In the wake of the Portland train stabbings that left two men dead and one seriously wounded after they tried to stop a white supremacist from harassing several women, Paul Elam — still probably the best-known Men’s Rights Activist online — posted a tweet that spoke volumes — not about the incident itself, but about the utter moral bankruptcy of the Men’s Rights movement.
https://twitter.com/anearformen/status/868917239143178240
When other Tweeters objected, Elam doubled down and began spewing insults — aimed not just at his critics but at the murdered men themselves.
https://twitter.com/anearformen/status/869066210964631552
https://twitter.com/anearformen/status/869068999577006080
In one tweet, he suggested that the victims themselves were the cause of the violence that left them dead.
https://twitter.com/anearformen/status/869064408252772354
In his capacity as a leader of what is essentially a hate movement, Elam has said many terrible things over the years — from his post suggesting that women who go home with men without wanting to have sex with them are “damn near demanding” to be raped” to a short story offering an apologia for — indeed, a glorification of — domestic abuse. These tweets, I think, rank up there with his most reprehensible writings, for two main reasons.
First, as many observers have noted, it was not “chivalry” that killed these men. It was an angry and hateful man with a knife who was harassing women on a train.
Elam thinks it unfair that the tenets of chivalry call upon men to protect women — why should men have to serve as unpaid bodyguards for women, he has often asked? What he doesn’t like to talk about is that these volunteer bodyguards aren’t protecting women from bears — there aren’t a lot of those in my neighborhood — but in the overwhelming majority of cases from other men.
There are a lot of problematic things about “white knights,” as Elam insists upon calling them, but the plain fact is that the “good men” that Elam castigates as terminally stupid would be out of a job if there weren’t so many bad men around harassing and abusing women.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, Elam is essentially declaring war on the very thing that sets us apart from brute nature — our ability to feel empathy for others, including people unlike ourselves. A man standing up for a woman who’s being harassed may or may not be engaging in an act of chivalry but it is certainly an act of altruism and basic human solidarity. It’s driven by the same empathetic and altruistic impulse that led so many non-Muslims here in the US to rush to their nearest airports to protest Trump’s Muslim ban.
This sort of cross-cultural solidarity is pretty much the only thing that can save our country from the hatred and meanness that is Trumpism. We need more empathy, not less.
Elam would rather we raise our sons not to feel this sort of empathy towards women. That’s bad enough. But he’s not the only MRA with an empathy problem. And it isn’t confined to his feelings about women.
It’s not just that MRAs are indifferent towards, if not actively hostile, towards women; they lack empathy towards boys and men as well. Indeed, in one notorious post (archived here; I wrote about it here), Elam literally told the “troubled men” who have turned to A Voice For Men for help to ““go fucking bother someone else with your problems” if they weren’t donating money to his site, which is to say him, as he keeps the donations for himself.
Even though he seems to have taken in literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations over the years, he’s never bothered to even try to set up, say, a hotline for men. Instead, he’s set himself up as a sort of ersatz internet therapist for men — he has no actual training as a therapist — literally charging the “troubled men” he claims to be an advocate for $90 an hour to talk to him on Skype.
But he’s not the only MRA who combines a hatred for women with an utter lack of interest in doing anything altruistic for their fellow men.
In the first few years of second wave feminism in the late 60s and early 70s, feminist activists set up shelters and women’s centers and countless other entities designed to benefit women in desperate need of help. In the seven years I’ve been covering the Men;s Rights movement, MRAs haven’t even set up a single hotline, much less a functional men’s shelter. The only notable MRA, er, victory? Being so obnoxious they’ve convinced numerous media sites to shut down their formerly MRA-infested comments sections.
It’s no wonder MRAs feel such hostility towards real heroes. They’re only heroes in their own minds.
He’s trying to dom us, right? I feel very dommed, u guise.
