Pity the poor Men’s Rights activists. The real civil rights movements that MRAs like to compare their, er, “struggle” to may have faced many obstacles that MRAs haven’t — from legal prohibitions on voting to fire bombings and assassinations — but at least they haven’t had a hard time explaining just what it was, and is, that they’re seeking redress for.
When Martin Luther King so famously dreamt of a world in which “my four little children will … not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” he was not only speaking eloquently; he was expressing an idea that was, well, pretty easy to understand.
And that’s where the trouble comes for the MRAs. It’s a bit harder to explain your alleged anti-oppression movement to the general public when the people on whose behalf you’re fighting aren’t actually, you know, oppressed. So is it any wonder that MRAs have such a hard time explaining themselves to the public?
I mean, all the Suffragettes had to put on their posters was “Votes for Women.” MRAs are stuck. Men already have votes. They already have civil rights. Heck, men already run most companies and hold most political offices and control most of the world’s wealth.
And so MRA propaganda tends to be muddled, a weird mixture of misogyny and special pleading and stuff that just doesn’t make any sort of sense no matter how you slice it. In earlier posts we’ve looked at baffling and/or offensive posters from A Voice for Men and associated sites, as well as at some of the awful graphics that sometimes make their appearance on Reddit.
Today, a quick stroll through the MRA underground on deviantART.
The graphic at the top of the post is from someone calling himself awesomeninja; for his propaganda work, he specializes in somewhat baffling text-based graphics in basic colors. Apparently he has convinced himself that “feminazis use child-bearing all the time to defend their sexist views,” and feels it is necessary to respond to this in giant letters in several colors with a black background.
He is also responsible for this similarly befuddling contribution to political art:
Wait, is this a trick question?
Dude, have you actually met any Men’s Rights Activists?
Oh, wait, you are one. Oops.
But wait, there’s more:
Of course, awesomeninja isn’t the only one spreading the MRA message of love on deviantART. Here are a few other graphics I found by searching for “men’s rights” and related tags on the site.
This lovely “stamp” from loqutor, who has convinced himself he is “debunking an ages-old feminist myth” with it.
A meme from Userbruiser, who apparently thinks that if a woman has alcohol in her system, it’s ok to rape her:
This bizarre castration fantasy from the same lovely fellow:
This rant posted by themodsquad, who also enjoys jokes about pedophilia and bestiality.
There’s some question about whether or not themodsquad came up with that all by himself, but this uglier and worse-written sequel seems pretty authentic to me:
Is he a “real” MRA or just a troll? I don’t know, but he does seem to be an authentic misogynistic asshole attention-seeker, and I’ve seen virtually every “argument” in the first graphic rehashed many times on assorted MRA sites; it’s pretty much standard-issue “we hunted the mammoth to feed you.”
Let’s close with several graphics from an aspiring Man Going His Own Way. millenia89 is proud of his own reproductive organs:
But he doesn’t seem to think too highly of most of his fellow male-identified penis-havers. Indeed, he believes most of his fellow men are like lemmings marching off a cliff — except for a tiny percentage of MGTOW like the two tiny fellows at the bottom right of the graphic below.
I know it seems confusing, but trust me, the MGTOW in this picture aren’t the ones going over the cliff, really. They’re the ones facing the other direction, underneath that little MGTOW sign. No, not under the big MGTOW sign, under the little one. Just trust me on this one.
millenia89 is especially unimpressed with men who step in to “save a hoe,” like this fellow, whom he sees as a handy “personification” of the sort of “manipulated tool” who, I guess, apparently likes women enough to help them out. I’m not quite sure I get it. Apparently this picture is inherently hilarious because it’s a picture of a black guy with an odd smile in a weirdly inaccurate superman costume. Heck, even the font is wacky.
