I‘ve been traveling, so I’m a bit late getting to the whole “Don’t Be That Girl” poster controversy in Edmonton. For those of you who don’t already know all about it: A group called Men’s Rights Edmonton, closely associated with our favorite Men’s Rights hate site A Voice for Men, has been putting up some pretty obnoxious posters parodying an anti-rape poster campaign called “Don’t Be That Guy,” turning the anti-date rape message into one that targets alleged false accusers of rape.
Salon’s Mary Elizabeth Williams has a pretty good dissection of the whole thing here. As she notes, one of the biggest problems with the “Don’t Be That Girl” posters is
the idiotic defensive assumption that [the original “Don’t Be That Guy”] campaign expressly created to educate men and women about consent merits a hateful, finger-pointing response. And it makes the classic presumption that getting drunk, hooking up and then crying rape is a standard chick operating procedure — an idea that is based, by the way, on no solid statistical evidence.
That’s as good as far as it goes, but I would go a bit further:
I don’t think that MRAs are really concerned about false accusations. If they were, they would be working with groups like the Innocence Project that actually help men (and women) who have been wrongly convicted for crimes they didn’t commit.
No, it seems to me that what they’re really worried about is true accusations.
MRAs, with these posters, and with their endless whinging about the alleged complexities of sexual consent, are trying to push back against the date rape awareness campaigns of the last several decades. MRAs and PUAs like to pretend that consent is a complicated and weirdly arbitrary thing — something that women decide to bestow or not to bestow on a whim, and that women sometimes like to retract after the fact.
Feminists say that whenever there is a question about whether or not you have consent, you need to stop and ask. MRAs and PUAs pretend that this somehow means the death of spontaneous sex if not all sex altogether.
Ironically, for all their complaining about the allegedly blurry line between consent and non-consent, many MRAs and PUAs want to keep that line as blurry as possible. But unlike feminists, who want the blurriness to be resolved before anything happens, most MRAs and PUAs seem to want “blurry” to count as “yes.” That is, unless a woman is shouting no, guys are good to go, and if a woman later says she was raped, it’s because she’s “That Girl” and she’s arbitrarily decided to revoke her consent after the fact.
That’s what’s so insidious about the “That Girl” poster campaign.
And that’s why those responding to it should point out the history of the people sponsoring the campaign. Men’s Rights Edmonton and its spokesperson, Karen Straughan (Girl Writes What) are both closely connected with A Voice for Men, which is actively helping coordinate MRA activism around the issue.
So it’s worth pointing out what A Voice for Men has previously posted about rape — and perhaps putting some of these things on posters.
AVFM founder and publisher Paul Elam blames date rape on its victims, writing in one notorious post — which regular readers here will no doubt remember — that women who are raped after drinking and going home with a man are “begging” to be raped:
I have ideas about women who spend evenings in bars hustling men for drinks … paying their bar tab with the pussy pass. And the women who drink and make out, doing everything short of sex with men all evening, and then go to his apartment at 2:00 a.m.. Sometimes both of these women end up being the “victims” of rape.
But are these women asking to get raped?
In the most severe and emphatic terms possible the answer is NO, THEY ARE NOT ASKING TO GET RAPED.
They are freaking begging for it.
Damn near demanding it.
And all the outraged PC demands to get huffy and point out how nothing justifies or excuses rape won’t change the fact that there are a lot of women who get pummeled and pumped because they are stupid (and often arrogant) enough to walk though life with the equivalent of a I’M A STUPID, CONNIVING BITCH – PLEASE RAPE ME neon sign glowing above their empty little narcissistic heads.
Elam has also said that if he is ever on a jury in a rape case he will vote to acquit even if there is clear evidence that the accused is guilty, and he has urged other men to similarly “nullify.” Here is his exact quote:
Should I be called to sit on a jury for a rape trial, I vow publicly to vote not guilty, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that the charges are true.
The post of his in which this quote appeared is now missing from the AVFM site, but he has confirmed he’s said this elsewhere on the site. [EDIT: I’ve been informed that the original post is also available via the Wayback Machine here.]
Meanwhile, AVFM Editor in Chief John Hembling takes a certain pride in his callousness towards rape victims, and has gone so far as to make several videos in which he’s announced that he doesn’t care about rape, and that if he ever sees anyone being raped, he will simply walk on by. (You can find excerpts of both vidoes here.)
There are many other examples of the site’s utter contempt for rape victims, but perhaps the most telling is the site’s use of the term “rapetard” to describe people who take the issue of rape seriously.
