Meet the Patriarchy Party, the latest bid for media attention from Men’s Rights Edmonton
From the Patriarchy Party’s actual pamphlet. Yes, the name of the party is almost impossible to read. I don’t think that’s on purpose.
I sometimes say that the only “activism” that the Men’s Rights Movement is any good at is harassing individual women. But perhaps I’m being a bit too stingy here: following on the heels of the Father’s Rights activists who dress up like superheroes and climb up buildings and bridges to show that, well, I’m not sure what they’re trying to show, Men’s Rightsers seem to be developing a knack for poorly conceived media stunts that make them look like idiots.
The latest incredibly poorly conceived Men’s Rights media stunt come from Men’s Rights Edmonton, the A Voice for Men sister brother group famous for, among other things, chasing women down the street in the middle of the night and claiming that the women they chased were the bullies.
Anyway, the loudest and most obnoxious dude in the group, Nick Reading (a.k.a. “Eric Duckman”) has decided to run for Edmonton City Council on — get this! — the Patriarchy Party ticket! Oh no he didn’t!
Oh, yes he did. I suppose that the Patriarchy Party’s supposed platform — including a pledge “to end antiquated laws regarding women’s sexual consent” and provisions to instruct teachers “to snatch things like toy trucks out of the hands of little girls and replace them with dolls or tea sets” — probably inspired a chuckle or two amongst the folks at A Voice for Men, but the trollery here is really too inane to offend.
Whetever, dudes. You can find their badly designed pamphlet, with traced-photo “artwork” presumably by the noted FeMRA artist TyphonBlue, here.
Posted on September 26, 2013, in a voice for men, antifeminism, are these guys 12 years old?, artistry, creepy, edmonton, grandiosity, gross incompetence, harassment, men who should not ever be with women ever, misogyny, MRA, patriarchy, rape culture, rape jokes, TyphonBlue. Bookmark the permalink. 592 Comments.
It’s a double bluff. That’s what the Plantinati want you to think.
I guess any publicity is good publicity, as far as they’re concerned.
Damn those pervy plants. And damn the MRM. Logic and reason before emotion, bollocks. Logic leads here, only bullshit leads to their misogynistic crap. George Lucas should take note – this is what falling to the dark side looks like, none of that whiney teenag-… oh, never mind. Lucas had it right.
I was going to make a joke about a bunch of racists running in elections in the US South on a platform of bringing back Jim Crow … and then I realized that it would probably do pretty well. 0_o
cloudiah – Oh dear. This says something about US politics… -_-
gillyrosebee — ah ok, they haven’t improved then. And room temp palak paneer is perfectly edible, room temp cardboard meat is not (idk on the paneer, being a dairy product and dairy and I disagreeing)
Katz — some people just shouldn’t cook. My father simmers fucking peas for six hours. Thus proving that you can, in fact, fuck up heated a canned vegetable.
I mean, I get that “wife who can’t cook” is an anti-woman cliche, but yeah, some people just can’t (and, flip side, some men totally can, have you had pecunium’s cooking?)
Word to the wise: canned vegetables either go on the stove at a medium-ish heat until an acceptable temp, or in the microwave for 3~5 min, depending how hot you want ‘em. Never simmer them for hours! Well, except in a crockpot, but those keep the juices in.
It took me ages and ages to realise that was the purpose of the crows in Dumbo….
Speaking of racism and anti-women things, does anyone know where the anime insult of calling a girl uncute/not-cute comes from? I’ve only recently started watching them and I was wondering about it.
That’s how I read gillyrosebee’s comment about the cooking, too, Argenti, katz. Not as a “wife who can’t cook” joke, just “this person can’t cook”. Strewth, it’d describe me perfectly, too. I’m what a character on Lewis described as a P&P meals person – Pierce and Peel. :)
What exactly is “traced-photo “artwork”.” I’ve noticed it has become part of the MRM’s stylistic “flair,” but I have no idea exactly how it’s made. It kinda looks like lazy use of the magic wand tool and a crappy photoshop filter. But honestly, I’m a bit of a novice at badly conceived images processed through photoshop.
@ Sittiekitty the Japanese loooove cute. So to say someone (especially a girl) or something is not cute has much more impact than for us.
Toonces can drive…
[That Patriarchy Party Symbol...]
Oh! I get it! It’s suppose to be a penis and balls. How… clever?
At a guess, and working from a sketchy memory, I’d say it’s the cutout tool – that’s how I made my avatar! Assuming I’m remembering what it’s called correctly… mind you, mine was a one off usage, rather than my entire artistic style, and it looks good.
