Here we go again. Like small children who have just discovered the power of the tantrum, the terrible people at A Voice for Men seem to have realized that the only reliable way for them to get the attention of the world is to act like complete assholes in public. And so some fans of AVFM have decided to bring back the “Don’t Be That Girl” campaign — you know, the witless and misogynistic “parody” of the successful Canadian “Don’t Be That Guy” rape awareness campaign. Now they’re postering in Halifax.
But there’s one difference: this time they’ve put the logos of the real sponsors of the real “Don’t Be That Guy” rape awareness project on their phony posters. (You can see the whole list by downloading one of the pdfs of the real posters on this page.)
So far, two of the organizations listed on their phony posters – the Bryony House shelter for victims of domestic violence and the Halifax Police Department – have made very clear that their logos are being used without permission.
https://twitter.com/BryonyHouse/status/448148862193389568
@Allisomething Tk u for reporting. We're not a sponsor of this campaign and find it deeply troubling. We'll be looking into this further HT
— Halifax_Police (@HfxRegPolice) March 24, 2014
It’s a pretty safe bet that the other organizations whose logos were appropriated feel similarly.
I’d like to encourage anyone who can afford it to follow up on a suggestion from Cloudiah in the comments and donate to Bryony House so that some good can come out of all this.
Now, I’m no expert on Canadian law, but it seems rather unlikely to me that it’s legal to simply stick some organization’s logo on something and pretend that they have endorsed it. Especially when that organization is the police.
Apparently some MRAs disagree with me on that:
https://twitter.com/AVoiceForMen/status/448225043026149376
“Your consent is not required” seems to be the operating assumption of a lot of those drawn to the Men’s Rights movement.
In later tweets, Elam claims that using the logos is legal because of “fair use,” which is not actually a term used in Canadian law, and promises that the “[p]osters will continue, cupcake.”
I guess we will see. Here are several more photos of the posters. There’s more discussion of this in the AgainstMensRights subreddit.
Lots of real comedians around town apparently… pic.twitter.com/P92KmW3I41
— Handsome Adam Barrett (@im_adam_barrett) March 24, 2014
and one more before I vomit everywhere pic.twitter.com/jEJTXSSHXG
— Handsome Adam Barrett (@im_adam_barrett) March 24, 2014
EDITED TO ADD: Elam has now responded to the critics, and promises to bankroll any legal challenges against the posterers. It’s pretty clear that he doesn’t understand why the logos are a problem.
EDIT/CORRECTION: It’s not completely clear that this postering campaign originated with AVFM. It’s pretty clear, though, that it’s supported by AVFM, and that those involved in it are supporters of AVFM. I’ve made a few changes to the headline and first graf to reflect this.
I think because MRA dogma is kind of a complicated absurdity it’s really difficult for them to create effective parody that can be recognized as such. Because if you put a poster like that on a local tree, most unsuspecting people will walk by and become confused reading the message on the poster. They will only walk away thinking that whatever organization endorsed that message is suspicious, so in that case it’s clearly libel.
So let me get this straight – Paul Elam and Dean Esmay have explicitly granted us (and indeed everyone) permission to appropriate the AVFM logo and URL and stick it on literally anything we like, in the name of “fair use”?
It would seem that such permission has not only been granted in writing, but reinforced by repetition across more than one platform.
“Prosecutor: “Did you contact the Halifax PD to obtain consent for using their licensed trademark in connection to your campaign?”
Elam: “Your consent is not required! You won’t get away with lying anymore!”
Prosecutor: “According to criminal statutes governing the the use of…”
Elam: “You can’t stop us, cupcake!”
Prosecutor: “Please direct your attention to exhibit A, which is a poster entitled…”
Elam: “I know the word ‘satire’! Also ‘parody’ and ‘fair use’, so you aren’t the boss of me!”
Judge: “Mr Elam, this court would appreciate if you could stop interrupting…”
Elam: “We will no longer tolerate your anti-boner bigotry!”
Judge: “The defendant is remanded in custody. Bailiff?”
Elam: “MISANDRYYYYyyyyy…..”
Hmmm, do i make a reference to Pheonix Wright or Zap Dramatic’s Ambition? This is hard…
She thinks that you can Twitter gotcha the police out of prosecuting you? Damn, I’m a big fan of the internet, so I never thought I’d say this, but JB has officially been spending too much time on the internet. Next up – cops pull someone over for speeding, person types furiously away on their phone and then shows the Facebook page about varying speeding laws to the cop with a triumphant grin. Cop gives them a ticket anyway.
@CassandraSays I just love the way she seems to think that a law enforcement body would have such a passing acquaintance with the law in their own country (and such a poor command of Google) that they needed someone to shove a Wikipedia page at them.
That said, I doubt the Halifax Police Department consulted Wikipedia at all when this came to light. I think they probably consulted an actual lawyer.
@tinyorc
I wonder if that’s Elam’s plan for the business license issue too. “Fuck you, you can’t tell me what to do!”. Except, um, actually they can, if they’re government or law enforcement. That whole “your consent is not required” thing? The police are an example of a group for whom that’s actually true. If you object to being arrested, well, too bad.
