The National Coalition For Men – formerly the National Coalition of Free Men – describes itself as “the oldest Men’s Rights organization in North America.” It has been around, in some form or another, since 1977. The group has a board of advisors, which includes academics and mental health professionals and bestselling author Warren Farrell. It has a number of local chapters. Its website is professional-looking; they even have an elegant little logo.
The group appears, at first glance, to be a real and reasonable advocacy group.
But it doesn’t take long to find evidence that the group is infected with the same hateful extremism that is endemic in the Men’s Rights movement.
Take this bizarre and creepy image – and its equally bizarre and creepy caption – that I found illustrating a recent press release about Senator Patrick Leahy and the Violence Against Women Act.
As far as I can figure it, the Joker is supposed to represent Leahy’s supposed feminist puppetmasters; regardless, it is a jarring image depicting violence against an elected official as somehow humorous.
The article (picture and all) has gotten 14 Facebook “likes” and no comments; evidently none of the MRAs reading the article were bothered enough by the illustration to publicly challenge it.
How exactly does posting a picture of the Joker threatening an elected official with a knife advance the cause of Men’s Rights?
Do the group’s advisors — including Warren Farrell and well-known domestic violence researcher Martin Fiebert — know that the group’s website features this repugnant image? Do they care?
I would encourage readers here to investigate the NCFM site in more detail. I wonder what other evidence of hate might be found. (If you do find more, please make screenshots, and post what you find in the comments below, with a link to the page on NCFM’s website.)
EDITED: I originally referred to the images as photoshopped, but evidently it’s from The Dark Knight. Oops. Corrected.
I’m usually pretty good at translating MRA to English, but I tried twice to understand the caption for that picture and all I got was “Toothbrush lollipop swing the rag ball elegant.”
Does anyone know what the hell it’s trying to say?
No idea, Holly. It makes no sense at all.
Well, I hope the MRAs are suitably distressed by the gratuitous depiction of violence against a man just because of his political beliefs.
(For some reason, “VAWA implant” reminds me of NWO’s “Title IX police force.” Like these things aren’t just laws, they’re entire shadow governments. Who knows what VAWA is truly capable of?)
You know Pat Leahy was in the Dark Knight, right? That image isn’t photoshopped.
I bet our paranoid friend will think that a “VAWA implant” is an actual thing he will be forced to get come the revolution.
FYI, that’s not photoshopped. Leahy was actually in The Dark Knight. It was weird.
(For some reason, “VAWA implant” reminds me of NWO’s “Title IX police force.” Like these things aren’t just laws, they’re entire shadow governments. Who knows what VAWA is truly capable of?)
This reminds me of a comment I once read regarding conspiracy theorist and far right wing theories regarding the UN – That it’s an odd combination of “obsessed with” and “ignorant of” – Only in these cases, it’s even worse. Instead of a large international body, it’s a piece of legislation.
i totally forgot that fucking happened
that was weird
i really like how when the mrm actually sort of accomplishes something its still hilarious
A. I wish my state officials were awesome enough to cameo in Batman films.
B. That caption is incomprehensible even by Internet troll standards, and is rapidly approaching “what is this I don’t even” levels.
C. What is it with people using the Joker for their political statements? First there were the Obama-Joker “socialism” posters, the Sarah Palin “Kill the Batman” images, and now this. The Joker’s an anarchist who thinks morality is a bad joke. He’s not going to endorse government health care or whatever it is you want to speak against.
he also wears a lot of makeup so LEFT COAST LIBERAL BOTOX FACELIFT HAG
Zhinxy – Sounds like Fred Clark’s Patheos commentary on the Left Behind series. He talks a lot about the tendency of “End Times” types to constantly talk about government institutions while studiously not researching even the most basic facts about their structure and history.
/internet-expert
The Left Behind peeps have a lot in common with OWLslave in that respect; for him it’s the “NWO” and for them it’s the UN, but that’s basically the same thing I guess. :p
(Btw, are those reviews still going? I lost track of them when he switched to a new site a while back.)
Bagelsan – He’s still doing them every week!
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/category/left-behind/
They can get a little “samey” (to be fair, that’s because the books are even samier), but I like ’em.
That was exactly where it was! *bows before Holly*
Leahy is a HUGE Batfan. He did a voice in the animated series and had a cameo in Batman and Robin before people realized that wasn’t a good thing at all and let him be in Dark Knight. – zhinxy used to have a batman blog 😉
He wrote the forward to the Dark Knight Archives and some Green Arrow trades as well.
I knew about his cameos, but I didn’t know about his role in the animated series. Who did he voice?
