A Voice for Men’s ongoing campaign to convince the world that “Men’s Human Rights Activists” are a bunch of petty, malicious, sexually insecure douchenozzles continues apace.
I mean, that must be what they’re really up to, right? Because no one who actually had any real interest in human rights of any kind would produce “memes” like the one above and all the rest below, delivered to your eyes straight from AVFM’s Fcebook page.
At their best, AVFM’s memes are merely baffling …
… or ridiculous.
AVFM also loves appropriating the images of famous people, and pretending that these people are somehow on their side. But their choices of imaginary celebrity endorsers can be a bit, well, ironic. A couple of days ago in one of my posts on the iconography of the “Cultural Marxism” conspiracy theorists, I posted a neo-Nazi meme showing a crudely photoshopped picture of Star Trek’s Kirk and Spock endorsing Adolph Hitler — a rather odd conceit, given that William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy are both Jewish, and that the original Star Trek series promoted tolerance and a very 60s-liberal sort of multiculturalism.
Well, here’s AVFM’s attempt to make Spock an MRA:
Dudes, hate to break it to you, but Nimoy is actually a … feminist. Really. In the 60s he demanded that Star Trek’s producers pay actress Nichele Nichols the same as her male counterparts on the show. And as a photographer today, Nimoy acknowleges that he is heavily influenced by feminism, partiularly the writings of Jewish feminist Letty Cottin Pogrebin, one of the founders of Ms. magazine.
So that’s not really his “listening to feminism face” at all.
An astonishing number of AVFM’s memes are so sexualized that they are more or less soft-core porn. Even their anti-male-rape memes, ostensibly attempts to raise consciousness about the rape of men by women, feature seductive, scantily clad women, undermining whatever message they are supposed to be getting across.
But the most, er, revealing memes are the ones that hint at deep sexual insecurities on the part of the meme makers and those who “like” them on Facebook. (The images that follow are mildly NSFW.)
This meme, for example, actually features the dreaded vagina dentata:
[slightly risque meme removed]
And this one attempts to shame male feminists by suggesting they enjoy being penetrated, an act that’s really only “shameful” if you have some rather fucked-up notions of what is and what isn’t appropriate male sexuality. And a certain degress of hatred and fear of female sexual agency.
[slightly risque meme removed]
AVFM meme-maker John Galt also continues to be weirdly obsessed by me.
And then there’s this lovely meme, intended as a joke at the expense of a feminist activist who’s been on AVFM’s enemies list ever since she told some AVFM dudes to shut up at a demonstration several years ago. (I’ve crossed out her face, because no one really deserves to be made into an AVFM meme.)
[slightly risque meme removed]
The joke is obviously supposed to be at her expense, suggesting that she is so unattractive that she makes penises wilt. But you don’t have to be Sigmund Freud to realize that this isn’t the real story here. This is a woman demonized by AVFM and other antifeminists because once, several years ago, she shouted down some dudes. It’s not her appearance that frightens their penises; it’s the fact that she wouldn’t put up with their bullshit.
Guys, you’re not fooling anyone, except yourselves.
Oh, one more bit, about the comments about cosmetic male infant circumcision:
1: It does, in fact, represent a violation of bodily autonomy. Since the right to bodily autonomy is a paramount issue of feminism, the answer here is, of course, more feminism.
2: That said, it’s nowhere near in the same ballpark as FGM, of course. Not the same league, not the same sport. The absolute worst cases of CMIC just barely overlap with the least horrific cases of FGM in terms of harm.
3: My usual go-to for comparisons to CMIC is usually douching–something that a lot of young women are told they need to do when they don’t, that provides no health benefit to the vast majority of women, and which causes a very small number of women to experience real health complications. CMIC is just about the same category in terms of non-benefit and harm caused. I’d totally support a ‘don’t douche, don’t cut’ campaign, frankly.
Topical FGM story here:
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/04/doctor-not-guilty-fgm-dhanuson-dharmasena
I’d be interested in what people think. At the Bar we couldn’t see why this guy was even prosecuted. The Govt wanted to be seen to be tough on FGM but rather than actually do anything about it they brought this rather pointless prosecution.
Exec summary: Woman giving birth. Had been subjected to FGM. Got a serious life threatening bleed. Doctor used stitches. Accepted by prosecution he saved her life. Argued that because he returned her to her original state he had technically done FGM.
Not guilty verdict.
The fuck? I feel like I should just be glad they didn’t charge her with child endangerment for getting pregnant without having her FGM reversed as best as possible. Which is probably, hopefully, something that could only happen here and a still reversible trend.
Falconer, your boy looks like he’s plotting your murder, might want to keep an eye on him!
