“Compassion for Boys and Men.” This, the slogan of Men’s Rights hate site A Voice for Men, has always struck me as a teensy bit ironic, given that site founder and head angry dude Paul Elam spends much of his time berating other men, and really only seems interested in showing “compassion,” if it can be called that, for those who not only agree with everything he says but also donate money to him.
Recently Mr. Elam ran across a four-year-old video that’s been posted to the Men’s Rights subreddit numerous times in recent days. It shows a young woman assaulting a campus preacher, and knocking him off a platform, after falsely accusing him of groping her. (The woman, a student at Middle Tennessee State University, was arrested and later pled guilty to assault charges, getting a year’s probation, some community service and a fine; the preacher suffered only minor injuries.)
But the fact that a few people in the crowd cheered for the attacker apparently convinced Elam that everyone in the world except him and a few of his pals are worthless pieces of crap.
Look at the crowd cheer this violent lunatic on. It isn’t just her that is the problem. We live in a psychotic world where women can do whatever they want to men, as long as they vomit up a lie, like “get your hand off my breast.” It is a world which praises sickness, as long as the person to suffer for it is male.
Well, actually, it looked like most of the people in the crowd were a bit shocked by her assault and the preacher’s fall, and several people came forward to help him. And I’m not quite sure how Elam managed to miss the fact that the woman in question was led off by police at the end of the video.
In this culture, most every woman is Sharon Osbourne. Most every man is Hugo Schwyzer.
By describing women as a bunch of “Sharon Osbournes,” Elam is not (I don’t think) suggesting that they are savvy, articulate women who’ve been able to not only survive but flourish in male-dominated industries; no, he’s making a reference to the one time that Osbourne made a horrible castration joke on national television, and suggesting that women are a bunch of evil harpies that love to fantasize about cutting men’s dicks off.
By referring to men as “Hugo Schwyzers” — Elam’s post was written before Schwyzer’s recent Twitter meltdown — he’s not (I don’t think) suggesting that men are all a bunch of manipulative predators who glom onto feminism as a way to exploit and manipulate women, but rather suggesting that they’re a bunch of obsequious manginas who let women walk all over them.
I feel confident in attributing these interpretations to Elam’s words because he’s made these arguments many times before. It’s pretty obvious that Elam hates women. It’s only a little less obvious that he hates most men as well.
But I don’t think it’s really this video that’s got Elam angry. It looks to me like he’s still stewing over a recent op-ed by libertarian anti-feminist Cathy Young — a writer in many ways deeply sympathetic to the Men’s Rights ideology — which took a passing shot at A Voice for Men and similar sites whose “steady diet of vulgar woman-bashing … discredits any valid points they may make.”
So far Elam’s site has run at least four other posts — possibly five? I’ve lost count — responding to the single sentence mentioning AVFM in her column, including one by him and another by a “brigade” of self-described “Honey Badgers” (female MRAs), but Elam can’t resist the opportunity to point out yet again that he’s going to remain as angry as he wants to be:
I do not give a rat’s fucking ass about offending or upsetting any of them.
This world does not deserve MHRAs that are decent or measured or considerate of the mainstreams sensibilities. This world deserves a jerk on the collar and a slap across the face and the flying spittle of rage that it earns with each man and boy that it denigrates and abuses.
“The Flying Spittle of Rage” makes a much better — and more accurate — slogan for AVFM than that boring old “Compassion for Boys and Men.”
Wow, it’s out in force today.
The whole problem being that, if you start out by saying that everyone who disagrees with you is delusional, there’s pretty much no non-asshole way to go from there.
Truth.
@Shadow: This treehouse of yours sounds like the most magical place in the world. I am SO there.
Yeah, I’ve definitely made the mistake of confusing skepticism with atheism. Thanks to Freemage above for giving a good synopsis of the history of the two movements. Matt Dillahunty seems to be a good marriage of the two, especially since he’s stepped out as a feminist and defended people who are victims of harrassment at atheist conventions.
Which means, of course, that he’s been catching flak for not being as skeptical as he should be. *sigh*
takshak — you want these < > not these [ ]
Thank you.
old habits die hard.
kittehserf: Hi, sorry, either WP is being especially brutal today or my link’s in moderation.
I saw the Pharyngula thread, and briefly contributed somewhere around page 6. =P
The whole problem being that, if you start out by saying that everyone who disagrees with you is an immoral monster who is going to Hell, there’s pretty much no non-asshole way to go from there.
Even many non-fundy believers are rude to me all the time, and they don’t even realize they’re being rude. Generally I don’t call them on it for the sake of social grease, at least on the lesser offenses, but it is wearing. The general grumpiness of many atheists could be down to this constant irritation.
