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.
From Dennis Markham comment:
” The MRM has tried to be cool and calm for over 40 years and to no avail.”
Really? When was this cool and calm period,rather that ‘we tried it for over 40 years’ I think he means they try to be cool and calm for a nano second every 40 years. Next time they might try a millisecond if someone’s head doesn’t explode first.
How the heck does feminism “block all attempts for men to take the initiative”? Really, this is the best they can come up with as to why they haven’t done a single real-world thing to improve men’s lives–it’s all the fault of the feminists “blocking” them??
I guess Feminism is systematic cock blocking…?
Seriously, do these guys not realize that feminism had and has opposition at every turn? It’s not like the whole world rolled over as soon as feminism showed up.
Because nothing says ‘we’re a human rights movement’ like “we have to SCARE you into listening” you ” stinky…human monkey”.
estraven, I think it’s like how racists accuse others of bigotry when they’re called out. Nothing means anything to these chumps so they just use whatever words pop into their heads. They also claim this is all fine as they are fighting a war (against feminists?) and can therefore apparently do and say whatever, as long as they’re “winning”.
I’m so sorry ally s i can’t believe there are people like that out there
Here is a cute puppy for you.
http://www.imgion.com/white-cute-puppy/
I think you will find, WatermelonSugar, that a woman merely has to cry on the street to be given everything her little grumpy heart desires. Only tru-men* with really real important goals* face opposition.
“More that feminism blocks all attempts for men to take the initiative.”
Explain the success of veterans organizations which caters largely to a male population (only 7% of the US veterans are women). Maybe it has to do with legitimacy and public trust in where the money go. I know I give various veteran groups money every year, no question asked. Does not at all conflict with my feminist views. Weird :/
::waves:: Welcome, ginatingles! 🙂
What has MRM activism achieved? If they’ve frightened, harassed, stalked, attacked one woman, they probably call that an achievement. Terrorising women is all they’re really about, and any men who are actually looking to them for help with real issues are going to be either conned or disillusioned.
For fuck’s sake, these guys have zero interest and no ideas how to deal with homelessness, work fatalities, suicide, men’s health issues and prison rape. They just name check them because it’s a bad look to focus solely on rape charges, domestic violence, restraining orders, and divorce. They piggy backed on a pre-existing father’s movement, with it’s complaints about family court and child support. They have all sorts of things to say about rape but it’s mostly rage over the idea of rape culture and obsession with false accusations. I’d actually love to see what genius criticisms they are going to levy at Haven, because they feign interest in male victims but are really interested in not seeing men prosecuted for DV.
How can feminists get out of the way of men’s rights when they have no ideas independent of their obsessive anti-feminism.
@brooked, I would think they would have to firstly AT LEAST put forth some actual ideas and plans before “feminists” could stand in their way. What exactly are feminists stopping?
Going back to CAFE, for those who aren’t familiar with Barbara Kay, you’re in for a treat*.
*headache
Oops, didn’t link the article. My bad:
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/06/30/barbara-kay-at-pride-toronto-militant-feminist-dogma-trumped-rights/
@damselindetech, I think I injured an optical nerve rolling my eyes so hard reading that article. And the comments….they are just absurd. Apparently “feminists” first reaction to their gyno-centric worldview being challenged by a man is to accuse him of being gay, therefore gay men should not team up with feminists. Riiiiiiight…
Yeah, I just… like… wut?
@damselindetech
You listen to Kay’s presentation at the con? It was disgusting. I got through 2/3rds of it and had to turn it off.
I think by “Get out of our way” he means “Go away altogether”.
Feminism does nothing to impede attempts to improve work place safety, availability of mental health treatment, fair wages, affordable housing and domestic crisis support. I don’t know of feminists who support the draft or who don’t want women to also be able to serve in the military. Those are all things feminists care about. Those are progressive causes. It’s also impossible to be in the way of efforts they are not making. Do they want us to tuck in their shirts, comb their hair and drop them off with lunch boxes and instructions and then scuttle back home to bake them pies in our pearls, happy that we are no longer burdened with the vote? Because that’s what it sounds like they want.
I’m sure they’d still get nothing done but shrieking slurs and complaining that not hand feeding them the pie is misandry and somehow, getting nothing done would still be our fault.
The truth is, their “movement” is doing what is was designed to do. It gives misogynists a place to spew hate and it line’s Elam’s pockets.
The vitriol and paranoia does accomplish something: it makes the MRA’s look like a reactionary paranoid hate group. I am guessing that this is what they really want.
I read “get out of our way” as an implicit physical threat.
@Lea
This.
The hate for feminists and women in general is not an inefficient way to go about their goal of helping men. “Helping men” is a way of justifying their attacks on people they hate. The hate is the end goal.
So upshot of the media coverage of the MRM convention is:
1) their small, boring, poorly attended convention makes national news
2) some journalists actually buy some of their crap about helping men
Sounds to me like this is the best case scenario for these idiots. It really does. But apparently, what they were expecting was for the news media to go all Woody on them. Nothing but uncritical praise will do.
