If you go to the website WhiteRibbon.org, you'll see a page that purports to be an anti-violence organization. "End Violence Against Everyone," the banner reads; a woman's bruised face stares back at you. The name, White Ribbon, is a widely recognized one, known for being a campaign started by men to fight violence against women, and to encourage men and boys to raise their voices against gender-based violence. The WhiteRibbon.org website writes on its front page, "WhiteRibborn.org is owned and operated by A Voice for Men," and warns against imitator sites perverting the anti-violence message.
Just one problem: WhiteRibbon.org is the imitator site. And donations to it don't go to fighting violence at all — they go to spreading the views of a deeply misogynist men's rights organization.
The White Ribbon Campaign was started in 1991 by Canadian men, after anti-feminist zealot Marc Lépine walked into École Polytechnique in Montreal, separated the male students from the female ones, lined the women up against the wall, called them "a bunch of feminists," and opened fire. He killed 14 women and injured 10 women and four men. The "Montreal Massacre" was a galvanizing moment for Canadian feminists, and in its wake, many men took up the challenge of standing up for women's rights. The men of White Ribbon focus on fighting violence by working with other men, asking men and boys "to wear white ribbons as a pledge to never commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women and girls." They do workshops and trainings in schools; they conduct awareness-raising campaigns; they offer comprehensive education kits; they host an annual conference with the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario, "bringing boys together to discuss gender equality, respect and healthy relationships and steps they can take to make a difference"; and they work in partnership with women's organizations all over the world. For those who work on issues of domestic violence, the White Ribbon Campaign is a household name.
"We have grown to be the largest effort of men and boys around the world working on this issue, with activities taking place in over 70 countries across the planet," White Ribbon Campaign executive director Todd Minerson told Cosmopolitan.com. "We work in a very sophisticated, strategic way to do primary prevention work with men and boys that's about promoting gender equality and transforming the harmful aspects of masculinity that cause all of us so much harm."
WhiteRibbon.org, on the other hand, does little more than display anti-feminist propaganda. The site itself reads, "All donations for our White Ribbon effort will be used to maintain and enhance this website."
The WhiteRibbon.org website claims it "is dedicated to shedding light on the realities of domestic violence and the grievous harm it visits on its direct victims" and that it presents "the scientific evidence" and "the world's leading experts in domestic violence." (A search of the experts listed shows they have little traction beyond the small, marginal anti-feminist men's rights community.) And the site's owner, Paul Elam, who also owns the website A Voice for Men, not only denies that domestic violence is a problem that disproportionately impacts women, but writes he would commit violence himself, and makes a living publishing violently misogynist content.
"I find you, as a feminist, to be a loathsome, vile piece of human garbage. I find you so pernicious and repugnant that the idea of fucking your shit up gives me an erection," Elam wrote on his site, about feminist educator and author Jaclyn Friedman. In her incisive investigation into the men's rights movement, Friedman reported that one woman who was targeted by Elam, A Voice for Men, and their audience of men's rights activists for having the audacity to get into an argument with a men's rights activist had her personal contact information published online, while commenters said they hoped she would "enjoy being anally defiled" and "I would actually cum cutting that bitch's throat." The Southern Poverty Law Centerhas flagged men's rights groups, and Elam's A Voice for Men in particular, as spreading hate and misogyny.
Elam himself said he would hit a woman, writing, "I am 6'8" tall and 285 pounds. If a woman five feet tall and 110 pounds soaking wet hits me, I am going to hit her back." He blamed Janay Rice for the violence she suffered because "women should not provoke violence with men." He refers to feminists as "cuntists." He even proclaimed the month of October "Bash a Violent Bitch Month":
"I'd like to make it the objective for the remainder of this month, and all the Octobers that follow, for men who are being attacked and physically abused by women – to beat the living shit out of them. I don't mean subdue them, or deliver an open handed pop on the face to get them to settle down. I mean literally to grab them by the hair and smack their face against the wall till the smugness of beating on someone because you know they won't fight back drains from their nose with a few million red corpuscles.
And then make them clean up the mess."
That's who is hosting a website claiming to oppose domestic violence and using the issue of intimate partner violence to raise money.
