So, hoping to find out any more information I could about those threats the A Voice for Men gang has apparently been getting lately, I forced myself to listen to 45 minutes worth of a regular AVFM YouTube show with the highly ironic name Intelligence Report. The topic of the show was ostensibly the “Death Threats in Detroit.” But somehow, AVFM’s Paul Elam, Dean Esmay and Tara Palmatier managed to reveal much less about this subject than they did about their own obsessions and insecurities.
At one point in their rambling conversation they began talking about how unfair it was that the Southern Poverty Law Center had profiled the AVFM gang as a bunch of woman-haters, when really the SPLC should be putting mean feminists on their Hatewatch list instead. And somehow this segued into a discussion of gendered slurs against women, and why it was just fine to use them, so long as you didn’t use them to refer to every single woman on planet earth.
And yes, I’ve saved a sound clip of this edifying discussion for you. You’re welcome!
Oh, just a little FYI, when Pauly says they never ever ever ever use the words “cunt” or “bitch” to describe women as a group — as if using those words is totally fine otherwise — he’s lying. At least when it comes to “cunt.”
With “bitch,” well, they’re awfully fond of the word, but technically I can’t recall a writer there calling literally every single woman on planet earth a bitch. I mean, granted, Elam once wrote an article titled Princess Miserable and the Great American Bitch Machine, in which he suggested that
feminism, consumer products, psychology, media, advertising, politics and social custom [have] all merged into one Great Big Bitch Machine; [and] the modern female psyche is nothing more than a product of that machine
But technically he’s not calling all women bitches there. Just saying that “modern female psyche” is the product of a “Great Big Bitch Machine.”
Not the same thing at all.
It’s all so clear to me now.
/s
Ah, so this would be why they continuously critique their followers, who use gendered slurs to refer to all women all the time, for not following this particular tenant.
Kiss the my cats arse.
So if I say that nearly every man who approaches me in public who I have not previously met is a creep, they’re cool with that, right? I’m not accusing *all* men of being creeps.
They don’t think all women are [slur]s – they just reserve the right apply those slurs to any woman who does something don’t like (which happens to be pretty much all women). Totally different.
So, according to this logic, it’s A-OK to call a POC the n-word, as long as you don’t use it to refer to every POC on the planet. And the same would be true for every other horrible slur out there.
It’s no problem using a word that stereotypes and degrades everyone in that group, as long as you only use it to refer to one person of that group and not all of them.
Got it.
So they’re not calling all women [slur]s, but simply our one unified modern female psyche which has been created by a machine. The female hivemind is a [slur], and that should not offend us.
Where is the Great Big Bitch Machine, and can I ride my menstruation high horse to it? Should I bring along my cognitive dissonance high horse in case my first horse gets tired? Or should I convince a white knight mangina to drive me there under the auspices of sleeping with him, but reject him once we arrive?
I need to plan ahead for this.
The more he constantly says that, the less I believe it.
If you think about it, it’s not women they hate, just womanhood. Which is so much less sexist, right?
@sparky
Wasn’t that basically Paula Deen’s defense? “I only use it for the bad ones.”
If you’re using a slur to attack a woman, basically you’re saying “oh yeah? well you’re a girl.” They’re literally using femaleness as an insult, but that doesn’t apparently tell the AVFHMers anything about how women fit into the cultural hierarchy. Nor does the fact that there are no equivalently insulting terms for men (or white people, straight people, cis people, etc.)
Bowie bleach
@David
You listened to 45 minutes of that pompous idiocy? I’m sorry. Well, at least you got a post out of it.
Somehow, Tiny You’s awkward face is highly appropriate for the sound clip.
Also, if anyone sees titianblue, tell her I posted her writeathon story!
I feel like we should send David a batch of cookies, or maybe a pony. Would you like a pony, David? A small one? Would that erase the miasma of misogyny you were surrounded by for 45 minutes? You could curry it’s coat, braid its mane, feed it apples.
Just saw this internet comedy clip (Arctic Ape, my fellow Swede, must know it: Full Patte) where a woman is yelling at everyone at her office how much she hates them. At one point she turns around and shouts “and YOU, you’re a FUCKING C**T!” to someone off screen. Camera rotates and we see the person she’s yelling at – dressed up as a literal c**t. With a clit on top of her head, labia at the side of her face and throat, a bit of pube hairs at the top of the whole thing. Somehow this was very funny.
Oooh, thank you, LBT. Love it!
Yay, thanks, titianblue!
RE: auggziliary
Pretty sure that kid would’ve clutched his pearls about being called ‘cis scum.’
@claudiah — would that be a regular pony or a menstrual pony? 🙂
Whatever pony David wants, and we all know he wants a pony.
Dvärghundspossen:
I’m actually Finnish (IIRC, commenter Talacaris is Swedish) and haven’t seen that clip, but the vulva costume thing sounds hilarious for such a randomly thrown gag.
(I know some half-forgotten Swedish from school, like many Finns. Some people here are native Swedish speakers as a sort of historical relict and Swedish is the second official language, even if most people don”t speak it much)
So, according to this logic, it’s A-OK to call a POC the n-word, as long as you don’t use it to refer to every POC on the planet. And the same would be true for every other horrible slur out there.
Yeah, all flavors of bigot love this dumbass loophole. “I only use slurs against minority folks I don’t like, to put them in their place and remind them of their inferiority! How is that racist? Besides, if they were properly deferential I wouldn’t need to pull out the slurs, so if you think about it, they’re the ones causing the racism.”
Yeah, I’ve seen the clip. Normal public service television humor. The cnut dress looked rather cute. Here’s anothe prime example of state humour. Non-scandinavian speaking people, try to guess what is about:
The “I only use it to describe…” excuse is usually hand in hand with the “Group X uses the word all the time” whinge.
If it wasn’t so ugly it’d be laughable in it’s transparency. Paul Elam and his ilk LOVE using these words & obviously have zero problem with slurs against women (for a start).
This just creates a (highly ineffective) piece of information to splutter and point at when people call them on it.
Ugh, I know “Imma tired” is no excuse, but sorry for the repetitive of the OP & badly edited nature of my previous post. Going to make some coffee now.
Sorry, Arctic Ape, I confused your origin with Talacaris’. 🙂
I remember this response this girl gave (back when I was in middle school) when some guy called her a bitch: “Dogs are man’s best friend so you just complimented me.”
OT, just popped in to find minions for my daily act of misandry. I have appropriated the hashtag NotAllMen. I have been tweeting about how specific individual men (identified as friends or family members) are not terrible, and then add but NotAllMen are like that/can say that/act like that, etc. I finally found a use for Twitter!