Heh. I’m on my annual semi-vacation this week, and was planning on keeping my postings here fairly light. But the news waits for no one. And by “news” I mean the daily parade of ridiculousness coming from the Men’s “Human Rights” camp. So here’s a quick report on the latest bit of high irony involving A Voice for Men.
Well, I was wrong. I’ve often noted that the Men’s Rights movement in general, and A Voice for Men in particular, doesn’t actually provide any real help for any real men. Sure, as far as I can tell, precisely zero of the hundreds of thousands of dollars A Voice for Men has raised from donors over the years has gone into providing actual services for men — say, funding a hotline for troubled men or some other practical program that doesn’t primarily involve yelling at women online. But never let it be said that none of this money gods to help men.
Because, it turns out, that money has been going to help men. Or at least that subset of men that consists of one Paul Elam of Houston Texas.
After being pressed for details about A Voice for Men’s finances by anonymous commenters on Reddit, a certain Twitterer named @DavidFutrelle and a journalist from MSNBC, Elam has finally fessed up and admitted that all the money donated to his website goes directly to him. But don’t take my word for it. Here’s what Elam had to say in a post from yesterday:
Every dollar donated goes right into my pocket. I spend that money on this website and on activist efforts at my own discretion, considering the opinions of the AVFM management team that volunteers to help run this place. … I depend on the site for my living, and to do as much FTSU as possible while I am at it.
In the past, of course, Elam was a bit more, well, elusive about where the money was going, talking about the costs of paying for web hosting and stock images rather than, say, the costs of paying the mortgage of one Paul Elam. Maybe “elusive” isn’t the correct word. “Deceptive” might be more like it.
You may also recall this pitch he once made for donations (I’ve put the best parts in bold):
I am tired of seeing a comparative handful of men and women cough up the lion’s share of financial assistance when most, even some who come here every day to read and cheer on FTSU, won’t cough up five fucking dollars to help us out; who are just fine as long as none of the burden, even a trivial part of it, is on them. …
[T]he longer I am at this, the less patience I have with dead weight, those who think AVFM is a fucking source of entertainment, or a life preserver for when the tables finally, inevitably turn against them.
In a way, I feel even worse now for most of the men who will make contact with AVfM looking for that lifeline. Unless their story is one that has the potential for me to exploit and gain media attention to THE CAUSE, then all I will have for them is a link to this article.
Well, and perhaps this piece of advice.
If the system has ruined your life, join the club. You are now in the ranks of men you have ignored your whole life. My advice to you is simple. Take your fucking quietly and with grace. Expect the same compassion you have always extended to those men who wore the shoes you are now wearing.
If you want things to change, then stock up on Ramen, get cozy in your studio apartment and join us in the fight to fix this shit. Don’t ask us to help you, but rather give your life the only meaning it may have left, as someone ready and willing to turn your meager existence into helping others who have been similarly screwed over.
In other words, Elam told troubled men turning to his site for help that they should stock up on Ramen noodles — and pay his bills. Oh, and on several occasions he’s boasted about taking donations from people taking the money from their unemployment checks.
As for the other people who put in so much time and energy at his site? As far as I can figure it from Elam’s evasive post yesterday, they earn nothing but a “thanks.”
At the end of each day, even with the incredible levels of help I get from people like Dean Esmay, David King, Al Martin and every one of the incredible people who work at AVFM, I am still target number one. I am a target for feminists posing as concerned MHRAs, yellow hacks like David Futrelle, and a target for many in the media who would love nothing better than to publish my personal financial information after putting their disgusting spin on it.
As you might have gathered from that quote, Elam remains indignant that anyone would even ask where the money goes.
And that goes for the money he recently raised that was supposedly earmarked to pay the security costs of AVFM’s conference. About that, he says only:
we hired four police officials (three officers and one supervisor) for coverage of the entire event and also hired a local attorney, paying his retainer in advance. We also had to engage our regular attorney, and have not yet been billed for their services.
In effect, we spent the money raised on precisely what we said we would spend it on, and have set aside what little remained for the next conference.
Really? According to costhelper.com, off-duty police officers generally cost $40-60 an hour; this Sheriff’s department puts the costs at $27-$31 an hour for each of its officers, including administrative fees. Even assuming that AVFM paid at the top of this range — $60 an hour — it would have cost them only $7200 to pay for four officers working ten hours each of the three days of the conference.
