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Paul Elam, you're no MLK: A Voice for Men offers a $100 bounty for a clear photo of its latest feminist foe

Cartoon by Sage Gerard. aka "Victor Zen," AVFM's golen boy of campus activism
Cartoon by Sage Gerard, AVFM’s golden boy of campus activism

Today I’d like to share with you two quotations. One is from Martin Luther King Jr., the civil rights leader whose legacy we honor today. The other is from someone who considers himself the leader of a human rights movement that follows in the footsteps of King.

The first quote:

Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

The second:

[Name redacted], I hope you are looking forward to our date. I certainly am. … [I]t is clear that you have gone to great lengths to keep your image off the internet.

Nice try.

Is that a threat? No, it is a promise. Big difference.

As we have been saying here for years, the time for collegial, polite discussion and negotiation with these piles of refuse is over. …

We have people working on securing her image. Meantime, $100.00 to the first person who gets us a clear image of her which we can verify. Something large and clear enough to be used as a feature image is preferred.

As you have probably gathered, the first quote comes from Dr. King. It’s from his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, in which he sets forth a powerful argument for the transformative power of nonviolence, which, as he notes, “nonviolence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation.”

The second quote comes from Paul Elam of A Voice for Men. I’ve taken the liberty of redacting the name of his target.

Yes, this self-described “humanitarian” is launching yet another campaign of doxxing and intimidation aimed at an ideological enemy who just happens to be female. And once again, as he so notoriously did several years ago, Elam is offering a bounty for the personal information of one of his targets – in this case a clear photograph of her face.

It’s a strategy that draws not on the tactics of Martin Luther King but on those of his enemies – in particular the Ku Klux Klan, which in the 1960s posted “wanted posters” featuring the faces of civil rights activists, including King himself. Some of those whose faces appeared on these “wanted posters,” most famously King himself, were later murdered.

In more recent years, anti-abortion activists have posted similar “wanted posters” featuring the pictures and addresses of doctors who perform abortions – some of whom were themselves later murdered.

Now AVFM has taken up this classic technique of intimidation.

Last year, AVFM activists – including the site’s “activism director” Attila Vinczer — posted hundreds of wanted-style posters of feminist philosophy professor Adele Mercier on and around the campus of Queen’s University in Kingston Ontario. The year before, a Men’s Rights group in Edmonton closely associated with A Voice for Men put up similar posters targeting Lise Gotell, the chair of women’s and gender studies at the University of Alberta.

We can only assume that Elam has a similar campaign in mind for his latest target.

So what are Elam’s charges against this new woman to hate?

According to him, the woman, a professor at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, accused AVFM activist Sage Gerard (aka Victor Zen) of “demonstrat[ing] a desire to kill women” in a complaint she filed with the KSU administration.

Elam has posted the complaint on his website. Her name appears nowhere in the complaint, nor does anything about Gerard wanting to kill women.

[ Clarification: Elam has now posted a separate campus police report about an incident in which Gerard came to the office of the Interdisciplinary Studies department requesting to see the professor; the police report contains her name as well as notes from the officer saying that “she has seen the cartoons, videos and blogs online and believes Gerard demonstrates having violent fantasies about hurting and murdering women.” ]

This anonymous complaint, along with another complaint about Gerard, were evidently triggered by a video Gerard posted last year of a late-night “sticker run” he made on the KSU campus.

The video, which Gerard filmed and narrated on the fly, is more than a little creepy. In it, Gerard describes his preparations for his “activism” as if he were launching some sort of covert operation; at one point he talks about hiding his stickers in the sleeves of his jacket. As he heads out the door to start his stickering, he announces “let’s go fuck with people.”

Gerard clearly sees what he’s doing as a deliberately provocative act. He talks about putting AVFM stickers in places “where they cannot be ignored” and about his desires to “push the boundaries” by plastering them in places they’re really not supposed to be put – most notably in a women’s bathroom where, thankfully, no women were present.

Weirdly, given that he later posted the video on his YouTube channel, Gerard also took steps in the video to conceal his identity and cover his tracks, wiping his fingerprints off of some of the stickers after pasting them in a bathroom. Later, apparently wanting to look as much like a serial killer as possible, he dons latex gloves.

At one point, Gerard jokes about how he’d like to paste one of the stickers over the mouth of a feminist to shut her up.

His behavior in the video and in his interactions with others on campus, as well as his affiliation with AVFM, clearly rattled some on the KSU campus. The anonymous complainant to the KSU administration suggested that Gerard’s actions were creating a “hostile work environment” for some faculty and staff and making students fear for their safety.

Elam has posted the actual complaints, which, in what seems to be a pretty clear violation of privacy, were sent to Gerard with the identity of one of the accusers laid bare. Here’s the anonymous complaint that Elam has attributed to his current target:

Among other similar offenses by the same individual, a KSU student (Sage Gerard) posed as a custodian and entered the women’s bathrooms on campus, placing stickers intended to intimidate women. … Gerard’s behavior indicates contemplation of violence against women (he posts art depicting guns pointed at women’s symbols, as well as other violently anti-feminist themes). His behavior has created a hostile work environment for multiple KSU employees who do not only fear intimidation and harassment, but actual physical violence against themselves and their families. KSU students have also expressed real fears for their own physical safety on campus . . . I do not feel safe on this campus. As an advocate of women, I feel strongly that I am at real risk of becoming the target of violent retaliatory actions perpetrated by Sage Gerard and the organization sponsoring him, A Voice For Men.

Emphasis mine.

The KSU administration investigated these complaints, and concluded that Gerard was not responsible for creating a hostile work environment, and that his speech was protected under the first amendment. The complaints were dismissed; no charges against Gerard were even filed.

He was asked to stay out of women’s bathrooms in the future. And the KSU counsel who prepared the report also had this suggestion:

We do recommend that Mr. Gerard continue to refrain from further contact with the persons who made the hotline reports (or those who Mr. Gerard believes may have made them), to avoid any real or perceived retaliation. In addition, we recommend that Mr. Gerard refrain from further contact with the members of the Interdisciplinary Studies Department to avoid escalating the situation to the point that it becomes a hostile environment in the legal sense.

That’s right. Gerard wasn’t charged with anything. He faced no sanctions. He was simply asked not to contact those on campus he was making uncomfortable.

But apparently this “no contact” request is so offensive to Gerard and his AVFM comrades that they have decided to launch the very retaliation campaign that the KSU complainants were afraid of. Thus, once again, proving their critics have been right to label them a hate group in the first place.

AVFM’s new target joins a long list of women (and a few men) who have been doxxed and/or harassed in retaliation for their “crimes” against Paul Elam’s delicate sensibilities.

Elam started off this parade of harassment shortly after this site started by attempting to get a woman fired from her job at a women’s shelter for a comment she made here in which she wondered aloud if Elam had a criminal record.

Since then, Elam and his AVFM cronies have:

Started Register-Her, a fake “Offenders Registry” designed to vilify and intimidate women. (The site is now in the hands of AVFM defector John Hembling.)

Launched a hate campaign against a college student for attending a demonstration and making a few jokes on Twitter.

Gleefully participated in the unending harassment of a Canadian feminist that one AVFM author dubbed “little red frothing fornication mouth,” for her crime of … arguing with some AVFM activists at a demonstration once. Unflattering images of “Big Red” at that demonstration have since been plastered all over the internet; she even has a page devoted to her on KnowYourMeme.

Launched a years-long harassment campaign against feminist writer Jessica Valenti. Starting with a 2011 post in which Elam himself attacked her as a “stupid, hateful bitch,” the hate campaign has moved on to  labeling her a “child abuser,” posting her personal photos on AVFM without permission, putting her on Register-Her.com, and libeling her by making up inflammatory quotations and attributing them to her. (AVFM’s “social media director” and serial quote-fabricator Janet Bloomfield was evidently permabanned from Twitter for her persistent harassment of Valenti.)

Supported GamerGate’s harassment of cultural critic Anita Sarkeesian, with AVFM’s PR whiz Bloomfield doing her part by blatantly libeling her on Twitter.

Launched a campaign of vilification against a Chicago-area “mommy blogger” for writing that she felt uncomfortable with the idea of a male day care staffer taking young girls to the bathroom.

Along with an assortment of white supremacists and online assholes, joined in a hate campaign against a young woman wrongly accused of trashing applications from white guys as a staffer at a college admissions office. Elam declared the woman, by name, to be a “warped by ideology” with “deep seated prejudices that guided her unscrupulous actions.” The blog was a hoax, and the woman Elam so eagerly vilified had nothing to do with it.

Repeatedly accused a Detroit schoolteacher – with zero evidence – of sending death threats to a hotel that was scheduled to host AVFM’s conference last summer.

Published an article falsely accusing a male feminist blogger of being a “confessed rapist,” because, as Elam puts it, “karma is a BITCH.” (AVFM’s defense? It was being “satirical.”)

Accused a former AVFM staffer, with no evidence, of absconding with money donated for a men’s shelter.

Attacked feminist and skeptic Rebecca Watson on numerous occasions, including a post from Elam in which he used the term “whore” several dozen times.

And of course AVFM has accused me of everything from starting Reddit’s terrible BeatingWomen subreddit to somehow faking my site’s traffic stats on Alexa. (AVFM has never even bothered to provide “evidence” for any of their various accusations against me, perhaps because none of them are even remotely true.) Elam has posted bizarre sexual fantasies involving me, called me a pervert, and publicly suggested that I kill myself. One of AVFMs most, er, enthusiastic activists once left me a creepy, threatening voicemail at 1:38 AM. And AVFM “activism director” Attila L. Vinczer has tried to dox me, with somewhat comic results.

This isn’t even close to an exhaustive list of AVFM’s assorted retaliatory campaigns against feminists and other critics.

AVFM has made it very clear to the world – through its actions and its rhetoric – that if someone starts putting up AVFM posters or stickers on your campus or in your neighborhood, you have every reason to worry.

AVFM is not a civil or human rights group by any stretch of the imagination. It is a hate group, plain and simple, less akin to Martin Luther King Jr. than it is to those who so stubbornly fought against him.

NOTE: Here is Sage Gerard’s (aka Victor Zen’s) video of his sticker “activism.” You can probably see why people found it a little unsettling.

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WatermelonSugar
WatermelonSugar
9 years ago

Can I just say that I am loving this thread? I feel like everyone is being so open and honest, and it is such a refreshing feeling after all this fleh.

What is coming to mind to me about a lot of this–the examples about using ablist terms, and what Buttercup Q. Skullpants just pointed out about the role of “just being nice” in silencing women–is that, when controversial stuff comes up, it seems to strike at deeply-held core beliefs. When I first started reading here (and I lurked for an embarrassingly long time before getting brave enough to comment, too), I was clueless about ablist lanuage. I, as a mental health consumer, had the initial reaction that kyglab had–“I have lived this, I can talk how I want!” But after thinking about it (goodness, does WHTM make me think so much) and giving my own core beliefs some space to breathe, I understood–on the group level, but also on a personal level; I had internalized some pretty nasty shit about my mental health.

When individual core beliefs clash, stuff gets ugly quick. Understandably so–I think all of is here have a real-life stake in what we say and hear here, outside of the lulz at the man boobz. If we didn’t, I don’t think we would be here.

What I hope moving forward is that I, personally, and hopefully the community as a whole can figure a way to navigate core belief-touching subjects in a way that honors and respects everyone involved.

gilshalos
9 years ago

OMG!! OK, uh..people are not only agreeing with me, but claiming I said it better than they could! Uh…I might have to faint for a while. (Yes, I have that low self-esteem)

kirbywarp
kirbywarp
9 years ago

Aww, thanks Buttercup Q. Skullpants!

I’m less sure about how to treat social capital. The people who were saying “you don’t have the social capital to do this” were being descriptive. It’s just a fact that we tend to trust people who’ve been around longer saying the same things, even if that’s not strictly a good thing. And it makes a bit of sense… how is a newbie going to be able to level a true accusation at a community that they haven’t been a part of?

Plus, even if an accusation is true, if you don’t also believe it to be true, you’re going to think the person is trolling. However, if that person is someone you trust already, they might be able to convince you of something you didn’t already believe.

*sigh* I don’t know if there’s a good solution. We definitely don’t want what you described, where someone is sitting wondering if they have enough social capital to be able to speak out about something that’s bothering them… We’d basically need to change the whole nature of this community, have it be known that we need to give everyone the benefit of the doubt unconditionally rather than assuming they’re a troll until proven otherwise. But that doesn’t seem workable to me… It’s really, really difficult to take that attitude, especially on a blog that does attract so many trolls. Plus, it’s just a fact that it sucks to take criticism, so it’s even harder to try to take an attitude where you accept criticism from someone you don’t trust.

I do think we need some place for people to vent and talk things over. However, I think it would need a stricter modding style, to keep it useful and not have it devolve into another thread where people fling accusations at each other without really talking.

WatermelonSugar
WatermelonSugar
9 years ago

PoM, you knocked it out of the park with that last comment. High-effing-five.

Falconer
9 years ago

I don’t think the place to vent and talk things over should be off-site, that would just feel like talking behind peoples’ backs.

gilshalos
9 years ago

I was first diagnosed as Unipolar in my first year at Uni. I think I had suffered from it since I was 5 but…yes, that is when i was diagnosed at 17. I went to the doctor with my then bf (First relationship it was a total mess). I asked him not to tell anyone else whilst I came to terms with it. Shortly afterwards I noticed my roommate looking at me warily, and not turning her back on me. Yes, he’d told her, and though she denied it, she was scared of me.
This is almost always the reaction of people to any mental illness 🙁

Policy of Madness
Policy of Madness
9 years ago

A lot of problems do come down to silencing, reactions to silencing, and reactions to perceived (but not manifest) silencing.

There’s a difference between silencing, and asking someone who is being uncool to knock it the fuck off. Once action is legit and the other is not, but they often take the same form and can be hard to distinguish without a lot of unpacking. I saw both silencing and “uncool, knock it off” on Threadpocalypse, but if you asked me to provide an example of each and explain how they are different, I would have a hard time.

Then there’s the meta-problem, in that the unpacking itself, to determine if a request to stfu is legit or not, can set off an explosion. I saw some of that, too.

It is good and correct to push back against an attempt to silence. It is not good nor correct to push back against a “uncool, knock it off,” because that pushback, itself, becomes silencing.

Nobody likes to be silenced, and Buttercup is right: women disproportionately bear the higher burden of maintaining the peace by shutting the fuck up, and I, for one, like that this is an environment where people who try to silence others, especially women, get some pushback.

I would also like to see the community come to an agreement as to how this can be accomplished without the other, bad kind of pushback being tolerated.

Falconer
9 years ago

Internet hugs, gilshalos, if you need any.

Lea
Lea
9 years ago

I don’t always respond to funny, smart or even amazing (poetry, fiction, art, etc.) comments I see here because there are so many.

I think David’s blog is awesome and that the commenters are too.

Mouse Farts
Mouse Farts
9 years ago

On the ableism of “crazy” and other such words…I can see where someone could feel that using those terms isn’t a problem. I don’t really know how I personally feel about it, because it’s not something I’ve sat down and really given a lot of thought to, but I can see kylabg’s point of view.

The thing is, though, is that isn’t the point. Before I posted here, I lurked a while, and saw that using those terms is not something this community is okay with, so I make sure not to do it. It’s like if I’m a guest in someone’s home and they prefer people to take their shoes off at the door – it doesn’t matter if I personally think that’s silly, or if I wear shoes all the time in my house and it’s fine, or if all my other friends are totally cool with shoes in the house. The point is, it’s their house and they like people to leave their shoes in the hall, so that’s what I do in their home. It’s respectful. And if I don’t know the first time, and they say “oh hey, Mouse Farts, can you take your shoes off? There’s a shoe rack right there, we just try not to track in dirt,” I apologize and take my shoes off and that’s it. Maybe next time I come over and I have to be reminded because I’m not used to it, but that’s okay as long as I’m not arguing. It isn’t personal and it’s kind of silly to get upset or offended by it.

Not to say that ableism is only as important as shoes! The analogy is only meant to address the part about respecting the ruled of the space you’re in, not to compare to the seriousness of the issue.

