I was a little saddened to read recently that A Voice for Men — the self-proclaimed “Men’s Human Rights” site that has posted an open call to firebomb government buildings in its “activism” section — will no longer be writing about little old me.
Yes, it’s true. In a recent post announcing that he would no longer be writing or caring about journalist Arthur Goldwag, who famously took on the misogyny of the Men’s Rights movement in a piece for the Southern Poverty Law Center, AVFM’s head douchebag Paul Elam also noted that he would no longer be writing or caring about me either.
“In the early days of this site, we used to write a fair amount about David Futrelle,” Elam wrote. “He was a nice, soft target; pudgy actually.”
But now, apparently, AVFM has gotten much too important to bother with soft, pudgy nobodies like me or Goldwag or the SPLC.
We don’t mention David anymore except as a passing joke. He is just another low-end blogger with a small audience of neurotic women who talk more about cats in his comments than what he writes. It is as close to physical intimacy as the guy will ever get.
It’s a little strange how much time Elam, a fiftysomething straight man, spends thinking about my sex life, but I suppose it will be a bit of a relief not to have to read so many of these fantasies of his in the pages of AVFM. Not to mention Elam’s bizarre conspiracy theories about me — like this one. (I wonder why Elam never came forward with the proof of those allegations like he promised he would? Hmm.)
So I was a little surprised when, only one day after Elam bid me that not-very-fond farewell, AVFM’s “managing editor” Dean Esmay decided to set forth yet another conspiracy theory about me and my alleged army of evil minions.
In the midst of a long, weird, barely coherent tirade directed at a writer for Vice magazine who’d approached AVFM with some questions for its stable of female MRAs, Esmay accused my evil minions (in advance) of writing to the Viceman pretending to be female MRAs in an attempt to make female MRAs look bad:
[M]aybe … one of David Futrelle’s minions will show up in your inbox and say “yeah I’m a female MRA and I support taking rights away from women and I hate women too because we women suck, put women who have abortions in prison praise jesus blargh!” and so on and so forth, because that’s just what a whole lot of people who oppose compassion and fundamental human rights for boys and men do: pretend to be MRAs or to be quoting MRAs just to make us look bad. We’ve seen it in action more than once. At least one asshole we know of pretty much does it as a full-time gig.
Dude, I hate to break it to you, but none of my “minions” needs to pretend to be a female MRA in order to make female MRAs look bad. Female MRAs like JudgyBitch and GirlWritesWhat and TyphonBlue are already doing an exemplary job of that already. I mean, seriously, did you read JudgyBitch’s thing about pedophilia the other day? I mean, wow.
Of course male MRAs are also doing a fantastic job making themselves look terrible as well, from Warren Farrell on down to that dude who thinks “friend zoning” should be punishable by law (and the dozens of Men’s Rights Redditors who upvoted him).
But, really, no single website has done more to make the Men’s Rights movement look terrible than A Voice for Men.
Seriously, fellas (and FeMRAs), take a bow. We here at Man Boobz couldn’t do it without you. I couldn’t make up the shit you spew if I tried. (And, for the record, I don’t try.)
ATTENTION-WAY AN-MAY OOBZ-BAY INIONS-MAY: I-way am-way alling-cay off-way our-way evious-day an-play o-tay impersonate-way emale-fay As-mRAY. Ean-day Esmay-way as-hay igured-fay it-way out-way. Ease-play eturn-ray o-tay alsely-fay accusing-way apless-hay etas-bay until-way urther-fay otice-nay. And-way on’t-day orget-fay o-tay eed-fay e-thay ats-cay.
Hawk: I can’t even begin to parse your word salad. Yawn.
Um, what? A tantrum this big over being asked not to conflate “crazy” with “asshole”?
Better part of valor, Dude! Run away and pretend you quit!