The amount that AVFM might have paid for legal fees depends on how much their lawyers charge per hour, and how many hours they worked. Assuming each lawyer charged $200 per hour and worked thirty hours over the three days of the conference — which I highly doubt — the cost for their legal assistance would have added up to $12,000. If AVFM actually paid even half that for legal fees I will eat my cats.
Even with these extremely generous assumptions, AVFM would have paid out only a little over $19,000 for security and legal fees. AVFM raised more than $30,000 for “security.”
In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I also ask readers for donations. But I’ve always made clear that aside from donations specifically earmarked for other things the money goes to me. (And the cats.) And I don’t demand that donors pay me $20,000 per quarter — $80,000 a year — on top of whatever donations come in between the quarterly fundraisers, not to mention special “security” fundraisers.
I’m very grateful to those who donate to me — and indeed to everyone who’s contributed time and effort and knowledge and artistic skills to help the site — but I take in only a fraction of what Elam evidently takes in. And I don’t ask for money from those who are themselves broke.
In the comments on AVFM, the regulars are of course rallying around Elam. Then again, I can’t imagine anyone critical of what he does with the money would remain unbanned there for long.
Looks like we’re on for a game of whack-a-troll.
I’m assuming kittehs will soon whack these comments for great justice, but in the meantime, it appears that CVC has no concept that one might respond to a disagreeing comment in any other manner than a protracted, antagonistic argument.
What is an offputting personality? I feel like maybe I need another illustration.
I’d say a blithe refusal to acknowledge ableism is sufficient cause for a ban. Does anyone else agree?
I still think we should ban people for being tedious, but sure, ableism is also ban-worthy.
They’re tedious and double-down when asked to apologise, so they don’t respect other people’s boundaries. They’re not adding anything to conversations, and tend to talk about what they want – previously they haven’t really replied to any conversations.
This mental health ableism is annoying, it’s a bit like a toddler saying “you poopyhead” as many times as they can before they get time outed. It’s not a mature attitude, and it places their own desire to write what they want over the rights of the audience here not to read the damn BS that is in other areas of the internets.
katz, I agree about the ableism, and everything else.
Now, from the Comments Policy:
TCVC ticks all the boxes there. We haven’t even got to the slurs part yet.
Go away, troll. Take your indignation and whining somewhere else.
Damn, we’re gonna need more mods from different time zones at this rate! Dinner is calling me with its siren song of hoki in breadcrumbs.
@kittehserf: I AM DRUNK WITH POWER
“Power Corrupts… What the Hell Else is it For?” – Howard Chaykin, _American Flagg_.
Phoenicians, true dat!
::twirls moustache::
::snort:: Oh, I see: the Chartreuse Pill said they’d never direct a comment at … whoever it was, me? Pecunium? again.
Yeah, people are gonna be so upset about that.
There’s nothing that declares an intent to contribute to a conversation in a mature and thoughtful way quite like “I’m not talking to you”.
A shout out to American Flagg!?! I now love you Phoenician.
So, guess what I just discovered via Tumblr that people have been talking about on Fox News recently? Food stamps, and the terribly inappropriate things people supposedly buy with them!
Seems like an odd choice of news source for someone pretending to be a leftist vegan, huh?
(Troll smarter, dude.)
So of all the offensive, insensitive junk that CVC has spewed, zie decided that the right to fat-shame was going to be zir hill to die upon?
Interesting.
CVC, I see you once again failing to engage with the replies to you. Pecunium detailed his own history of applying for food stamps/EBT, and also laid out what exactly he was objecting to in your comments (hint: saying that someone’s weight indicates that their food choices ought to be restricted is exactly what people say about EBT users who appear overweight). I don’t know if your reading comprehension sucks, or you were doing it deliberately, but selectively responding to his comments to make him look like the unreasonable one didn’t fool anyone.
And no, whoever asked you not to use “nutjob” or other terms for mental illness as pejoratives was not trolling. That’s one of our community standards here, because surprisingly, those of us with mental illnesses don’t appreciate the implication that our medical conditions are something we should be ashamed of.
Kittehs, thank you for being on the job! I was working, and then sleeping. I hope it wasn’t too much trouble!
A man telling women that calling pregnancy a medical condition is insulting to women?
I could spit nails.
Fuck that guy. I hope we never see hide nor hair of him again.
Thanks mods! You’re the best.