Alan – the woman did not even want him prosecuted! It is completely ridiculous – the problem was not the stitch he did, but the fact that the previous FGM had made it necessary. Unfuckingbelievable!
“Misandry isn’t real” is an absurdist claim though. People DO preemptively dislike men and boys in many contexts. How could you possibly debate that point?
Also, No reasonable person would be all “Yeah, Misogyny is AWESOME! Never start the day without a cold frothy glass of woman hating!”
If we truly value gender equality, we need to favor womens AND mens rights equally. I have yet to see any concrete evidence from the modern western feminist movement that that is the actual goal. I see it as largely aiming to demonize men, and convince women that EVERY last facet of modern society aims to victimize and subjugate women.
@ ellesar
” the woman did not even want him prosecuted!”
Indeed. Although that’s another issue as well. There’s a balance to be stuck between respecting the victim’s wishes but also a wider public interest in stopping the practice.
If a young girl has effective bought into the practice for cultural reasons do we ignore the fact that she may have been pressured (albeit possibly subconsciously) into it? Scarily a lot of women who have themselves been victims of FGM support the practice for their own daughters.
In a prosecution of course the victim isn’t a party (as any rape victim will tell you!), they’re technically just another witness in a case between the Crown and the Defendant.
It’s tricky getting the balance right.
@duerstisms:
Name 10. Points only for ones that don’t have a direct corollary for women and girls, or aren’t the result of some power dynamic that makes the less powerful person more wary of the more powerful one.
By the by, misogyny isn’t necessarily about dislike or hatred (although those can be common among the more unreasonable people), it’s mainly about viewing women as a gender as lesser in some respect than men as a gender. It isn’t just about individual interactions either; it’s about pervasive social pressures.
To show that “misandry isn’t real” is absurd, you’d have to find examples in which men are systematically discriminated against, motivated by viewing men as “lesser.” You’d also have to basically disprove the fact that misogyny exists, because both can’t exist simultaneously in the same society. Either one gender is favored over another, or there’s somehow a simultaneous hatred and fear that the language of “misogyny” and “misandry” can’t address.
duerstisms, you’ve yet to prove what exactly is misandrist about mocking poorly done, incomprehensible, misogynistic memes.
How many “modern western feminists” have you read or talked to? Does the list include random quotations from Andrea Dworkin and fit on two hands?
Men’s rights have been in place for a good long time. Women’s rights are still being questioned. Even if the law is largely equal on the big topics like voting or property ownership, there are still a large number of extra-law topics that are unequal.
Valuing women’s and men’s rights equally means addressing the unequal bits. That’s what feminism is doing. It’s not our fault if you somehow take attempts to raise women up to men as trying to put women above men.
Either your eyesight needs correcting, or your reading comprehension could use some work.
Campaigning for men’s rights isn’t a part of feminism because men have always had rights and they still do. We don’t campaign for men’s rights for the same reason that the civil rights movement doesn’t campaign for white rights and the LGBTQ rights movement doesn’t campaign for straight cis rights.
Every issue men face are the result of patriarchy (like men being pressured to not show emotions other than anger) and would be solved as a side effect of feminism. Or it’s an issue with capitalism (workplace fatalities ). Feminists are not the enemy of men and it does you no good to view us as such simply because we’re not rushing to give you cookies for displaying common decency.
Also, you don’t have to actively think “I hate women” to be a misogynist. It’s behavior and attitudes that really count.
I love that we’re expected to prove a negative. How does one prove that feminists don’t hate men? He doesn’t even provide a standard of proof. Presumably, it’s something non falsifiable and impossible to meet.
Here is some concrete proof that feminists are less hostile to men than non feminists.
http://m.pwq.sagepub.com/content/33/2/216.abstract
I would be shocked if this caused the troll to rethink his position that we hate men. I’m going to go out on a limb and assume the confirmation bias is strong with this one.
Is there any evidence that Douchestain is actually reading posts? He’s had several direct challenges (most prominently the one to point to actual misandry in the column or the comments) and ignored them, falling back on bog-standard MRA talking points.
@WWTH
Ooh, having read the abstract I really want to read the whole thing. Pity it’s subscription only.
I am surprised at the conclusion. It’s not that I bought into the men-hating “Milliy Tant” caricature; I thought there would be no difference.
I’d presumed that the on average most women would hold the same beliefs as self identifying feminists (that women should have equal rights is hardly a left-field position for a woman I’d have thought) but just hadn’t attached the label. Sort of “Oh, if that’s feminism, then yes I am” thing.
Really intrigued now.
Wouldn’t that be like white Americans complaining that the Civil Rights movement didn’t pay attention to the problems of white Americans? “Yeah, you got threatened with violence for registering to vote, and assaulted when sitting at that lunch counter downtown – but when are you going to do something for ME?”
proxieme
Komen’s CEO also makes upwards of 650K a year, and they take their donation money and use it to sue smaller, “competing” charities who also use the pink ribbon.
