For those coming here from the excellent Buzzfeed article on Paul Elam, here are some posts of mine that will give you an even fuller picture of this not only sleazy but dangerous man and the little army of fanatical assholes he has assembled to pester and often outright harass (mostly) women online.
Start here:
Paul Elam of A Voice for Men: In His Own Words
Aside from some of the information Buzzfeed found out about him, nothing is more damning to Elam than his own words.
Here are some posts on Elam’s peculiar approach to “activism,” which generally involves harassing individual women.
7 Tactics of Highly Effective Harassers: How A Voice for Men’s Internet Hate Machine works
Elam falsely accuses a random woman of trashing applications from white men while working for a college admissions office.
Elam Launches a Hate Campaign Against a College Student for Attending a Demonstration and Making Twitter Jokes
Paul Elam, you’re no MLK: A Voice for Men offers a $100 bounty for a clear photo of its latest feminist foe
Here’s a post on the phony “offenders registry” Elam and company put up in order to demonize feminists and other women they don’t like by posting unflattering profiles of them alongside actual female murderers and sex offenders.
Register-Her was a Fake “Offenders Registry” Run By Misogynists, Designed to Vilify and Intimidate Women
And here are a couple of posts on AVFM’s attempt to co-opt the name and the reputation of the White Ribbon anti-domestic violence campaign:
A Voice for Men has set up a phony White Ribbon website to coopt the international anti-violence campaign of that name — and raise some money using the name.
Some posts that quote Elam’s perverse justifications for violence against women:
Paul Elam: “If a woman five feet tall and 110 pounds soaking wet hits me, I am going to hit her back.”
She deserved the ass-kicking of a lifetime: Elam justifies violence against women in a disturbing short story
Paul Elam, you’re no Jonathan Swift
And then there was this:
Paul Elam, alleged human rights champion, tells me to kill myself
And a few, er, lighter reads on the man:
Elam to A Voice for Men conference goers: Don’t say terrible things about women in public, because someone might hear you
A Voice for Men’s Paul Elam and Dean Esmay explain the proper slurs to use for “nasty women.”
Elam: “This world deserves a jerk on the collar and a slap across the face and the flying spittle of rage.”
Elam on “stupid lying whores,” Rebecca Watson, and how he never claims to be a victim even though he totally is one.
(This last one is about a post he wrote attacking Skepchick founder Watson in which he used the word “whore” literally two dozen times.)
And there are more in the archives if you want to search for them.
I guess I kind of write about him a lot, huh?
Well, for better or worse, he’s the most prominent and influential Men’s Rights Activist out there. For now.
Sorry dude, but you aren’t going to catch us defending the racial views of a white supremecist.
According to their website, White Ribbon “positively engages men, young men and boys through relevant educational programming that challenges language and behaviours, as well as harmful ideas of manhood that lead to violence against women.”
They aren’t an organization that helps victims. That’s not their goal. There are plenty of other domestic violence charities that do directly aid victims.
OK, I’ll bite – which of David’s pieces about Paul Elam is inaccurate, and why?
So, a guy takes people’s donations and refuses to say what he spends them on, and that’s fine. But an organisation takes donations promising to use the money to raise awareness for an issue they’re concerned about, and they do, and that’s wrong?
Well, I’m confused…
Did you… uh.. actually read that article? Does anyone who links it actually read it? The whole purpose is to criticize a particular study that equates widely different types of violence. “Violently shoving” and “slapping/hitting partially open handed” were considered to be the same category as… you know… beating up, punching out, and so on.
Plus they were making fun of the language used, because which sounds worse? “She caught him on the phone flirting with another girl, so she slapped him?” Or “She caught him flirting with another girl, so she hit him in the face and neck partially open handed?”
The one with the actual punching? Highlighting that the paper doesn’t consider the circumstances. A guy throws her laptop across the room, so she punches him. The paper wouldn’t have mentioned the laptop throwing because it wasn’t direct violence at the woman, to make it seem like unmotivated abuse.
*sigh* It wasn’t the most clear satire in the world, and everyone and their mother uses “it was satire” to dismiss criticisms of really terrible things, but in this case it was most definitely satire.
@Kirbywarp
Well, we all know how poorly the manosphere understands satire…
Hah, just as I was referring to a tinfoil hat MRA another one actually shows up. Well, not AS tinfoil hat, but still spouting the “feminism is discriminating men!” line. Tinfoil tiara? Anyway, I admit that feminism isn’t perfect and has its flaws, but it is calling out masculinism exactly as it is. Buddy, I read through MRA sites on my own sometimes and they are just as misogynistic and delusional as David blogs them to be. All he does is quote them ad verbatim and that’s all he needs to do.
Christopher,
Your talking points are so old and tired that I’m not gonna bother with them. They’ve been debunked about a million times.
