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Is A Voice for Men using phony death threats as an excuse to smear feminists and raise a quick $25k? Here’s what we DON’T know so far. [UPDATE: Hotel still not talking]

Adjusted for inflation, those 5 cent fears are now worth $25,000
Adjusted for inflation, those 5 cent fears are now worth $25,000

Is A Voice for Men using phony “death threats” allegedly directed at those planning to attend its upcoming “Men’s Issues” conference in Detroit, as well as upon employees and guests of the hotel where it’s scheduled to be held, as an excuse to smear feminists and raise a quick $25,000 in donations from readers and possibly even from a handful of gullible feminists?

As incredible as that sounds, that’s what some people I respect are saying. Despite AVFM’s history of lying about alleged feminist threats – you may recall John Hembling’s infamous confrontation with an imaginary mob of 20-30 feminists brandishing boxcutters – I’m not willing to go that far.

But there’s a lot about the story that makes no sense, and some big questions that need convincing answers.

1) The Doubletree Fort Shelby hotel has not confirmed that the letter Paul Elam posted on his site several days ago, and which he has now removed, actually came from them. The letter is, so far, the only evidence that there were any threats.

Hotel management needs to confirm whether or not they sent this letter to Elam.

2) Both the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press spoke to Detroit Police spokesman Adam Madera, who told them that the police had not received any reports of death threats from the hotel. He told both papers that hotel staff had asked about hiring off-duty officers for security but hadn’t specified why.

Hotel management needs to confirm either that 1) they got death threats and didn’t report them or 2) that they got no such threats. They should also confirm whether their calls about off-duty police officers were related to the “Men’s Issues” conference.

There are a few other clues that support the “hoax” theory, though they’re far from definitive:

Several people who have allegedly contacted the hotel to ask about the threat say that the managers they spoke to knew nothing about the threats. Even if these reports are true, this may not be significant; managers may not have been told about threats related to a conference many weeks off.

The Detroit News also spoke to the owner of the hotel, and he said he was unaware of any threats. That may not be significant either; he may simply be out of the loop.

Essentially, we’re waiting for the Doubletree Fort Shelby management to answer these questions. If you look at the news coverage so far you’ll notice that the hotel staffers who can answer these questions don’t seem to be answering their phones or returning calls. I left a message for them today as well. No reply yet.

The other bits of evidence we’re waiting for? Well, the letter Elam claims he got from hotel management says that he and the other conference organizers need to send the hotel proof that they’ve hired the required number of Detroit police officers to handle security, as well as proof that they have also paid for at least $2 million in liability insurance. They have to have this done by the 6th.

In light of all the questions still swirling around, I think people are going to want to see this proof too.

It may be that the hotel comes forward and confirms that the letter was real, that the threats were real, and that indeed A Voice for Men does have to shell out $25,000 for extra security. It may even be the case that it was a feminist or a group of feminists making the threats. But we don’t know. And right now the people who do know are either not talking — or they have pretty much no credibility. Let’s hope the silence ends soon, because there’s no way the not-so-good folks at AVFM are suddenly going to turn credible overnight.

EDIT: I toned down some of the language, which I think was detracting from my main points, and added a new final paragraph.

EDIT 2:  Removed some speculation. We’ll know some of the answers soon enough; no need to speculate.

UPDATE: DOUBLETREE STATEMENT

So I’ve heard back from Atiya Frederick, the PR Manager for Embassy Suites Hotels & DoubleTree, and she’s made clear that the hotel won’t be answering specific questions about any of this just yet. Here’s what she sent me.

At this time we are confining our comments on this matter to the below statement …

Hilton Worldwide strives to operate meeting places for people from all walks of life, regardless of beliefs, race, color, national origin, religion or sexual orientation. The views of our guests do not reflect the sentiment of Hilton Worldwide. As places of public accommodation, our hotels do not discriminate against any individual or group. Our goal is to provide quality accommodations and a pleasant environment for our guests, employees and members of our community . We would like to emphasize that we strive to be an inclusive company and regret if this policy has unintentionally offended any individual or organization. 

This statement seems to be their standard response when they host a conference by a controversial group.

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a voice for men antifeminism doxing harassment men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA not-quite-explicit threats not-quite-plausible deniability paul elam playing the victim terrorism threats warren farrell

A Voice for Men's Threatener-in-Chief Paul Elam demands that feminists pay security costs for his group's conference

Paul Elam, Man of Peace
Paul Elam, Man of Peace

Well, you have to admit, he’s got chutzpah.

