The self-described “Men’s Human Rights” site A Voice for Men is a hate site trying — admittedly not very hard, or convincingly — to pose as a human rights organization. In reality, as I and various other writers have documented in considerable detail, it’s an organizer and amplifier of hatred, directed at feminists and women more generally.
Much of this hatred is directed at specific targets, mostly though not always feminist women who have offended A Voice for Men’s founder Paul Elam. The aim is generally to terrorize feminists into silence.
I’ve written at length about AVFM’s campaigns of vilification and intimidation in the past; for a recent example as well as numerous links to discussions of past examples, see here.
Today I will look at some of the specific tactics that AVFM uses against its targets – providing, in each case, a recent example.
This, in other words, is how AVFM’s Hate Machine functions. [TRIGGER WARNING for abusive language, discussion of abusive tactics]
TACTIC: Professional Ruin
Example:
Stacy, if I find out that there was a link between your report and [another AVFM foe’s] own vendetta that endangered Sage, I swear that you will never work in peace again. I will follow your activities and call out every lie that threatens the livelihood of decent men, until people stop citing your publications and you tearfully watch your degree gather dust in the closet. I have the resources and the connections to make that happen, and I will use them if you so much as tell one more goddamn lie about a man you don’t know. Covering your ass will only make me work harder to expose your sins. …
We’re still looking into your history, Stacy. …
Just know that I always will learn more. If you think there is something, and I mean anything else in your conduct on Kennesaw State University that will embarrass you, then you better send Sage Gerard an email and try to make things right, because I will publish all of your mistakes. …Admit you were wrong like an adult, or pack up your desk.
Source: Post by Paul Elam of A Voice for Men.
Explanation: Elam threatens to ruin the career of a woman who reported to campus police that she felt intimidated by KSU Men founder and AVFM ally Sage Gerard. He provides no evidence of any connection between her and the other AVFM target mentioned.
In the last two paragraphs I quoted, this threat becomes a form of blackmail, with Elam threatening to dig up more “dirt” if the woman in question doesn’t apologize to the man who originally caused her to become so concerned about her personal safety that she called campus police. See below for more on blackmail.
TACTIC: Offering cash bounties for personal information
Example:
Stacy Keltner is a fraud on the run. There is a $100 reward to whoever finds a picture of her that we can verify. KSU students, if you happen to see Keltner out in public, grab a quick shot on your phone and send it over. You would be helping end corruption on your campus, and offsetting the cost of your tuition and supplies.
Source: The same post by Elam.
Explanation: Elam has offered cash bounties on a number of occasions in order to encourage those who have personal information on his targets, or those who might be willing to search for it, to send it to him. In the past, the bounties have ranged as high as $1000.
In this case, he is searching for a photograph of a woman who has evidently gone to great lengths to avoid having her picture posted on the internet.
TACTIC: Inciting an online mob
Example:
If you need more convincing, I invite readers to contact you via your public contact info. We will notice if you delete that, too.
Hundreds of people here have donated to Zen Men, the organization your people have been messing with, and I figure they may want an opportunity to explain how they feel about your disrespecting their contributions to gender equity. Oh, and just a tip: The supporters will not threaten you. They will most certainly be angry with you, but you are not in any physical danger. You never fucking were. Just keep that in mind if some odd troll sends you a message you want to believe we endorse. Use your brain and try listening to thoughtful dissent for once in your miserable life.
Source: The same post by Elam.
Explanation: After vilifying his target at length – calling her “filth,” and “one of the most egregious, repulsive and vindictive professors on Kennesaw State University, if not Georgia or the United States” – Elam calls upon his readers to contact her en masse, knowing full well (as he admits) that some of these messages may well be threatening. He also mocks and attacks her attempts to protect herself by removing personal information from the Internet.
TACTIC: DARVO (“Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender.”)
