So the founder of the Men’s Rights subreddit, a fellow who now goes by the name of notnotnotfred, has done his fellow Men’s Rightsers a little favor and collected together a handy assortment of “antifeminist graphics” to assist them in their antifeministing activities on the internets. I thought I would share some of them with you all, just so you know what you’re up against.
Oh, who am I kidding? We here at Man Boobz love love love MRA graphics. There are few things in this world so hilariously awful. Take a look at these hot messes.
First, a fellow who proudly announces his plans to beat women:
It took me a little while to realize that he probably wasn’t suggesting that he was going to physically assault women, just that he considered himself superior to them, and could beat them in competition.
Then there’s this poorly thought out little poster:
Problem is, even if we accept the rather strained rape-is-like-getting-hit-by-a-car metaphor, this graphic doesn’t even make sense on its own terms. Because we DO tell cars — or at least their drivers — not to hit kids.
Before you’re allowed to drive a car, as you may recall, you have to take Driver’s Ed and pass a driving test; the importance of not hitting people with your car is rather central to both. Also, in the very picture used for the graphic, THERE’S A GUY HOLDING A SIGN TELLING CARS TO STOP SO THEY WON’T HIT THE KIDS. That’s actually HIS ENTIRE JOB.
A lot of the MRA graphics aren’t so much “graphics” as they are “bunches of words arranged in conventional paragraphs with no graphical elements at all.” Like this rant, which is highly unlikely to convince anyone of anything other than that MRAs are a bunch of angry dudes who like to yell a lot and if they can’t yell at you in person they’ll do it in .png form.
Other “graphics” in notnotnotfred’s collection are nothing more than blurry screenshots of Facebook conversations in which Mr. Fred apparently thinks the man in the conversation “won.”
No, not the “logic!” How can we ever win against “logic” like that?
It’s a sad state of affairs for the MRAs when the parodies of MRA graphics are almost always better designed than the originals. Here’s one from our own Cloudiah:
Also, thanks to Cloudiah for pointing out notnotnotfred’s little collection in the first place.
I am going outside right now to talk to my car about not hitting kids.
Ah yes, the old “If you women want equality, then does that mean I can hit women?” thing. If you go around hitting people, yes even other men, it’s you who has a problem. Also, do you see the implied threat in there? Plus, the guy may be failing to realize that men already hit women.
The Abuser’s Lobby is in full effect right up there! Equality means beating people up! It also means raping people!
Good Lord MRAs suck.
Whenever these guys break into weird fantasies like this, I think of this scene
http://youtu.be/158odrczKbI?t=5m28s
Hmm, youtube fail. I meant to link directly to the scene starting at 5:28.
I always like when they bring up circumcision.
For the record (as everyone here knows) it’s largely women who started this fight, it’s largely a part of feminism, and in almost every single discussion of female genital mutilation, there is at least one line in there about men and their penises. Just saying.
What a fail on the kids being hit by cars analogy. There is a rape culture in which victims are systematically blamed for their rape or accused of lying. Our culture does not systematically blame kids for being hit by cars. Nobody says a kid was asking for it for being too small to see or walking slowly.
Is it just me, or does the guy with the beating women sign look like he’s already doing some beating? Beating off that is!
Good Lord! Where, oh where, do I begin? Did any of these worthy fellows ever read the Equal Rights Amendment that NEVER PASSED?
Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.
The above pretty much sums up what feminists, and most folk who think and feel, want. Nowhere is there mention of special rights nor is there any implication that anything would be taken from men. In fact, the ERA addresses the equality of all people, men included.
I really wish I understood what, exactly, their problem is. Sadly, neither my head nor my heart can wrap themselves around this much vitriol. I am 63 years old and feel, in some ways, that so much of what we fought for is still up for grabs.
Makes me sad, it does, and more than a little angry. Must mean that I am still alive….
This reply is to Tanya Nguyen:
You are absolutely right about circumcision. And, just to add to the mix, the environmental movement got its start in the early feminist movement. Also, many of us who protested the war in Vietnam came out of the feminist movement. We did not want our fathers, brothers, friends and lovers to go to a foreign land just to kill and die for some rich guy’s profit.
