It’s hard to parody Men’s Rights Activists, because no matter how ridiculous your parody is, there’s a good chance that some MRA out there has already said, or written, or sung, something even more ridiculous already.
Not that long ago, a bunch of Man Boobz regulars set out to parody the bizarre, and often inadvertently surrealistic, posters that have been popping up on MRA sites like A Voice for Men and Artistry Against Misandry. It was hard, but I think some of us managed to come up with posters that were even uglier and less coherent than the originals. I especially liked these two, from (respectively) Cliff Pervocracy and Sir Bodsworth Rugglesby III.
But alas, we have been outmaneuvered by the all-too-serious poster-makers on A Voice for Men, who have managed to produce posters that make even less sense than our silliest parodies. Take a look at this one, which I believe is the work of an Australian MRA by the name of Roger O. Thornhill.
I mean, really. How can we compete with that?
This is an actual poster that some MRAs think will actually win people over to their cause. How, I’m not exactly sure. What exactly about a cupcake with a tiara is supposed to scream “men’s rights” to random pedestrians who might catch a glimpse of this poster wheatpasted to a hoarding while on their way to work?
For more of Roger’s fine work, see here and here.
Man Boobzers, can you do better?
Or, if you’re not up to that Herculean task, could you at least try to explain just what exactly you think Mr. Thornhill was trying to say with that poster of his?
EDITED TO ADD: I have been asked to contribute a poster myself. So here one is. You can find many more hilarious and incredibly ugly posters at ArtistryForFeminismAndKittens and, of course, in the comments below!
His basic premise (that male circumcision should be stopped) is still reasonable. The issues he is interested in are legitimate men’s issues. He hasn’t (in my experience – please correct me if I’m wrong) expressed support for rape and abuse being acceptable. But those problems I mentioned before (thinking feminists are the enemy and working from MRA ‘facts’) make him go off the rails.
Joe doesn’t understand the first thing about how to talk about problems with oppressed/marginalised people. There are loads of articles and sites written about it but until he gets down off his high horse and reads some of them he’s going to continue frothing at the mouth because he thinks he’s being ignored.
Seriously Joe, you’re not helping your cause by behaving like this. If you would just take the time to educate yourself you’d be a lot more effective.
That is totally a real thing. Many a time have I cursed our diurnal overlords.
Also, some of my best friends are *hurk* differently-abled. Dontchya know.
Nepenthe, I hope you have all the massage therapy you can use. I hate the idea of you being in chronic pain. [hugs or massages if you want them]
sixth grade grrlz
Thankee cloudiah.
I’m actually on some super sweet drugs that basically eliminate one source of it, so it’s not too bad atm. Man, I would take that shit if it made me grow scales and a second head.
@Everyone claiming that abortion deals with “non-persons” / “non-humans” who cannot think or feel – let me introduce you to some people who were born alive – surviving late-term abortions (still permitted in some juristictions including the UK under certain circumstances). These babies just kept on living despite the attempt to kill them in the womb, and they grew up to be people who were glad to be alive.
Seriously, how can anyone even pretend for a moment that late-term abortions are not, in fact, killing a living baby in the womb? Sure, you can invoke the mother’s bodily autonomy / sovereignty and say it’s her CHOICE to kill that baby INSIDE her, (because the alternative law would /could have worse consequences) but the evidence is overwhelming that after about 20+ weeks or so that’s a baby that COULD live independently of the mother i.e. the baby IS a distinct human being.
@Pecunium – at what point in your mind would these people have moved from YOUR category of “something needs killing” to “that’s a human being that has a right to live”? Would you have murdered the breathing, living just-born child in the operating room?
Or abandoned it?
Or helped care for it?
Meet Gianna Jennsen –
“Gianna Jessen’s mother was seven-and-a-half months pregnant when it was decided to abort the foetus she was carrying.
A saline solution was injected into Gianna’s mother’s womb, which doctors thought would kill the foetus within hours.
This time, most unusually, the procedure failed and Gianna was born alive, thanks in part to a shocked nurse.
She was so taken aback by Gianna’s live delivery that she summoned an ambulance to whisk her from the abortion clinic to the hospital.
She weighed only two pounds at birth and needed to stay in hospital for nearly three months.
In an ironic twist of fate the abortionist had to sign her birth certificate.
Now American-born Gianna, aged 28, is in London to give her message against abortion.
….She has cerebral palsy as a direct result of the procedure carried out on her in the womb.
….Initially the prognosis for Gianna, who comes from Tennessee, was poor.
….Because of her cerebral palsy her foster mother was told that she was unlikely to ever crawl or walk.
….She, however, was determined and eventually learned to sit, crawl and then stand.
