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.
I have zero sympathy for this man. He is a two faced, hypocritical bastard of the highest order and is living the high life with other people’s money. Surely after reading that article they will think twice about sending him their hard earned cash? He should also come clean about the conference security farce as well. I also find it repulsive that he could blame his ex wife for her own rape. What a nasty, horrible person he is. I hope he goes bankrupt and is in the poor house because only then would he have to get a real job and do a decent day’s bloody work.
He has leeched off women all his life. If I were a MGTOW or a MRM supporter I would be absolutely pissed off at how hypocritical he is. The only good thing about it all is that he will be seething/furious/angry/incandescent with rage that his daughter and ex wife spoke about their time with him. The narcissist in him will never cope with the fact that so many people will read that article and see for themselves what a fucking, embarrassing loser piece of shit he really is. Rant over.
Ah, but the interesting part is how much the Men’s Rights Bowel Movement is suddenly claiming that, in spite of Elam being the generally accepted MRAsshole Messiah, that now he’s “fringe.”
Which he wasn’t, like, last week.
I seriously used to not understand why MRAssholes had such fits about this site which literally just records what they’re saying and then offers a somewhat pithy take on the MRA mindset. But the objection I’d seen from MRAs who talk at me (since God knows this ain’t a dialogue when I don’t get a word in edgewise) is that this site literally records what they say. Given how fast the lies change when they’re caught in one, I understand their fear a little better now.
For the record, I neither validate nor co-sign MRAsshole fears, as literally no MRA has any connection to reality given that the MRBM’s theology is just to double down on patriarchy as hard as possible rather than bother to inspect how patriarchy harms almost all women and quite a few men too, so these fears are entirely detached from credibility. I’m just saying I get why they refuse to take their medicine and panic about a site that records their actual words and deeds. A hate group that expects to lie, hide, and change its story at will is probably going to be terrified, and MRAssholes, now that your hate is being brought into the light, you should be terrified.
Just like the Klan, which is all the MRBM really is in new clothes anyways, sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Heh, I noticed that in the BuzzFeed comments. Crap like this:
The “Mainstream media.” Not, y’know, Aptronym himself and all of his rageaholic cronies at every possible opportunity since the beginning of his hate site. Nope. What are you talking about? Totally a media conspiracy.
So if AVFM is fringe now, who’s left who isn’t fringe?
@fakecisgirl & M. the Social Justice Ranger:
Oh, do I ever want to see Elam’s reaction to this.
See, Paul, these are the people you’ve attracted with your hate-mongering, your abusive language and your toxic personality. They may celebrate and support you when things are calm and good, but when the public gets wind of your disgusting ways, your buddies will drop you faster than a sack of hot potatoes.
There is something deliciously ironic about the ease with which some MRAs will throw their former heroes under the bus when things get rough, but I just can’t place it. If “no honor among bigots” is not a turn of phrase, it needs to be.
Well, except Woody, of course. His dedication to “Paulie” is almost adorable.
@Anarchronist Esmay and Bloomfield are usually the first to announce their support, I reckon they’ll stick around until Paulie is charged with something illegal. Then they’ll flee, and deny him three times.
So, I don’t want to read Elam’s rebuttal, but does he address any of the records that the piece mentions? I mean, the Buzzed is not just interviews with wife #1 and daughter, but it often says “according to records”. There are police and court records.
You can always play “he said, she said” with people’s statements, but when there are official documents, it’s a little tougher to play innocent.
I know a guy with a similar backstory to Paul Elam. I hope he doesn’t find MRA movement because he is not very bright and has a tendency to blame women for his problems already.
He got a woman pregnant very soon after meeting, when they were both 18. They were ridiculously naive and poor and they moved in with her parents and later some friends. Before she was 6 months pregnant, she left him.
None of his friends liked her, said she was a fat, hideous, stupid monstrous cr*zy chick. That has been the narrative ever since. And that she cheated on him all the time so probably that kid wasn’t even his blah blah blah. I never met her, so I have no comment on her personally. But she left him, moved across the country and when her baby was born, she put another man’s name on the birth certificate.