Please accept this fluffy unicorn kitty as a token of my appreciation.
https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/5320049920/h08D2AD45/
I’ll just repeat what I said in the other thread: the medicalization of pregnancy and birth is alarming, and the excessive focus on the precious babby can lead medical staff to ignore the mother’s wishes or inflict permanent damage on her (see: doctors ordering c-sections because the birth is taking “too long”, etc). I can see why women would want to opt out of all that, including rejecting the very notion of pregnancy as a medical matter, and I respect that.
But the context in which I called pregnancy a medical condition was the issue of contraception and abortion. As long as people (particularly cis men) try to tell women that they can “just put it up for adoption” or try to pretend that pregnancy and birth are just minor inconveniences as opposed to the incredibly difficult and risky times they really are, I am not going to mince words about exactly what they’re trying to inflict on people.
I also thought it was a pretty sad case of linguistic fail that dude didn’t seem to understand that part of the reason why pro-choice people keep hammering on the idea of birth control and abortion as medical issues is because the idea that medical decisions are made between a patient and their doctor and are by definition meant to be a. private and b. pragmatic is already well established. Given that context it was a pretty classic case of someone wandering in on a conversation and going “hi, I have a laughably weak understanding of the topic that’s being discussed and no personal experience to offer, but let me splain it to you anyway”.
Then again, “splain things you don’t understand in the most abrasive and condescending manner possible” seems to be this person’s default mode.
Emilygoddess,
We may disagree here. I don’t consider it alarming. I like women not being treated like they should endure something dangerous and painful that puts incredible strain on their bodies as if it is not a medical condition because she’s a woman being the norm. “Natural” does not mean “safe”. If pregnancy and birth were things that happened to a man’s body, every man who did it would be hailed as a brave hero. I’m glad the days of birthing where ever we can, accepting pain as the curse of Eve, then getting back to work are over for most women. I’m glad mother and infant mortality rates are down because of the medical interventions available to them. Women dying in unbelievable pain is also natural. Chlamydia is still the leading cause of blindness worldwide because infants get it in their eyes leaving the birth canal. I’m wary of denying pregnancy is a medical condition.
I’m glad for mandatory screenings for Strep B that save lives by mandatory IV drip of antibiotics during birthing.
I think what is alarming is how doctors and staff view women. You’re right, there is as much misogyny in medicine as there is everywhere else and that needs to change. My body and my birth should not be up to a doctor who doesn’t value my rights. I should not have my pee monitored constantly for no reason or be made to accept fasts, invasive interventions etc. for not good reason. It is the culture, not medical science that is to blame for that stuff.
Midwives who do home births can be just as dismissive and cruel to the women who hire them and some of them give out water and call it “homeopathic medicine”. Some encourage not cutting the cord, but leaving it attached to the placenta as it rots. That’s dangerous. Things need to change all over. Science based care should be available with respect and compassion.
I’m all for women doing whatever they want with their bodies. If they want to assume the risks, they can give birth where and how ever they like. But pregnancy and birth are medical conditions. Pregnancy is not an illness, no. It is a unique physical consideration that requires various levels of care. If pregnancy is not a medical condition, then why pay for doctors visits or hospital stays for poor women? She doesn’t NEED painkillers, right? So, why should tax payers pay for it? I would not put that past right wingers in the US.
Ok. I haven’t finished the thread, but the Business of Being Born & Ina May freaking Gaskin. Ugh. Not enough contempt in the world. A biased ‘documentary’ by a washed up talk show host and the wife of a cult leader who let one of her own babies die?
No, just no.
Pregnancy, while not ‘unusual’ does have health ramifications. More so for some women than others. Anything that can have such a long term effect on your health is a ‘medical’ condition, even if you’re one of the lucky ones with no issues of any kind (in that case, it would be a temporary condition)
condition not consideration
How did that?
I can’t even…
Skye,
Why do people think that just because a film is a “documentary” it is not skewed toward the creators agenda? Documentaries are not necessarily neutral or true. Some documentaries are not much better than infomercials.
Lea, I don’t think we disagree so much as I failed to define “medicalization”. I was referring to the tendency (which many health car providers in all specialties have) to see the condtion and not the person, and to go ahead and treat the condition without much regard for the person’s preference. You won’t find me arguing that ~natural~ is better or that midwives and doulas are magically more caring than doctors, because I don’t believe those things.
How about we fix the problems and make improvements to the “medical model” in every aspect of health care? Particularly since I don’t see how we can reject it wholesale. Are these pregnancy don’t medical people just writing off women with high risk pregnancies? People can be passionate about important things without being self-righteous and dictatorial.