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Is A Voice for Men using phony death threats as an excuse to smear feminists and raise a quick $25k? Here’s what we DON’T know so far. [UPDATE: Hotel still not talking]

Adjusted for inflation, those 5 cent fears are now worth $25,000
Adjusted for inflation, those 5 cent fears are now worth $25,000

Is A Voice for Men using phony “death threats” allegedly directed at those planning to attend its upcoming “Men’s Issues” conference in Detroit, as well as upon employees and guests of the hotel where it’s scheduled to be held, as an excuse to smear feminists and raise a quick $25,000 in donations from readers and possibly even from a handful of gullible feminists?

As incredible as that sounds, that’s what some people I respect are saying. Despite AVFM’s history of lying about alleged feminist threats – you may recall John Hembling’s infamous confrontation with an imaginary mob of 20-30 feminists brandishing boxcutters – I’m not willing to go that far.

But there’s a lot about the story that makes no sense, and some big questions that need convincing answers.

1) The Doubletree Fort Shelby hotel has not confirmed that the letter Paul Elam posted on his site several days ago, and which he has now removed, actually came from them. The letter is, so far, the only evidence that there were any threats.

Hotel management needs to confirm whether or not they sent this letter to Elam.

2) Both the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press spoke to Detroit Police spokesman Adam Madera, who told them that the police had not received any reports of death threats from the hotel. He told both papers that hotel staff had asked about hiring off-duty officers for security but hadn’t specified why.

Hotel management needs to confirm either that 1) they got death threats and didn’t report them or 2) that they got no such threats. They should also confirm whether their calls about off-duty police officers were related to the “Men’s Issues” conference.

There are a few other clues that support the “hoax” theory, though they’re far from definitive:

Several people who have allegedly contacted the hotel to ask about the threat say that the managers they spoke to knew nothing about the threats. Even if these reports are true, this may not be significant; managers may not have been told about threats related to a conference many weeks off.

The Detroit News also spoke to the owner of the hotel, and he said he was unaware of any threats. That may not be significant either; he may simply be out of the loop.

Essentially, we’re waiting for the Doubletree Fort Shelby management to answer these questions. If you look at the news coverage so far you’ll notice that the hotel staffers who can answer these questions don’t seem to be answering their phones or returning calls. I left a message for them today as well. No reply yet.

The other bits of evidence we’re waiting for? Well, the letter Elam claims he got from hotel management says that he and the other conference organizers need to send the hotel proof that they’ve hired the required number of Detroit police officers to handle security, as well as proof that they have also paid for at least $2 million in liability insurance. They have to have this done by the 6th.

In light of all the questions still swirling around, I think people are going to want to see this proof too.

It may be that the hotel comes forward and confirms that the letter was real, that the threats were real, and that indeed A Voice for Men does have to shell out $25,000 for extra security. It may even be the case that it was a feminist or a group of feminists making the threats. But we don’t know. And right now the people who do know are either not talking — or they have pretty much no credibility. Let’s hope the silence ends soon, because there’s no way the not-so-good folks at AVFM are suddenly going to turn credible overnight.

EDIT: I toned down some of the language, which I think was detracting from my main points, and added a new final paragraph.

EDIT 2:  Removed some speculation. We’ll know some of the answers soon enough; no need to speculate.

UPDATE: DOUBLETREE STATEMENT

So I’ve heard back from Atiya Frederick, the PR Manager for Embassy Suites Hotels & DoubleTree, and she’s made clear that the hotel won’t be answering specific questions about any of this just yet. Here’s what she sent me.

At this time we are confining our comments on this matter to the below statement …

Hilton Worldwide strives to operate meeting places for people from all walks of life, regardless of beliefs, race, color, national origin, religion or sexual orientation. The views of our guests do not reflect the sentiment of Hilton Worldwide. As places of public accommodation, our hotels do not discriminate against any individual or group. Our goal is to provide quality accommodations and a pleasant environment for our guests, employees and members of our community . We would like to emphasize that we strive to be an inclusive company and regret if this policy has unintentionally offended any individual or organization. 

This statement seems to be their standard response when they host a conference by a controversial group.

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weirwoodtreehugger
10 years ago

Actually that national castration day woman doesn’t identify as a feminist.

Nice try. No sale.

cloudiah
10 years ago

Good article about the movement to protest the conference.

Of course MRAs have responded to news of the protest the way they respond to everything: by harassing women. From the moment the Facebook event page went live, men involved with and sympathetic to AVfM were harassing individuals as they RSVP’d for the protest, with some unsurprisingly going so far as to threaten violence against anyone who attempted to interfere with the conference. At least one woman involved with organizing the march and rally was targeted in a classic MRA fashion, when Jonathan Taylor posted her name and email on the Voice for Men blog. Taylor accused Emma Howland-Bolton, a fifth grade public-school teacher, of being responsible for (unconfirmed) bomb and death threats against the hotel, as well as being unfairly biased against her male students. Other MRAs have since contacted Howland-Bolton’s workplace and the Detroit superintendent of schools in an attempt to have her fired.

