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 – fail, fail, fail. There’s no such thing as matriarchal marriage; we do not live in a matriarchy. A marriage pattern in which the man is expected by society to be the junior partner, to stay home, raise children and generally be the support system for a woman’s career, simply doesn’t exist in our society. Just the opposite: patriarchal norms do no favours for any couples who do want to live differently from the old pattern of man working, woman supporting (and that includes when the woman works outside the home: she’s still expected to be chief childraiser and home-maker). Nor is matriarchy what feminism has fought for, or is fighting for. What the MRM calls “male subservience” doesn’t exist.
You know nothing of what privilege means in this context, do you? Seriously, go read some Feminism 101 stuff before you trot out more of your nonsense.
@Pecunium – Following your exact same flawed logic:
You support feminism. All the RadFem Hubbers support feminism, which they assert means gendercide of men. Therefore you support gendercide of men. QED.
Or, wait….
I do not “support a movement”.
I am concerned with issues / problems that affect men.
I don’t have to explain / excuse what anyone else says about those issues.
@Hellkell – Whatever. Fuck off, you misandrist bigot.
Then, Joe, shut me up. Go do this stuff you’d like to see instead of calling me made up names.
@Joe
The issue is that RadFemhub are outliers. There are a lot of popular feminist sites that do not support these things. You’re on one.
If there really are MRAs other than you who don’t support rape and child abuse, it would probably be pretty easy to name one, right?
So are lots of people here. However, the Men’s Right Movement, which we mock here, is only concerned with the rights of rapists and child abusers.
Why do you even bother, Joe? Why hang around on this site where you’re convinced we’d all like to see men in general wiped out? What do you think you’re going to achieve by trolling here? You’re not going to change anyone’s opinions with your nonsense and name-calling. What’s the point, unless it’s just attention-seeking?
And because Joe has reached “eye-glazingly boring” stage, here’s a kitty!
http://youtu.be/Ofge6a3gGis
Dingdingding, we have a winner. I know it’s wrong to feed him, but he froths so easy.
It’s marketing. That phrase that the cupcake says is likely to have women follow the link more so than something like a cupcake saying “Womyns shelters suck cause I can’t stay there because I’m a man.” Or some other brilliantly intellectual arguments that mr.A’s make.
@Weeboy – well, sounds like your male friends got lucky in court. Whereabouts are you? No need to be specific, I’m just asking about State if U.S. or country otherwise.
@Kitteh – Ha! Your definition of “junior partner” is BS. The senior partner is not the one who does the earning, the senior partner is the one who CONTROLS THE SPENDING. And women nowadays account for the vast majority off all spending (it’s something like 85% as I recall).
Yeah, whatever, I don’t give a shit about how FEMINISTS define their jargon. Hahahahaahaa!! Fuck you! I reject your rigged game!
Female privelege in the West, is OBVIOUS to anyone with the ability to observe..
http://thisisfemaleprivilege.tumblr.com/
@Ugh – Oh, you have some data from 1990? Let me rush to read that… twenty two year old data. Or not. You utter knobend.
@kitteh’s unpaid help
*tries to reach through the screen and pluck the kitten from the video in order to give it cuddles and love*
Here goes:
“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).”
Hey, I’m in favor of that too. I even think it should be provided for free! See how easy that was?
“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.”
I think I could be persuaded of this, with some limits. My main concern is the welfare of the child, so I would want to see systems in place to support that. I am not sure how realistic a goal this is, though, in the current political/financial climate.
“Mandatory paternity DNA testing.”
Nope. Anyone who wants it can already have it. I am against the government imposing it on people who don’t want it.
“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).”
Hey, we (sort of) agree, at least in principle! I’m a socialist — “to each according to their need.” So lets not quibble about the actual figures, and just agree that there should be services available to help all the homeless, men and women.
“Presumed equal custody (assuming no violence issues).”
Not if it’s physical custody, because again what I am most concerned about is the welfare of the child and that can be a disruptive arrangement. (If disruption can be minimized, I agree that equalizing physical custody is a worthy goal.) Another option is shared legal custody & generous visitation schedules for the non-custodial parent, unless there is a good reason to deny that to either parent. (Most USians who divorce work out custody arrangements amicably, by the way — last figure I saw was 95%.)