You may have heard that A Voice for Men is sponsoring what it calls the First International Conference on Men’s Issues later this month in Detroit, featuring such notable celebrity speakers as “internationally recognized writer, lecturer and videographer” Karen “Girl Writes What” Straughan, “former mental health professional” Paul “Boy Yells A Lot” Elam, Warren “Boys Aren’t Hurt By Incest a Lot” Farrell, and, well, a collection of other equally exciting names.

But there have been some doubts about it happening from the start. It took some time for the AVFMers to sell enough tickets to enable them to cover the costs of the event.

And now it the costs of the event are going up further: according to a letter that Elam has posted to his site, the hotel that will be hosting the conference has gotten “numerous calls and threats” of a violent nature because of the conference, and is demanding that AVFM cover the costs of additional security at the event.

So Elam has decided that feminists should pay some of these costs, in order to prove they’re “not like that.”

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advocacy of violence antifeminism creepy harassment men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA not-quite-explicit threats not-quite-plausible deniability rape culture threats

When anonymous threats are not-so anonymous

kindofadick

When feminists are besieged with threatening messages after being targeted by Men’s Rights Activists, MRAs sometimes ask how we know for sure that the messages (or at least a good portion of them) are being sent by MRAs. And the answer is that, in most cases, we don’t, at least not beyond a reasonable doubt, because most people sending threatening messages have the good sense to do so anonymously.

So it is possible, at least theoretically, that when, say, a feminist blogger gets threatening messages shortly after MRAs start posting nasty things about her on their blogs and in their various forums, it is not MRAs sending the messages but angry ornithologists who, for no reason whatsoever, collectively decided to pick on a feminist blogger that day. Seems unlikely, but it’s possible.

Other times, though, we do know who is sending the threats, because, conveniently enough, they do so under their own name or using their MRA identity online.

That was the case, you might recall, when Australian MRA and fanatical A Voice for Men supporter Frank James Spencer, also known as KARMA MRA MGTOW, left me a creepy, vaguely threatening voicemail message one night at 1:38 AM. That was the case with many of those posting threatening YouTube comments about a certain inadvertently famous Canadian feminist.

And that was the case last night when a longtime MRA known as Masculist Man tried to post a threatening message in the comments to a post of mine about a threatening comment directed at me on The Spearhead. The Spearhead comment, you may remember, involved a weird and elaborate anal rape fantasy. I noted in my post that the comment had gotten 10 upvotes, no downvotes.

Masculist Man added his two cents (click for larger version):

Submitted on 2014/05/16 at 9:07 pm  Actually 17 upvotes,including mine. I could ask the entire manosphere to vote on this. We should have that up to 500 upvotes by morning.  Eat shit asshole

He’s probably right about the 500 upvotes. Apparently rape threats are a form of Human Rights activism.

I wrote about a ranty blog  post of Mr. Man’s some time ago, and he’s written several posts about me, or at least about someone he calls Dave Fooltrelle. I let him comment here for a time as well. He was always obnoxious, though never quite this obnoxious.

Mr. Man’s blog is called, creatively, Men’s Rights Blog. In addition to the aforementioned ranty post, it features a cartoony avatar of himself wearing a fedora and brandishing a sword, with the caption “I’ll cut ya.” As part of his “activism,” he’s put up a page of anti-feminist “memes,” many based on photos of real feminists, including me. The blog has been around since 2007.

In his profile on Blogger, he declares

I’ve been a masculist for over 20 years and have been very activist,both on and offline. I’ve debated phonies and feminists and have prevailed over both.

He lists Warren Farrell’s The Myth of Male Power as one of his favorite books, and Neil LaBute’s misogynistic fantasy In The Company of Men as one of his favorite films.

And if you follow the link to Mr. Man’s Facebook page, you can take a look at his small collection of Facebook friends, including AVFM’s Paul Elam and MRA lawyer Roy Den Hollander, as well as the groups he supports, including the National Coalition for Men, the Men’s Human Rights Movement Facebook group, and assorted anti-VAWA (Violence Against Women Act) groups.

So, yeah, I think it’s safe to say that this threatening comment came from an MRA.