The episode Showdown – He voices the Governor of Utah Territory 🙂
“Your push for equal pay isn’t for equal work, it’s for safer and more comfortable work. I saw Pelosi holding a shovel by the handle in a way that would prevent her from being able to pull up any dirt. The photo was a political opportunity on the the cover of a recent Disabled American Veteran Magazine. The three men next to her were holding the shovel properly. I thought about how hard most men work for their families and how you, and your staff are clueless. Almost all men know how to hold a shovel. And yet Pelosi will be one of the first to suggest that she knows how much male labor and female labor is worth. ”
…
“I would challenge the president of NOW or Pelosi or Hillary Clinton (I know that Pelosi and Clinton serve America but few women have any idea what living with a 100% disability is like for decades; that’s serving) to a challenge. We can have a little test of men and women’s work by putting a pile of sand a hundred yards from a wheel barrow, and for an hour we move that pile of sand a hundred yards back to where we started and we see how much I move compared to any of you… and if I can move 25% more should I get 25% more pay. If you had to hire a male laborer who could do more work – for a year – or a female for a year, for less work, do they get the same pay. If a 65 years old man with screws in his joints, and anemia can out work you physically, what would a healthy young man do.”
…
“I was reading the recent DAV magazine and a female military women was upset that the DAV mag was so “male centric” … no lie. It’s because 99.999% of deaths in our wars are male. It’s because almost all 100 % disabilities are male. Female disabilities are often the same as civilian, a car wreck, an accident, and not by intentionally putting them on the front lines.”
…
“You look at a girl dieting and worry about her “self image” but who had the eating disorder, that girl dieting (to try to have an image that is more likely to get male attention and the PERKS that go with it, free dinners, a life time of financial support for some. Nine girls who don’t look pretty, so sad, neglected, can’t use sexual power to get what they want from men, instead they have to do what most men do, get a personality, a job, money, charm… to get a partner) or the millions of teen boys eating two cheese burgers, super sized fries, and a 40 ounce coke that leads to male deaths from heart attacks in their 30′s?”
http://ncfm.org/2011/07/news/discrimination-against-men-news/to-the-women-of-now-a-rant/
———————————————————————
“Consequently, our culture does not tell women that femininity is harmful, dangerous, and in disarray, and only the immediate infusion of masculinity in place of femininity’s core traits would solve the problem. That would be considered sexist.”
http://chicago.ncfm.org/2008/04/21/a-man-in-touch-with-his-feminine-side-the-new-enemy/
Somehow, MRAs can’t seem to figure out that poor women and rich men also exist…
“NCFM Note: Or, we’d probably all feel better if when men and women talk together women talk a lot less and men talk a bit more. This study partially explains why women matriculate primarily to soft jobs (education, social services, and so on) which allow copious opportunities to verbalize and go to meetings where incessant talking is non stop. Perhaps this also explains why women think going to 10 or more meetings a week has the same value as men who risk their lives 24/7 fishing the Aleutians day after day. It might also explain why feminists believe in “connected ways of knowing” which problematically requires women to talk with one another for validation. Women simply place a higher value on talking than do men who prefer to be doing something more productive. Men create while women articulate. Of course, that’s my perspective as a man. I’m sure if I were a women this explanation would be noticeably different and substantially wordier.”
http://ncfm.org/2011/08/news/releases/males-believe-discussing-problems-is-a-waste-of-time-mu-study-shows/
There’s a page on false accusations, with these gems:
Link
Of course, there’s more, with some links to some likely dubious sources, though I didn’t feel like completely wading through those.
(I don’t know how to make screenshots, so this is the best I could do.)
Okay, so this really doesn’t have anything to do with this specific topic, but I met an actual MRA in the flesh last week while I was at the GOP debate in Michigan! He actually said stuff and wasn’t just angrily putting things in comments on the internet! It was AWESOME!
And then I realized that he was a jackass who kept asking me questions and then interrupting me when I tried to answer.
I see the inherent comedy here. Despite the official sounding-name, the content is the standard MRA BS. It’s so predictable. Is there a program that generates MRA blog posts yet? Let’s see, there are…
Evil women stories
Feminism is worse than Dracula’s Curse
“I don’t wanna pay child support or taxes but don’t you dare abort your kid”
Opinion pieces with facts pulled out of the writer’s ass
AND MORE!
From the creepy craption:
“Aliens? Not really, we assimillated.”
For comedy’s sake, I hope they believe in an Icke-style alien conspiracy. I wonder if they know Ron Paul is a reptillian? Youtube is always right.