“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.”
” Crowbar of Distinction (related to The Mallet of Loving Correction) ”
I’m picturing a really interesting carpenter’s shop now.
Don’t forget the hammers from Elodie’s Basic Toolkit for Smashing Biological Reductionism and Evolutionary Psychology.
Ah, katz, I’d forgotten that wonderful article (and totally forgotten I’d commented on it 😛 ).
I think I love Elodie’s trip to the stained glass store comment even more.
RE: Argenti
OCTOPUS!!!
*squirts ink in your face and nopetopuses away*
*turns black and settles into the ink* CUTTLEFISH!!! (You should’ve come to the aquarium with us, I had one following me while I was trying to take its buddies’ pictures)
Aquariums are great. I can’t remember the last time I went to one.
LBT: If you ever swing through Chicago, make sure you hit the Shedd Aquarium.
Some brain-bleach, from our Furrinati Masters, reminding us what’s really important:
http://i.imgur.com/bBNlG6b.gif
freemage, I saw that gif the other day and meant to post it here, but then I closed the browser by mistake and couldn’t find it again.
That is exactly the way every cat deserves to be treated.
LBT — other than swarming with children, the one by you was awesome. A fair amount of generally interesting creatures, and a good smattering of biotopes, which just make me a happy fish keeper — a couple were with species I have or have had too, that’s always weird (you know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen loaches, of any sort, in a public aquarium)
I used the iPad camera since I forgot mine at the hotel and it worked surprisingly well, that little cuttlefish is my lock screen background, and some of the jelly fish my home screen background (hey pecunium, you remember what species they are?)
*makes fingers into mouth tentacles, wiggles at Sneak* Cuttle cuttle cuttle!
Thanks, I needed that bit of silliness.
*squids closer*
Me bairns are going to have to get used to riding in the car for hours and then seeing wonderful creatures. The Knoxville Zoo is close by, although it isn’t all that large, but the real attraction is the Chattanooga Aquarium, a couple-three hours south (almost in Georgia). And if we had several days, the St. Louis Zoo is barely feasible, and it’s free; as is the DC Zoo.
*squids away*
Oooh, Nautilus hasn’t been mentioned yet.
I guess we’re limited to extant families, ’cause the fossil record has really fascinating sea beasties.
Kitty being treated right! Love it.
… also cephalopods. Science fail!
@cloudiah
Assuming the cat enjoys being brushed. This I think is more accurate:
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/ee/e7/3b/eee73b4601a0ecf74f81f17aa9d0549e.jpg
Boston has nautili (or nautiluses, but that one strikes me as wring and nautili appears to be an accepted plural). Impossible to photograph, deep blue light and flash banned, behind a side wall that blocks the lights in the rest of the building. Stunning creatures though a bit creepy.
My favorite may’ve been the Surinam toad, or rather, the reaction of the kid standing next to me when I went “found it, look way back there”
Falconer: Come to NY, we can do all sorts of museums (and I need to get to Oak Ridge, to visit my dad. I know good Yucatan in Knoxville).
Argenti: I have crash space(s) in Boston. I’ve never seen nautilii.
neuroticbeagle – that cat looks like Mamie (who crossed over in 2004). Good thing Sir and I don’t run to having cradles around the place.
… oh gods now the Furrinati will want us to MAKE cradles for them …
RE: Argenti
I really ought to take the kids to the local aquarium. I’m sure they’ll like it, much as Sneak enjoyed your random cuttle, and it’s been a while since I looked at fish. (One of our favorite books as a kid was written by a guy who worked at an aquarium. He was the guy who cleaned the shark tanks.)
Just a quick comment on the “treatment of atheists” and the reaction by some people here to those who mentioned their concerns with bullying, etc. on this particular thread (feel free to skip if you don’t care, of course!)
Generally, as a lurker here, I enjoy the mocking of MRAs, etc. When such trolls come on, they pretty much deserve what they get (and, in fact, actually get less than they deserve!).
But I worry when I see silencing tactics used against people here who don’t apparently reflect the “insider” view on things, but who aren’t saying anything sexist, or racist, etc. Despite accusations to the contrary, I didn’t see the fallacies some accused these particular posters of (intentionally derailing the conversation, trying to cover up a present injustice with a past one)–these accusations appeared primarily to be intended to shut people up. I’d rather use them on MRM trolls than allies!
I get there’s a specific culture here — and sure, it’s easy to say, “if you can’t take it, leave” — but this sounds rather like what I’ve been hearing from certain people on Twitter lately, and it worries me to hear it used here.
And I also get that past threads have been derailed through comments that appeared similar to these people’s ones. But the policing of violations of invisible lines can be abused against well-meaning posters to maintain the power of the “in crowd” (who may not realize that in this space, they are the ones with power, and may not realize their techniques are the same ones that have been used against them in other spaces).
Anyway, just one outsider view. Take it for whatever it’s worth.
LBT — Sneak’d love it, and considering I was barely more restrained than the folks who come up to my waist, give zer free reign, it should go fine.
Pecunium — if you do go, bring a proper camera and one of those foot strap tripod DYI creations (I can find directions if you can’t), the wall there is leanable and you probably have a steady enough hand to do it.
And y’all have an aquarium? Cuz Mystic does not do it for me since they remodeled (a decade ago, but that’s irrelevant!)
It’s seventeen years since they started moving everything out of the old Museum of Victoria site and into the godawful concrete and glass dungeon it now inhabits, where a costume from fucking Neighbours takes pride of place. The old building is held by the State Library and about two-thirds of it are still inaccessible. I haven’t forgiven ’em all for it yet, so you’ve a long way to go in the Museum Grudge stakes. 😉
So, I was going to weigh in on the thorny issue of when/if it is appropriate to question somebody’s personal beliefs (presuming said beliefs are functionally harmless but not necessarily factually accurate), but then I decided to go poke a hornets’ nest instead.
. . . No, really. Those stripey fuckers were building the hymenopteran equivalent of the Death Star over our front porch, and it had to go. I put on my thickest jacket, rigged up one of those beekeeper hats, and knocked that son-of-a-gun down.
Since I’m still recklessly keyed up from the adrenaline, I will go so far as to suggest that some of the regular commenters here seem to be operating in a radically different epistemological framework than the one I happen to prefer . . . but hey, as long as we can all point and laugh (and cry) at bigotry, why bother sweating the small stuff?
Yipes! What sort of wasps were they, qocheedy? I had a nest of European wasps (only ones around here that are trouble) a while back. Scary beggars.
Yellowjackets of some sort, I believe. Whatever they were, they built their nest less than a yard from the front door (but in a tucked-away little corner, so we didn’t notice it until it was the size of a toaster oven and all of a sudden there were wasps everywhere).