Well,I got carried away there. It’s not literally the whole world. Only a teensy weensy portion of it.
The fellows at A Voice for Men, you see, evidently stung by criticism that they aren’t activists, have begun engaging in real, honest-to-goodness real-world activism, by which I mean that a handful of them, some in Canada and at least one in Australia, have been putting up posters advertising the AVFM website.
In other words, their activism consists of putting up posters for a website whose only activism thus far has consisted of putting up posters for itself.
Well, eventually they’ll get the hang of it, I guess.
In any case, the A Voice for Menners have discovered something about activism: if you do things that are offensive enough, people will be offended. And so they’ve managed to offend some people in Canada and in Australia where their posters have gone up. In Australia, there have even been a couple of news articles written about them! For example, one in Melbourne’s Herald Sun says:
A MAN who is littering the city with posters promoting a website that encourages men to support rapists has declined the opportunity to explain himself.
The website, which the Herald Sun has chosen not to name, is campaigning to get men sitting on juries for rape trials to “vow publicly to vote not guilty, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that the charges are true”. …
The website’s publisher, Paul Elam, told the Herald Sun he was too busy watching the movie Air Force One to be interviewed, but later said by email he stood by the campaign.
Ooh! How very, very alpha of him.
Other articles (see here and here) describe the posters as “hate posters,” because one of them seems to suggest that women provoke domestic violence against themselves. The text of the poster reads “Domestic Violence Women Are Half the Problem.”
In fact, Elam and company are trying to suggest that women instigate half of all domestic violence, and thus are “half the problem,” but they’re so wedded to the easily misunderstood “half the problem” slogan that they somehow cannot seem to get this idea across in poster form. (This idea is itself incorrect, but that’s a whole other kettle of angry dudes.) Elam and company don’t quite seem to understand that an important part of activism is actually conveying your ideas to the general public rather than simply provoking people.
You can’t buy this kind of publicity!
Well, technically, you could, but no one would, because no one would willingly pay money for a publicity campaign that makes them appear to be hateful assholes — and in fact, even a teensy bit more hateful than they actually are.
So, congratulations, I guess?
If anyone wants to help AVFM in its publicity campaign, the super-sarcastic poster below, and a number of other poorly thought out and badly designed posters, can be downloaded from AVFM here by “anyone who wants to print and distribute them.”
Note: THIS IS A REAL AVFM POSTER. I didn’t make it up. See here.
Anathema, I think your advice on how to create posters to raise awareness is spot-on and excellent.
Cloudiah, I’ll read just about anything, but I’ve been on kind of a crime fiction kick lately. Just finished a ton of Pelecanos.
It’s actually super easy, because you keep posting them here.
c. to punish by hitting
American Heritage dictionary.
I feel amazed that I have to do this, but here is how dictionaries work:
They list all uses of the phrase sequentially. The meaning of each entry is not connected to the other ones. If a says “strike repeatedly” and c says “punish by hitting,” both are valid.
Why are you more upset at our word choice than at the people telling you that this abuser terrorist is a hero?
Some Guy, if we are kind enough to agree with you that “beat” can sometimes carry a connotation of being a repetitive action, and instead say that Ball hit, punched, smacked, bashed, pummeled, pounded, slugged, struck, walloped, assaulted, battered, abused, attacked, or otherwise engaged in wildly inappropriate violence towards a toddler, will you stop playing dictionary-troll and explain why the hell you think you should categorize him as an “activist” rather than an abusive terrorist scumbag?
Some guy, we’re not the ones being willfully obtuse here.
MR Activism:
Inspiring people on the internet to teach you how to read the dictionary.
Just browsed the alexa ratings for this site in comparison with mgtow forums and a voice for men, and it seems manboobz could benefit from a poster campaign of their own so that people’s first exposure to the MRM comes through you instead of them. The MRM sites are killing you from the website rating standpoint.
Yeah, i mean, “assaulted” would be the legal term, so we can go with that if you want.
But apparently not for you! Since you used him as an example of MRA activism and all.