Millenia89 may not think much of most of his fellow men, but at least he doesn’t want to render them obsolete. Women, well, that’s another issue entirely, as this utopian paean to the glories of artificial wombs suggests:
So awesomeninja thinks that “pregnancy is no excuse for misandry.” Millenia89 evidently hopes that in the future there will be no excuse for pregnancy itself.
This is how the Men’s Rights movement tries to explain itself to the world.
And MRAs wonder why their little movement has the reputation it does.
—
I was inspired to check out deviantART’s MRA community by some of the commenters here. Check out the comments in the “Feminist anti-obedience school” thread starting here to see some homegrown parodies of awesomeninja’s graphic works.
…that came out wrong
Same tech who washes his “wee-wee” BEFORE he pees because engines are gross. Which I mentioned yesterday and thus kitteh will get the reference and out of context it just sounds WRONG.
I am sorry *retreats to corner of shame*
@AK
Hi! 😀
Out of context people would be going “Wait, you’d prefer that he didn’t wash there? See, people think unwashed thugs are more sexy! Misandry!”
(Meanwhile, I’d be off to the side quietly vomiting if I didn’t get the context.)
Hi AK! Loving the logical awesomeness of the comments today.
Re: cat wheels, has anybody got any experience with training cats to use them? I’d have to build one; it would be too expensive to ship one over, but I really love the idea.
HI AK! I hope you get some rest very soon and that your life is truly getting back to normal.
@Athywren
Wow, that dipshit didn’t even read a word you said. You said “too drunk” and he was like “OMG HOW DRUNK DO YOU MEAN???” -_-
And LOL @ Elam in the comments. What an insufferable asshole.
Before I head to bed, I’d like to share some misandrist lullabies. Good night!
@Serrana
Omg those are great XD
Hi AK, hrovitnir!
AK, I’d love the info on those services. I’ve no idea whether my gf knows about them or not, so any info for Illinois is more than welcome! (Also it may tempt her to start commenting here, heheh.)
One, two,
Buckle my shoes;
Three, four,
Open the door;
Five, six,
Pick up sticks;
Seven, eight,
Lay them straight:
Nine, ten,
Start over again, male.
OMG IT’S EVEN WORSE MISANDRY THAN NOT TYING HIS SHOELACES
Er, I just realized I didn’t literally run into a cat wheel; the literally was supposed to be about the “just” (saw it tonight). Yeah, I’m way too tired.
But speaking of cats, I was going to ask if you wise cat folks could suggest a decent forum for cat behavioral issues? I don’t want to derail this thread too much, but we have one cat who suddenly started bullying the other two, and we need to figure it out. I’m not great with cats so I need some guidance, but there aren’t many IRL resources, at least where I live. It’s bad enough I’ve been thinking about writing into that “Cat Whisperer” show, especially because the two being bullied are my husband’s babies and he’s super upset about it (I’m concerned too, because it’s more than normal rough play or whatever; I’m just not quite as attached to the cats so I’m almost as worried for my husband as I am for the cats).
@kitteh, I just saw your post. Let me see what I can find tonight, but I may be a little too far gone. 😉 I’ll leave the tab open though so if I don’t post back tonight, I’ll definitely get you them tomorrow. Do you know where your friend lives (nearest big town, no need for specifics)? That would help, or I can post a list for the state.
No rush, AK! I’ll be offline in about fifteen minutes anyway (time for the evening commute).
The nearest sizable town is Rockford; she’s in Ogle County.
I think a regular cat (or pets in general) discussion thread would be a great idea – like the open threads David puts up. The forums proper are pretty well moribund, unfortunately, and anyway it’s so much easier to see stuff happening here.
“Women talk too much” has always been a weird one to me because all my life I’ve been told I don’t talk enough. Also, when I think of the people in my life who can talk your ear off, well, a lot of those people are men.
I’m in awe of talkativeness, actually. I don’t know how people do it.
grumpycat – yeah, it’s weird, isn’t it? I remember people saying “You’re a quiet one” to me since I was a kid, like there was something wrong with that.
