consumption to minimum. Having a house with central heating using waste heat from an electricity plant (as is common in Scandinavian big cities) and other electricity from 100% renewable sources (wind and water power mainly) also helped with that. Travel was about 80% of my score. I tested adding some meat consumption in and travel went down to 50%. It can have a big effect, even free range and organic meat and dairy.
I’m not bashing anyone, I’m also an omnivore at the moment for various reasons, some out of my control. Just have to point out what a massive effect it has on consumption, it’s way more than most people think. Especially dairy which nobody except vegans thinks of as meat. Even pastured cows and chickens have to eat fodder in northern climates and in drought, and the amount of grain used to feed a single cow would feed ten humans. Field hectares used make up a big part of the resources used score and approx ten times more field used gives you quite a bit bigger score. Another that adds up is fertiliser petrochemical production, which is why it’s less if you only ever eat certified organic (not just pasture/free range but organic) despite organic growing using slightly more land. But it’s still a huge percentage. Best thing you can do is cut down on meat and dairy and only eat the best quality when you do, ie organic.
I should declare that I spent two years studying organic agriculture methods and practice in university, including shoveling dung, if that makes me biased in any way. But I’ve seen the numbers and results firsthand. I will also declare that I’m pro-GMO as far as technology and science goes (proprietary rights on genes are a whole another matter…), before anyone jumps at me with the straw hippie counter argument.
chuckee, for centuries many professions (at least in the west) had 100% white male quotas, in that no one but white men was allowed in them. Do you doubt the achievements of the white men in these fields because of that?
I’m sort of guessing the answer is no.
Also, I made a poster, and I’m putting it here because it involves the evils of candles and throw pillows and a lovely quote from judgybitch:
http://manboobz.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/posterjudgybitches.jpg
Lol @ the poster.
That reminds me, I’m absolutely not a house decorating person. I lived in what most people thought was a bachelor’s house (except clean, very clean) with mismatching furniture, nothing on the walls, everything in the house was because it had some function and I didn’t care what it looked like. My partner with whom I live now? He’s decorated the house. It’s HIS throw cushions on our couch, HIS animal and flower pictures on the walls, HIS scented fucking candles on the table. I’m glad I don’t need to think about it.
Elam’s first attempt at a Twitter account: @happymisogynist Please don’t draw any conclusions from this: we wouldn’t want to be unfair to the man.
Judgybitch:
Do people who come out with this tired canard ever pause to think about the historical reasons behind why they woke up speaking English?
Another thing that quiz ignores is why people might do what they do energy-wise. Like living in a far-flung suburb because that’s all you can afford (Melbourne is one hell of an expensive city now; rentals in the inner/middle suburbs are a lot higher than my paypacket, and I’m not on minimum wage). Said outer suburbs are also notoriously badly served by public transport and infrastructure generally; another of Melbourne’s problems is that it’s been handed over to developers and new suburbs go up with no more support than a bog-standard small shopping mall here and there. Organic food? Farmer’s markets? Trains? Trams? They don’t exist in those places (and organic food is outrageously expensive here anyway). So people on lower incomes are forced out of the city and end up commuting for hours, mostly by car, if they have jobs at all. There’s a real limit to what you can do to reduce your energy consumption in those circumstances.
@Kitten
Yup. Which is why it’s best to use a calculator adjusted for one’s locale, so it takes into account the different options available. It won’t ever be 100% accurate but it gives a good idea of what’s going on consumption wise. And even then the results are unfair due to the reasons you mentioned but they could be used as a tool to develop better options, seeing in which parts of the city and country the most consumption happens and why.
On a completely unrelated note, I just upgraded my health insurance policy and it makes me want to die a little. I now have coverage of up to 1000€ of magical quantum physics/energy/whatever water aka homeopathy. I wish I could opt out of tax funded pseudoscience, but alas, if I want my extra physiotherapy I must opt in to pay for the dolphin and crystal remedies, too. I don’t care to change insurance companies either, as my current one has the least insane pseudomedicine policy.
/venting
@eline – the locality thing on that quiz was a trifle odd. It allowed for country location and metric/imperial measure, but stuck to US dollars for earnings. Certainly it does give an idea of consumption but seriously, for people stuck in their situations, people who simply don’t and can’t get the money to change, it’s just damn depressing to get the finger-wagging message.
Your health insurance covers homeopathy and stuff? Good grief!
*don’t have and can’t get
Paul needs his DVD player and his copy of Air Force One because that’s how he learns about politics and stuff.