(I’m kind of sad that it probably won’t turn into something the IRS have to get involved in, just because seeing someone try to Cartman their way out of an audit would be hilarious.)
It’s a shame that it would be unprofessional of whoever runs the Twitter account for the Halifax cops to respond to JB’s dumbassery, because “I No Cur” would be the perfect comeback to her attempt at triumph via Wiki links.
OK, so I know this is too much logic to expect from MRA propaganda, but geez louise. The original posters, paraphrased, say, “Doing [XYZ] is actually a criminal act. Don’t be a guy who does XYZ.” They’re not claiming that men are all slavering rapists; they explain that so-called “grey rape” and “date rape” (yuck and yuck again) are real rape. The posters are counting on the fact that most men don’t want to be rapists.
These posters, on the other hand, say “MOST PEOPLE WHO DO [ABC] ARE WOMEN, SO ZING”. Even if the claims were completely, objectively true, it’s not a direct parody of the original. Child abuse and abandonment are roundly condemned by society already. Prostitution is recognized as a crime in any state where it’s not legal. In contrast, forcing yourself on a person too drunk to say no is often dismissed as an unfortunate misunderstanding, rather than a crime.
A direct parody would have to involve an offense which is considered by most people to be grey area, even though it isn’t. Oddly enough, I can’t come up with a single example that’s female-specific. It’s like women don’t usually get their bad behavior condoned or ignored. It’s almost as if we’re in a patriarchy or something.
Glad you delurked, please do it moar! That’s an excellent point. I never saw those posters because I don’t live there. Maybe the MRAs didn’t either…or maybe they did, and just chose to willfully ignore that one, the way they do so many other things. Like, say, other people’s consent. Or trademark infringement. I see half a dozen logos on those posters, meaning at least that many parties could sue Elam or his cowardly little acolyte if the latter is caught.
The gross part is that the two are obviously one and the same to him. And that his not-so-secret fantasy is to smear his grody beard with them/it, always and forever.
MRA’s keep insisting that the “don’t be that guy” posters imply that most rapists are men. However their “parody” posters always have fine print explaining that “most XYZ are WOMEN”; which is fine print I haven’t yet noticed on the original posters. If the original posters are so clear in their attack of masculinity, then why do the parody posters have to add fine print to explain themselves?
Maybe the problem is expecting Elam&Co’s arguments to make logical sense when they’re clearly just irrational straw men used to distract from the original message. As mentioned by others here, a poster that stated that child abuse is wrong and lacked the offensive fine print would simply go in the “no DUH” category, no-one would get offended, and Elam&co wouldn’t gather the public blacklash needed to prove “MISANDRONY1” to all their followers and keep the revenue flowing in. As long as they can evolve outrage over false statistics and misogyny into “see, the feminists are outraged, which means the original posters were just as sexist and they don’t want women to be held accountable!” then all the backlash in the world is just MISANDRONY.
In a way I wish I lived in Halifax so that I could repost the original posters with the logos and trolling fine print taken out and replaced by “because everyone on the planet agrees that child abuse is bad”. It would take the wind right out of Elam’s sails when no-body was offended.
I agree that women are not more moral or “better” than men, and also that women are just as “inherently/biologically” violent as men, HOWEVER in this culture it’s pretty clear that men are generally more violent than women are. To say otherwise is to discredit the harm that toxic masculinity does to men in this culture.
But maybe I’m just misunderstanding you; I was a little confused by your wording here. Sorry.
Another poster from an AMRista:
http://www.reddit.com/r/againstmensrights/comments/21djhh/in_light_of_the_new_dont_be_that_girl_posters/cgc5jlj
There are more on the original AMR thread, but I didn’t want this splendid one to get lost.
I think that last number should be 62%.
And the other AMR posters using AVfM logos with Paul’s permission can be found on this thread:
http://www.reddit.com/r/againstmensrights/comments/21dguz/i_suppose_two_can_play_at_that_game_paul/
Ah, ninja’d by Kootiepatra.
Well said! 😀
Thank you for that mental image of Evil Colonel Sanders with a beard full of…you know what, I’d really rather not picture this.
“And that his not-so-secret fantasy is to smear his grody beard with them/it, always and forever.”
First mayonnaise, and now cupcakes! Nooooooo! *shakes fist*
I may never eat again.
Me neither…but I’m sure he does. Constantly. Why else is his prose so masturbatory?
Because he’s just effective enough as a con man to realize that the more lurid he is the more money suckers will give him?
Erase that terrible image from your mind, and remind yourself that the Halifax police are just engaging in white knitting.
I thought white knitting was when your granny made you an arran jumper.
White knitting, LOL.
White knitting? I prefer apple green!
There is one thing here that AVfM is doing and feminists are not: actually trying to be misogynistic. Stigmatizing sex workers (no, not “prostitutes”) only hurts them and reinforces misogyny, whereas brining attention to the systematic problem of male-on-female rape creates awareness in order to stigmatize the largest population of rapists. As usual, MRAs miss the point entirely and only contribute to their undoing.
And yes, I would be totally fine with posters aimed at women that aren’t misogynistic as well. So while the infanticide poster is gross because it reeks of a dead baby joke, it’s not actually misogynistic.