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.
Pet peeve: It’s “Freethought Blogs”, like in “freethought“.
And I’ll try hard to keep away from the religion/atheism thing.
I don’t know why I wasted four years and tens of thousands of dollars getting a degree in religious studies, when apparently I could have become an expert on all religions everywhere just by reading The God Delusion. Sometimes I think “this must be what it’s like for someone with a biology background trying to talk to creationists”.
The memes…well, at least they’re getting the hang of getting to the damn point. Often even their “short” arguments are several sentences long. But they’re still having trouble with the idea that not everyone is familiar with their worldview,or that the majority of men don’t see women working as a problem, let alone a form of male oppression. And they’re still resorting to threats of sexualized violence (I eventually realized the fist in the last one is supposed to be shoved up the butt, but that’s not significantly better).
Oh, MRAs. Their ineptitude would be adorable if their ideology weren’t so appalling.
I’m an atheist, a fairly passionate one for many years, and I’ve never picked up any anti-atheist vibes from manboobz. That said, atheism (particularly online) has a problem with prominent misogyny. The Amazing Atheist, which is a depressingly popular YouTube channel, is 50 percent anti-feminist BS. The people sending threats to Rebecca Watson ain’t doing it in the name of Jesus. There’s a reason the fedora-based MRA stereotype overlaps with the fedora-based atheist stereotype. Hell, Paul Elam self-identifies as an atheist.
So even if atheists did get a bad rap in anti-misogyny camps, well, we really need to just get over it until our house is in order, because it’s hardly undeserved.
I’ve never had anyone here personally attack me for being atheist because I haven’t picked on anyone for their beliefs. It does seem trendy these days on the left to atheist bash though. Even atheists are doing it. I don’t think it’s necessary to defend progressive minded theists by saying things like “so many of the nicest people are religious and so many atheists are assholes!” It happens a lot.
It reminds me of when people comfort small breasted women who are picked on for it by saying “at least your boobs won’t get all saggy and gross!” It might not be meant as an attack on large breasted women, but effectively, it is.
It’s always best to avoid tearing down one group while defending another. Especially since in conservative religious communities atheists are a very marginalized group. For some people, the internet might be the only place they can be an out atheist and progressive sites should be a safe place for that IMO.
Seconding this.
Maybe there should be a specific term for asshole misogynist atheists. If you say fundamentalists or the religious right, everyone knows you’re speaking of a particular type of religious person. It’s clear it’s not a blanket statement covering all theists.
When someone says asshole atheist or internet atheist, it just sounds like they’re talking about all atheists, even if they aren’t.
Maybe something like reactionary atheist would work?
I’m an atheist, and I don’t recall anyone here ever chastizing me for that. The only thing I ever have been chastized for is being needlessly verbose and meandering on, which is valid and true.
So I’m with hellkell. We chastize assholes – pretending we’re some kind of bastion of anti-atheism is just… weird. Let’s not go there.
Hey, Ally, may I use your line?
It expresses very well what I was thinking the other day and I just couldn’t formulate it.
Would “assholists” do? That’s the term I use…
So if women don’t work, they’re sponging off of men, and if they do work, they’re giving up their “natural” role as mothers, at which they apparently suck. Message received loud and clear.
That last slogan reallllly didn’t need to be illustrated. Yeesh.
I checked out the board, and it’s a cesspit. (Surprise, surprise.). Most of their pins violate the Pinterest TOS, which forbids hate speech, bullying, harassment, and graphic or violent images. Pinterest is supposed to be a safe space. It’s likely many of their users are victims of rape or domestic abuse, who would be triggered if one of these pins showed up on their front page. That’s probably why they created the board – why else would they post on a site used heavily by women?
What a bunch of creepy assholes. Hopefully they’ll get reported often enough that Pinterest will outright ban them.
And if/when they do get banned, they’ll rage about freeze peaches and indulge in martyrbation instead of reflecting that perhaps their message isn’t palatable to mainstream society.
Haha, that pretty much sums up the memes nicely.
Oh ghaaaaah. >smacks forehead<
I feel like going in there and repinning all those under a new header: Ugly-Ass Toxic Masculist Woman-Hating Crapaganda. Enter At Your Own Risk!
