Jessica Roy, a reporter for Time magazine covering A Voice for Men’s recent :”Men’s Issues” conference in Detroit, found herself the target of a vitriolic tirade from AVFM maximum leader Paul Elam before she even sat down to write her account of her time amongst the MRAs.
Elam, evidently incensed about a handful of sarcastic remarks that Roy tweeted during the conference, denounced her as, among other things, a “hack,” “a liar and bigot” and a practitioner of “journalistic scumtardery,” whatever that is. Commenters on A Voice for Men happily joined in the hate, denouncing her as an “airhead,” a “disgrace and a liar,” “lil’ miss hair-o’or-her-eyes,” and a “little asshole [who] will look like a right nazi in five-to-ten years time.” Amazingly, no one pulled out the c-word. Evidently AVFMers are still on their best behavior.
Roy’s “What I Learned as a Woman at a Men’s Rights Conference” appeared on Time.com on Wednesday. Far from the hack job Elam and pals were predicting, her piece turned out to be a long, thoughtful and nuanced account that, while skeptical of AVFM and its brand of hateful nonsense, displayed considerable sympathy for some of the troubled men she met at the conference, men who could benefit from a movement that truly tried to offer solutions for men in difficulty instead of encouraging them to scapegoat feminists and women.
Reflecting on her discussions with several conference attendees, Roy wrote,
When you talk to someone like 68-year-old Steve DeLuca, the legitimate need to remedy some of the issues raised by men’s rights activists becomes more evident. A Vietnam veteran who was injured in combat, DeLuca spoke movingly to me about the two brothers he lost to suicide, and the unfathomable toll the high suicide rate among men can take. There are men out there, like DeLuca and [rape survivor] Brendan Rex, who have a real stake in the movement’s success. The paranoia and vitriol of its leaders can’t possibly do anything for them.
So how did AVFM fans respond to this article? By defending their vitriol. On Time.com, several commenters denounced Roy as “bigot” and a “fascist,” and suggested that their “righteous anger” was the only appropriate response to the evils of feminism.
Never mind that the quote Markham was responding to came from a paragraph in which Roy wrote with sympathy about the suffering of male Veterans and rape survivors.
Meanwhile, an anonymous commenter received upvotes for this, er, nuanced analysis:
In a followup comment, “Guest” doubled-down, suggesting that Roy was a “stinky twit” and a “human monkey.”
Roy made clear that she learned a good deal at the conference. The defenders of AVFM’s vitriol seem to have learned nothing.
NOTE: Picture of monkey party borrowed from here.
David are you that scared of the feminist lobby that you will call out ALL men who feel in need of help?
Conference covered in Time? STOP SILENCING US!
She gave them more benefit of the doubt than I would have given.
“Despite a shared feeling of disenfranchisement, most of the attendees I spoke with struggled to recall a time in their lives when they were discriminated against for being men. When asked, two different attendees mentioned losing out to a woman for a job opportunity, though one conceded that she could have simply been more qualified.”
This is a pretty revealing quote to say the least :/
So that’s *not* a picture of Elizabeth Cady and her chimpy ilk? I had wondered why it was in colour.
But seriously, Seneca Falls? I guess if you’re going to be anti-feminist you might as well go all in.
farkennel, where am I “calling out ALL men in bneed of help?” I agree with Roy that the MRM is NOT actually offering help to men who need it, but encouraging them to blame women and stew in bitterness.
Was it a job at a Pepsi bottling plant despite his genius patent that was stolen from him for being a man?
The Dennis Markham comment seemed to be saying, “Don’t tone police me,” which would be legit if tone policing were being done. So I read the Time article looking for tone policing and … came up with something kind of meta. It definitely criticizes the MRM’s collective tone, but does address the message also (what there is of a message). I’m torn on whether that counts as tone policing.
The meta is this: I’m not sure if it’s possible to actually get around a tone critique when the tone =is= the message. When “women are [gendered slurs]” is the message, that’s also the tone – they are the same thing. It becomes impossible to critique the message without also critiquing the tone. Since tone policing is problematic, it’s a tidy way to immunize a very shallow message from criticism.
We tried not throwing tantrums when we didn’t get enough ice cream, but that didn’t get us any more ice cream.* We throw tantrums now. Conclusion: the ice cream is on its way!
*We didn’t really try that.
Wow. Talk about bad PR. They get a surprisingly sympathetic report and their response is to trash the author. Way to dazzle the reporters Mr. Elam.
Here is the “Declaration of Sentiments” from the Seneca Falls convention. I guess “defecting an endless load of baseless bigoted vitriol” means advocating for women’s suffrage, right to own property and right to an education.
Basically saying, “Those feminists are so hateful! They want to be able to vote!”
And they have to scare people into listening to them.
I would very much like to hear all these chaps’ definitions of bigotry and fascism. I believe it would be most enlightening for all concerned.
