If you live in New York state, you may have seen the poster above plastered on a bus shelter; or you may have seen it posted somewhere on the internet. The message is pretty simple, and it’s sad that it has to be said: kids are pretty impressionable, so teach your sons to treat women with basic respect.
The purpose of the ad campaign, sponsored by the New York state Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence, is pretty clear as well: teaching boys respect for women lessens the chances that they will abuse women as adults.
Numerous studies have found that men with sexist attitudes towards women are more likely to try to control their wives or girlfriends with physical abuse. Indeed, one recent study even found that brief exposure to sexist jokes made men more inclined to brush off violence against women, at least amongst men with sexist attitudes to begin with.
Speaking of which, the sexist jokes over at A Voice for Men have unveiled a hilarious new “meme,” which just happens to be inspired by the “awaiting instructions” PSAs we’ve been discussing. And here it is:
The logic here is airtight: because some women get drunk and urinate in public, women don’t deserve respect.
I guess men never get drunk and urinate in public, or ever do anything vaguely embarrassing that gets caught on camera?
Is it really asking too much to respect people as people, foibles and all?
Shorter Elam: any behaviour I don’t like, from any woman anywhere, justifies abusing all women everywhere.
Actually the whole MRM could be summed up that way, not least since anything we do is wrong as far as they’re concerned.
Men pee outside all the freakin’ time, Paul.
Also ninja’d by David, and Zoon. Kim sadly has a decent point though, although I think this poster is more directed at parents with young children. Parents who already want their children to treat women with the same repect they do men, but just assume they will grow up doing that on their own (which may not happen). I don’t know if targeting this towards well meaning but ignorant people is much better than targeting already sexist people though, since they may just brush it off since, of course, their children already know better!
So yea I don’t know. Advertisting like this is tricky. AVFM is still awful, and they’ll be attracting some really shit people with this little ad of theirs, but hopefully some very shit press as well.
What happens if the mom pees standing up ???????????
Oh, Charlotte, stop being a drive-by cheerleader for the MRM. You do know they hate you too, don’t you?
But you can bet these guys hear her asking for respect and just see her as being “uppity”.
There are also way too many movies that show respect as something you get by being bigger and stronger or more popular or richer. And going by what they have said in the past, MRAs do seem to base their ideas of women and gender on movie and sitcom tropes.
I think the ad is complicated–its not aimed at teenage boys at all, not directly. I think its aimed at their parents, and especially at their fathers. The list of things that are imaged next to the boy are lists of things parents are thought to tell their kids routinely and the poster is implicitly asking them to add “respect women” to this list. I think its a terrible ad because you have to stop and figure it out. Also the kid pictured is old enough to have more agency than, say, a toddler so you at first think the ad is directed to him as a reader. Since “eat your vegetables” is insulting to him as a proto adult “respect women” also seems kind of “off.”
The picture should be of a grown man holding a baby boy and it should say something like “What kind of man do I want my son to be when he grows up? Healthy, Strong, Generous, Wise. I teach him to respect the people around him–especially his mother and sisters…” or something. “
Awaiting instructions.
Does my dad respect my mother ?
Elam snarling “don’t tell ME who to respect” really makes the MRM look like a bunch of reasoned, well-balanced individuals.
So basically, “YOU [feminists] don’t tell us to respect women. WE [men] decide who’s worthy of respect. And that means not women because some of them are gross.”
I refuse to believe that every woman the poster-maker meets is a Jersey Shore character. Seriously, what.
A brief foray into the comment section on AVfM found this little gem:
“When I was young, the females in the family always liked to play “delayed instruction”. For instance, when it’s getting cold, and they saw me picking up a sweater, they’d say to me, “it’s getting cold, put on a sweater”. In that way they could always say, “he’s so dumb that he needs me to tell him to put on a sweater when it’s cold”.
