So it turns out that Toronto poster promoting A Voice for Men (by snottily taking down to women) wasn’t actually an official AVFM production. Or at least it probably wasn’t.
Even the folks at AVFM are a little unsure on that point. But one thing is clear: AVFM thinks the poster is AWESOME!
Here’s what amounts to an official statement on the subject, from AVFM’s Facebook page.
I suppose they have good reason to be thankful, since the Toronto poster was a good deal less perplexing and offensive than AVFM’s typical posters and memes.
So, what the heck, let’s treat this development as an excuse to look at some recent memes posted on AVFM’s Facebook page. I don’t know if all of these are AVFM originals or not, but their appearance on the Facebook page is pretty much the equivalent of an endorsement.
You’ve already met Ms. Bathory, above. Now let’s meet a straw feminist, in the form of a stock photo of a crying woman that AVFM and other MRAs love to use, and a fake quote that has about as much relationship to reality as, well, AVFM does.
Huh, because no genuine rad fem I’ve ever met has been shy about identifying themselves as a rad fem. And non-rad fems aren’t exactly shy about criticizing rad fems.
I think one of the problems here is that MRAs tend to regard all feminists as radical feminists, because generally speaking MRAs know about as much about feminism as AVFM’s Paul Elam knows about good parenting. (Which is to say, approximately zero.)
And now for something completely different.
Just kidding! It’s more of the same, in the form of what you might call “straw history.”
That’s … not what “rape culture” means. Nor does the concept have anything to do with the Klan, or the Women’s Klan, or the lynching of black men. A fail on all counts.
Then there’s this.
Take it away, Mal:
Let’s end with a thought from AVFM’s grand poop, Paul Elam. The font may be a little unexpected — not to mention nearly impossible to read — but the sentiment is pure Elam.
You guys might want to consider appointing that “individual” in Toronto your permanent poster-maker. That poster of his was terrible, but at least you could read it.
@ POM
When I finally seize power the last thing I’m going to do before I hand over control to Luzbelitx to run the world as a matriarchy is to make every theft offence “Grand Theft Something”.
I’m also going to bring back ‘larceny’; that’s pretty cool too.
Two more points:
1. Bathory died in 1614. Our problem is with how women are treated today. Honestly, this is even dumber than the Solanas obsession. What, are MRAs stuck in all points of time simultaneously? That… Would actually explain a lot, now that I think of it.
2. The picture on the rape culture one is a drawing of an incubus. Nice work literally comparing black men to demons, guys. Who’s the racist one again?
More to the point, that is not the Countess Bathory.
That is a portrait by Agnolo Bronzino (1503-1572) of Lucrezia Panciatichi, the wife of a perfectly respectable Florentine, painted around 1541. Elizabeth Bathory was born in 1560.
I’ve never been able to work out who first stuck the two together, but it’s been annoying me for a while.
This is the Countess Bathory:
They really don’t have a clue of what patriarchy is except apparently they think feminists think it’s “men are the predators and women are the victims”
Um no Patriarchy is putting men above women; they get the majority of higher positions and media, they get to make the decisions, they are seen as good role models (mostly white men): heroes, funny, etc; they are excused from their bad behavior (boys will be boys), if they do something good like get get a good job, etc no one will think he slept with the boss or it’s because he’s handsome, are not constantly sexualized and objectified, not in constant fear of being murdered or raped, etc, etc, and etc.
But the patriarchy fires back at men with don’t cry and don’t seek help, etc this is why we need feminism (yes there are problems) we need more male feminists to have male spaces for other men. Except for the sites at the bottom of this one, the only places I have been to are misognist and don’t do anything for men and boys except making things worse for them and complain about feminists.
So yeah Bathory is a horrible person so is any other woman who murders and does anything bad in general.
Poster: It’s stupid and incredibly insensitive all they care about is spreading info about avfm so next.
Radical feminists: like feminism they don’t know what radical is except it must be bad because they don’t put men and boys at front 24/7 and one time a feminist yelled at a man before.
Again something that avfm doesn’t get: rape- forcing someone to have sexual intercourse and having sex with someone who can’t consent (someone who is drunk, underage, etc) this is part of rape culture plus the “jokes” and victim blaming/cheering for them.
:sigh: once again women are compared to objects. What is objectifying? Something else that avfm doesn’t understand.
Already wrote a letter to Paul plus I didn’t want to say that feminists already/can’t/won’t help men and boys because I didn’t want to sound like I’m using them to score a point.
In Kentucky, there is a weird little two-step of laws, starting with KRS 514.030, Theft by unlawful taking or disposition. That’s your general “you stole my stuff” law, with extra emphasis on gun theft (this is Kentucky) and ammonia (because again this is Kentucky). We then move on to KRS 514.100, Unauthorized use of automobile or other propelled vehicle. That’s where they make sure you get hit with a felony for stealing a car, even if the car was worth $10 and only because the gas tank was full.
So Kentucky has no “grand theft auto” law. The auto theft doesn’t have to be particularly grand. But it is handled differently from other theft.
Yup. I bet the number of black AFVMers could be counted on one hand…with five fingers left over. But they never hesitate to USE black men to promote their own interests. Just like the slave owners!
@ POM
A lot of the reason there’s a difference is that in most common law jurisdictions ‘intention to permanently deprive’ is an element of theft. That can be hard to prove with vehicles as it’s easy to say you were just ‘joy riding’ and that you would have abandoned the car so you need an offence to cover that as well.
Most places have different theft rules for art stuff as well, otherwise you could take the Mona Lisa, leave it back to the Louvre in your will and you wouldn’t have committed theft.