I am also in favor of measures that make it easier for men to the primary custodians of children during a marriage!
Look at all of that common ground!
WAKE UP SHEEPLE!!!!
Wow, you sure told us.
@Weeboy – While it’s true that the first women’s DV shelters were set up independently of gov’t (the very first one was set up by Erin Pizzey) it’s disingenous of YOU to pretend that those very same shelters do not, now, recieve mucho gov’t funding. And weird that you imply that men’s DV shelters should not recieve proportionate funding, in accordance with the best available stats on victim proportions / numbers.
Going on a tangent about suz’s supergreat son:
It’s funny how, when describing what a catch her son is, suz doesn’t say anything at all about his personality. Like nothing, nada. Lots of twenty-year-olds look hot. What’s he like as a person? Is he a jokester or a silent, brooding type? Does he like loud parties with lots of drinking and crowds, or is he more into quiet pastimes? Is he outgoing or shy? Does he like the outdoors? Does he like books? Is he curious about the world? Does he like travel? Does he like to learn? Is he independent, can he take care of himself in his day-to-day life? Or does he live at home simply because he has to have someone do his laundry and clean his room? She says literally nothing that would tell me, were I twenty and in my looking-for-relationships mode, whether this guy is worth my time. I wonder why that is. Maybe there is a hidden message there, like feminists are slutty slut sluts who only care about looks anyway. Or maybe the message is that good, virtuous virgins aren’t picky and will be happy to take a Marine (swoon), whatever his personality. Or maybe suz’s family life is such that she doesn’t know her son. After all, she’s at best a glorified domestic servant, so why would her menfolk even talk to her, except to inform her what they want for dinner and what needs to be cleaned?
And speaking of books. The fact that she doesn’t know and doesn’t care what her son is studying tells me this family isn’t only not intellectual, but one where education is not respected, and learning is seen as merely an obstacle you have to overcome before you get a high-paying job. That would have been a huge red flag to me as a husband-seeker.
As for his good looks, he’s just quit an extremely active environment and entered one that’s mostly sedentary. His eating habits probably haven’t changed, however, so good chances are he’ll put on weight. A lot of weight. Soon. Which is fine — heaven knows fat people are loved and desired the world over — but if his Adonis-like figure is his main asset, I’d be worried. And, since most Caucasian men lose their hair, and early, I wouldn’t brag about his mane neither. Only hope is that ten years from now, when he is pudgy, balding thirty-year-old, he has something more to offer a potential wife than a whiny, bitter attitude and complaints that feminists have robbed him of a chance to marry a supermodel-looking submissive virgin who likes anal and is half his age.
But of course, with a mother like that (she doesn’t hover, kids!) and a father who’s probably no better, you know where he will likely end up. Wallowing in misogyny for a few years, then going the mail-order-bride route. He’ll go to some third-world country and lie to some poor girl shamelessly, then bring her over to a life that’s NOTHING like what he described. And she’ll be a submissive wife to him and a slave to her horrible mother-in-law, who will make it her mission to make every minute of her life a living hell. Of course, this poor creature will take the first opportunity to shaft this guy something the size of a Chicago skyscraper, because when you form relationships in that manner, don’t be surprised if the tables are turned. And it will all be women’s fault, naturally.
@Joe
Census data is on a lag.
You realize that the trend has been towards more gender-equitable settlements, right? Or do you have any data that contradicts this?
Also, as cloudiah pointed out, 95% of divorces are settled amicably.
p.s. Everyone, make more posters! Or butter more hamsters, if that’s your thing… (I want this to end up on r/mr. “Feminists eat live, buttered hamsters! Hamsters need their own register-her.com!”)
Uncle Joe: @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.
No.
It’s not. Because no-fault is no-fault. If there are no kids, and both partner worked, there is no, “enslavement”. No, “she gets all his stuff”.
A split of property happens. In community property states all assets which accrued after the marriage are joint. Property owned prior to the marriage may, or may not (depending on jurisdiction) be communal. Gifts, and inheritance, are (everywhere I know of) separate property.
So no, it’s not at all as you depict it.
