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.
Hmmmm…. Make that “dreams”. Not reams. I don’t really give a toss what they do with stacks of 500 sheets of paper.
@aug. . . me too . .. but hmm . . . I think “feyinisy” could potentially be a very useful word. All it needs now is a definition.
I especially like the “feminists are like a broken record” one because it makes it look like feminists are the ones pushing avoiceformen dot com, over and over, in alternating italics.
Ye gods. No sense of irony there. They even have the same QR code on there twice.
@grumpycatisagirl
Wow. Those are some of the worst AVfM posters I’ve ever seen.
That’s what they call activism? V_V
Ally, not only is that what they call activism, that’s what they call artistry.
Although sadly the Artistry against Misandry site is down now; you can view it archived here but the Wayback Machine doesn’t do a good job of saving all the images 🙁
“FEMINISTS – WRONG, NAIVE, AND IMBECILIC”
“FEMINISTS – JUST LIKE A BROKEN RECORD”
They can at least try to make their messages a little more catchy. Then again, the more people turned away from AVfM, the better.
AVFM seems to assume that Canada is identical to the States in every facet – government, judicial system, healthcare, social attitudes, etc. etc.
That makes me really sad.
Oh dear. The first image I see is already violent and creepy. Pointing a gun at a woman’s back while blaming her for being brutalized?
Fidelbogen already attempted to come up with a catchy new slogan, but it apparently didn’t help.
“Imbecilic” is an extremely awkward, stilted word IMHO.
Which is less useful than the other? Feminism or the gramophone?!
I think “stupid” would have worked just fine – for their purposes. But then again they also want to impress everyone with their Vast Scholarly Knowledge by using uncommon words.
… Is that Rick Moranis?
My grandmother’s parenting style was the sort that included the phrase “give you something to cry about.”
I see that that particular tactic hasn’t aged well.
Argenti, I think it’s clear that feminism is less useful than the gramophone. But it’s only clear to me because I know what AVfM is like and what their ideology is. If I were just someone randomly running into that poster at a bus stop, I would have no ‘effing clue what it was trying to say.
Yeah, that gramophone poster would have totally confused me if I just came across it randomly. I’m checking out some of their posters right now… Atheist poster number 2 is really confusing as hell. Will anyone really look at that and think that “yeah, these quotes totally prove that feminism isn’t about equality”? Isn’t it obvious to everyone with half a brain cell that it’s possible to argue a bit back and forth about what kind of legal rules, formal rules and social rules we ought to have regarding what’s okay and not okay to say to people, and that within the vast group of people who label themselves feminists there are different opinions as well?
The phonograph one: First, if your point is that feminism is obsolete, say “obsolete.” If you point is that feminism is useless (ie, never was good for anything), then have a picture of, I don’t know, a banana slicer or something. (Bonus: Castration implication!)
And if you’re trying to say “obsolete,” don’t use a phonograph, which is cool, retro, neat-looking, and still considered by some to be the absolute best form of sound reproduction. Use something from your readers’ actual lifetime that they’re glad to be rid of, like a dial-up modem or one of those giant early-90s cell phones. Or a Sega Saturn.
The same old crazy batshit is my favourite so far! I could put that on my wall! It sort of passes over from stupid to awesome! Crazy scary witch is coming for you because FEMINISM!
The “we are from Earth” poster could just as well have been a poster FOR feminism!
“O, woe is me! Though I live in the first world and ostensibly better off than most people – I am oppressed! My closest friends, conditioned by the media and our culture, cannot see it. They claim that perhaps I am being too paranoid or that I am projecting my own frustrations onto others, rather than dealing with them. Wrong. For, you see, only I have taken the Red Pill and see the world for what it truly is! While organizations continue to publish their supposed ‘studies’ to reinforce lies – I randomly go up to people and tell them the truth bluntly and unapologetically. I’ve been called ‘rude’ but how dare they call me such! It is rude for them to not listen to my cries of servitude under the matriarchy which has truly run this world since the beginning of civilization. Those students and professors can use their so-called ‘facts’ all they wish but I only listened to those whose voice has been silenced for being too innovative for them. One even lives on the street, losing his teeth and one of his testicles, because feminists took his livelihood by forcing him to spend his money. Yet, for some reason, pregnant women and single mothers expect me to take their plight seriously when, in reality, they are hypergamous harpies who emasculate young boys by into becoming White Knights. Telling them they are inferior to women and are only meant to do their bidding. They don’t deserve a cent from me or the good men whose seed they held for ransom, especially when they can just seduce another rich man with their revealing clothes. Race? Class? Socio-economic climate? Meaningless. It’s about the tyranny of feminism telling me what to do. The injustice has to end…”
-Every MRA. Ever.
Ally, about that picture, the Comfor Girls of Conshelf 6: It’s actually a(nother) piece of terrible MRA fiction. Which is to say it’s a very detailed rape fantasy.
If you dare, someone did a readthrough here. But you probably shouldn’t because it’s terrible and it’s pretty much all just descriptions of rape.
*comfort
“Feminism is a paradox” – looks EXACTLY like something a boobzer would make as a parody poster. Completely, utterly incomprehensible. I can’t believe it’s for real!
Okay, I need your help to decode this one: “Honey badgers don’t give a shit”. What’s that supposed to mean? It seems like it’s a picture of an evil hypergamous woman or something. BUT she’s got an ANTI-feminist badge on her hat. What’s up with that?