It’s sort of reassuring how bad Men’s Rightsers are at communicating with those outside their tiny movement. I should amend that: how bad they are at communicating what they want to communicate — that is, that they are the 21st-century version of the heroic and in many ways successful civil rights movements of the late 20th century. What they tend to communicate instead is what they’d rather the world not see: how blinkered and reactionary and hateful so many of them really are.
Browsing through the Men’s Rights subreddit last night, I ran across a batch of graphics one MRA had prepared for other MRAs to freely use, whether as online graphics, dorm room decoration, or posters to wheatpaste on the nearest family courts building. While avoiding the hysterical misogyny of so many of the graphics up on the Artistry Against Misandry website we looked at recently, CAGeorge’s posters reveal a bit more about himself and the MRM than he perhaps intends them to. Take this poster, ostensibly a call to “resist feminist bullying.” How exactly do you resist such bullying? Apparently, with a giant fist.
Huh. Your movement is known for its violent rhetoric, for downplaying and whitewashing domestic violence against women by pretending that DV affects men and women equally, for promulgating a sort of false-rape-allegation hysteria in no way proportionate to the actual extent of false-rape allegations. In some circles, it’s labeled, fairly or unfairly, as “the abusers lobby.” Do you really think putting this fist on this poster is going to help?
Apparently not. Apparently that fist ISN’T GIGANTIC ENOUGH. Meet MEGA FIST:
So, yeah. Also, FYI, that particular version of the old clenched-fist graphic has been used by the far-left International Socialist Organization (ISO) for several decades. Take a look at the little ISO fist to the right here. Same fist. You may want to switch that out, dudes, lest you inadvertently convert potential MRAs to Trotskyism.
And while I have to give CAGeorge a few points for avoiding the crass misogyny of Artistry Against Misandry, he doesn’t do quite as well avoiding racism and homophobia. Hence this poster, apparently an attempt to scare potential false accusers by suggesting they could end up sharing a cell with a scary and probably dark-skinned dyke.
Naturally, CAGeorge’s artisty won mostly plaudits from the Men’s Rights redditors who stopped by to look and comment.
EDITED TO ADD: Woah. Strike that last sentence. Returning to r/menrights I see that a real, critical discussion of the flyers has erupted. Many of the regulars are unhappy with various aspects of CAGeorge’s choices. Numerous commenters are critical of the fist imagery, including ignatiusloyola, one of the subreddit’s mods, who objects in one highly upvoted comment. One person even mentions the ISO!
Our old pal Sigil1 (a.k.a. the legendary banned Man Boobz commenter Eoghan) is especially critical of the “roommate” poster, and for a good reason: that it essentially threatens prison rape for false accusers. (He doesn’t mention the racism or homophobia.) But he still can’t help but blame the posters on a conspiracy of evil “false flag” feminists trying to make the MRM look bad.
Paul Elam of A Voice for Men, naturally, thinks the posters are fine and dandy.
CAGeorge, meanwhile, defends his poor choices. Here he is dealing with criticism of the “roommate” poster:
The bit about “nullification” is of course a reference to Elam’s infamous suggestion that MRAs should undermine the legal system by voting “not guilty” in trials involving men charged with rape, “even in the face of overwhelming evidence that the charges are true.”
Still, this is a real discussion. If the Men’s Rights movement has any chance at all of transforming itself into something really resembling a real progressive movement, it’s going to need to have a lot more discussions like this — and those who really do want to improved the lives of men instead of simply demonizing women will need to make clear that Elam and his ideological comrades are no longer welcome in the movement.
EDITED TO ADD, PART 2: Now the legendarily cloddish MRA videoblogger Bernard Chapin has made a video attacking the posters and the dude who made them. He’s not worried about the violent imagery, or the racism, or the homophobia — as I pointed out recently, he is himself a bit of a homophobe. Nope. He’s mad about the use of evil leftist imagery, and accuses the maker of the posters of being a sneaky Marxist infiltrator trying to co-opt the MRM with evil Marxist symbolism.
Gosh. Paul Elam said he liked the graphics. Is he a secret Marxist infiltrator too?
That last poster is almost perfect, because if you don’t watch MRA shit constantly you have no earthly idea wtf they’re talking about.
I think you’ve seen one too many PSAs, kid XD
The root of the Health and Safety Gone Mad stories seems to usually be [local councils/schools/whatever] being rather to careful to avoid any chance of liability for anything, as far as I can tell.
@Ponkz – It’s pathetic isn’t it? It’s especially facepalm worthy when they say that safety regulations feminize the workplace. So I guess they want men to work in unsafe conditions, or better yet, want women to die in industrial accidents too.
But that would require women to work in what they consider traditionally male jobs and we can’t have that! That would be too close to equality.
Idk those women are kinda hot.
