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.
BWAHAHAHA that’s the perfect quote, Salacious.
Maybe he thinks S.C.U.M. is a thing?
Why thank you kittehserf, I try 🙂
It’s like they blame Helen of Troy for starting a war because she had nice tits and not because men were obsessively trying to control her – the prize.
Self-reflection and your sense of irony: two things you must abandon, all ye who enter the Men’s HUMAN Rights Movement™.
(And your sense of humor is a close third.)
So this entirely off-topic, but I was curious is there some kind of connection with MRAs and hardcore Atheists? I’ve noticed a lot of MRAs on youtube are also quite vocal atheists and I don’t get the connection.
Do they just like having a group to be mad at? Like it’s pretty easy to be angry and argue against Creationists because they think bananas were invented by God to fit into our hands. Is it a superiority complex?
Hue. MRA? self reflect? but then they might get dangerously close to realizing that they might be wrong! They could never do that. that would be like letting the feminists win.
@Salacious
I noticed that too, Prominent Atheists seem to be pretty MRA, Or at the least Anti-Feminism.
If I had to wager a Guess, I would assume that It has something to do with ‘challenging mainstream’ In both circles.. On the one hand, they are challenging the notions That Theists have held since forever. On the other hand, they are Trying to challenge the social norm, by assuming that most female privileges were ‘made’ by feminism, and not the patriarchy. I mean, have you seen ThunderF00t’s video response to feministfrequency’s damsel in distress video? I may not agree with everything FeministFrequency says, but Thunderf00t Ignores most things she said, in favor of some Kind of straw version of her. And as far as I’m aware, Thunderf00t is otherwise a respectable Athirst speaker of sorts, relatively well respected.( I may be misspeaking.. I haven’t actually seen most of his stuff, Though my friends were surprised by how misinformed he seemed to be In my afore mentioned Video, despite liking his content normally.)
It could also just be a community thing.. build up a community of well received speakers on one subject, who happen to agree on another, and you build a precedent.
Tum te tum tum tum,,, hey, gang? How are you all? I’m pretty good, a free man in a free country… What’s this? A woman’s ASS?
Now I am a slave! Argh! The power of butt compels me! The power of butt compels me! How can I serve you bepanted one?
Thanks a lot, MRM! You’ve been a BIG help!
I have seen one Thunderf00t video entitled feminism vs facts, it was atrocious. I haven’t seen an MRA’s views on atheism because I am generally of the opinion that if you can discount reality your opinions on another topic aren’t going to hold any water either. Perhaps when I am feeling more mentally up to the challenge I’ll venture into that domain to see for myself.
A lot of the AsshatAtheists™ seem very happy to complain about theistic privilege, but utterly refuse to consider any sort they might have. White, educated, male, cis, heterosexual … but noooooes, they are TOTES OPPRESSED because they are atheists. Being able to harass and abuse women isn’t oppressing them, it’s the Natural Order of Things. Because SCIENCE.
Or even… their personality! I wasn’t physically attracted to Busband at all when we first met. That grew as I got to know him. (And then I asked him out *gasp* *horror*)
Yes. Exactly. I think it’s why this threw me so much… like guys, LOOK AT YOURSELVES. It’s hard to believe they honestly can’t see the bigger picture here, and what it says about them. I almost feel bad for them (almost, not quite). How on earth do they figure the average person would look at a picture of a woman (well, her ass anyway) in a kitchen and think ‘yes, exactly, male power is a myth, women have alllllll the powerzez!’ I AM BEFUDDLED.
Salacious – yeah, it’s fifty-fifty whether MRAs are of the “I am intellectual atheist dude who knows women exist to please my boner, because SCIENCE” or the “I am intellectual Christian dude who knows women exist to please my boner, because GOD.”
I’m currently reading an academic book on the “fall of civilizations”, yet I see a rather alarming neglect to the subject of women’s asses. How is there not a chapter devoted to the societal collapse of the Western world brought about by evil tits, ass, and vag, tempting otherwise virtuous and hard-working men who only wanted to invent and build things for women to enjoy? This can lead me to only one possible conclusion: misandry!
haha kittehserf I think you summed it up rather succinctly
@Salacious, I’m not as active in the online atheist community as I used to be, but AFAIK Thunderf00t isn’t the most popular fella. Though there is crossover with the MRA community for some reason. Friendly Atheist is a good blog that doesn’t seem to attract them, might be the ‘Friendly’ in the title 🙂
Jared Diamond’s ‘Guns, Germs and Girl Booty’ covers it quite well.
@Salacious
Yep. thats the one I was thinking of, in specific. Glad you saw that too, and thought it was Equally pointless.
Though I would like to say that being utterly wrong in one subject doesnt necessarily disclude one from having an intelligent and well thought out opinion in another.. Its a seemingly common trap to fall into, to think that because you know what your talking about in one place, your Also Qualified to talk about another subject with Equal Certainty, I suppose. though maybe thats just me defending people who I shouldn’t.
@Kittehserf
To be fair, This wouldn’t be the only Time a group fighting against one Kind of oppression struggled against the idea that they might be in some ways the privileged party In some other aspect, Though In my personal experience, You tube Atheists are applying a liberal amount of perceived oppression anyway. Ive Talked to such people who literally decided all the worlds ills were caused by Religion, much the same way MRA types put all blame onto Feminism. (Which I suppose religion Is far from Equitable to feminism, Considering how much it DOES contribute to backwardness, but to Say All problems stem from it seems.. Shallow.)
RE atheism and MRA-dom:
Hi, I’m an atheist and a feminist.
Honestly, I think the reason that a large number of self-proclaimed atheists turn towards MRA-hood is because they think that they need to question everything. Unfortunately, they go the wrong way about it and they start thinking that men are really the most oppressed class or something like that, and act accordingly. They feel as if they’re being attacked, first by being an atheist, then by being a white, heterosexual, cismale.
That or they’re just assholes. Or they’re stupid.
It’s essentially evidence that being an atheist doesn’t mean that you’re going to be rational in every single damned thing.
@Alice
Well said! bravo. I couldn’t agree more, even if I wanted to. And if It seemed like It, I wasn’t trying to imply that Athiesm and MRA ideas were exclusive or anything, Just that I had seen the odd coupling of the two, atleast on youtube.
@marinaliteyears Nah, I understand what you’re saying. It’s just that if they (MRAs) can be so entirely delusional about a topic I have to question their reasoning skills. But, maybe there’s hope for some of them and they just need to get some better ed-jah-mucation
Note: I have nothing against Atheists btw. I guess I am one, but that also implies I have strong feelings. I would say rather than atheist or agnostic I am more apathetic. Although I do wish Christians could learn to let people coexist and not push their agenda on the rest of us. . . anyway sorry ranting a bit.
@salacious
Eh, not sure about that one. I mean once you get to thinking Hard chairs are Misandry, you’ve kind of gone off the deep end. xD
man I wish there was an edit function. uhh..
about my last Post, I meant that In reply to the ‘maybe there is hope’ bit as a lame joke.
It’s the Feminazi Hivemind Conspiracy, of course.