Well, you have to admit, he’s got chutzpah.
You may have heard that A Voice for Men is sponsoring what it calls the First International Conference on Men’s Issues later this month in Detroit, featuring such notable celebrity speakers as “internationally recognized writer, lecturer and videographer” Karen “Girl Writes What” Straughan, “former mental health professional” Paul “Boy Yells A Lot” Elam, Warren “Boys Aren’t Hurt By Incest a Lot” Farrell, and, well, a collection of other equally exciting names.
But there have been some doubts about it happening from the start. It took some time for the AVFMers to sell enough tickets to enable them to cover the costs of the event.
And now it the costs of the event are going up further: according to a letter that Elam has posted to his site, the hotel that will be hosting the conference has gotten “numerous calls and threats” of a violent nature because of the conference, and is demanding that AVFM cover the costs of additional security at the event.
So Elam has decided that feminists should pay some of these costs, in order to prove they’re “not like that.”
The death threats from feminists, in the attempt to silence these esteemed speakers, has resulted in the conference incurring tens of thousands of dollars in additional security costs.
We plan on launching a fundraiser tomorrow to address those needs, but I want to give the feminists who stand by free speech and assert decisively that these thugs do not represent what feminism is about, to have an early shot at helping us address the gender issues that impact men and boys in an open forum.
He’s even set up a special Paypal button “for feminists only.”
Excuse me?
Let’s be clear here: Death threats are bad. Other sorts of threats are bad. Harassment is bad. Shutting down talks given by people you don’t like is bad. Whoever made the threats against AVFM’s conference, feminist or not, deserves to be prosecuted.
But as someone who has never promoted violence or threats of violence or any form of harassment aimed at MRAs, and who has in fact spoken out against this on numerous occasions, I’m not actually responsible, even indirectly, for the threats against AVFM’s conference. (I haven’t even written about the conference before.) And neither is any other feminist who’s “not like that.”
Indeed, the idea that we should bankroll AVFM’s conference is a bit like asking anti-racist activists to fund a KKK rally because someone or other sent threats to the Klan.
AVFM, as I have documented rather throroughly, is a hateful organization motivated by a deeply misogynistic ideology. Its rhetoric is consistently threatening, designed to intimidate opponents into shutting up and going away. Elam himself — the master of the not-quite-legally actionable threat — once famously told one opponent that
I find you so pernicious and repugnant that the idea of fucking your shit up gives me an erection. …
Your only real hope is to keep your mouth shut and pretend AVfM and register-her.com does not exist for as long as you can. …
We are coming for you … .
It’s a group whose main form of “activism” has always been harassing individual women; indeed, the Register-Her.com sitte referenced in the above quote (currently offline and being rebuilt) was a phony “offenders registry” that posted the names and some of the personal information of AVFM’s female enemies alongside profiles of serial killers and sexual abusers. AVFM seemed to make a special point of picking vulnerable targets, often college students, evidently feeling that these women would be easier to intimidate.
AVFM has tried to destroy the lives and livelihoods of numerous other enemies, in at least one case through allegedly illegal means.
The site has also participated enthusiastically in misogynistic internet hate-orgies directed at outspoken women like Rebecca Watson and Anita Sarkeesian, women who received and who are still receiving numerous violent threats of rape and murder.
On one occasion, joining up with a hate campaign already heavily populated with white supremacists, Elam targeted a recent college grad for allegedly boasting on her blog that she’s been actively discriminating against white men in her job at the Georgetown Admissions Office. The blog was an obvious hoax and the woman in question had nothing to do with it. Even former KKK leader David Duke realized this before Elam did.
And we can’t forget that AVFM hosted a terrorist manifesto in its activism section for several years, written by Thomas Ball, a Men’s Rights Activist who hoped that his dramatic suicide – he burned himself to death on the steps of a courthouse – would inspire other MRAs to start firebombing courthouses and police stations.
So boys, we need to start burning down police stations and courthouses. … the dirty deeds are being carried out by our local police, prosecutors and judges. These are the people we pay good money to protect us and our families. And what do we get for our tax money? Collaborators who are no different than the Vichy of France or the Quislings of Norway during the Second World War. All because they go along to get along. They are an embarrassment, the whole lot of them. And they need to be held accountable. So burn them out. …
You need to flatten them, like Wile E. Coyote. They need to be taught never to replace the rule of law. BURN-THEM-OUT!