But semi-seriously, Elam is trying to move from tinpot hate-crushin’ dictator of his anthill to “benign elder statesman.” He’s trying to re-brand, sorta kinda get everyone to forget all his threats, harassment, and creepiness (fucking up women’s shit gives him a Hugh G. Rection).(The only way he can get one probly). That whole bidness with the SPLC and him running a hate site – all to be wiped away in a new era where handlers are going to keep his fingers away from the keyboard when he gets too frothy!
But the Net don’t forget!
Cassandra: pretty much. Totes infringing on one’s right to be a jackass.
@hellkell
I would definitely like to emphasise the 100% part. I’m not going to pretend that I have any respect for his views on women, because I don’t, but on most other topics he has a rational and skeptical approach which is hard to find fault with. This is why I’ve been trying to find a redeeming feature to the MRAs, because I have such a hard time believing that an otherwise intelligent man would slide off the page of rationality so completely over a single subject.
Maybe I’m just trying to find excuses to hang onto my respect for him… maybe some part of my mind doesn’t understand that it’s possible for someone to be wrong about anything if they’re right about everything else. Hell, Newton believed he could turn lead to gold through alchemy, but he still got us to the moon, so it shouldn’t shake me this way, but there’s this nagging feeling that if he’s wrong about that, but I agree with him about almost everything else…. am I wrong about almost everything else too, or am I wrong about this? Dumb and irrational of me to think like that, but I am a human, so I shouldn’t be surprised when I think dumb and irrational thoughts.
It’s like talking to another person… it’s like the lovely woman who lives three doors down who does everything for anyone: collects groceries for her elderly neighbour; volunteers down at the soup kitchen; optimised your database so it uses 1/2 as many queries and gives even more details; but drowned her own children in order to save them from hell. 90% brilliant person, 10% streak of batshit crazy that makes you doubt your own sanity that you agree with the 90%.
I’m sorry, but trying respect Elam is like trying deny gravity. You can’t do it, and I can’t take seriously someone who agrees with him.
@ WonderWoman
I’m mostly a lurker here too and relatively new to this site. I’ve yet to be called out on anything. I lurked several months before posting, and knew that on this site ableism and slut-shaming would not be tolerated.
There are regulars here who are neurologically a-typical or have a mental illness, and they’d rather not have their conditions be used to explain away the crap MRAs spew. An MRA’s isn’t a misogynist asshat because zie has a mental illness. In addition, slut shaming in any form, no matter how mild, should not be tolerated in a feminist space.
I’d suggest you take a moment to look back on what you commented and try to understand why your language got you called out. Maybe lurk for a couple of weeks or more, and then try posting again. In my experience, this site has been pretty accepting of those who make honest efforts to correct themselves after being called out. However, if you can’t get over your initial defensive reaction when someone calls you out and feel the need to throw a tantrum, it’s probably best you don’t post again.
Oh, hey, I’m not trying to respect Elam. I may be being irrational, but I’m not being stupid!
So, here’s the problem…horribly misogynistic crap about women is the vast majority of what MRAs write. Which makes it a bit hard for people to understand why someone would go, well, they’re reasonable about everything else so can’t we just forgive them for the woman-hating stuff? No. No, we cannot, and if your friend is heading in that direction and you care about him it might be worth staging an intervention. If he’s already quite firmly in the MRA camp I’m going to have to question the assertion that he’s a good guy in general, because people who don’t hate women are repelled by MRA stuff pretty much right away.
Well… I admit, i’m having a hard time seeing how an mRA could not be a dickwad, but I do have a sexist friend. What I do around her is everytime she says something sexist (or homophobic, thanks friend for bringing another ism into it) I calmly deny it eg
“Girls are more emotional than boys”
“no they’re not”
“Yes they are ask any parent” ….
She kept it up for a couple minutes, but she got that it was an un-okay thing to say around me.
If they say “patriarchy means all men are to blame” or w/e, you can say “patriarchy means a social system that advantages men at the expense of women and therefore all men benefit from the patriarchy” or w/e, or if you think they’d be more receptive to hear stuff from a non-personal acquaitance, lend them a book that explains it or link them to an internet article.
