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.
Terrorists? No. Even that is giving then more credit than they deserve. Terrorists have a goal and a cause. Their hatred and destruction is directed toward some twisted end, but they can at least articulate what that end is.
MRAs? They’re too lazy, cowardly, and incoherent to be terrorists. More like harassers. Stalkers. Misogynists. Abusers. Creeps.
@Delphi
Well, the #GamerGater who threatened to shoot up that school if Anita went through with her appearance there definitely counts as a terrorist.
Misogynist site warning. One to put on the ‘hate site’ watch list, though I am not sure how to do this..
Now this is one to watch out for. Lindsey purports to be an intellectual and,on some subjects (certan world affairs,, history, etc) there are some very good articles and posts.
https://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/
However, you also get reams of misogyn (and anti-gay/TG stuff). Here is just one statement by him: “idiot saveaho fag white knight mangina girlie boys ”
Sample of recent blog topics:
“How Women Ruined rae Law on California University Campuses”
“”How Female Rule Destroys Society: Examples from the West”
“Why Female Rule Always Fails”
“Male Rule Is Necessary for Functional Civilization”…more on this below.
“Some People Need to Be Terrorized into Acting Good” ..also more on this below.
“On Adult Male – Teenage Girl Sex”
“The Enigma of Female Pain Freaks”
“Teenage Girls Are Dangerous”
Expansion:
(1) “Male Rule Is Necessary for Functional Civilization”
“These bitches are out of control. Honestly, they need to be put in their place. No female on Earth has a right to treat a male this way. Women must defer to men! I do not believe they must be nice to us, but no way do women have a right to openly aggress against and declare war on male strangers who are apparently doing nothing wrong.
In a society where women know their place, no woman will ever engage in the behavior described above because patriarchy will land hard on her ass if she did. Patriarchal societies are terrible for women in many ways, agreed, but in a patriarchal society, one will almost never see this sort of thing. Women there tend to live in terror of men to a certain extent and any woman acting wildly out of line like this is going to generate a serious response from the patriarchy. I have no idea what that response might be, but it might not be pretty.
There is something else about a patriarchal society and that is that slams into women’s head that it is mandatory for them to be deferential towards us males. We are much powerful than they are and can damage or kill them in a heartbeat so deference makes sense anyway if only for pragmatism.”
In the comments are (if you can stomach it he says:
“I am not superior. Males are not superior to females. Men are not better than women. What ever gave you the idea that this is my position?”
And in response to a female commenatoator taking him to task:
She said: “I’ve been verbally harassed/sworn at by ‘feral, untamed’ men (especially teenaged boys) in the US & other ‘patriarchal’ societies for no other reason than being female & within earshot. I’ve had my hair pulled, my ass grabbed, my bra strap snapped, along with LOUD & DETAILED offers to sexually assault me in various manners by these sorts of assholes too.”
He replies: “Ok well this is lamentable, but is it illegal? You see Female Rule wants to make this stuff illegal. Under Male Rule, apparently this is not illegal yet. I am very sorry that you had to put up with this shit, but this is sort of a price you pay to life in a free society. Men harass women in all societies. There is not a lot you can do about it other than proscribe the behavior. However, under Extreme Patriarchy, many women say they are left alone.”
(2) “Some People Need to Be Terrorized into Acting Good” . Some Comments by the ‘intellectual’:
“What those bitches have done is what I call declaring war. They have declared war on you. People do not declare war on me very often, but when they do, I might counterattack, and it’s not a pretty picture.
I am basically a psycho, and I am very proud of this.”
“Also some idiot saveaho fag white knight mangina girlie boys took the bitches’ side and were almost challenging me to fight. I complained to top management about the saveaho mangina fag who kept trying to start fights with me, and I got the sonofabitch fired from his job.”
“When people do stuff like that to me, my personality transforms, and now I am “Ted Bundy Lindsay,” and my enemies better look out. I don’t really do anything to my enemies, but I just go into my “serial killer” personality which is just an acting role I play as I have never done anything like that nor do I wish to.
But I can play it very well and people have told me that a lot of people say they are really scared of me when I get like that. They supposedly refer to me as “dangerous, creepy, maniac, psycho, criminal, psychopath, predator, nut, kook, scary, etc.” I have been told that some of my enemies are absolutely terrified of me and just want me to go away or get out of their world.
I don’t care about any of this as I generally never hurt my enemies. I just want to scare them. I feel no guilt about this, and if they don’t like it, they should have thought about it before they declared war on me.”
Another thing MRAs complain about without action: men working in dangerous jobs. Meanwhile, there’s been a strike wave in the US over the past month about working conditions at oil refineries. I wonder if the MRAs are doing anything to help, but I’m not holding my breath.
