So if you’ve ever wondered what sort of activism that Men’s Rights, er, Activists do when they do do activism, take a look at this little ACTION ALERT from A Voice for Men.
You may recall Paul Elam getting all worked up the other day because Facebook, responding to a campaign launched by a coalition of feminist activists and groups, announced it was going to try to do a better job removing “gender-based” hate speech from its site. You know, like this [TRIGGER WARNING] sort of thing.
Naturally, Elam and other MRAs interpreted Facebook’s announcement as the first step in the End of Male Speech on the Internet, or something.
Anyway, now the MRAs are ACTIVATING! AVFM has announced that it’s going after the groups that signed onto the feminist Facebook protest. Because, well, I’m not sure I get why exactly.
Here’s their explanation:
It’s time for action. The AVFM community has scrambled to look beyond the fine print of WAM!’s ultimatum to Facebook and into the signatories. We are finding that some of them are tax-exempt, and even government funded. We now know that government funded institutions have endorsed a harmful double standard that results in the censorship of men.
But, if we discover that even one cent of government money touched WAM!’s campaign, we will be exposing a whole new dimension of hypocrisy.
Uh, ok. I’m just really having a hard time finding the hypocrisy here. If you look at the names of the groups that signed onto the open letter, you’ll find a number of general feminist groups, groups concerned with the representation of women/gender in the media, and groups organized against sexual assault and other forms of violence.
They didn’t sign a petition demanding that all men posting on the internet be banned or, I dunno, kicked in the balls. They signed onto an open letter demanding that Facebook remove
groups, pages and images that explicitly condone or encourage rape or domestic violence or suggest that they are something to laugh or boast about.
That doesn’t seem hypocritical to me. It seems rather in line with what these groups promote.
And the only men who will be censored will be men posting this sort of hateful shit. If women post this sort of shit, they’ll be banned too.
Apparently, AVFM and its “activist” fans are so divorced from reality that they think they’re going to be able to publicly embarrass rape survivor support groups … for standing up against crude, hateful rape jokes on Facebook featuring images of brutalized victims.
Still, at least this sort of surreal, self-defeating activism is better than firebombing courthouses and police stations, as that infamous manifesto posted in AVFM’s activism section so enthusiastically recommends.
EDIT: I forgot the link to the AVFM alert; added it inthe first graf.
@ Argenti
I have already said i support the removal of the images but I wonder if any feminist would support removal of similar material of a feminist flavor?
For me it is all about decency. There is no ‘sex war’.
Fedora — MRAs decided it was about them and wrote about it on their sites. So, I repeat, who besides them said it was about them?
Oh gods we’ve going to elimate polio, clearly this is an attack on organisms everywhere!
*does monthly check* 41 cases year to date versus 64 this time last year. Newest cases were mid-May.
@Fedora, Oh my fucking god… David wrote about the MRA’s reaction, you idiot.
What sort of material of “feminist flavor” would be the same as pictures depicting women getting raped???
@The Black Fedora:
No. Feminists want the horrible content removed. The MRAs thinks this, like everything else that has happened to anyone anywhere in the history of ever, is all about them. Also, scroll up and keep looking to the right:
You’re welcome.
@the black fedora
Can you please share some of their reasoned arguments? Also like Argenti said, no one ever said it was about the MRM. They decided it was about them. The MRM basically just admitted that they are all about hurting women rather than helping men.
I don’t even…would feminists support it if it was a feminist flavor? Let’s assume you meant MRA flavor, and no, feminists don’t support violence so I see no problems here (besides TERfs, but they can go repot a cactus)
@auggz
Yeah, just checking, because I like his blog! When he talks about “western” stuff, he’s not always aware of the language though, because he blogs from India (British-Indian perspective). He was awesome in tackling AVfM trying to associate with Indian MRAs whining about how Indian women are even more privileged and misandric than American women. He showed just what little whining shits they were based on actual evidence.
On topic:
Opium4themasses:
I see your point, we all spend most of our time reading about ‘white knights’ and the oppression of having to pay for dates thinking “that’s what feminist is trying to end, duh.” However, in my little utopia (it’s not going to happen), I think a movement focusing on men to battle gender normativity and the problems these social boxes impose on men specifically would be a good thing. But yes, that’s just a subset of feminist thought/ queer theory.
But first, they’ll have to drop ‘mangina’. 😉
Honestly, that MRAs think people calling for the removal of violent images and hate speech is a precursor to the MRM’s pages getting removed is a pretty good indication that there are no “reasonable arguments” to be worried about.
MRAs don’t like the idea of websites banning violent images and hate speech because MRAs truck extensively in violent images and hate speech.
I think Black Fedora wonders whether we would support a ban on pics making light of MEN getting beaten up and raped. I think that’s what he means by “feminist flavour”. Um, yes, we would.
Lol, “similar material of a feminist flavor.”
That would be…. what now? Because tbh I can’t really think of anything on par with PICTURES OF DEAD WOMEN WITH TROLLOLOL CAPTIONS that could really be labeled as feminist.
A lot of the “cutesy” misogynistic cartoons that are shared on various pages are as obnoxious as they are offensive. A lot of people like them or even dumb enough to comment – proving they never read a book and listen to too much right-wing talk-radio.
