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.
I like how, in the first poster, “patriarchy” is in scare quotes. It’s not real! But it’s the same thing as feminism! But feminism is real!
I’m confused by how they seem to think you’re now using a different currency if you take your coins and flip them on the other side.
@Dvärghundspossen:
You’re only confused because you’re assuming that there’s actual *thought* involved.
Wait… all my ibuprofen are red… fuuuuck, someone’s been trying to sneak me the red pill! D:
Husband barged in and explained the top poster for me. So, this is the point: Patriarchy means that men dies fighting wars. Feminism means that men dies… because feminists want to kill all men. Therefore, patriarchy and feminism are two sides of the same coin. MRM on the other hand is a different currency, where men don’t die in wars. SOLVED!
Welp, our local courthouse just erected big signs over every exterior entrance that read IN GOD WE TRUST, and there’s a big ol’ preach-off going on right as I type. Can you say Establishment Clause Violation, children?
@deniseeliza: God must certainly be a misandric woman.
“Hey! I’ll make a deer larger than a man! Then I’ll let it wander the roads in Canada and New England!”
@grumpycatisagirl: I don’t know what they’re trying to say about feminism with the mouse thing. Are the scared women supposed to be feminists? That whole image is something feminists have fought against for decades. Is the image supposed to be some kind of “true nature” of women that feminists are “imbecilic” for denying?
@Dvärghundspossen:
Holy crap. It somehow hurt less when it was just nonsensical, migraine-inducing gobbledy-gook. Now it’s just… ouch,
@Viscaria:
Four for you, Viscaria. You go, Viscaria.
“@grumpycatisagirl: I don’t know what they’re trying to say about feminism with the mouse thing. Are the scared women supposed to be feminists? That whole image is something feminists have fought against for decades. Is the image supposed to be some kind of “true nature” of women that feminists are “imbecilic” for denying?”
It seems more to me like they’re saying feminists are imbecilic and naïve for being afraid of mice. . . . but your guess is as good as mine. Mostly, WTF.
As a Canadian Feeeeeeeeemale I must say that we *did* have a lady PM for about 6 months once, about 20 years ago. Somehow that’s GOT to be totally misandrisisticist.
I just realized I was trying to fudge the top poster into saying “patriarchy=female disposability”, so it would make some kind of sense (Patriarchy means men are better! Feminism means women are better! They’re both wrong!), but no. It’s just “Waaaaah no matter what happens everybody’s out to get meeeee!”
“Somehow that’s GOT to be totally misandrisisticist.”
Oh god, that reminds me of how some MRAs say “misandristic.”
I cringe so hard when I say “-dristic” that the world shakes. Even writing that was tough.
To be quite honest, the angst of cis het white males in Canada has been well documented.
I sustained a direct hit from that nostalgia cannon, Falconer.
Here’s another too-wacky-and-unrelated-to-anything to be offensive one: http://www.avoiceformen.com/portal/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/fem_not_as_useful.pdf
Really, they might as well be yelling at chairs. Hard chairs.
@Viscaria: Yeah, we loved that show (Mom was less amused … gee I wonder why). The PBS station out of Lexington would show it, but not Doctor Who or Red Dwarf, so we had to hope the signal from Cincinnati was good that weekend.
Yes, Falconer, it has: http://youtu.be/0pPRaD6TKLc
Grumpycat: Huh. It looks like they’re sort of trying to say “feminism is a broken record,” except it’s not broken and they’re the ones repeating AVFM five billion times. Or maybe they’re saying “phonographs are obsolete and so is feminism?”
@Kate: I read the word “misandrisisticist” as “Misandrichrist”
Zombie Dworkin in: The Misandrichrist.
Misandrichrist 2: The Valenti Strikes Back
Smash the Misandrocracy!
(wow that’s a terrible word)
Katz, yeah, I think (?) they’re trying to say feminism is antiquated or something with that one. They do have a somewhat more obvious feminism-is-a-broken-record poster though: http://www.avoiceformen.com/portal/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/fem_broken_record.pdf
Again, repeating the VfM URL over and over again.
@canuck_with_pluck:
Now, now. You know we’re far too polite and “live and let live” to start bringing Jesus into the mix. Unless you’re on the Catholic School Board. Then it’s fine. As long as you don’t go overboard, mind you. If you were to do that we’d have to write a sternly worded letter to the editor of the local paper.
This has reminded me of “The Magical Misandry Machine”! It’s a giant SUV type vehicle I introduced on an MRA thread on Pharyngula a long, long time ago.
It’s fueled solely with the Man-Tears of Totally Oppressed Straight White Males In First World Socialist Societies.
Thanks to AVFM alone I’ve managed to pilot it around the globe multiple times, crushing the hopes and reams of manly-man-men under its Barbie Pink, Bubblegum scented tires.
**VROOOM** **VROOM**