Men were indeed presumed to be providers to the extent that married men were given priority over single men in some countries – to the extent that even salaries were contingent on family “responsibilities”. And yes, that necessarily excluded women, who were presumed to be the provided-fors. So, yes, the idea of privileges and entitlements certainly did apply especially to waspy type men of entitlement, who would never “allow” their wives to work. What sort of pompous git (white knight) imposes that kind of prohibition? Why would anyone WANT their partner to be a boring doormat? It’s one aspect of the constellation of reasons that I once supported feminism. But you see, there’s a crucial difference – the default switch to this day presumes men to be the provider, if we factor in the presumptions made by family courts and government, and if we factor in the culture-wide, unspoken presumption that child custody defaults to the woman in the first instance. Because of this, the idea of preference for women in the workplace, the idea of filling quotas, for example most recently Vivian Reding’s initiatives for Eurozone boardrooms, is uniquely abhorrent. Equal opportunity (not equal outcome) should be the default. Equal opportunity should always be the default for men and women. The idea of “penalizing” men for the provider role that hypergamous women always expected of men is bizzarro in the extreme.
Women who do not provide are primary nurturers. Men who do not provide are invisible. One has a purpose. The other does not. This situation is cultural imposed by both men and women, it is not a patriarchal plot. A stay-at-home dad is about as marketable to women as a truckload of beachsand is to an Arab.
Equal opportunity helps us all. There is no reason to favor anyone. More specifically, lest there be any ambiguity, there is no reason to favor a woman over a man in any instance where two job applicants are otherwise of equal merit. If an employer can’t make up their mind, toss a coin. But there is NO reason to favour one gender over another, ever. This idea of choosing a woman over a man when they are judged of equal merit is the ideal setup for a con, and sets the stage for manipulating outcomes. I’ve seen it done. Besides, judging merit is not an exact science… it is an estimate, a best guess.
Do I doubt the achievements of white males because of their provider status? The only option that men ever had was provider, and men never had any choice but to sink or swim… for all their waspish entitlements, failure was always judged harshly and responsibilities were unconditionally required, whether in employment or in war (white feathers for cowards). These days, by contrast, women continue to have the stay-at-home option. They can work if they want, or stay at home if their fancy takes them. They can work flexi-time, part-time, full-time, or not at all… whatever suits them. It makes all the difference. These pick-and-choose entitlements that women enjoy today, with government chipping in with child-support handouts should things get too uncomfy, absolve women of the sorts of responsibilities that were unconditionally required of men supporting families back in those nasty, bad-old patriarchal days, back when white feathers were the insult of choice by women who were never required to fight in wars (or work in coalmines).
Equal OPPORTUNITY, no problem. Affirmative Action? You’ve got to be kidding.
Totally OT but an antidote to Elam’s assholery…apparently Nissan were offering some customers who bought one of their new cars the opportunity to create a surprise for a loved one as a PR stunt (the company paid for it and helped with the organization), and this is what one guy did for his wife for their 11th wedding anniversary.
Just thought that everyone could use a little counterexample of men who actually love the women in their lives!
@Kitteh
I couldn’t get the link open on my phone so I didn’t see how well this calc handles location. Is it just for data collecting purposes or real adjustment according to the kind of electricity and heating, for example, that is mostly used in each country. You could get an uncalled for finger-wagging instead of a nasty reminder of your lack of options, and that’s at least as counterproductive, especially if people already feel guilty and try to do their best. Another reason I dislike universal carbon footprint calcs. There’s so much that could be done right with the right kind of tests, that are carefully made to look at each region’s options and situation.
And yeah. Homeopathy and anthroposophic remedies, whateverthehell that means. 🙁 I feel filthy, when I took my first Dutch insurance I specifically avoided any of that in coverage. But then I had to get physiotherapy and the basis coverage was only 6 visits and I got to pay a nice 750€ for the rest. Now I get 36 visits covered, hurray! Thankfully the altmed is NOT in the mandatory insurance, so I’m actually not sure how much tax money goes into it. But it’s covered by insurance if you pay the fee. There’s some things about western European health care that I just don’t get and one of them is the lawmakers’ bowing to altmed. I guess it’s the price to pay for a secular society where religion pays very little role: people opt for other beliefs. As harmful as altmed can be as a sole health care option, on the positive side it’s quite personal and doesn’t prevent others from making their choices like a theocratic society can. And here people use it for colds and as an addition to real medicine, so the damage is limited.
I can’t believe I just wrote something good about altmed….
@eline – you summed up the problems with that calculator perfectly. It certainly doesn’t have things like what electricity source (hydro, brown coal, etc) is used.
