Men’s Rights Activists spend a remarkable amount of their time getting worked up about things that aren’t real.
They rail against having to register for a draft that doesn’t exist. They complain about the injustice of “women and children first” even though that’s not now, and has never been, standard procedure for evacuating ships, planes or anything else that needs evacuating.
And then, of course, there are the faked screenshots, featuring feminists (some real, some imaginary) saying things that have never been said by any feminist ever — the phony Anita Sarkeesian Tweets that have inspired real waves of harassment directed at Sarkeesian, the made-up quotes attributed to famous feminists ranging from Gloria Steinem to Jessica Valenti, the phony entire Jezebel article posted to the Men’s Rights subreddit as a supposed “screenshot.”
To this ever-growing pile, let’s add this obviously fake “screenshot” of a Tumblr conversation that never happened, which drew more than 1100 outraged upvotes when it was recently posted to the Men’s Rights subreddit.
What are some of the indications that this is faker than fake?
- The comments all read as if they were written by the same person
- The comments from the “bisexual black woman” fit every straw feminist stereotype
- The language used by the “bisexual black woman” is off; what black bisexual feminist refers to “minorities” rather than, say, “women of color?”
- Â The screenshot is obviously something put together in ten minutes using MS Paint
- Â The screenshot is obviously something put together in ten minutes using MS Paint
- Â The screenshot is obviously something put together in ten minutes using MS Paint
In case you are not convinced, here are some actual Tumblr screenshots, courtesy of TheCaptainObvious on Imgur.
In the Men’s Rights subreddit thread devoted to the completely and utterly fake Tumblr conversation, the gullible MRAs piled irony atop irony as they responded to the fakery with credulous sincerity. Only a handful of commenters suggested the screenshot might be fake; most of them were downvoted to zero.
By contrast, someone called Clockw0rk garnered 100 points with a comment declaring the alleged SJW “Victim Narrative” to be “basically a godless religion.”
Belief is the most important part of any religion, as no religion is comprehensive enough to provide philosophical answers to every situation, so the primary creed of The Victim Narrative is to “Listen and Believe”. Claims made from white men are automatically subject to scrutiny and distrust while claims made from women and people of color are automatically more worthwhile.Â
To quote someone who doesn’t exist, “please send help, irony is too thick to breathe.”
H/T — r/againstmensrights
Pink is a flower.
That may or may not be what they’re talking about there, but.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dianthus
@PoM
I guess we can’t have almond, either.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/foodspotting-ec2/reviews/4344576/thumb_600.jpg
I thought Yogi Tea re-marketed the “men’s tea” and “women’s tea”?
@IP
Nah, it’s supposed to ‘support women’s systems’ or some such nonsense. The company sells a ‘men’s tea’ too.
I’m not sure why they even had to fake a screenshot. There are plenty of posts on Tumblr that a nonfeminist would find objectionable, such as women venting about men in ways that thinskinned MRAs would find insulting, like a “men are trash” comment under a photo of a woman with domestic abuse bruises or something. The context could easily be removed (hell, leave the context in! MRAs don’t care!). Viola, it’s not fake or anything!
Of course, this would require them to actually be on Tumblr and follow people who are comfortable venting about such things, which is a level of effort no MRA will put forth. Because that would mean actually following and reading the comments of actual feminists instead of making them up in your head. That’s a level of activisim too laborious for even the most dedicated MRA.
@ip, a few of the ingredients are supposed to, but it carries so much by person that you can claim almost anything does, that’s the problem with hormones, no 2 people are alike :p
You forgot the most obvious sign that this is fake: Nobody but Gamergators are this obsessed with Anita Sarkeesian.
*delurks to comment*
The concept of Men’s Pocky has its roots in Japanese gender stereotypes, but not in the way you’re interpreting it.
In Japan, the stereotype is that men (should) like sweets less than women do, and that the majority of confections and candy are bought by women and girls instead of men and boys. Men’s Pocky is an attempt to cater to the idea that here is a sweet even men are okay with, not to say that women who like it are doing the woman thing wrong.
I find this stereotype fascinating, as I saw it being reinforced constantly in social interactions when I lived there. Young boys are still allowed to like sweets, but when they start entering the teenage years, boys get teased for liking sweets, being called “unmanly” or “childish”. I saw this within my coworkers as well. The men often pretended to dislike sweets, for fear of being called “childish”, even if they secretly like it.
What’s especially interesting is that I had never observed men or boys being denigrated for liking sweets by being called “girly” (though of course, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, just that I have yet to observe it). There’s the implication that femininity and the traits associated with it are tied to childishness and immaturity. It’s therefore not surprising that women’s fashion in Japan is mainly geared toward making women look younger, childish, and innocent.
In an ironic twist, when I lived there, women were challenging this stereotype during Valentine’s Day, where unlike in the west, is a day where only men receive gifts of chocolate from women. Instead of doing that, many women were buying the chocolates and eating it themselves, reasoning that if men were “too manly” to appreciate sweets, then they didn’t deserve to receive any.
@Jarnsaxa
“Pink” wasn’t actually listed as an ingredient. I was just making a joke about the packaging.
IP:
Years ago I saw ads for Finnish liquorice-flavored novelty booze named “Musta Kissa” (“Black Cat”). AFAIK, the pronunciation is almost like Swedish for “hafta pee”. Better not import that either…
TIL that Costco sells “men’s Pocky”.
Also, that my children keep receiving “men’s Pocky” in their stockings at Christmas.
@Arctic Ape
Hah. Yeah, there are a few horror examples.
The worst one I know of is the car “Honda Fitta”, which cost the car company millions of euros due to having produced a bunch of ads before they realized that “fitta” is the Swedish word for “c*nt”.
