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.
Okay, that didn’t work… What I wrote just disappeared? I’ll try explaining again, since mrex have trouble blockquoting… 🙂 You write the little left-pointing arrow-thing, then you write “block quote” (but as one word), then you writhe the little right-pointing arrow-thing, when you begin blockquoting. When you finish blockquoting it’s almost the same, but you write the little left-pointing arrow-thing, slash sign, “block quote”, the little right-pointing arrow-thing. That’s how you put the other person’s comment within a blockquote and your own comment outside of it.
Mrex, you seem to know how to begin a block quote, so you really only have to learn how to finish one – it’s the same, except you must insert the sign / before the word “block quote”.
< blockquote >
Testing, testing, one two three!
< /blockquote >
Whoot! Blockquote a be like:
<blockquote> this be the thing I’m quoting! </blockquote>
And this is my response.
Yeah! Like that, except that the little arrow-things should be right next to the word, with no spaces in between!
Damn, this is like the distinction between language and metalanguage in philosophy… How can we talk about block-quoting without actually doing so?
Grammar, I should start using it. Pirate speak and lolcats do not mix. Why are they taking over my typing?
@zeedok
The whiny part. Also the complaining part, the nitwit evo-psych part, the “wimmenz are evil golddiggerz” part, and the “this reductive social science theory explains all human relationships forever” part. And the asshole part.
I don’t know how that term became gendered, specific to economic status, and yet another blame-cudgel to beat women with. There are men, too, who dream of attracting mates who are out of their league in one dimension or another (looks, intelligence, social adeptness, yes, even money). Who cares?
Neither is trepanning, phlogiston, or elves. Gosh, elves are way older! So they’re way truer!
Wait, so you’re trying to argue that the Supreme Court is 2/3 male because women wanted it that way? That’s some A+ doublethink right there.
Wow, a gender discussion that doesn’t make me want to punch a wall!
Meanwhile offsite, I’m being splained beautifully. A dude is explaining to me that, when a female agent and I disagree about the personality of a character, we’re both mistaken and it’s actually a problem with the plot.
Personally, I’m more annoyed about all the handwringing the moment a relationship between women goes beyond friendship. Avatar, for example.
Which happens way, way more often, oddly. And yet, people always pretend the opposite is happening constantly (where, though? I hardly see it, and I actively try to find that stuff)
I also find it curious how the photos get pegged as “lesbian”. That’s not how I personally see them. At all. The two actually look very performatory for the viewer. The middle one is downright inviting to a threesome. Which fits, since the guys pictures like this are made for usually freak out utterly at the suggestion that women may not need them sexually.
@katz:
Quest: Bring Madesi a blockquote mammoth tusk.
Depends on which society you’re talking about. It’s also often little more than a punch line in popular culture, but that’s true about minorities in general.
I’m very glad things are going better for you, LBT!
In, uh, honor of the 50 Shades movie’s success I’m going to enthusiastically plug Looney-Brain’s mocking of the novel. It was unfinished because the book was just too awful but what’s there is mighty funny. The infamous totes legal BDSM contract chapter is a high point and particularly hilarious.
http://lb-lee.livejournal.com/530725.html
@Dvärghundspossen I really appreciate all the awesome comments you’ve left on this thread.
Anyway, to make the brackets show up the comment, you have to write the HTML code for them. The codes are as follows:
< = <
> = >
(LT stands for “less than”, GT stands for “greater than”)
(Hopefully I didn’t much all this up and when I press Post Comment it will look exactly how I meant it to…)
Yay, it looks right! (Also by “much” I meant “muck”)
Yee gads. That’s just… blerg.
Funny thing–I’ve seen that 11th Congress photo (perhaps on this blog, even), cited as evidence of misandry, because the handful of women in it were permitted to wear outfits other than suits/ties.
I was so happy with Korrasami. They were so supportive of each other, I really felt like that was telegraphed well before the last season started. So darned cute together.
“In this blog” in my prior post should be understood to mean either some troll commenting, or some MRA David quoted, not something David himself wrote.
Falconer | February 23, 2015 at 3:25 pm
Be wary of the blockquote mammoth’s giant shepard.
brooked | February 23, 2015 at 3:38 pm
If you’d like another, I always recommend the Das Sporking group. They did an excellent sporking of the Twilight series and two members, Gehayi and Ket Makura, managed to do all of the 50 Shades Trilogy (May the divines above have mercy on their souls, for no good soul deserves this torment) :
50 Shades of Grey: http://das-sporking.livejournal.com/242338.html
50 Shades Darker: http://das-sporking.livejournal.com/429533.html
50 Shades Freed: http://das-sporking.livejournal.com/874242.html
Oh! So, are you all planning to put women in charge of everything because being in charge is really being a provider and is real oppression?
alaisvex:
Ha! Exactly.