O RLY? Egypt and Saudi Arabia are extreme patriarchies. So are Afghanistan and India. Women are terrorized by men there EVERY FUCKING DAY.
This dude is a moron.
AVFM gave me my most recent banning for being a “concern troll.” My concern? That they connect their movement with someone like roosh. The theme of their next conference is “building bridges” between men and women. Guess what? Bridge build. Whatever. I’m at home with my husband eating cake and watching a Hallmark movie 🙂
Robert Lindsay is an MRA?! NO! Robert Lindsay is a much loved English actor! I think that the real Robert Lindsay could sue for defamation!
Bina, Lindsey’s ‘considered intellectual’ postion is that is ok because males are stronger, more rational and just ‘better’ than females. Hence we just have to ‘suck it up’., ‘price of freedom’.
However when he is harrased by females, gays and all the rest he goes off about it. So if someone ‘stronger/more rational/better’ does it to him then he whines about it.
For example: “How Gay Men Prey on Straight Men”: One endless whine about how he has suffered so much from gays harrasing him.
https://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2015/01/20/how-gay-men-prey-on-straight-men/
So it is ok for him (and other males) to do it to females, but it is so terrible if some (obviously tougher, more rational and better) gay males do it to him.
Total hypocrite .
I just got done reading “On the Enigma of Female Pain Freaks,” where he goes on about how terrible consensual BDSM is. So sexual harassment and child abuse are A-OK with this dude, but if a man brands someone who asks to be branded, “he should check himself into the nearest prison to protect society from his own black heart.”
Note how Lindsey threatens violence, even murder, towards women. Note also how he starts off being general then becomes personal (switching from “we” to “I”):(Highlights by myself)
“Women with a valid complaint may challenge our behavior in public, but this is almost never necessary. Honestly there is no reason for a women to accost a male like this in public.
From the bottom of our hearts we feel that there is something very wrong with this and it is a particularly outrageous and enraging sort of effrontery.
Our reaction is that we want to threaten or menace her, assault her or ****kill her****.
That is how we feel when women do this to us.
****And most men feel the same way I do.****
Just letting you know how we feel when women do this to us.
It is NOT OK.”.
Says the great ‘intellectual’ (who boasts about his high IQ): No man, for any reason whatsover, should be pulled up for their behaviour by a female. If they do then a man wants to murder her (or at least he does).
“idiot saveaho fag white knight mangina girlie boys ”
If I’m going to be a white knight, I feel like I should have a coat of arms emblazoned on a tabard. Someone needs to get on designing that.
“Gay men prey on straight men”? What a joke. Gay men have enough other gay men to hang out with. FABULOUS other gay guys. Why would they want a bunch of belching crotch-scratchers who can barely dress themselves?
And actually, if anyone’s preying on anyone, it’s the straight dudes preying on the gay ones. As bullies, yes, and also as closet cases, proving how “macho” they are by raping an “inferior”, “woman-like” dude. Because everybody knows you’re not gay if you’re the fucker rather than the fuckee. (Or so the RealManLogic™ goes.)
And if they don’t have the nerve or the strength to physically assault a gay guy — because believe it or not, those guys fight back something fierce — well, they just go around pointing fingers and bawling about how all these homo-sex-you-alls keep trying to suck their dicks!
(Meanwhile, the gay guys are all scratching their heads and asking each other who invited the weirdo.)
Same thing goes for the “women who stand up to me have declared war on me” thing. Robby…dude…you’re not important enough for that. You’re just one more non-entity with delusions of adequacy. Even if you parade naked in your tinfoil wiener-wrap, babbling about alien amazons out to kidnap your beleaguered testicles, no one is even gonna touch you. They will just quietly back away and let the police take care of it.
Logic does not appear to be a strong point in his argument (despite his claimed high IQ).
Lets parse it, firstly the base logic:
– Bad treatment initiated by group A to group B is ok.
– Group B must not complain about it, because complaining is actually bad treatment by group B to A and that is NOT ok.
– Bad treatment initiated by group B to A is NOT ok.
– Bad treatment initiated by group C to A is also NOT ok.
Then the rational behind this logic is:
The reason why group B must not complain by bad treatment by group A (or initiate bad treatment to them) is because: “Our reaction is that we want to threaten or menace her, assault her or ****kill her****.”. (Emphasis mine).
But what about Sage who is like totally activisming all over the place with his sticker non-vandalism? Not that a man in need of shelter can live under one of their stickers.
It seems like an awful lot of effort to achieve, well, absolutelt nothing.
*absolutely
Once again the misogynists spout the most misandry. Why am I not surprised?
