Apparently Paul Elam, head boy at A Voice for Men, felt that his last 1500-word opus on the evils of female consumer spending wasn’t verbose enough. So he’s put up another 1500-word rant on the subject that adds nothing to his already pretty substance-free argument — except for a lengthy preface in which he pats himself on the back for being SO BRAVE enough to confront the ladies with the uncomfortable TRUTH that they are destroying the world with all their lipstick and fancy shoes and hats made from men’s balls and whatever else it is that those silly world-destroying gals are always buying.
Gosh, no one’s ever said anything bad or even so much as joked about materialistic women before. Congratulations, brave Paul, for blazing this trail of truth! (At least Anita Loos had the good taste to be utterly hilarious in her satire.)
And gosh, it’s not like men have ever been known to spend loads of money on useless shit. Nope. Never.
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Oh, and speaking of useless crap (and this is a bit of an awkward segue here): MAN BOOBZ T-SHIRTS ARE 40% OFF TODAY! Yes, again!
To take advantage of this NEW ONE DAY SALE, go to the Man Boobz store on Zazzle and enter the code 12DAILYDEAL3
Remember, fellas, if you buy a shirt, it’s a necessary and utilitarian purchase, something to wear while you are hunting the mammoth, or fishing with your $4600 fishing rod, or typing out world-saving rants about how awful ladies are.
Ladies, if you buy a shirt, it’s nothing more than world-destroying vanity. Women should wear rags.
But hey: what better to make rags from than a nice Man Boobz t-shirt? Now in four delicious, world-destroying flavors: Mammoth, Cartoon Mammoth, Cupcake, and Cock Carousel! Loads of other Man Boobz swag on sale too, at 15% off.
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EDITED TO ADD: Check out the comments for Elam’s post to see a brave commenter named Amanda politely but relentlessly tearing Elam’s article to shreds. Among other things, she links to a Slate article that suggests, based on several European studies and some admittedly “quick-and-dirty spreadsheet calculations” by a Carnegie-Mellon researcher, that men and women in developed nations have roughly similar “carbon footprints,” with men a slightly less “green” than women.
The responses to her comments, like Elam’s post itself, rely heavily on ass-data and lots of essentially meaningless thetorical huffing and puffing. Like this bit of blather from Tawil:
You don’t honestly think that men in political power are going to make decisions detrimentally affecting the wanton consumerist desires of the women voters who put those same men in power, do you? If yes you clearly don’t understand who has the power. One move by a politician that detracts from narcissistic licence for females gets him voted out – by women. Same holds true for corporation CEOs – any move that would stifle women’s shopping behaviour or her budget would see the company go bust. (and BTW CEOs and politicians make up about one billionth of the total population of men… the rest of the men are laboring in back-breaking, soul-destroying occupations to make your life more comfortable princess).
Amanda quickly rebuts this and everything else thrown at her, reducing the regulars to blustery nonsense and toothless misogynistic insults — like this from Skeptic:
You’ve obviously never heard of pollution by proxy have you? Probably too busy shopping I guess.
Skeptic is also suspicious of any and all research from the evil gynocracy known as … Sweden, “probably the most misandric culture on the entire planet.”
Eventually Elam wades in and offers a response that he clearly sees as appropriately patronizing; he even uses the word “cupcake,” a clear sign of MRA hubris.
Your comment alone is polluting. It is feminism’s toxic waste that has already contaminated much of the planet’s intellectual purity. So while I will answer you, I do so with the qualification that along the lines of environmentally sound thought, it is like talking to a BP rep about good saltwater fishing.
As to why women cause more pollution I will have to tax your ideological mind with simple math.
Men earn about 80% of income worldwide. Women spend about 80% of income worldwide, a disproportionate amount of it on themselves. …
More blah blah blah, and then he winds up with this:
It is real simple, cupcake. Those who consume, pollute. Those who consume excessively pollute more.
Rinse and repeat till you figure out who consumes more, and who consumes more frivolous goods and services in the vanity economy.
BTW, producing Swedish research around here is like breaking wind and calling it perfume. More pollution.
You will note that Elam relies on that 80% figure we discussed in my post on his previous women-are-destroying-the-world rant. You know, the 80% figure that is repeatedly endlessly in media accounts, invariably unsourced. Because it is not actually based on any real research, as the Wall Street Journal recently discovered? When asked for the source of this, he finds … yet another media mention of the figure, without a source given for it.
Paul Elam, master of ass data, is completely unaware that he has lost the argument, and acts as if he’s won some grand victory.
Actually, that’s pretty much how he acts every day.
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Time for that gif again. You know the one. But the T-shirt sale is real. And I’m not being sarcastic about Elam being completely and utterly owned by Amanda.
It’s so obvious he despises women. He’s not fooling anyone.
Is it sad that I only just figured out that elam is just male spelled backwards?
Aworldanonymous, I never noticed that at all.
I never noticed that either. o_O”
I’ve also never been a big spender or particularly enjoyed shopping, but Elam’s rants make me want to go BUY ALL THE THINGS, just because. In for a penny, in for a Maserati, amirite?
Awww. That cat is really rich.
I tried to read that, but his entire argument is built on the assumption that men and women are completely different. In his world, all men are like Clint Eastwood’s character in those spaghetti westerns and all women are like the characters in Sex and the City. It means everything he writes makes no sense.
If I started an essay with the sentence “Earthworms are aggressive creatures who want to crawl into your house and kill you” anything I wrote about earthworms after that would be complete nonsense. Paul Elam’s words about men and women are like that.
Now I’m off to Target to buy some crap.
Great. Now I’m sad that NaNoWriMo is almost over, because I would totally read that story if you wrote it.
Yeah, Paul’s bullshit makes wanna go buy some shoes. Really high-heeled pointy-toed Boots of Misandry.
I’m going to buy some six figure shoes and drink wine from the time of the French Revolution out of them. Because I am a woman, and that’s what we do.
Among the many things malelam does not understand is why the candy is by the checkout and the milk at the back corner of the store.
And of course the reason we buy all those scented effing candles: http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=78583
From the latest rant:
“And by the way, I say I know what I do works because AVfM attracts support from educated, talented and brilliant women from all over the world.”
I suppose those would also be women who stole men’s spots in education and stole men’s jobs? Except I have a feeling that “educated, talented and brilliant” == women who agree with Paul.
One thing that I know several women are going to be wasting all their money on is the three weddings on 12/12/12 so far scheduled at where I work.
My favorite part — and by favorite, I mean the part that more than anything else proves that PaulE is a craven hack — is where he says,
A. Seriously, is there anyone other than PaulE and Sarah Palin who uses the phrase “put on their big girl panties” unironically?
B. Any well-supported refutation can now be answered with, “See, that proves you aren’t a deeply honest woman! You’re a superficial lying liar.”
C. He is such an asshat.
Someone named Amanda is making a heroic effort in the comments there. I feel like we should stage an intervention and bring her over here for kitten videos and a warm cup of tea.
My mom, but she’s not the sort of person people should be emulating.
This bored cat should be a meme.
And now it is.
I want to buy a Google Nexus 7. Lots of guys want that gadget. Does the fact that I have a vagina now make it bad to buy it?
Bored cat is bored.
OMG I went to a right wing blog to read a caterwauling article and stumbled across this: http://www.alternativeright.com/main/blogs/zeitgeist/seduce-and-destroy/
Yes, the twisted spinster, because you’d only use it to shop for shoes.
ugh, scarlett, grossest Marty Stu ever.
Cloudiah: what I have to say is only going to appeal to deeply honest women is the same thing Joe tried to pull with, “if you ban me it just proves you can’t handle rational argument”.
It smacks, actually, of desperation; being a sort of extortionate case of special pleading to prevent the use of a banhammer.
@cloudiah, I read “proves that PaulE is a craven hack” and saw “crack haven.”
Dude, put down the crack pipe.