The problem with the MRM is that most of their issues are not about rights, as in legal rights. They mostly require cultural change and MRAs prop up a culture that flies directly in the face of any of their issues. And that is why the “movement” is ineffectual.
My mother always says “Hurt people hurt people”, and the article taps into some of the tragedy that leads people to become vile hatemongers. Of course the MRM immediately demonstrates those charming traits of its that immediately kills any sympathy I might be able to muster for the men in it. The article is completely correct, the Men’s Rights Movement does absolutely nothing for men except as an ironically misandrist example of men at their very worst. So congratulations MRM for once again burning any bridge towards self-improvement, and proving once again you don’t give a shit about any of the alleged issues you’re fighting for.
Hm. I haven’t read Jessica Roy’s article yet but will definitely do that. I did come across this article by Kelsey Miller – http://www.refinery29.com/2014/07/70393/mra-mens-rights-conference – and got a *little* involved in the comments section of that article… hard to resist, I’ll warn you. I had no idea the man I was replying to, who was making zero logical sense in his declarations of accusing women, blaming women for Everything, and calling me a dumbass, selfish princess, and other assorted names — was a mouthpiece for MRMs, Dennis Markham. Well. 🙂 If THAT is one of their spokespersons, I think there is very, very little to actually fear from this “movement.” That guy doesn’t seem to understand critical thinking, staying on point, making logical arguments… he does seem to like to call his dissenters childish names…. yeah, he’s about as good of a mouthpiece for MRM as a feminist could hope for – misogynistic, illogical, and just sort of plain old dumb.
Mr Futrelle,
We were concerned when one of our operatives mentioned that your blog has recently published a photo with the caption “The High Council of Feminism holds a meeting”. Much to our relief, we discovered that it did not feature the actual FHC and instead is a photo of an instillation of realistic toy monkeys that are an unsettling mixture of adorable and terrifying. You have again implemented our denial and deception protocol to great effect, which is a key aspect of the disinformation campaign that cloaks our radical feminist agenda from the prying eyes of our many enemies.
Carry on calling out ALL men who feel in need of help until further instruction. That further instruction will include an explanation of what “David are you that scared of the feminist lobby that you will call out ALL men who feel in need of help?” actually means. A team of linguists are unpacking that sentence as we speak and we are confident that they will make sense of it by the end of the month.
Yours in Sisterhood,
The Feminist High Council
A Secret Bunker, CA USA
Are they using the word fascist more often lately or am I just beginning to notice it?
Policy of Madness: I agree. The trouble with tone policing is that it attacks the emotion, vulgarity or colloquialisms in an argument to avoid or implicitly invalidate the content or facts of the argument. It really shouldn’t overlap with dealing with criminal actions, (harassment, threats, or incitement) or hate speech (slurs and demonization). Pointing out the argument is misaimed is also dealing with the substance of the argument.
To that end Roy’s piece is nearly the opposite of tone trolling: She accepts the emotions as valid, but disputes the substance of the argument (feminism is to blame) and notes the dangerous levels of vitriol aimed at that scapegoat.
Auntie Alias: Bit of both?
I just came from a thread at the Lawyers Guns and Money blog, where the resident troll started by calling Obama a fascist being held in check by the supreme court, DEFENDED Pinochet as “respecting the rule of law”, then fantasized about the day all of us commies would be killed as we needed to be.
The original topic? The Wheaton College contraception mandate ruling.
I’m a little twitchy about people throwing around the word “fascist” right now.
It seems to me they are panicking. Their whole movement has just demonstrated how much feminism is still needed while pointing out that the MRM is unwilling or unable to deal with the real problems faced by men. Comments like those of “guest” stink of the death-throes of the beheaded chicken.
@Auntie Alias
I think feminazi has that accusation built in, but the increased attention brought on by the conference really has whipped them into a tizzy.
Feminist High Council, thank you, all hail the Godesses.
Also, could you send me a new uniform? The old one ripped in an embarrassing place when I was doing the mandatory calisthenics (Program 2-A) yesterday.
MRAs live in a world totally alien to me. In my world, couples (whether straight or gay or polyamorous or whatever) mostly love each other and don’t view a relationship as a transaction. In my world, women like me have several male friends and a husband, son, and nephews I cherish. The vitriol and hatred coming from the MRM astounds me. And I agree with Roy–how does that help men? There are indeed valid issues affecting men but where are the people to organize effectively to change things? Feminists worked very, very hard to make changes in law, employment, education, etc. It took organization and years of effort. I’m pretty sure feminists would be willing to work with men in good faith to address the suffering of men. But I don’t see the “good faith” part.
The MRA’s seem to live in Bizarro World and do everything backwards. They seem to believe that paranoia and vitriol will bring them respectability instead of making love like a bunch of fools, they seem to think that having a PR person call people whores and admit to doxxing is a great way to win over public opinion.
I like that “Guest” called it Erin Pizzey’s Evil Empire. Sometimes truth comes right out of the mouths (keyboards) of asshats.