That opportunistic parasite, my dear readers, would be me, and probably quite a few of you.
The international Men's Rights conference was held this year in London, England, with some two hundred participants from twenty-four countries. Paul Elam, the founder of the website Voice for Men, greeted the conference via a video link:
After a speech in which he described women as “opportunistic parasites in the lives of men”, he was greeted to rapturous applause.
“Society piles complete and total responsibility on men for its existence” he said. “Almost all the sacrifice, of blood and sweat and of life that is required to keep the world turning, to keep us living in relative comfort and safety, is male sacrifice. Women won’t do it. Women can’t do it.”
This would be so utterly hilarious* if Elam's woman-hating words weren't aimed at half the humanity, that half which actually reproduces the society, with a lot of sacrifice, blood and sweat, and then also plays as many other roles as it is allowed in keeping that world turning.
But it's not hilarious. Here is a man spouting an extreme form of misogyny, and the overarching reaction from others is a yawn, a shoulder shrug, or someone muttering that this is just a small group of weirdos so better ignore them.
No other form of bigotry gets such an out, and no article describing other forms of bigotry would then branch into asking if those forms of bigotry might actually be justified by some unfairness done to the bigots.**
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* I'm seeing myself as a large snake-like leech, swimming in the societal waters, ready to attach my suction cups to any male who happens to pass by. Then I'm set for life and no longer need to work for money or beg for pittances by blogging. And when I have sucked one guy dry I will just move to the next one, with bank accounts full of alimony money and my chocolate reserves high.
** I don't mean that men wouldn't have any just causes they should work for (though, in fact, feminism works for many of those, too).
I mean that no other group claiming to work for social justice is treated the way these particular men's rights activists are in writing: The mainstream (first wrote mainsteam) articles usually begin by describing the activists' red-hot hatred of women but then segue into trying to understand that rage as maybe just a little justified. An article on, say, anti-semitism would never ever do that.