Emma had a great quote:

When A Voice for Men started targeting me, publishing my personal information online—my picture, email, place of work—I guess I was flabbergasted. But I guess it’s not surprising that they acted in such an irrational manner. Sexism is irrational. Misogyny is irrational. So a male supremacist hate group like A Voice for Men that embraces sexism and misogyny is also going to be irrational. They make no effort to be coherent, to connect to reality. In fact, they can’t. You cannot connect to reality if your beliefs are predicated on the assumption that, simply by virtue of your gender, you are superior to another person.

Hey Anand, you contributed to an organization that published her personal information online and tried to get her fired. You’re a real shit.

Anand
Anand
10 years ago

Weirwoodtreehugger, Can you link towards any page for donation for rebecca watson as i’ve never come across a donation page for her. I would gladly donate if my money will put to good use.

Anita sarkeesian is a liar and i will never donate to her because most of what she says are lies. Her theories have been debunked so many times its ridiculous to even mention her name again.

I have never heard of Melissa McEwan. I will read up on her before commenting about her.

Anand
Anand
10 years ago

Cloudiah, No i didnt donate to them. I donated for the extra security that was arranged for the conference. At best, i donated my money to keep them safe from protestors.

Also quoting msmagazine for men’s rights is like quoting an uber Christian website to debunk evolution. Nice try.

weirwoodtreehugger
10 years ago

I’m not sure I want to help Anand contact any feminist blogger because of his boundary issues.

I was just pointing out that he doesn’t appear to care about threats against women.

Anand
Anand
10 years ago

Auggzilliary, That was entirely satire as far as i know. I doubt intelligent women like GWW, JB, typhonblue etc would support a movement that hates women.

sparky
sparky
10 years ago

Sparky, I dont believe that ALL the protestors are feminists. I donated money to them only for the extra security. I havent donated to the website or their conference till date but only to the extra security that they need. Even if nothing happens, i would be glad to know that the conference went fine without any illegal protests(pulling a fire alarm).

Wow. That has absolutely nothing to do with what I said, Anand. In fact, I’m a little confused as to how you got that out of what I said.

What I said was, it’s interesting that you’re taking Paul Elam’s account if feminists making death threats (that has no evidence) at face value, but hand-wave away the death and rape threats received by the red-haired feminist. And claim that AVFM hasn’t doxxed anyone, which they have.

Anita sarkeesian is a liar and i will never donate to her because most of what she says are lies. Her theories have been debunked so many times its ridiculous to even mention her name again.

And what exactly is he lying about? Getting death threats, of saying that video game tropes are sexist?

cloudiah
10 years ago

Cloudiah, No i didnt donate to them. I donated for the extra security

You gave them money. You quite literally donated to them. You lined Paul Elam’s pockets. You are financially supporting the largest & consistently most vile group of bigots and harassers within the manosphere. You are a shit.

cloudiah
10 years ago

I doubt intelligent women like GWW, JB, typhonblue etc would support a movement that hates women.

GWW thinks women shouldn’t have the vote, and that sometimes domestic violence is just like foreplay. judgybitch thinks child sex abuse victims were asking for it. typhonblue thinks slaves had more power than their masters.

This is your idea of intelligent?

sparky
sparky
10 years ago

Auggzilliary, That was entirely satire as far as i know.

No it wasn’t. Paul Elam said, in all seriousness, that if he were ever in the jury of a rape trial he would vote to acquit, no matter what the evidence and even if he thought the defendant was guilty. That wasn’t satire. He meant every word of it.

I doubt intelligent women like GWW, JB, typhonblue etc would support a movement that hates women.

::snort:: You are so transparent. And you are a really bad judge of intelligent women if you think GWW, JB and TyphonBlue are “intelligent women.”

weirwoodtreehugger
10 years ago

I doubt intelligent women like GWW, JB, typhonblue etc would support a movement that hates women.

Intelligent? LOL. I love that a few days Anand was pretending he’s a casual MRM follower and not all that familiar. Now all of a sudden he reveals he knows all the big feMRAs.

I also don’t think Anand understands the concept of satire.

If you truly believe it, it isn’t satire. Hyperbole maybe. Satire? No.

VPumpkins
VPumpkins
10 years ago

Everytime someone mentions Elam emphatically stating that he would declare a rapist not guilty if he was serving on a jury, it’s like Anand covers his ears and goes LALALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER HOW MUCH OF A LOGICAL MANZ I AM

kittehserf
10 years ago

GWW thinks women shouldn’t have the vote, and that sometimes domestic violence is just like foreplay. judgybitch thinks child sex abuse victims were asking for it. typhonblue thinks slaves had more power than their masters.

