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.
“Is it just me, or does the dude nearest the camera look like he’s falling asleep?”
…he looks like my gaslighting narcissist ex…right down to the fucking sandals. I doubt it’s him, but that was his pose for pretending to be interested, while, of course, everything was being filtered through his own little world view.
I mean…looks enough like him to frighten me. Dude’s a convicted pedophile, last place he should be is anywhere suggesting the age of consent should be 13 (or was that said on twitter, not the conference?)
…I need to go see if asshole is in jail currently, and it hope to all the gods that he is.
…he is not…I’m going to go shudder at the idea that that could be him
So for the most part, her tweets were actual repetitions of things that were said at the conference, as many others have recounted the same things being said. And her longing for puppies. How is this really “unprofessional”? Why is Elam mad that she repeated things that WERE ACTUALLY SAID AT THE CONFERENCE?
…So, you ARE saying that you think that the PR person for a conference put together by an organization billing itself as part of a human rights movement, who uses the conference’s official twitter hashtag to call women “wh*re’s” is more professional than a reporter reacting with disgust at speakers at that conference (who all claiming to be part of a human rights movement) make rape jokes, accuse women of frequently making false rape accusations, and blame women for creating rapists.
This is indeed the argument you are trying to make, then.
Being a journalist means reporting on what one sees and engaging in critical thinking, not refraining from thought.
Being a PR rep for a human rights org apparently means using social networking to call people who criticise you whores.
Maistrechat:
“The balance fallacy, also known as false balance,[2] occurs when two sides of an argument are assumed to have equal value regardless of their respective merits.”
So male suicide rates, homeless rate, due process in assault cases, workplace accident and failure to launch are all BS? And the fact that feminists (who often say that they are for everyone) do little or nothing to address these issues still means the the whole thing can be written off flippantly like she did in her twitter? The MSNBC guy at least tried to address some of the points that were being made in the conference. She did the verbal equivalent of a 14 year old going “these people are icky!”
Lea:
After time with charmers like yourself, no wonder Judgy eventually tells you to fuck off too.
An advocate for for men and boys dealing with SJWs? Since when was calling people wh*res advocacy?
For that matter, when did SJW become an institutionalized systematic problem that would require advocating against?
Whether or not you like the HBO show ‘The Newsroom’:
@Fnoicby
I know! The long screenshot in the AVFM article has lots of tweets mocking AVFM. The trouble is that there was only one from Jessica saying, “bc I hate myself”; the rest were from random people. Somehow that and the photo with the caption “Men” makes her “a SJW in all her hateful glory”. If there’s a strategy here, I’m not getting it.
Does anyone else just immediately stop paying attention the moment somebody says “social justice warrior” (and, by extension, “Tumblr”)? On an abstract level, people with a shallow understanding of social issues looking to start fights so they feel like the good guys are a problem, but the term is broadly applied to every last conversation about gender issues, period. You just know the person throwing that accusation out simply wants you to shut up lest they have to consider the idea that maybe they aren’t the center of the universe.
It’s especially bad in discussing video games, where an innocuous statement such as “I think developers should consider bumping up the male:female ratio from 500:1 to maybe 250:1 or fucking something, anything” immediately makes you a social justice warrior.
See also: “white knight” and “political correctness”.
@Auntie it’s insanity…her tweets are literally recaps of their exact statements and positions. She didn’t even have to add snark – their own words speak for themselves.
Bumpy:
So, JB was calling women “wh*res” on twitter because of the “male suicide rate, homeless rate, due process in assault cases [?], workplace accidents, and failure to launch?” And that’s why speakers at the conference had to make rape jokes, minimize and blame women for rape? And a person finding rape jokes, minimizing and blaming women for rape disgusting, that’s “unprofessional?”
Yeah, “male suicide rates, homeless rate, due process in assault cases, workplace accident and failure to launch” have absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand.
Sparky:
Those are all issues that have never gotten attention. Men’s issues. On a mass level, like ever. Not talking about “powerful men’s issues.” No, talking about men who have been “run over by life” issues.
Feminism has often utilized off putting approaches to get their issues attention. A Voice for Men is doing it right because they are being just offensive enough to get attention. Get people thinking. And later, as more moderates ACTUALLY step up, get these issues addressed.
If you make everything sacrosanct (such as rape law issues and what you can and cannot say) it becomes very difficult to deal with them, or to challenge a narrative that may in fact be wrong, or at least have massive holes and basically be unverifiable. And no, NO ONE is advocating being a jerk to victims. Kindness is important. So is objectivity when dealing with things that can possibly hurt a lot of people.
The dude who dumped me said he’d engage in social justice war (basically picking fights) NOT because it would give him jollies but because people would feel safe and secure knowing someone cared and was doing something to contribute to imprving society. Oh, the grandiosity!
I told him most people wouldn’t be comfortable with such activity, that most people aren’t that petty and he’s just appealing to primitive emotions, not anything that actually results in the betterment of society. I also told him the notion he intended to do this for anyone but himself was a lie he was telling himself. He said he would unlawfully confine me for the duration of this escapade to ensure he could execute it without my womanly meddling, shrieked at me to shut the fuck up and stropped off like a pouty child.