I find (prolly like lots of people) that it’s entirely context dependent. Sometimes I can talk a blue streak, sometimes I dry up. It’s not necessarily about who I’m with, either.
It’s AK! It’s Hrovitnir. Maybe someone can tell me why my two cats, littermates, who normally cuddle up together in adorable ways, are now hissing, growling and spitting at each other. I’m keeping them separated for now, with Feliway plug-ins going in two rooms.
It started Sunday, when I woke up to a shredded plastic bag, and sprays of urine on my kitchen floor. Individually, both cats are acting fine with no signs of illness; when they see each other, they go batshit. I don’t see one as the aggressor, since they both will attack if I leave them together. I suspect one of them got caught in the bag and blames the other for it, but this is just speculation.
Take them to the vet?
Hello Bonelady, it’s great to meet you (I don’t think I’ve seen you here before)!
I was about to jump in with something similar but you ninjaed me.
There are a couple of points I’d p like to add to what you said and obviously this is directed at ummm…Good…rather than yourself. You obviously know all this stuff!
Good:
We really don’t have much evidence about gender roles before people started to write stuff down. We’re pretty much stuck with “bones and stones” for most of human development and can only extrapolate what their society may have looked like. For issues like gender roles all the data we have to go on is the way such societies work today and that has it’s problems. There are huge amounts of assumptions being made eg. Not all modern hunter gatherer societies are the same so information garnered from them may not apply to Paleolithic ones either. Also, when tools start showing up we have no idea who came up with the idea or who actually made them. Either or both sexes? What other tools they may have had that haven’t survived? Baskets? Papooses? Digging sticks? We can’t know that, they haven’t survived. So you have no idea when gender roles showed up on the scene and assuming they’ve been with us since before the advent of writing is pretty silly.
Also, if gender roles are biologically determined why are they so different from culture to culture? If they were part of our genetic code then one would have expected gender roles to be the same across cultures and they aren’t. Feminism would actually be a biological impossibility, as would egalitarian societies and clearly that isn’t the case.
Cloudiah, I apologize for this very silly question, but are your cats in any situation that could be perceived as stressful? I ask that because my mom’s cats normally get along with each other, but during the flood (when they were in that tiny hotel room we were all staying in) they got very hissy and irritable at each other.
Ally, it’s a good question, so please don’t feel like you need to apologize. No new stressors in their environment. That’s one of the reasons this is so weird.
I’m going to sleep now, but I will check in tomorrow so any advice is welcome.
The closest I’ve been able to get them is on opposite arms of the couch, and that’s only with constant vigilance to keep them from attacking each other. This is them normally.
Hush, little baby, don’t say a word,
Papa’s gonna buy you a mockingbird
Because he’s a beta male who has been tricked into providing for a woman’s offspring.
In exciting DA news, I’ve added a folder for sarcastic stuff in case you wanted to submit something but were afraid someone was going to take it seriously.
@AK
This is probably unhelpful, but could there have been any change in the cat’s diet? Have you noticed the cat doing anything else strange?
It might sound silly, but I know in humans something as unexpected as a UTI can cause strange behavior.
kittehs: Sadly, two’s our limit on cats until we get more space, and preferably more money/time. Good luck to your friend, though.
We apparently had a drive-by troll that most folks missed because he got caught in moderation til the discussion had progressed. Don’t worry, though, folks, because seriously, you didn’t miss much.
OT as usual but I just came across this article that MRA’s are using to bash feminism as a whole and I’m dumbfounded by it. WTF?
tw: domestic violence
http://jezebel.com/294383/have-you-ever-beat-up-a-boyfriend-cause-uh-we-have
Does anyone know more about this article? Was it supposed to be satire? Part of me thinks maybe they were relaying things their ex-bf’s did to them (just because of the breast cancer comment). I’m so confused and bothered because if the intent was satire they failed pretty hard and now it’s being used against feminism as if we would ever condone this shit being talked about there.