This guy did not pay child support. He met the child once, briefly, when ze was about 1 year old. By the time ze was 4, the mother had left the man she had been living with and began the process of suing for child support. This required a paternity test – possibly because it was across state lines and he was not on the birth certificate. He was proven to be the father.
He then started talking about counter suing for custody. He was married and had a house, and claimed that meant he would be a better parent. He planned on seeking sole custody and said he even planned on changing his kid’s name. I was mortified, having a 4 year old of my own, that he even thought this reaction was okay. There was no evidence of abuse or neglect, he just wanted custody because he felt it was owed him. Now that the child was HIS.
That didn’t work, so he complained mightily about the unfair cost of child support, that he can’t possible afford (how could he possibly afford sole custody then you ask?) and signed away paternal rights in exchange for a one time payment (I think he paid 2500). His kid was 6 by this time and he told zir via skype that he was zir dad but wasn’t going to be in zir’s life.
Again, I have no idea what that would feel like, but my heart breaks a bit thinking about it, because I have a child that age.
The one way this guy diverges from Elam is that he does not drink or use any drugs (I think weed would do him some good tbh). And he hasn’t (yet) stumbled into full on MRA territory, just garden variety misogyny. I imagine a lot of men in the movement have similar backstories.
Sorry for the teal deer! Like many of us, I really hate shitty people who make shitty excuses for their shitty behavior.
Errrrrr…nobody? Yeah, I’ll go with NOBODY. The whole movement was always fringe, and always extremist, and always ridiculous, to boot. That anyone could take it seriously is beyond belief. How far up one’s own ass does one have to be…?
And I have no problem with the “cried like a baby” bit; that was the one time he didn’t come off as a total asshole in the entire piece. No problems, either, with the reporter getting Susan and Bonnie’s stories. That’s just journalism! After all, it behooves the world to know what kind of man he really is behind all the blather, and they were willing to talk, albeit under protected identities. If all Paulie had to refute them was 20 minutes of cussing on the phone, and a pissy AVFMorons piece that I can’t wait to see dissected here, well…too bad for him. He had his chance to either set the record straight or say “no comment”. He chose to dig his hole deeper, and that speaks volumes.
As does the fact that at least one other previous Mrs. Paulie was too afraid to talk about him at all, and just wanted to forget she ever knew him.
Let’s remember that Bonnie and Susan consented to the interview. Bonnie especially, seems to have spoken with them at length. Perhaps they really wanted to tell their stories and thought it was important. I think it’s a bit concern trolly to act like they are victims of Buzzfeed. I’m sure they’re capable of thinking for themselves.
I really don’t see why this piece made so many people uncomfortable. It’s not flattering to Elam, but journalism isn’t meant to be nice. It’s there to tell the truth. A man who purposely made up a cult of personality around himself and is presenting himself as a victim of the evil matriarchy to get donations he can live on is fair game. People need to know the truth. Most of his fans are probably too far gone to be effected by this, but if a troubled young man is thinking about joining the MRM and this article is one of the top Google hits, he’ll probably be turned off it. That’s a good thing.
We complain when media outlets don’t do their homework and give MRAs undeserved credit for being advocates rather than a hate group. Then, when a well known media outlet does put out a well researched expose of one of the leaders of the movement, that’s bad too? What do people want?
Ninja’d by Bina, but I’m glad someone else sees it like I do!
100% agree with you weirwoodtreehugger
Count me in with the people who don’t understand what’s so terrible about this piece. This is nothing like the shit Elam and his cronies pull. Elam or his close ones are not being doxxed. Nobody is making up false quotes attributed to Elam. His own words are being quoted. He’s showing his own ass all the time, there’s nothing different about any of the things he’s quoted saying. Everything he is described having done is consisted with what we know about him. The testimonials show consistency regarding his personality.
At worst, this is giving unflattering but true details about a man who makes a living promoting hate and violence against women and revealing him as the hypocrite and abusive personality he is. At best, this is giving unflattering but true details about a man who makes a living promoting hate and violence against women and revealing him as the hypocrite and abusive personality he is.
