Earlier this week, the Mars corporation set off another culture war skirmish by launching a new, all-female package of M&Ms as a way of showing some sort of candy-related solidarity with the women of the world. “We’re celebrating women who are flipping the status quo, transforming the world around them to make it a more colorful and welcoming place for all,” the company declared.
They also released a picture of two of the lady M&Ms holding hands, which could only mean one thing: LESBIAN FEMINIST candy!
Naturally, the folks at Fox News were outraged.
As was this famous ALPHA MALE (who I’m half convinced is a parody).
But no one was quite so angered by the lesbian separatist M&Ms as the alpha males in the Antifeminist subreddit.
“Flipping the status quo?” asked Forcetobereckonedwit.
Oh, you mean like getting those empowered wimminz out on the power poles in winter, at night, when the storms knock out the juice to a whole neighborhood? Yah .. I didn’t think so.
“Ah yes, doing anything to push the agenda onto kids who’s beliefs are malleable,” wrote the appropriately named Giga_mad69. “Seriously fuck the people trying to indoctrinate this kind of stuff into the youth, I hope they rot.”
“I’d rather support women by not encouraging even more of them to become overweight or obese by eating candy. 73% are, last I read,” wrote OkraGarden.
Just for the record, 68% of American women are overweight or obese, as compared to 77% of men.
The maddest of the lot was a fellow called username2136
Oh you want to flip the status quo huh? I bet you wouldn’t be saying that if you suddenly have to:
Work full time on a back breaking job where you are constantly getting yelled at by your boss over stupid shit.
Come home to a husband who only had to take a couple hours of his day to clean the house with nothing stopping him from listening to music or his favorite podcasts and plays video games afterwards.
Said husband constantly bitches about you needing to do your “fair share” of the housework after you are already exhausted from work or any other stupid nitpick like your boss already does.
Said husband rubs further salt in the wound by saying that you are a worthless piece of shit or that you are nothing but a “woman-child” or just straight up beats you if you tell him to go fuck himself and his stupid demands. Doing so knowing you won’t fight back because he will tell the cops that you were the instigator and they will believe him without question because that is what they are trained to do under the Duluth Model.
Have fun with that!
Q: How many antifeminist Redditors does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: THAT’S NOT FUNNY!
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Triggered by candy. ‘Alpha’ men might be some of the biggest cry babies on the planet.
M&Ms were invented during the Spanish Civil War (possibly, sort of)
https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/forrest-mars-mms-late-1930s/
Tucker, that’s not a “plus sized” purple M&M. It’s an almond M&M.
@Love is All We Need
Is that an excuse? There’s a nut in Tucker’s suit too, and he isn’t fat!
“The maddest of the lot” also appears to be the absolute dumbest. There are plenty of women, all over the world, who do indeed have to endure all of the behaviors “username2136″ lists in his laughably clueless complaint.
Being the breadwinner and coming home to a happy and relaxed spouse is really not a problem in a healthy relationship.
Another in the infinite list of things Tuck knows nothing about: the difference between plain and peanut M&Ms. Or indeed, that cartoon advertising characters aren’t real and even small children know that. Go back to irradiating your taint, boy.
He really has some weird fetishes, doesn’t he? I mean, you do you, but don’t go broadcasting it to a national audience. That should be private.
“Alpha Male” there has such tender fee-fees. And might be in that 77%. Cutting down on simple sugars wouldn’t hurt him (or indeed anyone), and I’m sure M&Ms aren’t quaking in their boots at his threat. They’ve probably never heard of him and wouldn’t care if they had.
I think the tweet of the girl M&Ms holding hands is from many years ago, anyway. Can’t have bothered them too much if it took them this long to notice. And who’s to say they aren’t sisters, hmmm?
@Dave: LOL!!!
@bumblebug: Oddly enough, the Mr. and I have been married for over 40 years, and even though he’s retired now, he didn’t mind bringing home the money and me running the house. And I’m not even a very good cook/cleaner plus we never had kids. Neither did his father, who had 6 kids and was a proper manly man, in construction and mining, long before anyone was “woke”.
Am I really the only person annoyed by this only because it’s an obvious pinkwashing attempt? It’s making me wonder if there’s going to be another scandal about Mars Inc.’s use of child slave labor in Africa that they’re trying to preemptively head off.
(I know, the term is more often used in reference to governments rather than corporations, but I feel that a similar principle applies here.)
Remember: the “inclusive” M&M ad campaigns are a distraction by Mars, Incorporated to take the focus off a lawsuit against them and other major candy manufacturers. It alleges that the companies knowingly sourced chocolate from cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast that used child slave labor:
https://amp.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/12/mars-nestle-and-hershey-to-face-landmark-child-slavery-lawsuit-in-us
It’s much better for a big company to promote inclusivity and diversity than to not do that. But never forget that corporations will only commit to human rights when it helps their bottom line. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these right-wing grifters are intentionally helping to take focus off the lawsuit because it serves the real goal of conservatism: maintaining hierarchies, specifically the hierarchy of the global North over the global South.