The people behind the Don’t Be That Girl posters claim that they’re merely trying to protect innocent men from false accusers. Their real agenda is much more insidious than that.
You’re cheating on your husband with yourself! Especially if you masturbate. Maybe that will be the next step for the Texas legislature, trying to prosecute women for flicking the bean.
With the talking – I get the impression it’s not just talking to resolve problems they can’t deal with or don’t want (and, of course, asking for consent is Teh Evil), it’s talking to women at all, especially in a sexual context. I can’t tell if they really just want a breathing Real Doll or actively enjoy rape; could be either, with these characters. To me sex has a lot to do with enjoying that person’s company, with intimate pleasure in them as well as the actions, and talking is part of that. I don’t mean non-stop chat, but MRAs seem to want to have a Cone of Silence where sex is involved. No words! Words make it droop!
>>>Unimaginative, isn’t Canada pretty progressive with feminism?
Canada has a similar divide as the urban North/rural South divide in the USA, though mainly it is an East/West thing. Most Americans’ impression of Canada relates to Ontario culture (Ottawa/Toronto), maybe some Vancouver (which is our Seattle/Portland-type city), and maybe some of Montreal if they have some contact with French Canada.
Edmonton is firmly in the West, though I’m guessing that like Austin it must have its oasises of liberalism. Quebec City is also fucking conservative. Montreal is pretty much the only part of Quebec I’m not ashamed of (except maybe Sherbrooke, occasionally).
“To me withholding sex from my husband is akin to committing adultery in that I am choosing someone else over him, my own selfish wants over our marriage.”
::head asplodes::
So now not having sex is adultery?
But of course it’s not adultery for him to choose his own selfish wants over their marriage. Because penis.
Hi David,
I read your blog pretty regularly but haven’t commented before. Thank you for taking notice and bringing attention to the repulsive nature of these posters the group that put them up. The Edmonton feminist community is pretty fed up with their bullshit, but we’re attempting to find productive ways of countering their misogyny.
Side note: MRE might be facing legal repercussions for using those images without permission. Nothing confirmed yet though. Here’s hoping!
Keep up the great work!
@BlacBloc, yup. It’s so frustrating, being from Alberta. All of Canada’s most heinous politicians seem to have been spawned here. And they all seem to think that rolling in oil money makes them financial geniuses (spoiler: it doesn’t).
So they do shit like lower the royalty payments that oil companies pay the province (because, hey, they might go dig tarsand out of the ground someplace else! Where it doesn’t exist!), and decide they’re so rich that people don’t have to pay into provincial health care anymore.
But then, all of a sudden, OOPS! The health care system doesn’t have as much money coming in as it used to, so now we have to cut back services and privatize! Obviously! Why can’t you peasants, er, voting citizens understand and appreciate our genius!
CassandraSays, funny you should mention that.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-clymer/my-proposal-for-a-bill-th_b_3535828.html
Great article, Shaun. 😀
Kanin’s study was a case study and, as the methodology was unique, it cannot be replicated. That’s very problematic when making broad generalizations about false rape accusations. Speaking from my knowledge of research in the social sciences the case study is usually reserved for anomalies. While that data may inform future research it CANNOT be used to make predictions or accurately describe the larger population.
The other problem is that Kanin was not working to refute a null hypothesis. Confirmation bias? Anyone? Bueller?
I don’t mean to sound like an ass, but this “research” the MRM is touting as “evidence” of wide-spread false accusations of rape is… really shit.
And here’s Lisak’s critique of Kanin’s 1994 study. http://www.davidlisak.com/wp-content/uploads/pdf/SARFalseAllegationsofRape.pdf
So you already know the intent and message before it’s ever spoken, and if what you perceive isn’t in line with that…..It’s that THEY failed to communicate properly, not that you failed to listen properly. Think we found the root cause of the entire MRA/Feminism debate right here.
Anyone feel like beating their head against the wall? This post is the best example of almost getting an issue and then, nope, didn’t get it at all that I’ve seen in a while. I actually agree that Resident Evil features a better example of a totally badass female character! But then zie starts “explaining” why women don’t love that character as much and head meets desk.
http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/04/the_hunger_games_is_sexist_fai.html
Zie is right about the racism, though. It’s not just in the movie, it’s in the book too.
Oh, look, the most boring person in the world is back.
Haven’t read through this whole thread yet, but it occurs to me that feminists and PUA types are both to blame for our rape culture because of their participation in the sexual revolution. Now sex is discussed openly and sex outside of marriage is tolerated by society instead of being kept underground and made shameful as God intended. Men are definitely most responsible for rape. We need a concordat of moderately pro-feminist men and moderately anti-feminist women to provide balance and end extremism and rape culture
Obvious troll is way too obvious.
