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.
—
My previous post on the Germanwings Flight 9525, and one “manospherean’s” appalling response to it, can be found here.
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Our Femcommunazi Overlord Katie did not tell
meus about this new hashtag.It absolutely is our business, when the prevailing definition of masculinity causes harm to women (and men) by giving men the message that men’s value lies in being socially dominant, sleeping with as many women as possible, and never expressing weakness or uncertainty (because that’s “girly” and therefore “bad”). Those insidious messages affect women directly, especially when some men translate them into abuse and violence in an effort to maintain control.
So yeah, we do have a stake in redefining violence and denigration of women as unacceptable. Men don’t live in a bubble.
Would you have told the civil rights movement that it’s none of their business how white people think?
Oh, Robert, Robert. It’s spelled “tüou2w”. The 2 is silent.
I adore the fact that two and a half hours after the first flounce, he was still here, with additional flounces in between. Oh, and Paul, if you’re not a member of the MRM, then that’s because you’re a muppet, because it’s pretty obvious where every last one of your talking points are from.
PUAs and MRAs are not allied formally, it’s true; however, they both derive their particular flavors of bullshit from the same faulty assumptions about women. That’s why we use the term ‘manosphere’. Do you get it now, nubbins?
Also, I’d like to submit a formal motion that Paul now be required to spell “to” as “ydwwwdrffddd”, which I’m reliably informed is the proper Gaelic spelling.
Again with the “feminists support male infant circumcision” argument, I’d like to see some evidence to back that up for once. Somehow i don’t think it’s feminists who are in the way of that getting abolished.
“If you guys are still clutching to the belief that PUA and ‘alpha male’ type orgs are still part of the MRM/MRHM I can’t really help you as you have pretty huge blinders on. Most ‘MRM’s’ think these guys are full of shit.” -Appalling Paul
“If you actually believe modern feminism stops at that, you are fooling yourself.” -Paul, puling again
Note the cognitive dissonance. You demand that we separate the Manosphere into neat little piles like “PUAs” and “MRAs” but you then, in practically the same breath, lump all feminism into a monolith so that you can pretend that equal rights advocates are identical to the likes of Valerie Solanas. Your bogus ingenuousness strains my equanimity!
Anybody else playing bingo? So far I have “I love women,” “I’m an egalitarian,” “women are paid more than men!” and “incredible verbosity.” To Paul’s credit he hasn’t called anyone a “Female” yet, which gives me mixed feelings since claiming that square would boost my chance of victory.
Flying Mouse, he has done the calling someone “Honey” thing. And the “I’m just going to assume this person is a girl and must be a women’s studies major” thing.
It’s such a joy to be called bee vomit.
Quite endearing, really.
Oh, it’s so close contrapangloss! So close, and so condescending. But I must win this troll bingo honorably.
Ah, but you have to remember–not placing men front and center of any discussion is misandry. So, for instance, talking about FGM, which results in frequent, life-altering maiming and scarring, without giving at least as much time to cosmetic male infant circumcision, which is about as harmful to the male population as douching is to the female population (ie, both are utterly unnecessary in 99.X% of the cases, have a slight chance of causing genuine trauma, and are mainly the result of patriarchal attitudes towards the human body and bad science), is de facto oppression of men–just the same as if women were running around with machetes and hunting down the 1-in-5 American men who haven’t been circumcised.
@Spindrift
I’m a feminist and I’m against circumcision of all kinds unless it’s medically necessary. Sharp things near gentials aren’t really a thing that should be done without consent of the gential haver, at the very least.
@Paul: If Elam in fact cared about men and boys THE LEAST he could do would be to put some links to relevant organizations/helplines. He hasn’t done that. Actually he has made it perfectly clear that his idea about “activism” is simply yelling on the net. Period.
I respect that, Flying Mouse.
I’ve been playing too, and I’m trying to decide if Honey is an appropriate synonym for cupcake.
