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.
Dude, we’ve read them, and discussed them with David. As usual, MRAs lie.
Read the article you didn’t link to? Are we magic now?
Lex-man — yep. Elam won’t help anyone, and the red tape for groups that do help people can be a nightmare.
Ah, I see that JB has recruited some PR assistants.
Jackass…do you mind if I call you that? It fits. Anyway, we’ve been over this, so new shit has not exactly come to light for us, dude.
Every troll thinks they’ve found something new that we have not considered yet. Nope troll boy. Old news. You’ll have to find some other way to distract from JB’s meltdown.
Okay, I’m going to admit that I’ve missed something. Can I ask what the deal is with MRAs calling David a pedophilia apologist? What is the actual comment he supposedly made? It’s obviously something horrible, perhaps even on par with wearing a T-shirt they don’t like.
And no, I’m not going to go searching for an article on AVFM. The awfulness there is so bad that I can’t get past the front page without vomiting, even with the kitty filter on. Believe me, I’ve tried. Besides, I trust the word of MRAs about as much as I trust my ability to not vomit while on AVFM.
Anyway, at least this necroed post is only a month old. At this rate, MRA trolls may join us in the present day*.
*Relatively speaking, of course. As far as social awareness goes, MRAs are still somewhere in the beginning of the 19th century.
19 Century? Most of them seem to be more aiming for the Quest for Fire stage of history as a life goal as far as I can tell.
Did “rev” spinnaker post a bunch of article titles, or are those just really awkward sentences?
Bwahahaha…no they fucking don’t.
And nice job of trying to defend Warren Farrell, who actually DID say everything he’s accused of saying. As opposed to, you know, having made-up bullshit inserted in his mouth.
Try again, desperate troll…
Those are links over at theantifeminist of Futrelle’s quotes from the 90’s.
You really are dumbass. Go away, troll.
Uh, no, those are not links. Those are random sentences. They do not link to anything.
And “theantifeminist” sure does sound like an impartial and reliable source.
RE: emilygoddess
Did “rev” spinnaker post a bunch of article titles, or are those just really awkward sentences?
That’s what I was wondering. As far as I can tell, dude just babbled a bunch of nonsense and then requested we discuss it, and I don’t even know what the hell he’s linking to or what the fuck he’s talking about!
I do seem to remember him being banned before but can’t remember why.
Anti-feminism is sexist anti-intellectualism. It’s know-nothingism with a side order of “get back to the kitchen, bitch, and make me a sammitch!” I have no more use for it than I would for a supernumerary nipple.
So much of the ‘rebuttals’ these assholes post just seem to be like big GOTCHA attempts. Like, “if we find out you did something, then your power will be broken and your criticisms of us will no longer have merit!”
Dudes, that’s. That’s not how it works.
I did some googling through our archives and can’t find any evidence that he was ever banned. I did, however, find this little quote from spinnaker:
So he has a history of misrepresenting the meaning of what other people are saying in order to criticize women/feminists.
Perhaps we should dub him Rev Spin Maker?
Ah, now I remember. Didn’t he have some sort of obsession with Oprah too?
Feminists don’t deal with maternal child abuse. I’d say that’s worthy of criticism considering American women kill more of their own children than any other mothers in the industrialized world. And they’ve been blowing maternalDV against children off since the days of Donahue.
Knowing Phil Donahue, he surely said that in a moment of sarcasm, challenging the meaninglessness of anti-choicers’ and other sexists’ use of statistics. And that means that, as usual, the point has flown wayyyy over the troll’s head here.
But isn’t that just the way they usually operate? Decontextualize a quote, thus stripping it of meaning before twisting it to mean something that the person they’re defaming didn’t actually say? If they had to quote their ideological enemies verbatim and in context, as David does, they’d have a far rougher time of it.
And heaven forfend they should cite actual, unbiased statistics without twisting THEM out of context, either.
The reason women commit most child abuse — which includes neglect, in addition to physical abuse — is that women are still the main custodians of children. Not because women kill or abuse women for sport, asshat.
Given that the most prominent MRA organization in existence lionized a man who hit his toddler hard enough to draw blood, I’m not sure you’re actually in any place to criticize feminists.
The spin doctor should just go reread the previous conversation, because I sure don’t have the patience to repeat it.
Does anyone protest actually banning this doofus for good? He’s obviously a one-trick pony who would probably believe me if I said Oprah joked about eating a baby.