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.
Who fucking cares, indeed.
Why are there multiple varieties of towel? Because different people want different sorts of towel, obviously. My question for you is: why do you “fucking care” about this? Why is the fact that Wal-Mart sells several different colors of towels a problem? What issues are actually created by a given Wal-Mart store selling 10 blue towels, 10 red towels, 10 pink towels, 10 dark green towels, 10 light green towels, 10 white towels, 10 lavender towels, 10 beige towels, 10 yellow-polka-dot towels, and 10 rainbow-striped towels rather than 100 uniformly beige towels? Even if we assume that only women have any color preference when it comes to household goods, and that no man, left on his own, would ever choose a green towel set over a red one or vice versa, for any reason (which is nonsense, of course, but we can go with it for the sake of argument if it makes you happy), why is having more color options actually a problem for anyone? How is a woman buying blue towels rather than yellow ones because the tiles in her bathroom are blue doing something harmful? What, specifically, are the negative consequences?
I find it refreshing that Judgybitch doesn’t bother to hide her misogyny and special snowflaking behind a sheen of MRM-flavored pseudo-egalitarianism.
You know, like how manure is refreshing if you haven’t smelled it in a while? And all you’ve been smelling lately is diarrhea?
I’m going to put this analogy to rest before it goes any further.
Last I checked, all colors of towels were the same price, too.
@Dani Alexis
Yes, I kind of do. XD (This was very funny.)
Nonsense? Tish tosh, Polliwog, you should know by now that men only see in black and white because our brains are too busy being rational about stuff/things.
Ah, but how do you choose between black and white towels? And are grey towels MISANDRY? :-p
OT a bit, but I think I just found the world’s best brain bleach. Behold, the anti-Elam – a 4 year old doing a rendition of Nyan Cat.
(Also, she apparently has a YouTube channel and her big brother does not – evil misandrist mother!)
My husband has two bass guitars that cost more than any shoe I could hope to own, there’s five remotes on the coffee table for his various electronics (including one remote so fucking complex PaulE couldn’t figure it out), green towels. That he picked out his own bad self.
I did LOL at Smugbitch’s “FAMILY” comment. Sure, whatever you need to make yourself feel better, toots.
I don’t know what you’re smoking, but it definitely doesn’t have “utilitarian value.” You can care about what people of your preferred gender look like without rke tesenting those who don’t measure up. Men who think women don’t have a right to exist unless they are “fuckable” are not shallow, they are stupid and subscribe to a very blatant double standard, in that they don’t seem to have any ill-will towards all those men they wouldn’t like to fuck.
Yet you did not respond to what I actually said. There are definitely heterosexual women out there who are overly concerned about what other women look like; don’t pretend otherwise.
I have had conversations with people who think that government money evaporates, too. They were going on about their neighbor’s gold teeth and rims (who, me? NO! Some of my best friends ….) which they presumed were bought with THEIR tax money.
They must think women’s money and government money are elf-gold, and turn to dead leaves the morning after they are exchanged for goods and/or services.
My husband only buys black towels. He was gawf before gawf was a thing. 😀
And she’s BUY-EYE-ING a STAY-UR-WAY to HEAVUUUHN.
… My brain makes odd connections sometimes.
If your spouse plays Stairway to Heaven I think you’re morally obligated to confiscate their instrument until they promise never to do it again.
@Sgt Grumbles:
How in the hell is a person who thinks someone else doesn’t have a right to exist unless they are “fuckable” not shallow?
Please explain for themisanthropic mouse and I how they’re one but not the other. Show your work.
And sure, there’s women who are overly concerned with how other women look, they’re shallow and stupid. What’s your point, Sparky?
Grumbles specializes in arguing against points that no one here has made. I can’t help but think there must be a better use that he could put all that straw to.
Nice goalpost shifting there, Grumbles. What was your point in coming in sniping at the idea of women taking notice of what other women wear, and heavily implying the only valid reason for such interest is sexual attraction? I notice you’re also implying that such interest must be both bad and not-utilitarian. Want to define what’s utilitarian, and why only that is good? Want to say why the idea of someone thinking “Wow, she looks really nice” or “What a lovely dress” or “That hairdo really suits her” when it’s not tied to sexual attraction is bad? Because guess what, you’d better make it quite clear what level of concern about other women’s appearance you’re talking about, and why it’s bad. I presume you’re talking about being judgemental rather than enjoying how other people look – which goes right back to my first question: why are you only sniping about women doing that, and not about men who do so?
Oh, I think he was aiming directly for the idea that women are in a constant state of competition about looks. I doubt that the idea that we might look at each other and think “hey, she looks awesome! yay!” ever even occurred to him.
(Every time he shows up he gets a bit more pissy, like the effort of not just saying YEAH WELL WOMEN SUCK is just killing him. It’s funny.)
@Hellkell “And sure, there’s women who are overly concerned with how other women look, they’re shallow and stupid.”
I would argue that they’re indoctrinated by the media, but i’m one of the kinds of people that believe that about a lot of stuff.
I wish just one of them would tell me where they think the money that women spend on scented candles is going. Like, do they believe it evaporates into thin air? That it doesn’t pass to other people?
No one thinks it’s evaporating! Elam’s point is that there is a dramatic price to pay for a society that is organized around producing/marketing/selling really fucking stupid products like scented candles.
The cost is environmental. and the primary driver for these kinds of frivolous expenditures is WOMEN. If women were more thoughtful about the consequences of their preferences, there would be a signficant effect on the enviroment. Sure, men make frivolous expenditures as well, but that doesn’t absolve women of the responsibility to think about the implications of their desires. Throw cushions and candles come with a price.
And not just the one indicated by the barcode.
Is that really so difficult to understand? I know it’s not FUN, but y’all are a bunch of joyless feminists anyway, so what’s the dif?
😛
If they’re so fucking smart, how come our trolls can never figure out the quote function?
I dunno Smugbitch, we take great joy in making fun of you.
You realize that the amount of resources used are the same no matter what color the towels are, right?
OT I suppose, but bamboo fly rods of any price are vanity purchases now a days. They don’t have the elasticity that modern (carbon fiber, not sure) rods do and weigh more as well. Of course, fly rods in general are usually used for “sport” fishing rather than fishing for food, so there’s that.
I mean, you could use that rod to feed yourself and/or your family. But when you’re putting down any amount of money for a bamboo fly rod, that’s probably not what you’re planning on doing with it.
Judgy Bitch: “Sure, men make frivolous expenditures as well, but that doesn’t absolve women of the responsibility to think about the implications of their desires.”
While men…don’t? Do? Why are you preaching to just women? Perhaps this is a gender neutral discussion actually and you are contorting yourself trying to bludgeon only the ladies with it?
We can all consume less. We can all give back more. We can all sort recyclables and eat less meat. The phrase was “reduce, reuse, recycle,” not “reduce, reuse, recycle LADIES!”