Want to earn yourself some quick karma points on Reddit? It’s easy! Just post some terrible misogynistic comic and wait for the inevitable upvotes. Like this one, which combines some standard-issue victim-blaming rape apologism with a bit of racism and serves it all up in terribly drawn cartoon form, and collect dozens of upvotes!
Or this one, which also, er, touches on issues of race. Did I mention something about dozens of upvotes? This one got hundreds!
Yes, that’s right, a barely coherent cartoon protesting “race-mixing” did indeed get hundreds of upvotes on the Men’s Rights subreddit.
EDITED TO ADD: Ah; the reason it’s so incoherent is that it’s a racist remake of an anti-racist cartoon.
And this one got thousands of upvotes for its amazing insights into gender relations.
Officially, according to the Men’s Rights subreddit sidebar, it’s against the rules there to post “rage comics, or other low-effort image posts. Mods may remove these at their discretion.” Apparently these all count as “high-effort.”
Whaaaat? MRAs churning out unthinking nonsense in support of an ideology that barely stands up to even cursory investigation? I R shockface!
So I’ve never actually been to America and don’t know much about Detroit. I’m guessing, from that top comic, that Robocop was actually a documentary?
Seriously though, it might be dumb to leave your car door unlocked, but it’s still a crime to steal from you just because you were dumb. Even if you wave your laptop under a gang of evil street youths and chant “nerny nerny nerr nerr, you can’t steal my laptop!” it would still be a crime if they grabbed it out of your hand… that’s just how the law works. Your insurance might refuse to pay out, but the police still investigate. And that’s before you consider that the majority of rape victims are not people walking around the horrifying warzone that is all of Detroit in the twilight hours before dawn in nothing but their underwear, but people, outdoors and in, clothed, unclothed, sexily or plainly dressed at times of the day between a minute past midnight and midnight inclusive. Rargh.
Not surprised by the total lack of rationality though… I accidentally loaded a 2010 article from this site, rather than the front page, where there was a comment asking “Can you acknowledge that without feminism, men like Andy Worhal would still be alive[?]” That’s right, kids. Cardiac arrhythmia: feminism’s #1 weapon against all mankind!!!
Anyway… hello again, everyone.
Cassandra, when I lived in America I found the idea that the idea that white/Asian women shouldn’t be out at night (after about 10pm) was very prominent. This concept was so strong that you could start a conversation with nearly any other international student about how dangerous/wrong it was to go out at night in the US. I think the perception of Indian students was that India was more dangerous for women but safer for men. Obviously this doesn’t necessarily reflect reality of safety but how ‘wrong’ the concept of going out at night was perceived.
When I took the bus at night (9pm) I found that the majority of fellow travellers were black women who were returning from work. It was sort of depressing how privileged the concept of not being out at night was. I doubt anyone told the women returning from work not to go out at night, mainly because they’d realize how stupid it was. I was lucky to be able to not go out at night, but not everyone had that option. In the end friends and colleagues managed to convince me going to the mall at night was a bad idea but I still often walked to restaurants. Either way being out after it got me dark made me feel guilty.
What I don’t understand is that in general most men want mixed company at bars and clubs, why do they want to basically force women to lock themselves in their houses when it gets dark? The right to go out of your house at night seems a basic one. We don’t live in a country with a permanent curfew.
The racism of the comic isn’t surprising since the idea of stranger rape is often caught in racist stereotypes. However I thought the statistics suggested rape tended to be an in-race crime. I sometimes think there must be some gain to someone for building the perception of black men as dangerous.
http://manboobz.com/2013/09/15/mens-rights-kontroversial-komik-kavalkade/
Whaaaat? MRAs churning out unthinking nonsense in support of an ideology that barely stands up to even cursory investigation? I R shockface!
So I’ve never actually been to America and don’t know much about Detroit. I’m guessing, from that top comic, that Robocop was actually a documentary?
Seriously though, it might be dumb to leave your car door unlocked, but it’s still a crime to steal from you just because you were dumb. Even if you wave your laptop under a gang of evil street youths and chant “nerny nerny nerr nerr, you can’t steal my laptop!” it would still be a crime if they grabbed it out of your hand… that’s just how the law works. Your insurance might refuse to pay out, but the police still investigate. And that’s before you consider that the majority of rape victims are not people walking around the horrifying warzone that is all of Detroit in the twilight hours before dawn in nothing but their underwear, but people, outdoors and in, clothed, unclothed, sexily or plainly dressed at times of the day between a minute past midnight and midnight inclusive. Rargh.
Not surprised by the total lack of rationality though… I accidentally loaded a 2010 article from this site, rather than the front page, where there was a comment asking “Can you acknowledge that without feminism, men like Andy Worhal would still be alive[?]” That’s right, kids. Cardiac arrhythmia: feminism’s #1 weapon against all mankind!!!
Anyway… hello again, everyone.
No, I don’t know why I linked to this page at the top of that comment either…
OT: the worst debunking of the idea of privilege ever: http://www.the-spearhead.com/2013/09/16/how-to-easily-debunk-the-white-privilege-slander/
I worked as a bartender and server for years, and had to work until 1 a.m. to 4:30 a.m.. It’s supposed to be the law to provide cab fare for people who work past a certain time, but some employers are shady as hell and simply don’t do it. Even if I was always guaranteed cab fare after 1 a.m. (I think that was when we were supposed to get it), I still had to wait outside for 10 – 40 minutes (weekends are awful for cabs), and 11 p.m. or midnight would still be considered pretty late for a lot of people.
So excuse me for living, you fucking assholes. Not everyone gets a job with nice respectable daylight hours.
First off, I just read back far enough in the comments of the open thread to see that Falconer already linked to the story I linked to, so sorry for the re-post of some truly appalling shit.
Bob Dole: I clicked before realizing it was the Spearhead. It was nice to see that the ONLY comment was one challenging him, though.
Pear Tree:
The goal is that they (the misogynists) want women at the clubs and bars solely for the pleasure of the men present; women’s desires should have no role in it. So if a woman goes to a club or bar, she’s supposed to ‘expect’ harassment and assault–and from that comes the notion that she should accept it, as well. Or rather, that she’s already accepted it, since she’s there. This relieves the men from responsibility for their actions.
I worded that oddly, but I think everyone knows what I mean… I would work until anywhere between 1 a.m. – 4 a.m. (that was also worded oddly, how the hell do I type this!?).
I have gotten the “don’t go out at night” messages, but I generally chose not to obey them. First, because in Texas in high summer, fuck you, sun up means heat stroke. Second, sometimes I worked late. Third… fuck it, in Mass in the depth of winter, it gets dark at 3PM. It’s absurd.
There was still always this edge though, to the point that I was nervous walking around in the dark woods of New Zealand alone, even though I absolutely, beyond all doubt knew there were only maybe five people in that square mile. The worst I had to worry about was accidentally stepping on a pheasant or something; this was the kind of area where people just left their car keys on the hood so as not to misplace them.
Holy shit, they actually changed the race of the guy in the second comic from black to white.
Bob Dole, I’m actually saving that article so I can show my novice debaters how not to form an argument. My roommate and I had a good laugh over it.
If I were the creator of the original comic I’d be pretty pissed off someone did this to my work.
Wow. Just wow.
Regarding first comic: Y’know, this is massively frustrating to me, because its not like these rape myths haven’t been debunked. Multiple times. Again and again. It’s not like a massive number of scholarly articles and studies haven’t been published. And people are still like, “She did (fill in the blank), so Of course she go raped.” Aargh! Rape is not a “natural consequence” of dressing a certain way or being out after dark! It is a crime committed by a bad person! Why can’t people get this!
2nd comic: What? Gee, I must have missed that day in history class where we studied Dr. King’s famous “every white man has to have sex with a black woman or he’s a racist” speech. Because, really, has this ever happened, ever? This is the strawiest of straw man arguments I have ever seen.
Regarding the accusations of racism at white men who aren’t attracted to black women, I’d guess it’s like those guys who complain that they’re called sexist for finding women attractive. It’s not that they find women attractive, or that they have yet to encounter a black woman that they found attractive, but that they’re whistling at women across the street and yelling “get yer tits out!” or that they’re ranting about how ugly black women are, what with their thick lips and big bottoms, or whatever it is they like to say. It’s not who they’re attracted to that’s the problem, it’s the utter lack of respect for entire sections of society which they demonstrate in expressing those preferences, it’s just that they “forget” to mention those parts while whining about the criticisms they receive.
Eh, I’m actually quite in favor of creative re-use/mashups, etc. It’s just in this case it went terribly wrong, but as a general rule you can get some really delightful things. I bet Disney isn’t real thrilled by this kind of thing, but I’m in favor. 🙂
Here’s an example of something Disney was kind of pissed about:
“Eh, I’m actually quite in favor of creative re-use/mashups, etc. It’s just in this case it went terribly wrong, but as a general rule you can get some really delightful things.”
I agree, but I would be pissed if the re-use was racist and misogynist and totally the opposite of my work’s original purpose, is all I’m saying.
Being pissed is the natural reaction, absolutely.
See, something like this is perfectly wonderful: http://thischarmingcharlie.tumblr.com/
Every time I see this shit I just get incoherently ranty “But,,,but…most rapes don’t happen at 4 AM in dark alleys! That’s actually really rare! Women don’t actually walk around dark alleys in bikinis at night, the fuck?”
Someone I had previously respected posted something like this, except comparing rape to shark attacks. Basically showing swimmers carrying bloody meat through shark-infested waters and then saying “sharks shouldn’t attack us!”
So much rage! Rapists are not a force of nature like sharks or earthquakes! It’s not like the mere presence of a scantily-clad female walking alone at night *rolleyes* causes them to appear.
twomoogles – I think that’s the part that really pisses me off the most, the fact that everyone sees rapists not as a person like you and me (except for the fact that they chose to rape), but as a sort of uncontrollable monster, a force to be reckoned with. And it’s annoying, because you’re being disingenuous when you compare rapists to monsters.
It makes it harder for rape victims to get help/sympathy, because no one is inclined to believe that Bob, the nice guy next door, actually raped someone. To them, rapists are monsters, not people who live next door or who go to school with you.
People choose to rape. Most (if not all) people do not wake up in the morning and thinks “I’m feel this sudden urge to rape someone today!”. They CHOOSE to rape.
By comparing rapists to forces of nature, you deny rapists freedom of choice. And that’s the big flaw with that particular idea, because if rapists didn’t choose to rape, then what happened?
And that’s why I think victim blaming exists — because a lot of people are in the mindset that rapists are forces of nature, not people with the freedom of choice.
Welcome back, Athywren!
Alice – not to mention that the whole “force of nature” thing gives aid and comfort to the rapists. It makes rape the victim’s fault. It exonerates the rapists (overwhelmingly men) and gives them societal support to continue raping.
That’s a good one!
There’s something deeply ironic about men who compare themselves to sharks/earthquakes/other unpleasant things and then insist that it’s women who are somehow letting civilization down.
kittehserf – Exactly! If rape is a force of nature, then if you rape someone, it’s never your fault. That’s the denial of choice, of agency.
What I’ve noticed is that MRAs (and other assholes) like to deny agency to men with boners, to make consent much more complicated. But sex takes two (or more, depending of the number of partners you’re banging) partners, it’s not a one-person show.
“Do you want to have sex with me right now? Y/N”
It’s really not that hard, guys.