This is your idea of intelligent?

Given Anand is a misogynistic idiot, it probably is.

brooked
brooked
10 years ago

I second (or third or more) weirwoodtreehugger on calling shenanigans on Anand’s “I’m not a MRA” shtick. We see it all the time, it’s almost (if not always) bullshit and a red flag announcing a troll’s complete lack of good faith.

Also, if Elem fancies himself a MRA leader and a public figure, he shouldn’t be engaging in inflammatory “satire”. Jezebel is part of the Gawker Media sub-site, and meant to be frothy entertainment for the most part. Jezebel’s open to as much criticism as anyone can hurl at it, but that criticism shouldn’t be based on pretending the site has some higher social justice mission. If the AVfM is supposed to me more serious and high-minded than a site like Heartiste, then it should act that way.

kittehserf
10 years ago

I wonder if Anand’s socking, or this is just his first-round dishonesty and bad-faith posting?

Modern day trolls are so boring. Where are the great individualists of the past?

Colette Wedding
10 years ago

Hello, all! Lurker, sometimes poster from Metro-Detroit here!

I’m from southern Warren (“South Warren” or “Warrentucky” as it’s known both affectionately AND derisively) originally which is a working-class area that borders Detroit. I currently live in a different city only a few miles from Detroit. I felt compelled to comment that I’ve heard absolutely NOTHING on the local news about any such threats. The news is saturated with goings on in Detroit, particularly when it comes to crime. So if this did happen then I find it surprising it hasn’t been on the news.

But now that Sarah has said she spoke to local FBI that confirmed they’ve heard nothing of the sort I guess it’s likely to have never happened. I guess it still may have though, but I just wanted to come out of lurkdom to mention that. 🙂

pecunium
10 years ago

Anand: Anita sarkeesian is a liar and i will never donate to her because most of what she says are lies. Her theories have been debunked so many times its ridiculous to even mention her name again.

Sparky, I dont believe that ALL the protestors are feminists.

Non-responsive: The question why do you believe Elam, while discounting the people Elam doesn’t like? Especially when the threats against that person were real, and documented.

pecunium
10 years ago

Anand: Sparky, I dont believe that ALL the protestors are feminists. I donated money to them only for the extra security. I havent donated to the website or their conference till date but only to the extra security that they need.

Which is going into an escrow account, only to be used for this security? Why no, no it isn’t.

You have made a general donation; which they say will go to X. You made this donation after they had surpassed the stated need for funds.

So you just gave them money to do with as they see fit.

You did it based on a rumored set of threats.

i recently read a satire by a feminist who wanted a national castration day to castrate all males in public.

Yet you dont see me using that as proof for why feminism is evil.

Which is reasonable. But I’ve read a lot of Elam’s work. I don’t believe he was being satiric. I don’t believe this because it’s a commonly used ploy to say what one really means and then declaim, “what, you can’t take a joke?”

If this was the only time he had advocated violence against women you would be on more solid ground in saying we were overstressing this.

I also see that you have ignored that Elam has said he would commit a crime (perjury) so as to let a rapist go free. That wasn’t satire. He has never denied it. Why don’t you take him at his word there, the way you do about beating women being satire?

kittehserf
10 years ago

Colette Wedding, hi, have a Welcome Package! 🙂

sarah
sarah
10 years ago

I did not personally talk to the local FBI office.

By the time I spoke to the person who did, it was after business hours.

Hey, neighbor!

titianblue
titianblue
10 years ago

So is the proof there? Is it? Is it?

Brain bleach for while we wait…

http://imgur.com/a/dURi3

pallygirl
pallygirl
10 years ago

Those aren’t cat problems, they’re features! 🙂

marinerachel
marinerachel
10 years ago

FemRAs are only intelligent to the extent they stroke the egos of angry white men in exchange for validation. They’re basically Jewish Holocaust denialists filling a different niche. Every “movement” needs some self-loathing individuals to “lend it legitimacy”, deprecating themselves in exchange for praise.

That’s not intelligence. That’s hatred and low self-esteem. It’s an attempt to make one’s self look more righteous by demonising one’s peers. Sure, women are pieces of shit BUT LOOK HOW MUCH MORE EVOLVED THAN THEM I AM! PRAISE ME PRAISE ME!

And the unwillingness of MRAs the internet over to criticise anything ever said by any of these women is a testament to the efficacy of their tactic.

pallygirl
pallygirl
10 years ago
marinerachel
marinerachel
10 years ago

Well, yeah, duh. One slip up and YOU’RE OUT OF THE CLUBHOUSE!

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