I found this amazing pic of “Husband Libber” Harry Britton posted to the Blue Pill subreddit; it was taken in 1972 by the father of Blue Piller smileybird.
According to Cape Girardeau History and Photos, which has another pic of him,
New York Magazine wrote that he was a fixture who had been supporting himself wearing placards, carrying signs and selling his leaflets for 25 cents each for several years. “Harry makes only $2,000 a year [roughly $12,000 today –DF]. He’s not in this for the money, though; he says his only goal is reconciliation with his wife, from whom he is, not surprisingly, separated.”
Another account said he was the “president (and probably sole member) of the National Association of Dissatisfied Husbands subsisting on sales of publications extolling ‘Husband Lib.(‘It’s not men’s lib,it’s Husband Lib. The Bachelors are not oppressed yet’).”
Here’s that pic, and a couple of others; thanks to SquashedBananas in the Blue Pill for tracking all this down. (And thanks to the reader who emailed me about all this.)
“Meals not prepared”? Oh, the humanity! This is the true face of oppression, folks.
I’m happy to help preserve the male species. I can chip in for the formalin collection.
Pretty much the MRM platform right there. Right down to the “Husband Suffrage” sign.
Are those even real? Please tell me that their joking.
@pallygirl HOORAY! Your Every penny counts! …wait… you mean money… not taxidermy, Right??? You humans can be so cold, WE ARE DESTROYING THE EARTH, AND THIS BEAUTIFUL SPECIES NEEDS YOUR HELP!
~and a monthly donation to our organization StMMz (Save the Magnificent Menz) would be much appreciated. THE MENz OF THE WOLRD ARE CRYING OUT FOR HELP! (now give us your money plz.)
This heartbreaking advertisement brought to you by… *insert organization no one has ever heard of here*
Yes, really, advocating for one’s own liberation by requiring someone else’s obedience?
I’m going to guess that the O-word was actually included in his wedding ceremony and he’s trying that irritating “Vows! Before GOD!!!” argument, which I usually see advanced by people who have *not* made particularly scrupulous efforts to keep their halves of the vows in question. (It’s also especially irritating to see someone trying to pin VBG on a married person when the pinner isn’t all that observant or occasionally isn’t religious at all and it has not been established that the wedding occurred in a church.)
Wally: Selling “newspapers” is how he was making his living (to the tune of about $12,000 dollars a year; income adjusted to the present.
And I’m sure he did a bang-up job of it, too, being “Save the Males” and AVFM combined, before either of them was even a gleam in their crackpot fathers’ eye…
Also, I never thought I’d see the day when I said this, but dang…this guy makes Robin Thicke look almost not pathetic.
I think he still posts at Dalrock’s…
Note also that it’s Association of “Dissatisfied” Husbands, Husbands “Lib” and Be Kind to Your Husband “Day”
By which I’m sure he means Association of Demanding Husbands, Husbands Domination and Be Kind to Your Husband Lifetime of Drudgery
So I glanced at that first picture and went “Oh, suffrage era,” and then I saw the woman behind him. How little these guys change.
Also “10”commandments… does he think there are more than 10? Commandment 11: Thou shalt cook your partner dinner as long as thou also happen to be female
Meals not prepared? Even in the 70s there were such things as crockpots.
This jewel of a husband abandoned by an uncaring flibbertigibbet could at least have kept himself well fed while he waited for an obedient someone to recognise his innately worthy husbandness and take over this responsibility from his careworn hands.
Obey. Cook. What better words to signify a charming lifelong companion.
He wanted his dinner before it was cool.
Oh, that coat in the background of the first picture, that takes me back. Here is something very much like it on Mary Tyler Moore. And the outfit Phyllis is wearing – I had that in high school. Ellen Tracie I think it was. http://noahsarque.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/mary-tyler-moore-111709-0003.jpg
And Arctic Ape wins the thread!
Found some background on him here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.obituaries/u84ESYmmuRI
And an article: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1755&dat=19720109&id=jeEeAAAAIBAJ&sjid=emYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7129,3008445
@Arctic Ape
Ba dum tush!
*jaw drops* I’ve heard of this guy before – he was featured in a Russian book from the 1970s that describes the journey of two Soviet journalists in the US (“Zemlya zad okeanom”, A Land Beyond the Ocean). They didn’t take him seriously (“Every village needs its fool”), he’s included as an amusing detail in the description of the White House.
If I didn’t know the context of that first photo I’d think he was making a joke.
And in 1972! I wasn’t alive then but I remember reading in my history books about how it was the worst year to be a man. Women had it so easy! I mean, look at all the career opportunities they had, with limitless progression potential. And how they spent every day in their job unharassed and undiscriminated. And they could go home to a brute of a husband (if they so had one) and enjoy a pleasant evenings beating with the knowledge that authorities wouldn’t take her report seriously. Oh yeah, and there was no pesky law that criminalised marital rape. Oh to be a woman in 1972.
Okay, so I got curious and started googling to find the rest of this guy’s story. According to a Google groups discussion through one of those links, his wife’s name was Lillian, she died in 1984 and he was born in 1925 and died in 1981. I found a (cached) page detailing their divorce (she brought the action, and he tried to get it dismissed) and it needs to be read because it is AWESOME. Quote:
Sarah, so he was a low-life abuser, religious fanatic and huckster – a preview of the MRM indeed. I’m surprised Pauly hasn’t dug him up as an example of how badly teh menz have been treated by the feminazi courts since forever.
In his day, the MRM was mostly an underground movement by exploited coal miners.
Thank you, I’ll be here literally all week but try to stay lurking when I have nothing witty to say.