Sometimes I wonder if we’re being unfair to Men’s Rights Activists by allowing them to handle their own publicity. I mean, it’s pretty clear that they’re terrible at it. Worse than terrible, really. Terribler. Possibly the terriblest.
I mean, just this week we saw the official social media director of A Voice for Men’s conference in Detroit announcing the conference’s new venue with this:
https://twitter.com/JudgyBitch1/statuses/476822883881459712
Bloomfield now claims this was her attempt to “troll” people like you and me by tweeting what I guess she’s now saying is a thoroughly awful fake quote which for some reason she has decided to attribute to a real person. This makes so little sense by normal human standards that I find this explanation a little hard to believe — but I guess I’m just getting trolled by my own skepticism? Oh, Judgy Bitch, you got me!
https://twitter.com/JudgyBitch1/statuses/476822883881459712
Whoops! I guess I got trolled a third time!
And … oh, for a second there I thought I was going to be trolled again, but I stood firm. For now.
Anyway, all this is just a long intro for some Actual Authentic I Didn’t Make These Up Honest to Goodness Men’s Rights Memes that I discovered on the blog of someone named Francis Roy, an MRA, an AVFM fan, and a bit of a meme enthusiast. The somewhat baffling meme at the top of this post? One of his best.
Which is to say, his memes basically suck, even by meme standards.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, these are all overvalued by at least 997 words. You can find them all in the meme section of his blog, though, be warned, he also posts a lot of graphic and disturbing pictures of dead soldiers and circumcised babies and other horrible things. (Note to MRAs: a lot of feminists, like me, are also troubled by and/or opposed to circumcision. Instead of derailing every discussion of female genital mutilation and alienating potential allies, you might try taking your message to the public at large?)
Anyway, let’s get to the memes. Note: A couple are mildly NSFW.
Here we learn that divorced mothers who have custody of the children are really just keeping them in order to enjoy all that sweet-ass child support cash!
Note: custodial parents who’ve been awarded child support actually receive, on average, about $300 per month. You can almost buy an XboxOne for that! Or, you know, you can try to feed and clothe and care for a child. And pay for child care, and babysitters, and doctor’s visits, and toys, and, you know, shelter. Huh. $300 actually doesn’t sound like that much.
Frankly as a money-making proposition, “stealing me for daddy’s money” seems like kind of a bust.
But let’s just move on to this fine meme, which as far as I can figure it is some sort of attack on underwear models:
Really? Hath not an underwear model eyes? Hath not an underwear model hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? If you prick an underwear model, do they not bleed? Does blood not run down their smooth, tight abs?
Pretty sure it does. Seriously. Underwear models need to eat, too! Well, maybe not as much as I do, but come on! Stop the hate!
Oh, did I mention that Mr. Roy apparently considers himself a Man Going His Own Way?
Yeah, let’s just move on.
Lol wut
Oh, come on!
I’m not even a Christian, but, seriously?
I’m going to post two quotes here. One will be from Jesus. The other from a rather well-known Man Going His Own Way. See if you can tell the difference.
Here’s the first quote. See if you can tell if this is Jesus, or MGTOW elder Christopher in Oregon.
Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
Here’s the other quote:
I’m going to be blunt. Have you ever smelled a vagina? Seriously. I mean in it’s natural, unwashed state? Really stuck your nose right down there and taken a deep breath?
Once.
My G-d. The stench could have knocked a buzzard off a shit wagon at fifty paces. To this day I swear there was a cloud of flies buzzing around that portal of doom. Sometimes when riding my Harley-Beasties around the rural roads here in Oregon, I encounter dead skunks. Road kill. We have a lot of them here, and when they’ve been baking in the summer sun, you can smell them a long way off even at sixty miles per hour.
Vaginas tend to be even nastier.
SPOILER ALERT: The first quote was the one from Jesus.
Let’s see what else Mr. Roy has got.
Wait, is that one of Mr. Roy’s memes, or did I just accidentally post a pic from my extensive collection of FemDom porn?
By which I mean, yes that was one of his memes and forget what I said about that other stuff.
Ok, one more.
Yaaagh!
Sorry, I didn’t mean to spring that on you. Hopefully you weren’t eating.
But in the unlikely event that you would like to print out your own high-quality color poster of a glowering Paul Elam to hang over your bed, or wherever you hang such pictures, I’ve got some good news for you! Mr. Roy has helpfully provided a downloadable pdf version!
All of the above graphics are by Francis Roy and under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
@ wwth
Yep to that point too. One of my besties had severe bulimia in high school. Her weight never dipped below average, and sometimes was above average. Doesn’t mean she wasn’t bulimic, but have fun trying to explain that to the average person.
My weight never got down into the zone where people realized just by looking at me that something was wrong even when I was eating (ALL THE TRIGGER WARNINGS) less than 800 calories a day. Meanwhile, a good friend was pestered about being “anorexic” all the time even though she ate like a horse. Turns out she’s just naturally really thin, just like the rest of her family. Funny how that works.
As a medical person and a fatty and someone whose quality of life was worse when they were fatter and a kind human being, I’ve got an investment in just about every area of the fat issue.
