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!
@Joe
You know that most divorces in which the father wants joint custody, end in joint custody, right?
Any comment on NCFM’s support for abusers?
@Ugh – you are a tiresome wanker. As I’ve said before I’m not a “supporter of a movement” that’s just bullshit you make up, and repeat and repeat.
I don’t subscribe to whateverthefuck some other guys said. I can speak for myself, and I do.
For instance, when lots of guys were all “T.Ball = hero!” I posted (on Spearhead), that NO, absolutely not, a man who by hid own admission slapped his child IN THE FACE* hard enough to bloody her lip is the OPPOSITE of a hero.
(*For licking his hand? wtf? she was like four or something? kids do silly stuff. Because they’re kids. Don’t hit them! Especially not in the face! Especially not for doing something completely harmless! That = bad and wrong.)
I’ve said that before on here as well, but again you ignore it, because then you’d have to face the fact that not all men who care about men’s suffering are teh evils. Which would just burst your fucking bubble. And you can’t have that now, can you? Wanker.
According to you, because some men calling themselves MRAs said / did some bad shit = all men’s problems / issues / suffering must be ignored. Fuck you and fuck that.
@hellkell – No, fuck off. I am well aware that not one of you Manbbobzers would give a flying fuck if a man were slitting his wrists right in front of you, and when you say “debunk” you mean handwave and ignore. There’s no way on Earth I would waste any time reposting stats here for the umpteenth time.
Joe: your history is not one of light-hearted banter, and you’d blathered on for some time after your cupcake comment. It’s you who needs to keep up, sonny, but I’m afraid that’s impossible, since the whole twentieth century, let alone the first decade of this one, seems to have passed you by.
Conflating “bosswife” into one word is meant to be insulting, deny it all you like. Apart from your use of it just here, you (you personally and the MRM in general) don’t talk about “bosshusbands” and certainly don’t suggest that there’s anything wrong with the idea of women being subservient to men. Hell, it’s the whole aim of the MRM. What you refuse to get is that it’s not a mirror image of feminism. That was never about owning men.
I take it back about catching up: you need to grow up. But it’s just as impossible a task for you. The idea that ordinary people of whatever gender could actually like each other, love each other, form relationships, grow into and, yes, out of them, and not see each other as things to be owned and used, is something the MRM is incapable of understanding.
Sad for them, really, while other people are just getting on with life.
Actually you claimed to “not support a rape apologist movement.”
However, you support the MRM. The MRM is a movement in which every prominent writer and outlet engages in rape apologetics, and whose only discernible political activity is making life easier for abusers.. Disagree? Show me an example.
The issue is that ALL MRAs who have gained any popularity or significance within the “movement” have said or done bad shit. Ever wonder why? It’s because people are in the MRM because of the abuse apologetics, not in spite of them.
I know for a fact that The First Joe would gladly bathe in the blood of a virgin sacrifice, given the opportunity. Indeed, he would commit no less than ten arsons and three petty thefts to see a sequel to The Dark Knight Rises. There’s really no point in arguing with such a depraved soul.
Also, I never said that men’s suffereing should be ignored. I support a number of charities to improve food security around the world, for example. What I said was that a hate movement that wants millions of men and boys to have no domestic violence protections, like the MRM, is obviously not going to do anything for non-abusive men.
What part of that do you disagree with?
If I were eating a bucket of live hamsters, The First Joe would be like “Yo, can I have one?” and I’d be all like “Sure” and then he would take, like, three.
And that’s not cool.
Srsly, everyone knows that you take one hamster. Where are your manners, Joe?
To be fair, Joe1 does like a good chuckle now and then, but he alternates between laughter and ARGLEBARGLE rage with a rapidity that would be alarming if you were sitting next to him at a bar.
So Joe, tell us, what do you think should be done about the problem of male homelessness? And can you design a better poster about it than we’ve found online so far? I’m trying to get you to be constructive.
Wait, are the hamsters buttered?
Because if they are buttered, I think Joe1 limiting himself to just 3 delicious hot buttered hamsters is showing tremendous restraint. Just saying.
Butter and Vegemite. You really can’t eat hamsters any other way.
Uncle Joe: Maybe you could try asking the designer?
What? I thought the semiotics of the MRM were so absorbed by us that it was transparent, except that it ain’t….
And that it ain’t was the point of the post.
So you agree with Dave. Glad we could help you figure that out.
@Ugh – I do a lot of things, I certainly do not support a “rape apologist” movement. YOU keep on repeating this FALSE accusation over and over just like a broken fucking record, despite that fact that I am on record, on this very blog disagreeing vociferously with the e.g. Tom Martin’s POV on sex/AoC. Apparently, you believe that I should spend all my time picking fights with MRAs I disagree with on the interwebs for your edification. Fuck you.
Aw… you haz a sad. I admit, it must suck to be reminded that your movement is full of rape apologists. It must suck even more to see people like Varpole the Steele Butthorn, say, “That rape apologist is no MRA, he is dead to me, and needs to be expelled from THE MOVEMENT”, and three weeks later be trying to butter him up and praising him for his righteousness in the interests of THE MOVEMENT.
In this very thread we have Eurosabra praising Eivind Berge, who isn’t a rape apologist, he is a rape campaigner.
