As the news broke this morning that the Germanwings plane crash may have been a deliberate murder/suicide caused by the flight’s co-pilot, readers of the leading Men’s Rights website A Voice for Men were greeted by a post from site founder Paul Elam titled “A little blood in the mix never hurt a revolution.”
The headline on Elam’s post, a muddled mess that’s mostly a response to recent infighting amongst MRAs, recalls a disturbing post of his from several years ago titled “How to Build a Man Bomb.” (Archived here.)
Ostensibly a warning about the cost of ignoring male rage, it read a lot more like a threat.
[W]e are building a man bomb. And when this one detonates it could make the American race riots [of the 1960s] look like a Thanksgiving Day parade.
The misandric Zeitgeist, the system of feminist governance that most are sill loathe to acknowledge is about to head toward its inevitable and ugly conclusion, and the results of that will inflict another deep wound on the psyche of the western world.
The post continues on for some time in this melodramatic vein:
The ranking members of the matriarchy, like social terrorists, are partnering with and guiding government toward the inevitable explosion, and when it goes off they will be the first to point the finger at men, even at MRA’s, for the fallout.
It won’t help them, though. Because whatever tragic end this comes to, it will not be at the hands of MRA’s, but in spite of our efforts to prevent it.
All this would be a little more believable as a “warning” if Elam and other MRAs didn’t devote most of their energy to cultivating exactly this kind of male anger — and in some cases lionizing those who have acted out this rage.
The problem goes well beyond the few — on the fringe of even the already extreme Men’s Rights movement — who glorify misogyny-driven mass murderers like Marc Lepine or Elliot Rodger. Or those “Red Pillers” who declare that if they were going to kill themselves they would take some woman with them.
No, the problem comes when those in the mainstream of the Men’s Rights movement celebrate men like Tom Ball, a troubled father who set himself on fire on the steps of a New Hampshire courthouse in an attempt, as he explained in a lengthy manifesto, to inspire other men “to start burning down police stations and courthouses” to protest what he saw as a misandrist court system.
He followed this call to arms with instructions on how to prepare effective Molotov cocktails, and a lengthy plea to men to “finish the job” he had started:
There will be some casualties in this war. Some killed, some wounded, some captured. Some of them will be theirs. Some of the casualties will be ours.
Now, nobody wants to get killed. But let us look at your life. You are broke after paying child support. … Face it boys, we are no longer fathers. We are just piggy banks.
So you are not losing anything by picking up the Molotov cocktail. …
I only managed to get the main door of the Cheshire County Courthouse in Keene, NH. I would appreciate it if some of you boys would finish the job for me.
In other words, Ball was a would-be suicide/murderer who hoped others would do the murdering for him.
Ball’s manifesto was posted on AVFM’s “Activism” section for several years, taken down only after the Boston Marathon, and he was widely hailed by others in and around the Men’s Rights movement.
Helen Smith — an AVFM ally, the author of Men on Strike, and the wife of “Instapundit” Glenn Reynolds — wrote that Ball’s
statement is not the ramblings of a madman, it is the mission of a warrior in some sense. He was fighting for his rights and for yours, if you are male. He was trying to bring some urgency to the male plight in this country … .
She somehow neglected to mention that he was trying to do this by urging men to firebomb courthouses and police stations.
It’s striking how often MRA manifestos shade into vague threats of violence. One recent case, of many: Jeremiah True, the MRA-adjacent Reed College student banned from the discussion section of one of his courses after unnerving everyone in the class with his rants on rape, warned in one recent online manifesto that “[i]f you exclude me from the campus, I will rain hell down upon you all.”
True’s melodramatic insinuations of apocalyptic retribution might be amusing if declarations like these didn’t so often precede actual violence.
Unfortunately, when they aren’t making vague threats like these, MRAs are often found offering ingenious excuses for actual murderers. In an online discussion of the case of Chris Benoit, a pro wrestler who killed his wife and his son before hanging himself, AVFM’s Alison Tieman (a.k.a. Typhonblue) suggested that men who kill their families were men “backed into a courner [sic].” In the case of Benoit, she wondered
what horrific thing this woman did to this man to make him snap like this? I know, I know… “blaming the victim”. But I’ve seen too many “victims” grinning and pulling strings in the back ground to really feel sorry for them any more.