Yes, there are an unfortunate lot of people promoting lies about obesity in order to portray obesity as neutral or positive, healthwise. This is not OK. There are also lots of people promoting the notion being overweight is way worse in all circumstances than it usually is, healthwise. That’s not OK either. It just excuses abusing fatties.
I’m as valuable a person as anyone else, regardless of my weight. It doesn’t impede the extent to which I contribute to society. Yes, because I’m fat I’m more likely to “burden the system” via healthcare costs. I’ll probably die younger than fitter individuals. Those are not nice things. I am nice though and I contribute enormously so the notion I’m a “taker” because I’m fat isn’t reasonable. The thing is my vice, the thing I do that’s likely to inconvenience others, is visible so I get harangued for it. Just because someone’s habit isn’t visible doesn’t mean they aren’t contributing to a burden on society.
Historically, my obesity did impede my ability to contribute to the world. I would qualify myself as having contributed less to the world than I was taking at that point in time. Does that mean ALL fatties take more than they give? No.
Perhaps most importantly, was being treated like shit or like a victim for being as obese as I was at all conducive to weight loss and improved fitness? Fuck no. Because my weight was interfering with my life and I wanted to do something about it, I needed a reality check, for sure. I wasn’t delusional but my knowledge of caloric density and needs was naught. Shaming myself and being reminded of how worthless I was in the eyes of the world and my parents or being coddled because this was OBVIOUSLY the result of terrible abuse and I had no control over it had the opposite effect though. It discouraged me. I needed honesty but I needed to be treated like a person with a mind.
Fat people know they’re fat. We don’t need to inform them. Treating them like they’re stupid or worthless or victims does not benefit them or the world. Making accurate information and resources available and leaving them the fuck alone is far more likely to.
This pretty much sums it up, really. Unless you think that fat people have somehow failed to notice that they’re fat, there’s really no need to point their fatness out to them. You can safely assume that they have probably noticed themselves already.
@cassandrakitty I’m aware that other people have issues with abuse and with their weight, but what I don’t get it what good could possibly come of mocking me or being rude because of what was said. My first comment wasn’t meant to be rude or dismissive, but with everyone focusing on that first line, it seems like that everyone felt that it was. I tried to clear up confusion so that maybe I would stop receiving notifications of just how badly I misspoke. But no matter what I say, it just seems to get worse. And I don’t know what to say or do to make it stop. It’s just making things really, really hard for me right now because I don’t know how to make it better and make this whole mockery/ganging up thing stop. And I know that by saying that that I’m opening myself up to even more criticism, but it’s the truth because it’s bringing up a lot of really bad stuff for me.
To me, it really goes to the heart of the issue. Every time my dad tells me I’m fat, all it tells me is a) he thinks I’m stupid and b) it’s something I should be ashamed of. Not helpful. It’s discouraging.
Snarky is kind of the default on this site, honestly. I do think that at this point in this particular conversation we could probably agree to stop snarking on Janet specifically, though, since it seems as if she was just communicating poorly rather than being a jerk. That would also mean Janet acknowledging that some of her comments weren’t very well worded and that people have every right to react negatively to comments that they feel like are piling more crap on the crap they’re already dealing with.
Everyone is of course free to ignore this comment – I’m not the boss of you and so on.
Janet, don’t run away forever! Run away from this issue, yes, but forever, no.
I get your point about how mentioning someone’s weight can do them more damage than expected, due to past traumas. However, I did feel really squeamish about your wording, because it did give off the vibe that if someone doesn’t have a ‘legitimate’ (my word, not yours) reason to be fat, like abuse, thyroid, whatever problems, then their fat isn’t justified.
In other words, it seemed like you were well meaning, but fell into the ‘being fat is bad, because they’re either lazy or abused’ vibe.
I know that isn’t what you meant, and you were probably just cautioning because you’ve seen that specific example of harm.
What the folks here are on about is trying to get rid of the ‘thinking you have any right to assume someone else’s body is bad, ergo they must be bad/have trauma/be ill’ thought train that the culture seem obsessed with.
@ marinerachel
Parents in particular should really STFU about their children’s weight, imo. It’s just way too personal and hurtful when appearance-related criticism is directed from a parent towards a child.
I am sorry. I didn’t mean to upset anyone at all.
This issue is so sensitive that it seems to be close to impossible to talk about it without someone being hurt, honestly. Which sucks for everyone involved.
(And which is another reason why bringing up someone’s weight in an attempt to “help” them is really not such a great idea, no matter how good your intentions might be.)
I get that, Janet. It’s rarely ill-intentioned, the fat=poor, unfortunate soul trope. It’s actually usually well-meaning. People just don’t realise how wrong it is and what the implications of it are. That’s OK. Stepping on toes is part of learning.
I still do it alllllllll the time. I used to think I was helping rape victims by asking them “Do you know what things you could have done to reduce your risk of this happening to you (NOT THAT IT’S YOUR FAULT AT ALL SO YOU CAN’T ACCUSE ME OF VICTIM BLAMING)?” Seriously. And I’m a pretty smart cookie.