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a woman is always to blame advocacy of violence antifeminism are these guys 12 years old? creepy divorce domestic violence doubling down douchebaggery empathy deficit entitled babies evil single moms excusing abuse father's rights homophobia men who should not ever be with women ever MGTOW misogyny MRA oppressed men patriarchy playing the victim racism rape culture rape jokes straw futrelle taking pleasure in women's pain the c-word the spearhead threats thug-lovers transphobia

W.F. Price of The Spearhead accuses me of supporting violence against women … by opposing violence against women

W.F. Price (not pictured) believes the best way to prevent domestic violence is to put men in charge of households, and to keep police out
W.F. Price (not pictured) believes the best way to prevent domestic violence is to put men in charge of households, and to keep police out

W. F. Price of The Spearhead isn’t very happy about my recent suggestion that the Men’s Rights movement encourages abusive ways of thinking towards women. It’s a strange claim for him to make, coming as it is from a guy who presides over one of the most notorious outposts of vicious, virulent misogyny in the Men’s Rights universe. Even stranger is his claim that by opposing violence against women and children I am therefore … supporting policies that lead to more violence against women and children.

It’s going to take a little while to work our way through his convoluted argument. So let’s start at the beginning. Here’s the quote of mine he objects to, from my post the other day about Lundy Bancroft:

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a new woman to hate a voice for men antifeminism atheism atheism minus bullying creepy douchebaggery emotional abuse empathy deficit evil fat fatties harassment hypocrisy men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA threats

How Melody Hensley is putting the bullies to shame

bully

 

Yesterday, a message arrived in my email inbox with the title “Are you happy to die a virgin,” a somewhat unusual question, I felt, not just because of its faulty premise but also because of its lack of the conventional question mark at the end. The email itself was equally blunt and illiterate:

You sound like a 40 y/o FAT VIRGIN living in a basement rotting away. Is manboobz.com your way of hide behind your own internal issues u refuse to face? Father issues???

Ah, here’s where the missing question mark went, along with some friends.

The sender appended a photo of an extremely obese Asian man at least 20 years my junior, mostly if not completely nude, along with the question (and I quote verbatim) “This this photo you??”

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a new woman to hate a voice for men a woman is always to blame advocacy of violence antifeminism entitled babies evil women excusing abuse FemRAs GirlWritesWhat harassment hypocrisy mantrum men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA narcissism not-quite-explicit threats not-quite-plausible deniability paul elam playing the victim things that aren't satire threats

After a feminist activist at Queen’s University reports being attacked, possibly by an MRA, the king of “f their sh*t up” responds with angry denial

Paul Elam: Anger is "pulsing through my veins like molten lava" at the very notion that MRAs are violent.
Paul Elam: Anger is “pulsing through my veins like molten lava.”

A student at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, says she was attacked and beaten by a strange man after receiving threatening messages about her opposition to a Men’s Rights group on campus. On Thursday, Danielle d’Entremont posted a picture of her bruised face to Facebook along with this explanation:

Just walked out of my house and got attacked by a stranger. I was punched in the face multiple times and lost half my tooth. This was after a few threatening emails regarding my support for feminist activities on campus. I can’t say for sure if the two are connected, however the attacker was a male who knew my name.

The campus Men’s Issues Awareness Society (MIAS) – the group d’Entremont has been fighting – has condemned the attack, as has the Canadian Association for Equality (CAFE), which co-sponsored a talk the MIAS put on Thursday. The police are investigating.

Right now, this is pretty much all we know about the story. Not that it this has stopped MRAs from offering their very fervent opinions on the matter.

Before we get to them, here are a few of my own:

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a voice for men ableism advocacy of violence are these guys 12 years old? boner rage creepy douchebaggery evil women FemRAs gender policing homophobia judgybitch ladies against women men who should not ever be with women ever MGTOW misogyny MRA not-quite-explicit threats oppressed men pedophiles oh sorry ephebophiles racism threats transphobia trigger warning

Some of the comments I don’t let through

How comments are moderated at Man Boobz.
How comments are moderated at Man Boobz.

So I had to re-ban a couple of long-banned trolls today, who had returned with new names and slightly different IP addresses but who gave themselves away with their behavior. And that got me thinking about the people — well, the MRAs and PUAs and other such charming folks — who regularly denounce me as an evil censor of FREE SPEECH.

