A Voice for Men seems to have gone a bit meme-crazy. The site’s official Pinterest page, which seems to be fairly new, is loaded up with 374 memes on such subjects as Sexual Politics, False Accusations, MGTOW, and of course Feminism.
It’s not clear how many of these memes were created by the AVFM “Meme Team” and how many were simply grabbed from the internet. But a number of the memes are emblazoned with the A Voice for Men name and/or logo, so I think it’s fair to say that these, at least, are “official” AVFM memes.
Going through these memes, one thing about them becomes clear very quickly: most of them seem to convey messages that are often considerably different than those their creators seem to have intended.
So here, without further ado, here are 6 AVFM memes and what they really mean.
1) MEN SOLVE PROBLEMS
What this meme purports to say: These two variations on the same meme might (charitably) be interpreted to mean that we should honor the historical achievements of men.
What this meme really says: Men are superior to women. Suck it up, dumb bitches!
2) TODAY HE WOULD BE CALLED A RAPIST
What this meme purports to say: Feminist ideologues have so corrupted the notion of rape that is has become ridiculous.
What this meme really says: We basically don’t understand what consent is. Why shouldn’t a dude be allowed to just go kiss a woman on the mouth without her permission?
3) THANKS FOR NOTHING, FEMINISM!
What this meme purports to say: Feminism has conned women into giving up the joys of motherhood for the sorrows of wage labor
What this meme really says: We believe in a magical prefeminist fairyland in which all mothers were young, beautiful middle class women whose husbands could afford to support them while they raised children. There was no such thing as the working class, or women working in factory jobs, before feminism. Also, we basically think women shouldn’t have jobs, though we get mad at housewives for “leeching” off their husbands all the time, too.
4) COMMITTED TO FAIRNESS IN FAMILY COURTS
What this meme purports to say: Judges should not automatically assume that mothers will make better parents than fathers.
What this meme really says: We hate women, and love to laugh at them, and think that if any woman anywhere behaves badly it reflects poorly on all women due to the transitive property of women being terrible bitches.
5) BAN BOSSY?
What this meme purports to say: We oppose the #BanBossy campaign, for some reason.
What this meme really says: We hate women with any power in the world. We also hate little girls.
6) FEMINISTS WON’T STOP UNTIL WE MAKE THEM
What these related memes purport to say: These two memes suggest that feminism is a vicious, violent ideology that must be strongly opposed.
What these memes really say: We like to portray ourselves as victims of feminist violence, even if we have to imagine it, because that gives us a justification to indulge in wild fantasies of violent “retribution” that for some reason involve fists being shoved into women’s orifices.
COMING SOON: An arbitrary number of A Voice for Men memes that make no fucking sense.
EDIT: Proofreading fixes.
Feminism took away your baby and replaced her with a power tool? Sure, why not.
I’m just astonished they have a Pinterest page. Isn’t that supposed to be all girly?
Oh also, African American women were tremendously influential blues musicians that people still obsess about today.
But MRAs can’t even manage to design a halfway decent meme, something most 13-year-olds can accomplish.
We seem to chastise asshole atheists. Get over yourself.
BTW, just thought I’d pee in everyone’s religious holiday wheaties. I have no idea why some people might “chastise” atheists, please explain.
Number 3 is just baffling. At least if you hate women the rest of them kind of makes sense (kinda), but the constant refrain of “Feminism means women have to work! And that sucks!” is just so odd.
Feminists killed Curt Cobain (snort) poet guy had the same thing, all that “feminism! It only ever means I won’t get to be a happy mother working full time as I now have to do”. It’s weird.
There’s this underlying assumption that working just sucks, and it sucks for everyone, but if women get to work, at least all the men holding down some sad, miserable job can’t pretend they’re sacrificing themselves heroically for their cozy families and that just makes the entire illusion unsustainable for them, so they get angry.