Fibinachi
9 years ago

Should I say I’m sorry? Is that a sentiment to be got?
Reading back, I was snarky, not very friendly
( not even nice a lot )

Sigh.

I don’t want to be the bad guy
Or a bad guy
Or bad.
I’d rather I hadn’t had.

Yet again, in the end, I’ve also got to admit?
I find talking shit about people on another blog not to my liking one bit.
Coming here, demanding this and that?
That irks me, a tad. Which is defensive, no reason at all
To grab for weapon words and try to make someone fall
For some half baked ploy of ill intent.
It’d have been better not to pretend
Perhaps relent, offer a greeting, leave things at that.
Perhaps.

Oh well. I did as I did and my words are as they are
If I’m a shit, I expect to be told of it
And if I’ve done wrong by the world
This is then an apology.
I stand by my protestation that brigading, anger and words of betrayal are no way to start a conversation, but that conviction doesn’t rule out acting like a sassy ass with no class.
If I did that, I don’t expect a pass.

Other than such I ain’t got a whole lot.
I hope you’re all well
This might be see you later
But it isn’t farewell.

WatermelonSugar
WatermelonSugar
9 years ago

gilshalos, e-hugs and e-cup-of-hot-tea if you want either.

I’ve dealt with depression for most of my life, and had a similar experience to yours fairly recently. If you ever need an ear, I’m more than happy to lend mine.

That goes for anyone, really. As does the eating disorder part–it’s one of the many things I am in recovery for.

gilshalos
9 years ago

Thanks Falconer. I’m ok, but it’s nice to occasionally vent to people who understand 🙂

gilshalos
9 years ago

Ooh! Tea! 🙂 Total Tea-Jenny (addict) here.

WatermelonSugar
WatermelonSugar
9 years ago

Fibiiiii. I have been wondering after you in these few days.

I support any choice you make to stay or go, but I just want you to know that I value your voice here greatly and I would be very sad to lose it.

gilshalos
9 years ago

No going Fibi! OK, not my choice , but I would miss youas well.

Fibinachi
9 years ago

Huh? No no, I was trying to write that I don’t want to be an asshole and would like people to tell me if I am or was. And that I still think backtalking people on another forum and brigading here are nasty tactics, yet I would think so since I spent the entite thread beimg snarky, sooo tell me if I’m out of line since I’d rather not actually hurt anybody.

Man getting meaning across by rhyme is *hard*. Sorry!

kirbywarp
kirbywarp
9 years ago

@PoM:

There’s a difference between silencing, and asking someone who is being uncool to knock it the fuck off. Once action is legit and the other is not, but they often take the same form and can be hard to distinguish without a lot of unpacking. I saw both silencing and “uncool, knock it off” on Threadpocalypse, but if you asked me to provide an example of each and explain how they are different, I would have a hard time.

That’s because at some level there isn’t a difference. Both are requests to stop saying the thing you’re currently saying. The difference is whether or not the request is valid, and sometimes that can feel like a subjective thing. I’m sure Kyalgb didn’t view the request to stop using the word “crazy” as valid, so to them it was silencing. To us, who are familiar with the community standard (or have personal experience with how the word can be used), it was “knock it off.”

I don’t think there is an objective measure for what a particular statement is… Or rather, a measure that can be applied to everything. Much of it comes down to community standards; I’m used to the community over at ShitRedditSays which forbids all ablism, including stuff like “idiot,” so to them a request to stop using the word “idiot” would be a “knock it off,” whereas here it would be considered silencing.

That’s why I appreciated that David, before he shut down the thread of doom, did attempt to put in place some community standards with regards to trans issues. Ultimately you could have a bunch of valid communities each with different standards. We need to figure out what kind of community we want to be.

I’d love to be part of one where there are few limits on language, but people can bring up personal experience without others feeling they should be accountable for that experience unreasonably. That’s a bit of a pipe dream, though.

gilshalos
9 years ago

I just hope that you are made as happy by my comments as people have made me. huh, now that is a sentence hard to parse! 😛

Falconer
9 years ago

@gilshalos: Let’s raise a cuppa to crap roommates everywhere, may their tea ever be over-steeped.

