I‘ve often pointed out, as many others have noticed as well, that the so-called Men’s Rights movement does pretty much nothing to help men in any practical way.
MRAs complain that there are no domestic violence shelters for men, but they (with literally one exception that I know of) aren’t willing to do the work necessary to actually set up such shelters. They point out the truly horrifying numbers of rapes in prison, but they don’t actually work with groups trying to stop rape and other forms of sexual abuse in prison — nor do they try to fight against “the war on drugs” and other policies that put an astounding number of young men of color in prison. I could go on and on and on with more examples, but you get the idea.
Well, it turns out that the Men’s Rights movement’s utter failure to help men in any practical way isn’t a bug; it’s a feature. At least according to PAul Elam, head cheese at A Voice for Men and probably the most visible and influential man in the movement.
In a post on AVFM earlier this week, an obviously angry Elam took aim at what he described as a “wave” of “concern trolls” — there were two of them — trying to suggest that the Men’s Rights movement needs to do more than talk.
Elam disagrees. Essentially appointing himself not just A but The Voice for Men’s Rights, he declared:
You want to know what this movement is about? It is very, very simple in my opinion. The MHRM I envision is about one simple thing. Talking without fear or capitulation.
Seriously. That is it. It is about nothing more than people talking to each other, openly and freely, in a world that does not want them to.
Huh. I’m pretty sure something like that already exists. It’s called “the internet.” As much as you enjoy doing it, Paul, you’re not the first person to come up with the idea of yelling at women on the internet.
Anyway, what about, you know, lobbying the government for redress of your grievances? Elam says no, declaring that what he perversely calls the Men’s Human Rights Movement
is not about passing a Violence Against Men Act or any other form of government reliance on justice and personal liberty. I, Paul Elam, am not running for office. I don’t give a fudgsicle or a rat’s ash who likes me and who doesn’t. I am not looking for a men’s rights parade on Men’s Rights Victory Day in Washington, D.C. …
Neither I nor AVFM has a legislative agenda, nor any politicians to endorse, nor lobbying to accomplish because none of that is of any value in a society that still refuses to accept reality.
What about the idea of setting up shelters or raising money for men’s health or something, anything, that might help troubled men? Again, Elam says no.
There are no plans to form a committee for research for testicular cancer or to build a men’s shelter. AVFM does not have a program to reform family courts.
But what about all the stuff you talk about in your mission statement? You know, like getting rid of rape shield laws, “dispens[ing] with child support except in special circumstances,” making paternity tests “mandatory on demand by any alleged father at any time.”
Sure, if you look at our mission statement you will see many items that will require political and judicial remedy to ultimately accomplish. That, however is not our job at AVFM to accomplish directly.
I suppose that’s just as well, given that most of AVFM’s demands are backwards and ridiculous.
If Elam and his followers just wanted to run an online publication rather than an activist group, that would certainly be their right. But unfortunately their idea of “talking without fear or capitulation” includes libeling and doxing and harassing their opponents.
That’s a form of “activism,” I suppose, but it has a lot more in common with the strategies of those who oppose human rights than it does with the strategies of those actually trying to protect human rights.
Thank you for explaining Isidore13. I understand now. 🙂
It was pretty nice of feminist HQ to assign a Katie to each of us.
My feminist friend Katie is on holiday at the moment. As per the Terms and Conditions agreement the Feminist HQ made me sign, I have to give her 30 days of paid leave a year. Not sure whether to be annoyed at FemHQ or the EU about that. (There’s always reason to be annoyed at the EU though).
On other, lighter news, today is a very nice day for me. 😀 I’ve made good money in sales this week, the weather is sunny again which always picks up my mood, and I’m on my way to the wedding of my good friend.
I also had a dream the other night that someone had invented a robot cat that looked, sounded and acted like a real cat, but it didn’t excrete, eat, drink or get sick and die, and it’s behaviour was modified so that it was hyper responsive to human body language, didn’t destroy things, didn’t get pissy and scratch and bite people, got along with other cats and only went outside in good weather. In other words, the perfect cat. It even had an OFF switch so you could go away for a long weekend and not worry about getting a cat sitter.