So, not only does most of their money not go towards research, smaller charities then have to take their donation money and use it to defend themselves, making even less money go towards research.
Also, I’ve been side-eyeing the WWE for a while now (I love me some pro wrestling tho) because every October they trot out their poster boy John Cena and have him promote their pink T-shirts on their website, but only 20% of the proceeds go to Susan G. Komen.
On top of that, I really hate the “Save the TaTas”, “Save Second Base”, and “Save the Boobies” campaigns.
WHY CAN’T WE CARE ABOUT THE WOMEN WITH THE BOOBIES INSTEAD?! *gaspgaspgasp*
duerstisms
You cannot be sexist towards men, just like you can’t be racist towards white people.
Men can experience prejudice (but MRAs wouldn’t know what that was if it bit them on the ass and called them Suzy), but not sexism. Sexism is a system of stereotyping (“Women can’t drive!” “Women need a man’s protection!” “Women are homemakers!”), prejudice, and discrimination (The Wage Gap, “I don’t want to hire a woman because she’ll just get pregnant later!”) that is institutionalized.
Men don’t experience this. Especially white, cis-gendered, straight men.
That’s the thing about Misogyny though: There are people like this, and yeah, they’re hella unreasonable, but there are also people out there who say they love and respect women, but do the same thing you’re doing: Going out of their way to prove that any microaggression towards women isn’t A Big Deal. You can say you love and respect women (and by this I assume you mean all women as a monolithic whole), but when you do things like this, I have a hard time believing you, as someone who is a woman.
It’s not entirely your fault though. Men (and women) are conditioned to behave this way and act this way.
Where it starts to be your fault is when you continue to act this way, regardless of what any woman has to say about it.
Annnnd there it is.
Men already have rights, cupcake. Look around you, listen to what women have to say.
And if you want to address the things that men do get the short end of the stick for (which no one has said that they don’t get the short end of the stick at all), feminism already has got this shit covered, bruh. Male rape victims? Feminists care! Toxic Masculinity? Feminists have been talking about that shit for AGES! Circumcision? Feminists are against it! The Draft? Feminists have been protesting that since before Vietnam!
Feminists don’t want to “demonize” men. There are plenty of feminists who love and cherish the men in their lives. Hell, you’re on a blog that’s written by a man, and feminist women are here supporting him.
Feminism isn’t out to give women a “victim complex”, it’s out to show women that they’re getting the short end of the stick in a lot of ways (and show men that they are too), and show them how they can get more from their lives.
Personally, feminism helped me figure out that I wasn’t at fault for my own rape, and I shouldn’t have blamed myself for it at all, like I was doing. Feminism helped me accept that what happened to me was the fault of my rapist, and my rapist alone. It helped me stop victimizing myself.
If you’ve “yet to see concrete evidence” you’re either not really looking, or you haven’t looked in the right places.
@Argenti:
Yeah, that was on Day Three of Christmas Visits. He’s going, Drag me to one more aunt and uncle, I dare you. Take me home, or no one is napping today.
@duerstims:
http://i.imgur.com/suhlfDr.gif
Yay! I got to use that gif on the same day I found it.
I was thinking about the first image, and you know what? I sincerely hope that feminism doesn’t look as good in my 70s. I really fucking do.
Because hopefully by then, my grandchildren/nieces/nephews will finally have equal fucking rights.
Yeah, Susan G. Komen is seriously sketchy. They have a decent score on Charity Navigator, but I wonder if they’re counting things like lawsuits under “program expenses.”
Alan, if you want to write out a spambait email address for me here I can send you a copy of the article.
Speaking of female circumcision I found articles about it.
http://world.time.com/2012/09/20/can-female-genital-mutilation-be-surgically-undone/
http://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/january-2013/reconstructive-surgery-brings-hope-survivors-genital-cutting
@duerstims:
“If we truly value gender equality, we need to favor womens AND mens rights equally. I have yet to see any concrete evidence from the modern western feminist movement that that is the actual goal. I see it as largely aiming to demonize men, and convince women that EVERY last facet of modern society aims to victimize and subjugate women.”
Great idea! When we give medicine to the sick we should also give medicine to the healthy and then we’ll put out fires on houses but don’t forget the ones that are not on fire because what about them? We have to think about everybody! /s
@duerstims:
Googled that for you, kiddo! http://mic.com/articles/88277/23-ways-feminism-has-made-the-world-a-better-place-for-men enjoy! Also, because I suspect you need it, feminism 101: https://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/ Don’t come back until you’ve read both of those in their entirety.