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.
That reminded me of an advice column I saw in the paper this weekend:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/carolyn-hax-stop-thinking-of-dating-as-solely-a-numbers-game/2015/02/05/7d98c3e8-abb5-11e4-ad71-7b9eba0f87d6_story.html
Why so many MRA-types feel frustrated with life: ‘Cause, to them, it’s all about them numbers, baby.
@grumpyoldman
When they were splitting up, my parents went to a family counsellor together so that my dad could learn how to be with his kids when he didn’t have his wife to take on all of the work. He wasn’t a bad person, but parenting requires skill and he had absolutely no practice. Ultimately, their divorce was very typical: it never went to court, they shared legal custody but my mom was the custodial parent the majority of the time.
Somehow I doubt MRAs would approve. They wouldn’t like a woman telling my dad how to parent his kids, and they wouldn’t like that he was paying child support.
Actually, he’s a major failure with every one he’s ever met. Three divorces, of whom two are scared even to talk to a reporter about him, even under fake names? A girlfriend who’s no longer a girlfriend, but with whom he’s still living and mooching off of (for however long, until even she finally gets sick of his shit)? Alienating and driving off supporters of both sexes?
I can guarandamntee you, Bill, that Watermelon Kitty in the picture up there is a bigger hit with women than all MRAsshats combined.
@Buttercup Q. Skullpants
Yes, lets! Bwahahahaha…Ha! Ha, ha! Ha…ha…
*looks about: pretends to totally not have been laughing evilly and plotting all the ways to make such a commune horribly unlivable and detrimental to all bass player’s delicate senses — particularly hearing*
My generation of divorced Dads had very few role models to look to; we had to play it by ear. A lot of us just disappeared from our kids’ lives or became “Disneyland Dads” who took kids on expensive outings on visits but were seldom involved in their day-to-day lives. (I myself did not have the choice to be uninvolved since my ex was/is mentally ill and had diminished capacity for parenthood.)
I think that — broadly speaking — men have shown more improvement as parents than as partners. But a lot of them are struggling in the co-parent role, and it is the worst thing you could possibly do to encourage them to blame all their problems on their exes instead of trying to fix their own weaknesses. The only way the MRAs help men is to help them make their dysfunctions worse.
@ Cyberwulf
That reminds me of the day I discovered MRA’s, back in the early 2000’s. I wanted to give a class presentation about issues that affect men, specifically depression and how the concept of manly-manness interferes with men getting help. So I did some Googling and kept coming across these websites that’s were just…like, they’d start off okay, by listing problems men face. And then every single one of them would veer off into these rants about how all of these problems were due to women and feminism and how if you’re a man with any kind of problem at all, there’s got to be an ex-girlfriend or some other woman to blame for it.
As a 19 year old who had never even heard of MRA’s, it’s was bewildering and more than a little disturbing. Tragically/hilariously, most of the articles I managed to dig up that wrote about men’s issues with compassion and understanding were written by women.
Next time you put a quote like “Elam’s a major hit with women to this day” could you warn us, I just sicked a bit of my lunch o_O
“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.
http://i.imgur.com/lqaQ6Kz.jpg
Look at him, he looks THRILLED!
Sorry I meant to quote that but I seem to have misplaced my quotation marks.
@ Who Knows
Thanks a lot! Now I”m going to see those eyes peering at me through the folds of my tulle bed canopy tonight.
http://www.somegif.com/gifs/13596416311057817524.GIF
@fromafar2013 You’re welcome >:P
WTF Price – Still an idiot.
Decent people devote themselves to their kids because they love them. It’s not a matter of personal gain.
Perhaps the reason so many MRAs have custody issues is because they view their children as property, bargaining chips and status symbols rather than as loved ones and human beings.
The blockquote mammoth says “you shall not pass!”
What’s that? Sometimes being a total asshole is easier than being a halfway decent human being? In that case, I guess I renounce feminism forever.
There’s the mythopoetic men’s movement, which apparently was one of the things that re-started the MRA-movement in general during the 90s. They used to be big on teaching men to get in touch with their ancient, natural, and at the same time rather regressive and extremely heteronormative sense of manhood they lost because single mothers stole it.
The overlap is blindingly obvious.
@ParadoxicalIntention:
Nah, MRAs don’t have to ally with feminists. They just have to quit blaming feminism for all their ills. What’s it got them, other than a handy scapegoat and an excuse not to do any actual work to solve their problems?
They should, however, ally with gay and trans groups to ensure that male-only and predominantly-male spaces are safe for gay and trans men.
I’m mentally thanking all three of my parents for not coldly calculating the financial benefits of abandoning us to the snow. Thanks for not being WF Price, parents.
Heh-heh. The blockquote monster got Price.
Who’s still blaming everything on feminism and women.
@ WWTH
“Perhaps the reason so many MRAs have custody issues is because they view their children as property, bargaining chips and status symbols rather than as loved ones and human beings.”
Are you familiar with the “Fathers 4 Justice” lot over here? You’ve described them perfectly.
Being an asshole and blowing your kids off is a guy’s best option from a purely individualist standpoint during divorce. It gives him more leverage in the future should he choose to change his mind, he has all his time to himself, and in many cases he can use it as a ploy to lower and even eliminate child support, especially if the woman decides to remarry and the new husband is pressured to adopt the kids.
Doing one’s best to remain a dedicated father, on the other hand, requires jumping through multiple hoops with parenting evaluators, paying more for the kids due to combined child-support and visitation costs AND so that the mother won’t make nasty allegations of child abuse or whatever, often being forced to change jobs, relocate and/or change one’s schedule to accommodate the mother’s schedule and residential location, deal with the often unpleasant significant other, etc. etc. (These are all things I’ve gone through personally; I’m sure other guys could come up with more to add to the list)
It seems you’re arguing a bit of a tautology here. Yes, dedicated parents put more effort and resources into their children than absentee parents. That’s…kind of the definition of a dedicated parent. I don’t feel that some deadbeat mom is beating me at the game of life because she’s got more time to herself (although admittedly that would be nice).
Are you saying your ex-wife didn’t have to make alterations in her life to accommodate the custody arrangement, or follow schedules, or deal with you being unpleasant?
Yes, it’s annoying that lazy-ass deadbeats like Elam can waltz into their adult children’s lives demanding love and attention (and, inevitably, money) they never lifted a finger to earn. But it’s not true, as you suggest, that a parent who blows the kids off will find it easy to get custody later if they change their mind. Elam didn’t get access to his daughter until she was an adult and chose to have him in her life. And you see how well that worked out.
I guess I should feel like a failure in romance compared to Elam, since I only have the one marriage. Oddly, I don’t. Nor am I surprised that the figurehead of the Men’s Rights Movement turns out to be that relative we all dread getting a call from, the one who always has a sob story and is always working an angle and is a lovely person for exactly as long as it takes to get what they want.
Alan,
No, but we were visited by Mike Buchanan who started an MRA political party in the UK. Eventually he got himself banned because he kept spamming his blog and issuing David various idiotic challenges.
I’ll see if I can find the thread.
@WWTH
THAT Mike Buchanan?? What the hell was he doing here, arguing with online feminists? Didn’t he have more important stuff to do?
I admit that when I first read “he was banned” I thought you meant he’d been kicked out and banned from the UK. Damn. 🙁
Hopefully I linked this correctly. I think he stunk up multiple threads but here’s where he first bumbled over. https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/06/10/the-5-most-ridiculous-things-causing-misogynists-to-lose-their-sht-this-week/comment-page-1/#comment-509132