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.
I have to point out that, in the follow-up discussion to his comment, Hembling said “No, I have far too much respect for Dr Farrell to seriously believe He is, or would troll us, or anyone else.”
Hembling capitalized “he”. Although it might have been a slip, it’s certainly a telling one.
I had a look after reading your comment here, Ally, and thought that might have been the one you were referring to, in this instance. Dunno what that latest sniping’s about. BMI’s a feckin’ mess and “morbidly obese” is hardly used in a “scientific” way in general speech. This is as stupid as “but but but pedophile means someone with a psychiatric disorder!”
You’ve got my total agreement. Lets find some dudebros and do this thing!
This. Thank you for articulating this, Bina, as it’s not something I’ve been quite able to put my finger on when explaining things to friends that ask and it’s been driving me nuts.
Honestly, I care less about the disagreements themselves and more about all of the personalized, mean-spirited remarks being thrown by commentators I admire and appreciate. It got so bad there that tigtog stepped in and put both EG and Bagelsan in the premoderation filter. :{ I might have to take a break from commenting there until things settle down.
You’re welcome, Chimisaur!
And here’s another thing I’ve noticed: When a woman is well educated and securely employed, she generally doesn’t feel the need to suck up to any “alpha male”, nor can their bullshit squelch her when it does crop up. No matter her age, she can afford to laugh them off. She’s got a good life, and she doesn’t depend on their good graces so much to maintain it.
I’m pretty sure MRAs would like for that salient fact never to get out, as it would make young girls all ambitious and — what’s their bullshit word again? — HYPERGAMOUS. (Which is another way of saying “free to pick whatever man they like, and it ain’t YOU, bud.”)
I’m baffled at that comment about the moss picture being positive to pagans because it implies mother earth. It is a pretty pic, but it definitely doesn’t say goddess to me. It’s a young woman in an extremely passive position. You only see her pelvic area and some of her torso. It. Just. What.
Context matters–in some, a pelvis-focused shot could actually be empowering. (FREX, as a poster for “The Vagina Monologues”.) Of course, it’s a bit tougher to find a context in which that ‘cooking in her undies’ shot could be viewed as anything other than empowering, which is why it doesn’t surprise me that it’s a favorite of the Royal MRA Douchecanoe Brigade.
Er, anything other than DISempowering…
My penance:
I found that cooking in her undies shot seriously creepy even without Fappell’s comments.
Ah, women. Oppressing Men By Having Bodies Since Forever. We oppress them if we’re thin and white and young, because we give them boners and that makes them feel powerless. We oppress them if we’re fat or old or any deviation from conventionally feminine, because then we don’t give them boners, and women have a duty to be attractive to men at all times. Or worse, we give them SHAMEFUL boners which they cannot discuss with their fellow men.
Maybe they would be happy if we all dissolved into incorporeality? Would that help?
::snicker:: Cowboy better watch himself. Liberty might just burn his chaps with her torch.
tinyorc – they wouldn’t be happy then, either, because we’d be depriving their boners. Or worse, if we were incorporeal but visible, they could get boners and never be able to force themselves on us.
… I’m liking this idea.
Goddamn auggziliary. It’s obvious what company I keep, because I took one look at that poster and was like “PORN.”
Those spread-legs-butt pics strike me that way, too, LBT, probably because it’s usually a woman’s legs and Bond or someone waving a gun at her. Eurgh.
giving someone a boner isn’t power
But hey, at least AVFM can give TERFs some inspiration. TERFs can now argue that the fact that transmisogynistic cis men objectify and fetishize trans women is proof that trans women have power over cis men.
Reading through the comments on AVFM is so beyond disturbing. One commenter wrote:
I voted for #1 while not logged in. I feel that the other two images would be misunderstood as overly sexual (that may be the very point, but I don’t think those who are unaware of cis female privilege and/or haven’t had it extended to them would understand that), however #1 I think hits the nail on the head in so many ways. The conflation of the beauty of nature with a disgusting, tuna-smelling, bleeding body part, especially given how successful feminism has been with the narrative that womyn-born-womyn, somehow, have the best interests of the planet at heart and all others do not, to me is profound.
So the female body somehow puts all these men in a tizzy but it’s also a “disgusting, tuna-smelling, bleeding body part”. And people wonder why feminists are convinced that some people are terrified by vaginas.
The more I think about this, the more I think it’s a wonderful idea, though not for the reasons the Warrell and his ilk think.
I mean, it’s such a perfect display of their lack of irony and self awareness. Using objectifying images of women — most likely crafted by men, and designed to appeal to the male gaze — on the cover of a book calling male power a myth?
I don’t think I could come up with a better self-selected demonstration (at least this week) to potential customers of MRAs’ utter cluelessness and deep seated misogyny. The weird juxtaposition would tell said customer everything they needed to know about MRA idiocy.
On the down side, the cover would probably draw in a lot of MRAs-waiting-to-happen. So maybe not such a good idea after all.
Salacious – lawd, sounds like panicboy’s never been near a vulva in his life, doesn’t it? Just as well, too.
So…… because we female people have *bodies*, that is our ‘power’? Really? Not any real, tangible power where we can influence politics or make laws, but the off chance that a guy might be attracted to us & want to ‘service’ us so he can have sex with us. That’s fucking unfair.
And not all of us either. At 27 I’ve almost aged out of the ‘power’ range for most of these guys. And 99% of women don’t look like Marilyn or dat ass, so it’s not even real-life women that have this ‘power’, rather it is photographs of models that oppress men.
And what is with the idea that only men can feel sexual attraction? And why do they have to resent the people they are attracted to?
I have to deal with Loki and Daniel Johns and I don’t hate them, even though their power over me is incredible ^__________^
You know, I think DefJam might be right. Consider what Marx said:
I’m not sure putting some tits and ass on the cover of that book is going to draw in MRAs-waiting-to-happen. I think it mainly undermines their position.
I love when anyone disagrees with Elam and he gets all blistery about it. You know your organization is going nowhere when you can’t handle a little dissension, and I dunno .. maybe discussion of the pros and cons? lawl
Power to the donkeys!
Elam to Kevin “the dissenter”: This movement, online and on the ground, is replete with dead end examples of one man telling another what he won’t do to offer support unless things are done his way
Self-reflection = not wanted in the MRA