It’s Friday again, and that means memes. Today’s batch comes fresh from the A Voice for Men Facebook page. AVFM may be in the middle of a slow-motion collapse, but they’re still doing an amazing job making and/or disseminating almost completely incomprehensible memes.
Take the one up top there, suggesting that if fathers have any issues with the way their “baby’s mama” is raising their baby, the solution isn’t to discuss this with her or — heaven forbid! — get more involved in raising the kid.
No, the only REAL solution is to ruin her Valentine’s Day by taking her to McDonald’s, instead of giving her the lavish romantic dinner she expects.
Because, you know, mothers are far more interested in extracting lavish dinners from their men than they are in, you know, taking care of any kids they might have accidentally popped out along the way.
Why did AVFM post a Valentine’s Day meme more than a month early? Probably for the same reason the site published an anti-Valentines rant from Paul Elam last August: there is no greater misandrist oppression of men than having to buy some chocolate or whatever for some dumb broad if she happens to be one of those women who expects her fella to buy her chocolate or whatever.
I have no comment on this next meme, because I have no idea whatsoever what point it’s trying to make.
I gather from the one below that someone saw Adam Sandler’s fake-gay-marriage comedy I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry and thought it offered some incisive social criticism.
I dunno, I’m not sure I have an objection. Why shouldn’t people be able to claim their roommates as domestic partners?
Enjoy the rest of your memeday! And don’t forget, all you fellas out there, Always Be Recording, just in case some random woman decides to do some false accusing.
MRAs and MGTOWs and the like talk endlessly about how all men should be always recording (and then presumably storing all the sound files just in case). I wonder if there is a single MRA or MGTOW who does.
Random thoughts:
Whoever invites their “baby’s mama” for VD dinner? It sounds like a term for an ex-partner.
Is the Matrix guy trying to convince conservative manospherians that SSM is good for men?
There’s probably no deeper symbolism in the alien image than “this ugly bloodthirsty-looking movie monster is like your typical feminist who jumps aggressively to shout down any dissent about feminism”
The Alien films are really confusing. The alien queen is referred to as if she’s female, but she doesn’t have breasts.
What’s going on!
Did you know that “opposite-sex marriage” doesn’t require the partners to be straight? That a gay man and a lesbian could be married and…
…oh, wait
WWTH:
Isn’t being nice to people a large part of a receptionist’s job?
As someone who is asexual/aromantic and is 99% likely to never be married for love, “friend marriage” sounds like a great idea for me. You get significant benefits from marriage, not just with taxes but health care (in the US) hospital visitation rights, and the support system that comes with it, i.e. if you lost your job and need financial support until you find another one. In fact, I think that’s the one most depressing part about being asexual and aromantic – getting old and dying “alone” (I’m also really introverted, so I don’t make friends too easily). When you’re old, it helps to have a spouse to help take care of you should you need it. Luckily I don’t want children, but my one friend is probably asexual and DOES want children, but she doesn’t want to raise them alone (understandably). It’s kind of heartbreaking, that she’ll either have to do it alone or not do it at all.
Unfortunately in our society, asking a friend if you wanna get married would result in a lot of confusion.
If two heterosexual dudes want to get married and raise a kid together, more power to them. They’re living my dream, ha.
“Our default position is mistrust”? Golly, I would never have guessed. Bet they get a lot of ladies THAT way!
Also, I couldn’t care less if two straight woman-haters decide to get gay-married. Bye, and you won’t be missed!
Still can’t figure out what that Alien one has to do with shit, though.
What about the women who are wrongfully prosecuted for making false accusations because the police think they must be lying? Women of color are especially vulnerable to that.
@DrNicolaLuna
True. It also increases risks of tooth decay and ear infection. That being said, bottle propping seems exactly like the kind of hacky, prankish, duct-tape shortcut that manospherian dads would be tempted to take. Most of them would rather be doing anything else – sleeping, playing video games, ragewanking on Reddit – than physically holding and feeding a baby. Bonding is for for betas. I’m sure there are moms who do it, too, but I’d be willing to bet the practice is more common among detached alpha dads.
Also, since they’re suddenly so judgy about bottles, I’d like to see them breastfeed one or two ferocious, sharp-gummed little latchers at once, round the clock at random hours, while working full time. It’s not for everyone. This is just another way they can play on women’s guilt and shame them back into the nursery/kitchen.
Well, this is what gets me. How are they supposed to record all these incriminating conversations with women, when they’re incapable of even talking to them?
*waves hands*
Magic!
