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.
Matt, don’t panic! Everyone scroll up and read Matt’s first comment. And “Oh my Gorilla Grod” made me crack up.
Nothing you did wrong, Matt, I think our host is probably just moderating first time comments so as to avoid ending up with a screen full of penis enlargement/dodgy internet-sourced prescription drug spam.
Also, just link dumping another interview (short) with Paul E that came out today:
http://this.org/blog/2013/10/28/gender-block-chatting-with-a-mra-leader/
More shoes! I don’t wear flats, but why didn’t someone think of this before? Some offices can be a bit chilly.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/S173-Korea-Women-Girl-Faux-Rabbit-Fur-Flat-Boot-Shoe-RedWine-US-5-6-7-8-9-1pc-/151152077558?pt=US_Women_s_Shoes&hash=item23315daaf6
Matt, welcome – n’thing what everyone else said, first-time comments just go into moderation automatically.
Also, have you had your Welcome Package yet?
@Matt
Ah, anxiety problems. They sure are terrible.
And, um… this poster… is it supposed to invoke the same feelings in me as it did the MRAs? Because, yea, not offended. Like, at all. Everyone already explained why it’s a weird, silly idea to use this as a response to the “Don’t Be That Guy” ads, but seriously, go ahead and put them up. Post those posters all over town and see if anyone cares enough to do anything other than be confused for a moment.
Those flats are cute!
I just wear slippers at work if I need to change the shoes I wore in. Thank Ceiling Cat for a workplace where “clean and no bits hanging out” is about as far as it goes for dress codes.
baileyrenee – no, no, they can’t really put those posters up all over town. If they try, they’ll be attacked by hordes of box-cutter-wielding feminists.
… Those shoes are adorable and I want them.
I’m usually in some sort of boots in the winter, but for people who don’t like wearing boots those could be a lot warmer than regular flats or heels.
I’m finding that China and Korea are far better sources for all your fur-lined footwear needs than the US (if you have small enough feet for the sizing to work).
Did JtO ever acknowledge how that article called him out for lying about that whole box-cutter thing? Or was he too busy blushing over being called a “superstar?” I would love to see him respond to that…
But, oh! You’re right! I’m supposed to be super-dooper angry about this poster! Grrr, they really got us this time!
Matt — hi! You can file your discovery under “popular media screws up scientific study…again”, I think they’re incapible of getting it even close to right, in fact…
there’ scanthere’s an XKCD forhat!that! (But is there one for autocorrect rejecting contractions and turning “that” into “hat”? Cuzit’ sd oneit’s done the hat trick twice this hour)…I give up. Autocorrect refuses to let me type. And fucking Vista refuses to let me kill the Tzimisce (I figured it out, it realizes they’re evil comrades)
I figured that we were ruling out the option of “emotionally close to” given that we’re talking about MRAs. Do any of them even have friends?
Probably not, Cassandra. The world consists of women they want to fuck, or ignore, and men who’re competing with them for said fucks.
The whole thing would be much simpler for the allegedly confused if “no consent” was taken as the default state.
With MRAs it would of course be no consent + no interest, ever.
Drat, it’s raining, and I want to go out today.
K, I’m late to the comments, since I see Bad has already showed up and started link-dumping.
But…
Canada doesn’t have Safe Haven Laws. The Canadian Centre for Abuse Awareness does advocate for them. Also, we don’t really follow up with babies, depending on your health care provider. Generally speaking, midwives do (because it’s our job), OBs don’t, because it’s not theirs, they deal with the pregnancy, and the nurses are supposed to fill out Healthy Babies Healthy Children forms for everyone which allows higher risk mothers to have a Public Health nurse follow up with them. Also, you conceivably can just deliver at a hospital and walk out, but it means that FACS (Family and Children’s Services) has to “hold” the adoption for 30 days to ensure that you don’t come back and ask for the kid. Otherwise you can just sign forms after or before the delivery to adopt your child out, there are social workers at most hospitals whose primary job is to facilitate issues like that and other things (like PPD/PPP and low socioeconomic status resources).
And I’ve already forgotten about what I was going to say regarding Bad and rape so it likely wasn’t that important. Although what I don’t get, why do people care what others define as rape?
Obviously, laws are in conflict with protection of victims, the law specifically ensures that guilty parties can go free so that innocent people aren’t thrown in jail (and even then it fucks up). Just the other day I was having this discussion with a group of friends – innocent until proven guilty means that guilty people will go free. The victims aren’t taken into account in these cases, criminal cases are crimes against the state (or the Queen in Canada) and not against the victim. That being so, who the fuck cares if victims are the ones who get to decide how they feel about it? I see this conflation all the damn time, and it makes no fucking sense. Seriously, someone else was just telling me about their conversation with some asshole who was trying to argue legality when discussing consent is about morality. Morally, it’s the right thing to do to get consent, to not go forward when you aren’t 100% certain that people are able to consent, and it’s totally fucking immoral to take advantage of anyone who is intoxicated, regardless of what you’re asking for. Like my friend said, if you aren’t 100% sure they’d do it while sober, why the fuck are you getting them to do it while drunk. It’s so damn immoral. Idgi.
And who cares who says they’re victims of rape – especially if they aren’t accusing anyone. If they feel that way, then they have a right to, and no one should say shit to them about how they feel about actions that were acted upon them. Fuck anyone who does. It boggles my mind how many people want to police the feelings of other people – it’s literally telling them “You can’t feel that way” and then I’m all like “Uh, I do feel that way, who the fuck are you to tell me that I can’t feel the way I feel? Pretty sure only I have the right to decide how I feel about my personal life experiences.”
They deserve each other.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything resembling an actual friendship between MRAs. Shared hatred of a common “enemy” doesn’t really qualify, imo.
@ Kittehs
Seriously, “no consent is assumed, wait for the other person to make it very clear that they’re into things” is not that difficult a standard to live by, it’s just inconvenient for people who resent the fact that the law doesn’t allow them to ignore other people’s wishes.
Deserve each other is right, SittieKitty! 😀
“And I’ve already forgotten about what I was going to say regarding Bad and rape so it likely wasn’t that important. Although what I don’t get, why do people care what others define as rape?”
It’s one thing if people care because definitions (especially legal ones) are used to say “You weren’t raped.”
But with Bad & co? I suspect they have a very personal interest – as Howard mentioned upthread – in keeping the definition of rape as narrow as possible. I doubt they don’t want to identify as rapists or wannabe rapists, but they don’t want to be identified – ie. outed and maybe prosecuted – as such.
Cassandra – exactly. Comes to the same thing whether they don’t want to bother themselves finding out if someone’s interested/consenting, or whether they actively want to force themselves on someone: they don’t want anything hindering their freedom to do so.
Thanks for the nice words, folks! I did manage to restrain myself from refreshing the comments while driving home, which was good for me emotionally, and also physically, with not running into a bridge abutment and dying.
I’ve certainly read through most of the Welcome Package, Kittehserf, but I don’t think I’ve been presented with one before, so I gratefully accept.
Ok, back to lurking!
That’s such a classic derailing tactic – obviously we can only care about one thing, and you’ve chosen the wrong one! The same thing happens in conversations about human trafficking for sex versus other kinds of labor – actually it turns out that we can think both kinds are bad and want to end both of them, but thanks for the lecture, dude who I am beginning to have strong suspicions has taken advantage of people trafficked into sex work.
My gotto thought movie quote with these guys is this – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6BMIIIS6MM I don’t know why
Someone named zoon echon logon made a good comment a page back that was probably also moderated because I don’t think I’ve seen that name here before: