A Voice for Men boldly opposes respect for women
Hardly a controversial message, you wouldn’t think.
If you live in New York state, you may have seen the poster above plastered on a bus shelter; or you may have seen it posted somewhere on the internet. The message is pretty simple, and it’s sad that it has to be said: kids are pretty impressionable, so teach your sons to treat women with basic respect.
The purpose of the ad campaign, sponsored by the New York state Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence, is pretty clear as well: teaching boys respect for women lessens the chances that they will abuse women as adults.
Numerous studies have found that men with sexist attitudes towards women are more likely to try to control their wives or girlfriends with physical abuse. Indeed, one recent study even found that brief exposure to sexist jokes made men more inclined to brush off violence against women, at least amongst men with sexist attitudes to begin with.
Speaking of which, the sexist jokes over at A Voice for Men have unveiled a hilarious new “meme,” which just happens to be inspired by the “awaiting instructions” PSAs we’ve been discussing. And here it is:
From A Voice for Men. I’ve blurrred the women’s faces.
The logic here is airtight: because some women get drunk and urinate in public, women don’t deserve respect.
I guess men never get drunk and urinate in public, or ever do anything vaguely embarrassing that gets caught on camera?
Is it really asking too much to respect people as people, foibles and all?
Posted on January 12, 2014, in a voice for men, a woman is always to blame, are these guys 12 years old?, domestic violence, empathy deficit, evil sexy ladies, evil women, men who should not ever be with women ever, misogyny, MRA and tagged a voice for men, antifeminism, domestic violence, men's rights, misogyny, MRA. Bookmark the permalink. 429 Comments.
Well, that makes perfect sense. If A woman drinks and publicly pees, women aren’t entitled to common decency!
Misandry is okay because Paul Elam. Checkmate, dudebros.
Of course men can’t respect women! Because everything’s a zero-sum game, and respecting women at all, ever, means men aren’t getting the
blowjobsfree housekeepingobedience from fear of violencerespect that’s their right.Really, because that’s not at all the message I’m getting from the poster. The message I’m getting from this poster is that we should respect people for what’s between their ears, not what’s what’s between their legs. That’s literally all it’s saying. Nowhere on the poster does it say that women do not deserve respect, nor does it say that men don’t do stupid things that warrant not being respected.
BTW: Am I the only one who finds it a little weird how the kid on the poster has a shirt on that says “Awaiting Instructions” like he’s some sort of mindless drone or a robot of some kind?
At Elam’s age if he knows many/any women who do stuff like that he’s a creeper, because how many women in his age range go out, get wasted, and end up peeing in alleyways with their mates? Maybe if he wasn’t so fixated on college girls that would help (both him and the girls who would no longer have to deal with his creepy obsession with their behavior).
If getting drunk and peeing in public is the great barrier to attaining basic respect, maybe we DO need a men’s rights movement after all.
It’s a common theme I’ve noticed in the manosphere & other similar places, a call for respect for women (or a race or a sexual orientation) is usually met with “people have to EARN respect! Nobody deserves my respect!” and it always baffles me. Are we working off different definitions of the word or do they seriously believe human beings aren’t worthy of basic respect unless they’ve proven some kind of specialness by jumping through whatever behavioral hoop the observer demands? I seriously do not get this.
Charlotte, these posters are part of an anti domestic violence campaign. The idea is that you should teach boys to treat women with basic respect, not treat them as inferior beings to men who deserve to be beaten up when they “misbehave.” It’s not about putting women on a pedastal or woirshipping them because of their vaginas or whatever else Elam thinks or pretends that it is.
Second, the added text suggests that it would be ok for the boy not to respect women if all the women he knew acted like this. It also seems to suggest that this is an actual possibility — and indeed enough of a regular occurence that this is probably why boys don’t respect women. Really? His grandmothers act like this?
So… drunk means it’s OK to disrespect women? Hmmm…. where have I heard that before?
Also, the “awaiting instructions” line might be a bit creepy, but the point of it is simply that kids are impressionable. And again this relates back to domestic violence. Virtually everyone who studies DV, including those who aren’t feminist, believes that the family dynamics/attitudes, etc that kids are exposed to in their early years affects their behavior a great deal when they’re older.
