I’ve heard it said often enough that A Voice for Men is a hate site, but usually the evidence for that claim doesn’t go any deeper than this link.
As a skeptic, I’m not about to outsource my evaluation to the SPLC, so I read up a bit on my own. I found ample evidence of hatred against women, including this damning sound clip in which site founder Paul “Elam” makes the case for publishing personal information about women and stalking them on their way to work, by way of this affiliated website run by AVfM. So that’s fairly disturbing. Maybe Paul retracted this explicit call for doxxing and stalking at some point, and I just missed it. Regardless of retractions, the “Register Her” website calls for publicly shaming members of one gender, and only one gender, and I find it morally objectionable and personally revolting on those grounds alone.
Then there is this piece from “Elam” arguing that all accused rapists should be acquitted. Notice that the original piece has been removed from the website, presumably because AVfM has some sense of shame. Again, maybe Paul publicly renounced this column and I missed it.
Finally, we have this steaming pile of long-troll ‘satire’ which is essentially an extended rape joke about citing your sources. Read it for yourself if you think I’m exaggerating.
Notice that all three of these pieces are directly from the mouth of the website founder, not from anonymous troll commenters. As such, we have to ask the question, why would anyone willingly associate with this site, given that the site founder is so openly cavalier about stalking and rape?
Please, if you can, explain that to me.
45 comments
It seems pretty hateful to me. I give it three Pharyngulas on the hate scale.
The approved unit of Pharyngulite hatred is the porcupine: https://plus.google.com/112678828039827338064/posts/SPtboB3Uoze
I have read very little of AVfM and it is quite disgusting. Whether it is officially designated a hate site or not is somewhat inconsequential, it clearly does spew hate. I certainly don’t think anyone would want to associate themselves with such an odious organisation. And those that have should really question the ethics of doing so.
Is it “unethical” to associate oneself with an odious organization?
If it is a supportive association, then yes I believe it is.
What would constitute support? Promoting their values? Promoting their website? Promoting their members? Supporting their right to exist? Talking to them? Acknowledging their existence?
Values – It depends on the values. Just because they have some odious values does not mean they may have some admirable ones too, but Hitler had a good economic policy and all that.
Website – Yes, promoting their website is promoting their values, the good and the bad. Unless, of course, you are critiquing them in the manner Damion has done above.
Members – Yes, promoting members also promotes their ideals.
I don’t see too much problem with talking to them, acknowledging existence or supporting right to exist. Depends on context.
Depends upon the level of association and odiousness, to be sure, but I would never allow my work to be published at AVfM, given what I’ve seen so far.
Oh, hey, there’s more! Google #rapeallwomen sometime.
But your not a hateful person. Wouldn’t your articles make that site less hateful?
There is a distinct difference between supporting the site and supporting some of the viewpoints however. Their article on Male circumcision the other day that someone linked was not hateful and showed good skeptical thinking.
Anytime you have a binary ideology like this its going to invite the lowest common denominator. Same thing can be said of their counterparts in the other side.
Id never give money or promote the site but it doesn’t make some of the ideas that are written about unfounded and able to be dismissed simply because of where they came from.
The Qur’an has some niceties too, but fucked if I’m ever going to lend any support to it.
Agreed but i wouldn’t look poorly on an Imam working for an end to jihadist mentality and quoting the sections of the quran that speak of peace either.
Of course not, unless he was promoting hatred at the same time, which AvFM does.
Yea like i said not a fan. But doesnt make some of their concerns invalid. Same with the feminist side. Not a fan but doesnt make some of their concerns invalid.
Neither realizes how much they alienate the good portion of us who sit in the middle. Its as bad as republicrats and democans in the United States
We are not discussing their concerns, we are discussing the organisation.
If the WBC started talking about poverty, that doesn’t negate the fact they are a hate group nor does their hate group status negate the issue of poverty.
We can still, quite easily, discuss legitimate concerns. We do not need AVfM to do this; in fact, we could probably do it easier if they did not exist.
Good point your right. I was thinking more in the lines of highlighting the concerns more then a platform for discussion but i guess its the same.
I was happy not knowing who the hell they were, but I guess it’s time we have this conversation, so bravo for checking into it.
I’m not a fan and the movement does seem to come from men who have been burn by alimony and custody battles. Bitter they may be though lets be charitable and do the ‘walk a mile in some other persons moccasins’ or ‘even don’t judge them all by the sum of their parts.’ Even the Christians have the whole bean in the eye and the forgiveness theme going for them. Have we atheists/skeptic become so hard hearted as to dismiss out of hand someone else’s pain.
I’m judging one site by the (hateful) words of its founder. I do not care to comment on the MRM as a whole, at this time.
I don’t know really as I can’t imagine not being allowed to see my children, how much pain that will cause me. I might find a site that lets me vent my spleen which I admit will not be pretty. Even if I have to pay for their upkeep which I should do in any case. I wish I knew all the answers like you seems to do. I can’t help feeling it is a sad state of affairs.
