Warren Farrell’s The Myth of Male Power, published twenty years ago, defined much of the agenda for what’s become the contemporary Men’s Rights movement. If you hear a Men’s Rights activist prattle on about “male disposability”or “death professions” or complain about draft registration (even though the draft itself has been dead for decades), you’ve got Farrell to thank, or blame.
So when Farrell decided to release a new ebook edition of his most famous book, it was perhaps not all that surprising that he decided to turn to the folks at A Voice for Men, probably the most influential Men’s Rights site around, for advice on a picture to use for a new cover.
But what was surprising was the pictures he asked the AVFMers to choose from, three sexually charged, and slightly NSFW, pics highlighting what Farrell evidently sees as the key female challenges to male power: their vaginas, tits and ass.
I’m not speaking metaphorically: one of the pictures shows a nude woman’s pelvic area, her vulva both highlighted and hidden by what is essentially a merkin made of moss; a second picture shows the ass of a young, topless woman in her underpants slaving over a hot stove, and the third shows a famous picture of Marilyn Monroe, also topless.
AVFM’s Paul Elam explained the, er, logic of these images:
Imagine the juxtaposition of the title, “Myth of Male Power” over one of these images. The cover alone will challenge the idea of male power in men and women alike on a gut level.
By “on a gut level” he apparently means “in men’s pants.”
You sort of have to see them to see how utterly tacky they are; here’s the one of the butt, which either Farrell or Elam helpfully captioned “Where’s the power?”
You can find the others on AVFM here; if you don’t want to give them the pageviews, you can find them here.
You couldn’t really ask for better symbols of the essential misogyny of the Men’s Rights movement today — or of its obsession with blaming women (and women’s sexuality in particular) for the restrictions on male power that so chafe the hides of MRAs. Farrell, in the past, generally avoided demonizing female sexuality quite so obviously and directly, but these days he’s apparently been spending too much time amongst the A Voice for Menners.
Farrell’s choices for potential covers also tell us a good deal about him as well; in the past he’s essentially been able to hide his crackpot pseudoscholarship behind a certain veneer or respectability — releasing his books through major publishing houses, touting his PhD — but here he seems to be falling to his natural level, amongst the self-publishers of crappy e-books with stock-photo covers.
While some AVFMers had other suggestions — perhaps a picture of the Wicked Witch? — most seemed to think that the pictures were perfect for his book. Tom Golden — along with most of the voters in the poll — preferred Marilyn and her tits:
Others were more taken with the ass pic. Alek wrote:
And Elam, while voting for the moss-encrusted vulva himself, was apparently also quite, er, affected by dat ass. (Those with especially sensitive stomachs may wish to skip the following quote, as it contains an unsolicited update from his boner.)
So there you have it: Two of the most influential figures in the Men’s Rights movement — indeed, arguably the two most influential figures — actually believe that men are oppressed by women’s butts.
Indeed, Elam is apparently so overwhelmed by the sight of an attractive ass that he considers it a literal threat to his life.
Adding to the creepiness factor here: Farrell is 70 years old, making him literally old enough to be grandfather of the model in her underpants. Elam is in his late 50s.
Now, the weird tackiness of the images Farrell chose for his book cover did not go entirely unnoticed at AVFM. There were critics — including, amazingly, AVFM’s own John Hembling, who was a little baffled by the idea of using a sexualized picture of a woman on the cover of Farrell’s book about men, and asked if Farrell was possibly trolling them.
One MRA blogger, Kevin Wayne, posted a link to his blog, where he excoriated all three choices as “Budweiser Ad rejects” and begged Farrell to try something else:
This is just going to backfire. Don’t we have enough issues of being branded as a bunch of no-necks wanting to take women back to the 1950’s?
Elam, while gentle in his handling of Hembling’s criticism, threw a fit over Wayne’s post, banning him from AVFM and bashing him — on AVFM and on Wayne’s own site — as a do-nothing newcomer to Men’s Rights who was too “borderline retarded” to understand the profound deeper meaning behind Farrell’s T&A pics.
Farrell himself seems to have been a a bit more willing to listen to the critics. Indeed, he’s asked AVFM’s readers to submit some more pictures to choose from. There will be a runoff between the winner of the first AVFM poll (Marilyn and her tits) several of the new pics.