Her solution to male murder/suicide?
It’s obvious from this that men need to step away from women and start developing a male society outside of the auspices of women. That way they can support eachother when they get kicked out of female-society.
Murder/suicide isn’t the result of “misandry,” of evil wives “grinning and pulling strings in the back ground,” of men being “kicked out of female society.”
All too often, it’s the result of aggrieved male entitlement, of old-school “macho” attitudes that teach men that any sort of failure (from sexual to financial) is shameful and that anger is the only acceptable emotion to show the world.
Unfortunately, the Men’s Rights movement does nothing to challenge any of these toxic notions, all of them legacies of patriarchal thinking. All too often, MRAs celebrate them, helping to make the world a more difficult place for men, and a more dangerous place for women and children.
Male rage is not part of the solution. It is part of the problem.
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My previous post on the Germanwings Flight 9525, and one “manospherean’s” appalling response to it, can be found here.
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Yeah, what did Chris Benoit’s wife do to him? Huh? Obviously, being in his vicinity as he suffered a breakdown caused by brain damage, early onset Alszheimers, steroids abuse is a crime worthy of death.
It’s that “existing while female” mistake that we women just keep doing. When will the silly females learn??
You are a sick, sick individual to try and utilize the tragedy in germany to put down a group that’s only interested in equal rights for men and boys, drawing flimsy pathetic ties between the two. we know nothing of the pilot, or why he did what he did but you sieze the opportunity to use this tragedy as ammunition in your political cause.
Bette Hopper,
Hells to the yes. You nailed it. They want a way to force women to fuck them. They want to remove our agency altogether. The rape apology they are so fond of makes perfect sense in this context. There is no doubt about it. They want the right to rape and degrade women slaves.
*TRIGGER WARNING*
Ophelia Benson recently wrote an excellent post on the use of the word “married” in headlines about the hundreds of girls kidnapped by the Boko Haram. Those girls were not “married off”. They were kidnapped and continue to be raped and tortured even as I write this. They will be forced into life long servitude and bred like livestock against their will. The same will happen to their daughters and so on down their line. They will never see their families again. They will be forced to teach their sons that women deserve to be tortured. Their chances of dying in childbirth or being forced to live with a vaginal fistula are pretty good. Perhaps the sons they are forced to birth will find their “brides” the same way? Why does the media insist on trying to soften that reality? (It sounds like an MRA utopia.)
It’s hellish. It would be reported as Armageddon if it were happening to white girls in another part of the world. How do our journalists justify downplaying that to a term that makes it sound like the kidnapped girls ran off to Vegas for the weekend rather than the brutal reality of what those girls are trying to survive? It’s extremely, obviously racist and sexiest and our culture accepts it. How can anyone deny patriarchy or racism when it is so clear?
That’s the power of entitlement. Our leaders promote it. Our entertainment reflects and cheers it. Our businesses fund it. Academia is steeped in it. It is reflected in what a woman’s work is worth. I cannot think of any reason for people to be so blind to that reality. How can people defend or ignore something as toxic as patriarchy?
I can’t think of a weapon of mass destruction more dangerous than white male entitlement. Of course these assholes want “feminist” and “liberal” to be bad words.
Edna: Thank you for that wonderful rebuttal to Oh Hi There’s posts. Got it in one.
Paul: You’re a nitwit. David didn’t speculate about what caused the copilot to commit this tragic action; Vox Day did, in a post that echoed a lot of what we see (and have documented on this site) from the group (actually, groups, as you shitstains have a remarkable and entertaining tendency to factionalism) you claim is only interested in ‘equal rights for men and boys’.
He repeated it and used a grab for his headline. As for your analysis of the manosphere, I’m sorry but this site is populated by a bunch of tin foil hat feminists trying to find evil where none really exists. We get it, you don’t like Elam or his style, but continuing to try and paint the MRA movement as some cover for a hate group is just making you all look like idiots to pretty much everyone but yourselves. Please carry on though, I don’t particularly care about your viewpoints, but capitolizing on the tragedy in germany for the sake of a clickthrough headline shows that there is no level fuetrelle will not sink to to maintain his fantasies.
