The self-described ‘Men’s Human Rights Activists” at A Voice for Men have shown time and time again that they have approximately zero interest in actually promoting human rights, but would rather devote their time (and the more than $100,000 the site collects in donations annually) to attacking feminists and women in general.
The latest bit of evidence? The “meme” above, designed not to actually raise awareness of child abandonment but as a sort of “gotcha” aimed at one of their favorite targets, the “Don’t Be That Guy” anti-rape campaign that has been credited with significantly bringing down the incidence of rape in at least one major Canadian city.
AVFM’s Paul Elam introduces the “meme” with this little bit of vitriol:
For those unfortunates who did not get the memo that the Don’t be That Guy meme campaign was offensive because it painted all men as potential rapists, then perhaps this meme will drive that point home. Remember, Don’t be That Hypocrite.
If we pretend for a moment that AVFM’s meme is intended to address a real social problem — child abandonment — do Elam’s claims of hypocrisy make any sense?
Rape is widespread; roughly 1 in 5 women are sexually assaulted at some point in their lives. Men (outside of jail) also face the risk of rape, mostly from other men, though the numbers are much lower; the “Don’t Be That Guy” campaign addressed that issue as well. (Incarcerated men — and women — face a much higher risk of rape, at least in the United States, where prison rape is treated as a joke; LGBT prisoners are disproportionately targeted.) Most rape victims know their attackers, making the “date rape” focus of the awareness campaign doubly appropriate. RAINN reports that there are more than 200,000 victims of sexual assault in the US every year.
While the number of rapes is obviously higher than the number of rapists, there’s still a tremendous number of rapists in the general population — and a lot of people who witness rapey behavior, and who might be inspired by the “Don’t Be That Guy” campaign to step up and step in to stop it.
Child abandonment, while horrific, is not widespread. While solid data on the actual number of babies abandoned is scanty, the numbers reported tend to be in the hundreds, not the hundreds of thousands, per year. One 2011 story in the New York Times, for example, noted that 63 babies were abandoned illegally in Illinois over the previous ten years. One article I found on the Columbia Journalism School website cited “an unpublished 1999 report by the Department of Health and Human Services [that] found that 108 infants were abandoned in 1998 out of 4 million births.”
In any case, anyone who was truly interested in reducing the numbers of babies illegally abandoned, quite possibly leading to their deaths, would have provided information about “safe haven” laws (which exist in all 50 states in the US) that allow parents to legally give up their babies while ensuring that they will be cared for.
Rape is a crime of entitlement; child abandonment is a crime of desperation. Providing young mothers who are feeling overwhelmed to the point of panic about an alternative to dumping their baby illegally seems a somewhat more sensible approach than shaming them. AVFM’s meme graphic of course provides no such information.
That’s no surprise. As Elam’s intro makes clear, he and his fellow “Human Rights Activists” don’t actually give a shit about abandoned babies. The comments about this new meme are, well, instructive in this regard. For most of the commenters, it seems, this dead baby joke of a graphic is a most hilarious form of human rights activism.
Some selections from the comments:
And apparently only the thought of me “twisting” their words kept some of them from making even more blatant dead baby jokes.
Truly the most important Human Rights Movement of the 21st Century.
RE: auggziliary
What’s really weird to me is that when I think of baby-abandonment, I think of the rash of Japanese infants being ditched in lockers, back in the 70s. But that was FORTY YEARS AGO, and I don’t think it was a prolonged social thing.
It’s weird, it’s like the guys who make these posters don’t realize that rape is actually a pretty common thing, while baby-dumping isn’t.
So… I was trying to find out if Canada also had Safe Haven laws (it appears that maybe they don’t), and one of the first results was a website calling itself the Canadian Children’s Rights Council (Conseil canadien des droits des enfants). A very cursory reading indicated that, once again, misogynists are willing to put a lot of work into hating women. At least as many articles are focused on painting women as child murderers who get away with it…
[X] is a gendered problem. That means most perpetrators are [Y]. Therefore it makes sense to focus on the people among whom are the most [people who do X], who in this case are [Y].
Not a tough formula to understand, AVFM.
I tried to google up some statistics on abandoned babies in Sweden but got nothing. Really nothing (I got like some page about abandon kittens, statistics about human babies that had nothing to do with abandoning them, but nothing on babies that were both abandoned and human). Maybe it really is a non-existent problem here? Which may be because we have practically free abortions available everywhere. That might be something for the MRA to campaign about! *Just kidding*
“That way if someone accused her of dumping her baby, there would be a record of her giving birth and not doing a hospital abandonment.”
Oh, yeah, we have her name on the birth certificate and such, and if the baby can be ID’ed that might be enough. I was thinking you meant that a previously pregnant woman, with no child, would raise questions in general (not just with family // friends)
RE: Dvarghundspossen
Makes sense. If you don’t HAVE to have a baby you can’t care for, you don’t need to abandon them in the first place.
An abortion is a couple of hundred Skr here (about fifty dollars) for adults, cheaper for people under eighteen. But I reckon it’s much more expensive in the US?
And there are places where you have to travel a hundred miles or more to have one.
And you may have a mandatory trans-vaginal ultrasound first.
And if you’re a minor you may need your parent’s permission.
Etc., etc., as quick as they can think of them.
Is there anything that can be done, juridically speaking, since they’re nicking the graphics of another campaign? Is there some kind of copyright/law against misleading? (Not familiar with US law)
What they never want to admit, when trying for equating Safe Haven laws with their Paper Abortion bullshit, is that in general, when a woman drops a child off in an SH, the father has already abandoned them both (if anything, it’s probably the most frequent cause of a woman deciding she can’t support the kid on her own). A woman who doesn’t want a kid that the father does want usually just leaves the kid on his doorstep (figuratively speaking), not in the care of the state. And then he can choose to sue her for child support.
auggziliary@ So it is, thanks 🙂 Got an ache in my reading muscle tonight.