She started to walk with leg braces and by the age of four was walking with the aid of a walker – now she walks without any assistance.
She refuses to let her cerebral palsy blight her life and is currently training for the London marathon.
But she says her determination can cause her problems….
“I have a love of life and a joy of life.”
“I am often misunderstood, which is often the most painful.
“My determination not to give up is often misunderstood as being over confident.
“But it is not that. I am just determined not to give up. I am just not a quitter. ”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4500022.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gianna_Jessen
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1504652/Gianna-Jessen-was-aborted-at-7-months.-She-survived.-Astonishingly-she-has-forgiven-her-mother-for-trying-to-kill-her..html
Copy of Gianna’s birth certificate, “Born during saline abortion”
http://www.prolife.org.nz/img/gianna-jessen-birth-certificate.jpg
Meet Melissa Ohden:
“Melissa’s biological mother was a 19 year old college student when she had a saline infusion abortion in 1977 that was meant to end Melissa’s life. Although her biological mother thought that she was less than five months pregnant when she had the abortion, the fact that Melissa survived and weighed almost 3 pounds indicates that her biological mother was much further along in her pregnancy than she realized. In fact, when Melissa obtained her medical records in 2007 that detail the abortion procedure that she survived, one of the first notations by a doctor after she survived was that she looked like she was approximately 31 weeks gestation! Despite the initial concerns that doctors had regarding her ability to survive, and the quality of life she would experience if she did, today Melissa is a healthy 34-year-old woman.”
Melissa, like Gianna, also survived a saline intubation / pitocin induced abortion – see fifth line down in the block text here on her medical records.
http://www.melissaohden.com/wp-content/gallery/melissa-ohden/birth-record.jpg
There’s another half dozen survivor stories listed on that pro-life site, but I haven’t had chance to cross check them / find medical records.
People’s stories like these led to the passing of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act in the US in 2002:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born-Alive_Infants_Protection_Act
Now there’s often an argument that children are not surviving late-term abortions anymore, and that procedures have changed etc…
However, even as late as 1997 we have the example of Tim, the “Oldenburg baby” a lad with Down’s Syndrome who survived an abortion at 25 weeks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldenburg_Baby
That Telegraph article for Gianna Jensen claims that about 50 children a year are born alive during late-term abortions initiated in the UK…
@Nepenthe – “differently-abled” along with “special needs” are the strict, PC, approved terms for “disabled” here in the UK now.
I have no problem reverting to “disabled” if you / others here prefer that.
@Kim – As I mentioned before, I am not expecting to appeal to anyone here, nor get “converts” to caring about men’s issues. I just assume everyone here doesn’t give a crap about men’s issues at all, and work from there. As I said above, I regard you as a hostile audience.
@Futrelle – oh, I’m on moderation now? Gotta keep that echo chamber sacrosanct, eh? Weakass!
@Futrelle – Oh, wait, looks like my previous post just got auto-kicked into moderation because: many links.
If so, I take that “weakass!” remark back. In this instance anyway. :p
You know, I’ve been stewing over this for a few days now, and I truly think that feminism is one of the most evil, damaging ideologies in the world today. Why? It targets everyone – since every individual is a man or a woman, every individual is complicit either as a victim or a villain in this fucking scum-sucking ideology of hate. And truly, since the genders are so close – together as families, friends, siblings, and ectera – it destroys at least half of all interpersonal relationships. There is metaphorical, emotional-blood on this scum-sucking ideology’s hands.
Steele? Next time you’re dating, tell the young lady upfront and directly about “The Movement”, your attempts at activism, and your willingness to overlook the positions of a child rape apologist as long as it bolsters your position in misandry. Be sure to tell her all about your personal experiences with misandry – especially how your dreams of being a professional writer were dashed by an evil, feminist English teacher. And then show her your blog.
That way she’ll reject you before a relationship can begin and you won’t have to be here whining about how feminism stole your girlfriend.
Steele, you never answered my question. When was the last time you were physically affectionate with someone?
Not in any part of the UK I know, it’s not.
Steele, stop stewing. It’s bad for your mental health, and for your writing. Get outside and be with people you like.
This PSA on troll mental health tips brought to you by Feminism. And now we return to our regular programming.
Joe, you’ve been on moderation for a couple days now. Do catch up.
Steele: if feminism is so vile, how is it that most of us are able to form healthy relationships– while you–our little MRA stooge, can’t seem to?
Joe, I suggest you google “differently abled”. Then you can find out what actual disabled people think about the term. Protip: not generally positive. It’s an infantilizing piece of bullshit primarily designed to make able-bodied, neurotypical people feel better.
This is the fifth result and the first one written by a disabled person.
