If you’re a regular, or semi-regular, or even just an occasional reader of this blog, you need to stop reading this post right now and read Buzzfeed’s astonishing expose of A Voice for Men’s Paul Elam instead.
SPOILER ALERT: He’s an even bigger hypocrite than you think he is.
Here’s the link. Right here. Click on it now. Click. Now. Click.
If you need a bit more convincing: Buzzfeed’s long and meticulous examination of alleged “men’s human rights” activist Elam, written by Adam Serwer and Katie Baker, delves deep into Paul’s often sordid personal history, including his drug use, his numerous failed marriages, and the alternately depressing and infuriating story of the daughter he abandoned, who forgave and reunited with him as an adult, and who is now estranged from him again.
As Serwer and Baker make clear, the story of Elam’s life makes many of his most fervent claims about alleged female irresponsibility and the evils of the family court system seem a tad, well, ironic. As the two note, Elam.
preaches the gospel that men’s failures and disappointments are not due to personal shortcomings or lapsed responsibility, but rather institutionalized feminism and a family court system rigged against dutiful fathers, as well as a world gripped by “misandry,” or the hatred of men.
But his own story, to put it as gently as possible, does not exactly support this particular narrative. Serwer and Baker note that
interviews with Elam’s ex-wives and daughter and newly uncovered court records shed light on a man who, they told BuzzFeed News, has depended on and emotionally abused the women in his own life.
For example, although Elam compares the family court system’s treatment of fathers to Jim Crow, he abandoned his biological children not once but twice. Although Elam says that “fathers are forced to pay child support like it was mafia protection money,” he accused his first wife of lying about being raped so he could relinquish his parental rights and avoid paying child support.
His ex-wife [Susan] and his daughter said he has only been able to make A Voice for Men his full-time job because of the women who have supported him throughout his life. …
“He sits there taking all these people’s money and all he’s doing is sucking them dry,” said Susan. “That’s what he’s done all his life — to say it’s the woman’s fault, and not make men look at their own mistakes.”
Seriously, go read it. Here’s the link again.
We’ll talk more when you’re done.
There is a post up about fatherhood at the rational male blog. Don’t try and read the post – the author is semi-literate. But read the comments. Commenter after commenter reveals his abusive childhood – from his *father*. And yet these are the men who hate women so much they want a world without them.
The story’s very revealing in a number of ways but I find my brain always coming to a halt when I run across another one of his claims of being 6’8″. Based on every photo he looks like a pretty average guy so then why brag about something that clearly isn’t true and can be fact checked as BS in just seconds?
This article is a good start, but to get a full picture of Elam’s motivations and real agenda, I hope all the ex-wives can find the courage to speak out. The abandonment of two children is sad and awful, but living off women right up to the present day is a staggering hypocrisy for the man who advocates MGTOW.
I wonder how similar wtf price’s story is
@Hyena Girl
As a 6’8″, 300 pound man myself, I too was skeptical. But then I saw a couple photos of him sitting in a chair at what looked like a panel at some event, and to me it looked like he could indeed be that tall.
Somehow him sharing my body type hit me harder than him sharing my gender. #notalltalldudes
Just saw this.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/02/mens-rights-activist-paul-elam-i-dont-think-men-are-oppressed/
I don’t really think anyone is that surprised by this article except perhaps his loyal followers, who don’t believe it anyway.
IOW, a classic manurespherian, of the Mark Minter type (if Minter were coherent enough to find a way to capitalize on his horrendous personal dysfunction).
These RP guys are all cut from the same cloth, save minor variations.
We knew this, of course, did we not? It is good to have it spelled out in such personal detail, though.
*adds Lea to the list of Misandry Cookie recipients*
That is classic. Thank you for sharing!
“Men are oppressed! No wait, they aren’t. Some just feel oppressed. And that is totally valid! Women feeling or actually being oppressed is not at all valid, though, duh, because lojik and factz!”
@bodycrimes:
“And yet these are the men who hate women so much they want a world without them.”
Yes, it is fascinating (in a bad way), isn’t it, how invested they are in protecting the abusive fathers while shifting the blame for their problems and misery — which resulted in large part from that very abuse, no doubt — on women.
It is a peculiar, to say the least.
@spurricane:
Ok, so you view society from a reductionist standpoint; the whole is equal to the sum of the parts, and can be fully explained by explaining the actions of individuals.
Ok, so you view the brain from a holistic standpoint; the whole is more than simply the sum of its parts, but is best described from a higher level that encompasses interactions as well as individual actions.
Ok, so somehow you aren’t getting that there are more than two ways to view choice, that you can have a model where individuals have choice but those choices are influenced by societal trends. Just pretend society is a brain and go from there. Then you might finally get that the interactions between people are as important as the actions of the people themselves, and can influence people to act in certain ways that they might not have otherwise had they lived in isolation.
Will you then make the connection and get that societal forces like patriarchy can be a real thing that influences people, and that considering individuals as wholly separate from their environment is foolish? only time will tell.