(Emphasis mine.)
AVFM finally removed the manifesto from its “activism” section shortly after the Boston Marathon bombing brought the issue of domestic terrorism back into the limelight. But the site still hosts numerous articles glorifying the author of this manifesto.
Oh, and those associated with AVFM are not above harassing their male critics as well. I get a lot of weird, creepy and threatening emails and comments. It’s rare that the senders are dumb enough to do it under their own name. But that was the case with a creepy and threatening voicemail message I received at 1:38 AM one winter night from a longtime AVFM fan and tireless poster-paster that Elam once described as a “One Man Army” and “an MRA’s MRA.”
And this is the organization that expects feminists like me to pay for its security costs?
I don’t think so.
But without you, who would we roll out to prove that Feminism Helps Men Too? 😉
Yeah, it gets hard to have the “can men call themselves feminists?” discussion without ending up treading on the toes of people who aren’t men or women. I’ve seen the conversation go really, offensively badly in the past (I once saw someone tell a genderfluid person that ze could call zirself a feminist when ze was a woman, and not when ze was another gender. It was weird and kinda gross).
Well, if JudgyBitch says so…
<blockquote.You might want to rally around Emma Howland-Bolton. If she staged those calls, she is in a lot of trouble.
When in doubt, blame a woman. (Link is a debunk of AVfM’s attempt to blame this woman.
I’m sure that has nothing to do with the doxxing and subsequent harassment.
Notice how quickly the pretense of “if” falls away. By the end of the paragraph, it’s clear you’ve already decided she’s guilty.
Of that, I have no doubt
@Cliff, AFAIK Paul Elam is his legal name.
Okay, so I’m getting educated on Emma by MRAs. She and her ‘group’ have engaged in illegal activities before! The proof: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/22/detroit-libraries-closing-shutdown-occupy-detroit-lincoln-monteith_n_1166382.html
(You can’t make this stuff up.)
Oh my dog, I’ve been involved in civil disobedience too. I was part of an organization that organized a group of parents to take over a public golf course after the county found the funds to keep it open while they were closing parks in poor neighborhoods. I’ve also walked many a picket line.
Clearly this means I am prone to violent acts. You guys better report me.
False accusations are the worst crime eve…I mean, [name] threatened to kill us! I know because she doesn’t like us!
Are you, like, trying to get us to “help her” by posting her dox where you happen to be reading? We’re not stupid, JB.
Or maybe you’re trying to post her name and the accusations so many times they become permanently linked in Google?
Seriously, what’s your angle? I’m not buying your “concern”.
C’mon, if anyone’s been here long enough to earn that class, it’s LBT.
@Cloudiah I protested the Iraq war, before an after it started. And I brought supplies to Occupy Boston. And I sing with a chorus full of Jewish Communists (a tinhat double-whammy). Clearly I am a threat to decent woman-haters everywhere!
But cloudiah, letting her subversive fifth-graders make protest posters is an illegal act!!!! It’s proof positive that Emma is behind this nefarious plot…or so I’m told.
RE: Fibinachi
But of course! And you’ll need all that storage space,
Well, I’m not a size queen, but if it’s for the good of my party… *throws out chest*
RE: emilygoddess
@LBT, can you please not use the “B” word?
I didn’t think I used it except for using Judgy’s name? Did I slip somewhere? Regardless, sorry.
But without you, who would we roll out to prove that Feminism Helps Men Too?
*snorts, rolls eyes* C’mon, everyone knows you feminists can entice any man to become a white knight just by encircling him and chanting ONE OF US ONE OF US for an hour.
Yeah, it gets hard to have the “can men call themselves feminists?” discussion without ending up treading on the toes of people who aren’t men or women.
It really does. I feel some of the frustration I encounter with it is because while I’m male, I’m also in a mixed-gender system of two girls, another guy, and a non-binary kid. How does that even parse, especially since the world generally treats us as one person? It makes my head hurt, but I also know trans guys have a history of being assholes who’ll happily appropriate women’s experiences and I don’t want to be one of them, so I try to not be a dick.