In fact, when I ban people, I do so for good reasons: one of the two trolls I banned today was a longtime MRAish commenter here who eventually creeped everyone out by boasting about having sex with underage prostitutes; the other was a man of many sockpuppets known for angry, abusive meltdowns full of slurs.

Anyway, so I thought I’d give you all a glimpse into my “trash” folder. Here’s a sampling of comments from would-be first time commenters at Man Boobz that I felt would not add anything to the discourse here. But in the interests of FREE SPEECH I thought I’d give these “ideas” an airing today.

TRIGGER WARNING for violent and offensive language. (Sorry about the quality of the last two; you can click on them to see larger versions.)

You people are such wankers. MGTOW is the best thing that ever happened. Personally, i despise women and would gladly see them all die horribly. This site is not only run bu a pathetic, wretched little scum, but populated by ones as well.Sad to say. But I see many good men get hurt by women. I feel not one drop of sympathy for any women who gets hurt, Beatin up or treated like shit. Cheers you dumb bitch.censored1censored2

Not all of the comments I trash are quite this awful. Some are only mildly violent or abusive. I tend to be a bit picky with people’s first comments, assuming that if someone posts a shitty first comment it’s not likely to get any better after that. There are a few banned commenters who stop by and try to post anyway, including one fellow who leaves endless comments trying to prove, as far as I can tell, that teenage girls are objectively hotter than women in their twenties and older.

And, of course, there are comments targeting individual women, whether these are giant cut-and-pasted rants about Anita Sarkeesian, vaguely threatening remarks aimed at other well-known internet feminists, or bizarre sexual comments about female MRAs from fans of theirs.

Once in a while I will get a comment from a feminist that resorts to violent language; I don’t let those comments through either.

And then there are the pictures people try to post in the comments. Below, one of the ones I actually let through, depicting me in a dress with some extremely tall dude. A quick Google image search reveals that it was originally posted online by regular A Voice for Men contributor Janet Bloomfield, in a blog post of hers from last year on Disney princesses. Stay classy, Men’s “Human Rights” Movement!

I don't actually own a dress like this.
I don’t actually own a dress like this.

Anyway, the pictures I don’t let through are worse.

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a voice for men a woman is always to blame antifeminism empathy deficit FemRAs harassment misogyny MRA no games for girls none dare call it conspiracy oppressed men rape culture taking pleasure in women's pain threats TyphonBlue victrim blaming video games white knights

A Voice for Men’s Honey Badgers ask: Why hasn’t Anita Sarkeesian been harassed MORE?

A Voice for Men’s so-called “Honey Badgers” — its little super-team of female MRAs, led by blabby Canadian videoblogger Karen “GirlWritesWhat” Straughan — have a new theory about Anita Sarkeesian. And it’s a doozy.

Sarkeesian, you may recall, is a feminist cultural critic who’s faced pretty much nonstop harassment from misogynistic internet assholes since she launched a project to dissect sexist tropes in video games. AVFM has contributed, in its own special way, to this wave of harassment, with articles describing Sarkeesian as, among other things, a “moneygrubbing liar” and a “queen bee … girl interloper” in the world of video games; AVFM’s Dean Esmay also held her partially responsible, along with an assortment of other internet feminists, for the suicide of one Canadian Men’s Rights Activist.

The principals at AVFM have blamed her for — either inadvertently or deliberately — bringing this harassment on herself by going to 4chan and posting about her project. (As I noted in a previous post, there’s no actual evidence she ever did this.)

The Honey Badgers, for their part, are certain that getting harassed by 4chaners was  part of her devious plan all along.

In a teaser for their internet “radio” show tonight, the “Honey Badger” known as TyphonBlue writes:

Like all professional damsels in distress, Anita Sarkeesian had to choose a good dragon. Just the right looming shadow to fall over her delicate and fragile sensibilities; just the right cackling stage-villain to inspire her cries of helpless horror.

She chose 4-chan. An internet forum known for it’s underbelly of foul-tempered and hair-triggered trolls.

Then, after accusing Sarkeesian of inviting countless rape and death threats upon herself (and only a portion of it from 4channers, I should add), the Badgers take their weird conspiracy theory one step further:

But we at Honey Badger Radio have noticed something… odd. The wave of so-called hate that Anita received from her carefully chosen dragon, wasn’t really all that bad.

