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Men’s Rights Redditors unimpressed by A Voice for Men’s conference speakers, appalled by the cost

A Voice for Men's upcoming conference has it all!
A Voice for Men’s upcoming conference has it all!

So it turns out that I’m not the only one who is thoroughly underwhelmed by A Voice for Men’s lineup of conference speakers for their upcoming International Conference on Men’s Issues, By Which They Mean How Men Are Oppressed By Women’s Sexy Butts. 

Over on the Men’s Rights subreddit, some of the regulars are complaining that AVFM is delivering much less than it did last year, for a much higher price — with ticket prices running a steep $650, currently discounted to the high. high price of $399.

Yep, attendees of the conference will be paying as much as $650 just to get in to the event, not counting the cost of airfare, hotels, or even food at the conference itself.

They could easily end up paying more than $1000 for the privilege of watching Elam and a bunch of his AVFM cronies blather on about the same crap they blather on about in countless hour-long videos available for free on YouTube. The only “big name” in the mix is Warren Farrell, whose fame as a Men’s Rights advocate peaked maybe twenty years ago.

As fundude1 put it:

The lineup looks terrible with just Elam, Golden, Palmitier and Farrell.

Both Golden and Palmitier really bring nothing to the table. They are both psychologists (like Elam and Farrell) and are UNKNOWN.

Is it churlish of me to point out that neither Elam or Farrell are actually psychologists?

There is no diversity at ALL among the people in terms of academic backgrounds, general popularity, etc.

Last year’s conference had a much more broad array of characters that had FAR more popularity in general.

Fundude1’s outrage meter went further into the red after he discovered how much the whole thing was going to cost.

But he wasn’t the only one upset by the underwhelming lineup and overwhelming cost.

To take just one example: therock6658, a Men’s Rights subreddit regular with considerable sympathy for AVFM, wrote a long and mournful comment lamenting “the fact that AVFM is … half-assing this whole event.”

I hate to say this but I was looking forward to this announcement for months when Elam stated that he was going to put the tickets on sale for the second of April, but once they went on sale and I looked at the roster, it ultimately turned me off to the entire men’s rights movement.

Yep, that’s right: AVFM has bungled their conference so badly he’s reconsidering his support for the entire Men’s Rights movement. 

Considering the price, he added, “it just does not look good for the outcome of this particular conference.” Nope.

As for the lineup, he complained, it

does indeed bother me as much as it does everyone else. It’s mostly people from AVFM and not enough people from external sources. 10 speakers present as opposed to the 14 from last year plus everyone involved in the panel discussions. …

I really hope that this is more due to budgeting more than anything else because I would hate to learn that this is really due to greed or anything like that. Yes, I do feel that donations to AVFM have been going down as of late and perhaps that’s the big reason why this conference shrank from last year.

Given that AVFM’s last fundraiser brought in less than half of what Elam had been demanding, I’d say that was a safe bet.

Also, you may recall that at the start of the year, Elam announced that he “hope[d] to make some actual profit” from this year’s conference.

Apparently Elam never took economics in college, because then he might have realized that you can’t simply make more money by jacking your prices as high as you want; if your prices are too steep, no one will buy what you’re selling.

But hey, as Elam apparently explained to therock6658, having fewer speakers means “more time for attendees to socialize with the presenters, etc.”

WIN A DATE WITH PAUL ELAM

Actually, that’s not quite right: PAY THROUGH THE NOSE FOR THE CHANCE TO MAYBE TALK TO PAUL ELAM

I actually pretty much have a good mind to make my own anti-feminist conference myself and do twice as much in 1 day than AVFM is trying to do in 3.

You know, I do too.

I think it’s fair to say that there’s a good chance AVFM’s conference won’t happen at all.

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contrapangloss
9 years ago

I really, really, really love the idea. Unfortunately, I can provide nothing but ideas at the moment, because I’m already up to my eyeballs in stuff to get done.

After May, I might have time to actually do things.