Only, instead of apparently getting angry at their apparently miserly, miserable jobs, they get angry at the women who are here to take away their illusion of noble sacrifice. It’s one of the most ass-backwards thing i’ve ever experienced, most of all because, well, I like my job. I love it. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t find great and fantastic pleasure in making people laugh for a living.
I understand I’m blessed as all hell, and I get that perhaps not every job in the world is fun for the people involved, but lots of people I talk to also really enjoy what they do. Or they’re working towards getting to positions were they can enjoy what they do. Or they find ways to do things they enjoy, and then use their works as a way of being able to do these things. They don’t get angry that other people now have to do drudgery.
But maybe it’s not that. I’m going to be paranoid now, so if you don’t feel up for following my caffeinated thoughts, skip out while you can, but could it be and I mean this as a question, that to their perspective so long as women are just house-slaves of the traditional ideal housewife idea, then all the slavery and work they have to do is at least invisible? Like, it’s harder to complain about a drudgery, repetitive life where all you do is clean laundry if it’s all everyone does (“Because It’s Your Wifely Duty”), and it’s expected of you.Not that housewives are literal slaves, but the idea that a guy marries a woman and that woman is now responsible for all the household chores is kind of ingrained in their traditionalist, stoic male of the household female subservient thinking. Only, then it’s “Traditional”, so it’s okay.
But if the same woman is now out in a job where what she does is repetitive line-work that brings no fulfillment for a measly pay and under a boss that treats her with casual disregard, holds complete power over her in the daytime and often demands far more than the job really entails, then suddenly it makes her complaints seem reasonable because Any Good Modern Day Capitalist will at least make noises about how worker exploitation is wrong? And it’s just one small step from that to the sudden realization that being a housewife with no other choice and the casual expectancy that you’ll fall into feminine subservience is a shitty deal, and then, OH NO, those feminists have a reasonable ground to stand on about their gender roles and their bickering and we can’t have that SO WOMAN CAN’T WORK, FUCK ‘EM!
Am I wrong? I don’t feel like I’m wrong, but my brain lies.
Thanks, David! This makes MRA’s hate of women so obvious, doesn’t? It’s not just about being conservative and sexist…it’s like a new level of toxic and hateful. And this post really summed it up.
Men are superior and patriarchal gender roles are beneficial. But that pamphlet we made about “The Patriarchy Party” is just satire and in no way actually represents our views!
MRAs are why I’m starting to hate the word “satire.”
What, it doesn’t mean “being an asshole and then trying to weasel out of admitting that’s what you’re doing”?
Number 3: some women actually enjoy working. That woman does not look miserable. And she might also actually have kids! Wow, a working woman with kids, who’d’ve thunk it!
Number 4: I actually don’t know what’s wrong with what the woman in the photo is doing. Do they think she knocked over the pram? Those things can be pretty ricketty, especially on old city sidewalks. And the kid doesn’t seem hurt. Is it her tacky purse? Fake animal prints seem to set these guys off. Maybe it’s their ancient hunting instincts, GRRROWL!
Number 5: NOT ALL MEN… dislike having a woman step on their face while wearing stilettos.
@BlackStar6
I’m a womanist and a non-theist, and I grew up in an Islamic household that hates me for who I am. If it weren’t for the family’s religious conservatism, I would have an easy time coming out to the family as trans and I wouldn’t face any threat of abuse and harassment. But religion is no monolith. Many Muslims are actually committed to social justice issues, despite the dominance of ultraconservative Islamic thought. I even know Muslims who support trans women. Beyond that, some of the nicest, most tolerant people I have met are Christians. In fact, I find that many atheists I know gloat about their rape-related humor and consider anti-feminism/womanism to be edgy.
When we “chastise” atheists here, it’s because they’re being jerks who want to portray all religion as monolithic and, by implication, all religious people as deluded and conservative. No one here has ever made me feel attacked for being a non-theist.