Takshak, we’ve had this conversation before and it goes nowhere good. Just letting you know.
But thank you for demonstrating the red herring fallacy.
“I feel confident in attributing these interpretations to Elam’s words because he’s made these arguments many times before. It’s pretty obvious that Elam hates women. It’s only a little less obvious that he hates most men as well.”
I think it’s obvious that Paul Elam hates and fears men far more than he hates and fears women.
Cassandra — what did we decide the plural of octopus was? Cuz want to noptopus away from this with me? Or as a noun it’s just noptopus?
Noun, verb, coffee, no coffee, it’s all the same really! >.<
But yes, breaking news at 11 — people who say everyone who isn’t like them is Very Very Wrong are assholes!
(Seriously though, wtf is with this topic lately? This is the third time in as many weeks)
I read Pharyngula regularly, despite not being either an atheist or a scientist. I just enjoy the writing and the topics. Especially the relentless bashing of anti-feminism – for some reason, that really speaks to me. I realize that if I commented in such a way as to reveal my own theism, the comments would be brutal. But then, it’s not as if there are no safe spaces in this culture/society for theists; expecting Pharyngula to be one strikes me as unreasonable.
There are also safe spaces for rape culture apologists, but fewer than there used to be.
takshak:
One atheist to another, I’m gonna lay this one out for you:
This is not a space for talking about the general complaints against religion. There’s plenty of targeted comments you can make, during appropriate conversations, about specific religions supporting specific misogynist attitudes–that IS what this space is for. So if, during a thread, it’s part of the topic to mention misogyny in the Bible, go for it; no one will give you grief for that.
When you feel like blasting religion more broadly though (even in casual asides), head on over to FtB and pick a thread, any thread, on just about any of the blogs (not just PZ’s, either). It’s appropriate there. Here, we focus on misogyny, and mocking it.
Another possibility, if you’re enjoying talking to people here, and want their specific input on something, would be to join the Forums, and start a well-labeled thread on atheism/religion. Folks who’re interested can join in, folks who don’t want to talk about it can ignore it, and all of us guests can still be respectful of each other in Dave’s house, which is the whole point.
Argenti: The ‘movement’ has hit a watershed moment, basically. It’s been building since Elevatorgate, with lots of dirty laundry slowly but steadily coming out. And as the pace picks up, the stuff is getting worse–we’ve moved from vague opposition to feminism in general to outright defense of actual rapists. Since all of that is Dave’s purpose, well, it’s gonna come up here a lot.
Yeah but can we not do the “you’re immoral” // “you’re deluded” thing? Idk how much of That Problem was public, but if you know much if the details I imagine that you can infer my thoughts on the matter.
I may have taken it the wrong way, but there was a comment that implied that atheism is a “faith belief”,
If that wasn’t what was meant, then I apologize.
takshak: There was a comment that could be interpreted that way, but which was not meant that way (rather, it was the simple fact that at some point, you have a faith-belief, even if it’s just that your senses aren’t being deluded by some all-powerful demon). You aren’t the only one to have read it that way, but it has been explained.
I was very careful to word what I said to not 1) imply that all believers are “like that” and 2) discuss religion *at all* . I do not know why you think I did.
Virī. But octopodes is questionable as it went through Latin to get to English (but octopedes is clearly silly [wrong root for -pī, foot is pedes…sorta])
takshak — because the topic of religion has a long history around these parts of devolving into how atheists are oppressed, theists are [insert bigotry of choice, iirc, it was homophobia that caused The Massive Drama]
And thus it makes us jumpy and go all noptopus.
I almost want to add freemage’s comment to the Welcome Package so that atheists with good intentions don’t accidentally step in it.
But it kind of goes against the jolly tone of the Welcome Package…
(get thee hence, blockquote monster)
plural of “vir”, “viri” = “men”, “virus” is actually a neuter noun. which would normally be pluralized with the “-a” – no classical example of it in plural form is extant, but if it was true to form it would be “vira”.
“octopus” is Greek (“octopous” without a Greek keyboard map), not Latin, so “octopi” is right out, although octopie might be delicious. The correct plural in greek (& therefor the technical plural) is “octopodes”. but “octopuses” is perfecty cromulent in English.
Yeah, it’s viruses, and it’s octopi, and octopses, and octopodes (because languages are living things).
And none of those are important; and not why (though you can’t be expected to know the details) it was brought up. But it was pretty obviously an attempt to change the subject, and pulling out your, “I’m really smart, let me show you” card wasn’t the best course of action; given the present tenor of the discussion.