Yesterday, A Voice for Men published an article so extreme, so hateful, so beyond the pale, that even Paul Elam, the site’s founder, was taken aback by it. Elam, who said he hadn’t read the article before other editors on the site posted it, claimed in a comment that when he finally did read it, it made him literally sick to his stomach.
Today, he took the extraordinary step – for AVFM – of taking down the article and offering an apology for publishing a piece so “counter to every aspect of our mission and values.” (It’s still up, for the time being, in Google cache; the original can also be found here.)
So what did this terrible, terrible article say? Brace yourself.
It said that Emma Watson’s recent United Nations speech on feminism … made some good points.
While the author of the piece, a tech dude turned “dating expert” named Jeb Kinnison, took the standard MRA swipes at the alleged evils of third-wave feminism, he argued that Watson’s version of feminism represented a kind of “equity feminism which is equally concerned with men’s rights.”
Then he described Watson as “very, very smart, and wise beyond her years … .”
I know, I know. Horrifying.
But that wasn’t even the worst part of Kinnison’s piece. In his conclusion, he actually suggested that
The smart and civilized aren’t spending their time nursing grievances based on sex, gender, race, or religion. If only the most intelligent voices were as amplified as the voices of ignorance and hate promoted by the grievance-mongering misandrists of third-wave feminism as well as insecure male misogynists.
Yes, that’s right: An article in AVFM actually acknowledged that some of those in the Men’s Rights ranks might actually be – gasp! – misogynists.
Naturally, such heresy could not stand. In the comments, a fight broke out between those who hated the article, and those who also hated it but felt that criticizing AVFM about anything was terrible and counterproductive and, hey, remember to donate to AVFM during the Fall Fundraiser!
In the former camp, the most outspoken critic was Nick Reading of Men’s Rights Edmonton, posting under the alias Eric Tiberius Duckman, who bluntly warned that
This article is disgraceful. If uncle Jeb here imparts any more of his mangina wisdom on AVFM, I’ll be seriously considering pulling my support and encouraging others to do likewise.
Elam was having none of this – very poor taste, especially during AVFM’s Fall Fundraiser! He responded to Reading’s threats to take his ball and go home with an indignant comment defending the editors who ran Kinnison’s piece and tearing into prodigal Nick:
[O]ur editors did their job and I am 100% supportive of that.
To be even more frank, even less appealing to me than this article is tantrums and ultimatums from readers attempting to exert editorial control by threatening to leave if they see content they don’t like.
Then apparently Elam decided that he didn’t support the editors 100% after all. In another comment, he declared that
This is the most overly generous, myopic interpretation of Watson’s speech I have seen, including feminist websites. It is literally embarrassing in its reductionist dismissal of issues unique to men and boys. …
I could write an entire article on what is wrong with this piece, but I am just too busy right now.
Throwing up.
Once he finished up with this, he took the piece down.
And AVFM’s Fall Fundraiser was saved!
Because I’m extra misandric, I prefer to think of feminism as a tsunami rather than a mere wave.
Damn, I just felt a joke whoosh right over my head.
*Looks puzzled*
Wow, that article was a nice collection of every MRA talking point ever. Whatever shall we do? MY BON BONS! MINE! NO ONE ELSE’S! THEY CAN’T TAKES THE PRECIOUS!
It was a rocketship!!!!
Because the men you are talking about like to be the dominatoooorrrrsss of feeeemmmaaallleeesss. Their fondness for power overrides any feelings of empathy or any thoughts about The Golden Rule. Well that’s my theory.
The perfect rebuttal to feminism – repeat the same stuff we’ve been saying before!
The plea for money on AVfM was interesting. The hands receiving the dough were old, shrivelled, unhealthy looking (don’t know why they were green).I’m sure Elam’s hands don’t look like that.
https://twitter.com/weirdwoods/status/515717297798144000
Jumped the fuck on that hashtag bandwagon. Heightist-ass library.
Ah, jeez. Leave it to the AVFMangryWankers to teeter so long on the brink of an epiphany, only to fall…on the wrong damn side, as usual. Yes, Jebby, you too…I see what you did there, with your silly little digs at feminism and your projections of what YOUR side does. Dunno who the hell you think you’re fooling here, but I guess I should warn you that you’re not dealing with the Menz Rightzers here. You’re dealing with persons across the gender spectrum who use their BIG heads to do their thinking, kiddo.
I know you came here looking for ointment for the butthurt Paulie dealt you for insufficient lady-bashing; hence the un-sly digs at feminism. As it happens, I have just the stuff:
http://www.antimonkeybutt.com/clientuploads/directory/products/orignal-powder_med.png
Here, let me sprinkle some on you…
>poof<
Oh dear, gone so soon? Typical.
Also, NO TALL WOMEN! Tall women are MISANDRY! Tall women oppress the Little Man! Sorry, supermodels…you’re gonna have to go!
And a gosh darn good one it is, too. Succinct, truthy, realistic. Yep. Now that we have THAT one solved, where do we go from here?
I have my eyes on a nice little planet in the Andromeda galaxy. All the feeemales and LGBT folk can go and make a new life. And women can make babies without men MUCH more easily then men can without women, or so I have heard….Mmmmmm…tempting, eh?
Tall women are great at misandering. Especially if they have short hair. Here’s the ultimate evidence (spoilers for season 4 finale of Game of Thrones).
If I misander more often will I grow to be tall? I’m only 5’5″ so my misandry must be insufficient.
@Cloudiah
I only skimmed the tumblr monstrosity you linked to since it’s nonstop visual cacophony made blood poor from my eyes.
I did notice they list female violent criminals, that classic nonsensical MRA attack on the strawiest straw feminism to ever straw. “Women is good, men is bad” isn’t remotely close to anything currently recognized as feminism by people who know what they’re talking about.
Sorry fellas, collecting numerous random news articles about individual female criminals’ maleficence not only doesn’t counter feminism, it doesn’t prove anything other than someone wasted a whole lot of their time. If you want to discuss crime, there are readily available statistics and studies. There’s also a thing called criminology, which takes the study of criminal behavior a little further than a compilation of low-end brief crime beat articles.
However, I do encourage anyone who likes to read about stabbings to check out that blog, there are dozens and dozens of links to articles about women stabbing all sorts of people in all sorts of ways.
It’s also funny because I could spend a year compiling a list of stories about male murderers and it wouldn’t be enough. That tumblr didn’t prove that women are more evil than men. It also, as you said doesn’t say anything about feminism because feminism doesn’t say women can’t be violent criminals. I struggle to see the point of that compilation too.
@WWTH
Don’t you see? The very fact that the crimes are being committed by women makes it so much worse. Why else do these guys fear humiliation by a woman’s words more than being physically attacked by a man?
Anti-Monkey Butt did nothing for me. The only thing that does work for me is frigging diabetic ulcer prevention barrier cream (and it works goddamn well on my thunder thighs.)
ryeash, I think Gary Larson led the way, though he didn’t mention the sheer misandry of it all.
http://andreedave.com/images/Humor-FS-InconvenienceStores.JPG
ralmcg, could you knock off the updates from your boner? Not appropriate, in fact downright skeevy given what this thread is about and the shit dudebros throw at her.
I like short haired women too. I wanted to cut all of my hair off all summer but I work at a little ma and pop bar & grill just outside of a small Wisconsin town and I got a handful of whiny comments about how I looked so much prettier before I cut my hair to chin length last time I did so. Sometimes twice from the same person. I am ashamed to admit that now I hesitate to go for the shortest of short haircuts because I don’t want to deal with the comments from the conservative regulars.
Cloudiah: I love that misandric tale you shared! I so dearly want to illustrate it. That would be such a fun pet project, especially since I’m assuming the movie version of that premise isn’t going to come out any time soon.
Brittersweet, thanks for the Shiba Inu brain bleach! So cute and so funny! All of those shut downs were so damn clever. I do have an old, grumpy cat who likes to shut me down by putting his paw against my lips when I try to kiss him. On those occasions that I tried to kiss him anyway, I got my head mauled. Clearly, he’s just playing hard to get.
Now, if only he’d deign to get more creative about his shut downs. Then I could film it and we could both get youtube famous.
My comment upthread (and a couple of others I made today) got thrown in the spam queue! WORDPRESS IS MISANDRY!!!! 😉
Clementine Ford has an interesting piece about how Emma Watson’s speech doesn’t deserve the “game-changer” praise it’s getting. I don’t necessarily agree with all her points, but she makes a good case for not getting too excited about a woman trying to make feminism more palatable to men.
I don’t know what would make a man think that this blog was the ideal space in which to share his boner-related feelings with the group, entirely unsolicited, but I’m going to have to second Kittehs in saying, could you not?
(Random unsolicited photos of yourself tagged “look at my (insert body part here)” tend to be equally unwelcome.)
Seconded re: body part photos.
Not on, dude.
But what if during our space travels we run into the menfolk from Tau Ceti? That would be very, very awkward.
Depends on whether or not the shuttlecock glasses are mandatory.
Oh wow, just scrolling down the comments and ran into the portrait-shot of Emma Watson. With everyone else on that one dude, not cool.