The inappropriateness of some of the ads was just mind boggling, with lines such as “tiny on the outside but large once you enter!” and “an everyday pleasure”.
They later changed the name to “Honda Fit” and the final name for the European market was “Honda Jazz” (not Jizz!).
There’s an element on the periodic table called “strontium”, named after a place in Scotland where it was discovered. “Stront” is a mildly rude word in Afrikaans.
Like every Afrikaans-speaking person, when I learned chemistry and came across that element, I giggled an awful lot.
Every woman I know reports being harassed from an early age, but the ones who ‘developed’ early had an even more horrible time.
Presumably there are people here who are familiar with walking everywhere holding a folder or bag to their chests and hoping not to be noticed.
Boys snapped my bra strap until I had blood blisters on my back. I was in 5th grade.
@Lea
That’s horrible. I never got blisters or bruises or anything, but I was chased around and had my bra straps snapped. This was in 6th grade. There was another girl who developed before me and I remember the rumors about how that meant she was a slut.
@freemage
“So, apparently Hillary said on The View that, while she personally is pro-Choice, one can absolutely be pro-Life and still be a feminist.”
I think she possibly had the organization Feminists For Life in mind when she said that. Granted I haven’t payed much attention to them for years, but from what I remember they spent all their time trying to address the root causes for abortion, like for example lack of financial support for single moms. Although I remember their slogan being something about how we can love both the mother and the fetus, I’m not liking the whole “women deserve better than abortion” thing. Sounds shamey.
Anyway, a certain proportion of women getting elective abortions would have liked to continue their pregnacies if they were in different circumstances. I think increasing support for those women so that they can continue their otherwise wanted pregnanies is a fundamentally feminist act. So, as long as the focus stays on helping women, and not on any of the other bullshit that goes along with being anti-abortion, (ie. shaming women, making safe abortions illegal or difficult to get), I think it’s perfectly possible to be both feminist and view abortion with moral ambivalence.
And in fact many women do view abortion with moral ambivalence. Abortion is a deeply nuanced issue that goes far beyond the simple pro/anti argument that gets presented in the press. Women are the Republican’s (and certainly Trump’s) weak spot, so I think Clinton is absolutely being politically savvy here.
@Katz, the tea says it’s an “Ayurvedic blend”, and considering that Ayurveda is a type of medicine, I’m absolutely certain that the name isn’t meant to be some hair- brained sexist marketing scheme. 🙂
7th or 8th grade, one of my female friends had sex with one of our teachers. Who suffered more in the aftermath – the adult male teacher or the very underaged female student? Take a wild guess.
mrex: Personal squeamishness about abortion is fine. And sure, it is reasonable to focus on the root causes of abortion, particularly the financial aspects. However…
From the Feminists for Life FAQ:
Saying they’re hunky-dory with efforts to ban contraception flies very directly into the claim that they are addressing those previously mentioned ‘root causes’. This has been proven empirically–give women access to free contraception, in any form they want, and unwanted pregnancy rates plummet, taking abortion rates with them.
They also make it clear they want to punish doctors for performing abortions (aka, “the abortion industry”, as they put it in their FAQ), and that they would include rape and incest pregnancies in their no-abortion stance. The notion that enslaving a woman for 9 months (to say nothing of caring for the child afterwards) because she had the misfortune to be raped during a particular one week time-span is so far from feminism that I can’t even wrap my head around how someone can claim to be both without exploding from the cognitive dissonance.
I noted that their site was also pretty quiet on the subject of medically prescribed abortions for high-risk pregnancies, and so forth.
FFL are, as far as I can tell, no more feminist than CHS. Maybe even less.
Imaginary Petal: Yeah, I’m gonna put “Sincere Pro-Life Feminist” just below “Rainbow-farting Unicorn” on my list of things unlikely to be encountered in the wild. It might be a theoretical possibility to thread the needle, but in most cases, you’ve got a horse with a horn glued to its head and a bad case of technicolor diarrhea.
I’m gonna suggest “Shiny Mewtwo”.
@Kuronekonya
This stereotype used to be prevalent in the States as well. I recall an account of life in logging camps in the early 20th century in which is was noted that whistlepunks (a position typically occupied by the youngest person in camp) were always the most over-the-top macho about everything, to the point where it got annoying, and the only way to shut them up was with a chocolate bar, as they could never resist one, but were too ashamed to be seen eating something so unmanly, and would go elsewhere to do so.
katz: Do they sell that bread in Quebec or NB? If so, I’ll report it to the authorities.
It’s offensively mistranslated. They don’t translate the health claim at all, they don’t translate the “TM”, and they say the men’s bread is made from “the barley” and “the rye” (it’s as silly in English as in French to toss in the article there).
I could see it if they’re Pro-Choice in that thry don’t want to legislate anything but Pro-Life in that they’d like to work to ensure that women never have to feel “forced” into an abortion by circumstance – that is, if they want to support free or affordable pre- and post-natal care and support; advocate for / work to supply viable adoption education, pathways, and matching; offer / advocate for nutritional, childcare, and educational parity / supplementation for the child(ren) once they’re born; and work to help the mothers / parents attain a living wage, find and afford vocational training / education, secure and keep adequate housing, and go through any requested counseling (if for no other reason than that I’ve known someone who’s cited the fact that her parents were awful and she was afraid that she’d reenact those behaviors with her child as why’d she’d never get pregnant / carry a pregnancy to term).
IF they did the above – simply worked to ensure that someone who, but for circumstance, would like to continue a pregnacy is able to do so – and they did the so without shaming the pregnant person, I could call them that.
Buuuuut that sounds too much like socialism (/sound of doom) for most US Pro-Lifers to get on board.