What I am going to point out is that the last few times you were here, you claimed to be neither an MRA or a feminist, just someone neutral who wants a cease fire in the war between the sexes that you made up in your head.
I for one am shocked, shocked I tell you! Someone neutral and egalitarian who just happens to only criticize feminism, not the other side, turned out to be an MRA all along.
I’m glad you dropped the schtick. Nobody was buying it.
I’m seconding the request that you describe your former feminism. Because I’m calling bullshit. After all, you lied about not being an MRA before.
@Spindrift:
That’s what makes the satire argument so irritating. It’s like if a guy was walking into a movie theatre…
“Hold up sir, did you buy that drink that the concession stand?”
“Oh, no, but don’t worry, it’s just water.”
“Can I see? … Uh, no, that’s vodka.”
“No, it’s water!”
“I can smell the alcohol from here. You can’t bring it in. Ma’am, did you buy that at the concession stand?”
“Oh, sorry, no, but it’s just water.”
“Can I check? … Alright, go on ahead.”
“WHAT? You hyppocrite! First you call my water alcohol, then you let her water go in? This is unfair treatment!”
Yeah, they don’t understand that “satire” is more than just a get-out-of-trouble word, so trying to explain that stuff they don’t like is actually real satire is fruitless.
SHUT UP, CHRISTOPHER.
Whoops, forgot a </i> there… last sentence is out of story mode.
@Kirbywarp
I just read your last sentence as though the story zoomed out to a narrator.
@Spindrift:
Heh.
A small case study in human ignorance. A man couldn’t tell the difference and thought nobody else could either. A small theatre in a small town, currently, but sadly not always, located in The Twilight Zone.
Sometimes I come here to laugh at David’s mockery and sometimes I come to see what washed up in the comment sections. “Christopher Allman” did not disappoint.
*A man that
On reflection on the whole article, what strikes me as the most telling bit is that Elam’s own family has to use fake names. This is the level of fear he instilled – decades later, they are so afraid of his “friends” they have to do this. Also the reactions of the second and third wives tells the rest of his story.
No, she did NOT. The Young Women’s Christian Association was running women’s shelters as far back as the 1800s. What year was Ann the Opportunist born, again?
No, she did NOT. Japanese Buddhists were centuries ahead of her, as were Roman Catholic convents who opened homes for “ill-married” women to escape their abusive husbands. Look up “Malmaritate” some time, you ahistoric buffoon.
You didn’t finish your copypasta sentence, Christopher. Whatsamatter, did you realize it was bullshit and decide to just abort and fast forward to the nonsensical wrap-up promoting your tumbleweed-strewn blog?
Y’know, when the only person MRAs can ever come up with when trying to think of somebody on their side who works with abuse survivors… Doesn’t even believe in most forms of abuse, including sexual abuse and non-lethal physical abuse… Well, it kinda says something.
This is the guy who tried to mansplain Boudica. With hilarious results.
@M. the Social Justice Ranger
“Doesn’t even believe in most forms of abuse, including sexual abuse and non-lethal physical abuse”
I guess that would include getting hit with a spoon.
I wasn’t an Mra before, but now I am. I had a change of heart!
My former feminism…I dunno…I called myself a feminist? What else more do I need to do?
I once got a guy fired for making sexist remarks to a co worker?
Also, if my talking points are so tired, you will have an easy time refuting them without merely calling me names? Literally every single comment that is left in response to mine only furthers my resolve in being an Mra because, rather than actually address (let alone understand) the larger points I’m trying to make, you simply mock and belittle what you think (incorrectly) that I’m trying to say.
When I comment on Mra sites, I see a lot of well thought out, calm, reasonable arguments. Here, all I see is name calling and petty mean spirited ness. The same sort of stuff that inspired me to renounce feminism.
And I’ve actually never copy and pasted anything from my website, but I do tend to use very similar language.
I DID read the jezebel article..did you? “One Jezebel got into it with a dude while they were breaking up, while another Jez went nuts on her guy and began violently shoving him”
That is domestic violence being openly celebrated.
I’ve come to take being called a ‘mansplainer’ as something of a compliment!
Although I’m familiar with the real definition (Which requires women being able to read men’s minds and know that they say what they say because they are speaking to a woman), more often than not, it simply means ‘I don’t like what you are saying, but I don’t have a legitimate response and you have a penis so I’m going to call you a name’.
Not to mention the deep irony of a movement which opposes words like ‘bitch’ and ‘bossy’ on the grounds of being gendered insults developing all sorts of new gendreed insults. Mansplaning, man spreading, manslamming etc etc.
I’m tired and achey but I can’t fall asleep. Keep talking, Allman, it might help get rid of my insomnia.
Hey look, a troll! Let’s feed it!
I also love that Elam’s code name is ‘male’ backwards. If there’s one chap that personifies a backwards form of masculinity, it’s this cat.
Christopher, we are totally happy to see you GYOW. Please. Seriously. Please GYOW.