@Alan:
Anytime! (hoists glass of Chianti)
BTW, here’s something else that Our Drooling Fool will probably soil himself over:
Evidence from modern hunter-gatherer tribes suggests that primitive humans were egalitarian!
Yeah, trolly, that’s right: Ain’t never been no bishes. NEVER.
You may proceed to suck my clit.
I see you’re familiar with being asked questions about your behavior, Creepyraper.
Color me surprised.
Nina, you don’t know where that mouth has been! Don’t take that chance!
We really shook the kid.
I warned him he wouldn’t be able handle the mocking gracefully.
Hey, Nonesanything,
You’re not hard. You’re not scary. Kid, you’re cotton candy.
You aren’t old enough to know better. You’re here for a tiny taste of some sort of recognition. You’ve never even had one woman in your bed, let alone several. Did you hope you could shock me? Did you think you could make me believe you’re having fun?
You aren’t, but you’d rather stay and be mocked than leave. Alan has you pegged.
You just want someone to notice you. What you’d do with a few shots in you is curl up, lay your head in the nearest available lap and weap.
You aren’t capable of imagining a really scary nightmare. Your fantasies are dull and every one you type reveals just a little more about how weak and afraid you are. You aren’t showing us anything new.
You’re a dupe, kid. You’re being brainwashed into a cult. You aren’t a big bad man. You’re a victim. The men who are teaching you to act like an ass? They’re using you. Misery loves company and they want so very much to drag you down to where they are.The sooner you get away from them and start living your life, the less likely you are to end up a miserable piece of shit. You’re hooked and they’re reeling you in. They prey on the young, insecure and lonely.
Chessman,
More lies? More of the exact same lies? Learn a new trick. This one hasn’t worked yet and it won’t start to any time soon.
Of course you’d slander the dead heroes and defend the man who murdered them. You’re worthless scum.
@Viscaria
I really don’t feel dommed. I feel like a spider watching a fly struggle in my web for my amusement.
I’m not a good person, not really.
@Bina
Of course they were egalitarian. Nobody would have time or energy to give a goddamn shit about “Gender roles” or “Binary genders” or “homophobia” if they’re trying to fucking survive.
Not one actual connection to reality. Complete inability to connect feelings to what they are attached to. And when pressed they make guesses about my motivations and sexual conquest because moving things from actual characteristics they display to ones obsessed over by mysogynistic predators.
It’s disapointingly formulaic, and I get to feel dissapointed because I’m a man. I see them disturbing others with what looks robotic and programmed to me.
Then they start the “we really own them” stuff. I know who the real social threat is and I act appropriately. I’m quite happy making it more obvious to men who care about avoiding shitty character. The shit hiding in culture in plain sight is quite nauseating. There is nothing quite like a social meltdown from someone used to feeling culturally dominant and discovering their tools don’t work so well everywhere.
I know who the predators are.
@Troubelle
Cool jazz PN sounds amazing. No… Swing! The possibilitieeeees!!1!!
@Sandra:
Oh, for sure. And it also explains why the Amazons were so feared: They were women so skilled at archery that, it was said, they cut off one breast in order to keep it from getting caught by the bowstring. (That’s where their name comes from; means “without a breast”.)
And we know for certain that Saxon and Norse women fought alongside their men in wars, as did female Kelts. My distant Germanic ancestresses, in other words! No wonder I’m laughing up my sleeve at this silly troll. Kicking sexist male ass is in my blood, quite literally.
@Bina – I wanted to say thank you for making me laugh, but it was a couple pages ago and I forgot what it was. But it was funny!
@wwth – you are incisive as always
@Alan – at first I was guessing around 15, then I thought, maybe 19? But I’ve settled at an unusually immature 17. (for our Big Boy Troll’s age).
@Axe – you made me laugh with your “We’ll do it live!! For some reason my son and I find this hilarious and it is a common in-joke between us.
@SlackassedNightmare
Cool. Does that mean you’ll STFU now?
@dreemr:
Hey, anytime. I forgot too!