Oh, and here is another tidbit that gets conveniently overlooked – women have been trying for years to get equality in the military. I am anti war, but if men are expected to fight and die for their country, it is only fair that those women who are called to that path should be able to fight alongside of them.
The draft thing is BS anyway. No man has been drafted since the Vietnam war and I can guarantee you that the vast majority of reddit MRAs are much too you to be a Vietnam vet. It’s also probably a bunch of privileged weenies that never had to sign up for the military to have a shot of getting out of a dying industrial town or paying for college.
Much too young, not much too you. Comment fail 🙁
How rapists are not like cars/drivers:
Yep, even as a child, when a car was approaching, I could tell it was a car and could therefore run me down, as opposed to, for example, a stationary tree. Strangely, can’t tell whether a man approaching me is a rapist or not.
And, again strangely in non-MRA world, when someone unexpectedly crosses the street in front of you, you don’t accidentally rape them while trying not to.
Their graphics are always so hilarrible. (Yes, that’s a word.)
Also, more evidence that feminists are just in it for the man-hating. It’s just that sometimes we forget, and accidentally start organizations that focus on reducing male suicide.
And on that car/rapist analogy, if a driver hits a pedestrian who is doing something stupid, in most cases the driver will still be considered at fault.
And in any case, to really be analogous, the situation would be more like this: a pedestrian is waiting at a crosswalk, and a driver stops to let her cross. She knows the driver, and trusts him not to hurt her. He waits until she’s vulnerable in the middle of the road, and then intentionally rams his car into her. Everyone blames her.
Projecting much?
You>Notnotnotfred wants equality like the fuckingAristocracyMRAs wants everyone to have the right to vote as long as they’relandedstraight, white and cis-male.FTFY
MRAs are so bad at activism that they can’t even accidentally help men.
We teach kids to look both ways on the street because a) cars have a particular stopping distance imposed by physics and b) they can’t guarantee that a driver will spot them if they suddenly just run out into the road. So it’s hardly a victim blaming exercise as it is with dealing with the practicalities of the situation. And there’s also c) there are prats who drive too fast, ignore the traffic laws and might be drunk, so be careful anyway and treat every other driver like an idiot.
How that equates with victim blaming I don’t know.
Not true. Giving (white, straight, cis, able-bodied) men a space to whine and pretend that their personal problems are the result of institutionalized oppression is the most important activism of all.
Is it too early in the thread to toss out some brain bleach, in the form of a bulldog puppy rolling down a hill for fun?
Here is some more brain bleach, brought to you by the kitty who is expecting me to get another cat food dish: http://i.imgur.com/IDs7z1A.jpg
For a group that deludes themselves into thinking that they are so biologically logical, you’d think they would do a better job on coming up with talking points. The overwhelming majority of things they whine about aren’t anything women control. And if they really cared about those things there would be more action from them in all areas, not just a half-baked list on how to get laid.
There was just an incident here in Austin where a dude drunk driving a stolen car plowed into a bunch of people at SXSW. He’s looking at capital murder since two people died. I’m sure misandry will play into this somehow.
And the car analogy would mean that there are designated public areas (like roads) where people continuously fuck the air and it’s hard for them to swerve or stop so you shouldn’t suddenly jump in front of them and also there’s a chance of malfunction so you have to be aware of your surroundings because a car’s breaks might mess up and then it suddenly comes rolling into your yard (the person falls into your vagina or onto your penis), or the driver might get distracted and swerve and hit you when you’re walking next to the road (they were masturbating but then… they… um… hit a bump in the road?).
The anti-feminist graphics collector’s obsession with “I need feminism because…” is both unsurprising and very telling. If you think those internet post represents oppression gone wild and are somehow still morally outraged by it, you really don’t have a good grasp of what oppression is.
Bonus points for using photoshop to turn “I need feminism not because I am anti-male, but because I am pro-female.” into “I need racism not because I am anti-black, because because I am pro-white.” This sort of sterling logic is why debating with MRAs on reddit is as useful and pleasant as bashing your head against a wall.
According to the Department of Justice, a woman is beaten every 15 seconds in the US. And to use one example, Chris Brown, despite his case being highly publicized and well-known, received virtually no comeuppance for beating Rihanna. So yes, men already ARE beating women. You don’t greater gender equality for that. Just the status quo.