Example:
Stacy, you used fear to recruit thugs to attack a single student you personally do not like by proxy. …
You need to understand that there are people out there who will literally beat a man bloody if they believe that he is some kind of threat to women. Look at the murders carried out where victims are men falsely accused of rape. Perpetrators of this violence won’t investigate. They won’t even think. They will simply beat him until he is broken, and bleeding. You put Sage, an innocent and intelligent young man with a future, in a position where he has to keep looking over his shoulder every time he walks on campus.
Source: The same post by Elam.
Explanation: The woman in question did not “recruit thugs to attack a … student.” She called the campus police because she felt threatened by that student. AVFM is attempting to portray the frightened woman as the aggressor. The student in question was not charged with anything, nor was he attacked by the campus police officer who responded.
AVFM frequently uses what some psychologists call DARVO in an attempt to portray victims as aggressors. When women who claim they’ve been attacked or threatened call the police, AVFM often recasts their call for police protection as an attempt to inflict “violence by proxy” on innocent men. AVFM also uses DARVO to cast itself as a victim.
IRONY: Tara J. Palmatier, a therapist with close ties to AVFM, has argued on numerous occasions that women who claim they have been abused by men may be using DARVO tactics to smear them. In one post on AVFM, Palmatier suggests that so-called “high conflict individuals” are likely to resort to “smear campaign and mobbing tactics when they target someone … .” Ironically, this is a perfect description of AVFM’s own preferred style of “activism.”
TACTIC: Blackmail
Example:
If you choose to stand by your dishonest image, I will dig through all of your connections, your history and your publications, then email your colleagues and superiors all of the reasons they should consider working with other people. I’m sure the network of anti-feminist YouTubers and bloggers looking for content would also have a field day if I pointed them to ISD’s publications. …
Tom, if you and your buddies own up to your crap like grown-ups and make amends with Sage, then I will back off. …
Staying silent is not going to save you.
Source: Another blog post by A Voice for Men’s founder Paul Elam.
Explanation: Blackmail is defined by the Macmillan Dictionary as “to make someone give you money or do what you want by threatening to tell people embarrassing information about them.”
In this case, Elam is threatening to dig up dirt on KSU professor Tom Pynn and pass it along to his colleagues as well as to a group of videobloggers known for their harassment of feminists, unless Pynn recants a previous statement claiming that AVFM is a hate group. No, really: It’s a hate campaign targeting a man because he called AVFM a hate group.
Elam is angry that Pynn wrote an email to KSU Men’s former faculty advisor in which he stated that the Southern Poverty Law Center had declared AVFM a “hate group.” While this is not technically true – for one thing, websites do not meet the SPLC’s definition of a “group” – it is also true that the SPLC included AVFM in a report on misogynistic websites, describing in some detail AVFM’s doxxing and harassment of women, which at the time included setting up the phony offenders registry called Register-Her to smear feminists, and offering bounties for personal information on the site’s foes.
TACTIC: Revelation of deeply personal information
Example:
A simple text search reveals something very interesting. [Target of harassment] was at [identifying info redacted] the same time as [name redacted], a woman who was brutally murdered in a random attack by a deranged psychopath who received the death sentence for her murder. [Target of harassment] and [murdered woman] were friends. Further investigation reveals that [murdered woman] had fought with a friend before she was murdered, and the relationship was never repaired. The friend was left to grieve and to live with the knowledge that her last words to her friend were unkind. [Target of harassment] is quoted in the newspaper article, but she is not the friend who testified at the trial. The entire faculty is described as being traumatized and in shock at the murder.
Is [Target of harassment] the friend who was mean to [the murdered woman] before she died?
Source: A blog post by AVFM’s”social media director,” who posts online as “Judgy Bitch” and “Janet Bloomfield.”
Explanation: There is no possible justification for posting this. It has no relevance to AVFM’s “charges” against the woman. It’s clearly intended to use the facts of a murder case to hurt someone whose friend was brutally murdered.
Irony: “Bloomfield,” a staunch supporter of and practicioner of doxxing, posts under a pseudonym.
Note: Due to “Bloomfield’s” posting of personal information, I will not post a link to her post or the name of the targeted woman. I will provide the link to journalists and others with a legitimate need to see the original.