The P’s look like silhouettes of the dinosaurs I used to draw as a kid.
Just when I thought they couldn’t be more obvious. I always got the impression that their idea of a “fair and just society” is one where they subjugate women, where oppressing women is a basic right of theirs. Hence when women stand up against oppression, these dudbros (yes, I’m using it!) think that is oppressing *them*!
Well of course everything is oppression to MRAs, from the fact that their mother didn’t do the laundry today to the fact that that hot girl at the bar told them that she had a boyfriend and to leave her alone after sexually harassing her for her number. *nod*
Ofcourse, it’s true that many of the great politicians of the old days were satirists, like Jonathan Swift. Today, he might do something similar.
cloudiah,
——————————————————————————————————————-
I was going to make a joke about a bunch of racists running in elections in the US South on a platform of bringing back Jim Crow … and then I realized that it would probably do pretty well. 0_o
——————————————————————————————————————-
Might not be as funny as you would think. There actually are a lot more people out there than you might think who would love to bring back Jim Crow. There are a lot of racists hate mongers out there.
The thing with Jonathan Swift is… he was witty.
And J Swift was pretty obviously satire, where these MRAs believe the bullshit they spew. Also, wasn’t Swift progressive for his time instead of regressive? (I have not looked up this information, so I’m unaware, I only know Swift in a kind of passing fashion.)
Progressive is one word for it. That was around the time of Ireland’s first famine (not the potato one you’re thinking of) — the idea that something had to be done, they can’ test their kids, was, depending the exact timing, a novel one. The second famine, the potato famine, the “they can fend for themselves” attitude was worse, but the English treating the Irish like people with the same rights has a long complex history that I am not suited to tell.
In short, yes, Swift’s proposal can be read as “you guys are assholes”. Whereas the MRAs are the assholes. Satiring themselves. Cuz Poe’s Law.
Yes, I don’t think anyone would ask if Swift really thought the children of the poor should be eaten.
Argenti, mushy peas cooked to a uniform sludge is totally a thing. A nasty, horrific thing, but a thing nonetheless.
Katz, that apology is still on the table, but I honestly I wasn’t going for the generalization. Among the friends I see face to face, it would have been clear (because of the MRE reference) that I was talking about a particular person, not wives in general (and married or not, I myself am no great cook without a recipe to follow fairly closely). The error I think I made was that I read along here and feel as if I know so many of you that for a moment there I just forgot that you wouldn’t have the context to know that I was talking about a particular person instead of making the gross (in both senses of the word) sexist generalization.
Mea maxima culpa.
Palak Paneer is delicious. Period.
@criticaldragon, That was kind of my whole point, but thanks for restating what I already said?
@sarahlizhousespouse, I second that. The Trader Joe’s version (boil-in bag and all) is my favorite
Up until this, most of what I knew about Edmonton came from Minister Faust’s science fiction novel, “Space Age Bachelor Pad of the Coyote Kings”.
Which, I must say, gives a much more upbeat impression of the city, despite the drugs, murder and cannibalism.
::looks up palak paneer::
::sees word ‘curry::
::backs away slowly::
I’m kind of in a bad mood, but what part of
says that I don’t know there are a lot of racists out there?
::sends cloudiah chocolate via secret camera::
Those “P’s” look more like golf clubs to me, which is alarming in and of it’s self.
Argh
“itself” plz!
::eats chocolate::
::better mood now::
cloudiah, sorry about your mood. I can empathize, if your misery (or grumpy, as the case may be) would appreciate some company…
I just don’t like saying “X.”
And then having someone come along after me and say “But what about X, you didn’t think about that.”
But I’m in a bad mood for totally unrelated reasons; normally I’d just let that go.
Kittehs, I’m wondering idly if you’d like Persian food. It’s seasoned, but not spicy. I think you’ve been to LA before (am I imagining that?), so wondering if you tried Persian or any middle Eastern food.
Sorry, I overreacted. But I think I could go quite happily for the rest of my life without ever hearing anyone joke about someone’s wife’s bad cooking again, regardless of her actual ability.
See, the joke has a lot to do with the fact that the “position” of the “patriarchy party” isn’t anybody’s real position. It’s the straw-man position that people are constantly accusing MRAs of supporting. Of course it appears ridiculous. It’s a gross over-simplification perpetuated by people too lazy to bother finding out the truth.
I used to share an apartment with a guy who had been sexually abused by multiple different adults as a child. He liked to pop the blades out of disposable razors and cut his torso. We tried to get him some help. I was very much surprised to discover the complete lack of resources available to help this individual. I guess for most of you, people like this just don’t exist. After all, MRAs don’t have any real issues, right? They’re just woman-haters.
MRE =Meal, Ready to Eat. they replaced C-Rations in 1984. I started eating them in 1993, when they were in the second generation (all the freeze-dried meats had been replaced with shelf-stable dishes, but the freeze-dried fruit in heavy syrup was still to be found).
The Third Generation had a heater in every meal: a few grams of casutic lye in a structured formin a plastic sleeve (very handy for making, “MRE bombs”). The freeze dried fruit was gone.
Fourth Generation had more meals, and did away with some of the proprietary desserts in favor of contracted ones (M&Ms, Skittles, Jolly Ranchers).
All in all they aren’t that bad; once in a while. I still have about two dozen for emergency rations. A number of “survival” firms have manufactured things they market as, “MREs” but they aren’t.
They are better than Ukranian field rations, about par with English, and inferior to Greek; though only the Brits come close in terms of variety. On the other hand, eating an MRE cold isn’t too bad; and eating a Compo (British Ration) cold is masochistic in the extreme.
I think they just slap the Posterize filter on them. Look, I can do it too!
Actually, I think TyphonBlue runs pics through filters, and then traces over them and fiddles with them. So it’s not just filters. But it’s not exactly great original art. And sometimes it’s so lazy it doesn’t look like she did anything more than run it through a filter.
Naturally, I lazily run pics through the “ink sketch” and “pencil sketch” filters on Paint.net (as well as similar photoshop filters) all the time for my man boobz graphics, but I don’t actually pretend to be an artist when I’m doing that.
I know EXACTLY what photoshop filter was used. It was “cutout.” She took a photo, drew some lines on it, clicked cutout. Yeah. That’s it.
Cloudiah, I think if you set up a “racist party” specifically mentioning you will bring back Jim crow you wouldn’t do well.
If you set up a party with another name that looked at ensuring people use and can only use services in their close locality (i.e segregation but don’t call it that) you’d do well. Similarly with other coded racial policies like being tougher on minor crime or drugs (although these policies are only racist because people know the police won’t apply the law equally to white people)
Even in the South are adverse to being racist by name.
God this is depressing.
Wow. In the pamphlet he says he will “divert sorely misplaced millions of dollars away from women’s shelters…”
I’m not really seeing the joke, since I just started reading Molly Dragiewicz’s book “Equality with a Vengeance” about a MRA group in the States who tried to use an Equal Protection claim to say that funding shelters for women was discriminatory towards men. They didn’t prevail in their lawsuit, but they sure tried.
Crazy of us feminists to think they’d want to close down women’s shelters.
Yes, I’ve been to LA a coupla times, and no, I’ve never tried Persian food. I was under the impression Middle Eastern food would be pretty hot, at least to my palate, which is a pity, because some of the dishes sound very appealing.
Hmm, there’s a Persian restaurant not too far from where I’m going to be on Monday …
So they decided that the mrm wasn’t enough of a laughingstock already, and they needed to step it up a few notches?
They’re obviously trying to be controversial and edgy to get attention, but that doesn’t work if the attention just makes them look like a bunch of clowns. The Westboro Baptist Church is great at doing controversial things to get attention, but everybody hates them.
Despite the saying, there really is such a thing as bad publicity.
@Magnus spem
“I used to share an apartment with a guy who had been sexually abused by multiple different adults as a child. He liked to pop the blades out of disposable razors and cut his torso. We tried to get him some help. I was very much surprised to discover the complete lack of resources available to help this individual. I guess for most of you, people like this just don’t exist. After all, MRAs don’t have any real issues, right? They’re just woman-haters.”
Why should they care?
Just look at the number of homeless men compared to women,men are disposable in this so called patriachal society
I did it to a pic of mine in Photoshop just now and OH GAWD…I’m an MRA avatar…*shudders and deletes*
I think she should push the filter even further until the MRA in question looks like a cubist painting.
Also AVfM snuck into the girl’s clubhouse…errr…secret feminist meetup. Apparently there was doxxing according to this thread in AMR
http://www.reddit.com/r/againstmensrights/comments/1n7r8q/avfm_and_rmensrights_publish_recordings_of/
The thread in question:
http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1n6kce/secret_toronto_feminist_meeting_23rd_september/
Do you all ever just see this and think “nope. I’m done with this gender war crap”
I used to find MRAs scary. Now I just roll my eyes. Even when they pull creepy shit like this. I’m just so tired. If this is the future of gender issues, I want no part of it. Its just so stupid and I feel so burnt out. I don’t know if it’s just internet feminism, but the back and forth between MRAs and internet feminists is just…I dont know. This all feels like some ridiculous reality show and its upsetting because there are legitimate issues that all genders face and it’s just exploded into this. Does anyone else feel the same way? :(
Lol…well I know David knows about it since I’m reading another thread about it in AMR. I’m behind. Time for bed, methinks.