Also…
…where is this law that says I have to distrust all men, and all men must not trust me? I need to know, because my job kind of involves trusting people of all genders, and having them trust me.
Hello. I really hope you all can help me.
I just feel really hopeless right now. I’ve tried to learn as much as I can about white oppression of POC and cis oppression of trans people, and the more I learn, the more futile everything seems to be. Neither cis people nor white people will change. Efforts to get rid of oppression never seem to have any effect. It only seems like hate can be fought with hate, and with militancy.
So, I tried to hate myself. I just kept internalizing & beating into myself the fact that I am an oppressor, that that’s all I’ll ever be, and anything I do will only hurt POC and trans people. Everything new that I learned seemed to reenforce the idea, so it seemed right to do whatever I could to make myself miserable. Logically, I deserved it, for all of the aforementioned reasons. I deliberately avoided talking to anyone about this because bringing it up would just be another form of making things “all about white people/cis people” and would reduce focus on the people who truly need help.
But it’s unbearable now. Whenever I’m not actively thinking about something else, my mind drifts off into the same struggle. I obsess over my worthlessness and the worthlessness of all white people, and all of the torment & death that we deserve – all of us – for what we’ve done to other races. I honestly feel like I deserve to die.
I want to live so badly, though. I know deep down that nothing I’m thinking makes any sense, but I can’t find a logical reason not to think it (if that makes any sense at all to you). I’ve been lurking here for years – I know that the commentariat here is really insightful and empathetic. You guys always seem to know what the right thing to do is with regards to social justice. I don’t want to put too much of a burden on you, but I would really love some advice on this matter.
@Johanna Roberts
Grats on the dental work. 🙂
No one tell these guys about White Day; they will have a stroke.
I looked up the image of the baby bottle-propped, it seems to come from a pretty adorable blog about caring for babies: https://tinyfeetbigheart.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/to-prop-or-not-to-prop-that-is-the-question/
It’s an article specifically about propping, with a reasonable stance on breast-feeding and bottle-feeding.
Some extracts:
Doesn’t seem to consider a wide arrange of situations, but sounds ok to me.
Then goes on to the dangers of propping, again pretty reasonably:
And then later:
I can’t help but imagine the guy actually came across the article, or part of it (or maybe just the title? I can’ trust the creator of such an image to actually read anything), and totally freaked out.
So much he freaked out, he didn’t realize fathers can pick up the babies and feed them if mothers are too busy to do it.
Or maybe he was just an asshole all along, looking for reasons to be more of an asshole, while also being an asshole towards babies he’s supposed to be defending by being an asshole.
PS: I LOVE Memedays!!
Off topic, but has anyone seen this yet?
http://www.theestablishment.co/2015/12/31/the-top-50-white-guys-of-2015/
It’s hilarious! I think we’ve all known all these guys. I think some of our trolls have managed to be all these guys rolled into one.
Will you become my friend and then marry me? This honestly sounds as fantastic to me as it apparently does to you.
Alien is feminist as fuck, Fake geek boys.
The irony of MGTOWs referencing Atlas Shrugged (a book written by a feeeeeeeemale) is not lost on me.
ColeYote: But Ayn Rand is one of the cool feeemales who understands them and would never do anything wrong. She’s not like those other bitches who won’t return their stalkerish phone messages or texts, who won’t suck their dicks, and who won’t make them sammiches.
Well, won’t they be disappointed when she tells them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and suck their own dicks? Or should that be make their own sammiches? Oh well, I guess it doesn’t matter much.
Speaking of memes: Apparently, men started this gross circlejerk on twitter called #WasteHerTime2016, where they pretty much just talk about doing shitty things to women for the lulz.
So, in response, women started #WasteHisTime2016 where they do shitty things to men for the lulz, mostly flipping the #wastehertime2016 tweets back on them.
And, of course, this was met with rage and anger and men responded with #ruinherlife2016 and even #killher2016. Because when they do shitty things, hey, that’s funny, but when women do shitty things in response, or even joke about doing the same things to them, now it’s fucking serious and apparently worth killing us over.
And, of course, people are like “Ugh, women this isn’t feminist (even though no one was really claiming it was), it’s just mean!”, completely disregarding the fact that #wastehertime2016 came first, and #wastehistime2016 was in response, and completely disregarding the fucking rage bomb that men dropped in response to that.
And of course, that article was written by a woman who has to be all “You can’t just respond to this with more hate! Be the better person!” with screecaps from white feminists who are like “Hating men for no good reason is wrong!”