Creepyraper
http://33.media.tumblr.com/b5b272c155786eb50fe183be54671afa/tumblr_nqjnw0fNhy1tq4of6o1_500.gif
Best way I’ve heard that described was something my stepdad said about his old hunting days. “Doesn’t matter who shoots the bullet, just as long as it hits the target.”
@Axe
You tell me: what’s the best related genre to blare from a singular pickup truck as the gates of the compound come down?
@Bina
Heh, men. The only thing they fear more than death is being defeated by women. Which they will be, handily.
Also, definitely makes sense. You only need one breast for child-rearing if you wanna go that route, and if it gets in the way of your archery, well, sometimes sacrifices have to be made.
It’s also historical fact that the Tuareg peoples were matriarchal, and that the Dahomey kingdom had a group of warriors called “Amazons” which were solely women.
I’m inclined to believe at this point that women have been involved in everything, ever. Period.
@Checkmate
Reminds me of the Soviet snipers, fighter and bomber pilots, and tank crews in the second world war. There were units composed solely of women.
The USSR only did it because it was desperate, also Stalin, so they don’t get any goddamn points for it at all. But they still did it, and they got some of their best-performing people out of it.
I think at least one of their snipers rid the world of 300 fascists, doing everybody a public service.
@Sandra:
Me too. Most definitely.
BTW, interesting trivia fact: in the Tuareg tribe, it’s the men who wear the veils. Which is the reverse of the veiling situation everyplace else in the MENA region. Somehow, I’m not surprised they’re matriarchal, or at least matrilineal.
@Bina
It was either matriarchal or matrillineal. I don’t remember which one. So I took a guess, and I hope it was the right one.
Men are invested in covering up this history because they know that under no circumstances can they justify the way they treat us if history is known.
@Ignore, History has all sorts of these stories that are really cool. It’s actually why I became a history major, because I figured there were a ton of cool stories that no one knew.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Portland_train_stabbings
“Rick Best, 53, stood closest to Christian…”He was repeating back what the guy was saying. Like “I know you’re a taxpayer. But this is not OK'”. Namkai-Meche turned back toward Christian and briskly walked over to him and loudly implored him, ‘You need to get off this train”. She said it appeared that the men who were stabbed, “were trying to be a barrier” Someone tried to move Christian.. with a slight push or shove. “Touch me again, or I am going to kill you”. Macy heard Christian respond.”
i mean, it’s been reported there is video…but from this account it looks as though the three ganged up on him and started the physical altercation…i tried to find the video…i guess we will see what happened…when it’s available…
is physical aggression is warranted when someone says something you don’t like? is that the “progressive” mindset these days?
“Angry and hateful” = nazi white supremacist pig.
@Trollman:
They weren’t being physically aggressive. HE was. HE had the knife. HE was the one who came on the train drunk off his ass and picking on two teenage girls, one black and the other a visible Muslim. HE was the aggressive coward who stabbed and slashed two men to death and nearly killed a third.
Doesn’t your head hurt from living with that kind of cognitive dissonance? Because reading your drivel is sure hard on my undeceived eyes.
@Chessman
The other day a kid bumped into me, should I have fucking stabbed him? Is that how this is now? We should kill people who tap us on the shoulder or bump into us?
What is this, Feudal Japan? Am I a fucking Samurai now? How the fuck did that happen?
Damn you, Axe! You did this to me with your Afro-Samurai pic. Now you’ve turned me into a Black Samurai Girl.
@Re: Women Warriors
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/dahomeys-women-warriors-88286072/
Translation of troll:
“I think it’s totally valid for a terrorist to murder two innocent men, and critically injure a third, as long as he’s a nazi. I don’t see any reasonable way to respond to three people stopping me from being an asshole except with murder, especially when it’s clear they mean only to move me off the train so I can’t harass the 16-year old girls I am terrorizing.”
You’re a fucking piece of shit, Chessman.
Crikey. There really is no misandrist like a misogynist.