Of course it’s a sad state of affairs when a loving father cannot see his children. Not sure what that has to do with posting a woman’s work phone number or commuting route to a website designed to demonize women and only women.
Agreed and it is disgusting behaviour. Would i indulge such behaviour if I wasn’t allowed to see my children, who knows as I don’t have any but I do know that any action I take would be based purely on emotion and not rationality.
But that’s the main problem with the A+ forums. Everyone is honoring everyone else’s emotional reactions because we can’t possibly understand the pain that they’ve endured in their lives while sacrificing civility and measured analysis.
I personally don’t have a problem with the atheism+ forum, their forum, their rules. if you don’t like it then don’t go there. It is not to my taste so I don’t go there but I would never want to take it away from them.
There is a big difference between understanding why someone acts a certain why, and condoning that action, or even tolerating it. You can understand bad choices made by people in difficult circumstances and still note that they were bad choices we should seek to prevent or avoid.
Can’t really disagree with what you are saying here. I’m just getting jaded and fed up with how everybody on the Internet is now judge and jury of all they survey. Everything is either good or bad, black or white. Nobody seems to even scratch the surface before pronouncing judgement. It’s the lack of empathy and understanding that gets me the most. When did we become so perfect to be in a position to look down on the flaws of other people.
Serious question: Are there any MRA groups that don’t sound nutty or hateful?
That is an excellent question. I feel like there should be, but perhaps they are less well-known because they don’t take the sort of crazed FTSU approach that made AVfM famous in the first place.
don’t know about groups, but some individual MRA-ish types seem very reasonable, for example: http://www.pellebilling.com/
It’s hardly a blip on the hate scale compared to FTB. Seriously. Who are you trying to please here? If it were not for the fact males are holding a mirror up to fembot lunacy, you would not consider it any different to any other activist site out there. Is your sudden “oh I’m soooo outraged” stance sexist? You tell me. When you apply the same standard of “hate” to the gender fem crap that’s out there, I might believe you’re not. But that has an element of danger – so I’m not holding my
breathe. AVFM is easy pickings – it’s “socially redeeming” to piss all over them. Cheap and easy brownie points.
I thought we were here to please the principles of skepticism. Is there a narrative that needs to be upheld, somewhere?
I’ve no idea where I gave you the idea that I respect you enough to desire your advice on what to write about, “Franc.” You are a blight on the atheist movement, so far as I can see, and you exude hatred at least as consistently and irrationally as those you denounce.
That said, when the day comes that Skeptic Ink is at risk of appearing to be an ally to the “fembot lunacy” of which you speak, then I’ll write a piece about that.
I’m a blight? OK, fair enough. Your objectivity is no longer in question. And have you actually read me? No. That would be a cardinal sin. Like the Vatican banned books list. You have an issue with anything I have written, how about you point it out? Your silence will be deafening.
And it should be noted that you have only spoken out against FTB lunacy once a safe critical mass was established – no balls to do so on your own before that. It is funny how you buy insurance even after that buy jumping on the “hate franc” bandwagon. You are a moral vacuum.
Please do not issue personal insults.
Does “You are a blight on the atheist movement” sound like a personal insult to you Ed?
We are talking about someone who fantasizes publicly about kicking Ophelia in the cunt and shooting her like an old dog. “Blight” was the very nicest thing I could think to say. People that hateful are not welcome to comment here, for obvious reasons.
Immaterial. Its a personal insult, and I was wondering why Ed picked up on just Franc’s even milder “no balls to do so on your own”
Edit: And ‘moral vacuum’
I want you Damion to provide one piece of evidence where I promoted “hatred” instead of arguing against it. Just one. No quote mining, actual referenced evidence. Failure to do so will confirm you are a hollow man, a bandwagon jumper, a no brain populist. Cough up my man. Or retract.
Damion – I’m waiting
It might surprise you to learn that this thread is not about you or your obsessive hatred of FtB. I’ll address those problems elsewhere, in my own time. Meanwhile, people can look you up in the SlymePit if they want to get a sense of just how hateful you really are.
You are also a coward. Blocking tweets? What a BraveHero. You show yourself, you don’t show me.
Mod note: I’ve deleted all the posts following this one as irrelevant to the OP. This thread is not about Franc, nor about FtB. If you feel the need to vent about FtB, there is already a website just for that.
Franc is not welcome to comment here at BackgroundProbability, nor is anyone else with a history of making hateful remarks against secular leaders. Please do not even bother trying.
Do you think that maybe someone should stage an “intervention” for Justin Vacula before he gets too far enmeshed with AVfM? I think he’s starting to twig to its problems, but maybe not quite enough.
I support Justin, and I really want him to suceed, but at the moment I am more concerned with morally distancing myself from some of his supporters.
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