C’mon, if anyone’s been here long enough to earn that class, it’s LBT.
Just wait! One day, I’ll slip, and you guys will turn on me and throw me out of the clubhouse, just like the MRAs say you will!
RE: Fibinachi
I found A Culture of Conspiracy, Michael Barkun, to be quite interesting.
I might have to check this out myself. I find that kind of mentality very interesting. (Part of it is protective; I figure, if you’re as crazy as I am, it pays to learn the tricks and traps so as not to get caught in them myself. The day you’re sunk is the day you presume you’ll never get schnookered.)
Oh, thank the Goddess of Misandry. Judgey-Child-Rape-Apologist is here to remind everyone that the reason MRA’s are so obsessed with false accusations is because they constantly make them at anyone for the pettiest, most childish reasons, and believe that the rest of the world is as despicable as they are.
Quoting bbeaty for truth and because it can’t be said enough:
WHO THE HELL IS THIS WOMAN ANYWAY AND WHY DOES JUDGY THINK WE KNOW HER????
I’m always fascinated when MRAs think everyone is familiar with the random women they’re trying to harass. They do this all the time. “I DEMAND YOU DECRY THE HEINOUS SUSIE MCLADYPERSON!” “…who?” “NEVER MIND THAT! JUST DECRY HER!”
Whut? Tens of thousands of dollars in additional security? I call bullshit.
Q: How does the hotel know of these threats?
A: Unless some member of AVfM told them, the only answer is the hotel was the recipient.
If the hotel was the recipient they would first informt the police. They would then, if they thought them of a credible nature, just cancel the event. They might, if they thought it likely to be a case of protest requiring some hotel employees to clear people off the property have to put a couple of hotel dicks on duty who otherwise would have been off.
But I help run conventions: big ones. I’m an Area Head for Arisia, which limits membership to 3700, and lasts four days. We therefore take up about six days on the ground (load in, convention, load out). To the best of my knowledge the hotel puts no one else on duty.
My guess… the don’t have anyone who knows how to plan such a conference.
The trick is to figure out how many people are going to attend. What the programming needs are; e.g. how many tracks, what socialising spaces independent of the programming, etc.. Based on those needs the hotel quotes a price (for the space). A good hotel negotiator then says, “we will have X number of rooms booked,” and argues for a lower rate on the function spaces based on the profit the hotel gets from the rooms (a really good one also gets a better rack rate on the rooms, because it’s a pretty much guaranteed arrival, and the guests are more likely than other people to use things like the hotel bars and restaurants).
If the rooms don’t fill… then the original rates on the function space come back into effect (one also ought to arrange for some contingency plans for being able to expand the room block if those rooms have filled up before some date in advance of the con; and an increase in function space, etc.).
So I suspect they don’t have the room nights they need to not pay the price of the space they’ve booked; and it’s too late to cancel without paying a contractual forfeit.
Fatrelle is mad.
Oh, I forgot to tell you guys that there’s now an official Reddit sub in case you ever need to condemn something some random feminist may or may not have done:
http://www.reddit.com/r/feministscondemnstuff/
RE: Shaenon
I’m always fascinated when MRAs think everyone is familiar with the random women they’re trying to harass. They do this all the time.
Do they seriously think Mammoth is like 4chan or something? We’re not that big! Eesh.
RE: pecunium
I know another con starter dude who runs in Arisia circles; I’m starting to wonder if you know each other. Tom, short Italian guy, brown curly hair, goatee? Very quiet and softspoken? That said, I have no idea how you guys manage that kind of planning; it’s a skill I deeply respect.
just delurking to say this; As a Michigander, I recommend that the entire MRA clowncar stay out of my state.
the great lakes have enough slimy parasites in and around them.
and really, comparing a Lamprey to the MRAs is unkind to the Lamprey
also a wolverine would totally win in a fight against a honey badger.
Wow, judgytwit thinks we have credibility with someone (I’ve never heard of this Emma person and I bet I’m not alone in that) and that therefore we should contact her about something she hasn’t actually done but that JT thinks she really has … and all this in a transparently stupid attempt to say “SEE? FEMINISTS SUPPORT DEATH THREATS!”
