Pity the poor MRA meme-makers. It’s hard for them to find real-world images to illustrate their deeply held belief that women in general (and feminists in particular) secretly or not-so-secretly run the world.
Indeed, there seems to be a lot of photographic evidence that supports a rather different conclusion about women and power. Do women run the US congress? Nope.
The Supreme Court? Nope. (Dudes circled for easy reference.)
Corporate Boards of Directors? Nope and nope and nope and nope and nope and nope.
Happily for MRAs there are still some options left – like stock photos.
The word of stock photos is a strange one indeed, one filled with women laughing alone with salad and cheering themselves while crouched on scales in their underwear.
Oh, and did I mention that stock photo sites like to make their pics of women sexxxxayy? And that they seem to have the same confusion between sexy and sexist as Nigel Tufnel of Spinal Tap?
Indeed, when Cate Savilla of Buzzfeed recently tried some common female-centric search terms on stock photo sites, these were some of the weirdly sexualized pictures that showed up in the results.
Bingo!
Apparently a lot of guys imagine feminism as some kind of session with a dominatrix. Never mind that in the real world, men getting trod upon on by women in high heels often pay quite handsomely for the experience. No, in the minds of the world’s MRAs this is a perfect image to represent the jackbooted high heeled stormtroopers of feminazi-ism.
Attach a vaguely threatening caption, and the URL for A Voice for Men, and you’ve got yourself a meme!
H/T — MUH Men’s Rights Activism and Philip Rose
UPDATE: I just realized that I featured this meme before. Well, the post still stands.
Very good to see you back, LBT & Dharghundspossen. I have missed both of you as well as others who haven’t been around for a while. LBT, I’m glad to hear your work is going well.
One of the things I’ve liked about WHTM is that the people here are an interesting collection of intelligent, witty people who come from a great variety of backgrounds and experiences, so I can really learn a lot by getting perspectives that I would not encounter in my daily life.
I have been thinking of altering my nym for a while — there is no better way to deal with an intended insult (such as Social Justice Warrior) than by embracing it, but I was not sure that I have really been a good enough feminist to have earned the lofty title of Mangina.’ But then I decided, what the hell — I’ll go for it.
As to the OP:
(1) I’m not sure they know the difference between a feminist and a dominatrix. Feminists have traditionally been at least mildly negative about the more uncomfortable (even dangerous) and oversexualized footwear shown in the first meme, for example.
(2) Their reasoning skills are so poor, and their inability to see that their ingrained ideas are massively in conflict with reality, are so great that the combination almost rises to the level of a learning disability. They seem to believe an awful lot of mutually contradictory things. For example, the idea that white cis-het men are seriously oppressed by women is so ludicrous that their belief in it is hard to understand as anything less than delusional.
A lot of them seem to belong to the right-wing Randian hyper-individualistic school of thought where any sort of collaboration is looked at as mushy socialism. ln a society where coooperative effort is a bigger and bigger part of everything from work to sex, they become more and more dysfunctional — but they are blind to this. It would be interesting to read an in-depth sociological study of this group — particularly concerning the relationship, if any, between misogyny and hyper-individualistic ideology and the inability to form strong personal relationships. I’ve never really been convinced that these dudes who despise women are actually able to form strong bonded friendships with other men. I think it’s more that there are plenty of other men who are willing to become rather superficial buddies whereas women tend to ask for a lot more of [prospective sexual partners. But, as I say, I would love to see a really well-executed study.
Gawd, even if I figure where that woman’s bottom is, I can’t get the legs to meet up with it. Hurrah for Photoshop, I guess?
LBT! Dvarg! Hi! Great to see you back, I missed you both. The babies just turned 2, when all this snow and ice melts we’re gonna have their birthday party and give them balance bikes.
Dvarg! You returned while. I was sleeping/on a ride-shift!?
Welcome back, and I’m so happy to see you and LBT and ALL THE HAPPINESS!
…apparently I was so happy I failed at typing.
Welcome back!
Spindrift
IIRC it makes fun of people who have difficulty speaking because of … I can’t remember the exact disability, but it’s something along those lines.
Welcome back to Dvärghundspossen, LBT, and Flying Mouse! You were missed, and we’re happy to have you back!
Long time lurker, first time commenter. I think it’s a bit weird to see an image (presumably) of someone being stepped on in a non-consensual manner (even if the photo is staged), and then say “Apparently a lot of guys imagine feminism as some kind of session with a dominatrix. Never mind that in the real world, men getting trod upon on by women in high heels often pay quite handsomely for the experience.”
It seemed clear to me that the photo was meant to symbolize women being ‘on top’ of men in society and oppressing them (basically what MRAs think is already happening), not anything consensual, and I think it’s screwed up to see an image of something non-consensual, and then say “but some people are into BDSM!”.
To be honest, it reminds me of when I’ve seen people discussing domestic violence (against women), only to have someone chime in “but some women like that!” (referring to BDSM). Or when MRAs say women should be submissive and bring up 50 shades of grey being a popular book, completely ignoring that someone being submissive in the bedroom doesn’t justify their real life oppression.
I think it’s gross and inappropriate to respond to discussions/depictions of violence (even if it’s something silly like the MRA’s meme) with ‘but some people consent to it!’ because those clearly aren’t the people being discussed.
Please don’t sink down to the level of the MRAs.
Hi, Fruitloopsie! Hope you’ve been doing well. And thanks for the welcome back, ParadoxicalIntention!
