You’ll all be glad to hear that Paul Elam has returned to normal. Well, normal for him.
After several days of doing his best impression of someone who isn’t a rage-filled attention misogynist, he’s back to his old woman-bashing self. You’ll also be happy to learn that he’s found a brand new woman to hate: Time reporter Jessica Roy, who is apparently quite stinky.
I’ve heard rumors that most females are stinky, actually.
Roy, who is covering the conference for Time, hasn’t even published her account yet. Her crimes so far? She tweeted some appalling quotes from some of the talks at the conference and made clear that she was not having a good time amongst the assembled assholes human rights activists. A selection:
https://twitter.com/JessicaKRoy/status/482600517839777792
https://twitter.com/JessicaKRoy/status/482908761338572800
https://twitter.com/JessicaKRoy/status/483254279348555776
https://twitter.com/JessicaKRoy/status/482657796916146176
Oh, and she tweeted a photo showing the backs of a bunch of dudes’ heads at the conference:
As a result of these dastardly crimes against manhumanity, Elam has declared Roy to be:
- a “low rent hack”
- “a SWJ in all her hateful glory”
- “a liar and a bigot [who]will be exposed”
- a practitioner of “journalistic scumtardery”
Elam also boasts that whatever she writes about the conference — like all the negative coverage his conference has and will be getting from what he calls the “shallow, clueless and uniformed ideological hacks” of the mainstream media — will drive “more people away from places like TIME and into palaces [sic] like AVFM.” He also thanks Roy “for the donations that will hit AVFM” from new people recruited to the cause by her writings.
It’s rather revealing that he seems to think the true success of AVFM’s “activism” is measured not by what he and his followers are able to do for men and boys — but by how much money he can pull in. An unknown percentage of which goes directly to him.
Interesting that Adam Serwer, who’s already published a snarky piece about the conference for MSNBC, has not gotten similar treatment. Nor have any of the other male journalists who’ve written critically about the conference.
Wonder why that could be?
Anyway, here’s some more of the press coverage of the conference:
First International Conference on Men’s Issues: Day 2, by Arthur Goldwag, Hatewatch
Goldwag continues his coverage, concluding that
[T]he weekend wasn’t an unalloyed hate fest, though there was plenty of rancor, contempt, defensiveness, and anti-feminism on display. Some of the female speakers were the least restrained in that respect, especially on the contentious issues of domestic violence and sexual coercion and modern women’s infuriating desire to determine their own destinies. Many of the speakers signaled that they were chafing a little under Paul Elam’s no trash-talking rule.
It will be interesting to see how much bridge-building A Voice for Men engages in from here on out … .
Well, I think we already have an answer to this question.
Neavling, no fan of MRAs, summed up what he saw as the central message of the conference:
The “vast majority” of college women lie about being raped. Men are violent because of their mothers. Feminists are plotting to dominate men.
One thing was ringingly clear among attendees at the first-annual International Conference on Men’s Issues in St. Clair Shores this weekend: Women are becoming an increasing threat and something must be done to stop them.
In addition to highlighting some of the low points of the conference, Neavling also puts the conference in a larger perspective by pointing out some of the more noxious writings of Elam and of the conference’s PR genius Janet Bloomfield.
Drawing heavily on Adam Serwer’s account of the conference, Tbobb concludes:
Yup, the first International Conference on Men’s Issues rolled into Veterans of Foreign Wars Bruce Post 1146 in St. Clair, Michigan, this weekend and over ONE HUNDRED attendees, from all walks of life — if by ‘all walks of life’ you mean: ‘middle-aged divorced white guys with anger management issues’ — came together in brotherhood to address the source of all of the pain and suffering and existential angst that afflicts MANkind.
Resolved: Women are to blame.
Oh, don’t worry; the conference got some positive press as well. From the husband of one of AVFM’s press conference panelists:
A kinder, gentler turn to the gender wars? by Glenn Harlan Reynolds, USA Today
Reynolds — the husband of sometime AVFM contributor “Dr. Helen,” whose bizarrely chipper reckoning of the conference we looked at yesterday — offered up a surreal account of the conference as a kind of cross-gender-love fest:
[T]he thing that struck me most about the gathering was the palpable lack of gender tension. Men and women at this conference seemed to be on the same page, and the same team, in a way that seems almost surprising in these gender-divided times. Maybe that’s because gender-talk, long a female domain, is also now about men. … As Farrell concluded in a Friday night dinner speech, the goal is “not a men’s movement, not a women’s movement, but a gender liberation movement.”
With men and women both talking and listening, it gave me some hope that perhaps we’ll see something new, and better, in the politics of gender.
Dude, you might want to read that post by Elam before you go all kumbaya on us.