I appreciate what the campaign is trying to do, but it is a copy writing fail. The word respect is too ambiguous, and their target audience are the ones most likely to interpret it exactly the wrong way.
@Charlotte
“Respect Women” in the context of the original poster simply means “women are not any less worthy of respect just because they’re women.” That is to say, don’t tell your kids “how many women does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” jokes, etc.
AVFHM misses the point completely; they interpret the poster to be saying something like “respect all women regardless of their behavior,” which is of course absurd. Like they do pretty much all the time, they’re attacking a strawhumanman.
Kids absorb a lot of stuff from their parents and other adults. You knew that, right?
Charlotte: “Nowhere on the poster does it say that women do not deserve respect”
No, it doesn’t say it. It implies it
And you’re right, CassandraSays, he is always fixated on young women. Like their behaviour represents all of women. What is up with that? Maybe he doesn’t acknowledge women over 25 exist (fucking sweet).
Ninja’d by David.
Good of you to blur out the faces.
I think “treat women as people” is better copy than “respect women”. It’s not ambiguous and has a more similar structure to the other sayings.
What Paul Elam is suggesting is total bullshit, men who disrespect women don’t do it because women aren’t deserving of respect, it’s because they are taught they shouldn’t or don’t have to respect them, period. Women are homo sapiens like men, so yeah we do dumb and/or disgusting things sometimes, although I have no idea how peeing in public is akin to deserving to be disrespected. I have peed in alleyways along with the guys I was with, yeah it’s not “polite” behaviour but goddamnit if you leave the bar at close and have an hour trip home with no washrooms in sight WTF are you going to do? I’d rather not piss myself, thank you very much. Somehow men peeing in public is not at all regarded as evil behaviour, it’s just something they do.
Charlotte it is cute you are trying to make this poster seem less vile than it really is. But come on, that is not what this poster is doing. Also, telling people to have respect simply means basic human compassion and understanding. So, you can still find a person’s behaviour unpleasant but realize they deserve your respect because they are human beings. Respect doesn’t mean you have to worship them or treat them like royalty, it just means accept that people are flawed and don’t deserve to be abused. Perhaps if we used different terminology that simple message might be more clear to the dopes over at AVFM.
So does this mean we can now have a pass to disrespect all men because some drunken college boys have a tendency to puke all over themselves and roll in their own shit and piss?
I have seen this..hell…I’ve done it in college.
Charlotte, imagine the screams from AVfM if someone suggested that men as a class shouldn’t get basic respect because some men get drunk and piss in the street. Doesn’t it strike you that Elam’s making treating women with respect – ie. basic decency – contingent on behaving in a way he approves of, while not ever suggesting the same for men?
There’s also the little point that women as a class get nothing like the automatic respect men do, even before you get to the matter of violence against us. Surely you’re aware of that?
@ Robert LOL yeah if we projected the behaviour of frat boys onto the entire male population it wouldn’t be pretty. I think some of the stuff that young people do is a bit troubling, mostly because of personal safety and what not, but it’s not as bad as AVFM likes to make it out to be, nor does it reflect the entire population.
@Kim
Yeah, but there’s that Aretha Franklin song. Emotional resonance is generally preferred to clarity in advertising. “Respect” is vague, but feels better.
This is one of the reasons that all marketing people will be forced into reeducation camps once the revolution comes.
@ Kim I agree, I think respect gets confused with “treat them better than everyone else” (even though that’s not what it means)
This one man misbehaves. Women misbehave.
This one man can’t drive. Women can’t drive.
This one man can’t do math. Women can’t do math.
This one man doesn’t deserve respect. Women don’t deserve respect.
And so on and so forth.
@Charlotte On my planet it is customary to give our children instructions because our children tend to be naive and inexperience in the ways of world and they tend to need guidance, whereas if they are denied instruction and guidance they tend to err and at times get into deep shit.
How is it on your planet?
I also can’t fathom how they don’t realize just how asinine posters like this make their “movement” look like to the wider public.
I’ve been in worse states than that but I applause them for there efforts what can I say drunks got to stick together.
I suspect its a lack of life experience that causes the members of AVFM to pass judgement so swiftly on those young women.
