So this is an … interesting reaction to that Buzzfeed piece about Paul Elam. And by “interesting” I mean “WTF?”
Over on The Spearhead — remember The Spearhead, home to some of the crankiest misogynists on the Internet? — our old friend WF Price offers a rather unique analysis of Elam’s life story.
Price admits right off the bat that Elam is indeed as much of an “asshole” as the Buzzfeed article makes him out to be, snarkily commenting that this fact “isn’t exactly news to anyone who has dealt with him personally, or read his articles.” And then he goes on to blame Elam’s assholery on feminism.
Wat.
Well, as Price sees it, Elam hasn’t exactly suffered for being an asshole. The fact that he basically got away with abandoning his daughter proves
that telling your wife and kids to screw off when your marriage goes bad is a better strategy if you’re concerned about yourself than trying to be a niceguy. What could be a more damning indictment of feminism than that?
Um, do you really want an answer to that?
Meanwhile, Price argues, the fact that Elam has had three failed marriages shows that ladies just love assholes. No, really. According to Price, Elam’s life story
proves that being an asshole doesn’t torpedo one’s prospects with women. Quite the opposite, in fact: Paul’s many walks down the aisle are testament to the fact that there’s something about the guy that contemporary women find appealing. Elam’s a major hit with women to this day.
Checkmate, feminism!
Price then works me into the equation, for some reason.
And I don’t write this out of envy; on the contrary, I think his popularity with women has probably been his biggest problem in life (Futrelle wouldn’t understand).
Price concludes with this, er, zinger:
So if feminists were to say to me that Paul Elam proves that MRAs are terrible people, I’d respond by saying “he’s the product of your philosophy, not mine.”
It will take someone more versed in formal logic to explain exactly what logical fallacies Price is committing here, or if he’s somehow come up with a new logical fallacy all his own.
@kirbywarp re: “MRAs would be the absolute worst people to do it”
To me, that’s the tragedy of the Men’s Rights Movement. There are plenty of issues that only or disproportionately affect men, and men absolutely should be able to avail of services like free reproductive health checks, support in the event of homelessness, practical advice for non-custodial dads on how to maintain a good relationship with their kids, etc. But MRAs would rather play “Blame Feminists” than do anything practical to address those issues, mostly because they don’t actually understand those issues or indeed any social issues.
It’s like the old whine of “Why is there a Women’s Centre on the college campus? Why not a Men’s Centre?” Then you ask them what a Men’s Centre would do and you get a vacant look. Because they think the Women’s Centre is a women-only treehouse, and it’s not fair that they don’t have a men-only treehouse.
Cyberwulf got it in one.
I remember first hearing about the revitalized Men’s Rights Movement, and thought it was an interesting idea. As a man, I’ve always felt that my gender deserved some minor overhauls in several key areas of law and policy, and that our entire species would hugely profit from rethinking the ‘masculine ideal’ and the ramifications it has on both genders. It would be nice to live in a world where men are not encouraged, to varying degrees, to be uber-macho, unfeeling man-bots.
Then I visited my first MRA site, and my brain has yet to recover from the assault.
@Viscarea:
Hey, for some of these guys 3 women might be a lot…
Of course most colleges used to be the men-only treehouse, but then the women and their cooties …
Regarding Price’s logical fallacies, I believe you have to have some trace of logic before you can speak of fallacies.
Regarding Elam’s three wives, I think there is an endless supply of good-hearted, loving women who are willing to buy the “my ex didn’t understand me” line, thinking they will be the one whose love will turn him into the decent person they think he could be. In my observation women are attracted not to bad boys per se but to fixer-upper projects — but some people (particularly men) are just too screwed up to repair.
“Paul’s many walks down the aisle” Excuse me — I’ve only been married twice, but isn’t it the woman who usually walks down the aisle while the man waits at the altar? Now I’m imagining Elam walking down the aisle in a wedding dress, and it is not a pretty sight.
sunnysombrera
QFT.
And this is why MRAs/PUAs can’t hold down a relationship. Not because feeemales are eeeevil, but because they see feeemales as quantity over quality.
If all of your relationships with women go down in flames, you’re not “attractive”. Most women would see that he’s had three failed marriages and think to themselves “Why did those marriages fail? He’s the only recurring factor in all three of them!”
Either that, or they think “I can be the one to fix him!”, which is part of the patriarchal idea of “women are here to serve men and kiss our emotional boo boos! And by “kiss our emotional boo boos”, we mean have sex with us.”
Cyberwulf
Yeah…they could be great allies to feminism and help out men, but they fail miserably on both fronts.
They’re only interested in blaming feminism for everything and pretending like we’re somehow stopping them from getting anything done. Just like republicans.
maybe so. That’d be a tough thing to sell, though! Seems to me like a lot of adult kids want relationships with their estranged parents and are willing to forgive amazing amounts of the past, if the parent can just leave it there. I mean, Bonnie sought out Elam, years before he started AFVM, and he was in contact w/his son, too. I don’t think angst about having lost his kids was really what drove that. He’d gotten to skip the hard parts and still enjoy having his adult kids around. Talk about having cake and eating it!
If he weren’t such an inveterate screwup, his kids would have forgiven him what they probably saw as ancient history. Bonnie was certainly willing to overlook a lot in the present for the sake of the relationship. Susan did the smart thing (again) and stayed out of it.
What else could a formerly-estranged parent have really asked for? A fresh start with an adoring adult child. No interference from the ex.
But Paul was still an asshole and that caused the second estrangement, same as the first.
