I don’t know how I missed this bizarre “Manist” propaganda campaign when it happened last summer. Or maybe I did but couldn’t quite believe it was for real? Well, it was. Is.
If, like me, you missed it the first time, #DontMANcriminate was the brainchild of Indian lifestyle/fashion site Maggcom, and it demonstrates that “Manists” in India can be as ridiculously histrionic and oblivious to reality as their counterparts here in the west.
The site launched the campaign on Facebook with an inadvertently hilarious mini MANifesto:
Manism. This is to remind us of the forgotten gender, who, regardless of the situation, are expected to be such gentlemen.
Men: The FORGOTTEN GENDER.
When women talk about being put on the same pedestal as men, simultaneously there is an unsaid expectation of chivalry out of them. It is time we realize that they deserve a break from being all heroic and they too suffer a different level of harassment.
I’m going to bust out crying.
Did I mention that none of the guys whose faces were used in this campaign actually agreed to appear in it?
That first poster above takes on the horrible injustice of dudes not being able to get FREE DRINKS from creepy guys with ulterior motives. This second one takes on the equally serious injustice of men sometimes feeling vaguely obligated to HOLD DOORS OPEN.
And then there is the terrible terrible oppression of women-only cars on trains and buses, which is a thing in India not so much because “hey let’s be mean to men and give women this totally random privilege h ha ha screw those dudes” but because “gosh we really can’t figure out how to stop dudes from groping and harassing women on trains and buses so I dunno maybe just put them in different cars or something?”
And then there’s all that terrible anti-male discrimination in the job market.
And that’s not even counting the terrible prejudice against hostile woman-hating MGTOWs!
But this last one?
Guys, guys! You want to wear heels? You want to wear makeup? JUST GO AHEAD AND DO IT!
Seriously. dudes. You don’t even need to wear underwear!
Actually fellas, maybe you should wear underwear after all. Not everyone can pull off assless pants quite as tastefully as the dear departed Prince.
I find it amusing how often MRA’s get upset about ‘having’ to do things that most feminists don’t want them to do in the first place.
I’ve been out with quite a few feminist women (as friends and romantically), and they always insist on either splitting the check, or paying for my dinner next time. I once dated a woman who got upset with me for holding the door for her (she felt it was condescending), and only forgave me when I pointed out that I tend to hold the door for anyone, not just women I have a romantic interest in. Point is, feminists know full well that all that ‘glass pedestal’ behavior seriously inhibits their cause, and they don’t want any part of it.
Have to admit, I only give up my seat for the elderly, disabled, and people with small children. Otherwise, I figure, I got there first, I’ve just as much a right to that seat as any other able-bodied person. Of course, I only recently moved to Chicago, and this is my first experience with working public transit. Are men supposed to give up their seats on public transit for women? If this is a real thing, than I’ll start doing that.
My son once bought a pair of trainers online – when he got them he found 3″ wedges inside. He isn’t short, he didn’t even know about the additional extra, but it just goes to show that men CAN wear heels and no one even needs to know!
Btw he didn’t wear them – didn’t feel comfortable and suddenly being over 6ft didn’t suit him either.
As for product ‘discrimination’ – I don’t think that if a man wants to buy make up or a blonding kit he is being refused, . As David says – if you want to do it just do it!
And I agree that it would likely be fellow ‘manists’ who would be the nastiest about a man wearing high heels, or make up, or lightening his hair.
#DontDiscrimiMALE
Don’t know if this has been brought up in the comments already, but Buzzfeed has done a story on Trump blaming Mike Tyson’s rape victim back in 1992. Story and video here:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/donald-trump-blamed-the-victim-in-mike-tysons-rape-case
I like to sit in the back of whatever public transit I’m taking, so that I don’t have to give up my seat. /selfish. But I will if there is a reason, because that’s what you do? I also hate it (so much) when dudes just stand up and tell me to sit down.
No, it’s fine, I’m fine. If I wanted a seat, I’d be actively scanning for one. So I say ‘no’, and then they insist harder. I need to stand up to social pressure and say ‘seriously, I’m fine’ and NOT sit down. I get what they’re trying to do, but they got there first, and I’m fine with that. Sometimes you sit on the bus, sometimes you stand, and unless I’m pregnant (I’m not) I don’t particularly care.
So @joekster, unless you’re going to give up your seat to *everyone* who walks past, no matter what gender, you can keep your seat. (Assuming you’re not in the priority seating, which is for the elderly/etc.)