E: beaten by Anonymous
@Anonymous, @Mrs. Obed Marsh
THANK YOU.
Yeah despite what pundits claim about “wokeness” now being in the uncool capitalist mainstream, it is always, always, always shallow and fake from these companies. They have entire departments dedicated to more creative lying. They’re like the Borg, warping things that they assimilate beyond recognition in service to their own pursuit of power.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recuperation_(politics)
“In the sociological sense, recuperation is the process by which politically radical ideas and images are twisted, co-opted, absorbed, defused, incorporated, annexed or commodified within media culture and bourgeois society, and thus become interpreted through a neutralized, innocuous or more socially conventional perspective.[1][2][3] More broadly, it may refer to the cultural appropriation of any subversive symbols or ideas by mainstream culture.”
Recuperation is a word to pay attention to. It’s how e.g. the radical messages in The Matrix got twisted into MRA talking points. It’s how radicals like MLK and Che Guevara became brand symbols. It’s how radical feminism became TERFism. And it is a weapon that capitalism wields against us with gleeful abandon.
@Mrs. Obed Marsh
Don’t worry about it. It’s always worth the time to remind people that no corporation has ever supported any kind of human rights unless they personally get something out of it, whether it’s a larger consumer base or a smokescreen to hide their most recent acts of exploitation.
After all, we’re all just a bunch of walking ATMs as far as they’re concerned.
I have not met a single married couple where both people do not work. The only time I’ve seen it happens is when one is a stay at home parent. And then it most certainly isn’t taking them a few hours to keep the house clean. They are chasing after either a baby or multiple children. So I don’t know what world that guy lives in where a childless couples are having one of them stay at home to do fuck all.
The only one I can think of where that is even close to my husband friend. His wife is pregnant and having a horrible time with the pregnancy and has been put on bed rest. So she’s not working right now. But he also found her past out in the bath tub because she was so dehydrated. Everytime she drank water she threw up. If that guy wants to have that life right now I don’t think he’ll like it
Huh. Guess I edited that one too many times and it hit the filter. Well, just imagine some snark about bad chocolate, an idea for racist chocolate, sexy chocolate, and Tuckie’s lust for the green M&M (as long as she’s straight).
Just wait until they find out green M&M, at least in Canada, is trans. They used to be male back in the ’80s. And peanut.
The frequency that Fox comes back to whining about the M&M mascots honestly has me convinced this is Tucker’s fetish.
I’m pretty sure these guys get all their ideas about gender (& everything else) from each other, and also a select range of TV shows. Those two “sources” are the only ones I can think of where you might see women lounging around at home while their husbands toil in the bonbon mines.
It’s basically the same as how all those weird traditionalist types think that vintage ads are actually historical documentaries. One of my favourites was the guy on Twitter (with a stone bust avi, of course) who posted a 7-11 ad from the 70s and moaned about how he missed the good old days.
Imagine having no peoblems in your life.
And that last guy needs a reality check, hard. First of all, my first ever workplace was toxic and abusive, with the boss yelling at people who did even the tiniest thing “wrong”, my direct supervisor rammed the metaphorical knife into my back and had me fired for nothing, and the guys in my office were toxic gossipers who talked behind everyone’s backs all the darn time (so essentially what they say about all-female workplaces). I was a nervous wreck after getting fired, because that and my negative experiences there stacked up so much I developed GAD and my migraines multiplied exponentially. Even at my second job, I jumped in my seat whenever the door opened, and even now, in the most positive work environment I ever had (small company, the boss is genuinely fun and I don’t think I ever heard him raise his voice even once, and my coworkers are great, too. I mostly work with women and it’s super harminous). So yeah, almost as if women and AFAB people can end up in toxic workplaces, to/s
Also, nowadays even most mothers of several kids work, like my SIL. Three kids, works as a full-time nurse in a retirement home since the youngest was of school age, and before that half-time since the second went to school. Likely would have started working sooner had she not have had to learn our language and get her certification in order first (she’s from my family’s home country and moved here as an adult). So she wasn’t exactly idle, ever. And since I’m a geologist by trade, I most like go out more often and do physical work far more than any of those MRA/rightwing fucks. Not that I expect those shitheads to ever understand any of that.
@Mrs. Obed Marsh, @anonymous
Yeah, always remember that. I absolutely love how some people place certain companies on a pedestial over others and pretend they are somehow better. They aren’t. Never, ever forget.
This is scaring me.
And the end result is that a good number of people are going to get a craving for M&Ms.
@ surplus
Hmm, I’m always a bit sceptical of tankie rhetoric; so I wouldn’t unduly worry.
@ loucpurr
I made the mistake of checking in here last night and found myself wondering where I could source candy covered peanuts at three in the morning.