Also if #teamharpy = Feminism is close enough to Jezebel = Feminism…
The underlying notion is pretty much identical, but honor!
I’m going to point out that this is the default attitude of, like, every feminist I’ve ever encountered online or in person when the subject came up, at least with respect to Western society. (There’s evidence that male infant circumcision has long-term health benefits in Third World nations, especially in regions that lack either ready access to condoms or water needed for proper hygiene. Obviously, the long-term solution there is to increase access to both, and education accordingly, however, in the short term, MIC seems to be capable of saving millions of men’s lives, specifically, so one would think the MRM would be all in favor of that, right?)
Also, ‘why aren’t feminists fighting for men’s rights?’ with the whole circumcision thing. I think Paulie’s taking a lack of very visible, tangible activism in that area as tacit approval. But of course, we’re not to do that with the MRM because all that’s needed for activism is to speak out, right?
I’m so close, but so doomed. He’s never going to give me the “feminism is chivalry” square, is he?
@freemage
Yeah, in my experience, typically it’s the people that don’t associate with feminism (or oppose it) that really try to sell the benefits of it. I think that has to do with more wanting “traditional values” to be upheld than actively oppressing men.
Jackie:
The most common argument I see advocating for MIC comes from fathers obsessed with wanting their son’s penis to resemble theirs. If that’s not, like, the ultimate manifestation of Patriarchy….
@freemage
That…what? That’s just a really flimsy excuse for it. It bet it’s more like, “Make his penis look like mine so we don’t have to talk about how my penis is different than his.”
@contrapangloss – The cards are almost three years old, so I think some leeway might be order. I think honey and cupcake interchangeable, and he did bring up Jezebel so that he could defend AVfM’s “satire.”
Aside from that, troll bingo is a great exercise in “the more things change, the more things stay the same.” Three years and the trolls are still hitting most of the same notes? That’s sad.
“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.”
Why are you lying? This is a blatant lie, and you clearly know it as you make no attempt to justify the assertion with evidence or even a reasoned argument. So put up or shut up. Evidence or withdraw this, and being central to the post withdraw the entire thing.
Is Paul actually Elam, or is it just a coincidence a la Christopher and John Allman?
Also, because she just can’t remember – trauma fucks with memory like that, even without the alcohol and date rape drugs that so many rapists rely on.
Ah, the old “Feminism hasn’t solved all problems ever for men, and therefore must be RESPONSIBLE for said problems” notion.
Holds just about as much water as suggesting that, because whale hunting still happens, feminists must HATE whales and actively arrange for the expeditions, because otherwise they would have used their omnipotent abilities to put a stop to it.
Just because a movement doesn’t address ALL injustices doesn’t mean that they approve of/ perpetuate said injustices (though it is possible that they are, see: feminism’s history with racism and women/people of colour, but there needs to be more than just the EXISTENCE of said injustices to prove they’re involved in it), they’re just focusing their attentions on other causes.
@ catalpa
“feminists must HATE whales …..”
Wow, my solipsism is kicking in; that’s such a weird synchronicity. Just in the middle of a discussion with two friends on that very point. I’d posted something to a very ‘radfem’ friend about Kinessa Johnson (an animal rights activist). Said friend made some interesting points about a ‘disconnect’ between animal rights activists and feminism, such as the ‘objectification of women by PETA’. One of my other friends chipped in. She’s hardcore Sea Shepherd and her view was you couldn’t be a feminist if you weren’t into animal rights (a sort of cross species intersectionality point)
[The coincidence being Friend 2 *was* making the “what’s feminism done for whales?” point!]
Rich, so you didn’t read the rest of the post, huh?
“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.”
This point has been made and proven with overflowing buckets of evidence hundreds of times here. You can’t just walk in here and ask that we prove our basic points every. single. post. We don’t need to prove this matter to every random hostile visitor ad nauseum. It would be extremely repetitive and boring to all of us.