– Lightning Assisi
canuck_with_pluck, tbf, Harper tried his damndest to get the abortion debate back into the legislature. However, everyone else was like “wtf? you think we’re touching that?? nope nope nope!!” so it never went anywhere.
Victims marrying their abuser is in the Old Testament, so I dunno why this is surprising… There are many people who think that way, unfortunately. Generally, it’s the religious people who think that women who own their sexuality should be punished with rape and/or pregnancy, but I’ve seen it a common element across all types of misogynists.
The rules were:
If she wasn’t married, you marry her and negotiate a price with her father (either her father paying her dowry, or you paying a bride price)
If she was married, pay her husband and get stoned.
If you were the woman and you were raped:
If you were in the city and you didn’t scream loudly enough for someone to hear you, it’s not rape and you were stoned for adultery, along with the guy (although there were ways he could avoid that)
If you were in the country, it’s conceivable no one could hear you if you screamed, so you might be let off from the stoning (there were mitigating circumstances that could push judgement either way).
Bonus rules: Sometimes (often), it was necessary for there to be witnesses, and it couldn’t be you or other women because women had no ability to testify, being women. Which basically meant you were totally fucked because you couldn’t accuse anyone, you couldn’t give testimony saying what had happened, and a[nother] man had to have witnessed it for it to be considered to have happened.
I also know a man who was raped by a woman, in the forced to penetrate way that they quote when it’s convenient for them, and I’ve seen him become upset and triggered over it, and over “jokes” about the subject, and embarrassed and ashamed when he mentions it’s possible and people dismiss and laugh about it. It’s bullshit that it doesn’t affect men just as much as women and it’s horrid that the MRAs pay lip service to something that should be something important to them.
People are shitty, and people want to hurt others in an attempt to feel superior and have power over them. This can be overt, as in rape, or more subtle, as in victim blame/shame. Rape is an easy way to do that. I truly believe that many people think that occasionally, rape is justified/justifiable and excusable. Yes, I’m very cynical and jaded on how much I think that people are going to be good decent human people about rape and rape victims.
Hugs Radical Parrot, if you want them. I know the feeling.
::goes back to trying to catch up on the thread::
Cassandra can always be relied upon and indeed called upon to provide a reaction to mirror the current consensus of society. You are all thinking false equivalency, concern trolling, typos, bla bla bla, without understanding the glorious paradigm shift currently taking place. O Prophet Jeremiah, continue to serve thine message as ye focus not upon society’s lust for blood, and be ye therefore exalted among the people, amen.
Dude, where’s my logic?
– Snowflake Luther
DarthBatman, they say it’ll empty the docket because it won’t be illegal anymore. Therefore, no criminals – it’ll still happen just as much/if not more, it’s just not illegal.
Unimaginative, it’s really a shame that Alberta manages to produce all these people 🙁
Cassandra, just read everything SA says as being satire and Colbert. Like this: “Now sex is discussed openly and sex outside of marriage is tolerated by society instead of being kept underground and made shameful as God intended” is so totally satirical! I can’t read that sentence without hearing it in a sarcasm voice. And it’s much funnier that way.
Whomever the other troll was (I can’t be assed to go back and check), just because you tell all people to wash their hands doesn’t mean we think they’re all riddled with deadly diseases. Or, just because we tell people to follow road laws doesn’t mean we think they’re all trying to run people over with their cars. Or. Or. Or. I could go on. But hopefully you get my point. Get your head out of your own ass before you try looking around to accuse other people of being in the same predicament, otherwise all you’re gonna see is shit.
BTW, random gift for comics fans.
http://hasdcdonesomethingstupidtoday.com/
Praying for Stephen Harper tonight. He needs to get right with God on the economy now. Support Democrats for Life if you are American.
Mr Al isn’t even trying any more. OTT religious wingnut disguise: check. Pompous style: check. Focussing on Cassandra: check.
I’ve emailed the Dark Lord[s] btw.
This is so much less creative than pretending to be a member of a dead religion. Son, I am disappoint.
AAAAND in what may be the record, Mr Al has been banned again.
Oh, forgot to sign off..
– Tornado Knox
I want to know why all these dead churchmen’s dogs are on the internet.
I mean, “Snowball Aquinas”? Still, I guess the image it brings up of a yappy little white dog that nobody takes seriously is appropriate.