Oh God that Lindsey’s post on rape law at universities is short but awful.
The comments are worse. They’re ALWAYS worse…according to one dude rape laws on campuses are equivalent to a Stalinist police state.
Oh he gos on and on about predatory, depraved gays. And how TGs are just extreme gay males and lesbians.
But his hypocrisy is amazing: using my group A & B & C examples as above:
Then the rational behind this logic is:
(1) The reason why group B must not complain about bad treatment by group A (or initiate bad treatment towards them) is because: “Our reaction is that we want to threaten or menace her, assault her or ****kill her****.”. (Emphasis mine).
(2) Hence Group A is claiming violence as the reason for their privileged position over B.
(3) However with Group C, some of whom are just as good at violence, (“..threatened to beat me up for not joining in the faggy fun and games”) bad treatment is not ok because it makes Group A feel bad or even fearful (“I am pretty afraid of most of these people.”).
This is a classic quote of all time:
“Have you considered that might be how women feel around “masculine” straight males?
***I could care less how women feel around straight males. Why should I care?****”
His anti-gay stuff is endless and about how badly they have harrased and sexually propostioned him.
“If I have a gay or bi man significantly in your life to the point where I am hanging around with him either alone or as part of a group, he is going to try to fuck me at some point. 100% guarantee. Usually they will try to do this immediately.”
“I had a gay boss once who looked at me like I was a sirloin steak, sexually harassed me and fired me when I wouldn’t suck his dick.”
“Then he may offer you a job. My friend was offered a job and a place to stay by a degenerate gay. Everything was so cool until about a month into the job when the hammer came down – degenerate gay said you either fuck me or you’re fired.”
He uses using the words ‘degenerate’ and ‘depravity’ over and over:
“At any rate, he was certainly coerced into homosexual sex. It turned out that he eventually liked it, but so what? He still got more or less raped into it as initiation. Without getting raped into gay sex, he may have stayed straight for the rest of his life and retained his dignity instead of degenerating into depravity like that.”
“My personal opinion is that while there do appear to be quite a few decent acting gay men, a lot of gay men simply act very bad. They have no morals whatsoever when it comes to sex. In the sexual arena, it is anything goes, and they are frankly depraved degenerates with nearly no morals or values whatsoever. Sexual psychopaths, if you will. Psychopathic when it comes to sex.”
Interesting comment (watching gay videos?):
“Anyway I have recently seen some videos recently about gay themes such as barebacking, the gay porn industry and bugchasing. A lot of the young men in those videos looked very happy, and I was surprised that many of them were not even slightly effeminate. ”
And how would he know?
“There is a lot of unhealthy stuff in that community, and gay men are the kinkiest humans in the universe. Fisting is asinine. Bug-chasing is lunacy.”
Poor person, being treated like an average female ..you almost feel sorry for him,,,,….**irony**
And this I love: “My last gf accused me of lacking empathy”….Really, I wonder why?
Lindsey’s ‘logic’ gets better and better, though sophistry would be techncially a more accurate description..
He even manages to argue himself into the postion that unjust patriachial societies are because of ” female thinking “:
See his later comments in this post:
https://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2015/03/14/why-female-rule-always-fails/
“The problem in South Asia is you have a system where men are putting in a system that values Emotion over Logic. This is female thinking. The problems here are that these men do not value reason over emotion as they should. Also they are evil-minded and are not fair to others in society, especially their women. These societies are run by bad men who run society based on feelings over reason.”
“Granted many male dominated and patriarchal cultures can be pretty fucked up. India is a good example. In India both males and females value emotion over logic. ”
So you have bad societies are because of valuing “Emotion over Logic” and this is ‘female thinking’, therefore females cause patriarchies(?).
Then we have this howler:
“Nope. Western women don’t. Western women are ****just**** women. They value emotion over logic like any females anywhere.” (my emphsis).
So only these wonderful western “Logic over Emotion’ males are right?
But also he said earlier, so I am getting confused.
“Men are the same all over the world. The embody the male principle everywhere on Earth and it does not vary much. Women are the same everywhere. They embody the female principle everywhere and if you look around, women are the same all over the world.
This is a male way of looking at the world and a female way of viewing the world. Both are just fine honestly, but the female worldview must be kept the private sphere and cannot be allowed to dominate society or chaos results. As we see in the West: chaos.”
“All societies must be run by men or male values because only men and male values can institute a society based on reason and logic. Women will never put in a society based on reason and logic anywhere on Earth ever because they just don’t think like that.”
But wait a minute, didn’t he say a bit later on the comment that you have male dominated societies that are ‘female thinking’….I am confused.