I just finished the most recent Thread of Doom and the thread directly after it. I will just say D: and that I’m really sorry I wasn’t here to say goodbye to everyone who had to go. And that I’m really glad that some folks are feeling comfortable enough to come back.
And now I will stop poking that sleeping dog and instead focus on my deep gratitude that the game of bucket is finally starting to get the respect it deserves.
Aw, thanks to all the folks welcoming me back. I really hope to be able to stay here and for transphobia to not be so much a thing. I left because I wasn’t pleased with how things were, but I heard some changes were made, so fingers crossed and bottoms up!
RE: PussyPowerTantrum
Oh all right, I’m L.J.
LJ! Awesome! So glad to see you here! Now we can mock douchebags EVEN MORE!
RE: alaisvex
Miss Andry, I often wonder if AvfM is secretly a BDSM website for submissive men who are too embarrassed to admit that they’re subs too.
Let’s not. I know it’s funny and schadenfreudy, but god knows I don’t want these jokers in MY camp. There are ways to be embarrassed and closeted WITHOUT being a total cockbite to women.
RE: Dvarghundspossen
I didn’t know you left too! Join the folks who didn’t stick the flounce?
RE: Orion
…wait, the other Orion came back? The one who declared himself my gay porn muse? D: Noooo!
RE: estraven
LBT, I have been thinking about you and wondering where you were and if you were OK.
Aw! Yes, don’t worry, we’re okay! Things are generally doing pretty good for us right now.
RE: Robert
Congratulations on getting to go back to Boston, LBT – like the song says, it’s better to run to Toronto than to live in a place you don’t wanto.
Thanks, I’m counting the days. SO looking forward to returning home! (Even with the Doom Snow.)
RE: Falconer
How is that possible? How can your tinies be two already? They were just born a month ago, weren’t they? Hubby demands photos.
RE: Flying Mouse
More threads of doom, eh? Not sorry to have missed those either.
And on a lighter note student film maker has un rant about losing in a film competition
I’m glad you returning commenters are back. You were missed. <3
To clarify, said student director blames SJW for his badly made film losing said competition.
Mwahaha, we SJWs are everywhere! We could be your mother! We could be your brother! We could even be… *gasp* YOUR PRESIDENT!
Noooo, you maniacs, you white knighting maniacs. You blew it all to hell. *collapses in front of a ruined statue of Ronald Reagan
And, with that, GiJoel wins the thread. 🙂
Ah, I remember when that was brought up in a previous thread, but thanks for linking to another article on it! I want to read more about this dude and his whining! 😀
GI Joel: he’s been getting nothing but mockery on another forum I read.
I’d say he was in the running for Whiny Titty Baby of the Year but I think Alabama State Justice Glenn Murdock has a lock.
Shorter first meme: “Verbal abuse is literally our only strategy. That’s it. That’s all we’ve got.”
And on a completely different topic, welcome back to those returning!
And on yet another completely different topic, @Robert:
Alots are, without question, the most excellent mythical creatures of our era. And nobody can convince me otherwise. 😀
@LBT: Well, the story of my leaving and then coming back, it goes like this… For quite some time I hadn’t been that active on Mammoth. I’d partake in some discussions, and then I’d read whatever was relevant for that discussion in the thread in which I was posting, but very quickly skimmed through the irrelevant stuff. Because of my semi-active state in this community I didn’t quite realize that transphobia was growing the way it was, until the last Thread of Doom. I had been semi-active in that thread as well, reading and responding to some of the posts only… I don’t even remember what it was about any longer, but it was like a smaller discussion running parallel to the unfolding discussion of Doom. But then I noticed people getting really agitated, so I went back and read all of the thread from start to finish. And it was just so cruel… And Katz also pointed out how all trans people have been leaving. And I just felt really shitty reading that stuff and was like “is this the Mammoth I used to know?” and then I upped and leaved. So it was pretty sudden like that.
At the time, too, I had a lot of mental issues, so I just couldn’t deal with Badness On The Internet for the time being.
Anyway, recently I missed Mammoth and went back to check things out, and it seemed different, so I returned. End of story. 🙂
@Falconer: Feels like your babies were just born! Incredible that they’re about to go biking! 😀
Karla,
Which sports? In what way are they better at all sports as an entire gender by merely being (on average) bigger?
Dolores,
Could you please point to cases of men being trod on regularly by feminists in sexy librarian shoes? Because women are actual beaten and abused by men with alarming regularity, whereas there is no cultural history or epidemic of ladies stepping on men’s faces in pointy shoes. I do not think you analogy works or even that you are sincere. I don;t think anyone here is suggesting that some men liking kink means that all men want to be dominated and stomped on.
Dolores: those stock photos are clearly heavily sexualized with BDSM overtones. And a look at other stock photos of women makes it pretty clear they’re marketed to men who like female doms, not women. We’re not rationalizing images of women beating up men with “but some men like it”; we’re pointing out that images of “sexy dominatrixes” are meant to be sexy to a certain demographic of men. Male violence against women is a serious issue, but I wouldn’t consider Bettie Page pinup photos offensive.
Well, there is SOME cultural history.
http://youtu.be/SbyAZQ45uww
Just to be clear: this blog no longer welcomes (if it ever did) gender critical feminists? Or is gender critical feminist now synonymous with transphobe? Some clarity would be helpful.