One of the benefits of running a cult – or so I have heard – is the ability to define reality for your cult followers. The principals at the cultish A Voice for Men do this all the time – pretending, for example, that former AVFM Number Two John Hembling had once faced off against a mob of 20-30 angry feminists brandishing boxcutters when his own video of the event showed him conversing with a handful of peaceful activists. And who can forget their attempts to cast their embarrassingly poorly attended rally on Toronto as a “huge success?”
However successful they are at redefining reality for their cult followers, cult leaders encounter problems when they try to do the same thing for those outside of their sphere of influence.
Take AVFM maximum leader Paul Elam’s continual attempts to recast some of the vilest things he’s written as “satire,” an explanation that only seems to fly amongst MRAs with a large capacity for the willing suspension of disbelief.
Well, now AVFM’s comically inept PR maven Janet “JudgyBitch” Bloomfield has taken on the project of trying to retroactively redefine Elam’s most despicable writings as satire.
In a post on Thought Catalog, Bloomfield argues, as best she can, that Elam’s notorious “Bash a Violent Bitch Month” post was not arguing, as it plainly seemed to be, that the best way to stop women from abusing their male partners was to let said male partners beat the shit out of them.
In the piece, you may recall, Elam said this:
In the name of equality and fairness, I am proclaiming October to be Bash a Violent Bitch Month.
I’d like to make it the objective for the remainder of this month, and all the Octobers that follow, for men who are being attacked and physically abused by women – to beat the living shit out of them. I don’t mean subdue them, or deliver an open handed pop on the face to get them to settle down. I mean literally to grab them by the hair and smack their face against the wall till the smugness of beating on someone because you know they won’t fight back drains from their nose with a few million red corpuscles.
And then make them clean up the mess.
Now, am I serious about this?
No. Not because it’s wrong. It’s not wrong.
But it isn’t worth the time behind bars or the abuse of anger management training that men must endure if they are uppity enough to defend themselves from female attackers.
There’s no reason whatsoever to believe that any of this is “satirical” or sarcastic or anything other than what it seems on the surface to be: a suggestion that the proper response to violence from women is violence against women – or that this would be the proper response, if this sort of “self-defense” from men didn’t result in jail time or anger management classes.
Indeed, the argument of this piece is entirely in keeping with a short story Elam published around this same time, titled “Anger Management,” that has as its hero a man unfairly punished for breaking his wife’s nose in a fit of righteous rage after she left him for his business partner.
But Bloomfield shamelessly if unconvincingly tries to argue that
What Paul Elam did in his article was engage in satire – he flipped the genders to highlight just how awful it is to hurt another person, and dramatically highlighted our double standards when it comes to who got hurt.
Yep, she’s honestly claiming that’s what he meant when he said beating the shit out of a “violent bitch” is “not wrong” just not “worth the time behind bars or the abuse of anger management training that men must endure if they are uppity enough to defend themselves from female attackers.”
The argument went over well with the small army of misfit misogynists populating the comments section to Bloomfield’s post on Thought Catalog. And perhaps she will see this as a victory.
But if you read the following comments critically, you’ll notice that the commenters — including her fans — aren’t buying the satire argument at all.
Notice the upvotes. This was a popular argument in the comments.
This comment was a response to one of the only feminists who ventured into the fray:
One commenter recalled a famous passage in Shakespeare:
The passage in question in A Merchant of Venice is Shylock’s famous “if you prick us, do we not bleed” speech. You may recall that Shylock used this argument as a justification for revenge, declaring that
[t]he villany you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.
This is Elam’s argument as well.
In other words, none of these commenters — and those who upvoted them — believe that Elam’s post was satirical. None of them see Elam’s argument as being anything other than what it was: a Shylockean paean to righteous “revenge” upon abusive women.
They know he was serious. And they agree with him.
EDITED TO ADD: Bloomfield has responded to this post with a detailed and lucid critique. By which I mean she tweeted this:
https://twitter.com/JudgyBitch1/status/480512762393944064
Wait, so misrepresenting your opponents’ statements to play to the worst misconceptions about them amongst the general public is “New PR”? Because I’m pretty sure any black person who’s been pigeonholed as uneducated and aggressive, any Mexican person who’s been pre-judged as lazy, any Jewish person who’s been called miserly and devious would agree that there’s nothing “new” about appealing to populist prejudice.