Shorter Elam: any behaviour I don’t like, from any woman anywhere, justifies abusing all women everywhere.
Actually the whole MRM could be summed up that way, not least since anything we do is wrong as far as they’re concerned.
Men pee outside all the freakin’ time, Paul.
Also ninja’d by David, and Zoon. Kim sadly has a decent point though, although I think this poster is more directed at parents with young children. Parents who already want their children to treat women with the same repect they do men, but just assume they will grow up doing that on their own (which may not happen). I don’t know if targeting this towards well meaning but ignorant people is much better than targeting already sexist people though, since they may just brush it off since, of course, their children already know better!
So yea I don’t know. Advertisting like this is tricky. AVFM is still awful, and they’ll be attracting some really shit people with this little ad of theirs, but hopefully some very shit press as well.
What happens if the mom pees standing up ???????????
Oh, Charlotte, stop being a drive-by cheerleader for the MRM. You do know they hate you too, don’t you?
But you can bet these guys hear her asking for respect and just see her as being “uppity”.
There are also way too many movies that show respect as something you get by being bigger and stronger or more popular or richer. And going by what they have said in the past, MRAs do seem to base their ideas of women and gender on movie and sitcom tropes.
I think the ad is complicated–its not aimed at teenage boys at all, not directly. I think its aimed at their parents, and especially at their fathers. The list of things that are imaged next to the boy are lists of things parents are thought to tell their kids routinely and the poster is implicitly asking them to add “respect women” to this list. I think its a terrible ad because you have to stop and figure it out. Also the kid pictured is old enough to have more agency than, say, a toddler so you at first think the ad is directed to him as a reader. Since “eat your vegetables” is insulting to him as a proto adult “respect women” also seems kind of “off.”
The picture should be of a grown man holding a baby boy and it should say something like “What kind of man do I want my son to be when he grows up? Healthy, Strong, Generous, Wise. I teach him to respect the people around him–especially his mother and sisters…” or something. “
Awaiting instructions.
Does my dad respect my mother ?
Elam snarling “don’t tell ME who to respect” really makes the MRM look like a bunch of reasoned, well-balanced individuals.
So basically, “YOU [feminists] don’t tell us to respect women. WE [men] decide who’s worthy of respect. And that means not women because some of them are gross.”
I refuse to believe that every woman the poster-maker meets is a Jersey Shore character. Seriously, what.
A brief foray into the comment section on AVfM found this little gem:
“When I was young, the females in the family always liked to play “delayed instruction”. For instance, when it’s getting cold, and they saw me picking up a sweater, they’d say to me, “it’s getting cold, put on a sweater”. In that way they could always say, “he’s so dumb that he needs me to tell him to put on a sweater when it’s cold”.
DUDE that’s not women treating you like an idiot, that’s just people in general. My mom does this shit to me ALL THE TIME! Yeah, it’s annoying, but it’s just something people do sometimes. My mom will tell me hours before I have to be somewhere to make sure I am ready to go and triple check I have everything. It’s not because she thinks I’m an idiot, parents just over-worry sometimes and some of them have a bit of a control obsession.
I’m waiting for the day Pauly decides he can’t respect men any more, after some drunk dude comes and pisses or pukes on his lawn.
I’ll tell you one thing ..I would have to know a lot more about those individual women in that photo before I would say i had no respect for them just because looks like they got a little (or a lot )silly and squatted and peed in a fireplace!
My mother has done a lot weirder stuff than that and my respect for her is vastly beyond her cooky moments like that.
Its really sad that a moment like that would erase all earned respect .
In re Charlotte’s point the Voice For Men ad rather explicitly tells the viewer that men (specifically the “us” there) should choose how to treat each woman as potential instances of disgust rather than respecting them as human beings–respect (they say) has to be earned. But that’s not really correct. Respect for other human beings–respect for their boundaries (which is what is being discussed here) and for their right not to be beaten does not have to be earned. It is a given of their human state. For instance even if you knew that a woman had urinated in public you would still not be entitled to rape or strike her.