Paul,
What exactly has the MRM done for men and boys? It was just a few days ago that Paul Elam admitted outright that he and AVFM will not do any activism beyond whining in comments sections and bothering people on Twitter. No shelters for male abuse victims. No lobbying to prevent prison rape or improve workplace safety regulations and enforcement. No fundraising drives for suicide help lines or charities to help homeless men. Nothing. Even their internet activism does nothing to help change the culture that tells guys they can’t express emotion or be vulnerable. In fact, they reinforce that toxicity.
Piss off.
AVFM is a blog, not the headquarters of gender equality. The only thing they need to do is keep blogging. Plenty of the things you suggest we do are done. Unfortunately they are met with accusations of ‘hate group’ and protests and zero government funding do to pro-feminist lobbying .. Anyways, I’m not interested in an argument about the MRM, there is no changing the opinions of the extremists on this site and I’ll just be met with insults.
This headline is morally reprehenisble, and if you don’t think it is, YOU are part of the problem with the modern left/feminist/SJW movement.
Good day.
Trying to find evil where none exists? Holy shit where do I start. What about JBs idea that women who have a child without a man’s permission should be criminalised? Elam’s repeated excuses or even endorsement for violence against women? Roosh’s claim that rape on private property should be legal? The movements insistence that most rapes are false claims? In fact, where do I stop??
Elam’s endorsement of violence against women. Lol. Are you still referring to that satirical article written as a response to Jezebel’s ‘let’s beat up our boyfriends’ article? Come on, get real.
Roosh is an idiot, and JB just writes to get a rise out of people like you. And you fall for it *every* *single* *time*.. Meanwhile, I’m going to go read Jessica Valenti’s latest — ‘violence against men isn’t a thing, but if it was it’d be totes ok’.
yawn
Paul is like Woody’s chatty older brother.
Paul,
Please provide me of one thing an MRA or anyone else for that matter that was done to help men which was labeled hate or protested by feminists.
It has to be something done to actually help men. Not something done to preserve male privilege at the expense of women.
If AVFM is only a blog, perhaps they should stop calling themselves human rights activists? Just a thought.
And how does JB calling women whores and saying inflammatory things to get a rise out of feminists help men?
i’m not discussing this further — the people on this site don’t want a discussion, they want to cherry pick data, make illogical arguments and ridicule anyone who doesn’t agree with them.
How much of AVFM have you actually read? I’m talking about Paul’s Bash a Violent Bitch month, as in, beat the snot out of a woman. This is bad but seems even worse when you see his reaction to the YouTube video where a man sucker punches his girlfriend in the head after backing her into the TV. The girl tries to push him away and merely presses his chest, when the dude punches her. Elam blamed the woman of course, saying that it was “consequences” for her “raging bull” action of trying to push the bf away. Which means that to Elam, ANY physical act against a man deserves serious violence.
Then there is his “moral of the story” short story where a man goes to an abuser therapy group, recalls breaking the nose of his cheating wife and another member or even the leader, I can’t remember, says “she deserved the ass kicking of a lifetime”.
“I’m talking about Paul’s Bash a Violent Bitch month, as in, beat the snot out of a woman” which was a satirical response to a Jezebel article. As described IN THE FIRST LINE OF THE ARTICLE.
Oh my god.
“Pubisher’s note: This article, originally published on October 22, 2010, is a satirical response to a piece that appeared on the feminist site Jezebel (“Have you Ever Beat Up a Boyfriend? Because, Uh, We Have“) and to common media “jokes” about women physically assaulting men and boys.”
Like REALLY. we laid this issue to rest 5. years. ago.
Paul,
Do people actually take like that seriously where you come from?
MRA is a cult and Paul Elam is trying so hard to be its Thulsa Doom.
Also, you’re a misogynist asshole. Contemplate that on the Tree of Woe.
“shit like that’
Oops
Would you like to address the other two things, Paul? Because ignoring them won’t make my point go away.
Also 0/10 on the flounce.
its hard to stay away when confronted with so much stupid sombrera.
is mysogynist like, just the go to insult for anyone who thinks this opinions on this site are full of shit? because i love women, all of them. except for the ones who embrace misandry and third wave feminism, of course.
and i don’t even hate those ones, i just feel pity that they view reality through such warped lenses.