@sunnysombrera
True. JB and Esmay have probably invested way too much to abandon Elam just yet. But just like with #GamerGate, the trolls and harassers hiding behind anonymity (a large majority of them, I’d gather) are always ready to abandon the actual faces of the movement when things get tough, all in the name of upholding plausible deniability. “Owning up your shit” doesn’t apply to bigots.
The article is fair, well-reasoned and level-headed… but of course the comments have an infestation of MRA types saying it’s MISANDRY! What a surprise…
I also don’t really have a problem with the article, and that the “crying like a baby” bit only served to briefly humanise him.
Re: Crying like a baby
I would still be offended by a phrase meaning “crying pitifully”, as I would be offended by having any reaction of mine being described as “pitiful”. However, seeing as to how pretty much everyone else here view the phrase differently, its obviously something specific to me/my environment.
Re: forcing a 13 year old to take medicine is abusive.
I disagree. It may be stupid and overbearing parenting, or on the other hand, maybe he actually really physically needed those meds as going without would have led to health consequences. Health and safety are the two areas where natural consequences *are not* appropriate.
Regardless I don’t think that I would use “my mother physically forced me to take medicine as a child” as my great example of abusive motherhood. Regardless of whether or not she was acting appropriately, Elam’s mother wasn’t forcing the meds down his throat for her *own* health.
Re: Mrex. Making your children to take their meds is not abuse, sure.
Having their siblings hold them down and hitting them with a spoon? That sounds a lot more like abuse.
Re: M the Social Justice Ranger
Bad faith? Bad faith is what wells up in me when I see that kind of comment. Go fuck yourself.
Salty,
We get a lot of trolls here. You started commenting here by complaining about mean it is to harshly criticize Paul Elam. Perhaps you are here in good faith, but defending Paul Elam and saying “go fuck yourself” to a regular is bound to raise some hackles.
This is a blog for mocking misogyny and anyone who has a problem with that isn’t likely to get along well with the rest of us.
Did someone actually do that, or are you addressing those of us who are concerned for their safety following the interview?
I’m not talking about people expressing concern for their safety. I am concerned as well. I was talking about those who thought the article was inappropriate.
I have to admit I more or less skimmed the comments that looked concern-trolly. And yet they still managed to make me feel defensive, apparently. Sorry.
I respect all of you who feel uncomfortable about the piece–you’re probably better humans than I–but I don’t think it crossed a line. If it was, like, very personal details about his sex life or bad mouthing from all his ex girlfriends I could understand, but things like his wife and children’s stories and actual public records of failure to pay child support are pretty much par for the course in journalism as far as public figures go.
And as others have said, it’s not a one-sided hit piece. They asked for his side of the story. He cussed them out.
RE: child abuse–I’m of the mind that his account is too vague to say if his mother was being abusive or not as “hit with a spoon” could run the gamut from absolutely physical abuse to a smack on the hand to her defending herself from his violence (I almost always trust people when they say they’ve been abused, but it’s worth noting that the point of that anecdote wasn’t that his mother was abusive–he brought that up to show what a “rebel” he was.)
Same here. Given that the source of that story is none other than Paulie himself, who’s to say he didn’t just make it up out of whole cloth in order to (a) burnish his “rebel” image, as you say, and (b) to make his mother look like an abusive matriarch and his father a deferential, henpecked wuss (an image clearly at odds with his military background and portrayals elsewhere as an abusive domestic tyrant)? I wouldn’t put it past him to invent such a tale, and to do so with intent to deceive. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s bullshat a mass audience. I’d like to hear from his siblings to find out if that incident really happened. And are his parents still alive? If so, I also would like to hear from them.
I find it weirdly poetic that Elam’s start of darkness was someone trying to force him to take something that would help him. Admittedly in an unpleasant, abusive way though.
To call Rand a philosopher is one hell of a stretch. Also if having millions of followers worldwide is a sign of wisdom I can’t wait for the deep, meaningful insights PewDiePie will bestow upon the world.
Personally I doubt the incident was completely made up. I wouldn’t put it past him to embellish parts but I’m sure the medicine thing was real. I mean, if I were going to completely make up a story to portray myself as a brave rebel fighting the tyrannical matriarchy, refusing to take diarrhea medicine when I was *13* would…not be what I would come up with.