And I have to agree with everyone saying ‘if you’re not paying, you are the product’. I knew it about facebook etc, but I had never applied it to bars/free drinks and the like.
These dudes also assume every lady gets free drinks all the time. I don’t think I have ever? Unless it’s part of a pitcher friends have bought. Mmmm… Pitcher.
You offer your seat if you have a reason to think someone else might actually need to sit, for example if they’re very old or disabled.
I tend to offer my seat in those situations, but since I have a non-obvious disability myself, some days I just need to sit. Some days I would be super grateful if someone were to offer me their seat, but since I seem able-bodied and I’m reasonably young (and present as male), nobody will ever offer me a seat. And I wouldn’t expect them to. There’s still the option to outright ask someone for a seat and explain my disability, but that just seems like too much work. And too awkward.
@any random “manists / meninists / etc” hate-browsing these comments, I’ll ditto this:
Except that I’m a woman in the US mid-Atlantic region.
I’ll also offer to help literally anyone who seems to be struggling with lifting or carrying something as well as accept offers from others if I happen to be struggling.
Note that I don’t get angry if my offer’s refused or ignored. I just go on my way.
I both accept and offer help because I’m a person on a planet filled with other people and you never know how much a gesture – small to you – might mean in someone else’s day.
We’re all in this together.
We might as well not be assholes about it.
I bought a drink for a girl once, when I was 18 and had just started going to bars and night clubs. She accepted the drink and then I never saw her again. Lesson learned! :p
Seriously though, I wish people would just stop buying drinks for strangers. It’s just weird and creepy.
Yup, I’ve done this for my entire adult life. I help people with strollers get up/down stairs, on to the bus/train/subway/tram, people with several kids trying to make it up/down an escalator, people carrying stuff from the supermarket, or people with suitcases, etc. Sometimes they say no, and that’s fine.
Douches used to be advertised pretty heavily in the US, but I literally can’t remember the last time I saw one. The products still exist, but the advertisements implied that douching should be a regular part of every woman’s personal hygiene, and there came a point where there was significant push-back on that. There was also push-back on ads relating to a woman’s sexual organs being appropriate for prime-time TV, because men and children shouldn’t have to be aware that women are not like Barbie dolls between the legs. Then the ads kind of disappeared off mainstream TV channels. Nobody cried.
HOWEVER, implying that the state of a woman’s normal vulva needs to be treated in some manner still happens! Johnson & Johnson, for instance, has advertised baby powder to African American women as an appropriate thing to sprinkle into their underwear for decades. Now it turns out that doing that exposes a woman to an increased risk of ovarian cancer, and that J&J has known this since at least the 1990s! Selling something to black women knowing that it poses a danger to them seems to just not prick the conscience of corporate America. And vaginal perfume is a thing that college-age women are being told is needed, by the same sorts of people who tell them they need to wax all their pubic hair off. You don’t see this in commercials on CBS, but telling women that their unmodified bodies are gross is still a moneymaking business.
Vaginal perfume????? Jesus H. Christ on a bike. Just, no.
An invitation to a) have some very nasty skin reactions and b) smell revolting (particularly since the combination of two odours, each perfectly pleasant on its own – and that’s giving them the probably wholly unwarranted benefit of the doubt that the perfume itself actually smells pleasant in the first place – is likely to result in a horrible clash).
According to Summer’s Eve, which is probably the biggest brand and the one you’re most likely to find at Wal-Mart, vaginal perfume is the way to feel fresh and confident all day.
Because nothing says confidence like being in perpetual fear that someone standing next to you is going to be able to smell your crotch if you don’t douse it in chemicals to make it smell like a “cotton breeze.”
It even comes in an ultra strength, for those are ultra confident.
But you can find ones that are more like conventional perfume, too. I’ve seen them at aromatherapy stores, and the kinds of places you go to get one of those cleanses that will supposedly let you pass an upcoming drug test.
@PoM
I never knew about either of those things. Why just African American women? Do they think African American women have significantly different vulva that they need this specifically? So bizarre. Not all that surprising, though, unfortunately.
@kupo
Why African American women? I don’t know. I am under the impression that there came a point where it was self-perpetuating, in that African American women just had this habit of doing stuff that no other racial sector did, so J&J advertised specifically to them, which made them do it, so they were the targets of advertising, and around and around.
But how that cycle started, I have no idea.