Elam later claimed that his "Bash a Violent Bitch" post was satire, simply a response to a post at the website Jezebel that he said advocated violence against men. Although he said he didn't mean it, exactly, he said, "It's not wrong," and that his genuine, "not satire" view is that "every one of those women at Jezebel and millions of others across the western world are as deserving of a righteous ass kicking as any human being can be." But beating a woman, he wrote, simply wasn't worth the time in jail or the mandated anger management classes. However, "To all the men out there that decided to say 'Damn the consequences,' and fight back, you are heroes to the cause of equality; true feminists. And you are the honorary Kings of Bash a Violent Bitch Month."
In his post about WhiteRibbon.org, Elam characterizes the White Ribbon Campaign — the established anti-violence organization — as well-known, having "undoubtedly put in a huge amount of sweat equity and actual funds in branding." Their message, he writes, is that men "need to create a safe world for women, blah, blah, blah." The goal of his copycat site, WhiteRibbon.org, is to be "the most highly recognized and iconic voice in the worldwide White Ribbon Campaign." In other words, he wants to use the White Ribbon Campaign's successful branding and international good reputation to deceive readers into thinking WhiteRibbon.org is a legitimate enterprise, spreading his own marginal views about domestic violence and raising money for his own website.
While Elam told Cosmopolitan.com that while WhiteRibbon.org is not meant to be "a thorn in [the White Ribbon Campaign's] side or a slap in the face of feminists," he does have "serious philosophical objections to the way those organizations are presenting information on domestic violence as something men can control only, that men need to stop, that we need to approach this as something that's protecting women." He insists women and men are equal victims of domestic violence, and the fact that women are much more likely to be killed and seriously injured by male partners only indicates that men are bigger and stronger, and that injuries "we might consider significant, like lacerations or broken bones, happened during the course of mutual combat." Elam repeatedly uses the term "mutual combat relationships" rather than "domestic violence," saying intimate partner violence has become a "woman-centric crusade" and that he only seeks to make the point that all violence is wrong.
According to Elam, WhiteRibbon.org is a separate entity from A Voice for Men — sort of. A Voice for Men, he says, is a place for commentary and his own free expression (he says it also pays his living expenses). WhiteRibbon.org is his attempt to publish "what we believe is the truth" about violence, "rather than a sexually politicized bunch of lies." When asked how he squares this new endeavor with his posts about violence against women on A Voice for Men, Elam told Cosmopolitan.com, "I square it with two different operations."
Donations to WhiteRibbon.org, Elam says, go to "a fund owned and managed by A Voice for Men," but that funds earmarked for WhiteRibbon.org will go back into that website. WhiteRibbon.org is currently staffed by "literally all the other regular members of [A Voice for Men's] management team."
The ultimate goal, Elam says, is "to insert this into the dialogue in such a way that anyone doing research on White Ribbon and domestic violence is going to wind up seeing our material."
For critics, he says, he has "a whole garage full of don't give a fuck."
David Futrelle, a writer who documents the men's rights movement, notes that commenters on A Voice for Men see what Elam is doing, and applaud his efforts to direct funding and attention away from an actual anti-violence resource to website that seeks to undo decades of feminist-led domestic violence work, calling it "hilarious" and "clever." One commenter notes his distaste for the White Ribbon Campaign and says, "we must show them our indignation, our hatred and our anger. We must do all we can to beat them down, even if we have to get into their filthy nest to do so. And having this website [WhiteRibbon.org] is hopefully going to achieve that end."
Another commenter posts a photo of gamer and feminist critic Anita Sarkeesian, doctored so that her face is covered in bruises. Sarkeesian recently had to cancel a speaking appearance after someone threatened a "Montreal Massacre style attack" and that Sarkeesian would "die screaming like the craven little whore she is" if her talk wasn't canceled.
The White Ribbon Campaign is aware of WhiteRibbon.org, and Minerson says the site "in no way represents the views of our organization." He said the main concern is making sure that "our supporters and allies and partners know where we stand," and that the White Ribbon Campaign is "exploring all of our options," but knowing how vile A Voice for Men can be, is reluctant to fuel the fire of hate and misogyny.
Whether the real White Ribbon Campaign actually has a legal claim against the misogynist copycat site remains unclear; according to several lawyers Cosmopolitan.com spoke with, a trademark claim may be a possibility but poses a series of legal hurdles. In the meantime, the White Ribbon Campaign is urging backers to put their money and support behind actual anti-violence organizations that do real work, imploring, "do not be fooled by this copycat campaign."
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Jill Filipovic is a contributing writer for cosmopolitan.com. She is the author of OK Boomer, Let's Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind and The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness. A weekly CNN columnist and a contributing writer for the New York Times, she is also a lawyer.