Lol, no thanks, I’d rather be petty, considering that trying to be the “better person” will get me ignored at best, and the same fucking response as being petty at worst. And both those scenarios involve me bending over backwards for men who openly hate me in order to say “I’m a feminist but I don’t hate men! :)”. No fucking thanks.
PI
I just wanted to quote that for posterity, and point out my first thought was “darn right, petty mockery is seriously underrated.” Also, the whole “be the better person” is just a silencing tactic. So much easier to ignore someone who is nice and noninvasive. If they really cared about the quality of people, they’d urge “both sides” to be better, not just the group they want to shut up.
Soooo is the Neo Meme a “same sex marriage will bring down society” meme, or a “those gays give us the perfect means to one up feminists and they’ll be sorry!” type thing? Both? Can’t two heterosexual women also do that?
Oops I meant Matrix Meme. (I know that’s Morpheus.)
Oh, so Milo’s apparently also lost his Twitter verification, and his fans are banning together under the hashtag “JeSuisMilo” in protest.
Milo’s screeching this is twitter “purging conservatives”, while he screenshots the email that says “You’ve violated our ToS”.
Hi Hedge Alchemist,
You aren’t worthless.
You deserve to live.
You even deserve to be happy at times!
Yes, historically our race sucked at playing well with others, and the power structure is still biased heavily in our favor. That doesn’t make either of us innately evil, or bad. It just means we have to be careful not to tromp all over other people, ourselves. We can still be good people.
Not perfect people, because there are no perfect people.
I’d say more, but it’s late at night and I’m not sure I’d make any sense. Because I need sleep. But I thought it was important to let you know that you are a person, and you are a valuable person, and you don’t deserve to die based on the historic ills of your ethnic roots.
I get that this shit seems hopeless sometimes, but you have to understand: This shit isn’t going to change overnight. Baby steps.
It’s going to take time. It’s going to take a fuckload of patience, and it’s going to take people changing the minds of non-oppressed people a handful at a time. We won’t win all the fights. We may not even live to see our dream of a world without sexism/transphobia/homophobia/racism/ect realized. But if my efforts now mean that future generations get to live in a world where they can be who they are without fear of discrimination/violence/death for it, then I think that’s worth it.
I’m white myself, and I can understand where the whole “I’m white, so I’m automatically a terrible person” comes from. Believe me. Finally realizing your privilege and trying to come to terms with it is hard.
You’re going to say or do things that are oppressive without thinking about it. You’re going to let things slip. You can’t unlearn oppressive behaviors overnight. The trick is you take criticism in stride, and you stop repeating oppressive behaviors, and change and grow for the better. None of us popped out of the womb intersectional feminist badasses, we all had to develop and learn to get to where we are.
Feel free to correct me if I’m veering out of my lane here: I don’t think that PoC or trans people benefit from their oppressors hating themselves. How they benefit is by you listening to what PoC and transpeople have to say about their experiences, and doing what you can to not repeat the mistakes of the past, and by helping to get their voices heard where they can’t reach. Cis people are more likely to listen to cis people. White people are more likely to listen to white people. Use your privilege to educate other people where the voices of the oppressed can’t or won’t be heard.
Yes, you benefit from a system that hurts transpeople and PoC. No, that doesn’t automagically make you a bad person. You at least understand that you’re benefiting from a system that hurts others, and you obviously want to do your damnest to not hurt them anymore, and I’d say that makes you a pretty good person in my book.
The Oppression Olympics are not a thing. Just because you’re white and cis doesn’t mean you don’t have your own problems, nor does it mean that you can’t talk about them.
However, there is a time and a place to talk about these things, and it would do you good to recognize when and where would be appropriate.
I apologize if this comes off as rude or ableist, but I think that maybe has less to do with “white/cis guilt” and maybe more to do with your own personal self-esteem issues?
Again, I can understand white guilt, I’ve had it myself for some time now, although not nearly to the extent you’re describing. But what you’re describing here sounds like something that’s way more extreme than just “white people have done awful things”.
You don’t deserve to die solely because you’re white and experience the privilege that comes with that. Again, I’m white myself, but I still believe that.
Here’s a reason: “You’re not a bad person solely because you benefit from a system designed to favor you. You recognize that you were born with privileges that others don’t have, and you want to make the world a better place by helping others who weren’t born that way. You deserve to live.”
Although, I would like to point out that I find all life sacred, and that’s part of the reason I’m saying this. I don’t feel like you deserve to die just because you’re white, though I imagine that people do exist who would disagree with me.