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.
@Steele
What I do for the world? Well, for about 15 years I was a union steward who fought for fair pay, respectful treatment, and due process for workers of any gender. Now I am an evil manager, but I spend my days making sure information is available to the people who need it — mostly for free online, though sometimes we can only negotiate limited access for the people who can make it to computers on our campus. I also volunteer at an institution holding one of the largest collections in the U.S. of resources documenting the African American experience.
What do you do Steele? Except for haunting mockery blogs, driving away your girlfriend, and being semi-successful at work?
@palmedfire
Thirty points! Massage therapy makes the world so much better.
Signed,
Nepenthe’s chronic pain
@cloudiah
Collections and archiving? Best things. 20 points.
I make the video games and write fiction.
Major societal impact? No, but I make people have happier and more fun lives. 🙂
Sorry about your gran, Shadow.
I’ve done a big UPDATE to the post; Elam’s being torn apart in the comments section by a commenter named Amanda — see above for highlights and links.
Isn’t Amanda great? I [heart] her.
Ooh, educational. I never knew there were only three and half politicians and CEOs in the world. How many of each? Which one is the half?
You know, I pretty much work as a wage slave. I do retail during the weekdays, and manage my father’s business at nights and on the weekends. I spend a lot of time doing customer service, being ultra-polite to people who are being nasty to me, smiling and assuring people that their picky, must-have special order can be returned, gritting my teeth and simply replying “You too!” to the assholes who aggressively wish me “Merry Christmas” on the day after Thanksgiving, and etc. Man Boobz (which has it’s own signature jingle to me, similar to the yahoo one) is something I find completely cathartic. It is nice to be able to actually talk back and see others take down the more obnoxious people around me.
And also, I sell a lot of things. At a high-end store for home products where our customers are largely female. Around here, women make most of the purchases, but men spend most of the money. I’m yet to see a man bring in a coupon, or even ask for a discounted price on anything, I’m not saying that they don’t, it’s just not something I’ve been seeing. Sure, the men spend less time shopping, but they buy the majority of the big ticket items and do more impulse-buying of big ticket items. I feel like the impulse buy of $2.99 peppermint bark is a much more sustainable one than the $79.95 fiberglass woven hearth rug, but hey, maybe it’s just because I don’t have a disposable $80, like ever.
Makes perfect sense, as he is, after all, a backwards male.
Katz:
I wonder what Steele’s posts would be like in German? I suspect lots of incredibly long compound words that end up royally fucking up the formatting.
But he’s a front runner for Troll of the Year. Not least because he tries so hard, bless him.
@Steele:
Indeed and for the record, maybe you should ponder the fact that Paul Elam and his ilk have a persecution complex seldom seen outside of right-wing evangelical Christianity.
Shadow, welcome back! I’m sorry about your loss. And bravo on that Steele-take, it was so good I could hardly read it. 😛
Steelyknickers – I’m a hydrographic chart corrector. Which, in short, means my work helps save lives at sea by highlighting hazards. Now tell me you do anything half so worthwhile.
Steele, what do I do? Im part of the evol feminist media! Only in the startlingly male dominated sports section.
When Im not doing that, I look after severely autistic kids (almost all boys) in a respite house, and volunteer as a rugby referee.
I work from home as a freelance writer and look after the kids. Which allows my wife to work full time as a medical professional, either demonstrably improving or in some cases saving people’s lives. And we both campaign to improve services for autistic kids – in fact, in half an hour’s time I’m putting in an hour of voluntary supervision of a Lego Club run by a friend on behalf of the National Autistic Society.
I’m assuming Steele is too busy saving the world to respond to the likes of us right now.
It’s really weird how they view Sweden as some kind of misandry hell. So… we do have paid paternal leave for fathers here, which I don’t think that many countries have. And most people call themselves feministis, like you’re supposed to say that you’re one, while from what I understand it’s a bit controversial to say that you’re one in the USA. So I don’t know… maybe we’re a bit more feminist than the US overall? But certainly it’s a pretty gradual difference. It’s not like we have this completely matriarchal super-feminist culture over here.
And some stuff that’s thrown around about oh-so-feminist Sweden is just made-up. Like our rape laws being harsher than those of other countries – that’s bogus. For something to count as rape under our laws the victim has to be either a) under fifteen b) more or less unconscious from alcohol or drugs or c) explicitly threatened with violence or d) subjected to actual physical force. Several countries has harsher laws than that.
What do I do for the world? Well I’m a student so not much yet, but in the holidays I work as a PA and Office Administrator for a small business.
However in the past I’ve helped out a lot in local schools helping kids learn to read, write and gain confidence and doing arts and crafts with them. I’ve also been involved with a fair few local campaigns to do things like get new primary schools opened and to reduce the number of road deaths in residential areas.
Once I’ve left University I plan to apply to become a school governor for a local state school and work to get elected as a local councillor. Eventually I hope to be elected to parliament and one day serve in a government, ideally as Education or Home Secretary.
So yeah I hope to serve my country a lot.
Also I just baked a chocolate cake for my housemates birthday and later on we are throwing him a surprise party with cake and beer and punch and lots of food.
I have brought joy to the world because I have such a beautiful ass.
Hmmph! Moderation. Oh well, it was just a bit of snark.
What I actually do is work in a law office. Yes, that means I help people get divorces and work out child custody. Men are just as capable of playing horrible games with custody and visitation as women are.
But if you can’t look past your ideological blinders, I also type up deeds and powers of attorney, and I do the footwork on estates occasionally.
Shadow, I’m sorry about your grandmother.
Steele: What do YOU vile rank disgusting evil misandrist bigoted nasty vile horrible darkness spawn vile foolish worthless feminist misandry evil hypocrite empty baseless misandry vile uh … sorry I forgot what I was saying OH — what do YOU do for the world? Huh?
Us: [Tells him what we do for the world]
Steele: [VANISHES MYSTERIOUSLY]
(Steele is DEFINITELY getting my vote for Troll of the Year, unless somebody sweeps in and gives a really amazing performance out of nowhere.)
Completely unrelated but this is just sickening:
http://www.ricethresher.org/rice-maintains-happiest-students-status-by-ousting-unhappy-students-1.2961393?pagereq=2
….don’t read the comments if you want to have any hope in humanity.
….right, fake tags don’t work that way.
Try 2:
< /delurking; apologizes for being hit-and-run but I really need to acquire food; you guys are awesome >
I’m not going to justify what I do for the world to Steele. He’s not worth it.
Indeed, you vile hatefem; I wouldn’t expect you to. My position ahs been validated; hatefems are nothing but selfish, grasping hateparasites.
Well, Steele, I work two jobs. My “night” job is one where I mop up after a bunch of asswipes not unlike yourself. (I clean a very popular North American Restaurant/Sports Bar between 3 and 8 am.) My day job, though, is in a field known as “Workload Planning”. What this means is that for 6 hours a day I sit at a workstation and tell a crew of 34 men what work they’re going to do, where they’re going to do it and when. My word is law and they do what I say or they quickly find they’re put on “spare”.
I am such a misandrist, aren’t I?
…Then again, when you’ve got a gas leak in your house you can count yourself lucky that I am VERY good at what I do.