If you like hanging around the non-bigoted parts of your friend (like I do mine), I’d just disagree when they bring it up, and then keep going like nothing happened.
You don’t need grounds for respecting MRA points. I could never respect “girls are more emotional than boys” or “gay men are just naturally more effeminate”, but I can see respecting a person, albeit it’s much harder if they hold these views.
TL;DR you don’t need to respect their reprehensible views to still be friends or hang out.
No, seriously, WW. Some of us are “crazy” (medicated off and on, and twice hospitalized, tyvm) and manage not to be raging assholes like these MRA trolls. They aren’t crazy, they are totally in control of their presentation, and they could totally act less like assholes if they chose to, they just enjoy treating people who disagree with them like crap, and they are not above using similarly ableist crap on us (“oh, those silly little feminists with their ideas and their opinions, as if they were real people!”). It’s not so intellectually consistent to call them out on their ableism and practice it at the same time…
MRA thinking may not make much rational sense, but it isn’t a mental illness. It’s a choice to see the world that way.
Communities have standards, and it’s not “anti-free-speech” to maintain that we don’t use racist or sexist or similar language. I’m sympathetic in that it can feel uncomfortable to come up against the standards of a community when they are different than what you are used to (I recently hosted some online friends from the deep south and as much as I love them I was HORRIFIED at their casual use of homophobic and ableist slurs), but I honestly don’t understand why this is such a big deal.
It’s not a “personal quirk”, it really is deeply insulting to many of us to suggest that MRAs are “crazy”, as if they weren’t able to control themselves or adapt their behavior to society. They know what is expected of them, and what will insult and enrage people, and they chose (freely and openly) to do poke people with a stick for fun and profit.
I have a friend who is legitimately ‘crazy’, and when she is off her meds she is likely to randomly curse at people on the street and cut and burn herself. She can’t stop, it’s not in her control. Farrell, Elam and his crew are not at all like that friend of mine and don’t deserve the compassion.
Okay, nevermind. Augochlorella said it way better than I did!
Also you said he’s a skeptic, right? The online atheist movement is pretty well infested with misogyny, so if that’s the community he’s been hanging out in then it’s not super surprising he’s been exposed to some MRA ideas. If he’s accepting them, though, that’s a problem.
There are a significant number of men who’re fairly right on about most other issues and yet virulently misogynistic. Your friend wouldn’t be the first, unfortunately,
So this isn’t you respecting his views and approach, aside from that pesky woman-hating thing?
Respecting his views is respecting him.
Seriously, fellas (and FeMRAs), take a bow. We here at Man Boobz couldn’t do it without you. I couldn’t make up the shit you spew if I tried. (And, for the record, I don’t try.)
ATTENTION-WAY AN-MAY OOBZ-BAY INIONS-MAY: I-way am-way alling-cay off-way our-way evious-day an-play o-tay impersonate-way emale-fay As-mRAY. Ean-day Esmay-w…etc..sad attempt at humor…etc..
Awww don’t let your little mangina “fee-fee’s” inflame in nerd anger Kitten boy. You’ve always got me. I’ll even pretend that your funny sometimes to make you feel better. :* 🙂
WonderWoman, being called out for saying bigoted things is not the same as being denied the right to free speech. The freedom of speech entails the freedom to criticize speech as well. And your words deserve criticism.
Whether you intended to denigrate disabled people or not, your language use was, in fact, problematic. As I understand it, calling reprehensible people “crazy” at almost every opportunity is one way in which a distorted, harmful view of disability is perpetuated. It perpetuates discourse that is framed such that the most reprehensible people are automatically branded as “crazy”, “schizophrenic,” etc. Ableist language, just like sexist language and racist language, contributes to a culture that marginalizes a certain group of people. And this marginalization can dissuade people from seeking the treatment they need.
A similar criticism can be applied to what you said about people requiring psychiatric examinations prior to internet use.
You’re free to use the word “crazy” in whatever context you want. No one’s stopping you. All I ask is that you bear in mind the fact that your intent doesn’t automatically make your speech benign.