DUDE that’s not women treating you like an idiot, that’s just people in general. My mom does this shit to me ALL THE TIME! Yeah, it’s annoying, but it’s just something people do sometimes. My mom will tell me hours before I have to be somewhere to make sure I am ready to go and triple check I have everything. It’s not because she thinks I’m an idiot, parents just over-worry sometimes and some of them have a bit of a control obsession.
I’m waiting for the day Pauly decides he can’t respect men any more, after some drunk dude comes and pisses or pukes on his lawn.
I’ll tell you one thing ..I would have to know a lot more about those individual women in that photo before I would say i had no respect for them just because looks like they got a little (or a lot )silly and squatted and peed in a fireplace!
My mother has done a lot weirder stuff than that and my respect for her is vastly beyond her cooky moments like that.
Its really sad that a moment like that would erase all earned respect .
In re Charlotte’s point the Voice For Men ad rather explicitly tells the viewer that men (specifically the “us” there) should choose how to treat each woman as potential instances of disgust rather than respecting them as human beings–respect (they say) has to be earned. But that’s not really correct. Respect for other human beings–respect for their boundaries (which is what is being discussed here) and for their right not to be beaten does not have to be earned. It is a given of their human state. For instance even if you knew that a woman had urinated in public you would still not be entitled to rape or strike her.
In addition graphically the Elam ad draws attention to the women not for “what they have between their ears” (what a marvellously inapt reading of the ad!) but for what they have between their legs and what they do with it. Ohmygod some women sometime peed outside of a toilet! Off with their heads! The ad only makes sense because it links horror with women for having vaginas in public with an assertion of a privilige for the viewer to judge and then to act with disrespect for all women.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS…..oops ! cuse me I pee peed in a bush!!! tee hee ! giggles!
PHHHHHTT>>>> scuse me I farted ..((((GRIN))))
>The picture should be of a grown man holding a baby boy
There was a recent anti-DV campaign that featured babies. The MRAs completely lost their shit over it. Elam was trying to raise money to hire a private detective to dig up dirt on one of the guys involved in it.
@ David That must be where the rest of the money AVfM raises goes to! Paying detectives to dig up dirt on the horrible human rights abusers of our time!
Yes . Main reason .Dad you are just as much an example as mom. Reality is if dad doesn’t HATE women son wont. Mom peeing when or where she isn’t supposed to isn’t going to scar a child for life .
One is teaching hatred the other is just silliness.
One time my mom peed in the sink, it was weird. I told her it was weird. Still respect her to this day.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS>>>>>>>>>>
I go pee pee an island in Thailand!
Mothers….got a love em! If that’s the worst thing she ever did she’s a saint ! And a funny one!
My mother never peed in the sink .(or in a bush or a fireplace) But one time she got naked and started saying she was Lucy (Lucile Ball) and was laughing and jumping all over our dad. She kept saying “Im Lucy !” My dad was trying not to laugh but it was hard and he kept saying “Carolyn the children ” and she just waved at us and said Im LUCY!
Pretty weird but that didn’t scar me .She will be 70 in about a week . I will be there holding her hand for her second hip replacement surgery .(Mama ???should have gone easy on the Lucy thing!)
@Tulgey
“Misandry is okay because Paul Elam. Checkmate, dudebros.”
This.
@dallasapple My mom is pretty far from a saint, she has a fair share of her own demons. Hell, she’d probably be a poster mom for the AVfM on how mother’s don’t always make the better parent, but when it came to giving a shit she had a lot more of that than my dad and I love her very much for that.
But I can always count on her to do some funny and/or embarrassing shit. Like, I was home for Christmas and we went for Chinese buffet (kind of the only real “exotic” food to get in small town Ontario) and every time we go to the buffet she wraps up some food and sneaks it into her purse to give to the cats later. I think her bizarre boundary pushing (and her flaws) has made me more of an empathetic person.
@dallasapple haha that’s hilarious! Sometimes the most bizarre and embarrassing stories of my mom are my favourite memories.