Janet, I’ve been staying quiet through this conversation, since I’m a recovering ED person and an abuse survivor and mostly just felt tongue-tied, but I want you to know that I think you just miscommunicated, and I’m not angry at you. I think this is an extremely sensitive topic for a lot of people, and in the cage-fight atmosphere of Mammoth, it set folks off. I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but I think you’re okay, just that text is limited and this shit be complicated.
Having a bunch of angry people go “you’re not helping, so just stop it” seems to be an inevitable part of the “hey, this response really isn’t helping, so maybe I shouldn’t respond that way any more” learning process in regards to multiple issues, unfortunately.
Janet, you didn’t do anything wrong. You tried to explain some reasons that it might not be a good idea to refer to someone’s weight that might be personal to you and not obvious to others. People should just accept what you said as your 2 cents on the subject and move on. Thanks for offering your perspective.
Yeah, what LBT said. And Cassandakitty.
@Janet: That’s why I tried for that “maybe rethink what you’re saying” route. It’s sort of a sensitive issue, and I just thought the phrasing was a little poor, even in your clarified version. Not that you’re some kind of evil meanie bastard person, because I don’t know you and I very much doubt you are! You’re probably super nice and lovely.
@katz
Well the trick is—ohmygodhelpmeescapethishellishnightmare.
With the people who wade in and try to dissect long posts full of wrongness I sometimes feel like I should offer them oranges at halftime.
Obviously, we’d have to offer Pecunium mangoes.
Why mangoes?
I’m still thinking, it might not be a good thing.
I specifically said ‘body is bad’ instead of ‘fat’, because really skinny folks can have the same problem.
A is so thin, they must be B.
Heck, I’m not even skinny, a bit pudgy even, but I did drop 20 pounds in a semester, once, just by not eating cafeteria food, cooking my own tasty food, and being more active; I had so many random acquaintances asking if I was okay. It was sweet of them to worry, but really annoying after the first few diet interrogations.
Now that I’m actually planning on loosing weight/gaining muscle for fire-1 in the spring, I’m actually dreading when the changes start being noticeable, again.
Yeah, comments on weight are generally really unhelpful.
Pecunium has an inexplicable hatred of mangoes.
(Which, well, fair enough, I won’t eat durian no matter how many times my MIL tries to talk me into it.)
I should stop thinking about this, and get a move on.
Janet, hit post before I saw your last comment. Appology accepted, on my part.
Everyone screws up, eventually.
Feel free to call me out on it when it’s my turn to accidentally say something well-intentioned but asinine!
“Well, Woody’s probably right that Pauly can’t hold down a job. He’d get fired in no time.”
Paul attended college and found work as a very successful psychiatrist until he decided to devote himself to AVfM, likely at a significant pay cut. You have no idea what you’re talking about.
Janet: When I said: There is a difference between pointing out to someone that they have a weight issue and “calling” them fat.
I meant: There is a difference between a doctor or a nurse pointing out to a patient that they need to lose weight and someone else calling someone fat as an insult.
Then maybe you should have said that. Because what bit you in the ass is that people didn’t choose to “read something into that post”. They read the comment as written.
If you meant it’s one person for a medical professional; in their professional capacity to make an observation to their patient about the health risks they may be experiencing because of their present weight you completely failed to make it plain.
When we read what you wrote, we read what you wrote.
My solution was to try to clear up the misunderstanding.
I’d say you failed at that. We didn’t misunderstand you. We may not have understood you as well as we do now, but we understood what you wrote just fine (and really, it wasn’t that long: we read, and write, much longer things that that. We have pretty good attention to detail; it’s just that the rest of what you wrote wasn’t helping your cause, and didn’t change the stupid, and offensive in the part being called out).
@cassandrakitty I’m aware that other people have issues with abuse and with their weight, but what I don’t get it what good could possibly come of mocking me or being rude because of what was said.
I can think of a lot of reasons, some of them speculative. I’m not mocking (insomuch as some of my tone is snarky) to be mean, but because you are asking us to give you unbelievable credit for both good intentions, and perfect understanding. You told us, after you got called out, that there was a wealth of unstated modifiers and qualifications to what was, on its face, a bald statement. A statement which, on its face was both wrong, and hurtful in effect.
But we are supposed to just forget that you were too clumsy (or careless) to give us all the other data. You expected us to divine that it was all there; and that you are a good person, who would never dream of being intentionally hurtful.
If you want to make it stop, I’d suggest 1: making an actual apology; rather than tell us all how mean we were to read what you wrote, and react to it, and 2: stop telling the people you offended how horrible it is for them to tell you they were offended; and why.
I am willing to accept that you meant no harm, but I’m not going to say it wasn’t your fault.
Pecunium has an inexplicable hatred of mangoes.
It’s not inexplicable. I lost the genetic lottery, and (in the way some people can’t abide cilantro, or find coffee to be appalling), the smell of mangoes is revolting. There’s nothing I can do about it.
I find them to smell of ebggvat syrfu qevmmyrq jvgu xrebfrar
JFC.
1) We know
1.5) That’s terrifying
2) “once held a job” =/= “can now hold a job”
3) Prove “successful”. Hell, define it.