Ooooh, your friend. Sorry, I missed that. Stage an intervention.
The reason “crazy” as a substitute for “asshole” bothers me isn’t so much the ableism as the fact that you’re letting people off the hook for their shitty behavior. If being an MRA genuinely was the result of mental illness then one could argue that they can’t entirely help talking about, say, cutting the voice boxes out of little girls. Is that really the direction you want the conversation to go, Wonder Woman? Because it’s the logical conclusion of the assumption that virulent misogynists are mentally ill rather than just selfish assholes.
@CassandraSays
I’ve been trying the intervention route… it doesn’t seem to be working. He’s become convinced that feminism is literally evil, claims that any feminist who doesn’t overtly despise men isn’t really a feminist, and then uses the few vitriolic feminists he can find to shore up his “feminism is evil” thesis. So… yeah. He feels like a lost cause. It’s just disconcerting. Like I’ve said, he’s reasonable in other areas, so what the fuck is going on with his reasoning?
I don’t want to forgive him for the woman-hating, I just want to understand how the hell he gets there, and convince him to see that feminism is, generally, a good thing for all of us.
1) somehow I manage to be neurally atypical and not be an MRA
2) “craziness” is not related to bigotry
3) it is not a brand of craziness.
4) neurally typical people are perfectly capable of upholding bigotry
Please do not put ableist in quotes. It is a real ism, just like sexism, racism, homophobia (okay not an ism, but you know what I mean).
You just get a welcome package, but that doesn’t mean your not capable of making mistakes. I’m pretty new here, and I fully expect to be called out when I make mistakes. It’s part of the way to create a semi-safe community. (semi-safe b/c trolls)
ugh… no, ableism is a force in society. Like whiteness, or maleness, ablebodiedness and neurotypicalness are seen as “normal” and mentally ill or disabled “other” or “deviant”.
When people critique misogyny, it’s much easier for them to shove it off on neurally atypical people, because they don’t have to look at how social forces intersect to make people they view as normal espouse these views (I remember getting in a conversation with someone on a writing board, talking about how guys who go on a murder spree of women b/c they don’t like one women may not have a mental illness, they’re probably just as entitled as hell)
The only things I consider (since we’re not a hive mind ;)) are vicious personal attacks, or speech that contributes to a systematic form of oppression. Ableism is one of those things.
and i just now saw that WonderWoman left, but on the off chance you’re still reading… :/
Well, he’s your friend. Only you can decide whether or not it’s worth investing the time and effort into talking some sense into him. How long has this been going on? If he’s been like this for a while I’d be inclined to just give up and walk away, but if he’s just recently encountered the MRM then it might be worth exposing him to some of the more, um, colorful personalities to see if that shocks him into realizing how fucked up the whole thing is.
I concur.
First suggestion: Angry Harry. If he won’t make his friend think less of the MRA, I don’t know who will.
@athywren
Ouch… that really sucks…
Sadly, I don’t really have any advice for this situation… I think “feminists are literally evil” is a little far beyond any intervention skills I may possess*
*which I hope I don’t have to use with my bigoted friend because I do not see an intervention going down well with her
Not to go off track here but the whole “misogyny in the skeptic community” is so baffling in a way, because these are communities full of really smart people and yet it’s these mobs of entitled, vitriolic dudes. I admin a facebook page for a federal German computer science promoting organization, and we have nationwide competitions etc. and some of the kids, god they are so smart and yet whenever I post something on women and IT, or women in Geek cultures, they are so quick with the MRA-style comments. And it’s these 16 year old boys who come with these fully formed talking points and it’s so so so sad.
Sorry for rambling. I feel like shit, so that makes me talkative.
Also, athywren, are you a woman*, and is this a meatspace rather than online-only friend? If so then in all honesty I’d be wary of spending time around a man who’s hit the “feminists are evil” stage of misogyny. It’s a personal safety issue at that point, imo.
*If he’s really far gone then I’d sound the same note of caution if you’re a gay man, or anywhere on the trans spectrum.