@Fibinachi, this all makes me so confused too! I’m not even sure if I agree with you or not. Even if we buy into the narrative of men working while women were at home eating bonbons and taking care of the kids, shouldn’t it be a good thing that maybe now men don’t all have to work anymore? If they think it’s so great, why don’t they stay home? I don’t actually know anyone who thinks (openly) like this, so I never had a chance to ask… The thing is, with your way of thinking, these men would have to be aware of how bad it was to be a woman in the old days, and I’m not sure if they are. Maybe they really think of them as sheltered? I don’t know, it’s all just so awful either way…
There is a difference between “All theists and religious people are deluded assholes who want the world to return to the Stone Age” and “I hate religion used as a tool of oppression.”
Oh, speaking of that patriarchy party inanity
Remember your link to JtO’s article the other day, Ally?
here
I wrote something on page two –
I think what happened is not moderation, but word press eating my post, so I’ll just mention it again here, because it fascinates me still.
The article itself is odd, but the “About the other” with has this little bit:
C O C K F
The organization is the community of organized compassion and kindness. At first I thought that was a joke, like, an actual joke – something like that in a terrible article already talking about his own penis, that’s just the top of the line foul, rank navel gazing I expect, but it turns out, it’s a real thing.
They have a website. It’s real. The articles are about as you’d expect and the dictionary has this lovely bit too:
and other such goobley-do-dook but it’s just….
in a sincere attempt at sincerely addressing percieved injustice, bias and wrong in courts, society and the world at large, attempting to combat what they earnestly believe is a furthering of the interests of one group before the interest of the other, the name they settled one was… cock.
What the?
Why!?
A thousand times yes.
Oh my god, memes. Goddamn memes. As if they weren’t already set on proving they had the maturity of middle school boys. I’m not even going to go into any of them, David already gave some pretty good points. I would like to say that the last one is creepy as hell, though.
As for the topic of theism vs. atheism, that person has nothing to stand on. There’s lots of shitty people, and they’re shitty regardless of whether they are theists or atheists. A lot of shitty theists use their beliefs to defend their shittines, but they’d still be shitty even if they weren’t theists. I’m agnostic, personally, and I think Atheism can be (and often is) just as extreme as many online atheists like to portray theism as. Idk why can’t people stop arguing about this issue, shitty is shitty regardless of whether or not you believe in a higher power (or higher powerS).
Also I frickin hate that kiss picture. It boils my blood. I’ve hated it since before I even knew the backstory. It’s obvious he has her in a headlock, and if the person kissing you has you in a headlock, the kiss probably isn’t consensual. I’ve never had to headlock the person I was kissing, nor has anyone ever put me in a kissing headlock.
Fibinachi, yeah, I meant to post something before, but your original comment wasn’t in moderation or the spam folder; it got eaten.
A photo of the inhospitable environment of the moon doesn’t scream civilization to me.
@Fibinachi
Notice also that the header is literally “COCK, is it in you?”
…
oh my god David knows my name all my rhyming is GOOD FOR SOMETHING
/swoon :3
Thanks though – I appreciate the heads up.
Most of MRA ideology is based on projection. They consider feminism a violent movement because violence is on their minds, they think that feminists hate men because hate is on their minds, they claim that women never invented anything because they’re bitter about their own failures in life.
The fist up the pelvis one is highly disturbing.
misery, a hundred times YES! It’s infuriating when they accuse us of projection.
“In a feminist’s ideal world, men would face consequences for grabbing women, restraining and sexually assaulting them!” Yes, that’s correct.
I hadn’t noticed that was a pelvis before katz mentioned it. Yikes!
Kind of off-topic but I thought this was funny. This is a comment from a random news site:
I loved that he admitted to being a misogynist. Maybe he doesn’t know what the word means?
I think he knows exactly what “misogynist” means and has embraced it.
I’ve spent enough time at FreeThought Blogs to know that atheism is not a prophylactic against misogyny, or general badmindedness. Similarly, theism is not necessarily prodromal to misogyny. One of the most wonderful feminist lesbians I know personally is a Christian minister. It’s almost as if people make entirely personal decisions about whether or not to be horrible.