Please someone make this robo-kitty a thing.
It must be incredibly expensive to provide a place where men can safely be assholes without fear of reprisal.
Bullies are so often marginalized in our society,
Typical Menz Rightzers — all talk, no activism.
But hey, at least Paulie is right about one thing: No one wants to hear him talk. Honestly, if I never heard another squeak out of him, I’d be happy as a proverbial clam.
@ sunnysombrera
“There’s always reason to be annoyed at the EU though”
At the risk of sounding a bit UKIP; it is down to the EU that there’s VAT on tampons.
Sitting on hashtags waiting for the opportunity to call a woman a stupid c*nt is not activism. Treating every word a woman writes online as an act of aggression that you simply cannot let stand is not activism.
My 7yr daughter had a friend over last night. Her sweet, shy little friend publishes creepy pastas on Deviant Art. How long do you think it will be for these guys to find her and girls like her and start terrorizing them? Does anyone actually believe that men who think they should be able to rape 12 yr olds wouldn’t harass or threaten one online?
Now Elam is buddying up to the PUAs? I’m glad he finally admitted that bunch of shittastic lonely in the pants creeps with the collective wit of a bag of door knobs were part of his target audience.
These are men who claim that the best way to be the world’s greatest lover is to insult a woman then hump her like a dog and get off. That literally sounds like the worse lay ever. That is the kind of unfortunate event you commiserate with your friends about over coffee. It’s a sad waist of a night out, the kind that you can’t believe you shaved your legs for. A friend of mine once described sex with one man as being so bad that she almost left without finding her Victoria’s Secret panties. The worst lovers were afterwards described as being panty abandoningly bad. These guys are worse than that. They’re harassers, abusive bullies and rapists. I cannot believe there are men gullible enough to take advice from them.
That’s what PUAs are. It’s such sours grapes. Not a man among them could attract a woman by simply being comfortable, charming and witty. Not one of them is brave enough to be honest or vulnerable. They certainly do not know how to play a woman’s body like a violin.
Plenty of men are swoon-worthy. These are not those men. Anyone who would take advice from them is a fool.
*worst* Oops.
Well ranted, Lea.
And then, to add insult to injury, they keep those undies as trophies. UGH!
But they had meeting that one time and everything…
Well they did have their “rape culture doesn’t exist” meeting at KSU yesterday. No word yet on how that went.
Oh come on, is all of that so surprising? Bitching and expecting others to do everything for them is totally an MRA thing.
I’m still puzzling over the need for a space for men to talk freely to each other because the world does not want them to.
I see men out everywhere: at bars sitting chatting, drinking beer, watching “the game”, playing trivia, shooting pool…. in my neighborhood showing off their gizmos (leaf and snow blowers)… at work hanging out complaining about work. I know men who have poker nights and game nights.
I don’t have a problem with a blog or forum existing for the sole purpose of giving people a place to complain about the aspects of life that suck, but I don’t get how they can say “the world doesn’t want them to” say anything.
I also don’t get how “complain on the internet” = “raise awareness about men’s problems”. Groups like White Ribbon don’t just post hashtags, they have workshops and give talks.
I’ve been wondering for a while how a bunch of Randian super-individualists who see any kind of collective activism as a Commie plot expect to change society. Now I have my answer. They will throw individual Randian temper tantrums until other people change society for them.
And they really do think they invented yelling at women. The whole post is Paul patting himself on the back for forming the first group of men in “3,000,000 years of human evolution” who have ever yelled at women, and for the incredible bravery of his yelling. Also, yelling is really, really hard. You have no idea, what with being a non-MRA and thus never having yelled.
Naturally, the comments under this pean to free speech without fear are full of people getting banned.
I will humbly suggest that we start calling them men’s rights yaktivists.
Or even men’s rights yakety-saxtivists.
@Scarlettathena:
It’s pretty simple, really.
1. Get together and make a website that claims men are opressed and women are evil.
2. Get complaints, criticisms, and anger at your odious bullshit arguments.
3. Claim that because people openly criticized the website you put together, that must mean they don’t want you to speak.