BTW, judgyrapeapologist, not everyone uses Facebook, partly because it has as little concern for people’s safety and privacy as you and your abuser mates at AVfM.
If it hasn’t been said already, this is prime material for a Pierre cartoon.
AVfM had no ethical qualms about stealing the logo of the Halifax police department (and the logos of “Don’t Be That Girl” supporters) in order to get revenge on feminists. I wouldn’t put it past them to appropriate a Doubletree logo and fake up some letterhead. Pranking people is their bread and butter.
The letter just looks and sounds unprofessional. It’s written in a dull, dated font, with odd margins and a montonous, visually unappealing format. It doesn’t look anything like the other example of Doubletree correspondence (presumably genuine) that’s on Google Images. Whoever wrote it deviated from corporate standards.
Also, business correspondence, even if it’s relaying unpleasant news, usually concludes graciously by saying something like “Thank you for choosing Doubletree Suites. If there is anything we can do to make your stay more pleasant, please don’t hesitate to contact us.” This letter ends abruptly, on a note of hey-we-gotta-protect-our-backs.
It’s allllllmost as if the person writing it were really bad at PR.
I think what really bemuses me about JB coming here is that… it felt like she was trying to be so confusing on purpose.
“Now, I’m not saying this person did anything… we have no proof she did anything… but if she did anything it’d be terrible… she’s in big trouble if she did anything… you should do something as though she did anything…”
Just… what? Are you trying to throw us off? Do you think we’re in a secret alliance or something and therefore would respond with, “Oh shit, they’re on to us!”
LBT – or it could just be that judgytwit is really that fucking stupid.
Why do I feel like JB is trying to herd all of us into a corner?
“Go! Go stand over there and put your arm around this person I have accused of doing something. Act like you know her. Here, hold this bloodstained knife for a second. Make sure you grip it really tightly with the pads of your fingers.”
Enh. I wouldn’t give her that much credit.
What MRAs like to think of themselves as being like.
What they’re actually like.
Yes. There is NO EVIDENCE whatsover that Emma is in any way connected to the death threats. But if she were not, I would expect her to come out and claim that. Maybe. I don’t know. Please – someone try to contact her – and see if you can help her.
I see… a “have you stopped beating your wife” dilemma. You have accused her, so she needs to deny she did it.
Never mind that the internal evidence implies the “death threats” aren’t real.
So, if they are real, you won’t mind getting us the contact information for the conference liasson contact at the hotel. Elam will, of course, be willing to give them permission to talk to us.
Seems only fair. The FBI being involved, and all.
RE: cassandrakitty
YUP.
This is actually all kinda interesting, since I recently got sucked into the infamous Andy Blake cult brouhaha, where a highly charismatic con artist swindled fans and also got a number of people to believe he was channeling Mr. Frodo. (Among others. Trust me, the true story is so convoluted and so mindbogglingly bizarre, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.)
What’s creepy to me isn’t that people like Blake exist. What’s creepy to me is how many people I see who act like they ASPIRE to be people like Blake, but just don’t quite have the magnetic charisma to pull it off.
LBT, you did a “son of a ____” upthread, when your donate button was borked. I figured it was a slip, no worries 🙂
I thought it was you, hubby, Gigi and Sneak. Have I been overlooking someone this whole time?
Pecunium,
I was thinking of Arisia, actually, and how we provide our own security. Of course, I doubt they’d let we security volunteers handle something like the threats they claim to be dealing with here. Also, the idea of giving an MRA a security badge does the opposite of giving me an erection.
<blockquote.So I suspect they don’t have the room nights they need to not pay the price of the space they’ve booked; and it’s too late to cancel without paying a contractual forfeit.
That would certainly be consistent with the attendance at previous events.
Buttercup,
Also, is anyone else wondering why he blacked out the name of whoever wrote the letter? I’m guessing it’s a detail he wasn’t able to fill in credibly, but I wonder what his stated reason is.
Would this be the first ever feminist v anti-feminist physical confrontation? The press must be on site. The papers will want to cover this.