You support the MRM. The MRM is comprised of rape apologists. QED you support a rape apologist movement.
As an amusing (for some value of amusing) aside, I got some “performance enhancement” spam, today, to a post I wrote 2 years ago about Eivind Berge.
Kinda creepy.
@Ugh – No, I’m not going to comment on your whatever.
I am not a “supporter of a movement”. I am not responsible for what Asshole A did or said. I am responsible for what I do or say.
YOU keep trying to lump me in with whothefuckever, and it has the exact same intellectual foundation (i.e. none) as claiming that e.g. a woman who identifies as feminsist and works in a DV shelter helping DV vics somehow is responsible for e.g. Valerie Solanas and the RadFem Hub.
Also, UTTER BULLSHIT re. your shared custody assertion.
@Kittehs – so you agree that old patriarchal marriage 1.0 made women subservient to men? So you can see that it’s new matriarchal marriage 2.0 is the exact same mirror image. Good. Now can you make the mental leap to see why men won’t put up with that?
Hah. While there’s a bunch of MRAs who want to go back to the bad old days of marriage 1.0, there’s loads who absolutely do NOT want that. I fall in the DO NOT WANT camp.
Did you know that under marriage 1.0 in the UK a husband was at one time legally responsible for the misdeeds of his wife? No, really, that was a thing. Fuck that.
No. Here’s what I want. I want women to have the same equal responsibilities / consequences that come with all the rights they now have. I want men to have the same equal right that come with all the responsibilities / consequences they are expected to shoulder.
Here’s a sample:
– A safe, reversable contraceptive pill for men, that does not require any cutting open or injecting stuff into the bollocks, nor any medical procedure to reverse (you just stop taking it, and your junk gets back in gear on its own).
– The legal option for “paper” / financial / legal “abortion” (actually a “disowning” would be more accurate) for any man who gets told by a woman that she is carrying his “oops” baby.
– Mandatory paternity DNA testing.
– Proportional provision of gov’t funded DV shelter facilities (that would be 60% for women, 40% for men in the UK: Home Office figures. I would not want to see shelter places for women reduced, but overall funding INCREASED to provide for men too).
– Presumed equal custody (assuming no violence issues).
None of these things are about taking any rights away from women, they’re all about giving men the same kind of freedoms / rights / protections / help that women have / acquired under feminism.
It’s a Brave New World and men want all that good stuff too.
My body, my right – not to be coerced to work a job I hate for twenty years to fund kids that I’ll never see and who turn out after all never to have been mine* in the first place. That’s not freedom. Fuck that.
Again with irony. Stop it, Joe, you are killing me.
Joe, men already have ALL THE RIGHTS, and there’s no such thing as female privilege.
Please give your fictitious bullshit a rest. Or go read some older threads on all the “rights” you want, and why it’s utter crap.
Joe, again, I don’t think you’re living in my reality. Admittedly, I don’t know that many divorced people (3 of my siblings*, and 4 others) but in all of those, a total of zero men are in ‘indentured servitude’ to their ex-wives, all but one of the guys with kids have shared custody and the one who doesn’t has full custody. Hell, one guy who was a mentally unstable stalker still gets shared custody, even after he denied his second son was his until he could no longer pretend the three year old wasn’t a clone of his older brother.
*My family are not good at marriage.
Joe, make a poster. Seriously. It’s good for your soul to create something, even if it’s just silly.
@Cloudiah – good question.
Some ideas:
For a start the UK needs a LOT more affordable housing (now families more often than not have just one live-in parent and there are way more folk living alone). To get that requires cracking the rat’s nest of red tape that restricts planning permissions and keeps house / land prices very high – pandering to the landlord class (85% of the UK is NOT built on. See: Cahill’s “Who owns the world”)
More, (rather than less) money into mental health serivices*, because: lots of homeless are also mentally ill. Now chicken vs. egg, but I suspect helping the mentally ill might reduce homeless rates. Not being able to cope with life in general, likely to lead to homelessness, IMO.
(*If possible given: banksters stole the world / are crushing the middle class).
And, rather more directly, cultivating a spirit of brotherhood between men, and popularising the idea of making the effort to look out for your friends when they suddenly drop off the face of the social scene (withdrawl from other people often being a red flag for depression, other mental illnes, sudden penury / loss of job / abode / divorce).
Joe – I back some of your suggestions. DV shelters for men! Male contraceptive pill!
So go out and DO something about it. Women’s shelters weren’t set up by the government – they were set up by charities, and women’s groups, and people with a vested interest in serving their people. It’s disingenuous for you to then turn around and go “well why didn’t you set up any for men?”
Study medicine to develop the male pill. If you can’t, fund laboratories and help with testing procedures and administrative details. Feminists aren’t hoarding a male contraceptive, this is not some big conspiracy.
Real talk, Joe, do you identify as an MRA? You keep waffling on this.
By 1990 joint physical custody was at 40% and rising in all Northern states.
http://ncfm.org/libraryfiles/Children/custody/Custody%20Policies%20and%20Divorce%20Rates.pdf
WeeBoy, Joe won’t do any of that. It’s much easier to bitch and moan at the feminists.
In stark contrast to the MRM.