Then he says:
“Male values are not always better than female values, but for running a society, the best societies are run according to the rules and laws laid down by men, not women.”
Men are so much better then, oh wait a moment::
“Sure the rules of men often involve injustice.”
What about that Injustice thing?
“Women see that and vow to overthrow the injustice. They do it, but only by making themselves the oppressors and men the victims. And they replace injustice with insanity.”
Oh, whew that’s all right then, I was getting worried there, it is clear now everything wrong with any society (including repressive patriachies) is because of …well…females…..And this is because?
“Most women I meet don’t understand women and they don’t understand themselves either. I get the impression that they don’t even know what they are feeling half the time. Women walk through the world in a fugue, half blind.”
However, somehow these ‘half blind’ women manage to get whole societies to follow ‘female thinking’, many with severe patriachies that oppress them. Otherwise how do they end up with this way of ‘female thinking’?
Unless (and dont tell him this because he hasn’t yet thought of it, but give him some time) it must be ‘trannies’ (like me) that cause societies to follow ‘female thinking’.
Yes a secret cabal of us have infiltrated and caused all this.
At the top of every patriachy there must be a ‘tranny’ becuse patriachies are caused by ‘female thinking’ and females are excluded from the top (or anywhere).
Well this is as good a ‘logic’ as he spouts…lol…….
To top it all off and for him to enter the halls of total misogyny with a gold VIP pass: women are not people but “creatures”.
“I have been on this Earth a long time and i understand women pretty well, probably way better than most men. Through decades of observing women, these are my conclusions.
One thing about women is that women don’t even understand women, and most women don’t even understand themselves. Women are not very reflective ***creatures***. Most women have little self-understanding because they have constructed such massive defensive structures utilizing Denial, the favorite female defense.” (my emphasis).
Wow, what an idiot. He seriously thinks that rape from outside one’s own sexual orientation will make a person want MORE of that kind of contact? This guy really has a skewed view of what rape is and what it does to a person. You simply can’t be turned gay by homosexual assault, nor straight by hetero. This guy must be a closet case, because no straight person who is actually secure in their sexual orientation would obsess so much over gay sex. Hell, even gay people don’t obsess over it like that!
And yeah, fancy him prattling over other people’s lack of morals when his own is out there flapping in the breeze like an untucked schlong…
RE: Lisa
When he said, “he is going to try to fuck me at some point. 100% guarantee. Usually they will try to do this immediately.” I was just like, “Honey, don’t flatter yourself.”
RE: Bina
He seriously thinks that rape from outside one’s own sexual orientation will make a person want MORE of that kind of contact?
It’s actually a common rape myth–thus the whole “rape made him gay!” bullshit that causes such agonizing among male survivors of any orientation, and the whole idea of raping lesbians into straightness. It comes from this also bullshit idea that rape is just surprise sex, and sex is fun, ergo, rape will make someone more attracted to people of the rapist’s gender.
I don’t know, Bina. Some of the worst heterosexual misogynist men I’ve encountered seem to be so homophobic more out of a complete failure to realize that people can be sexually attracted to someone they care about, treat with respect, and consider an equal. They are attrated to women, whom they hate and want to abuse, therefore, gay men must (in their minds) hate and want to abuse other men. These guys know they treat women terribly and are OK with that, but they are horrified by the idea of receiving similar treatment.
LBT, I’ve never understood where the ‘rape lesbians straight’ myth came from before. Wow. That’s …well, I have nothing
The new rape laws for California university campuses put in by female lunatics say that men must gain explicit permission for every sex at that they undertake with a women. Want to kiss her? Ask her first. “Can I kiss you?” If she says yes, you may proceed. And so on and so forth escalating along, at each point of escalation, you have to ask permission once again in which case she either says yes or no and if yes, then you proceed.
Ah, that takes me back. This was a popular anti-feminist argument back in the ’90s, when the first “Take Back the Night” rallies started on college campuses. Nice to see it still getting hauled out for every new rape law.
“I have to stop if the other person says no? That’s exactly the same as having to fill out an itemized contract for each individual physical act.”
“I have to make sure the other person is an adult? That’s exactly the same as having to fill out an itemized contract for each individual physical act.”
“I have to make sure the other person is conscious? That’s exactly the same as having to fill out an itemized contract for each individual physical act.”
“What, even if it’s my wife? That’s exactly the same as having to fill out an itemized contract for each individual physical act.”
“Now the other person has to actually want to have sex with me? That’s exactly the same as having to fill out an itemized contract for each individual physical act.”
I would be very wary around someone who thinks of consensual sex as an onerous bureaucratic chore. Even if they’re not a rapist, they’ve got to be crap in bed.