Didn’t the Amazing Atheist already make a couple videos exposing Buzzfeed to be a bunch of hypocrites?
I would bet on Elam having absolutely no compassion or empathy. The only thing Elam cares about is Elam. I also hope Bonnie and Susan have protected.
I am astounded by the depth of his vileness and that people give him money.
It’s a damn shame Michael Shermer has done some serious assholism and ruined his reputation, because his essay on Ayn Rand was, I thought, very good at looking at the creepier aspects of the Objectivist movement.
It’s here, should you care to read it: http://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/the-unlikeliest-cult-in-history/
Ah, yes, the Ayn Rand who championed personal responsibility and laissez-faire capitalism and then in 1976 ended up on Social Security and Medicare for lung cancer, after decades of smoking (the health effects of smoking were known since the mid fifties). Such a fantastic display of personal responsibility.
Has anybody also read the Vox article? There’s a link to it in the Buzzfeed article.
Not.Remotely.Surprised.
If he had been an utter gentleman to the women and offspring in his life and truly turned over and used by them I would have been shocked to my core. But this? I could have written it without knowing the first thing about his private life.
He SMELLS of this kind of behaviour. Positively stinks of it.
Sadly his followers are in a cult which, like all cults, attracts people who are damaged or lost for a multitude of reasons, then promises them a fake elixir, a dependency, an endless stringing out of hope, and a sense of community for the lonely. They are never ‘fixed’ (as is obvious, Mr Elam has absolutely no solutions or support networks in place) but at least they don’t have to look to themselves and risk change. To change you need humility, and this cult teaches the opposite – angry grandiosity- a feature of many personality disorders.
Many of us are lost and lonely at difficult times in our lives, but to ‘act out’ on the world is the road to degeneracy and exile from society. The cult rules.
And like most ‘profit’ eveangelists, they will take your last penny and last bit of hope and dignity to fund their ‘expenses’.
Feminism has the answer to most of their problems but there are none so blind.., etc, etc.
Considering how he and his followers go on to grasp any straw (or strawman) they can possibly lay their grubby hands on in order to rake a woman’s name through mud…
Pot, I’d like you to meet this kettle. Notice anything in common?
“You talk to whoever you want to, you print whatever you want; you fuckers are not digging into my personal history,” he said. “I owe you nothing.”
And yet he’s totally fine with doxxing others.
I think if you x-rayed this man’s chest you would find no heart at all. Just a little lump of ugliness and bone spurs that pumps poison and metabolizes light and oxygen into bile.
Ok, after reading the article, Elam sounds like a textbook narcissist raised by a narcissist. There is obviously much less information on his mother, just a few stories, but what he says about her at least shows that his perception of her was as a controlling, narcissistic person.
He thinks he reacted by becoming like his dad in the way he enabled women in his life, but all the details given for his history reflect the opposite: a narcissist using the people around him every single step of the way. All the anger whenever someone doesn’t do what he tells them, the way he cuts ties with people who fail to provide enough attention, always blaming them for the failures, the lack of direction throughout his life.
I know, don’t diagnose people over the internet. Look in the DSM-5 for NPD and note all the ways it would explain weird behavior in the article that doesn’t make much sense otherwise, though.
Has anyone read his rebuttal to the BuzzFeed article, freshly posted on AVFM? In it he basically says that his wife was a drunk, “sex loving” “promiscuous” drug user who lied about being raped by one of his friends and continued to be a “emotionally unstable” drug user when Bonnie tried to reconnect with him.
“Somehow him sharing my body type hit me harder than him sharing my gender. #notalltalldudes”
Oh my goodness, I totally felt exactly the same way. (I’m 6’10” and 250)
I don’t really feel right making fun of his episode from when he was 13 years old. There could’ve definitely been an abusive element to the way he was forced to take the medicine that he doesn’t have the insight to isolate, not just an entitled tantrum about dealing with diarrhea. No pity points for anything else though, his hypocrisy is now more apparent than ever.
So he thinks Buzzfeed has written an unfair hit piece by going into his past and pointing out how it’s not all innocence, sunshine and roses the way he pretends. I’ll be gosh-darned if he doesn’t threaten to do the exact same thing to people he disagrees with.
As David so helpfully quoted him just a couple weeks ago, “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. …”
Real consistent fella, that one. The difference between him and the people he hates is he actually has mountains of garbage in his past that make him look like a hypocrite.
Ah, got ninja’d on that point by a few of you other fine folks. But seriously, the sheer, oblivious cognitive dissonance of him saying that made steam come out of my ears.
His reply is fucking priceless. “No no, you got it all wrong! They are drunk sluts, lulz!”
Human Rights Activism at its finest.
And it looks like ICMI15 is in Huston. Ew.
I feel so bad for the women who had to deal with this bearded devil I really hope they are ok and will stay that way.
Cuddlesquid
“I think if you x-rayed this man’s chest you would find no heart at all. Just a little lump of ugliness and bone spurs that pumps poison and metabolizes light and oxygen into bile.”
Even the Grinch had a heart sure it’s small but the x Ray showed that at least he had one.