Men’s Rights activists have discovered something that Fred “God Hates Fags” Phelps and the rest of his gang at the Westboro Baptist Church learned a long time ago: outrageously offensive signs can mean media coverage.
Canadian MRAs associated with A Voice for Men recently got attention in Edmonton for posters mocking a date rape awareness campaign. Now some of their compatriots have captured the attention of the media with posters in Saskatoon.
This time the MRAs toned down the offensiveness in favor of simple outrageousness, combined with a healthy dose of incomprehensibility. The most incomprehensible of the current lot is probably this one, which comes straight from the A Voice for Men poster page:
But my favorite is this one:
I was originally going to write a sort of rebuttal to this, pointing out that by most measures Canada is, generally speaking, a rather unfrightening place for men (and women), what with its high standard of living, decent health care, relatively low crime rate, and so on.
I mean, if I were to pick a frightening country to live in, as a man (or a woman), I would probably pick someplace like, you know, Somalia, North Korea, Sudan or South Sudan, someplace like that. Syria’s probably not a great place to visit at the moment either.
But then I was thinking: Canada’s main problem, in terms of its international reputation, is that people tend to think of it as boring, not frightening.
Maybe Canada should embrace the whole “most frightening place to be a man” thing, and take advantage of this silly quote from Erin Pizzy to promote itself as scary, edgy, intense, EXTREEEEEMMME!
Maybe with some posters like the one at the top of this post?
I don’t know. I’m not that great at photoshop. Perhaps some of you would like to have a go at it? I know we’ve got some talented MRA poster-parodists here.
Blech, I think that shoe is so tacky!
10/10 would force men to wear in misandric dystopia.
I am loving these car shoes though…
http://www.shoeblog.com/blog/pradas-spring-sandal-will-rev-you-up/
… the good sort of tacky!
I LOVE the “good tacky” look! *__*
I want the pink ones! SO expensive though…
Hope that worked, new shoe inspired poster. Hope it`s lame and silly enough for AVfM standards.
http://i.imgur.com/Hcav2Zx.png
This time…
LOL I love it XD
I love your poster, bailey!
Damn auggziliary, envy all other the place…
Thanks Ally! It took like two minutes… makes me wonder how long the originals took… One minute? One minute.
Thanks grumpycat! MS Paint is a wonderful thing
Bailey, that’s spot-on. I love the subtle tribute to the Canadian flag.
“As intentionally insulting as our campaign might be, it’s a legitimate attempt to educate a public that obviously requires educating, while ‘Don’t be THAT Guy’ is a misguided campaign that at best achieves nothing, and at worst spreads dangerous myths about rape while vilifying an entire demographic for the crimes of a few intractable predators.”
Nice use of the Tu Quoque Fallacy, Straughan.
My favorite quote from Staugham is as follows, “Her degrees in English and Theology apparently provide her no understanding”
Straugham, herself, forgot to read the word “THAT” maybe she doesn’t understand what it means. “That” implies that the “guy” being referred to is “other” and not part of the larger whole. It’s a distancing technique. Allow me to quote Bill Clinton, “I did not have sexual relations with THAT woman.” (Emphasis mine) The posters do not vilify males. They vilify rapists. Even if that’s the case, Straugham argues that the original campaign is misguided and does nothing.
Straughan links to an article in which Lisak states the following about the 1 in 16 men who admit to sexual assault or rape, “They are very forthcoming,” he says. “In fact, they are eager to talk about their experiences. They’re quite narcissistic as a group — the offenders — and they view this as an opportunity, essentially, to brag.”
The argument she makes is that those who rape are a small percentage of the whole and as they are narcissistic and sociopathic are unlikely to be moved by the posters.
The only problem is that the poster campaign was designed to do many things. According to McEwan the original campaign is supposed to “raise awareness, challenge myths, fight victim blaming, empower bystanders, and stand in solidarity with survivors.”
Combating bystander apathy and ignorance is an important element of the campaign. Those bystanders are not helpless, they are the majority of people on college campuses. In fact, according to Straughan they are “decent” and “law abiding”. Even if the poster campaign never, ever changes a rapist’s attitudes, those bystanders have the power to step.
I can understand why Straughan might not understand the bystander’s power. She was unmoved when David cited MGTOW’s saying they would not help a female child, in fact she attempted to rationalize the statements made by the MGTOW. She also associates with JtO (who has explicitly stated that he will not help female rape victims even if he observes a rape in progress). I am going to make the bold statement that I believe she might lack empathy.
The counter-campaign’s response was not appropriate to the criticisms Straugham made of the original campaign. The public has made that clear. So, the counter campaign appears to have failed to “educate” the public.
As a side note I know people on this thread have said that the posters appear to be having an effect. Do you have any links I can look at?
At this point I’m starting to feel like they should rename themselves the Mandatory Rape Movement, just for the sake of clarity. Still trying to work out how to fit the divorce and domestic violence stuff in there though.
I’ve noticed something interesting about the way MRAs view male rapists vs. female false accusers.
Why do men rape women? Because consent is so haaaaaaaarrrrrrrd to understand and women are just so sexy that the poor dears can’t help themselves!
Why do women falsely accuse men of rape? Because they’re evil and hate men and want to ruin their lives for spite.
Interesting contrast, wouldn’t you say?
@ Pear_tree
I think the point of using those particular examples of “oppression” was to suggest that we’re pretty much living in a gynocratic dystopia already, therefore MRAs would already be justified in setting up rape camps, or that we’re one more FEMEN protest away from that point. It’s about justifying what the author wishes he was able to do right now.
So which do you guys think is worse: The Comfort Girls female-run dystopia where you’re required to walk in heels, or the Save the Pearls black-run dystopia where you’re required to go to dances?
@deniseeliza –
Ditto to all of the above. You’re certainly not the only one! 🙂
Katz — I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Save the Pearls. BECAUSE! The dances are supposed to help in mating and if not mated by whatever the age was they’ll cut off your food supply, maybe it was just cut off your happy drugs, but either way it was more than just the dances.
But Argenti, in the feminist-run dystopia, men are forced to look at naked women but not allowed to touch them. That is much worse than starving to death.
Also, they’re forced to wear the shoes that they would call any woman not wearing an evil castrating feminist bitch! There is no greater injustice than that.
So, if you believe this, and you oppose feminism, then the obvious course of action is to put an end to rape. No more rape –> no more feminism. Win-win. Go for it.
Please learn how to use dashes.
Park rangers promote forest fires! Forest fires promote park rangers! It’s a bloody, vicious cycle.
Oncologists promote cancer! Cancer promotes oncologists! It’s a never-ending loop.
Homicide detectives promote murder! Murder promotes homicide detectives! It’s an Ouroboros of Victimhood!
Speaking of high heels, originally those were *men’s* shoes, meant to show that you were so rich and high-class that you didn’t need to walk around all day. Then once women started wearing them to raise their status, they were tainted forever by those evil wimmenz’ girl cooties.
http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/02/05/from-manly-to-sexy-the-history-of-the-high-heel/
…Hmm. I notice a trend where once women start trying to be included in something, that thing drops in status. Whether it be secretary work, school teaching, etc. Maybe this could be why there is such an effort to exclude women from things like video games and politics.
Why? Because they are rapists or wannabe rapists is my guess. See Paul “not guilty verdict even if he’s obviously guilty” Elam, etc.
I doubt it’s a coincidence that these men who fancy themselves in a war against women are so pro-rape. They probably slaver over descriptions of rape in actual wars.