You may recall that post a couple of days back in which I talked about Dean Esmay of A Voice for Men — the alleged “Men’s Human Rights” site that hosts an open call to firebomb courthouses and police stations in its “activism” section — suggesting that unnamed Man Boobz “minions” might stoop to impersonating female MRAs in an attempt to make the Men’s Rights movement look bad.
As I pointed out at the time, it is the official policy of Man Boobz that the Men’s Rights movement does not need any help making itself look bad, and will not get any from me or my, er, minions. All quotations from MRAs on this site, regardless of gender, are 100% real and not made up by my minions or by me.
Anyway, as if to prove once again that MRAs don’t need any help making fools of themselves, the FeMRA videoblogger known as TyphonBlue — a “senior editor” at AVFM, whatever that means — made some comments over on Reddit recently that I doubt will assist the Men’s Rights movement in its rather half-hearted attempts to improve its poor image.
The trouble began when Ms. Blue — real name, Asha James — proclaimed that there was no such thing as a radical MRA, and someone in the Men’s Rights subreddit challenged her on this assertion, bringing up, among other things, our anti-friendzoning friend from the other day:
But it was TyphonBlue’s response that really took the discussion to the next level of WTFery:
Open mouth, insert foot. Insert other foot. Then shove Paul Elam’s foot in there as well.
An amazing performance there from TyphonBlue, Authentic Female MRA.
(Thanks to the AgainstMensRights subreddit for pointing me to her quotes.)
@Deoridhe
I have two trans* friends who find Ranma super transphobic as well. I saw the anime rarely, I liked the manga more.
It has many delightful things about it, but I can understand why it is uncomfortable for them (my friends).
Here’s an example of some transphobia in that anime (the relevant part goes until 2:27 or so). I should note that Ranma’s anger at Taro’s remark has literally nothing to do with the fact that it’s bigoted because throughout the show Ranma is ashamed of being half female.
There are other examples, too. Like the reaction to that one girl Tsubasa when she is discovered as a “guy.”
Oh well. At least it has some nostalgic value.
Also, I apologize if you two hate the dub – I didn’t feel like finding the subs. =P
Y’all don’t need to prove it to me; I totally believe you and can see the problematic stuff pretty easily now.
We interrupt this broadcast to announce that redrawing light sectors on charts is mind-numbingly dull.
Thank you, we now resume normal programming.
Pineapplecookies . . . if you don’t mind the question (and you don’t have to answer if you don’t feel like it), what *is* your native language? Just curious.
Your English writing skills are superlative for a non-native speaker.
I could see how men could legitimately be given more of a say in a sci-fi scenario. Imagine that it were possible to extract a fetus from a woman’s body and put it in an artificial womb, where it would grow to full term. If that were the case, one might argue that if the man wants the baby but the woman doesn’t, she would have the right to abort, and he would have the right to take the fetus home in the machine and have it develop to full term at his place. He’d be a single father and she’d pay child support.
Maybe there are problems with this that I haven’t thought of yet, but spontaneously it strikes me as pretty fair?
(Obviously hasn’t got much to do with the world we actually live in, but heck… I like sci-fi!)
@grympycatisagirl: it’s Portuguese 🙂 I’m from Brazil.
A kind of MRA movement is growing larger here. Feminism is becoming more mainstream, stronger and less marginalized. Also a larger number of cis men, trans*, gays and lesbians are joining the feminist movement. Former marginalized groups are becoming more visible and I guess that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. The so called “masculinists” and “anti-feminists” are appearing as a reaction, I believe. There is also an “interesting” group called “proud to be straight” in response to the “gay pride” groups. Sometimes I feel some of the MRM/MRA in Brazil are even worse and more reactionary than the ones exposed here.
There were two horrible cases recently involving the “masculinists” (they like to call themselves that) and I’m very disappointed to not find them in English. I believe the world should be more aware of dangerous misogynists everywhere.
TyphonBlue supports procreation by rape and abortion by force. She’s very mentally ill. Her and JTO will be perfect for each other… Should I be worried a schizophrenic has taken up trolling with a sociopath? I’m not into stigmatization of mental illness but this does worry me a bit because no one within the group sees fit to bring attention to their delusions.
Has TyhponBlue said she is mentally ill, or are you internet diagnosing?
Buntzums: I’m not into stigmatization of mental illness but this does worry me a bit because no one within the group sees fit to bring attention to their delusions.
IIRC this isn’t the first time you’ve used the language of mental illness to explain someone’s misogyny. You are using mental illness to stigmatise (and as something of an explanation for) what is probably just her being an asshole.
@pineapplecookies: Welcome to Manboobz! Because I don’t think I’ve talked directly to you yet.
When I was younger, Ranma 1/2 seemed like such an exotic and creative thing (He’s a boy! Who turns into a girl!) but I remember thinking at the time that taking baths would be awkward. Little did I realize that semi-public bathing is A Thing in Japan. I never did get around to watching or reading any of it, though.
I can relate to how media that you loved as a child can show its problematic aspects as you get older. Classic Doctor Who can be pretty damn racist, but it’s pretty good at empowering women. I used to love Masters of the Universe, but now the cheap animation and awful voice acting makes me cringe, and I haven’t missed the fact that there are only 3 women in it (not considering the She-Ra series), and never had an action figure of any of those 3 when I was younger, although I had Fisto, the Man of The Subtle Innuendo.
I’d like to visit Brazil at some point.
