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.
Has the chew-toy gone? Since blogs are so harmless, I was hoping he’d post details of his place of employment, too.
@WhatIsThisGravitasOfWhichYouSpeak:
Same here!
Truth be told, I have never played D&D, but I would love to get introduced to the game via ridiculous concepts like:
Disposable Men: An alternate title for NPC warriors, who are little more than cannon fodder.
The Friendzone: An area effect spell (okay, more of a NIce Guy(TM) term, but don’t take this away from me).
Men vs. Females: A legendary war between human beings and some alien, monstrous race of distinctly non-human creatures (unlike MRAs, Tolkien was at least consistent in capitalising the word Men when referring to the human race as a whole).
Betas: Commoners, or maybe serfs? Then again, beta is used both as a term of sympathy and of ridicule, so heck if I know.
Biological Imperative: Character alignment, I suppose?
I do not like thee, Doctor Pell,
The reason why – I cannot tell;
But this I know, and know full well,
I do not like thee, Doctor Pell
Yep. Peter was a Pell.
Hahahahaha! I do believe that was my first run in with him. Unless he’s successfully socked before.
@ Anarchonist
Well, in that vein, we should probably have:
Alphas as PCs
Matriarchy as the overall big bad organisation
Box Cutters as legendary weapons
Females simply have to be slatternly penguins
Scented candles as artifacts of doom
Damn, this is more mammoth memes than MRA terminology. Ah, well!
Ugh, and now MRAs are gonna be whipping out that article as proof that feminists are evil or whatever, like they’ve been doing with the Toronto protest. I’d better bookmark this post for debunking.
MRA projection at its finest. Death threats are what they would do, so it must be what their opponents were planning.
Even if she is sincere, what we have here is sort of a “boy who cried wolf” scenario: she’s been such an enthusiastic cheerleader for the MRM and their tactics that if people are suspicious of her motives here, she has only herself to blame.
JudgyBitch, master of espionage!
@chris
I’ve never talked to her outside this thread, but from what I’ve heard, I doubt it.
@mildymagnificent
well, I’m a lesbian, so I think I took a bonus in man-hating 😉
@david
huh. Wow. I guess I should have guessed, from all the isms.
gad peter is boring. plz paragraph break.
but i will say about this
ableist means discrimination or bigotry towards disabled people. that is all. i saved you from that horrible google thing.
troll to english: i am xenophobic and probably racist
troll to eng: decent people think the KKK is bad right? Okay, so *you’re* just like the KKK for insulting my fakey french name!
troll to english: gay people existing without being denied rights is just like indoctrinating children. Also, if straight people have rights everyone is free to do what you want because I hate gay people and don’t care if they’re denied rights
troll to eng: If some countries are worse than russia in their treatment of LBGTQIAP+ people, then russia is a liberal paradise.
tell that to a disabled queer girl who was biting her nails election night,, wondering if she’d still have bodily autonomy tomorrow.
just got to the peter being pell part wow. i did not see that coming
“Chipmouse” and SCOTUS is completely fake and staged.
That was hilarious.
Peter LaCroix, if you’re going to throw random, incoherent accusations at the straw-feminists in your head, can you do it somewhere else?
1) Chipmunk
2) What?
Females are guilty of feminism the moment they emerge from the womb. Otherwise they would have chosen to be boys!
In addition to the traditional alignment system, male characters must plot their alignment on a scale of feminist – antifem and meek – aggressive. A White Knight is aggressive-feminist, while Manginas are weak-feminist. Loveshys are meek-antifem, MRAs are aggressive-antifem. PUAs are neutral-antifem, I guess, since they seem more interested in gaming the matriarchy than changing it.
@ME and not you, thank you for pointing all that out. I would also point out that genocide against Native Americans has never stopped – Indian Schools, forced assimilation, even the current underfunding of the Indian Health Services, widespread poverty, shortened life expectancy and rape tourism are all taking their toll.
Also, it creeps me the fuck out that the Bureau of Indian Affairs is in the Department of the Interior (alongside things like the National Park Service) – like our native peoples are just another natural resource to be managed…
Unlikely, since he’s terrible at hiding his true intentions. Frankly I’m surprised this one went so long before melting down.
Oh, so that was the Pell of which you all spake! Just woke up to catch up. 🙂
… Pell was kind of boring, then suddenly the hilarious conspiracy stuff came zooming out of the woodwork.
Yes, he seemed almost mythical in stature. Very exciting stuff.
Damn… That was Pell? I’ve met a legend (of sorts)! I’m in awe (of sorts)! No more a thing of lore long past, the ancient troll has arisen and proven to the world that yes! A thousand times yes! Feminists and liberals and chipmunks (i.e. chipmice) all speak of one thing and one thing only: the picture truly was of Uncle Monty! All hail the French Race and Freedom Fries!
…of sorts.
@WhatIsThisGravitasOfWhichYouSpeak
Okay, now we have to make this happen.
@emilygoddess:
An additional alignment system. And it sounds… glorious.
Now we need to make this happen.
Now that I’ve had my very own experience with Pell I feel like a legit member of the community. It’s heartwarming really.
*hmph* everyone got a piece of Pell-flesh while I was busy. I feel left out. But now my cat would like his own chipmouse.
And with that, We have reached Stupidity Inception.
My experience with various reality denialists indicates that it’s an infinite process.. Fractal Stupidity, it’s equally stupid no matter what scale you look at it.
I’ll be damned. A run-in with…greatness?
And an offering to the blockquote mammoth! I’m hitting all the high points today.
In case anyone was wondering whether or not judgybitch was sincere… She’s only sincere about helping AVfM doxx yet another young woman.
Have some lunch, blockquote monster.
Can anyone explain use of the phrase “tinfoil territory” without making it ableist? Also how big is the stable? I’ve been gone for a while.
Despite not being a native speaker I think I know this one, because there are corresponding expressions in Swedish. Conspiracy theorists who believe that the government not only check all your e-mail etc but also have secret devices with which to read your mind make tinfoil hats in order for their brainwaves to be unreadable by the man. Therefore, a tinfoil hat is a conspiracy theorist, and going into tinfoil territory means you’re entering the realm of far-fetched conspiracy theories.
Technically, I guess you’re more likely to believe that the government can read your mind if you actually have a mental illness like paranoid schizophrenia than if you’re merely a conspiracy fan, but I always hear these expressions in connection with conspiracy theories.
Well it looks like this little stunt earned Elam another year of not finding a real job. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/03/mens-rights-activists-blame-feminists-for-alleged-threats-against-detroit-confab/
Of course, the Detroit Police and owner of the hotel know nothing of these threats but if MRA’s know anything, it’s that lack of evidence equals proof.
Oooh, I’m chuffed to have been part of the Pell take-down.
The biography of Christopher Pell needs updating now that we know he originally comes from Monaco & speaks English, French and Italian.
Somewhat amusingly, tinfoil is conductive.
Wearing a tinfoil hat would make it easier to scan someone’s brain.