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.
I’m so glad to learn that women don’t face discrimination based on their sex and gender. Because of Catherine the Great. But women are also all completely stupid, weak, worthless, lying, castrating c–ts; which are all totally true, well-reasoned, logical arguments and not at all ad hoc personal attacks and/or hatred directed at women because of their sex/gender. Not at all.
An Dr. Getrude Elion:
You MRAs argue that women are incapable of great achievements. That argument is expressed in the examples provided in the post above. We are pointing out that women historically have been actively denied the same privileges that men have taken for granted. It is not a question of ability but a question of access and a refusal to even recognize the abilities of women. Mozart’s sister is a perfect illustration of this. She was just as capable as her famous brother, but as soon as she reached maturity she was forced to abandon any career aspirations and start a family instead. Ask ten people if they know that Mozart’s sister was a musical prodigy. The majority of them will not.
Good demonstrates his usually ability to read for comprehension.
Good, read the original post, you moron.
…see, you fundamentally don’t understand the basis for our complaints about these posters. You think that our problem is that they’re insults? No. They are just insults, but they are profoundly lacking in anything of substance, because there is no substance.
You fundamentally don’t understand the point. I was speaking of me. When I make a point, even if I provide the coveted citations, the responses from posters here are 90% personal attacks and insults (fueled by internet anonymity) directed at me and my points are rarely addressed.
Dude, you don’t have a point.
Good, I highly doubt you are spewing your stupid under your real name.
Your citations and links are wrong and show you don’t or can’t think critically before you drop them.
@Good
Oh joy! I can add a check on the “Heads I win, Tails you lose” bingo square. Listen, here’s the point and I shall try to be nice with this. We were responding to a post which said that women do not EVER have authority or contributions with examples of those who made it past the sexist gatekeepers of their times. This doesn’t mean that female half of the human race hasn’t been systematically denied basic human rights for the majority of history.
On Catherine in specific, she’s a complex figure to be sure. Read about her husband before she became the Empress and then try and say that there’s no such thing as a patriarchy.
Your points are addressed and refuted. You just ignore it.
Shit, read about the machinations behind getting her on the throne and the disgusting rumors that were spread about her and say there is no such thing as a patriarchy. People still think she died fucking a horse.
@carswell
Or arawelo. She was pretty awesome, too, imo 😀
@titanblue
Yup.
In other news, good fails readiing comprehesion! for.ev.er!
@hynea girl
i am not sure if this is a reference to something but I love it 😀 Have an internet.
@sparky
It’s the small details that get to a person XD
@Chie Satonaka
Thank you!
Also, seriously, if I lacked logical reasoning skills, why am I doing a major in STEM?
And also, you might as well explain to me how a good number of my friends in high school asked me for help in history courses, mathematics, and college applications.
And then you still have to explain Grace Hopper, first compiler, remember? Without the compiler, programs as we know it would not exist. We needed it to translate code into binary so that a computer could run it.
Also, xkcd did a comic introducing two other science women who made huge contributions, although these women are unknown and often not recognized as contributors to modern day science.
I love that XKCD comic. I already knew about Meitner, her story is pretty amazing and sad, but Noether was new to me when I first saw that strip.
“Good, is your real name Good? Then don’t whine about anonymity.”
Whether it is or not, your point doesn’t apply to me since I don’t toss out personal insults.
Marie: The devil is always in the details. 🙂
Then stop tossing out stupid.
@alice
zombie marie curie in xkcd. 😀 I am ridiculously happy.
Noadi – I never knew that these women existed before I read that comic. We were never taught about their contributions to science. But I love xkcd. I get the feeling that the webcomic’s author is a feminist, or at least someone with feminist ideas, even if he doesn’t claim to be such.
This xkcd comic expresses the misogyny that’s been inherent in STEM , as well as in other fields. If a man does something, this is his own accomplishment, and all of his mistakes reflect on himself. He is a separate individual. By contrast, if a woman achieves something, it’s presumed that she only did it because some dudes helped her, and if she screws up, it’s a reflection on how all women are inferior. She is never her own person, but a part of a group, whether she represents all women when she makes mistakes or the female face behind a group of uncredited men if she achieves.
auggziliary – Oh yeah, huh.
Let me ask this. If men dominate the world, why is that the case when men and women are equal in numbers?
@Marie
@good
I am confuse do you know how to biology?
Good: Then what exactly are arguing against here? Are you actually trying to defend these posters? Your first post was: “Feminists have an even more difficult time defending their views. That is why you guys resort to personal attacks and insults.” Which is completely unrelated to the original post. And was nothing but a sweeping and unprovable generalization about feminists. And the commentators have addressed your points. So what exactly are you trying to accomplish?
“I am confuse do you know how to biology?”
No. How do you biology?
Good logic:
If men rule the world, how come they haven’t KILLED enough women that there aren’t very many left?
Checkmate, feminists.
@good
let me paraphrase that: I don’t think you know anything about science, or feminism, or human rights, or commons sense. Most species that have male/female/ (others!) have a similar number of males and females. Saying this:
makes no sense, and implies you don’t know anything about science or humans or anything.