It’s intriguing that so many alternative therapies are included in insurance in Europe. I’d be really surprised if they are in Oz policies. They’re very popular here, to be sure, but I’ve never heard of them being covered by insurance. I’m not into alternative therapies, with the sort-of exception of Reiki – in that I do it myself. My teacher stressed that it’s complementary, never alternative, and in no way involves diagnosis or any medical suggestion past “Go and see your doctor!” let alone replacing medical treatment.
One thing I’m very grateful for is that a few years ago, Medicare (the basic government health cover for everyone) started covering visits to psychologists. You get six visits, then have a checkup and renew the referral from your GP, then get another four, in a year. Not as many as people might need (it used to be 12, not 10, too) but it’s a damn sight better paying $55 for a visit than $180.
@Kitteh
I had to check how much psychological help do our policies cover… looks like the basis is 5 sittings, and every additional insurance package has “full coverage” (as opposed to the “100%” they use elsewhere in the list). So from about 12€ per month of extra you get as much as you need I guess. And psychiatric help with referral, including psychotherapy, is 356 days per year in base insurance. That’s actually a lot better than I thought. The base is same for all companies. And it’s a lot better than Oz by the sounds of it. I had the impression you had health care similar to UK. Hmm.
I think big part of especially homeopathy and anthroposophic stuff being big here are Boiron and A.Vogel. They’re huge companies, easily comparable in size to conventional pharmas and they’re based in France and Switzerland. They can push legislation on their home field. When I go to pick up my medicines from the pharmacy there’s a huge shelf of herbal stuff and magic water. I once needed some eyedrops for itchy eyes while in The Hague and because I didn’t have any prescription I got sold a homeopathic product. They didn’t have a mild anti-histamin or something OTC with medicine in it because it’s so strictly regulated. But they do sell you magic water without prescription. Ah, now I can send my magic water bills to my insurer! 😀
Really glad to hear your mentor is one of the sane ones. There’s a lot of things that can improve people’s lives and they’re free to do and believe, be it complementary therapies or a religion. The thing that gets me is when it gets pushed as science, and as an alternative to “bad medicine”. And anything faith-based should not be included in tax funded things out of principle. But that may indeed be the reason for the push to make faith a science, to get tax funds. Cue Boiron and A.Vogel lobbies.
Let us all pause now and remember the great men forced into roles as “providers”, who despite that, produced great works. Isaac Newton, Nikola Tesla, Vincent van Gogh, we thank you for your sacrifices.
(It’s funny because none of these guys ever married and Newton probably died a virgin. And that’s not counting all the monastics.)
Forgot to add: the level of Dutch regulation is that there’s no OTC NyQuil. There’s no mild OTC hydrocortisone cream for insect bites or rashes. But you can get enough OTC paracetamol to give you liver failure, for some reason. Everything else comes with prescription only. Compare that to the liberal sale of homeopathics….
Is codeine still hard to get in the UK? I remember when I still lived there that you could get Nurofen with codeine, but only directly from the pharmacy counter. No prescription needed, but they did give you a spiel about how powerful it was.
(Codeine knocks some people right on their ass, like Mr C, who goes right to sleep if he takes it, so I assume that’s why they were restricting it a bit.)
And yet my two years (and counting) as a stay-at-home dad rank amongst the happiest of my life, and I don’t feel the least bit invisible. On the contrary, I’m considerably more visible to the people to whom my visibility genuinely matters.
In any case, technology makes it much, much easier to combine productive work with child-rearing.
I figure with the codeine restriction it’s mostly because it’s addictive the same way that Vicodin is, and people abuse it.
Also I sadly had about 5.5 earths in the sustainability quiz. Like other people I wish that it was more transparent. Regarding the changes that are out of people’s hands I took a different quiz like that awhile ago, and you couldn’t get less than 2-3 earths if you lived in the US because of infrastructure and the military. I found that both interesting and discouraging.
It’s weird how MRAs notice that the way relationships are assumed to work is socially constructed, and that it kind of sucks, and their solution is…to try to reinforce most of the (already identified as sucky) current system, and blame the few bits that they don’t like on women.
It was only the basic Medicare – that everyone gets – I meant with that level of cover. I’ve no idea how much private insurers offer; it probably varies between different companies and policies.
Codeine’s difficult to get in the UK too? That’s interesting. I only found last year that you can only get it in the US (well, California, anyway) on prescription. It’s over-the-counter here and nobody thinks twice about it. When my girlfriend came down with a nasty cold/flu last year while I was visiting, she latched on to the cold pills I’d brought with me, because it was just too damn difficult to get that sort any other way.