Children… children complicate it. When a father wants joint custody, he gets it; barring some actual bar (abuse, inability to support, etc.). The non-custodial parent has to pay support. Not because it’s, “Matriarchal Marriage”, but because kids are expensive and both parents are obliged to kick in.
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.
Bullshit. Your rants about, “modern marriage” give this this lie. That or you are too stupid to look the facts in the face and see the truth of them.
Stupid, or lying, those are the options; based on the words you’ve written.
– 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.
And there’s the part that makes it plain you are lying.
@Pecunium – Following your exact same flawed logic:
You support feminism. All the RadFem Hubbers support feminism, which they assert means gendercide of men. Therefore you support gendercide of men. QED.
More fail.
Show me the “moderate MRAs”. Show me the parts of “The Movement” which don’t support abuse and rape. Because RadFem is the minority opinion. I accept them as feminists, because they are. I don’t accept that they are the driving force of feminism.
I’ve yet to see any driving force of the MRM which isn’t abusive, and full of rape apology, at the very least.
So you lose, because there isn’t an equivalence.
I most obviously don’t support the, “gendercide” of men, or I’d commit suicide. Since I haven’t, and won’t (at least not on the grounds that men are all inherently evil and not fit to live) you are; as in so many things, wrong QED.
LOL, for reals. Assuming rent is 33% of income, that would mean that, at most, only 50% of men even pay RENT, right?
Glad to see that Ph D’s working for you.
@Cloudiah –
1) No, DNA paternity testing that is ADMISSIBLE IN COURT is NOT freely available for the purchase.
2) Also, in many jurisdictions it requires the mother to give her permission! I’m not talking about in the womb here, that’s fair enough, no-one should have any medical procedure without their consent. No, after the child is born, the mother can block the presumed possible father from checking his DNA relationship to the child. Which is, frankly, outrageous.
Rent/mortgage, I mean.
Joe – I live in New Zealand. In all but one of those cases, they didn’t even GET to court. Custody was worked out either informally between the parties, or with mediation.
And I didn’t say anything about funding for men’s shelters. I simply said that the people who set up shelters, and who fund them (most of the money for things like womens refuge and rape crisis here comes from private sponsors) have a vested interest in the safety of women. Set up a shelter, and find people to donate who have a vested interest in the safety of men.
And before you ask what I’m going, I do help out at a shelter where most of the residents are young men who have been victims of violence – and LGBT youth shelter.
an, not and
Er, define “mucho.” I think maybe what you meant to say is that now most funding (40-50%) for DV shelters (in the US, at least) comes from the government. It’s not a large sum of money as a proportion of all federal expenditures.
Principle: There should be structures in place so that anyone, of any gender, who needs to get out of an abusive relationship can do so safely. Agreed? I don’t want to focus too much on DV shelters per se, in case there are other options that work better. Employment/relocation assistance, for example.
Uncle Joe: @Weeboy – While it’s true that the first women’s DV shelters were set up independently of gov’t (the very first one was set up by Erin Pizzey) it’s disingenous of YOU to pretend that those very same shelters do not, now, recieve mucho gov’t funding
Citation needed.
As to your comment to WeeBoy: I’ve seen a lot of divorces. I’ve been the “child” in three. My father had a second. Of the… fifteen, or so, I know of which had children involved, all of two were of the sort you call “typical”, and in neither of them was money demanded. One of them was in 1972, and she just walked away; disappeared herself. Then again, that was before “matriarchal marriage” so things were different.
The other was an ugly mess, and the mediator was inept; and the father too expectant of reason and logic from someone who was inept. He also had no assets; as he’d been the stay at home parent.
The rest… amicable. Three had court mandated custody arrangements; those were worked out,and reworked, as the children aged. Three had the father getting primary custody. One of the court-ordered custodial arrangements had the custodial parent shift from the mother to the father.
So, all in all; looking at divorces in five states (Calif, Ohio, Tenn, Utah, Ohio), your stories don’t match my experience.
Why should I believe you? Esp. since you have been so often wrong before?
@cloudiah
http://i49.tinypic.com/w6zgbc.jpg
(For people reading this two years in the future, I am sorry about my choice of hosting service but you don’t need to sign up for it.)