In addition graphically the Elam ad draws attention to the women not for “what they have between their ears” (what a marvellously inapt reading of the ad!) but for what they have between their legs and what they do with it. Ohmygod some women sometime peed outside of a toilet! Off with their heads! The ad only makes sense because it links horror with women for having vaginas in public with an assertion of a privilige for the viewer to judge and then to act with disrespect for all women.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS…..oops ! cuse me I pee peed in a bush!!! tee hee ! giggles!
PHHHHHTT>>>> scuse me I farted ..((((GRIN))))
>The picture should be of a grown man holding a baby boy
There was a recent anti-DV campaign that featured babies. The MRAs completely lost their shit over it. Elam was trying to raise money to hire a private detective to dig up dirt on one of the guys involved in it.
@ David That must be where the rest of the money AVfM raises goes to! Paying detectives to dig up dirt on the horrible human rights abusers of our time!
Yes . Main reason .Dad you are just as much an example as mom. Reality is if dad doesn’t HATE women son wont. Mom peeing when or where she isn’t supposed to isn’t going to scar a child for life .
One is teaching hatred the other is just silliness.
One time my mom peed in the sink, it was weird. I told her it was weird. Still respect her to this day.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS>>>>>>>>>>
I go pee pee an island in Thailand!
Mothers….got a love em! If that’s the worst thing she ever did she’s a saint ! And a funny one!
My mother never peed in the sink .(or in a bush or a fireplace) But one time she got naked and started saying she was Lucy (Lucile Ball) and was laughing and jumping all over our dad. She kept saying “Im Lucy !” My dad was trying not to laugh but it was hard and he kept saying “Carolyn the children ” and she just waved at us and said Im LUCY!
Pretty weird but that didn’t scar me .She will be 70 in about a week . I will be there holding her hand for her second hip replacement surgery .(Mama ???should have gone easy on the Lucy thing!)
@Tulgey
“Misandry is okay because Paul Elam. Checkmate, dudebros.”
This.
@dallasapple My mom is pretty far from a saint, she has a fair share of her own demons. Hell, she’d probably be a poster mom for the AVfM on how mother’s don’t always make the better parent, but when it came to giving a shit she had a lot more of that than my dad and I love her very much for that.
But I can always count on her to do some funny and/or embarrassing shit. Like, I was home for Christmas and we went for Chinese buffet (kind of the only real “exotic” food to get in small town Ontario) and every time we go to the buffet she wraps up some food and sneaks it into her purse to give to the cats later. I think her bizarre boundary pushing (and her flaws) has made me more of an empathetic person.
@dallasapple haha that’s hilarious! Sometimes the most bizarre and embarrassing stories of my mom are my favourite memories.
I constantly hear the “earn your respect” crap from bigots. The first time was with a homophobe. It just doesn’t make sense. It does show how they don’t see women as people, and more some annoying mass. You can only take or give respect to either individuals or an active group. Women aren’t really an active group. We’re just, well, people who happen to be women. So no, I don’t care how many random drunk women you see peeing on the street(which isn’t even that uncommon in men. Hell, in some countries like China, that’s acceptable), you don’t start treating all of them like that.
The other group I hear this from is racists(shocker). You know, the “It’s not racist, it’s just safety!” assholes? Or the ones that whine about how any asian that gets good grades didn’t really “earn” them because of their “asian parents”.
The homophobes argue that gays shouldn’t be respected because of higher rates of DV, sexual assault, drug usage, etc. Same argument basically.
I’m actually really shocked they used that photo instead of a female serial killer. Like, peeing is the worst thing you can think of? And mild nudity?
It’s like they were baiting everyone to think of all the times they’ve seen men pee on the streets. If I didn’t know better I’d assume it was a satirical feminist poster.
Yes, it’s the same old thing: straight white dudes get an automatic level of respect, but everyone else has to earn it somehow. Which is tricky, when being anyone not straight, white and male means you’ll never have that level of respect whatever you do, because you’re missing the essential elements.
There is a baseline respect for people as human beings that MRAs just don’t seem to get.
But then, how would they justify treating women less than human?
Cupisnique,
That made me cry a little . I don’t bawl a lot . But same with my mother .My father died when I was 4 and my mother remarried When I was 6) . (I had 2 siblings) She was 28 when my father died. My ‘step” father is who I call my father he was great still is .I love him he’s the best dad in he world., He loves my mother . . . My mother did have a lot of demons.She never got over my fathers death . I don’t hold it against her .
