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.
@WWTH
At this point, I view “Pro-Trump” as “I want you to know, I’m a neo-nazi.”
Ah, the good old Puppet Master defense. It’s been a while since I’ve seen that.
….why….do…you…type like this….instead of actual punctuation….?….?…?
@Chessman
It’s enough to justify removing him from the train. If you harass others, you don’t deserve to be in a public space until you cool your fucking heels.
Translating…
“I literally see no problem with this cold-blooded murder at all, and I’m just trying to get a foot in the door and bring you by degrees to accept my view. I absolutely don’t respect yours at all, because this issue has nothing to do with opposing views. It’s about right and wrong – you’re right and I’m wrong, but I want you to be wrong so I can keep lying to myself about being right.”
http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/OMG-WHAT.gif
w-what happened. Left for a bit, returned to see 7 pages in total now.
@chessman
You’re a shithead. Through and through.
If there is a hell you most definitely deserve to go there.
LOL oh, dear, Chessman, please do describe this “violent intervention”. Because you literally JUST wrote that it was
A slight push or shove is a violent intervention now? LOL and you are so desperately trying to show US as being the hypocrites.
You are just so darn laughable.
Honey, run along and perfect your seagull recipes 😀
Sealion,
That photo was taken at Christian’s arraignment. Where he screamed “Get out if you don’t like free speech,” he said, and, “You call it terrorism, I call it patriotism.” Ranting and raving like the bully he is.
Like he was screaming at those two girls on the train.
Yes, you do, coward. You’re defending a white supremacist terrorist.
You do NOT get to clutch your pearls in dismay because we call things as it is.
No, you see, stabbing three people is absolutely an appropriate response to being shoved. That’s why there’s all those knife fights on elementary school playgrounds.
@Trollman:
The invitation to fuck off still stands.
Same goes for Nobody’s Greatest Anything, who is clearly just here to masturbate.
@Axe
Ah, so it’s one of those movies. Splendid. Films that improve with repeat viewings are one of my special pleasures.
@MrsObedMarsh
Yeah, totally appropriate. This is why I’m the only member of my Rocky Horror cast. One of them punched me in the face during a show by accident (Real event, along with the shoving and kicking and assorted bruises that happen whenever people move quickly and precisely right next to each other), so I took my knife out. They all understood what had to happen, this is totally normal acceptable american culture and all.
/sarcasm
@Bina
They both need to fuck off or be banned. Preferably the latter.
Trollmare’s flounce rates a 0/10.
If he hadn’t been trying so hard to freak us out all night, he might have gotten a few points for being dramatic. But he (forgive me) shot his wad too early and the flounce had 0 impact.
Since he admitted to being a sock, who do we think he is.
Pro-Patria Truth Teller/Chaucer troll
Miggy
MRAL
Someone else
I think it might have the first one. Trying out a new schtick. He melted down quick like Miggy does, but Miggy doesn’t use sexual language. He’s too crossed out by vaginas. MRAL is always a possibility, especially since he had a habit of fixating on particular commenters. But the writing styles are a little bit different. He could be getting better at socking as he ages though.
Hopefully David can shed some light.
@IgnoreSandra
I was being sarcastic, too. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
I was jostled in the hallway at work today.
Totally stabbed that mofo in the heart, naturally. I mean nobody even blamed me because it happens at least twice a week, being as it’s the only reasonable reaction
/SARCASM
Here’s what really happened:
Surprise! None of the men the Nazi motherfucker knifed were even a little bit violent to him. They just stood up and tried to defend the girls. And for this, two of them got stabbed and slashed to death — and a third one within an inch of his young life.
I can’t wait to hear Trollman’s justifications for all this.
@IgnoreSandra, tell me about it. One time, two of us showed up in Frankenfurter outfits, and I had to pull a battleaxe just to get him to go home and change.
((Also sarcasm~))
@Haise
Tons of stuff. We had two snakes here tonight. One of them is a rape apologist and the other one is a murder apologist.
Have fun reading the comments. ?
@Checkmate
I was actually playing Frankenfurter that night. During a show. It became a rather different kinda show. The audience freaked for a bit, but they calmed down when they realized she’d accidentally punched me in the face. And it was all good fun. We go through cast members like nobody’s business. Also, I guess I’m the director now. /sarcasm
And don’t even get me started on all the times Frank has fallen into me as a transie. We go through so many Franks.
Chessman, for someone who doesn’t condone bullying, you sure seem to be in favor of the terrorist who killed people after bullying them. Why do you think that was a good thing?
I’ve banned Nightmare.
IgnoreSandra,
I knew you were in RHPS, BUT YOU ALSO PLAY FRANKENFURTER??!!?
???????????
THANK YOU, DAVID!
Thanks David. He was boring.
[salutes David, falls back into the Atlantic ocean off the deck of the HMS Ark Mammoth while humming ‘Rule Britannia’]
@Aulma
Ooooooh boy ? lol This will be a fun time