Meanwhile, Sworebytheprecious reports that she was able to infiltrate a post-conference gathering of AVFMers in a hotel lobby and … actually talk to them for some time. At least until Dean Esmay showed up, recognized her, and got her tossed out.
i got the restaurant where they were celebrating and i even found myself sharing a dessert with a very nice redheaded gentleman who works for A Voice for Men, although i have not discovered in what capacity. i also found my way to the hotel where Elam and the inner circle were staying. at about midnight, i spent about two and a half hours talking with GirlWritesWhat, [Barbara] Kay, some guys i don’t know off the top of my head, and some other members. …
i was terrified. it never once stopped my commitment. i went as far as i could.
at about 2 30 am i was pulled away from a very enlightening conversation with Barbara Kay by hotel security and asked to leave. i was in the lobby of the [will add when convention is over]. to my knowledge i had done nothing illegal or caused any disruptions; i doubt my presence would have been welcome with the AVfM staff for long had i posed any real risk. i even allowed one man to take multiple pictures of me and i will describe that interaction in detail later. hotel security was very apologetic with me in any case. i believe Esmay was the instigator because he had been liaison between the table and the front desk. before i left, Esmay and Straughn let everyone know who i was and said “i was part of a hate group” and a journalist who worked for Futrelle. i denied these things, because i do not work for Futrelle. …
the security guard pressed. i left the hotel without incident and waited for my ride.
There’s a lot more to her post, and Swore promises that many more details will be forthcoming. She’s also going to be staying in Detroit for another week to talk to and report about activists there, and NEEDS MORE MONEY to cover her expenses (though not $25,000). Her gofundme is here.
And no, she doesn’t work for me, or with me. I gave her gofundme a signal boost at one point, and have exchanged some messages with her; that’s the extent of my connection with her. I only found out about her late-night confab when she Tweeted me about it today.
In the Men’s Rights subreddit, they’re worried that she’s going to falsely accuse some AVFMer of rape.
EDIT: Rewrote the big about Swore staying in Detroit because she’s still in need of cash to pay her expenses.
Between this and the elimination of the buffer zone last week, SCOTUS is making it clear what they think about cis women and trans men. Religious ‘freedom’ > our bodily autonomy
@Howard Bannister
Nah, they are considering it to ONLY apply to contraception which just makes the decision an even bigger pile of shit
http://live.scotusblog.com/Event/Live_blog_of_opinions__June_30_2014/120138995
Fuck the fascist wing of SCOTUS with a rake
They also specify that it can’t be used to justify forms of ILLEGAL discrimination. Guess which groups it is still LEGAL to discriminate against…
Yep.
http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2014/06/matt-barber-predicts.html#disqus_thread
Out of context, I wouldn’t know which particular heinous SCOTUS ruling this was referring to.
That MRAs can’t step outside their own perspective to see how bad this all is—how bad it looks and is
The common problem for this type of fucked-in-the-headedness (which includes some on the feminist side, of course). Show me a group who can’t put themselves in an outsider’s position looking in, who can’t mock themselves, and I’ll show you a group doomed to drift further and further away from reality on a tide of their own bullshit.
I bet if a company decides to deny a single male employee coverage for ED treatments because unmarried people shouldn’t be having sex anyway, the decision will be reversed.
Never gonna happen. Viagra is a REAL drug for REAL problems affecting REAL people – which is completely unlike female contraceptive pills.
/Scalia
Also this.
By what possible stretch of legal imagination is contraceptive health care less real than blood transfusions?
Never mind, I just remember that Rush Limbaugh is a person who exists in the world.
Now I have even more rage.
Yup.
Well, blood transfusions are used to help save the lives of actual people. You know, men. Contraceptive pills just help women. Women aren’t people. And obviously, women shouldn’t be having sex if they don’t want to have a baby.
/sarcasm.
Yeah, fuck SCOTUS.
And I’m sure those conservative pundits and politicians are still talking about “liberal activist judges.”
And Eric Erickson, conservative pundits, weighs in: “Your Birth Control Isn’t Your Boss’s Business Now! Thanks Supreme Court!”
…
…
There is nothing left to say. My irony meter is broken.
I just heard about the rulling and it’s incredibly upsetting.
It strikes me as a continuation of the right-wing religious “our god is so loving and wonderful that he will torture and murder you in creative ways if you don’t do exactly what we think he wants you to do” attitude that seems to be increasingly common in the U.S.
Perhaps I’m overreacting since I got to deal with street-corner dudes with megaphones shouting that exact message on my commute home last Friday (complete with “you deserve to go to hell” signs), but I can’t help but see a clear connection between the two attitudes.
The RFRA was a terrible law. I generally feel like laïcité is too restrictive, but rulings like this make me wish the U.S. had something more like that than the “bend-over-backwards to accomodate (Christian) theocrats” system that we have now.
The fact that people are calling this a victory for religious freedom is even worse. It’s not a victory for religious freedom, it’s a victory for the freedom of your employer to dictate your religion. So I guess in the libertarian sense, it is a victory for religious freedom.
