Is there something about Men’s Rights Activists that renders them utterly incapable of designing posters that aren’t embarrassingly ugly and offputting?
Posters designed by MRAs are so routinely godawful it’s hard not to wonder if there is something inherent about them or their ideas that prevents them from seeing what a complete mess they’re making when they put together something like the poster above, which I recently found amongst a whole collection of similarly terrible posters at the website What Men Are Saying About Women.
In the case of Christian J, the WMASAW poster-designer, there is clearly something more than bad ideas at work here, but I do think the bad ideas of the Men’s Rights movement are a large part of the reason why MRAs can’t design posters to save their lives. Their posters are muddled messes because their ideology is a muddled mess.
Effective political posters are effective in large part because they convey a clear message in an arresting way. But the Men’s Rights movement doesn’t have a clear message. In some cases that’s because MRAs are trying to disguise their misogyny in order to try to appeal to a wider audience. It’s hard to get away with direct expressions of hate if you want to treat you as the “human rights movement” you keep insisting you are.
But in many other cases — as is the case with most of the posters featured in Christian J’s collection — MRA posters are muddled because their peculiar logic really only makes sense to those who already hate women to begin with. Who else would agree with the “argument” of this poster, which seems to be that we shouldn’t give respect to women because some women get drunk and other women … pose with silly expressions on their faces for stock photos?
Meanwhile, in this antifeminist poster, Christian J. offers little more than free-associational word salad, mixing accusations against feminists (“Hating Men is part of the agenda”) with simple assertions cataloging his own dislike of them (“no one likes a feminist”).
He also has posters attacking feminists Gloria Steinem and Hanna Rosin; tellingly, neither of them offer any specific evidence of wrongdoing on the part of either one. I wonder is Christian has read anything Rosin has written beyond the title to her book “The End of Men.”
And if you haven’t yet gotten your full dose of hate, he’s got a few posters attacking Lena Dunham for being … fat. And because Vogue did some rather minimal photoshopping to the pictures of her it ran in a recent profile.
And, well, I don’t even know what this is supposed to be.
Frankly, the more widely spread these posters are, the better. Because their ugliness reveals a lot about the ugly ideology of the MRA that made them.
This poster is Umpossible.
I’m guessing this reactionary crank is pretty unenthusiastic about whose in the White House.
As a lesbianism, I’m offended by this homophobia. I hope he isn’t always this hateful when he writes about The Gays.
Did you find Photoshop or Gimp hard to learn, House Mouse Queen? I tried Gimp a while back (because FREE) but couldn’t get to grips with the Adobe-style instructions and language at all.
Photoshop is inherently misandrist in that women use it to LIE about how they actually look therefore there is a movement-wide BAN on any program which would make a good looking poster.
They should have just named the island Hubris. Truth in advertising and all that.
What timing. I just finished reading a couple of ebooks about church communications I have been asked to review. They covered a lot of the basics of good communication, especially if you want to sell people something (coffee, a philosophy, a human rights movement).
I got some insight into why the MRAs are so bad a posters and winning people over in general.
They lack the empathy to see the world from someone else’s point of view. If you want someone to buy your coffee or join your church or human rights movement you don’t tell them what YOU think is important (our coffee is good, our church is better, our human rights are more important than yours are). You tell people why THEY will benefit from what you are selling (Life is short, stay awake for it. Come to church and find eternal peace. Join us and find a happier life and cheaper cupcakes.). To do that, you need be able to see how other people see the world. MRAs can’t do that – they are too busy vilifying other people. They are so convinced they are right, all they need to do is repeat their views over and over. It’s like if Starbucks hired someone to stand on a corner and yell “DRINK OUR COFFEE IT’S GOOD AND THEIR COFFEE SUCKS!”
They lack humility. A good marketing campaign is a team effort. Some people are good with words, some are good at design. Some it seems *cough* are good at neither. That’s cool. That’s when you find someone who is, tell them what you want to do, listen to their ideas and let them work their magic. But it seems your average MRA can’t admit they need help with ANYTHING. To imply otherwise is misandry.
So clearly, I have been making posters wrong. I decided to make the best poster ever, based on this guy’s input:
http://i.imgur.com/JpSNV0a.png
Am I the best MRA now?