Yeah, and if you put women in charge of everything, that would free men up to be the primary nurturers, so boys would no longer be in danger from “indoctrination” by women!
And sorry to LBT for the comment about them projecting their insecurities about their own hypothetical submissiveness. Once I got past the Schadenfreude aspect, I realized that it’s more likely that this can all be chalked up to their misogyny causing them to see women as sex objects rather than people. That attitude carries over into their memes so that even the women whom they’re showing, er, oppressing men still end up being sexualized.
@sparky:
By gosh, by golly, we’ve solved sexism against men.
@Dvärghundspossen
Yes, I always forget and put a backslash in instead of a foward slash. Sorry for the unreadable blocks of text.
Let’s try this again…
Yeah, I agree, this is a much larger problem. Avatar is awesome because the gay relationship is cannon, not just in fandom. I never watched past the first season, finding out that a gay relationship is actually in the show puts it on the top of my list of things to see. There needs to be more representation in the shows themselves. Real, healthy relationships, not the writers adding sexual undertones to a relationship that they want to remain platonic to gay bait, or shit like that.
What I’m referring to is more how some fans will read gay subtext into literally any interaction between two women when there’s no chance of a cannon relationship. Every pair of friends, enemies, sisters, ect. automatically have to be romantically involved, because our patriarchial society wants women to cat fight, or fuck for the viewers pleasure, not form a strong, healthy, but platonic, relationship.
Yeah, the last two stock photos are weirdly sexualized for something that’s supposed to represent platonic friendship. I’m not going to argue with you whether calling them “lesbian” is fair or not, point is, they show sexualized activity in a situaltion where there should, by definition, be none. Whether the (presumably male) viewer is supposed to join in or just watch, it’s still society’s bullshit patriarchical fetishization of girls having sex together.
@ParadoxicalIntent: The mammoth has a giant Shepard?
@mrex: Not to make it All About The Menz, but fans invent gay sexual tension between male characters, too. The oldest, of course, is Holmes and Watson, but Kirk and Spock made it widespread.
I don’t see why Kirk/Spock has to be sexual, it’s still the most intense relationship on the damn ship, even platonic.
Lea: I didn’t think you were having fun I just realized that reading my explanation would probably be boring so I was like “I kind of wish I was an MRA shill because then I might be unintentionally hilarious and someone might enjoy reading this”
Buttercup Q. Skullpants: I am not denying that the photo looks like a session with a dominatrix, but I don’t think that’s what the photographers or MRAs intended for it to be (I don’t think it was supposed to be consensual) so I will not presume consent instead of assuming it’s intended to depict someone’s idea of ‘feminism’.
“I think it’s fair to point out the heavy reliance on BDSM imagery and ask what’s up with that.”
Yes absolutely! I agree with most of what you said, especially about how MRAs sexualize depictions of women unnecessarily and make photos of male oppression (that they think happens IRL) look like BDSM. But only one of the 2 photos of a woman stepping on a man was used by an MRA (or MRA group). The other is just a ridiculous stock photo for feminism. I just had a problem with David saying ( I think in response to both) “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.” Mostly the second sentence as the first one was just pointing out how the scene resembled consensual BDSM. I just felt saying some men pay for women to do what is happening in the photo was inappropriate as I have hopefully made clear by now. I do not expect you to agree I am just continuing to explain.
mrex: I realize that the photos of women stepping on men look like BDSM, but photos of women being tortured could also look like BDSM, therefore I find it sets a dangerous precedent to presume consent in situations like this. That is why I regard the photos as showing (staged) female-on-male assault EVEN THOUGH they resemble BDSM. Just because the photos look like a consensual BDSM activity, doesn’t mean that is what they are intended to represent. But yes I realize MRAs/TRPers (I think they’re technically different groups so I’m differentiating between them) shame males for being submissive.
“Us thinking that the man is consenting to having his face stepped on is an easy mistake to make considering that it is not easy to step on the face of someone who is physically larger than you without their consent.”
One of the photos of a woman stepping on a man is a stock photo for ‘feminism’ so even though it might be difficult for a woman (I’m a woman and I’ve never tried it but I don’t think it would be easy) to force a man onto the ground and step on him (while wearing heels and lingerie!) without his consent, I felt that the photos of women stepping on men were still intended to depict women oppressing men (maybe metaphorically? I don’t know.). They seem to think ‘feminism’ is ‘sadism’.
“Men don’t submit to having their faces stepped on without permission, women don’t have that kind of power, the MRA’s fantansy world doesn’t actually exist.”
I understand that. I’m not saying the world is anything like MRAs think it is. My point was simply that because I think the photos of women stepping on men were not intended to depict BDSM but instead oppression of men by women (or maybe just feminists?), it was inappropriate to bring up the fact that “in the real world, men getting trod upon on by women in high heels often pay quite handsomely for the experience”
That is all.