I think African American women were uniquely vulnerable to advertising that was originally aimed at all women (along with suggestions of Lysol douching and the like).
It seems that hope is on the horizon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3TTKg5Ufms
This is going to make Roosh’s life so much easier!
Arctic Ape: I took it from the Kalevala a while back 😛 that’s why I mentioned it.
Well, nothing says “this is a genuine protest” like downloading pictures of celebrities from the internet and badly photoshopping gags with cruddy slogans over their mouths.
On the public transport business: I’m 55 and female and I stand for anyone who seems to need a seat more than I do. Travelling quite a lot recently on London Transport with a friend who is visibly frail, elderly, whitehaired and walks with a stick, I noticed that it was largely people of colour and white women who offered seats.
@VirginMary
Thank you. I tried with those too. They give me TERRIBLE bumps. Once I got an ingrown hair so bad it gave me fevers. I tried ALL methods of non-permanent depilation, including plucking hair by hair with tweezers. Nothing works for me, its a combination of very curly and thick hair and small pores. My hairs simply don’t find “their way out”.
The only thing that completely works is shaving with the Venus blade, a generous amount of shaving cream, and then letting the skin rest for at least 3 weeks. But as it grows too quickly and I really dislike hair in myself (effect of patriarchy or not, I really feel uncomfident, even if I am not sexually active. Its like wearing old underwear, I just don’t feel good), I usually don’t wait that long. I hate the whole process. I will do a laser shave when my financial situation is better. I am just glad I don’t need to shave my legs, cause I don’t think id manage that.
By the way, heads up, if someone needs evidence-based and factual ways to reply regarding the “Irish slaves” myth. https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2016/04/19/how-myth-irish-slaves-became-favorite-meme-racists-online
Second, Lysol and douching was also advertised veiledly as DIY means to have an abortion during an era when they were illegal.
Still have those in my country. You can tell women that it messes their PH balance and makes you prone to infections, but they don’t stop using, cause god forbids her partner finding out her vagina smells and tastes like vagina, just like dicks smell and taste like dicks and they don’t move a finger to change that.
I always tell them: hell, if they don’t like the smell and taste of vagina, tell them to look for another damn set of genitals. If they want to lick something that smells like wild flowers and tastes sweet, tell them put sugar on a soap and lick it. I don’t understand these people, I think they cant possibly like vaginas. I love the smell, especially if she eats healthy.
TW: RACISM, MISOGYNOIR
I believe its because black people have a stereotype of being unclean and naturally having a stronger smell. Especially their vaginas. Its just… Yeah. I feel bad for even explaining that, but yeah. That’s why, I think.
No, you are not supposed to give up your seat to women, and no one does that. Unless they are in need ie pregnant. Once a guy gave me his seat bc I was falling asleep standing up, I was grateful bc I didnt see it as a gender thing. I would do the same for a man but he might get offended by the gender dynamic as I am perceieved as female, when I have offered my seat to elderly or disabled men they have gotten offended (not dudes in wheelchairs tho, they know they need and are entitled to the area designsted for them). However when I have given my seat to dads with young kids they have always been grateful.
I dont really get the desire to undermine the oppression the Irish experienced. A million people died because they were forced to work farming food that was taken from them on land that was taken from them, and when the one food source they were allowed got diseased, no aid was given to them by their wealthy and powerful oppressors, as they starved to death. Oppression is not an Olympics, the oppression of the Irish doesnt count for less due to skin tone or anything. It shouldnt be used to undermine black oppression, obviously, but the response shouldnt be to deny it but to be realistic about it.
@ policy of madness
Douches used to be heavily hawked as an alternative to contraceptives. In the days before the Pill, women were expected to wash the sperm out with Lysol after sex. Condoms were rigid and insensitive, so men refused to use them, leaving women either permenantly pregnant, of forced to use bleach as a spermicide. I wonder how many women contracted cervical cancer as a result of this?
Kale:
I’m sorry, what?
The article I linked to is specifically about realism in Irish situation, not about “it did not happen”. And I’m fully aware that the situation was horribad for Irish people back then; my goal is not to say it didn’t happen.
But the fact is that various racist factions have been floating “Irish slaves” as their hobbyhorse to discount BLM, and the facts about what really, actually happened have been rather scarce, and people definitely need some facts in hand in order to properly debunk total bullshit these bullshit artists artisanally spread in the internet.
That’s all.