And FFS, anybody who thinks modern feminism doesn’t talk about class, race, disability, sexuality or any other axis of privilege DOESN’T KNOW FUCK ALL ABOUT MODERN FEMINISM. So kindly educate yourself or stop talking about it. When we quote major thought leaders from AVfM we get told we’re taking things “out of context” or that someone who’s a major face of the movement “doesn’t speak for everyone”. You don’t get to pull that shit while claiming all feminists are in the same boat as radfemhub separatists and trying to smear feminists with ideas that are forty years past their use-by date.
Does anybody have a source for that Jezebel claim? Because I’m pretty sure that claiming 40% of their senior staff have committed a criminal offence, without significant proof, actually crosses the line into defamation or libel (I’m not au fait with US law).
Good point judgy bitch I wonder who has more money on average men or women hmmmmmm
Women, obviously. I mean, they may not have money of their own, but they can use their hypno-butts to brainwash wealthy men into buying them things, and that’s a) better than having real money, and b) totally the way most women live.
I consider myself a humanist. I also consider myself feminist, pro-civil rights, pro-gay rights, etc. I’m not seeing how these things are exclusive. Feminism is essentially the branch of humanism that focuses on gender issues.
JB, please stop, you’re not a humanist. Just from reading your blog it’s clear you favor men over women.
@mariangela
Uhhh kind of but no. She does say her husband pays the bills, so she may be in trouble if they split up, but all of her privlieges aren’t contigent on her husband. Her white privilege doens’t go away if she doesn’t have a job, I’m white + jobless, depressed and still have white privilege. One privilege doesn’t mean you’re whole life is good it just means you benefit in the area your privielged in. If that makes any sense.
oh i need to correct myself, the MRAs have plenty of rationalism to go around
the “I dont need concrete evidence of anything as long as i can go through the required logical gymnastics” part
Hmph. I thought once an article was archived on the Wayback Machine it couldn’t be touched. The original “Bash a Violent Bitch Month” article is no longer available. It was last night. There was a message about robots.txt instead. The original had no neon signs on it insisting it was satire. How convenient for Paul Elam.
@ marie, Judgybitch is relying on a “woman’s” privilege that does not really exist, not a white priviliege. A Black woman married to a middle-class Black man, will also learn just what her privilege is worth if and when the marriage ends. or when even within the marriage she tries to assert herself as an independent person within that class. Her status can be taken away so quickly, so quietly, so finally, very unlike a man who builds and builds throughout his life. If she cannot maintain herself as a dependent on a man, she is doomed, whether she is white or Black. Women have no status apart from their male masters.
I hate it when MRAs appropriate the issues of classism and income inequality to erase male privilege. Class and gender are different axes of oppression. Male privilege is not erased because some women have white privilege and class privilege.
It’s entirely hypocritical because I see no reason to believe the MRM actually gives two shits about income inequality and the oppression of the poor. Given their libertarian bent I highly doubt they would support higher taxes on the rich, strengthening of social safety nets, universal healthcare and a big minimum wage increase.
Nope. They just think the fact that Kim Kardashian lives a more luxurious and easy life than homeless men is some sort of gotcha. Of course, the Koch brothers lead a much more luxurious and easy life than I do, so gotcha back?
Sorry if I’m rambling. I’ve been drinking wine and have joined the legions of substance impaired Mammotheers that have populated the comments the past couple of days. 😀
@mariangela
ok…I know female privilege doesn’t exist…I’m going to admit I’m not really understanding, like 90% of your posts. I don’t know if thats my brain being weird or you not being clear or something, but I can’t really tell what you’re trying to say, sorry.
@pallygirl “zoon” is cool. It’s going to be a long list.
@JB
A few things.
1. That’s more than likely the result of preexisting misogyny and antifeminism in culture rather than MRA public relations. People have been willing to believe absurd things about feminists since way before the MRM existed.
2. How do you reconcile the fact that feminism is still unpopular and misunderstood with your belief that we live in a society where feminist thought determines every aspect of our lives? Mind control rays?
Here’s an interesting, er, critique of my post from JB:
https://twitter.com/JudgyBitch1/status/480512762393944064
I’ve tussled with that trouser stain Diz on Jezebel before. I can’t remember what it was about because all the trolls on there bleed together. He has been whining and crying on the posts about the hot guys playing in the World Cup. Big shock that he can’t understand the difference between someone finding another person physically attractive and the regelation of an entire gender to the sexual object class.
I wonder if he’s one of our trolls under a different name or just a lurker here because I don’t remember him coming on here to argue.
Erh what?