It’s not like they formed the website in response to anything except maybe realizing people in public don’t like it when you call women “bitches.” It’s just a kind-of circular post-hoc justification for their continued existence. Also, pretend the anger is at your oganization and the existence of your speech, not at the content.
My favorite comment is the one comparing MRAs to Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X. I’m not sure which one they fancy Elam to be like, but either way, no. Nope. Nope. Nope.
We need more referrants for good and evil… Seems like everyone’s either MLK or Hitler. Poor Alex Jones, in that latest video, had to sit and for a number of seconds on how to describe Femists, and could only come up with “super-nazis.” This world deserves a larger moral scale!
BTW, wasn’t Malcolm X basically the living embodiment of everything the MRAcists despise about black people? Since when are they using comparisons to him as a compliment?
@sunnysombrera:
I second this. But, I also saw Big Hero 6 recently, and I just want Baymax to be a thing. Baymax could do so much good for so many people with anxiety disorders, or elderly folks who want to be independent, or people with autism…so many good uses. *u*
Scarlettathena | March 14, 2015 at 10:49 am
Ah, you see, it’s not that we don’t want “them” (as in all men) to speak, it’s that we don’t want Paulie and his goons specifically to speak their vile bile, which in their eyes, is just as bad as not wanting men (as in all men) to speak at all.
By telling them they can’t call women “bitches”, we’re denying them their first amendment rights, even though we aren’t the government and we aren’t arresting them or punishing them in any way for “speaking their minds”, those of us in the US are just exercising our first amendment rights to tell them to shut up Woody.
Y’know, ignoring the fact that in the US, our government is made of mostly old sexist white dudes like Paulie. No representation for men, nope. No siree.
Neither does any other rational individual, I’d imagine. It’s only fair that they be quarantined to their little corner of the net, to protect the rest of us who want to use the ‘net in peace.
But what they’re whining about is that we’re not accepting what they’re saying without any sort of critical thought or discourse. Paulie and his goons don’t want just to speak, they want what they say to be accepted as fact without question. The tantrum comes in when we dare to say “Maybe women aren’t bitches, and maybe you’re being a bit melodramatic”.
But…people can SEE them on the internet, and they don’t have to do anything that way! That’s activism, right? [/sarcasm]
Yeah, that’s like someone who’s worked in a car wash their entire working lives and who cooks with a microwave trying to open a restaurant because they saw McDonald’s do it, and hey, they’re doing great!
kirbywarp | March 14, 2015 at 12:11 pm
Since it was convenient for them as white men to use as a “see I’m not racist!” shield.
@Kirbywarp and Paradoxical Intention
I have noticed a lot of people in recent years getting self-righteous and screaming about their first amendment rights when someone raises their index finger and says “Hey, wait a minute, that might not be right…” or “I don’t agree with you about X” or “You might want to rethink your position” or “You do know that your comments mean you are a racist/sexist/xenophobe/bigot”.
First off, I think a lot of people are confused about what the first amendment is.
I say, go ahead and have whatever ignorant opinion you want to have. Just don’t have it out loud to me. I’m not having it.
Second, there is a lot of bad faith out there: “I know being a racist/sexist/xenophobe/bigot is bad, and I *feel* that I am the most excellent of people, so I can’t be bad, so whatever racist/sexist/xenophobic/bigoted thought I’m having must not be truly racist/sexist/xenophobic/bigoted.”
And finally, with MRAs in general, I think there’s a lot of “my life isn’t perfect and having a dick between my legs has not brought me infinite happiness and women draping themselves all over me, so therefore I suffer more than anyone and am not truly privileged, ergo I am oppressed, ergo teh wimmins iz teh evilz.”
Elam on the other hand is a scam artist pandering to this crew and hoovering up their sweet sweet donations while pretending to be caring and all activisty.
@Hambeast
I like the yacktivist!
This needs to be a video. Stat. Wish I knew how to do it; I can just see a mashup of mra rants sped up to that song!