Both of them did things wrong and right . They are just people though just like us. Parents are not Gods. They are people . If (when) my mother dies my heart will mourn .I could be mad at her for things but I got over that a long time ago .(in my 30’s LOL) and my “step” dad is eccentric in so many ways and I love him for every inch of him .I can never have anythign but respect for both of them .
I’m a fortunate girl despite their imperfections ..Well actually their imperfections taught me things…..I only hope my children appreciate me the same way .
I know one thing ..I was loved. I hope I sent that message to my children too.
Yes, of course, what was I thinking. Thankfully the MRA are there to point out why EVERY woman should be treated like shit thanks to the behaviour of SOME woman. It’s almost like we should just judge every man based on the behaviour of some…And it’s not like both males & females have done similar things.
Wait a minute, my brain glitched!
Because, Auggzillary, when a white, cis, heterosexual man is respected it has an implication that he’s seen as better in some way than other men. When people say “repect X group that isn’t that,” it means “treat X group that isn’t that as if they are that.” Bigots don’t understand, and think it means “feel the same way you do about strangers as you do someone you greatly admire.”
Kitteh sort of finished my thought for me: “straight white dudes get an automatic level of respect.: That’s why they can’t fathom and misunderstand why everyone else has push for it.
auggz – but of course, because women peeing at all is dreadful enough, but peeing in public? Oh noes the end of civilisation!
Curious, isn’t it … MRAs so often spit the dummy over women needing to urinate or defecate or (shock horror) menstruate. Is it because the urethra and vagina are so close? (Not that half of them seem to realise they are different orifices.) Yet it’s perfectly fine that men urinate and ejaculate from the urethra, and how dare any woman be less than enthusiastic about putting the urinary (and possibly not that clean) bits into her mouth.
Actually it’s not curious at all, it’s bog-standard misogyny and double standards. I just felt like writing it out.
That comment turned put wrong and weird looking, let’s try again.
Kitteh sort of finished my thought for me: “straight white dudes get an automatic level of respect.” That’s why they can’t fathom and misunderstand why everyone else has to push for it.
Respect is a given for them, so again, when you say you “repect” a man like that it’s a little something extra, and earned. That’s not what group X means when they say “respect us.”
What is happening to me.
Your keyboard is being evil and colluding with WordPress … they’ll sic the blockquote monster onto you next.
@auggziliary – I saw a few comments along the same lines in Australia after gay marriage was repealed. A lot of crazy dickwads would write “Homosexuals should focus on the real problems in their community, like domestic violence or drug abuse, instead of wasting time on a trivial matter like marriage”
If domestic violence and drug abuse is a reason for an entire group of people to be not allowed to marry-when’s the moratorium on heterosexual marriage going to start?
But yeah, is public urination is a reason to condemn an entire gender, then males are the first on the block. I mean, I’ve never seen a woman urinate in public (Possibly because they try not to draw attention to it), but I’ve seen guys at all times of day, along highways highways, in national parks, in phone boxes-everywhere.
The other thing as well is these guys never say what Actions show you’re worthy of respect. So urination is a mark against them, but what gives them a plus? as has often been said here, having sex with men makes you a slut not worthy of respect, not having sex with a man makes you a prude not worthy of respect, talking to a guy makes you an uppity woman not worthy of respect, not talking to a guy makes you a snob not worthy of respect….seriously, what’s the magic combination of actions that will gain a woman respect from the MRA community?
I’ve also hear the “but I assume the worst from EVERYONE. That’s just a given in society that we ALL have to deal with” as a response to criticism. Like, when the fuck has society ever thought it was OK to just assume every person you meet was some dumbass slob, or poor criminal, or a child molester. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone argue that it’s OK to talk down to white, straight, cis men just because there’s a chance that he’s an idiot or a sociopath.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS>>>>>>>>PHHHHHT!
Scuse me!
LOL!
Stop peein’ on your keyboard, lana, you’ll upset the delicate chaps at AVfM and the blockquote monster!
BUT DON’T YOU DARE ACT FUNNY AROUND STRANGE MEN BECAUSE WE ARE NOT ALL RAPISTS.
::applauds baileyrenee::