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.
Pure class, Falconer!
Ah, um, what’s “real violence, not like spanking”? Cuz I rarely consider it good sex if I don’t have marks to show for it. Idk, maybe you meant to include all BDSM and I’m just taking “spanking” as the sort of light swat used on TV and in movies; when you actually meant anything consensual?
Cuz yeah, what baileyrenee said.
Baileyrenee — you get a Welcome Package yet?
I did get one already, thanks! I changed my kitty so maybe I look newer than I actually am.
I’m guessing katz meant fantasising about nonconsensual stuff rather than the level of violence involved in consensual sex. I can only say there’s still a big gap (for those with functioning ethics) between fantasising about a not-real scene involving no real people, and wanting to inflict it on anyone, or reacting that way to actual rape.
Falconer, you just did the first-ever hat ninja!
katz, remember you asked the other day if I had any shots of Louis in his panama? Most of ’em are too old to use (ie. really ordinary photoshopping!) but this one isn’t bad.
BTW who’s the dude in the pic, Falconer? Won’t Uncle Cary be offended you’ve dumped him?
I understand why Rosie the Riveter represents Feminism, sorta, but is that Stalin representing Patriarchy?
No, that’s Lord Kitchener. It’s the famous “your country needs you” poster from WWI.
http://www.sterlingtimes.org/kitchener.jpg
thebewilderness — was it done by Joe? I ask because pecunium has made a point of comparing him to Stalin (which took Joe quite a while to even figure out!)
Ack, I’m sorry if I just summoned the kraken.
And never mind!
@Kittehs, it’s William Shatner as Captain Kirk in the episode “A Piece Of The Action,” one of the scripts where they’re out of money for alien planets and use the Paramount back lot for filming. The Enterprise visits Sigma Iotia II, a planet which has been contaminated by previous visitors from Earth: The USS Horizon left the book Chicago Mobs of the Twenties behind about 100 years earlier.
So Kirk wears this really awful hat (you can’t tell, but it’s all fuzzy, not to mention it’s white and bright blue) and drives poorly, and a good time was had by all, except some of the fans who take everything too seriously.
If you look close, some of the action takes place in Mayberry.
Thanks kittehs, I see that now. So the patriarchy disposes of them by sending them to war and the Feminists dispose of them by doing very well without them. Got it.
Still read like a bunch of notes from their boners when you get right down to it.
It does seem rather reflective of the way lonesome Joe thinks, yeh.
Falconer – love it! 😀
thebewilderness – the MRM is entirely notes from their boners, isn’t it?
The problems with the comfort women fic aren’t about the rape fantasy as such, they are as follows.
1. The belief that being a feminist is a thing that deserves punishment.
2. The idea that a just society is one in which that punishment could be mandated by law.
3. The belief that a just society is one in which people who think rape should be a perfectly legal punishment in general.
4. The fact that the victim becomes “nicer” as a result of the rape, so look, it really is justice because it works!
5. The suggestion that rape was what she wanted all along, she just needed to be shown the way.
6. The attempt to provide a “justification” for all of the above, so MRA readers don’t have to think about whether there’s something wrong with the stuff they’re fantasizing about doing to feminists as “retribution”.
7. The fact that the whole scenario is based on a notorious war crime.
And last but definitely not least…
8. The fact that all of this is being framed as activism.
The “are dark fantasies OK to have” issue is kind of a red herring here, because even if the answer is “yes” that fic posted on that page still isn’t OK.
ō.Ó?
What? No really, what? The fuck did I just read? I thought my brother’s “I don’t care if the pope gets raped” was bad, but that’s just a whole other league of bad (to be fair to my brother, my father made him get up and come to the top of the stairs to tell him about that bomb found where the pope was going to be, so he was at least phrasing it as Really Bad Thing)
I’m sorry, I did mean non-consensual violence. That was shitty wording on my part and I’d like to apologize if that came across like a big condemnation of BSDM.
Ummmm . . . . what’s GOR porn? I tried Googling it but I didn’t really feel like clicking on any of the links that came up. I trust you guys better to explain it to me without having to explicitly demonstrate it.
I didn’t take it as condemnation so much as confusion, so no worries. And I can’t explain fantasies of non-consensual violence, besides to say that I apparently have really good intuition for who won’t respect that line and thus isn’t allowed to give me marks of any sort. (Which is a standard I intend to apply should I find myself dating again)
So I guess it might be getting off on power, and in the sense of a true sadist of the sort who isn’t actually getting off on causing zir partner desired pain.
Wtf auto correct, you knew kitteh and zir and em two days ago!
In epic sort — women, all of them, are naturally submissive and need to be punished to achieve this. So pretty much that violence against women is good, and proper, because men are supposed to dominate women.
Not sure if that’s what Gor actually says, or just wtf the MRM has made it say, but yeah, an excuse to beat women basically.
The safest link about GOR porn.
(Seriously, it’s safe. Wikipedia.)
Unfortunately the Wiki link doesn’t get across just how badly written the Gor books are. You know how Fidelbogen writes? He’s a master of subtle prose compared to Norman.
Your instincts serve you well.
Talk about fail at understanding what the term “Male Gaze” even means.
Not to mention fail at explaining how the hell feminism is supposed to have been transplanted by burqa-wearing cultures onto the West. Never mind that feminism was getting started when Western women’s clothing was neck-to-ankle anyway, or that wearing a burqa doesn’t save anyone from the male gaze or sexual harassment or anything else that comes with being objectified by men … it’s part of the male gaze, not an escape from it.