Think they'd get the message?
My thought Exactly Buttercup Q. Skullpants. They went to Pintrest because that’s where they can find plenty of women to bother.
OMG, just get a load of the Gothic script on their blood-smeary logo, too. Are we mascu-Nazis, or just some dipshit kid writing ugly graffiti in the back alleys? Both!
@WWTH
Mainstream atheism has become what many see as a gateway to rational thought and freedom. It is a platform on which bigots of all varieties get to have their views granted a kind of legitimacy stemming from the notion that anything that isn’t religious is automatically rational and morally superior.
Pointing out the nice religious people and the bigoted atheists doesn’t help stop the self-righteous, arrogant attacks from mainstream atheists. I agree. But it at least helps to dispel the notion that mainstream atheism itself is some kind of morally and philosophically superior ideology.
BTW, “reactionary atheism” is an awesome term.
@pineapplecookies
Go ahead!
BlackStar6 posts wildly off-topic article about how atheists are not a monolith. Treats religion as a sexist monolith. Fail! Bonus fail for complaining about “chastisement” that has not occurred.
I’m just now noticing that last one is an x-ray of a pelvis. That is…that is some very violent imagery right there. Some very disturbing, violent imagery. Yay human rights movement!
Not morally superior, just grounded in “rationality” and “logic” which is obviously better than – “emotional reasoning” and “Silly superstitions”, and then it functions as a defensive magic trick, where, because the person making the argument is supposedly so rational and logical and clever, the argument being made must be rational, logical and clever. So someone (say, AA), gets to slide in horrible fucking shit because, hey, he’s normally against all that “silly religious stuff”.
What’s that Howard Bannister quote I like?
Dunning-Kruger poster boy.
Yeah, that’s it.
“Women have no souls” is now “Women have a dearth of the enzyome responsible for humanity longevity”. Progress.
Found a picture under their MGTOW board, somewhat at random: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/446208275553281992/
It shows a bunch of examples of how young men are “fucked” in the dating world, where similarly-afflicted women get along fine, I guess.
The first issue for young men that is not an issue for young women is shyness, because if a woman is shy, “he” will ask her out, so no problem! Of course it doesn’t say who the fuck “he” is; just, like, some random dude I guess? Are men all interchangeable, so it doesn’t actually matter which guy it is?
Second issue is money. He may be fucked if he’s got no money, but she’s fine, because he will buy dinner. Oh boy! That will be great for that single free meal. Poverty solved.
All of the other ones amount to “these personality traits/interests/life goals might be unattractive in a man, but if you’re a woman he won’t give a damn about who you are as a person. He will even lie to you by pretending to care about the things you care about, if it might allow him to have sex with you.” Lucky ladies!
I… Don’t see an issue with the woman who’s out with her child, overburdened with stuff, and the stroller tipped. I mean I guess there’s some meta context, but shit happens.
The #banbossy one makes no sense either. It’s a girl with a frown. The poster seems to say she’s angry about being not allowed to lead, and conveys the exact opposite message.
Seriously do these people understand anything about visual rhetoric?
@Fibinachi
Their fixation on “rationality” and “logic” certainly plays a role in their attempts to justify their bigotry, but I do think that there is still an element of self-righteousness. Think about the atheists out there who say that religion is the Ultimate Evil or that the world would be necessarily more peaceful without religion. Their conception of religion as evil incarnate allows them to say things like “I’m not sexist! If you want to know what real sexism is, look at Islam.”
They’re the ones who police tone.
Viscaria: I love it. I don’t know where to start!
No friends: Because the only reason not having friends might be a problem is if your SO doesn’t like it. And because she totally wants to hang out with this guy’s dudebro friends. And this doesn’t sound at all like the guy is planning on isolating the girl from her friends…
Expected to be boring is somehow a Good Thing.
Obscure interests: Because no woman has ever pretended to be interested in a guy’s interests. And because nobody could ever, you know, actually get interested in someone else’s interests.
And appearance is conspicuously absent from this spreadsheet…
Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match, find me a find, catch me a catch who finds me boring and has no interest in any aspect of my life, but who will pay for my salad with chèvre and cranberries.