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a voice for men advocacy of violence emotional abuse empathy deficit entitled babies incoherent rage men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA not-quite-explicit threats not-quite-plausible deniability paul elam

James Boulware: Another male rage bomb goes off in Dallas

A mug shot of James Boulware from a previous arrest
A mug shot of James Boulware from a previous arrest

Last night, as you probably have heard, a Dallas man named James Boulware launched a one-man quasi-military assault on the Dallas Police Department headquarters, firing an automatic rife with such abandon that early reports suggested that there were as many as four different shooters. After fleeing the scene in an armored “Zombie Apocalypse Van,” leaving behind an assortment of improvised explosives as a kind of going away gift, Boulware was cornered in a restaurant parking lot; after a long standoff, he was eventually killed by a police sniper’s bullet. It was something of a miracle that no one but Boulware ended up dead.

Boulware’s father told local news that his son had been “pushed past” his “breaking point” after losing custody of his son. Men’s Rights activists often describe men who “resort to violence” after losing a custody dispute as victims of a cruel family court system.

But in Boulware’s case, it appears, nothing could be further from the truth. 

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a voice for men gross incompetence MRA paul elam

Internet Nightmare: “Paul Elam would like to stay in touch on LinkedIn”

Yaaaaghh!
Yaaaaghh!

So this showed up in my emails today:

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a voice for men antifeminism gross incompetence gullibility men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA paul elam

New “service” for angry men! Mental health non-professional Paul Elam will listen to you on Skype for $90 an hour

A much better deal than An Ear for Men
A much better deal than An Ear for Men

Never let it be said that the Men’s Rights movement does nothing to help men. Earlier this week, A Voice for Men’s CEO Paul Elam announced the launch of a new service for men. That service is that Elam, a noted former psychology major in college, will listen to you talk shit about women for an hour over Skype for $90.

Elam’s fans are excited to have a new talking point. 

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“We’re a group of volunteers dedicated to a cause, and the cause is Paul Elam.” — Dean Esmay of A Voice for Men

ProTip: If you're ever tempted to start a cult, play this video game instead, and leave real people alone.
ProTip: If you’re ever tempted to start a cult, play this video game instead, and leave real people alone.

I sometimes refer to A Voice for Men, the Men’s Rights hate site that has evolved into something of a hate group, as a cult. Up until now I’ve only done so half-seriously; while there are a lot of things about AVFM that are cultish, from the apocalyptic rhetoric to the constant demands for money to the organized harassment of its critics, it seems to lack some of the central elements of a real cult.

I mean, they’re not holed up in a compound in Idaho; they don’t wear funny uniforms; and they don’t talk, at least not publicly, about their single-minded dedication to serving the group’s leader — one Paul Elam of Houston Texas.

Or at least I thought they didn’t.

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a voice for men antifeminism grandiosity mansplaining men who should not ever be with women ever MGTOW misogyny MRA paul elam we hunted the mammoth worst writing in the history of the universe

We Harnessed the Male Utility to Feed You

Man building civilization: The early years
Man building civilization: The early years

Even though I run a blog with the deliberately ironic title “We Hunted the Mammoth,” I’m still regularly amazed by how eager men who’ve accomplished nothing of value in their entire lives are to claim a kind of vicarious credit, by virtue of being men, for everything good that we humans have accomplished here on planet earth.

Consider this astoundingly un-self-aware bit of almost literal we-hunted-the-mammothing from a recent A Voice for Men post, written (very, very badly) by Peter Wright and Paul Elam:

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a voice for men antifeminism grandiosity gross incompetence gullibility irony alert men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA paul elam rationalization hamster schadenfreude yeah that's the ticket

A Voice for Men triumphantly cancels its conference; supporters declare victory

Say it ain’t so, Paul! A Voice for Men’s second “International Conference on Men’s Issues” has been … cancelled!

No one could have seen that coming, huh?

Anyway, in a “Bulletin” on AVFM yesterday, AVFM “CEO” Paul Elam tried his best to explain away this little embarrassment:

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Reminder: Doing nothing, loudly, is the OFFICIAL goal of the “Men’s Human Rights Movement”

NOT from the AVFM Facebook page
NOT from the AVFM Facebook page

So I found the “meme” below on the A Voice for Men Facebook page. It purports to show what the Men’s Rights movement is really about:

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Canadian MRA Dan Perrins launches hunger strike, demands the arrest of those who’ve “libelled” him UPDATED

Dan Perrins on Day 4 of his hunger strike
Dan Perrins on Day 4 of his hunger strike

UPDATE 5/16: Perrins has called off his hunger strike. Here’s his explanation

Dan Perrins, a famously confrontational Canadian Men’s Rights Activist and staunch supporter of A Voice for Men,  has launched a hunger strike outside the Queen’s Park Legislative Assembly in Toronto. As of this writing, he’s on his fifth day, taking in, he says, nothing but liquids.

What does he want? Surprisingly, that’s not an easy question to answer. Perrins’ demands are vague and grandiose — and probably impossible for the Ontario government to meet — and he has not set any specific conditions that would need to be met in order for him to end the hunger strike.

This seems, at the very least, reckless. A hunger strike is a very serious thing.

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a voice for men actual activism advocacy of violence anti-Semitism antifeminism crackpottery Dean Esmay doxing entitled babies I know you are but what am I imaginary backwards land literal nazis misogyny MRA not-quite-explicit threats not-quite-plausible deniability oppressed white men paul elam pig-biting mad post contains jokes post contains sarcasm racism rape rape culture reactionary bullshit straw feminists

Is the bigot-fighting Southern Poverty Law Center the REAL hate group? One Men’s Rights butthead says “yes.”

Is the Klan-fighting Southern Poverty Law Center the real hate group? One angry butthead says
Hey, Dean Esmay — are these really the guys you want on your side?

The not-so-good folks at A Voice for Men are still so steamed about the Southern Poverty Law Center calling them out on their misogyny that they can’t think straight. Consider the unhinged anti-SPLC rant AVFM’s “chief operations officer” Dean Esmay posted on the site after the SPLC’s Mark Potok appeared on David Pakman’s internet show last week.

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a voice for men anti-Semitism antifeminism crackpottery Dean Esmay empathy deficit gaslighting gross incompetence incoherent rage literal nazis lying liars MRA paul elam playing the victim post contains sarcasm rationalization hamster straw feminists straw futrelle that's completely wrong

A Voice for Men responds to the revelation that one of their contributors is a Holocaust denier by calling me a “stalker madman.”

Evasive-Maneuvers
It’s not going to work this time, fellas.

The good folks at A Voice for Men, the most influential Men’s Rights site out there, like to talk a lot about how much they hate hatred. Specifically, the alleged hatred allegedly promoted by feminists. Here’s Dean Esmay, the site’s Managing Editor and Chief Operations Officer, offering some typically nuanced thoughts on the subject earlier today on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/deanesmay/status/597082318168272896

So how have the powers that be at AVFM responded to the revelation that one of their contributors, Indian MRA Amartya Talukdar, is a Holocaust denier and Hitler fan who thinks Hillary Clinton is a “Jewess?” Did they denounce Talukdar for his embrace of perhaps the most hateful hater in history, and take down his posts on their site? Not so much.