@ Cthulhu’s Intern: Yes?
It’s more coherent, though. Work on making less sense in the final sentence.
Cthulhu’s Intern:
I think you win at MRA. You have to turn in your scented fucking candles now.
In other news: People that make more sense than the word salad posters.
And they’re not even trying.
Cthulhu’s Intern: Nicely done.
But that poster makes too much sense, Cthulhu’s Intern!
I’d love to see a blend of the Stunned Husky and Paul Elam’s face. Wouldn’t do the husky any favours, but it’d make Pauly more amusing.
Doesn’t impartial mean you judge people’s opinion’s by the strength of their arguments alone? If so, you can totally be impartial, while also totally supporting feminism over the MRM.
No, it’s more about treating all disputants equally.
I just wanna say, Ally S, you win points for the Curly Brace pic.
But you win even more points for hitting the nail on the head about the whole ‘impartial’ thing. Looking at this ‘conflict’ (and I use that word very lightly. Its a lot more like a bunch of screeching kids on one side, and an actual human rights movement on the other, laughing at the other.) impartially doesn’t mean pretending like both sides are equally valid. Any actual impartial observer (as if there is a such thing.) would notice almost immediately what a load of crap the MRA and other Ists tend to try to use as arguments.
dvarghundspossen, You also got it. If half of these people trying to pretend to be impartial actually were doing so, They would probably be on the side of feminism anyway, Since pretty close to zero of what MRA try to push is based on any kind of actual fact,
I suspect impartial’s getting used differently depending on the source. There’s “I’ve looked at both sides and these guys are an abuser lobby” or “but you must consider their arguments when they say you’re less than human, otherwise you’re biased!”
Not hard to guess what sort’s using the second meaning, the one beloved of the faux-devil’s advocate skeeves.
Just ‘cos we haven’t had a dictionary troll for, oh, must be a couple of hours now, here’s the definiition of impartial and a few probablly not helpful synomyms:
impartial
ɪmˈpɑːʃ(ə)l/
adjective
adjective: impartial
1.
treating all rivals or disputants equally.
“the minister cannot be impartial in the way that a judge would be”
synonyms: unbiased, unprejudiced, neutral, non-partisan, non-discriminatory, disinterested, uninvolved, uncommitted, detached, dispassionate, objective, open-minded, equitable, even-handed, fair, fair-minded, just;
without favouritism, free from discrimination, with no axe to grind, without fear or favour;
informalon the fence
“the referee is obliged to be impartial”
(Speaking of axes to grind, take note, that’s how disinterested should be used, not as a synonym for uninterested!)
I suppose I can see where the ‘second’ definition comes from.. namely, the “impartial” (quotation marks important here.) person literally treats both sides as equals at all times, even after one has failed to uphold any kind of real logic or consistency. Of course, thats a *massive* misunderstanding of the definition at best, and outright mind games and manipulation at worst to use it like that. One doesn’t have to be biased towards feminism, or even agree with any particular circle of feminists on any given issue, to see that MRA lack logic, and are just hateful people most of the time.
Nail, head, you haz hit it. It’s like the oh-so-reasonable brand of trolls we get here – shitlords, the lot of ’em.
And I thought that this is the ugliest poster ever:
http://www.utazzitthon.hu/images/program/3-salgotarjani-banyarem-fesztival-salgotarjan-1-l.jpg
(2011 advertisement for a small Hungarian town’s “cultural” festival. Text of course not in English but you can still “enjoy” the artistry.)
@ Malitia
What’s the thing with the pointy ears at the top of the poster? Elf?
OWWWW
My eyes! My eyes!
@cassandrakitty
Well, it was probably meant to be the festival namer and mascot “Bányarém”, which allegedly lived in mines, and scare/eat miners. And is also a Hungarian idiom meaning ugly. ^^; Yeah. Weird.
I thought it was quite cute…but I guess it would be a lot less cute if you thought it might eat you.
That sounds worse than the kobolds!
I’m pretty sure the only reason it was chosen is because the organizers had no better idea (and possibly only knew the idiom)… But no fear, artist’s interpretations (and possibly stock art*) to the rescue! :]
* I doubt they made it, because… well, the poster speaks for itself.
LOL it certainly does. They should have handed out sunglasses with it.