So far there hasn’t exactly been a flood of submissions. They’ve included a painting of Diogenes, a painting of Lilith, a photo of a homeless man, and this:
Yeah, that’ll work great.
Or never have it to begin with, seeing as their definition of “hot” is pretty much limited to young, white and thin, and there are loads of women who don’t even meet the second two requirements, even when they are young. I’m also going to assume it includes the narrow cookie cutter type Hollywood facial symmetry, which is also something that’s generally purely genetics unless someone elects to have expensive surgery.
Course, MRAs seem to think fat women existing is also enslavement. Wasn’t there something a while back about how American women make themselves fat on purpose because they hate men?
Not that it isn’t nonsense to begin with. When I was younger, thinner and slightly more closely fit their standard of “hot” all it got me was unwanted gropes on the bus and obvious disrespect from people who assumed I was stupid. Some “power”.
Also, given that I hate Elam, think he’s a terrible human being, and he reminds me of my dad in various ways (including their angry faces), reading Elam’s notes from his boner in that comment is making my fucking skin crawl. X_X
Sympathy and hugs to you guys Ally and Kleptonetic – I agree the boner notes are awfully creepy, and public transport is the worst. I would like to posit, if it is crowded enough or you are simply unlucky, attractiveness or dress has nothing to do with the gropage – it just feels like a half-hearted auto-response to female proximity. I assure you I am by no means thin or traditionally attractive, and have aged out of the 18-24 bracket, and still have to dodge creepers on my train ride to work.
Wait, so naked female bodies are a threat to male survival but he wants to put one on the cover of his book?
It sounds like some kind of Dianetics, Volcano on the cover, non-sense horse shit.
Jammy: I thought you flounced.
@Anenome
I have a joke/theory MRA’s think all women are findoms because findoms are the only women they interact with. Obviously there are lots of lovely submissive men out there, and (probably) lots of MRA’s who aren’t at all sexually submissive, but a lot of financial domination listings read like a catalogue of the most pervasive MRA stereotypes about women.
For example, here’s a listing picked at random from Niteflirt’s financial domination section (NSFW, obvs.)
http://www.niteflirt.com/listings/show/5560101–Arrogant-Homewrecker-FinDom-Intox-MIND-FUCK-
From the listing:
“you dont even count, you’re just a fucking stepping stone, an object for use & another horny reject for me to exploit for my OWN personal amusement and financial gain! ”
It’s like an MRA’s parody of a woman.
They never stick the flounce, hellkell. *shakes head sadly* A shame, since DefJam is rather dull.
RE: auggziliary
I don’t get what their point is with that anyways. They want more bread winning women?
Which, uh. Isn’t that what feminism has been fighting for? (That is, for the women where not working was actually an option, since a lot of families were poor enough that work was a necessity.)
Potental trigger warning, as I ramble about vic blaming. and pua.
Ugh see, I just made that long rant Admitting That I would love to Side with these guys and argue their innocence Once in great while because they are humans with opinions, And then they do stuff like this, nearly collectively.
Really Manosphere? Really? A woman does not Hold ‘Sexual power’ Any more then You lack it. Because it turns out, Woman are attracted to men too. Oh but of course you don’t believe that. Of COURSE you think we are only attracted to money. I mean, Thats why Conventionally attractive, Poor Couples exist, Right?
Something else that bothers me about the MRA/PUA circle. Do these guys not realize that ‘They’ are the Jerk alpha types they so despise? (which of course, Alpha and Beta applied to wolves is already not accurate, so applying the terms to humans would be almost charmingly naive if It wasnt used for such hateful things.) They are always rambling about how the jerk/Alpha/Jock types are the 10% who get all the ladies, but It never seems to occur to them, ESPECIALLY among the PUA, that they are the people who fullfill that particular Niche the most easily outside of highschool, But are still WAAAY more then willing to blame it on the woman for coming to them..? Or something?
vaguely personal story time, but back when I was younger, and Just discovering that PUA was a real thing, and not some ‘charming rogue’ type thing from movies and Tv, I was honestly Terrified, because I really thought they had found.. ‘one weird trick!’ or some inescapable method of seduction, that they intended to use on me. The idea that someone was going to somehow subvert my will and make me do things I would regret later, and then blame me for ‘changing my mind’ Was just terrifying, especially since I was the one who could end up catching something, or ending up pregnant. It also Seemed pretty much exactly like the Stereotypical idea of the ‘jerk jock’ from Most forms of media, aside from the sports playing bit. so uh.. Yay team? (but of course, Most MRA would argue that I somehow MADE THEM INTO THIS, because I didn’t date/sex enough ‘nice guys’ Which Is another Insidious trap I fell into, but thats a story for another time.)