The weird thing is, if they don’t get this praise, they go out of their way to demonstrate exactly why they don’t deserve any.
“She gave them more benefit of the doubt than I would have given.”
I also thought her article was overly generous towards the MRM
<blockquote<And I’m beginning to come around to the idea that these men *do* need a hand from the feminist movement in general. Not because we owe them a thing, but because these are real humans, experiencing real suffering, and their own movement doesn’t seem ready to do shit all for them.
The problem here is that it’s pretty hard to reach out to someone who keeps threatening to hurt you. Our angry friend who’s quoted above may be correct in that threatening people gets their attention, but it doesn’t encourage them to help you, it encourages them to avoid you for their own safety.
I also find it hard to believe that anyone could nod along to the stuff written about women on AVFM without hating us, regardless of what legitimate issues they might have.
@Sir Bodsworth Rugglesby III
I don’t know if brevity is the soul of wit, but is the soul of your dead-on autopsy of the AVfM Conference.
Pretty much.
@Throwaway, thanks for your totally unbiased concern trolling. But I’m not seeing the part where she said she was crying. Maybe I missed it in all the other crap I’ve read today.
I agree with cassandrakitty. While it is true, as an earlier commenter said, that ‘Hurt people hurt people’, at what point is concern for the earlier hurts the hurt person suffered supposed to outweigh concern for the people they’re hurting right now? Only after the hurt person has stopped (or been stopped from) hurting others can you realistically address the reasons they’re lashing out. Even supposing that some of the people in the MRM are genuinely hurt people needing someone to help them and recognize their pain as valid, how exactly does the MRM as a whole help them? Dennis Markham literally ignored the fact that Roy showed more sympathy for two hurt men at the conference than most of the other attendees did and tried to keep the focus on justifying MRM vitriol on account of the fact that people like Roy supposedly don’t feel any sympathy for male suffering.
This is how MRAs treat anyone with a fairly moderate and almost positive view of their “movement”. How are they expecting anything different when people are calling them out as a bigoted hate movement?
I’m so happy you made this post, David. The “fascist” thing from the MRAs is getting not only tedious, but downright insulting. There are actual people suffering from actual fascism today. The MRM embraces values that are not too far from the values of KKK’ians (is that a word? I can’t tell), yeyt they seem to love throwing around that word to describe feminists willy-nilly. I mean, I’ve never been comfortable with calling any person “evil”, but after being introduced to the MRM, the sheer egotism and sense of entitlement that these people show is on its way to making me a believer.
Oh well. I’m, like, seriously super drunk right now, so I might not make much sense. I should be sleeping, but don’t wanna! Wanna stay awake just ten more minutes! Waaaaah!
BTW, congrats to kittehserf and emilygoddess for the mod-status! I’ve followed your posts for a long time, and I’m convinced there’re few people as qualified as you for this line of work!
the article really did come off as “the issues men face are real but the movement is being lead by foot shooting cranks”
And cultists cant stand their glorious leaders being criticized.
I’m not comfortable with the “hurt people hurt people” phrase. There are many hurt people who manage not to hurt others. And, in my experience, the people who do the most harm to others are themselves damaged only by a massive sense of entitlement.
Why would anyone say, “Hurt people hurt people,” anyway? Is it to remind us to have compassion for abusers? I don’t actually have any compassion in me for abusive people, and I don’t think anyone can guilt me into some by telling me that abusers are really suffering inside from prior injury. Even when that’s true (and I don’t think it’s a rule) I just can’t care. What other motive is there for using this phrase? I’m uncomfortable with what’s packed inside it.
The theory that bullies lash out to counter there own inner pain is more of a myth, they’re people that become bullies because they think their victims are losers who are fun to pick on.
http://www.education.com/reference/article/bullying-myths-facts/?page=2
I think the answer to the question of why someone would come up with the hurt people hurt people thing is that it’s a comforting myth. Much less disturbing to believe that there’s a reason why people are doing those things based in some sort of trauma than to realize that some people just enjoy hurting others.
Idk if y’all saw this, but I just finished the first page of comments and found this gem —
“I also wonder just what it was she heard at this conference that was so shocking, so damaging, as to make her cry. If she truly did end up crying in response to the speeches there, I question her temperament and her fitness to be a reporter in general, much less a reporter trying to cover the men’s rights movement.”
https://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/07/04/defenders-of-a-voice-for-men-tell-time-magazine-reporter-we-have-to-scare-you-into-listening-you-stinky-human-monkey/comment-page-1/#comment-528386
That’s right ladies, if someone gives a speech that you find upsetting, you don’t have the temperament to be a reporter!
You know that famous photo of the starving child with a vulture watching him, waiting? The photographer ended up killing himself. Did he not have the temperament to be a reporter? Or that’s just massively different from whether the age of consent should be 13 and whatever DV bullshit Pizzey felt like spewing that day? But those are just words? Well then, I have some words for you, I’ll start polite even — throwaway your throwaway nym and don’t come back.
@Argenti Aertheri
I really find the BEEP BOOP I AM PERFECT EMOTIONLESS MACHINE type MRAs the most fucking depressing kind
Except MRAs aren’t emotionless. If they were, they wouldn’t resort to knee-jerk rhetoric and insults. I don’t think that emotionless people throw tantrums. I think that may be your point – that those ones have the least insight into their own behaviour.
@Argenti
Like Woody, Throwaway is questioning Roy’s professionalism because of the conversational tone of her tweets while seeing nothing amiss with the AVfM crew’s twitter bomb-throwing. That must require a whole lot of willful ignorance.
@Anarchonist
::curtseys:: Merci!
@Policy of Madness
Totally agree.
@Argenti
I didn’t, until now. I wonder if she survived? (The photo was taken at a food drop-off point: he parents had left her there for the moment while they got food, they were only a few metres away. Kevin Carter chased the vulture away.)
Ugh. Throwaway is definitely an MRA masquerading as a neutral observer. I’m drunk and can’t believe I spelled any of that correctly!
Anyway, didn’t Roy cry after hearing rape apologia and MRAs laughing about rape? That’s not an unreasonable thing to be upset about. Chances are either she or someone she knows well is a rape survivor considering it’s about 1 of 5 or 6 women are rape survivors. I don’t trust anybody who thins one shouldn’t find the subject upsetting.
Thinks. Not thins! Drunk!
It’s funny how they always default to “women are clearly too womany to do this job”. Yeah, guys, that’s definitely why she sympathized with some of the attendees and didn’t think the organizers were doing anything to actually help them.
Kitteh — I know they were right by where the kid would get food, but I didn’t know he chased the vulture off. As for whether she survived, purely statistically, probably not.
“I really find the BEEP BOOP I AM PERFECT EMOTIONLESS MACHINE type MRAs the most fucking depressing kind” — yeah, me too. Claim total rationality and then go “I’m rational!” whenever called on BS, or faced with someone with emotions.
WWTH — that sounds right, and the CDC data that the MRM won’t drop said 1 in 5.
Taking pride in your immunity to other people’s pain isn’t rationality, it’s just being an asshole.
Not to mention being cowardly. It’s really fucking easy not to feel – or even bother thinking about – other people’s pain. I don’t see any of these straw-Vulcan types being so tough about their own concerns.
Argenti – sorry, yes, I gathered you knew about the where the child was; I got the impression people generally thought she was abandoned and Carter didn’t help her, and attacked him for that.
Yes, statistically, all too likely she didn’t make it.
On a positive note, I just took my psyllium and intend to have a terrific poop tomorrow.
And Marinerachel wins! Is there anything more misandrousious than a woman talking about her body and life? Moar poop talk!
Oooh, I can play that, and maybe get some “me too” answers from older Mammotheers –
Two days ago I got all the gripes that usually say my period’s on its way – belly + back + legs, you name it. Then, zip! No sign whatsoever.
Any other Mammotheers going through the joys of menopause/perimenopause had that happen?
As for poop … IBS. ‘Nuff said.
I am envious kitteh, I’m still “pre-menopausal”. The number of registrars and specialists I have had to mention that to in the past 2 months is incredible – it affects which hormone one gets put on for treatment.
I am looking forward to menopause, in particular the oestrogen-related migraines going.
As of Monday, I’m a twenty-six-year-old woman. Between my sister (twenty-nine), myself and our friends you will find an alarmingly prevalent trend of anxiety and irritable bowels. It is so sad when you get seven or eight young women in a room and they can all agree that one of the best things ever is not having diarrhoea. That’s the case though.
Growing up is hard.
pallygirl, urgh! I was lucky that my periods never did anything worse than be painful, which was mostly covered by the Pill. I do remember one time I was apparently so white, a friend at work said I looked like I’d been got at by Vlad. (Yes, this was when Gary Oldman was being gorgeous as Dracula, lol.) So far peri-menopause has been uneventful. I’ve had a few hot flushes, but they seem to have dropped off for the moment (since I was retrenched … hmmm!) I’m not on any hormones or medications for it, luckily. HRT would be a bad idea for me, with the history of stroke in the family.
marinerachel, should I say happy birthday, or would that sound stupid, considering? Best wishes, at any rate: may the year ahead see an improvement in everything for you.
I’ve found I don’t really care about diarohhea any more. I mean yeah, I think I’m going to have IBS forever, but given how much better I am than when the noise-stress thing was happening (we’re talking loud music starting up when I’m at home and having to get to the loo within five minutes, with vomiting involved on occasion, something that’s got at me for twenty-plus years), I’m not complaining. It’s just become the norm – and damn, better that than constipation!
Argh. I was so tired of hearing that. To me it felt like they were looking for something to blame symptoms on, like fatigue.
kitteh, I never had much in the way of pre-menstrual symptoms in later years but even though menopause was official last year, I recently had that achey feeling for a day or two.
Auntie Alias – not just me, then! Didn’t think it would be, but wanted to ask.
Too damn soon to hope I’ve hit menopause already. Stupid thing’s only been twitchy for a year at most, I think.