I miss everyone who goes. I miss Ally, I miss cloudiah, I miss Argenti, I miss pecunium…

I miss Dvarg, even though they left with a right royal telling-off, not the usual sad see you, space cowboy.

I even miss certain of the Endimmened Opposition, although for entirely different reasons.

Anarchonist
Anarchonist
9 years ago

@Lea:

I don’t always respond to funny, smart or even amazing (poetry, fiction, art, etc.) comments I see here because there are so many.

QFT. I’d have to quit my day job to have time to respond to them all!

@Mouse Farts:

I like your analogy. It isn’t about what you personally see as ok, it’s what’s decided on as being ok in a certain space you’re visiting. If you don’t respect that, people are not going to be happy, and they’re going to let you know. If you see the community standards as unreasonable, nobody is forcing you to stay. It’s really that simple.

@dorabella

Aww, shucks, thanks for the kind words. I’m happy if I’ve helped you in any way. No, I haven’t been around much lately, though that might change in the near future, once I figure out certain things in my life.

By the by, now that we’re in full honesty mode and discussing, amongst other things, the culture of responding to others: I know some people have commented positively on some of the comments I’ve dropped off on one or the other thread, but I haven’t responded. Reason: I am terrible at taking compliments. Absolutely useless at it. I actually blush when I read people saying positive things about something I’ve written, my mind goes blank, and I genuinely don’t know how to react or what to say in response. But rest assured, I have read your comment, and your words have made me happy.

And may all of you from now on enjoy the mental image of an adult alternate rock loving philosophical anarchist with long hair and a goatee sitting at his computer, blushing and giggling nervously after reading an anonymous comment on a blog.

You’re welcome.

gilshalos
9 years ago

Snap Anarchonist! (except female, metal-loving etc)

Buttercup Q. Skullpants

@Fibi: everything of what you just said and more. No apologies needed – you were 100% right in saying brigading and vendettas are unacceptable ways of raising transgender/TERF awareness. Unfortunately, sometimes you have to be snarky to get the point across to people who are angry and emotionally heated up. When people are in that headspace, they can only speak jerk. (Not that you were being a jerk – I mean that strong language was needed to tell them to stand down.)

@Mouse Farts: spot on with the shoe analogy. It’s rude to go into a new community, break a rule, then cop the attitude that the rule is silly and they’re not going to follow it. If there’s a rule, there’s a reason for it. People should either accept the reason and comply while they’re in the community, or not be part of the community.

@kirbywarp: yeah, I don’t know how to resolve the social capital problem either. Obviously, active community members are in a better position to understand the culture of their own community than someone who’s simply been observing from a distance without taking part. But then there’s the problem of the ingroup becoming blind to their own faults and immune to criticism. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

I guess the larger question is, is it better for trolldar to be calibrated for occasional false positives and drive away potential allies with hair-trigger responses, or to calibrate it for false negatives and let a troll through who might disrupt, trigger, or attack commenters? (Recognizing, of course, that there’s no such thing as group trolldar – one person’s troll may be another person’s vaguely obnoxious but well-meaning commenter)

Policy of Madness
Policy of Madness
9 years ago

That’s because at some level there isn’t a difference. Both are requests to stop saying the thing you’re currently saying.

Yes, but that level is the superficial one.

I don’t think there is an objective measure for what a particular statement is… Or rather, a measure that can be applied to everything.

Most of the time, I think it can be unpacked and the difference is obvious. “You are supporting and reinforcing a system of oppression that does real harm to [oppressed group here]” is a legit exercise and not a silencing tactic. “You are making waves and upsetting the privileged” is silencing.

However, in the case of Threadpocalypse, you had cis women, who are historical and current targets of pervasive silencing and who don’t like it, versus trans women, who are a different group but who also face pervasive silencing and who also don’t like it. That makes it harder for me to untangle. Even though I can point to specific statements and make judgments as to whether or not they are silencing, I don’t think I would be able to back up those judgments with logic.

gilshalos
9 years ago

Why do people care ? I mean…really ? I do not care what gender people claim even if it is not their birth-gender. I just…

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