Is this the holy grail of MRA infographics?
Designed — if that’s the word for it — by an MRA and #GamerGater who calls himself BJSparky, this lovely “poster” offers up a 2000-word wall of text in such tiny type it’s impossible to read.
Well, not completely impossible. I snagged the largest version of the poster I was able to successfully download on BJ’s Deviant Art page and enlarged it until the text was a more reasonable size for reading — albeit a bit blurry. (There may be a larger version, but I got a broken image when I clicked on his download button.)
A quick scan reveals that this particular wall of text seems to have been built mostly with straw: it’s a list of allegedly feminist beliefs that no feminists actually believe. (Admittedly, I didn’t read every example; for all I know, the entire right side of the poster might be made up of passages copied from Supernatural fanfic or James Joyce’s Ulysses.)
Here are some of BJ’s straw feminist nuggets:
As you can see, BJ is as elegant a writer as he is a designer.
I would kind of love to see these straw feminist nuggets blown up and used as signs at some straw feminist demonstration.
Over on the Men’s Rights subreddit, the poster has gotten a more enthusiastic reception than I have given it here, garnering more than 100 upvotes and inspiring this amazing comment:
Sorry, bro, but I think there is a definite possibility that you have low and/or unusual standards.
H/T — the awesome chewinchawingum on r/againstmensrights
Oh man, those straw feminists sound horrible. I’ll tell my feminist friend Katie to not invite them to the next Feminist Hive Mind meeting. They’re making us look bad.
What are they good at?
That is the pinkest, most illegible strawman I’ve ever seen.
Kind of self-defeating isn’t it:
“If you support any of these statements then…”
None of us support any of these statements. Can we go now?
Absolutely nothing!! HOO-AHH!! Sing it again now!
I’m a little impressed he was able to line all the text up, since that’s usually too tough for them, but yeah this thing is a mess. None of the tiny text is quotes or references to any actual research. It’s all repetitive straw arguments that he made up, so there’s no reason he can’t combine them into just a handful of made up straw arguments that would be legible. Infographs aren’t supposed to be a book. And even if they were, don’t treat them like a 9th grade essay that you fill with nonsense because you think more words will make you sound smarter.
“We want to ban urinals in public men’s washrooms for the sake of cleanliness…”
WHAT?
Agh!!! My magenta cone cell receptors just shorted out.
I think straw feminists and real feminists can agree: we want to be able to read posters without an electron microscope.
A few entries chosen at random:
Is this an actual thing? By which I mean is this an actual feminist thing, or is it one of those cases where some municipality is removing urinals from their public restrooms, so these dipshits just blame feminists out of habit?
As much as these guys whine about that “toxic masculinity” series, you’d think at least one of them would have read it by now. Also, “masculinity (natural or otherwise)”?
And once again, the He-Man Women Haters prove unable to distinguish between feminists and characters in old sitcoms.
“Feminists think men are simple-minded, as evidence, I point out how everyone says I’m simple minded. There’s definitely no alternative explanation for that.”
Maybe he was going for a Schrödinger’s Infographic thing. The text is too small and too white-on-fucking-magenta to read, so it could say literally anything. Straw nonsense, something approaching reality, a recipe for Black Forest cake? You won’t know until you observe it and it’s damn near impossible to observe! CHECKMATE FEMINISTS.
Not exactly apropos to the discussion but the not enough coffee thought came to me – would a straw feminist be interested in dating the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz ?
I think I found three that are actually real, feminist arguments.
In summary; reverse sexism isn’t a thing, misandry isn’t a thing, and when women are oppressed it’s caused by the Patriarchy.
Those are the only ones.
And holy shit, the ones obsessing over statutory rape (there’s at least 3 that I saw) make it pretty clear what this guy would rather have happen. They’re angry that men who rape children have to register as sex offenders and “have their lives ruined”. It’s the same old shite with these people, isn’t it?
A few more:
Give him some credit – at least he didn’t use the phrase “pussy pass.”
Tell you what – when we get a show or film with that all-female cast, we can test to see if your theory is true. Why, the last time we had a film with a predominantly female cast, only one high-profile producer came out and said that women can’t anchor a blockbuster, so what do you want?
…Says the guy who goes on to belittle “toxic masculinity” as an attack on men.
…By feminists? Oh yeah, there are a lot of high-fives at NOW when that happens. It’s the feminists who celebrate that.
I think I’ll try using this as a test device for dudes who want to discuss gender stuff. Picking a quote and lamely trying to defend it should sort out the suckups from the somewhat serious. I just have to remeber letting them in on the joke afterwards…
I skimmed the poster and found this little gem.
Ummmm…WHAT? I think he’s confused “feminism” with “the patriarchy.” This is exactly what feminists are fighting against.
@ ej
I think you just described about half of that poster. Probably more.
It’s impossible to take these idiots seriously in any way.
My feminist friend Katie can’t stop laughing. She says with all this straw she’ll be able to make the biggest straw hat in the world, and fill it with straw cats wearing tiny straw hats.
“We want women to be the assumed caretakers of children, but require men to litigate in order to prove they are worthy of equal parenting.”
Oh my, yes. He’s super confused. Just, where do they get these ideas? Is it opposite day?
@M I could do with a good Black Forest Cake recipe actually. Can anyone provide one? My feminist friend Katie has a birthday coming up.
(Not sure I did that right).
“Maybe I just have low or unusual standards.”
And there it is. A fleeting moment of introspective insight!
Aaanndd…er, that’s…yes, I think that’s all we’re getting today, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for watching “Rare Moments of the Manosphere”!
That’s really hard to read. Is this the latest tactic, combining making it hard to read (harsh colour, small font, badly written etc.) with vast amounts of nonsense so noone will read the whole thing and then they can claim victory?
Reading the first ten or so I got the impression they were making a slowly changing point on a gradient, kind of morphing the point on each iteration so it was basically still the same point that’s very slightly but imperceptibly different.
I think they all basically say that feminists want all men to suffer and possibly die.
Professor fate,
Yes, the Straw Feminist would date the Scarecrow. Especially when he becomes king. Because hypergamy. Unfortunately, the relationship will sour after she falsely accuses him of rape and he gets sent to jail for 30 years. Dorothy and Glinda will probably take her side because they’re probably evil feminists too.
Are Katie references the new shut up, Woody? I would be down with that since Woody either flounced or got banned.