If someone starts organizing, count me as a lurker? Eventual help?

proxieme
proxieme
9 years ago

*imagines Elam reading this comments section and alternately glowering and taking notes*

Jarnsaxa
Jarnsaxa
9 years ago

Geez. This just reminds me how many issues men really do have. Y’all deserve so much better than the MRM. Join the big feminist tent and we’ll try!

lith
lith
9 years ago

I like the idea a lot, though as this is my last day in employment and I go self employed from tomorrow I should probably focus on earning the monies.
I can see this being very successful, and if it helps people too that would be even better.

lith
lith
9 years ago

What’d be ace is if you could run it at the same time as the AVFM one but over the road so a direct comparison was doable. I’m now imagining propaganda leaflet drops from overhead (from both sides) trying to lure people to the other convention.

sunnysombrera
sunnysombrera
9 years ago

@lith

No, I’d say do it after their convention. Let them cock theirs up as they inevitably will, then when we unleash our awesomeness the men who paid through the nose will see how they’ve been scammed and come to listen to us. The ones who stay behind with AVFM are the ones who truly do only care about oppressing women, not men’s issues.

I’d rather completely upstage Paul Elam than take away the attendees (he won’t care if they’ve already paid).

LaszloZapacik
LaszloZapacik
9 years ago

Seriously, what the hell costs $650 at a political conference? I really struggle to believe either the speakers or the venue command that high a fee.

Sarity
Sarity
9 years ago

@lith

I agree with sunnysombrera. Better to let their embarrassing joke of a conference play out first. Aiming to take away AVfM attendees would just feed ammo to the idea that they’re a legitimate threat, and you wouldn’t want conspiracy theory fuckery outnoising the positive change intended by a genuine men’s conference. There’ll be plenty enough of that without any deliberately provocative moves.

Buttercup Q. Skullpants
Buttercup Q. Skullpants
9 years ago

So, I guess the DoubleTree is off the list this year. Wonder if some other death threats are going to mysteriously appear just when ticket sales are flagging?

What’s mind-boggling is that many of Elam’s followers are fully aware they’re being scammed, and they willingly choose to donate anyway. As one supporter explained, every dollar that goes into Elam’s pocket is a dollar that doesn’t go into the vast feminist government welfare system. Elam is living the dream for them, and they’re happy to subsidize it. It’s like Dollars Going Their Own Way.

It’s cute that they think they’re somehow sticking it to feminism, and not simply shooting themselves in the foot financially, by buying into this fantasy that gives them nothing in return. All it does is feed their addiction to a gender model that never existed. It’s like a giant slot machine of hate.

You know what else is ironic: the fact that these guys have adopted the Red Pill metaphor and think they’ve woken to some larger truth, when all they do, all day long, is live inside their heads, concoct revenge fantasies, and fight against shadow-enemies and straw feminists. Nothing of what they say has any relevance to reality. They’re still plugged into the Matrix.

M.
M.
9 years ago

What’s mind-boggling is that many of Elam’s followers are fully aware they’re being scammed, and they willingly choose to donate anyway. As one supporter explained, every dollar that goes into Elam’s pocket is a dollar that doesn’t go into the vast feminist government welfare system.

Exactly the same as Libertarians/Tea Partiers and Ron Paul/Glenn Beck’s gold scams, or fundamentalist Baptists and televangelist and megachurch scams.

Mitchel
9 years ago

Wow! I just tried watching 2 minutes of Paul Elam on youtube and almost fell asleep. Did Elam mention if complimentary caffeine products were going to be offered at the conference? If chef Elam promised to do demonstrations on how to make a grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl cereal, I’d be willing to pay full price for the conference.

sunnysombrera
sunnysombrera
9 years ago

@Mitchel

Several manospherians are incredibly dull when doing their YouTube videos. Colan Nolan, or whatever his name is now (Joschua something) is another, and if his speeches weren’t so worrying and glaringly full of incitement to hate/abuse women, they’d be prime prescriptions for sleep aids. As they stand though they’re more likely to keep you awake with concern, if you have the patience to listen to his monotonic droning.

ej
ej
9 years ago

I really like this conference idea too. I’m not sure what I can do to help, but if this is happening, count me in!

Mitchel
9 years ago

@sunnysombrera

The thing I find most puzzling about the manosphere is how can you meet women when you hate them? Sites like Matt Forney, Roosh V, and Returnofkings come to mind.