David,
Ginger children are super cute. Finally JB has contributed something of value to the internet!
Oh my: http://www.avoiceformen.com/just-plain-crazy/david-futrelle-falsely-accuses-canadian-senator-anne-cools-of-homophobia/
Oh, the “being attracted to people is the same as systematically dehumanizing them” guys. They’re the reason why my icon on every blog except this one is a super hot guy shirtless playing the bass (or occasionally another super hot guy naked hugging his guitar).
I think Mariangela is trying to say that a woman’s class privilege if it is dependent on a spouse goes away after a divorce much of the time. Despite the popular myth of women cleaning up in divorces, most of the time a woman’s standard of living decreases after a divorce while a man’s decreases.
However, she also appears to be sweeping class privilege and white privilege under the rug and that is not right at all.
Lets not do a mirror image of JB’s fuckery. It’s not OK for her to pretend that male privilege doesn’t exist. It’s also not OK to pretend that other kinds of privilege don’t exist. Please don’t do that Mariangela.
Ugh. Bad drunk typing. I meant a man’s standard of living tends to increase after a divorce. Not decrease.
As a SAHM, I think it’s shitty that JB claims that her husband pays all of her bills. So your contribution to your household is worth nothing? Maybe in your case that’s true, but all the doctor’s appointments, school meetings, etc. my husband never had to miss work for, the errands he didn’t have to run, the labor he did not have to do are of value. He does not pay my bills anymore than I paid his when our rolls were reversed. That money is our money. In fact, if I charged for my services, he could not afford them. We’re a team. We share ups and downs. It’s sad you think your husband is doing you a favor.
By not having a solid job history, social security of my own or a completed degree, I am assuming a great deal of personal risk. That risk is also of value.
Being unemployed is not a privilege unless you are independently wealthy in your own right. Maybe JB is . Most house spouses are not.
roles….
Reversed rolls sounds like a game you play with baked goods.
Hi to questioners, I don’t understand your questions, I am sorry. Can it be that you aren’t aware of basic feminist theory, that women’s class status is dependent on the husband’s, and that if the marriage ends, the woman is plunged into a nonstatus? I have seen it as a truthso many times among my friends and in my own marriage. Women are a class within a class, and our status depends on our husband’s class. White middle class women lose their middle class status almost instantly upon divorce…the same is true for Black women, a loss of status without a male status-giver….women’s “privilege” is a temporary, capricious, arbitrary thing, out of her control, no matter her accomplishments. I will look up some authorities who you may recognize and bring them to you another time, but this is very basic.
Random question I’ve had about class stuff for a while; where does legal disability come into it?
Like, on the one hand, as long as the government is standing or doesn’t drop my paperwork or axe its funding, I am guaranteed not to starve. However, I’m also pretty much guaranteed to remain dirt poor. Plus the whole work thing gets really wonky once disability comes into play. So how does that jive with other parts of class theory? I’m curious.
Eh, that’s a very American way to look at class. To a Brit it sounds very odd, as if you’re using “class” to mean “income” and forgetting all the other associated stuff. For example! I grew up privileged, went to boarding school, and had lived on 4 continents before I graduated high school. Everything from my accent to my mannerisms reads as upper middle class to random people who meet me. Getting a divorce might have a negative impact on the financial status of someone like me, but it wouldn’t prevent everyone I meet from recognizing me as being from that background, especially in countries other than the US.
(And even here, ime, upper class American can immediately spot their counterparts from other countries just as easily as upper class people from anywhere else can, especially if the people concerned are white.)
So what I’m saying is, be more precise. Divorce often has a devastating effect on the economic status of women, but it doesn’t actually change their class, because class privilege is already fairly well established by the time someone is an adult and never entirely goes away even if they end up in financial difficulty.
@LBT: I’m more familiar with the way Durkheim thought about this type of issue. In particular, he proposed the notion that when a society contributed towards the upkeep of an individual (e.g. disability, superannuation), the higher the contribution the more responsibility is put on that individual to basically demonstrate they are one of the deserving needy. He wasn’t saying whether this was right or wrong, he was just observing that government-based transfers put certain requirements on recipients. For example, widows used to have to show they were women of good character in order to receive widow’s benefits.
His wasn’t a class analysis per se (although you could argue that pretty much up to now all his categories were in the poorer classes, superannuatants not so much now), but was still a sociological approach. He also was one of the first to look at suicide rates between countries in a scientific fashion.
Not sure if any of that helps.