What they really want is for men (not *them*, they want to work in air-conditioned offices, but men) to continue dying so that women will continue owing them worship for their gender’s sacrifices.
To be fair, one of the r/mr mods does not like the fist imagery, and his seems to be the top up-voted comment.
Sigil1 (who I think used to troll here under a different name?) points out the problem with threatening women with prison rape, but the artist doubles down:
Emphasis mine.
Oops, screwed up the html, but here’s a link: http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/ujmy4/mra_flyersgraphics_that_i_created_feel_free_to_use/c4w5vi7
The giant fist makes them look like the bullies. The, “false rape accusations” poster looks like it can deter women from reporting rape, which might be what some MRA’s want. Pathetic.
I’ve heard MRAs say they’ll be happy when the women’s suicide rate equals men’s, and when more female than male soldiers come home in body bags.
These sick guys think women like it when men die. Please. Those men are our husbands, brothers, fathers, and friends. And we love them (but women don’t feel love, so sheesh).
Re: workplace safety
I was working in a factory about a year ago when we moved some equipment around. After everyone had gotten back to work, I noticed a live 15 kW electric line hanging unsecured and unconnected. These lines do have safety locks so you can’t touch the terminals without a screwdriver, but still. So I went to my supervisor and complained about it as a safety hazard and he says, “how are you going to get hurt by it?”
I said, “I’d rather not find out.”
Quite off topic: The Road to Perdition is a top notch, beautiful gangster film. Paul Newman.
When it’s called a tiny movement…how small? More or less than 10,000?
It’s been several months & it still completely blows my mind that this even exists on the Internet. Like I’ve now seen what’s ugliest, craziest, pond scum hatred on the web. It’s had a really bad effect on me.
The headline on that last poster makes me go “bzuh?” It sounds like making false rape allegations is something women do for funsies. “Want to get a mani-pedi, then buy some frozen yogurt and drop off a false rape allegation on our way to the movies? Teehee!”
OTOH, many MRAs seem to think women make all their major life decisions in exactly the same fashion, so perhaps this is par for the course.
“It’s been several months & it still completely blows my mind that this even exists on the Internet. Like I’ve now seen what’s ugliest, craziest, pond scum hatred on the web. It’s had a really bad effect on me.”
@Newbie
Me too. It’s become something of an obsession, and it’s driving my husband crazy ( though he is being a very good sport). But at least I’m not obsessing about trying go get pregnant anymore. The MRM is a nice distraction.
I find that fanfic works pretty well for this too. 😛
As Cloudiah has pointed out, there’s an actual discussion going on there now. I have completely reworked the ending of the OP to reflect this, and I’ve added some quotes, including the one she highlighted.
I know that the clenched fist has been around for awhile; I was referring to that specific image of a clenched fist. I don’t know its history, beyond the fact that the ISO has used it for a long long time. Was that specific image used by the Red Front, or did they just use the clenched fist idea?
“…and those who really do want to improved the lives of men instead of simply demonizing women will need to make clear that Elam and his ideological comrades are no longer welcome in the movement.”
Like that will ever happen. Though I would love to see the look on Elam’s face and the subsequent tantrum.
Ohh shiiiit. Next it’s going to be ”Feminists eat feces”, westboro-style.
Most (maybe all) of the pictures from the last poster are from the reality/documentary show “Beyond Scared Straight.” They’re prisoners who volunteered to talk with young girls who are at risk of ending up in prison. I remember the woman with the face tattoos in particular – she made a real effort to connect with the girls, to discuss the roots of their behavior and encourage them to make better choices.
But, you know, she’s butch and scary-looking, so I think we can safely assume that she’s a violent rapist.
No, it won’t happen. Though there are some MRAs who basically shun Elam. I would like to see more.
I dunno. Even the “reasonable” faction in this fight agrees that women who claim they were raped are likely to be dirty liars; they’re only disagreeing about how much punishment should be meted out to these terrible creatures.
I guess that’s progress, but it’s not MUCH progress.
The closed hand meant ‘solidarity’ to me, I didn’t think of punching. But then I remembered, this is the MRM 😉
Also, my friend told me the story of when he was Falsely Accused of Rape! He was scared, but it hasn’t ruined his life or anything.
As a former member of the ISO I almost did a spit-take. (although one of the reasons I’m a former member is that some of these MRS dudes wouldn’t sound entirely out of place at an ISO meeting :-/ )
[Men’s Rights Advocates are known] for downplaying and whitewashing domestic violence against women by pretending that DV affects men and women equally
So it’s our fault that stupid people might think domestic violence is okay… because it also affects men?
no, factfinder, it’s your fault people might think domestic violence is okay because you tried to make a game about beating up pregnant women. how fucking dumb are you.
David, Stalinists don’t have a monopoly on tightened extremities.