No matter where you go, there you are, etc.
Ninja’d a bit by GrumpyOldMan!
Excuse me, “women are attracted” should be “some women are attracted”.
And there are a lot of men who could desperately use counseling and support on the subject of how to continue to be a participating father after a divorce, but it’ll be a cold day in hell when the MRAs get into that project. Guess it’s up to those nasty feminists to figure out how to keep their kids’ fathers in the kids’ lives after a divorce. (I’ve known a lot of women who did their best.)
What gets me about the women liking jerks thing, while it IS true that bad boys have a certain sex appeal for many women, quite a lot of guy-centered romance movies are about the “woman that got away”, or the woman hates the man at first, or in some period pieces the woman does like the man but keeps refusing to protect her virtue. A lot of those movies or novels suggest that this makes the man want her more (which makes sense even when you strip away certain connotations of male entitlement or aggression, it’s pretty human to want what you can’t have). If women liking bad boy characters in movies means “women want jerks”, do male-centered romance narratives about alluring “unattainable” women mean “men like cockblockers”? Marilyn Monroe became the biggest female sex symbol of the 20th century playing mostly gold digger characters. Do Some Like It Hot, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, or How to Marry a Millionaire (just look at the title) prove “men want gold diggers”?
From my knowledge the kind of men who do support men in various important ways tend to be gay, progressive and pro feminist, or ‘New Age’ types (also quite possible to be 2 or 3 of those). But MRA’s HATE those kind of men!
How ironic is that?
suffrajitsu – I had a bit of a youtube discussion about rom coms influence on popular culture, specifically the ‘public proposal’. There are many cringy public proposals that went wrong on youtube – veracity unknown.
I was contending that these men were foolish to believe that some shitty film has the right idea about how to live your life, the person I was discussing with seemed to be of the opinion that these films were deliberately encouraging men to do such things. Maybe, but it is a pretty sad reflection of a man’s connection with reality if he believes that a public proposal is appropriate for HIM based on some fiction, which in no way reflects his own life!
…Some Like it Hot is a great movie. I could care less about the romance part, but that last scene is precious.
I’m not biased by dint of being a saxophone player, and it tickling my funnybone that living with a saxophone player is such a horrid thing it must be worth canceling an engagement for, and something huge to be forgiven for.
Nope.
Not at all.
I am completely unbiased, in all ways.
Nothing to do with it!
http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ltclenkhAv1qafrh6.gif
EVERYTHING can be blamed on feminism (or women) incl. the consequenses of being a jerk.
Very simple…
And yes, I expect the average MRA would be delighted to have the attentions of a ‘gold digger’ if she looked like Marilyn Monroe (that of course would require her to not age beyond 36 and never have children).
Italics mammoth got me. Also, the fickle whims of the embedding mammoth did not find my gif favorable.
Does anyone know the proper treat to bribe the embedding mammoth with?
I love Some Like It Hot. The gender politics haven’t aged all that well, but the dialogue and performances are hilarious and bonus points for that last line with LITERAL MISANDRY!
http://media.giphy.com/media/xZPFAW1CXWYI8/giphy.gif
NicolaLuna: Hi! Help yourself to a welcome package.
Ellesar – Yeah, it’s pretty silly, the notion that proposals should be right out of the movies: an overwhelming, unforgettably grand gesture that sweeps a woman off her feet and leaves her no possibility of refusing without looking like a cold-hearted bitch. Bonus douche points for doing it in front of a crowd. Bonus bonus douche points if there’s a PA system or Jumbotron involved. Remember that Russian guy who hired a filmmaker, makeup artists, actors, and stuntmen and faked his own death in an auto accident to show his girlfriend that “life would have no meaning” without him, and then popped the question (after she freaked out and broke down sobbing, of course)? Yeah, that’s a healthy, not at all emotionally manipulative relationship.
As an antidote, there’s this:
http://the-toast.net/2014/11/06/women-rejecting-marriage-proposals-western-art-history/
Yes, and you would know, wouldn’t you, Bill?
How’s your feminist wife, BTW?
@contrapangloss *saxophone player fistbump* Let’s form a horridly unliveable commune.
MRA’s are the kind of men who are bitter because they drank the full cup of Patriarchal Koolaid that says, white men are the kings of the earth and if a white man follows the script and still can’t meet any of the qualifications that have been laid out, then they’re a complete loser. Never mind that just like with women, they get sold a bunch of lies that very few people can attain and once you attain them, you get vilified for doing so.
If they swallowed the lies and then followed the rules and life still didnt work out for them, then they can’t possibly blame themselves. After all, they followed all the rules. Never mind the fact that the rules are a bunch of bullshit that such men never bothered to question. They also don’t tell men that if they follow the rules and by every criteria a considered to have done the whole White male thing successfully, they will end up being hated by all the people they trampled over while following the rules. So it’s be successful but hated and soulless or just be one of life’s losers.
Feminism is not to blame for those lies.
@ikeke35: QFT
@ GrumpyOldMan, there’s a quote I’ve seen floating around: “Boys want good girls who will be bad just for them. Girls want bad boys who will be good just for them.”
Obviously it’s a simplification, but I think it’s a fairly accurate explanation for both the fuss among a lot of men for inexperienced virgin girls and why some women seem drawn to bad men compared to MRA biotruths: it’s NOT that men want good women and women want bad men, but there’s a corruption/redemption angle at play and an appeal to personal ego (when my dad gave me the “stay away from bad boys” talk, incidentally, he actually brought this up: he called it the “rescuer fantasy”)