Maybe this would make sense if child abandonment were a huge societal problem primarily committed by women. Not a lot of anybodies throwing they babies in the trash though.
Can’t say I’m offended but false equivalency up in hurrrrrr.
Another demonstration of how they want to be able to abandon their wanted-by-the-mother children (‘paper abortions’) to get out of child support, while also being angry that women can abandon their children*, and ALSO thinking that state support/child support/alimony for single mothers* is bad, and that children/boys being raised by single mothers is also bad…
Why do they hate children so much? They clearly give zero fucks about even the male children. It is really obvious that they think of babies as some kind of abstract blob, rather than a small person. I cannot work out what they actually want – they get in such a lather over the very idea of a woman leaving them and taking the kids, but the big froth over paying for the kids’ stuff implies they wouldn’t really like having greater/sole custody and all associated responsibility. And if there was some law stopping women leaving, that would still only solve the problem if it meant *men* could not leave either, which would be unacceptable to them…there is just no coherent, consistent plan coming from these guys other than ‘men and only men being able to do whatever they want whenever they want regardless of who it screws over’. It is a whole movement based around taking things away from others.
*I read the comments above but ofc in MRA land it is only women, gender neutral laws be damned! also only single mothers are bad.
I just took a quick look at the safe haven laws by state map. In some states the infant can be surrendered in the first 3 days after birth, in others it ranges from 7 days to 30 days to anywhere from 2 to 12 months old. Some states require the infant be surrendered at a hospital, others allow for birthing centers/medical facilities, fire stations, health department, law enforcement or EMS providers or churches. In some states the law requires there be no evidence of abuse, in others the state allows evidence of abuse but retains the right to charge.
The law varies by state on who may surrender an infant- parent or an agent of the parent seem to be common though in no state law I looked at specified gender. The person surrendering the infant may remain anonymous but can voluntarily identify themselves/the parents and/or provide medical information. All the states I looked at require the safe haven receiving an infant evaluate the infant’s health/provide any emergency care and to notify the state’s child welfare agency (usually within 24 hours).
Shorter version- Safe Haven Laws, not just for mothers.
@chris wilson
but…a lot of women don’t dump and kill their babies. I mean, it’s not that common. So the dude going ‘a lot of women do it’ doesn’t really make any sense…like, at all :/
@maudeLL
What the fuck? Ugh. Can’t word right now. Just angry.
Rape is widespread; roughly 1 in 5 women are sexually assaulted at some point in their lives
http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9502/sommers.html
Hey, Greta Christina has a guest post up on her blog about the MRM. http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2013/10/guest-post-compare-and-contrast
Fave part:
Most Safe Haven laws actually have a procedure in place to try to locate the other parent and give them right of first refusal, basically. So if Mom drops the baby off at the fire station under Safe Haven laws, they’ll attempt to locate Dad (even if it’s just through an announcement in the paper or whatever, for anonymity’s sake). If Dad doesn’t show up in a certain time frame, then the baby is placed for adoption. If Dad does show up, then he can claim the baby and (in most states, anyway) pursue Mom for child support.
So yeah, it’s hardly the gender-biased thing that MRAs like to pretend it is. I don’t think any of the Safe Haven laws are gender-specific at all (I know most of them aren’t; I’d speak in absolutes except I’m not sure I’m familiar with all of them in the US); it’s just that biology dictates that women are the ones who are most often going to be stuck with an infant they can’t care for.
It really depends too much to say for sure in any case, but generally, yes, they’re a lot more expensive. In my state Planned Parenthood charges $400 if you’re paying out-of-pocket; they’re not able to offer it on a sliding scale. Also, there’s only two Planned Parenthood clinics in the state (well, that perform abortions anyway) and they’re within an hour or so of each other so pretty centralized, and it’s a big state so most women either have abortions at private clinics (which are considerably more expensive), or have to factor in the cost of travel/staying overnight.
In my state though, Medicaid does cover abortions regardless of why the woman needs one, so very low-income women generally aren’t paying out-of-pocket. At least that’s something. That’s pretty unusual though; generally Medicaid programs offer either very limited or no abortion coverage. I’m not sure how that is changing under the Affordable Care Act though, I should look that up.
Aw, Good’s back with more contextless links. I’d say I missed him, except I forgot about him.
Good, you’re citing a 1994 article to rebut a 2010 study.
Excellent work, there. You will be captain of the debate team in no time.
RE: AK
I love Medicaid. It saved my life, no exaggeration.
Ah, Good is here to post a link to Christina Hoff Summers.
Check this passage out:
This is the gotcha. THIS IS THE FUCKING GOTCHA.
Good, you sorely try my vows of pacifism and gentleness. SORELY.
This is fuckery, pure and simple.
RE: Howard
Hell, my rape doesn’t count under that version, because physical force wasn’t a part of it. I recall other trolls in the past claiming I couldn’t REALLY have been raped, because obviously, how was my rapist supposed to know I didn’t want to? It wasn’t like I was crying and completely unresponsive the whole time. Except oh yeah, I was. But penises make people blind, don’tcha know.
I am pretty sure this is gibberish. I know these guys are convinced women are never held legally accountable for their actions, but this is a little ridiculous. “Baby dumping” (stay classy guys!) cases are publicized during criminal trials; if the baby is alive it’s child endangerment and if the baby is dead it’s murder.
Of course, another poster found a way to connect this nonsense to the unfairness of child support because that injustice is worse than everything else that ever happened.