Greater Good and Magnus — guys, there just aren’t many resources for specific psych issues. Magnus, if you still know the guy in question, direct him to the Bodies Under Seige board, I used to be a mod over there, psych sucks when it comes to self-injury, they rock (non-judgemental but in no way pro-SI, also, random distractions and word games and such)
Trauma groups in general do exist, though I imagine they’re more focused on military type trauma than sexual. Sorry, I don’t know any good resources in that regard.
Greater Good — oh fuck off. No one here has ever, EVER, suggested we don’t care. He’ll, we’ve dug up resources for our trolls before.
…whatever happened to AntZ anyways? Anybody know if he took advantage of said resources? Or just divided down the Mississippi?
Greater Good, maybe you should find a way to help those men? Magnus was already trying to help him… Whining about women isn’t gonna help.
I’m pretty sure that Greater Good is one of us being a Poe, just FYI.
(Zie first appeared in a thread where we were all mocking Good and asking for a better one.)
Argenti, yeah, I was briefly managing editor for an attempt to get a trauma resource set up. There was next to nothing outside of military which existed. Canadian Armed Forces was quite open to helping, but there were legal roadblocks and the money from the backers ran out before it got anywhere.
I thought Greatest Good was the poe?
@Magnus Spem
I’m sorry you don’t live in a country with universal mental healthcare provision. Here in the UK (and in almost all Western European countries), he would have had access to therapy and medication for life. My family, several of whom are psychiatrists, have dealt with terrible cases of self-harm, of both genders, as part of their job. However, if you think things like putting up posters which encourage the attitude that women can’t be raped if they’re drunk, or writing rants on the internet about how all women are evil, actually help men, then you obviously don’t have a good perception of what MRAs actually spend their time doing. No-one thinks that men have no problems (whatever that may mean). But MRAs are about the least likely of any group in the world to solve them.
There’s a Greatest Good too? Now I’m confused.
+1 for hry!
What about lesser good?
So, they draw a giant Ppenis on a pamphlet because that’ll show them mean girls – and yet still manage to take themselves seriously…
(sorry for not reading all the comments, I’m too excited to be here to be patient!)
Cassanda — We have (Not So) Good, Greater Good who tends to show up right after Good eats crow, and Greatest Good who’s a delurker who came when we joked that one of us should take the nym.
lightcastle — that sucks, there really should be trauma groups for non-military men, but I get why the military met roadblocks in their effort to do a good deed.
Why isn’t there a Gooder?
Because the word is Better?
Exactly! Gooder is a better word!
I have to mention…
I have no idea why people keep saying this (I do, actually, but rhetorically speaking). We’ve never said it, it’s a complete strawman. Men do face real issues under the Patriarchy, this one being toxic masculinity and stigmatisation of mental illness. It’s mentioned almost every thread that trolls come into. Men do face legitimate issues.
MRAs are not working at all to fix those issues.
Seriously. I’d be more than happy if they stopped whinging about feminism and got on with actually helping men. I’d have no problem with them if that’s what they were doing. The fact that it’s not what they’re doing, and that they reject feminism, which has dealt with this matter with a coherent framework, instead of utilising and building on it, is kind of the whole problem. That’s pretty much the entire point of this blog…
So no, to most of us, people like that do exist, we’ve even looked up resources like Argenti said, But MRAs aren’t working at fixing the legitimate issues. The manboobz challenge (Find one moderate/non-misogynist MRA who is widely considered to be a spokesperson for the movement) is a challenge for a reason: because it’s not possible to find. The movement is headed by people who hate men almost as much as they hate women, plainly obvious in the fact they don’t give a shit about helping men like your friend and just want to use their suffering to promote their hatred as a talking point.
Wouldn’t gooder be a gooder word?
A University of Toronto professor responds to Gilmour’s comments, and he is not pleased.
http://www.dispositio.net/archives/1688
Hey moron, patriarchy means “rule of the father.” It means a few dudes at the top run everything, with the majority of everyone else (all women, all children, and most men) underneath them. It’s why feminists have very consistently said the phrase, “patriarchy hurts men, too.”
Why not Betterer?