TACTIC: Social media harassment
Example:
Source: The Twitter account of Jack Barnes, a contributor to AVFM and co-host of that site’s Blue Collar Red Pill Radio show. Link to tweet.
Explanation: Barnes threatens endless “harassment” of feminists unless and until they are completely silenced. Barnes directed his tweet at cultural critic Anita Sarkeesian, the target of a massive, several-years-long campaign of harassment online.
In an earlier Tweet, also directed at Sarkeesian, Barnes joked about the death threats that at one point led her to flee her home.
This bit of nastiness was retweeted by four other AVFMers. This is typical: Twitter harassment from individual AVFMers – there is no need for the ironic quotes around “harassment” – is almost always amplified by a squad of other AVFMers eager to flood their target’s Twitter mentions with a flood of insults and abuse.
AVFM’s Twitter army was once led by the AVFM “social media director” who posts online as “Judgy Bitch” and “Janet Bloomfield.” But she has been banned from Twitter, evidently for her “targeted abuse” of feminist writer Jessica Valenti, which included the deliberate dissemination of falsehoods about Valenti.
As Barnes and other AVFMers have made clear, this sort of harassment and abuse is likely to “continue and accelerate.” AVFM’s hate machine will not stop, Barnes contends, “until no one will openly admit to being feminist.”
That’s not going to happen. So it’s up to us to document and denounce and do what we can through all legal channels to shut their hate machine down.
No, doxxing the trolls will only make the problem worse because they will then be able to point to examples of people on their side being doxxed and receiving harassment, thereby lending legitimacy to their claims that “the other side does it too” and furthering their DARVO strategy.
In addition to that, doxxing them would actually be wrong. It would not stop them from harassing women and would only serve as a petty form of revenge designed to make their lives worse.
The grammar Nazi in me wants to mock your for forgetting the necessary direct address comma. You see, your sentence now reads like a command that we all wake up some women when you want it to read as a command to all women to wake up.
But then it’s also really very condescending to say that. What’s your next post going to be? Will you say, “Wake up, sheeple”?
Also, there are plenty of other strategies that we can employ to fight back. We can report to the police. We can document and raise awareness, which will turn those who might go to AVFM looking for support firmly away from them. Granted, we know that AVFM does very little for men’s issues, but a website titled “A Voice For Men” might initially seem attractive to men who’ve been raped or abused or suffered from suicidal ideation. The more people see that they’re not actually focused on helping men but rather on terrorizing women who don’t toe their line, the less support they’ll get from well-meaning but ill-informed individuals.
No, we’re not falling for your half-assed attempt at gotcha entrapment, go away.
I can hear the bullshit coming from a mile away. And look, I was (kinda) right!
For that matter, first day at WHTM? Cuz it’s open season on trolls here. Fuck “don’t feed the trolls”, more “feed them until they burst”. Dox’ing though? Noptopus.
Also, here at Spot! That! Fallacy! It’s False Dictohomy Day!
There are plenty of options besides “don’t fight back” and “dox the trolls”.
Lol, you’re good!
Wow. Thanks for another enlightening article, David. Oh, come the day when these kind of terrorist tactics employed against perceived enemies won’t just fly anymore…
And boo on the idea of doxxing anyone, Masha and Caro. We don’t do that kind of shit. It’s simply wrong, no matter who does it. Besides, digging up dirt is only done by people who have no leg to stand on, like Paul Elam and the lot on AVfM. They don’t need to be condemned for any dirt they might have in their past, they condemn themselves every time they open their filthy mouths. Documenting their openly admitted bullshit is quite enough to keep track of their disgusting nature.
Did you perhaps get lost on your way to AVfM?
And all these calls to dox and harass her have another name, too: STOCHASTIC TERRORISM. MRAs do this all the time: put all their “enemies”‘ info out there in the hopes that some unhinged “lone wolf” will do to them what these guys themselves lack the guts to do (and don’t want to get arrested for, which they KNOW will happen if they do it themselves).
