David Futrelle does some high spot notification on Jeff Sharlet’s report on the Voice for Men conference last year. I find this useful because I find Sharlet’s piece tough going – too much story-telling detail cluttering up and obscuring the interesting substantive parts. I have the same problem with his book The Family. Both are too much like fiction – presented too much as stories, with the usual familiar atmospheric detail of most contemporary literary fiction, which I tend to get very impatient with.
My favorite part is Futrelle’s intro –
A few days before alleged “men’s human rights” website A Voice for Men held its first convention last summer, the site’s founder and head boy Paul Elam put up a post imploring the alleged human rights activists planning to attend the event not to go around calling women bitches and whores and cunts, because the news media would be there, and this might make his little human rights movement look bad.
I’m paraphrasing here; Elam was a teensy bit more euphemistic, telling his followers that anyone caught “trash-talking women, men, making violent statements … anything that can be used against us” would get a very stern talking-to and, if they persisted, would be asked to leave.
Elam’s warning didn’t stick. Indeed, the woman in charge of publicity for the event – you may know her as JudgyBitch or Janet Bloomfield, neither of which is her real name – went on a bit of a Twitter rampage, happily denouncing critics of the group as, yep, “whores.”
Now that’s what I call scene-setting.
Here’s the first highlight, which I think is the best:
1) The Men’s Rights Activist who boasted that he would have disowned his daughter if she had pressed charges against the man she said raped her.
At a convention afterparty, the man in question told this little story to Sharlet, Elam, and a few others:
When one of his daughters came home one night and said she’d been raped, he said, “Are you fucking kidding me?” Sitting with us, he hikes his voice up to a falsetto in imitation: ” ‘Oh, I just got raped.’ ” He laughs. There’s a moment of silence. A bridge too far? “I told her if she pressed charges, I’d disown her.”
Elam, whose attention has drifted, grins through his beard. “That’s good fathering,” he says.
I wonder if someone could get him interested in life in the caliphate.
Parenthood (1989)
“I wonder if someone could get him interested in life in the caliphate.”
Sadly, most MRAs seem to be atheists.
One weird thing about Sharlet’s article: he says Elam has a deep voice, like James Earl Jones.
No, he doesn’t. You can hear him on youtube — not at all deep and rumbly. Who was he listening to?
So the superfluous and irritating detail isn’t even accurate. Huh. All the more reason to leave it out.
Elam’s warning didn’t stick. Indeed, the woman in charge of publicity for the event … went on a bit of a Twitter rampage, happily denouncing critics of the group as, yep, “whores.”
Gee, if even Paul!! Elam!!! can’t get his women to obey, what’s the point of the rest of us trying?
anything that can be used against us” would get a very stern talking-to
Not… THE COMFY CHAIR!!!
Maybe he had a cold, my voice get’s impressively deep when I’m ill. Best thing about a throat cold is wandering around the house singing deep voiced songs in a cold driven haze, best thing for me anyway, not so much anyone else. Or maybe it is part of his “game” to effect a deep voice, there was a woman there to impress after all, alpha’s gotta alph. (Or is he a “zeta”, the post seemed to think that was the case, no idea what that is!)
That post is very well written, but has a feeling of the dramatic about it as a result of the style. Not sure I trust some of the details cos of that, although Elam and party have hardly denied much in their response. The “good fathering” thing is truly shocking, when I didn’t think they could be shockingly bad any more just banal in their evil. Although it may have hit home more as I have two daughters and one of them feeling they could come to me if something that bad happened (Bob forbid!) would be a small positive in a terrible situation. They had the trust in their father to go to him with that. To then be betrayed and frankly emotionally abused in that manner is beyond my comprehension. Just how could he do that to his own children and think he is a “good father” as a result? Makes my head hurt :/
I am guessing AVFM is going to be all up in arms and protesting against Saudi Arabia for arresting a bunch of guys for dancing at a party. I mean, that’s worse oppression than men meet under the rule of women, isn’t it?