Still, looking at the context… I recently learned that even back in the 80s in most states cohabitation and sex outside of a religious heterosexual marriage were criminal offenses. Considering that that’s the context these justices are coming from, I guess they are being fairly progressive.
We’re supposed to care what Mrderp thinks why now?
Oh, that’s right. We don’t.
I love it when trolls are outraged that people are laughing about something they don’t approve of and mocking something that is not nuanced or difficult to comprehend because it is awful and rightfully deserves to be mocked. They are so “above it all” and feigning neutrality. MMhmmm, making fun of angry bigots is just as bad as being angry bigots. Riiight. We just don’t comprehend how wise and not misogynist these screeds are or how not at all bullshit the claims within them are. Suuure. You’re not a sexist fan of blatant sexism angry that your clubhouse is being made fun of. You’re just a neutral observer taking time out of their day to tell us to “stop it right now!”
Pull the other one, Derp. It hath bells upon it.
A Wolverine: Yeah, that line broke me as well. It essentially forces every religiously held exception to pass through the Supreme court to decide whether or not it’s permissible. Given how baseless the contraception exclusion is, it is ultimately privileging one religious group over all others. Given the six Catholics on the bench, any of those future decisions are almost certainly going to be RCC-compatable decisions.
So while Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Identity racists, or Scientologists may not get away with denying people blood transfusions, anemia treatments, or psychiatric medications, they can certainly try, forcing court challenges to bring those cases before the
InquisitionSupreme Court.It’s also good evidence at just how maliciously targeted this decision is.
The reason that Paul Elam targeted her is because she is ostensibly a reporter for time.com and her twitter commentary was extremely unprofessional (but keeps with her character, if you look at her older tweets) and makes NO attempt to stay objective about the conference. The MSNBC guy at least tried, even if you can see some of his bias coming through. The other articles that have have attacked the conference are from left wing trust-fund-socialist rags.
Paul drew more attention to her youth and immaturity than her gender. He implied that places like time are willing to exploit young and impressionable kids still with teenage zits willing to work for peanuts.
Aww look! Another dude wants to mansplain feminism to us! Do you think we could get all the people who fall under this particular type of troll together for a playdate?
I am super bummed about this one, y’all.
I can’t do daily/slow release hormone birth control–I have extremely adverse side effects like week long migraines, extreme depression and loss of feeling in my fingers. As such, Fiancé and I have to go old school condom style for birth control, and (though it has not happened yet) emergency contraception is an option I legitimately need in case mishap. Since Fiancé works at Hobby Lobby and I will be (or would be) on that insurance plan when we marry, that option will not be easily accessible to me through the insurance we will be paying for. It will severely limit our family planning ability.
I for real don’t know what to do. I am so glad the good Christians at Hobby Lobby have put me and my family in this position! Do on to others as you would have them do on to you, unless they’re women.
As a fun truth, the 401k that the company offers actually invests in the company that produces one of the contraception methods cited as “abortion causing” in the case. Their corporate personhood has some pretty strange morals.
The Washington Post just published an account of the conference. It’s quite balanced. The writer puts a human face on the men who attended but wasn’t fooled by the rhetoric of the speakers.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/mens-rights-activists-gathering-to-discuss-all-the-ways-society-has-done-them-wrong/2014/06/30/a9310d96-005f-11e4-8fd0-3a663dfa68ac_story.html
Sympathies to my southern neighbours on the Hobby Lobby case. SCOTUS is a nightmare these days.
Thanks for sharing that link, Auntie Alias. From the article:
Comedy gold.
Bumpy:
…”Her twitter commentary was extremely unprofessional.” Unlike the conference’s PR person JB using the official conference hashtag to call women “wh*res.” JB was the height of professional twitter commentary. A reporter expressing disgust at the hateful idiocy coming from the speakers at said conference, however, unprofessional.
Sure.
Scared: That’s sounds awful! I’m sorry. Hugs if you want them.
Sparky:
– One is an advocate for men and boys dealing with SJWs.
– The other is a journalist for time, who is supposed to maintain objectivity, last time I checked.
JB isn’t an advocate for men and boys. She’s a reactionary dumbass.
Bumpy:
I hate to play the fallacy card, but you might want to look up the balance fallacy.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Balance_fallacy
Journalists shouldn’t abandon critical thinking in the name of remaining “objective”
Bumpy,
Fuck off with that ‘splainy bullshit.
You do not get to call anyone “unprofessional” on twitter when you’re a fan of AVfM who routinely use twitter to scream, “Whores! Whores everywhere!”
Also, there is nothing objective about pretending blaming rape victims while claiming to care about them is doing human rights. Elam went after her for being a woman who spoke the truth about his scam of a hate group. MRAs are a hate group. They are disgusting. They lie like cheap rugs (as you are doing now) and they the do it all with the professionalism of a drunk monkey.