I can say from own personal experiences that these guys have NO clue what they are talking about. I mean, sure, in any relationship there’s up and downs, but I tend to think of mainly positive experiences. The manosphere is proof “game” really doesn’t work. If these guys could actually meet women, they would be writing about good dates and fulfilling relationships instead of hateful articles.

isidore13
isidore13
9 years ago

Mitchel, I think the trouble with these guys is that, in order to have a fulfilling relationship with anyone, one has to consider them as something other than an object to be passed around or to gain control over.

Jenora Feuer
Jenora Feuer
9 years ago

I hate to think of all we’re missing out on just because thread and needle is considered a women’s thing.

My father took up cross-stitching and needlepoint as hobbies after he retired.

My mother uses the router and the miter saw in the garage to custom-build wooden picture frames for the results.

… Yeah, my family’s never been terribly big on the whole ‘men’s thing’/’women’s thing’ dividing line.

davidknewton
9 years ago

I used to love cross-stitch 🙂 It’s like physical pixel art… it also helped that it was the only brand of Home Economics lesson in school at which I was not hopelessly awful.

I really love the idea of making an effort to raise awareness of actual men’s issues and propose solutions rather than the “humanist countertheory” bollocks that the likes of AVFM bleat about.

PussyPowerTantrum
PussyPowerTantrum
9 years ago

I’d love to help with MammothCon, too, though geography and cost keep me from attending. I’d still donate some money, and maybe I can help with stuff like contacting speakers. Heck, a meet-and-greet of Mammothers should be awesome in itself. Just be sure to film everything for posterity, pretty please?

Mitchel
9 years ago

I noticed Elam said they had a $25,000 loss on the last conference? Wow! If people seem less unimpressed by this years lineup, I wonder how much they’ll lose this year?

I just looked at the AVfM site and there’s a video at the top of Elam doing a lecture from November 2014. It’s quite hilarious the comment at the top,

“This is a small taste of the sort of hard-hitting speakers you will hear at ICMI 15.”

yutolia
yutolia
9 years ago

I’d love to organize Mammothcon! I’ve organized conferences before, I would love to be involved in this!

proxieme
proxieme
9 years ago

This could be awesome!

Men do face genuine issues and they deserve so much more than blathering anti-feminist claptrap.

bekabot
bekabot
9 years ago

If I were a few years younger I’d say that at least these guys were willing to crab about what men cost as well as about what women cost, thereby demonstrating a crude sort of egalitarianism for which they were to be (curtly) congratulated. (Tossed about a quarter of a cookie, maybe.) IOW, a few years ago I would have been willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. But now that I’m older and my benefit-giving days are behind me, I can clearly say that of course they’re complaining about this — because it’s an opportunity to complain. And just when has this crowd ever turned down an opportunity to complain? (Gentlemen and ladies, I leave you to wrack your brains.)

bekabot
bekabot
9 years ago

My father took up cross-stitching and needlepoint as hobbies after he retired.

My Dad, who was a Republican hardhat, was a needlepoint artiste from as far back as I can remember. He’s been dead for quite a while now but my Mom still has his bell-pulls and throw-pillows all over her house, and she’s one of those Martha Stewart-type people who are picky about what they have in their house.

GrumpyOldMangina
9 years ago

” Except by her own admission she’s more manly than most men – doesn’t that go against her philosophy of men and women conforming to gender stereotypes?”

[to the tune of “I’m a Little Teapot”]

I’m a special snowflake, loud and strong,
All the other women get it wrong.
When I get all steamed up hear me shout,
“I support the boys whenever they pout!”

Thalia
Thalia
9 years ago

I would LOVE to see a conference that really addresses men’s issues, because there are real, serious problems facing men today. People have already brought up so many:

-prison stuffing and prison rape (real rape, not, you know, “neglect rape” and “financial rape” and “withholding sex after you paid for dinner’ rape)
-domestic violence, and how male victims are shamed and have no access to facilities
-navigating family court, custody, and amicable coparenting after divorce
-narrow gender norms and male shaming when they violate them
-dangerous jobs, and shaming of men who advocate for safety measures

And I’d add in seminars on falling male college enrollment and encouraging boys academically; dating environment in a world of changing expectations (AKA how to find partners you actually like without acting like a dick); when the man is the stay-at-home parent and/or the lower earner in a couple; the changing landscape for blue-collar men as stable, high-income union jobs become a thing of the past in America; finding self-worth that isn’t tied to outmoded gender roles.