Yeah. A year and a half (so far) of pretty much unending harassment and baseless criticism, complete with violent threats directed not only at her but at other women who have defended her — that’s nothing.

Compared to 4-chan’s usual scorched earth strategy–raizing [sic] everything to the ground and pissing on the ashes, Anita got a little singed, like she sat too close to a campfire.

So we have to ask… Did 4-chan white knight Anita? I mean, come on. Was that the best 4 chan could do?

Yes, that’s right. The Honey Badgers are accusing those who sent rape and death threats to Anita Sarkeesian … of “white knighting” her.

I can’t even.

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divorce dozens of upvotes evil sexy ladies evil single moms evil women lazy women eating bon bons mantrum men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA not-quite-explicit threats oppressed men reddit shit that never happened the c-word threats

Men’s Rights Jeopardy: I’ll take “Kill the B*tch” for two dozen upvotes, Alex.

MRAs: Perpetually furious
MRAs: Perpetually furious

So over on the Men’s Rights subreddit, a fella named dzogen came by to vent about his unfair divorce.

Seems his “freeloader and loser” of an ex-wife — a former drug addict — sits around the house eating bon bons while happily collecting $2500 a month in child support for the five year old kid they had together. Also, she treats him with disrespect. “Meanwhile,” the poor fella wrote, for an added dose of pathos, “I have to survive on PB&J.”

*cough*shitthatneverhappened*cough*

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a voice for men actual activism advocacy of violence antifeminism are these guys 12 years old? conspiracy theory douchebaggery facebook censoring rape memes the world is ending oh no gross incompetence harassment hundreds of upvotes imaginary oppression johntheother men who should not ever be with women ever misandry misogyny MRA not-quite-explicit threats not-quite-plausible deniability paul elam reddit threats

Facebook: Page advocating murder of feminist blogger “doesn’t violate our community standard on bullying and harassment.”

facebookwthumbflipped

Several months ago, you may recall, feminist activists got Facebook to agree to remove blatant sexist hate speech from its site — much to the chagrin of many Men’s Rights Activists, like Paul Elam of A Voice for Men, who declared, in a post filled with alarmist rhetoric, that “feminist ideologues are co-opting Facebook, and they will root out any and all opposition to their worldview.” AVFM’s John Hembling, meanwhile, denounced the feminist activists as “fascists.”

Ever since then, Men’s Rights activists have been playing a game of “gotcha” with Facebook, trying to prove that the hate-speech monitors there only care about misogynist hate speech, and don’t actually care about hate speech directed at men. Every few days, it seems, there is a new thread in the Men’s Rights subreddit purporting to document this alleged “double standard.”

Ten days ago, for example, a Men’s Rights Redditor called dizzy_j got nearly 400 upvotes for a post complaining that “I reported three anti-men Facebook pages for gender-based hate speech today. Only one was removed.”  Six days ago,  DerDietrich got 580 upvotes for submitting this supposed evidence of a double standard. Trouble is, you can’t actually prove a double standard with a handful of examples.

But I would like to suggest an alternate hypothesis, which also fits the anecdotal data provided thus far by the MRAs, and provide an additional piece of anecdotal evidence that supports my theory and undercuts theirs.

My hypothesis is that Facebook is shitty at recognizing and dealing with hate speech and harassment, no matter whom it’s aimed at.

My evidence for this? Well, yesterday bloggers at Skepchick noticed a Facebook page targeting a specific feminist/skeptic blogger and asking if she “should … be murdered.” The anonymous poster — who identified her by name and posted pictures of her on the page — coyly avoided a literal call for murder, writing instead:

We should not ever break the law. Rather, we should advocate , through lawful land constitutional processes, to have the law changed so that it is legal to kill [name redacted by DF]. Alternatively, we should, where legal, request that [name redacted by DF] kill herself. Relevant laws should be changed so that suicide, and advocating suicide, is legal.

The Skepchick bloggers reported the page to Facebook for its obvious violations of the site’s harassment policies.

And they received this reply from Facebook (I’ve covered up the blogger’s name):

facebookharassnoteREdact

I think it’s fair to say that if Facebook can’t recognize a page calling for the literal murder of someone as harassment there is something very wrong with its system for dealing with harassment and hate speech.

The page has since been taken down, though it’s not clear if it was removed by Facebook or by the original anonymous Facebooker.

Get your act together, Facebook.