Just a quick update on the case of Arianna Pattek, the recent Georgetown graduate targeted for harassment by A Voice for Men and others, including the white supremacists at Stormfront. As I pointed out in an earlier piece, the “detective work” that led A Voice for Men’s Paul Elam and the other Pattek-bashers to target her was incredibly inept and sloppy, and it’s clear beyond any possible doubt that she has nothing whatsoever to do with the misandrist blog they accused her of writing, which increasingly obviously seems to be an utter hoax.
A Voice for Men, which hasn’t yet acknowledged much less apologized for its obvious mistake, has made much of the fact that information about Pattek was pulled down off of a Georgetown website after various websites started targeting her — attributing this to some sinister conspiracy. “[I]t now appears almost certain,” Elam wrote in his error-riddled post on the matter,
that individuals at Georgetown, perhaps even university officials, are purging their online records of that thesis, and her identity, in order to protect the interest of the school against what will almost certainly result in a massive amount of litigation.
Last night Mark Lance, director of the Justice and Peace program at Georgetown, left this message in the comments here on Man Boobz. (I confirmed his identity through email.)
Hi. Im the director of the Justice and Peace program at GU, though I was not directing when Arianna graduated. I just wanted to let folks know that her information was removed from some web sites at to protect her. This story was first picked up by Stormfront.org and the white supremacists have been harassing and threatening her, including posting her home address, picture, etc. It was probably pointless, but the person who directed the program last year decided to remove the info. So, sorry, no conspiracy. Just an attempt to protect a young woman from vicious hate groups.
That explanation makes sense to me, and certainly he’s got more credibility on this matter than Paul Elam. (A ham sandwich has more credibility than Paul Elam.)
Lance’s comment raises an interesting question: Did Stormfront in fact start harassing Pattek before the MRAs got to her?
Here’s what we know: Stormfront — incorrectly — named Pattek the author of the feministconservative blog a little after 3 AM Eastern time on the 18th, the same day that Redditors in the Men’s Rights and Conspiracy subreddits (and a few others) picked up the story. Timestamps on Reddit aren’t precise, but I’m guessing they got to it after 3 AM. The phony news also began spreading around Tumblr that day as well. Elam posted his piece trashing Pattek later that same day.
So, yes, it does sound like the white supremacists got to Pattek first.
Does this also suggest that the bogus information published by A Voice for Men came — directly or indirectly — from Stormfront?
That seems much less likely. Though I can’t confirm it, it looks like the whole thing originated not on Stormfront but on 4chan, and that their bogus theory about Pattek spread to all the other sites out there. (I find it hard to believe that all the other sites arrived independently at the same patently false conclusion.) It’s certainly possible that Elam got his info from Stormfront, but it seems more likely he got it from 4chan, or, even more likely, 4chan via Reddit.
If anyone has evidence that 4chan picked up the theory from Stormfront, let me know.
In any case, the whole event says a lot about how bad information spreads on the internet, and just who is getting information from whom.
It also says a lot that A Voice for Men, which likes to pretend it’s at the vanguard of a great 21st century “Men’s Human Rights Movement” was nearly as quick to jump on the Pattek-hating bandwagon as the literal Nazis at Stormfront — that is, the leftover stragglers from a 20th century hate movement.
And it’s quite telling that both Stormfronters and AVFMers think that doxing and harassment of individuals are justifiable forms of “activism.”
I would say something about strange bedfellows, but these bedfellows aren’t strange in the slightest. They’re two hate movements, just made for each other.
@bahumbugi
Here is one misandrist beagle:
http://i.imgur.com/MLiEMea.jpg
@kittehs
Seconding you on never having seen one that isn’t disgusting. Don’t really feel sympathy for them though 😉
@bahumbugi
God that sucks 🙁 Internet hugs if you want them. Sorry that you’re being stalked 🙁
@opheliamonarch
and internet hugs for you, too, if you want them. Gah, why do stalkers exist 🙁
@katz
I know XD I was probably way too amused by Brz borking them all…Way more entertaining than whatever else he wrote (I skimmed).
@john
They aren’t defending white guys, shithead, they’re hating on everyone else.
Also, this is an extra special note from a white person: Shut the fuck up, you hateful bigot.
@jack
No he’s not. Words have meanings, Jack.
@emilygoddess
*noms cold popcorn* ::came late to the thread::
@Hellkell
I like it 😉
@jack
And yet you still keep pulling things out of your ass. I’d’ve thought you’d learn…eventually.
Pecunium: Jack seems totally OK with looking stupid.
So Jack’s argument is that Elam is not XTREME enough to wear the fine label of “racist”, correct?
Jack’s argument is that even racist shitheads don’t like MRAs.
Wait, no, that’s mine. 🙂
“Jack’s argument is that even racist shitheads don’t like MRAs.”
They really don’t. MRAs stink of weakness and grovelling, and most men I know (racist or not) are grossed out by them — even when they agree with them in principle on some issues.