All I can see now when I close my eyes is a Kate Beaton-esque rain of women, for some reason in late 19th century corsets with their skirts hiked up over their hips, falling on an unsuspecting US Navy base ….
I am so, so sorry.
sorry for double posting. I just wanna mention how I kinda went off the rails about a third into my post.. for uh.. no reason. i don’t think the alpha thing was even mentioned in this article. x.x
The ‘because of butts’ history just makes me think of Braveheart.
Because everyone knows the Scots wouldn’t have fallen if it’d been WOMEN showing their butts!
@marinaliteyears
If you hang around here long enough, you’ll see that almost everyone here double posts (or even triple posts) pretty frequently. So it’s no big deal. Likewise, many people here tend to go on tangents, and that’s pretty much accepted as well.
Oh, and marinaliteyears, if you want you can vent/rant/talk about personal stuff in the open thread: http://manboobz.com/2013/11/02/open-thread-for-personal-stuff-november-rain-edition/
The stupid “men are into bodies, women are into money” thing is just so… what the hell about gay men? Lesbians? Are bi people into both? Are ace people doomed to celibate poverty? What about trans people? Seriously, it makes NO FUCKING SENSE, unless you only think about a very small selection of the population in a very specific time and place.
Also, I’m pretty sure one of the many reasons my husband got laid a lot back when he was young and broke was he is a very, very handsome man. (Plus just plain pleasant and fun to be around, but still.) The women buying him drinks and carting him to bed, I’m pretty sure, were NOT after his wallet.
But I might be slightly biased in his favor.
chimisaur, you’ve got it! IT’S ALL ABOUT THE CHAIRS
OMG, Kitteh, why is Feministe full of so much animosity these days? X_X I’m not saying that as a tone argument either – I see a lot of regulars legitimately being assholes to each other.
I think it’s about hypergamy.
Be not apologetic, Falconer, be proud! 😉
How’ve you been, anyways?
Has it gone even more ballistic, Ally? You’ve been reading it longer and more regularly than I have; it doesn’t seem too different from what I’m used to.
Example: http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2013/12/06/the-hidden-truths-of-major-weight-loss/#comment-703880
Hey, we should trade! They can have the power of being sexually attractive (for those of them who are sexually attractive, anyway) and women can have the political/economic/societal power. They should totally be in favor of that, right?
RE: Ally
OMG, Kitteh, why is Feministe full of so much animosity these days?
I thought that Feministe was always kinda a bag of ass. One of my friends was complaining and left about that, like, back in ’08 or something.
Pretty sure we already knew that Farrell and Elam believe thin, white, young cis women are representative of women as a class, since all other women are invisible to them. But thanks for the FYI.
Bingo. If the same guys didn’t pony up the cash, no paid lady of company would ever keep company with them.
Last year, I translated a memoir by a Mexican table dancer who is very critical of the business, even though I get the sense that she’s still in it while she works on her writing career. That was a major sticking point with her…all the machos and their entitlements, while the chicas can be out on their asses at any time, and often are, unless they “co-operate”. Sometimes the ladies have affairs with the owners of the clubs (because money, power, etc.), but those relationships are generally not based on love, and so rarely pan out well. And a woman who’s past a certain age can always be replaced by some cute but clueless young thing, who has no idea that the same fate lies in store for her, eventually.
The macho myth is that power is an aphrodisiac, when in fact the women aren’t out for the sex with the “alpha male”, but simply survival…because jobs with good pay and respect are the hardest thing for women to come by, especially when they’re poor and can’t buy a full education at a good school.That, of course, is the very part that MRAssholes are willfully blind to.
If I could, I’d give ’em all a sex change and an extreme makeover, and send them to work in Mexican table-dance clubs for a year. See if that changes their tune any…
@LBT
I’ve had a lot of good experiences there, and I’ve learned a lot from the regulars there. But sometimes the hostility is too much for me to bear, and then there are, of course, those occasional intersectionality fails they have. X_X I still want to stay there, though.