Yeah, it’s right there in Paul’s smug little threat. “We won’t physically attack you. Other people will. But they’re not us! You can’t prove it! Tee hee hee!”
There’s something about really, really stupid people who think they’re being sneaky that’s simultaneously horrifying and oddly cute.
Unfortunately, however transparent it is, it seems like it’s enough to keep them out of legal trouble, given the abysmal state of law enforcement dealing with online behavior.
Masha and Caro – yeahno. Doxxing will not make the problem go away. Even if it were not a pretty reprehensible thing to do (which it is), it would make the problem worse, because it would only serve as further “proof” that feminists are double-standard meanieheads who want to make men’s lives miserable.
Nope all over that.
Notice David’s wording in his post: “Cataloging: means keeping a record of things that Elam & co. are saying openly, in public. Everything on WHTM is sourced from websites, Twitter exchanges, and Reddit threads that literally anyone with internet access can read. There’s never a moral reason to proactively go dig up dirt on someone, but it’s particularly redundant when said person is already proudly saying and doing terrible things for all the world to see.
And that public record is to be dealt with through legal means. That means doing things above board, through the proper, recognized, established channels that exist. Vigilante justice only works in the movies (and even then, it’s often pretty messed up), so it is a Very Bad Idea to try it in real life.
Anyone know the name of the John the other youtube video where he mentioned “janet bloomfields” and the other guys first name?…I’ve been looking though his vids but they’re starting to make me sick.
Whilst what avfm are doing is absolutely disgusting in general and horrendous for the people being targeted, I think it’s important to look at the bigger picture for a moment. The bigger picture does not look good for avfm and does look good for those who oppose it.
Avfm are doing exactly what they have done for several years. There are no further forward in any of their stated goals or ambitions. If anything, their support base has been evaporating and their previous main communication method (register-her) is defunct.
It is arguably this absolute failure to achieve anything tangible that is behind this latest grab for attention. The last fundraiser failed by quite a margin and many within his own community are deserting or turning against the leaders of avfm. As noted elsewhere, avfm often reports on an alleged existential threat before trying to gain financial support.
A man who owns a blog wrote the following: “I have the resources and the connections to make that happen” – this is delusion on an epic scale, An angry person with a computer can harass a woman, and this can be multiplied when a number of similarly dysfunctional people choose to harass someone, but for avfm to threaten to harm the career of a professor displays their detachment from reality. They act like they matter because they really badly want to matter. But they don’t.
Remember the Swedish feminists? So laid back about the display of stupidity from avfm that they actually went to the comments section therein to explain where avfm got it wrong?
I’m not saying that anyone should be flippant about the abuse meted out by these fools, but I’m stressing that it’s an action of the weak. A strong group wouldn’t actually use trolling as a method of activism. It is the definition of pathetic.
As an aside, Mr Gerard seems to be flavor of the month at avfm. As we all know, that changes rapidly and most probably won’t always be the case! Esmay knows his place so will be allowed to sit at the captain’s table indefinitely, I imagine, but Mr Gerard… Well, I think in a few years there will be a parting of the ways.
In a nutshell, avfm reverting to type confirms the limitations of that website and its base. They are interested in nothing involving serious work and activism. They are headed up by a man who craves importance. Every single attempt at mainstream acceptance has failed, and failed miserably. They have never been more fractured or been involved in so much infighting amongst their various online (and largely fictitious) communities.
This is an attempt at relevance. Let’s condemn it for what it is – disgusting and abusive, whilst recognizing that it’s the work of the desperate.
Unfortunately, however transparent it is, it seems like it’s enough to keep them out of legal trouble, given the abysmal state of law enforcement dealing with online behavior.
I don’t know about that. In the wake of Gamergate, the authorities take doxxing and online harassment more seriously than they used to. And these posts skate reaaaaaally close to the line. At another point Elam mocks the idea that the professor could feel threatened by writing:
Sage still doesn’t even know what the fuck (professor) looks like! All we know from the police report is (long, detailed description of professor that almost certainly only describes one person in the KSU philosophy department).