Scanning this site and seeing all of this hysteria graphically linking A Voice for Men (a pretty milquetoast, all-inclusive site) to images of guys with swastikas on their heads is pretty funny if you know any real racists, fascists, etc.
And for the record, I say Elam and his troop of MRAs are basically feminists because, despite their shrill, unhinged ranting, their stated goals are equal treatment for men and women under the law, and the abandonment of proscribed sex roles. That’s basically the goal of mainstream feminism.
The animosity between feminists and MRAs occurs because MRAs claim the promise of equality that feminism offered to men and women alike ended up being one-sided, and feminists disagree. That’s it in a nutshell, and I’ve seen Elam admit as much.
When you get into fascists and radical traditionalists and so forth, you’re getting into a critique of modernity and post-Enlightenment values at their root, a return to proscribed sex roles, and different treatment of men and women under the law. There’s also tribalism and anti-globalism, which is also known as “racism,” though it doesn’t have to be.
They can state that these are their goals and yet not act like it.
Like, if I say I want kids to be safe and then I start handing a four-year old chainsaws, it doesn’t really matter what I said.
Jack: When Elam, et alia say they want equal treatment for men and women, they lie.
Shocker, I know.
Well, what Fade wrote, and also:
I’m somewhat certain that the animosity is less caused by MRA’s claiming that the equality is one sided, and more that feminism is the work of the Devil, sluts are out to suck men dry and that all feminists are evil, shill harpies which smother to murder Goodness in its sleep.
For example! Let’s go now, live to the aVfM site, to find this article that I picked, at random.
http://www.avoiceformen.com/mens-rights/false-rape-culture/beware-the-rapetard-society/
At the surface, that supports your claim – someone is angry because equality ended up not being equal. But then, well, you read it and start thinking and…
Whereas I dislike both MRAs and racist shitheads, whether or not the two belief systems overlap. My anti-asshole policy is very inclusive.
NO! FAAAAAILUUUREEEEEE
Honestly, when there’s a guy just outright proudly calling himself a racist, my willingness to care about anything he says plummets to zero.
How is “Instead of teaching women to not get raped, we should teach men to not rape” just as abhorrent as this?
Wha?
What the fuck is this person saying? Am I missing some deep philosophical point here? =S
In fact, I don’t even know why that shit in the first blockquote is even there in the article. I’m seriously perplexed.
These whiny Mras who fight for a place at “The Grievance Table” are surely pathetic but the “radical traditionalists” are even more delusional : they think a step backwards is possible.
Joseph Caraco said:
The order is firmly in place, it can function smoothly with the three quarters of the population being inutile parasites. Most of us are dispensable, we are unemployed, retired, students, or we have superfluous jobs, the system don’t need us, we need it. Even when there will be gunfights in each street, there will still be an order to feed the parasites, address more injustices and create more stupid laws to protect some group of the population from some semi-imaginary threat and persecute another group.
Someone with a little bit of self-respect and aesthetic sense won’t beg for his little share of “consideration” from BigMommy but the ones who believe they can bring down the system, bring back beauty, bring back meaning are delusional and won’t be able to do anything apart from causing unnecessary violence.
There’s no way to stop the feminisation of our societies and the process of suppression of every place where men can express non-safe masculinity, the only thing we can do is to mock our rulers, refuse their norms, refuse to play their games and keep talking in a meaningful language and do it randomly, everywhere.
*Albert Caraco
@ Jack- Yeah, one of the MRA’s stated ‘goals’ is to become the civil rights movement of the 21’st century. If my stated goal was to be a great basket ball player and I spent all my time on a coach, eating cupcates, complaining about how much basketball sucks, that doesn’t make me comparable to Michael Jordon.
So the MRA’s don’t hate hard core enough for you or other men to give a shit about? But you agree with their arguments? Wow, um, disturbing? Are you waiting for some hate club for cool kids to join or something?
Brz: still not French.
Jack, if you believe PaulE, you’re even dumber than you seem.
This story doesn’t make any sense.
Some administrator decided unilaterally to purge all of the positive stories about Pattek and her senior thesis?
Presumably, the administrator was in contact with Pattek before making such a bizarre decision to purge an alumna’s entire university history based on an erroneous blog post.
So why won’t Georgetown just state that Pattek had nothing to do with the post if indeed she didn’t?
BRIEFLY THE AWESOMEST RELATIVE THOUGH
It is my understanding that this is how one distinguishes one’s self as “the cool uncle.”
though apparently not how one distinguishes one’s self as ‘the cool hategroup’,
Instead of teaching people about a thing that exists, we should teach people about a thing that hardly ever happens! For example, did you know you should wear bells while hiking? No, not for the bears, for the unicorns.
I totally know a guy who was attacked by a unicorn while hiking. I mean, a friend of mine knows someone who knows him. He was very nearly inconvenienced* by the experience, since for a few moments he thought the unicorn was actually going to do him harm but then it walked away. Still, unicorn attacks on hikers are a very real problem and I don’t think you should make fun of them. 😀
*Phrase shamelessly stolen from Cliff Pervocracy.