For most human beings, yes, but not for you.
Remember that time you posted an article calling the removal of his kids an injustice? I do, because it was a half hour ago.
You know, if only these guys would look into things and start raising awarenes about actual problems…
It’s not like there are no issues that men specifically are facing. It’s just sad (and stupid) that none of these men’s right sites seem to even try to understand what they are – whereas a lot of feminist sites bring them up regularily.
And even if they do bring up something legit, they tend to go at it all wrong. It’s like climbing up a tree with their arses first.
When they finally try doing something, they just make themselves look even less relevant.
Tilting at windmills and all that…
@ugh, that’s cute.
This appears to be the definition at American Heritage, which, if you ask me, emphasizes, just like I said, the importance of repetition.
“a. To strike repeatedly.
b. To subject to repeated beatings or physical abuse; batter.
c. To punish by hitting or whipping; flog.
a. To strike against repeatedly and with force; pound: waves beating the shore.
b. To flap, especially wings.
c. To strike so as to produce music or a signal: beat a drum.
d. Music To mark or count (time or rhythm), especially with the hands or with a baton.
a. To shape or break by repeated blows; forge: beat the glowing metal into a dagger.
b. To make by pounding or trampling: beat a path through the jungle.
To mix rapidly with a utensil: beat two eggs in a bowl.”
I love Pelecanos, but am not up on other good recent crime fiction.
Two good books I’ve read recently:
http://www.amazon.com/Bound-Freedom-Angeles-Foundation-American/dp/0520239199
http://www.amazon.com/L-A-City-Limits-Depression-Foundation/dp/0520238419
Hey, Dictionary Troll, are you okay with the Oxford English Dictionary?
beat, v.1
I. The simple action: to strike repeatedly.
1.
a. trans. To strike with repeated blows. to beat the breast : i.e. in sign of sorrow.
b. With complement, expressing the result of the process: to beat to powder, beat black and blue, etc.
c. to beat the air , to beat the wind , ( to beat the water obs.): to fight to no purpose or against no opposition; in reference to 1 Cor. ix. 26. Sometimes referring to the ordeal by battle, when one of the parties made default, in which case the other is said to have gained his cause by dealing so many blows upon the air.
2.
a. intr. To strike or deliver repeated blows (on, at anything); †to knock (at a door). to beat away or to beat on : to go on beating.
b. Said of hares and rabbits in rutting-time.
3.
a. trans. Said of the action of the feet upon the ground in walking or running; hence, to beat the streets : to walk up and down. to beat a path or to beat a track : to tread it hard or bare by frequent passage; hence, to open up or prepare a way. Often fig.
b. to beat one’s way : to travel, or make one’s way, spec. by illicit means. U.S.
c. to beat it : to go away, to ‘clear out’. orig. U.S.
4.
a. To strike (a man or beast) with blows of the hand or any weapon so as to give pain; to inflict blows on, to thrash; to punish by beating.
. . .
http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/16609?result=6&rskey=gL8ouf&
Yeah, it’s definition 4a we’re using here, buddy.
@Catfish
That’s based on the assumption that these kinds are concerned with actual rights or issues in any way, shape or form. But they’re not. 100% of their activism consists of statements like some guy’s here.
Advocating for child and spousal abuse: it’s not a bug of the movement, it’s the feature.
Even the first hits of whipping and flog use the term beat, so it’s circular, but even your (c) can truly and honestly and reasonably be construed as repeated hits. English can be ambiguous that way.
Those posters are absurd. Though if you’re the right type (a wingnut who thinks misandry is real), the reptillian part of your brain might light up and move you to take an interest.
Some guy spoke about feminism like it’s a monolith a few posts ago. Christ, I hate that.
@some guy
Again, that’s actually not how dictionaries work.
The definitions are seaparate, not cumulative. A and B are not part of definition C.
This is seriously like 4th grade English Language Arts.
“It’s not like there are no issues that men specifically are facing. It’s just sad (and stupid) that none of these men’s right sites seem to even try to understand what they are – whereas a lot of feminist sites bring them up regularily.