Then, I’m sure, he sat back and giggled at his cleverness.
Even grosser: he gleaned from the police report that the professor has a toddler and makes a big show of pointing it out to his readers.
Gerard himself is all over the comments whining about how hard he has it, even though he suffered no repercussions except for being told to stop sneaking into women’s restrooms, because someone could look at the situation and think he’s a misogynist! For no reason at all! And then his life would be RUINED!
Well, not actually ruined. Not like what he and Elam are trying to do to this poor professor. But, you know, someone might think bad thoughts about him. Oh the pain.
Reblogged this on Audacious Orange Flower and commented:
“We’re still looking into your history, Stacy. …” ew…creep. sounds like a bad impersonation of some psychopath in a B-movie.
I just had a frustrating conversation on Facebook with a FeMRA (I know she is because she happens to be a fan of Girl Writes What – thus she is obviously a moron) who was constantly defending the behavior of cat-callers and other street harassers under the false pretense of “free speech”. She also claimed that women who dislike having to deal with it should basically “buck up” and act like it’s not big deal ’cause, hey, she didn’t have any problems ignoring men who cat-call her – so obviously every woman should just do what she does. I reminded her than not every human being functions like she does or in the same situation, so it’s a gross generalization, but she kept making it about her and how she was so much more of an “adult” than everyone else.
The funny part being that, for all her dismissive “just so” bullshit, this started with her complaining about someone bringing up street harassment and how annoyed they are by it. So, apparently, all women should just ignore all the street harassment but she can’t let a single person on fucking Facebook voice a complaint without having to argue with them.
This is why I can’t stand free speech absolutists: for all their self-aggrandizing horseshit about caring about free speech more than anyone else, they obviously can’t stand hearing certain opinions and fault others for expressing them at all. Besides, is there any reason to protect the act of street-harassment? You can claim it’s all part of “free speech” all you want, but I sincerely doubt it is anything more than assholes being gross and profane to people why don’t know and who are not interested in talking to them. They do not need to be defended whatsoever, they can easily defend themselves, but she went out of the way to keep excusing them while putting the onus on everyone who may take issue.
That’s what happens when people enforce this notion that holding an opinion is somehow, in of itself, special and thus demands respect from everyone else. Except not every form of speech is valid or actually contributes to a bigger discussion – it’s often just ill-informed or ignorant nonsense that has no logic or facts to back it up. Along with that, shitty behavior is just shitty behavior and doesn’t deserve the kind of defense that makes it out to be some kind of civil fucking right.
How brave of Paul Elam to speak out against a woman, who’s caused another man to feel terribly threatened, using his real name. You’d think he’d be worried that someone might read his threats and blackmail and decide it would be for the best if he didn’t live anymore.
On Sarkeesian/femfreq, even though I’m sure this same point has been made in the comments here many times before:
A long time ago, I was a “videogames journalist”. For clarification, in my country and in those days being a videogames journalist meant you had no credentials related to journalism, no formal education, but you knew a lot of stuff about games and you were willing to write articles about them for no money at all, but very minor subculture fame and glory.
I don’t keep up with new games anymore, but I do still have several friends who actually kept writing about games, got picked up by larger publications, and are now among the most successful writers in their field (in my small country). These are people, almost exclusively men, who I met through a common interest in videogames, years before I would’ve called myself a feminist, and yet I haven’t heard a single one of them oppose Sarkeesian’s work. In fact, it has been enthusiastically welcomed and encouraged by everyone I know who actually works with games, including at least 10 journalists and a few game developers.
Oh wait, in this narrative games journalism is supposed to be evil, so I guess this all makes sense. Nevermind then.
Ps. I’m sorry, I suck at staying on topic. Will do better next time.
@Anenome
While there’s nothing wrong with your line of reasoning, I feel that you’re leaving out one crucial point of information: the state of mind of Paul Elam and his cohorts at AVfM. While an outside observer (or anyone else, for that matter) can see that AVfM is floundering, moving from one failed campaign to the next, the atmosphere within AVfM is distinctly different; they celebrate every movement thay make, whether it causes a tangible effect or not; they also tend to deny the existence of evidence to their failures, even when it’s glaringly obvious to everyone else.
It’s the same kind of behaviour I’ve recognized in people with personality disorders that include non-bizarre delusions as symptoms. Combined with Elam’s violent lashing out at people he disagrees with, even those he previously considered allies, I think there’s a serious case to be made for him having borderline personality disorder.
Paul is so trapped within his delusions – that he is a force for good in the world, that he is the Great Leader of a bona fide human rights organization – that he is incapable of seeing his own desperation. His disorder prevents reality from disrupting this world-view wherein he is successful, and will probably result in him trying all the harder to find confirmation for that view, i.e. he will harass people even harder, even if other people die as a result.
Hi. Thank you for indentifying these intimidation tactics ! Unfortunately, I think some people lack the capacity of feeling remorse or guiltiness, and some other “humans” abilities that seem natural for a lot of us. That’s why their discourses are destabilizing and can provoke reactions of despair, because you think “How can someone be so horrible to me? ” In fact, they just are not thinking like we do, they just see their victim as an object, something less than human, really despising him/her, so that the victim’s feelings and words don’t count. You can’t discuss with such people. They don’t want to discuss, they want you to remain silent and to loose yourself. I’m not a specialist,but I just read a book about Emotional Abuse, it helped me understand some little things: it’s called “Stalking the soul”.
“Often, emotional abuse builds over a long period of time until it becomes so unbearable that victims lash out in frustration and anger, only to appear unstable and aggressive themselves. This, according to Hirigoyen, is the intent of many abusers: to systematically “destabilize” and confuse their victims (with irrational, threatening behavior that preys on the victim’s fears and self-doubts), to isolate and control them and ultimately to destroy their identity. These relentless “predators” are also incapable of compassion or empathy, always blame the victim and never see their actions as wrong.
It’s not a new book, but it permitted me to understand in a better way how some words and some non-verbal tactics indeed can crush your soul. (and how shitty it is, for there is no traces left of the abuse) I hope it can help.
The irony is that the more extreme they get in trying to put an end to feminism the stronger it gets. They don’t seem to understand that their behaviour is exactly why people are opposing them.
Every time they escalate they make it more obvious there’s a need for feminism, and it’s not like their tactics have silenced their main targets – on the contrary it’s given their targets material to work with, examples to illustrate their points.
And as far as I can tell it’s increasing awareness and bringing more people in to oppose them.
The nonsense they pull, it just makes me want to push back harder, not leave the field.
I think that Elam MUST get a real thrill out of all those threats – veiled so that he is legally protected, because he hasn’t got a leg to stand on morally. FFS – the complaint against Sage wasn’t even upheld! If Elam believes (as he says he does here) that there are LOADS of men being falsely accused of rape WHY isn’t he championing their innocence and raising money for their defence?! THAT would be a noble cause!
We all know why – because Elam wants any money raised for himself, and in reality very very few false accusations get as far as court. Also Elam doesn’t really give a shit about men – I bet all the commenters here care more about men than he does.
I can understand that some people may think that threats like this are essentially harmless – they are a bunch of saddo’s with nothing better to do, but even empty threats are unpleasant to receive, especially if there are a lot of them. And Elam reports with glee the ‘unassociated’ Lone Wolf who MAY do something violent – ensuring that the Sword of Damocles is kept dangling. He really is a thoroughly vile man.
@dhag85
Yeah, it’s so weird; it’s almost like GamerGate is a hate-group that is unable to find people within the industry that agree with them (except maybe Daniel Vavra).
Please excuse the attack of the blockquote monster.
My post starts at “Not only that”.
My compensatory payment is the awesome black and white kitty cat in the picture.
Is that his real name?
I always assumed it wasn’t given Elam = Male spelled backwards.
*shrugs*