@GSS ex-noob and Elaine
I’m a woman and I’m the main breadwinner. My partner works, but doesn’t bring in much money since they’re working on their degree (I consider being a student a full time job). We’re comfortable on my salary, especially since we do not plan on having children, and I’m happy to support my partner because seeing them achieve their goals makes my heart feel full. It is definitely possible to have a single breadwinner if the relationship is healthy and both people feel like they are fulfilled with the arrangement. Obviously a very different situation than what the assholes in the post are talking about.
@bumblebug: When I did hold down a 9-5 job, it was way less work than going to college full-time, even as an undergrad. I could come home and NOT do things. Watch TV, play video games, go out with friends even on a weeknight, no homework. So props to your partner; that is a job. Mom always told bro and me that “school is your job”.
@hammerofglass: I know it’s coming down from on high, but I honestly think Tuckie’s got a thang for the green M&M too.
@KMB: I am impressed with your SIL.
@LouCPurr: Only the fact that it’s raining most of the time and I had a biggish expense a few days ago is keeping me from going to the store and getting me some M&Ms. Not high quality choc like I prefer, but there’s something about them. (Not like THAT, Tuckie!)
@Alan Robertshaw:
Yeah, that stuff I take with a giant grain of salt, along with the class reductionism; but I expect the factual elements (e.g. that this guy said what they say he said while attending this event, etc.) to be accurate there.
If there ever were pogroms here, it’s a sure bet the disabled would be in the crosshairs, and anyone living off a disability pension is already conveniently on a government list …
Of course, Canada appears to be much less far along this trajectory than the US or the UK are. So it might be quite likely the system kills me through neglect well before it gets up the gumption to kill me through proactive malice.
Case in point: two days ago I had to unexpectedly slog home through a blizzard over four kilometers of slippery, crummy roads because both of the taxi companies I have numbers for in my phone fucked up simultaneously. One’s number has been going to voicemail for at least a couple of weeks, even during their operating hours (I should get, at worst, put on hold calling a business while said business is open, surely?) and I soon verified that that had not changed; the other answered promptly but warned that it would take a half an hour to get a cab to me. A half an hour later one of their cabs appeared approaching along the road … and breezed right the fuck past me without stopping. I called them promptly, let them know this had happened, and made sure they knew accurately the address the cab was supposed to go to, then waited the couple of minutes maximum it should have taken for the errant cab to get turned around and return to where I was.
And then I waited another 15 or so minutes.
Nothing.
I called them again and they said there were “three or four” people ahead of me or some such bullshit. I told them the cab had already come but had not stopped for me when it did, and that I had waited their half-hour and I wanted to be on my way home now … nothing. No useful response, just excuses and nonsense. I reminded them that they’d promised me a cab after a half-hour wait and that that time had long since elapsed, but the fact of their obligation seemed not to matter at all to their phone answerer. Nor did they seem to care that I had perishables to transport.
Without any other options, and with perishables in my pack that had already been out of the freezer for 45+ minutes by that point, I had little choice but to hoof it home, despite the dubious condition of my stamina these days. (Simply waiting outside was not an option: nowhere to sit that wouldn’t freeze my ass off, and I’d freeze before long out there if I didn’t stay active.)
Obviously, I made it, though I was flagging a fair bit by the end, but this simply should not have happened. Will I be getting subjected to the same bullshit when I’m in my 50s? My 60s? What happens when my stamina just plain gives up the ghost and I cannot walk those kinds of distances (let alone in bad weather on bad surfaces!) for love or money? At that point, as near as I can tell, I’ll have just two options: death, or to be “put in a home” of some kind. Which is a nonstarter. My sleep disorder alone precludes any such setting being viable for me. And I’m assuming I would be stripped of much of my freedom (and all of my privacy) in such a setting, from control of my own meals (and meal times) to, well, pretty much everything else.
Meanwhile, I am out the 45 minutes I waited for them, without any obvious avenue for claiming compensation for this lost time, and spent 45 minutes potentially being exposed to covid. If they had never had any intention of providing service they should have been up front about that; same if their response time was really going to be one hour, or two hours, or something. Lying brazenly right to my face like that ought to be fucking illegal. (And it wasn’t even rush hour or anything. It was something like 3:45 PM when I initially called them. The whole debacle had happened, and I had then hoofed it perhaps halfway back home, by the time rush hour started.)
How is this the fault of the government? Well, let’s see:
So, to summarize: regulators let capitalists get away with shit they shouldn’t; disability doesn’t pay nearly enough; no public transit in any area where housing is affordable; and that last stems from both inadequate public transit infrastructure and spending and inadequate public housing and other housing programs.
Government neglect will therefore kill me in another 10 to 20 years, tops, even without overt government malice. Either I’ll starve (unable to obtain food due to worsening transportation woes) or I’ll freeze (either because rent becomes fully unaffordable anywhere or because I’m judged “unable to take care of myself living independently”, sent to “a home”, and then booted out onto the streets for being “too disruptive to the other residents” for having a sleep disorder). Wonderful.
But this isn’t apparently fast enough for some people, so there are impatient fascists busily organizing even here, in Canada. :/