Most of my thoughts have been covered already, but I do have a couple of things to add.
Women are not the only group subject to targeted and hateful violence. By saying targeted violence against a marginalized group should not be discussed, merely lumped in with all types of violence they are throwing many men under the bus. Gay and trans men targets of hate crime. Or how about police brutality that men suffer because they are black, mentally ill or homeless? The only time they care about hate crime is the times black men were accused of raping white women and lynched for it. But they don’t seem to care about the black men who killed for other reasons. Such as civil rights activism. They sure don’t care about violence against black men now. Remember when Dean Esmay didn’t know what stop and frisk was?
But of course, scoring points against feminists is always more important than doing anything to actually help men who oppressed for real. Not oppressed in a not being able to obtain consensual sex from a beautiful 20 year virgin who is traditional and conservative but will somehow neither work nor expect men to provide financially for her kind of way.
My other thought is that it’s very strange they picked Elizabeth Bathory to bring up. For one thing, that happened hundreds of years ago. For another thing, as has been pointed out already, her victims were other women. Why didn’t they go for an Aileen Wornous meme instead?
Probably because “Bathory” is easier to spell. =P
In what jurisdiction is all violence the same crime? A place where the law treats battery, kidnapping, and murder as equivalent sounds pretty dystopian.
@ WWTH
I reckon it’s the keeping her own name on marriage thing. What other proof that she’s a radfem do you need!
I’m loving the takedowns of these shitty memes, but the Elizabeth Bathory talk is amazing. She’s an interesting historical figure to me. A brutal murderer and all around horrible person, but still interesting.
@Alan
The point is that there is no “grand theft auto” law in Kentucky. Instead, auto theft is camelbacked onto the generalized “you stole my stuff” law, ensuring that auto theft is considered felony even if the car was worth almost nothing.
Kentucky is very keen about its felonies. Felons in Kentucky are disenfranchised, you see, and it’s super-important that we make sure we restrict voting as much as possible.
@ POM
I’m still tying to figure out the ammonia thing!!!!
That’s actually a long-standing rumor about Elizabeth Bathory, that she drained her victims blood to bathe in it and stuff.
She, people just couldn’t understand how a WOMAN would just KILL PEOPLE. I mean, obviously, she just can’t be a serial killer using her power to lure in easy victims. No! Demure, fragile women killing people for no reason but to kill? She targeted mostly young women, she must have been using them in some sort of ritual to feed her vanity! I KNOW! She drained and bathed in their blood! Obviously! People women as such vain shitheads that they would do anything to stay young and beautiful!
It’s a very lazy rumor. The Evil Queen from Snow White did it 300 years earlier.
And there’s actually proof that red cars get stolen the most. The more common color a car is, like red, white or blue, the more likely they’re to get stolen. Cars that are uncommon colors, like yellow, pink or orange, are less likely to be stolen because they’re uncommon colors.
@Alan
Anhydrous ammonia is used to make meth, which is an epidemic problem especially in eastern Kentucky.
@ Paradoxy
.
I’ve only represented one serial killer in my career (they’re pretty rare over here fortunately). He was quite ‘interesting’. I won’t go into details though as it would be pretty triggering for a lot of folks here.
One thing I can tell you is he was a brilliant artist. He wanted to give me one of his paintings but the Crown wouldn’t allow it. In the end though he successfully argued they should be returned to him.
However they got an art expert in to examine them. He pointed out that there were clues in the paintings to some other murders. They also x-rayed them before they gave them back. The x-rays provided further clues and they were used in a subsequent trial that got him a whole life sentence.
@ POM
Ah, and what else do you need? If you can provide the recipe; just for academic purposes of course.
Hold up.
You needed multiple trials to get him a life sentence?
@Paradoxical Intention: Great break-down!
When thinking up arguments against these sorts of MRA claims I often feel like I’m having to think of ways to explain how the world works to space aliens. Or to an artificial intelligence that hasn’t quite reached sentience.
@Alan Robertshaw
Is there a discreet way you could point us to where we could find more details about that case? I’m particularly fascinated by the clues in the paintings.
I actually think that “rape culture” picture Is a racist cartoon inspired by that famous painting of an incubus. The “incubus” looks like a racist caricature of a black “native.”
@ POM
Well, he only got 8 years when I represented him (Got the murder charges dropped and an acquittal on one of the remaining charges . He only went down for an attempted murder and possession of firearms in that trial)
I can’t really go into details for both the reasons we discussed on the other thread and the details are pretty horrible.
@Alan
The primary ingredient is pseudoephedrine, very commonly used in cold medicines. Pseudoephedrine is now behind the counter in every drugstore in the Commonwealth, meaning that even though you don’t need a prescription, you have to talk to the pharmacist and get a responsible adult to fetch the drugs for you. You have to sign for them, and we have a sophisticated computer reporting system for tracking if suspicious buys are being made. The common way to get around the system, since one person gets flagged if they buy a bunch of this stuff, is to hire a bunch of people to each go in individually, buy small amounts, and bring those small amounts back to the meth cook to produce an amount that’s worth cooking. The system attempts (occasionally successfully) to flag these types of mass buys by different people.
Meth is extremely dangerous. Not just to the people who take it, but to everyone around them. The chemical reaction to make meth is highly volatile and most of the chemicals are corrosive, flammable, or both. Explosions and fires are very common. It’s so depressingly rife in eastern Kentucky that meth cooks have been caught when their kids came to school smelling like a chemist lab.
One of the goofier things the more vitriolic MRA-holes do to support their claims is use a doctored photo with nonsense claims photoshopped across them. I respond with this image: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/346003183850174657/