When I told him you really shouldn’t say stupid shit like that just because you’re embarrassed and mad than someone tells you your stupid idea is stupid he announced it was a joke. I showed the text from the discussion demonstrating no indication of humour. He maintained t had been a funny, funny joke. Showing no understanding of how unacceptable such behaviour was nor caring how it impacted others, I attempted to appeal to his greed. How would he feel if I presented the material to his university or mom? And then he went off, saying I was extorting him and only because he’d dumped me and that he didn’t deserve to face the consequences of his actions. I was just a spurned woman being vindictive.
He said and did stupid shit like that for over a year and I’d made excuses for it. I didn’t have to make anything up. This is how he’d conducted himself for the entirety of the relationship. It’s demonstrably emotionally abusive insecurity and immaturity. Of course he deserves to face consequences for it. He did all along. I was just too fucking optimistic about him to hold him accountable until he demonstrated through his final blow that, nope, there’s no hope for this guy and he’s just going to keep hurting people unless there areconsequences for him.
But because I’d been so patient and generous and forgiving with him for so long it had obviously been totes OK at the time and I was just being mean because he’d friendzoned me.
Puh-lease.
It seems like MRAs only talk about those topics when they need to shut down criticism or bash feminists. Bumpy, what has the MRM actually done to work on those issues? Link me to fundraisers (not Paul Elam’s “pay for my website” cash grabs, but actual fundraisers for specific charities), petitions, or real world efforts to help people, and maybe I’ll think about taking your movement a little more seriously (probably not, but you never know, weirder things have happened).
@YoullNeverGuess Yes a common “mens rights” bit of intellectual dishonesty Sometimes called the “suing for peace or two sides to every story” fallacy. When this is used in an intellectually-dishonest way it is typically to elevate a bogus argument to equality with a valid one.
Manipulative statistics or outright lies do not deserve equal time on the stage of public debate just because of the notion that there are “two sides to every story.” And suing for peace is they just make such a non-stop aggressive/droning argument that some folks might throw up their hand and say ” OK..there both serious problems”…they agree magnanimously
And they just beat you..there invalid/dishonest opinion is now elevated to the same position as your actual valid one. I see that one alot.
This calls for laughing George Takei.
Yeah, anyone who uses “you are a person who fights for the rights of the oppressed” as an insult pretty well goes off into the corner with people who say “have fun alone with your cats.”
So male suicide rates, homeless rate, due process in assault cases, workplace accident and failure to launch are all BS? And the fact that feminists (who often say that they are for everyone) do little or nothing to address these issues still means the the whole thing can be written off flippantly like she did in her twitter? The MSNBC guy at least tried to address some of the points that were being made in the conference. She did the verbal equivalent of a 14 year old going “these people are icky!”
Maybe if they kept to their talking points about the problems facing men and boys and didn’t indulge in rape apologism, domestic violence apologism, and essentializing women as all-foul harpies from the abyss, they might have elicited more sympathy from her. I just learned about these guys more than a month ago and I just can’t get behind them. I gave them a fair shake to convince me that they’e not reactionary nubs but with the level of jackassery on twitter, blogs, and news sites from their ilk it’s just fail city. I find it hard to believe that they actually want to do anything for men and boys. If they were serious, they would have had a session about creating infrastructure that would focus on eliciting funding for the myriad of issues they claim to have. Instead, it was a two-day growlfest that rehashed all their old arguments, which is women are bad, mmkay. The message is great if you want to wallow in pity, not so great if you actually want to solve problems. I find it funny that you expect feminists to address your concerns when your own movement won’t even address your concerns effectively. Alienating people by means of far-flung rancor who actually have experience with real activism and then whining when won’t help you is definitely the way to go.
True objectivity doesn’t exist. All texts and their authors have inherent biases. And nobody’s obliged to give you a fair shake when you say stupid shit. Some hard facts of life.
Ah yes, because anyone who doesn’t devote all of their time to helping the poor men is of course a horrible human.
Thanks so much for explaining that to me, my poor little female head was just so confused. Why should I be concerned that I am more likely to be assaulted, I get paid less & someone has the right to limit my choice to medication. What about the menz?!?!,
Nope. Men’s misogyny is not an excuse to appeal to it in order to get them on your side. Also, talk about a slippery slope argument.
Not getting any attention ever, eh?
Homelessness
Suicide
Workplace safety
Now, these are important and worthwhile issues, but the fact that these issues exist is not an excuse for JB using gendered slurs from a human right’s conference’s official twitter hashtag.
No, actually. When the leading voices of an organization calls detractors gendered slurs and speakers at that organizations’s conference engage in outright rape apology, that makes your organization look really, really bad and tends to drive people who would otherwise have supported you.
No. Rape jokes minimize rape. Blaming women for creating rapists is vile. The idea that women often “cry rape” when they regret sex is a myth that causes people to doubt a woman when she reports a rape and makes victims afraid of reporting because they’re just not going to be believed.
Was there anything to this conference other than people standing on a poorly-dressed stage and talking, sometimes with Powerpoints? This sounds like the most boring thing ever.
Sometimes it was poorly-dressed people standing on a stage.
I’ve seen a couple of pictures that suggested people sitting on the stage, too!
Homelessness, suicide and workplace safety have been studied by experts and feminists are in fact neither blocking discussion or reform. Also, AVfM activism on most men’s issues, outside of rape, father’s rights, paternity fraud, evil feminism and western women’s falseness, is to mention their own threadbare, simplistic and often incorrect statistics regarding those topics. It’s a few statistics solely repeated used as slogans and memes, and that’s not advocacy.
“Due process in assault cases” is a subject they have all sorts of wrongheaded things to say about, because that’s something their writers and readers actually care about.