And even if they do bring up something legit, they tend to go at it all wrong. It’s like climbing up a tree with their arses first.
When they finally try doing something, they just make themselves look even less relevant.”
I could tell you that as a man, I am aware of many real issues that feminist should bring up concerning women, that many MRA sites do bring up.
You would probably tell me that I should listen and respect the issues that women identify and that I should not be condescending, patronizing, or patriarchal to tell me what your real issues are.
This bit made me laugh really hard for some reason.
But you know what, let’s just use the legal term: assault.
Why do you think it was unjust to take away a man’s kids after he assaulted one of them?
^The poster put up by Futrelle is NOT one of the posters that was put up in Vancouver.
Those posters said nothing about feminism but instead addressed real problems men suffer from, using stats from mainstream sources, and asserted that “Men’s rights are human rights.”
And yet, those very mild, uncontroversial posters were torn down by local women, had “WRONG” stencilled over them, and a group of local feminists confronted one of the poster-pasters. A bystander in charge of safety (on the builiding site whose boards the the fella was posting) tried to intervene, and was assaulted by one of the feminists. That attacker burst into tears and claimed victimhood when the police arrived.
Also, the constant refrain here at manboobz, that women don’t commit DV against men is utter BULLSHIT.
The official UK Home Office Stats state that 40% of the victims of DV are men:
“Data from Home Office statistical bulletins and the British Crime Survey show that men made up about 40% of domestic violence victims each year between 2004-05 and 2008-09, the last year for which figures are available. In 2006-07 men made up 43.4% of all those who had suffered partner abuse in the previous year, which rose to 45.5% in 2007-08 but fell to 37.7% in 2008-09.
Similar or slightly larger numbers of men were subjected to severe force in an incident with their partner, according to the same documents. The figure stood at 48.6% in 2006-07, 48.3% the next year and 37.5% in 2008-09, Home Office statistics show.
The 2008-09 bulletin states: “More than one in four women (28%) and around one in six men (16%) had experienced domestic abuse since the age of 16. These figures are equivalent to an estimated 4.5 million female victims of domestic abuse and 2.6 million male victims.”
In addition, “6% of women and 4% of men reported having experienced domestic abuse in the past year, equivalent to an estimated one million female victims of domestic abuse and 600,000 male victims”.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/sep/05/men-victims-domestic-violence
And yet orgs that look out for men who are DV victims recieve only about 3% of anti-DV funding.
“Twelve organisations that support male victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse will receive a share of £225,000, Home Office Minister Lynne Featherstone announced today.
The carefully selected organisations will use the money to help ensure a better service for male victims.
She said: ‘I am pleased to announce that we are able to support male victims of domestic violence through this funding. We recognise that men can be victims of these crimes too and deserve support and protection.’
These grants are just one of a range of actions the government is taking to tackle domestic violence. Overall, £28 million will be directed towards specialist domestic and sexual violence services over the next four years to help victims.”
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/media-centre/news/domestic-violence-support
Bearing in mind that male DV victims are waaaaay less likely to report than female DV victims.
I know two of my male relatives who suffered regular DV (e.g. one being strangled in his sleep, the other – face scratched bloody) at the hands of their respective fiancees, neither man ever hit their attacker back, neither reported it, and thank fuck, both eventually dumped their violent partners and did not fucking marry them.
The fiancee of one had actually gone around lying to friends / family that he had attacked her, but given that there wasn’t a mark on her, and he was brusied and bloody, everyone knew she was full of shit.
The fiancee of the other was such a violent nutcase that she once kicked a policeman in the balls.
So, fuck off, trying to make out that men don’t suffer DV at the hands of women.
Hey, if I’m going to get to the Costco before the close I’ve got to run.
Thank you for the respectful dialogue.
So far 100% of the political beliefs you’ve stated are “David is boring” and “Child abuse: maybe not that bad?”
These are not real issues affecting men.
Some guy leaves before retracting his statements supporting child abuse.
MRAs at their finest.