Ahoy – Says? Piece of advice – just a titch – the word “mansplain” is meaningness. It is a misandrist term invented by disgusting, vile, internet feminist assholes; it is a meaningless shaming term with no purpose other than to shame and silence male voices that the vile disgusting evil, feminists deem unworthy. I’d avoid the term, unless you want to participate in vacuous, misandrist contentless invective.
Vile bigots.
And this, right here, is why the “take a shot every time Steele says ‘vile’ game will kill you.”
(It’s also why I’m increasingly convinced that Steele is a very, very dedicated Poe. Things like using “disgusting, vile” and “vile, disgusting” in the same sentence, writing clauses so hilariously redundant as “shaming term with no purpose other than to shame,” and doing all of this in a comment ostensibly complaining about other people’s “contentless invective” – it’s too much. It CANNOT be real.)
I really think we should put him in moderation and only let through comments that don’t use the word “vile.”
The word doesn’t bother me; I just think it would be funny.
I just put the word “vile” in the moderation filter. Let’s see what happens.
Actually the word “mansplain” is overwhelmingly recognized in social justice circles, and it is relatively well understood within those circles to mean “a dude explaining something to a woman because he assumes she doesn’t know it”. It’s not inherent to you being a man, it’s just something dudes do sometimes.
While it was invented by feminists, it really doesn’t carry any moral value assignment. If someone says you’re mansplaining they mean you’re annoying them. That’s it. There’s no shame in that, unless annoying people makes you ashamed.
It’s also not about silencing you, but asking you to engage in active listening when you’re a part of a conversation instead of just talking AT people.
TL;DR: If a woman says you’re mansplaining, it means she’s on the ball when you think she’s not.
I have been inspired today http://i.imgur.com/cqAQX.jpg
and another http://i.imgur.com/WIOB4.jpg
Yay! These will all be memorialized on my blog when I have the time, I promise. I like having one place I can go to see them all. XD
Joe… if this is where you refine your ideas… the MRM is in need of lots of work.
As to the issue of diapers/killing people, they aren’t directly related. I don’t think killing people elevates my moral standing.
What I said was I don’t have a problem with killing people, per se. As such saying I am being a hypocrite fails.
Also, you might have noticed that, before your attempt to take me to school, I acknowledged the presence of different types of FGM. I also didn’t say I was in favor of male circumcision. I said the effect of the two was different; and that there are cases in which male circumcision goes wrong doesn’t change that.
But if you want to pretend that I was all gung-ho rah-rah-rah for it, go to town. It doesn’t speak well for your ability to actually refine an argument though, any more than this nonsense:
By the way – it is nonsense to argue that giving the man a CHOICE, somehow forces the woman to care for the child.
NO! it doesn’t! – because if she chooses to give birth to the child she can give it up to state care / fostering / adoption. Another CHOICE that men do not have unless the mother so chooses FIRST.
So her choice is.. abort, give up to adoption, pay for all by; herself.
His choice… walk away scot-free if he feels like it.
And you think he ought to be able to pretend, at some future time, that he didn’t abandon the child.
Or this bit of redefining the argument (that is, you lied about the position) @Cloudiah – re. your argument about what is done with foreskins post excsion. It’s utterly irrelevant. Another red herring. You don’t somehow whitewash an evil deed by doing good deeds with the profits.
That’s not what was said. Cloudiah didn’t justify circumcision by saying, “oh, it’s ok because it was used to help others”. She said the claim that circumcision was being driven by a desire to make face cream was bullshit; because it wasn’t the reason, it was the side effect. Medical waste was recycled, rather than just destroyed.
Honesty doesn’t seem to be much more prevalent with you than reasoned argument.
4) Your argument boils down to two defining points for “personhood”:
Actually, no. Mine has to do with the law. A fetus isn’t a person. As such it has no rights. Even if it were a person, it’s rights don’t trump anyone else’s.
It’s also funny that you rail against us having this belief, when it’s exactly the justification you give for being pro-choice. Double standard much?
The problem for you (and where your logical argument fails) is that once a child is born, it becomes a person, and you would be willing to make it suffer, so that you exercise your fiscal autonomy (not bodily). That’s the difference.
And you would impinge on the woman’s autonomy to do it.
I at least acknowledge that may mean (especially late term) abortions are actually killing unborn babies.
But when I say that killing people is something I am (with caveats) fine with, and that one of those caveats is if a fetus is a sentient; even sapient, being, you get all sniffy that it means I am somehow less refined, or socially developed than you are. Double standards are your stock in trade; you just call them “choice” and pretend things which aren’t the same are actually equivalent.
Again, that refinement of argument you think you are making; it’s more polishing of rhetoric to take back to the Manosphere, where you can pretend a carefully polished turd is a valuable gem.