Thank you, Falconer! ^___^
I lived in Japan for a while and was a very big fan of the public bath thing! Actually, it is one of the things I miss the most about living there. Most of the Westerners weren’t so thrilled about it like I was, but I understood. You do get nude in front of total strangers! It can be awkward. xD
Not only as a child, but as a teen and even young adult. I get a lot more critical now about stuff I watch / read. However, some media, although problematic, I can still enjoy, even if sometimes I shake my head a little =D
I’d also love to visit Brazil someday. South America is one of the three continents I haven’t made it to yet. Pineapplecookies, do you happen to have links to information about the two horrible “masculist” cases you’re talking about? It’s okay if they’re not in English, but I agree, the world should be more aware of these dangers everywhere in the world.
@pineapplecookies, My best friend is from Rio! Have you received your welcome package yet? I hate trying to cut and paste when I’m on my tablet, so it might need to wait until I get to a real computer. 😀
Also, I think it would be interesting to see MRA-like examples from other countries, and I know we have people here from many different countries. I some are particularly mock-worthy, and you can provide the original + a translation, maybe David would be interested in writing about them.
@pineapplecookies: It’s my understanding that there are baths on Continental Europe that involve public bathing, for instance at Baden-Baden, but when I was in Strasbourg which is practically right next door to B-B I never screwed my courage to the sticking place and went. Yay body image issues.
The first was a guy who had this incredibly disgusting website that was so nasty that even reactionary nasty people were appalled by it. It contained a lot of racism and a lot of misogyny, e.g. claiming every man should rape a woman, all women are whores and should be killed and tortured and the like.
The website was denounced to the authorities multiple times, but it was hosted in a foreign country as I recall. They finally found the guys and his accomplice. They were both arrested and trialed, which was something unusual. It was not as publicized in the mass media as I think it should have been.
There was so much about this case… they even found out they were orchestrating a bomb attack in a major University.
http://www.dpf.gov.br/agencia/noticias/2012/marco/operacao-intolerancia-prende-responsaveis-pelo-blog-silvio-koerich201d
The other one was a school shooting. This guy entered his former school, killed 12 people and injured other 10. He was shot by the cops when they arrived at the scene. In the aftermath they discovered he was joining “masculinist” forums online and had a deep hatred towards women. The guys from the website mentioned above were contacted by the shooter and gave him advice and support.
It was later confirmed that the school shooting was motivated primarily by misogyny.
http://g1.globo.com/Tragedia-em-Realengo/
http://mariafro.com/2012/03/23/mantenedores-de-site-misogino-sexista-racista-e-homofobico-presos-pela-policia-federal/
I was looking for info online and found there’s Wikipedia article about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_de_Janeiro_school_shooting
The internet is so slow today!! It took me ages to post! xD
@cloudiah: Thank you! I did receive the Welcome Package <3 I have been lurking here for a very long time and just start posting the other day.
It would be interesting to provide materials from "MRAs around the world". I would love to assist in that if I could. I just become disgusted with the things they write… maybe I'm too sensitive….
We have a Brazilian blogger who is famous for mocking our MRAs. She has been threatened with violence and everything. I have some issues with her blog and some of her ideas, but she does have a way of making fun of those guys.
http://escrevalolaescreva.blogspot.com/
Also on the Angelina Jolie front, there was a man here (NYC) who is furious about it and wrote that it was awful of her to have done what she did. The reason is that it might inspire more women (who are similarly in danger of cancer) to get mastectomies as well, and that is unfair to the men who would be having sex with them. I believe it was in the “guest comments” of the Daily News newspaper, but can’t remember for sure.
I went to hear a speaker in college on the subject of Making Art. I can’t even remember who it is, but I remember this anecdote (which at this point I really can’t confirm):
There was this Asian woman who went to an artist’s retreat and hit it off with a guy, and things progressed about like you’d expect, but when it looked like it might get to the Being Naked bit, she revealed she’d had a double mastectomy. He said then that he probably couldn’t go any further and left. The next morning, he found on his doorstep a bowl that contained, under a layer of flower petals, a small pile of dead flies and bees that the woman had scraped from her window sill.
My take away was this: Women Are Not Merely Breasts.
By the way, typhonblue is still doubling down on [TRIGGER WARNING] calling the woman from the Advice Animals thread the “real” rapist. Just in case you thought she might have slept on it and then reconsidered her position.
I know, I know, it’s just that I still really want to believe that people are mostly good.
(And that’s why I hang out here; you guys remind me that people ARE mostly good. It’s just the asshats who are terrible.)
@pineapplecookies
No, you aren’t. Being disgusted with them is a perfectly fine reaction (one probably lots of people get sooner or later).
@Rahu
::eyetwitch:: May he step on all the legos.
@cloudiah
Seconded.
Aaaannndd I hope this wasn’t really butting-in-y or random. Kinda frazzled today, and manboobzing and drawing at the same time are a rather distracting combination.
I can relate. I really wish I could give MRAs the benefit of doubt and be able to say “Hey, here’s an MRA who actually isn’t a bigoted asshole!”
But I’m always left disappointed. Oh well.
It takes an ex-MRA to fit that description. The ones who’ve realised what a fucked-up hatefest of misogyny, racism, homophobia and trans*phobia it really is.
I move that every manboobzer in good standing should get this t-shirt and wear it with great frequency so that we can identify each other in public places.
Can I get a second?
(Sorry, my background chairing union meetings makes me want to follow Robert’s Rules of Order.)