I just unliked a page that had one using a female and male symbols used for restrooms – with one pair having an = between them and the other with a > between. Under the illustrations was “How Men View Equality” and “How Women View Equality”, respectively.
Yeah, ’cause those hundreds of years of women being considered nothing but sex chattel? Lies, all of them. Historians are obviously working for DA MATREEARKEY! Jesus fucking Christ…
I actually used to think that men getting raped was hilarious before I became a feminist. Then I realized how fucked up that was when someone pointed out that patriarchy can hurt men as well, such as laughing at male rape victims.
(Off topicish)
I think another reason many think male rape isn’t serious is because of homophobia too(and homophobia is related to patriarchy in a sense). Male on male sex is seen as bizarre rather than actual sex. So when a man rapes another man, it’s seen as some prank rather than legit sex.
I don’t really get misogynistic shit in my Facebook feed, fortunately. What I do get from time to time are women sharing jokes that are degrading towards men. NO ONE I know who’s an explicit feminist does this, ONLY women who aren’t as well-versed in feminism. And I get that it’s a kind of… well, self-defense against patriarchy, to joke about how men are useless and inferior. Still doesn’t make it right. I always call people out on that kind of shit, even though it makes me come out as totally humorless and boring and ruining everyone else’s fun.
Fedora –
The only way your point makes a little bit of sense is if you’re talking about anti-trans feminists (I don’t know if they’d hypothetically support violent transphobic imagery, but their language is quite hateful of transwomen). Not only will you not find any of them here, but they have no power in the mainstream feminist movement. Many mainstream MRA groups are antitrans.
But somehow I assume you’re thinking “Dworkin-Solanas! That character in a Marilyn French novel!” (we all know characters in novels all reflect the authors beliefs and experiences) But hey, if you find ‘feminist approved’ images promoting the rape and physical abuse of men based on their gender, I’d love to see it, so we can organize to denounce them and remove them too.
The most common trope about trivializing the rape of men in society is prison rape (which of course happens to female prisoners too). Incidentally, a lot of MRAs find prison rape to be *hilarious* (John the Otter the latest “famous” MRA I remember to laugh at it). Manboobz brought up the trivialization of prison rape many times, with links to the main organization fighting it.
If you seriously think feminists support gendered violence on men, you’re way down the rabbit hole. You should stop reading the straw feminist hoaxes MRAs keep falling for (the Onion is not a real news site).
On your other point, I won’t be the first to say that this has nothing to do with MRAs, most people have never heard of you guys. The paranoia was born in Elam’s ass after the fact. We are laughing about MRAs thinking it’s about them. It’s not even about men nor women, Facebook decided to be better at banning anyone spreading these images.
Anyway, for what it’s worth, I too am interested in the rational arguments coming from the MRM. Many of us have been looking for that gem for years.
I don’t know how I keep coming across it – even when trying to avoid it as much as possible.
Thankfully, I don’t have the same problem with my female friends on FB. Even if they do make men the butt of the joke – it’s an obviously friendly jest (then again, many of them are admitted feminists to some degree or another). It’s certainly preferable to having to deal with a humorless sexist who thinks a cartoon saying “when men beat women, they’re a monster – when women beat men, they’re brave and heroic” is somehow “hilarious.” Funny that they don’t see to understand any other form of satire or parody. Of course, it NEEDS to involve reveling in self-pity over imagined enemies…
Since The Black Fedumbass has done nothing but be a disingenous, lying butt-whipe in all his posts, and because his “arguments” are based on things that no one’s even said, and because he’s admitted himself that he’s just here to troll (and desperately try to get a few visitors to his shitty little blogs that nobody reads), I say we should just respond to all his posts with lyrics from 80’s pop songs.
Here, I’ll go first!
Glitter on the mattress
Glitter on the highway
Glitter on the front porch
Glitter on the hallway
– Love Shack: The B-52’s.
Sorry, my comment was a reply to Dvärghundspossen’s. Should’ve specified that.
@Black Fedora
Huh.
Blog:
Hm.
(For the record, I don’t support images of rape and abuse of men “not based on their gender”. The reason I added the gender part is because many will show war images to somehow prove that we support violence against men. Then, in an unrelated post, will rant about women in the military.)
Fibinachi, what is that job thing referring to? Some MRA blog?
cannotfindWMD has figured out our dastardly plan!
Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1fj7h5/why_dont_we_just_restrict_that_freedom_of_speech/caasud9
becausescience-
Me-me-me!
@fedora
Previous people always tell me that’s a step too far.
Do you really want to hurt me? Do you really want to make me cry?
I’m prepared to let you go. If it’s love you want from me, then take it away.
Everything is not what you see, it’s over today.
I think this covered most of his argument.
@cloudiah
Yes! The rightful place of women academics with PhD’s is scrubbing floors! Guy on Reddit has figured it out.
We need to adjust our plans. Maybe get post-docs so we can rightfully make Reddit dudes sandwiches?
We need an evil lair. Lets go get pregnant with honest hardworking men and take their child support. The moat and kitty statues will be expensive.