I’ve been so busy the last several days I forgot to put up a link to this interview I did with a writer from Vice. Check it out!
I’m happy with the interview overall. Though I should point out that my comments were edited somewhat, and there are a few places where the writer removed some of the context and/or simplified what I said by removing some qualifying statements. Thus, for example, where I talk about how rape threats towards men have less of an impact, I don’t want to suggest that no men outside of prison fear rape; obviously that’s untrue, and obviously there are many men outside of prison as well as inside who have been raped. What I was trying to say — and what I suspect would be much clearer in the unedited transcript of my interview — is that the typical (straight, cis) man outside of prison doesn’t spend much time worrying about rape, and is much less likely to take rape threats seriously than women, who have every reason to take them much more seriously.
Kids listening to the radio. Or perhaps an armoire.
So I was interviewed a while back by All Things Considered for a segment on men’s rights activism. The segment, part of their “Men in America” series, will be running today. All Things Considered starts at 4 PM — at least in my time zone (Central); you’ll have to do the time zone math to figure out when it starts for you.
You can listen online here. The segment will also be archived on the “Men in America” web page; it should go up sometime this evening.
Hopefully the segment will include some comments from me. But you never know. Should be interesting regardless.
EDIT: The transcript is up here; audio will be posted on the same page at 7 PM eastern. They included a couple of quotes from me.
I haven’t heard the segment yet, but reading the transcript i have to say the piece is pretty poor, giving MRAs in general and Warren Farrell in particular way too much credence. More on this later.
Good news everyone! You can now snag yourself some nifty Confused Cats Against Feminism swag, and help out a couple of charities at the same time The Confused Cat Store on Zazzle is now open for business, offering everything from key chains and coffee mugs to 126 different styles of shirts and other tops for adult humans of all shapes and sizes, not to mention babies, dogs, and pretty much anything and anyone that can wear a shirt. (Sorry, squids, you have too many arms, or legs, or whatever those things are.)
There are two awesome designs to choose from, both featuring my very own Sweetie the cat, who has no idea that she’s on a shirt, or what exactly a shirt is. Big thanks to designer JohnnyKaje, who also provided the awesome designs for the old Manboobz store.
All my royalties from the Confused Cat store will go to two charities, the Global Fund for Women, a well-respected organization working for the rights of women and girls worldwide, and No-Kill Los Angeles, an initiative to “end the killing of healthy and treatable pets in city shelters in Los Angeles, California, by the year 2017” by providing spay/neuter services and working to increase pet adoptions.
Oh, and today there’s even a 10% off SALE going on!
Also: I will also be opening a new We Hunted the Mammoth store up soon. We’ve got a good Mammothy design, but I also wanted to do some shirts, etc, featuring some infamous quotes from some of the terrible people I’ve written about on this site, or who’ve come by to drop their own peculiar wisdom in the comments here. I am taking requests, so if you have any favorite quotes you’d like to see on a t-shirt or a mouse pad or whatever, post them in the comments below!
EDIT: Well, turns out that, as of right now (3 pm CST), the products are NOT up for anyone but me. Apparently Zazzle is still processing them. So, uh, check back in a couple of hours, I guess?
My cats in their earlier days, unaware of the internet fame that awaited them. (Greasy fur courtesy of eardrops that were supposed to have remained in the ears.)
My kitties and I are humbled by the response this little blog is getting!
Scratch that bit about the kitties; they’re never humbled by anything.
But I am. Confused Cats Against Feminism has picked up more than 2000 followers in the two days since I announced the blog to the world, and my various inboxes are overflowing with dozens of pics of adorable cats who are very confused about feminism indeed.
So far Confused Cats has been featured on Buzzfeed — thanks, Rachel Zarrell! — The Frisky, and SFWeekly, and the cats and I are preparing for a major interview with an important publication in the cat world. Well, the cats are sleeping, mostly, but it is good to be well-rested.
This amazing response clearly shows that it is not only humans who can be really, really confused about feminism.
And if your cats (or any of your animal friends) are confused antifeminists, SEND MOAR PICS PLEASE! You can submit them here, or by emailing me at futrelle [at] manboobz.com.
Granted, I’m still sorting through all the pics I’ve gotten so far, but like cats I can always use more good things delivered to me. If your pic isn’t up yet, it may well be in the queue.
Oh, and if you like this blog, you might also like my other blog, We Hunted the Mammoth, a slightly less cat-centric look at confused antifeminists, Men’s Rights Activists, and misogyny in general on the internets.
Thanks!
David, Sweetie Pie, and Pantz
PS: If you see this blog mentioned in the media or on website you frequent, could you drop me a note with a link? Thanks!
Hey, remember that contest we had in which we designed commemorative plates for A Voice for Men? Well, TA DA! Today I announce the winner! Who will win an actual real you-can-put-liquids-in-it coffee mug with the words “MALE TEARS” on it.
First let me say that there were many, many fine entries, all of them living up to the incredibly high standards set by Men’s Rights graphic artists.
But I can only award the prize to one person, because those are the rules I made up for the contest, so without further ado, the MALE TEARS mug goes to … drumroll … Sir Bodsworth Rugglesby III, for his highly conceptual commemorative plate honoring A Voice for Men’s commemorative coin, which is what inspired this whole contest in the first place:
So two of the females in my household have decided, sadly, that they want to get in on this whole Women Against Feminism thing. Yes, that’s right: they want to publicly declare their opposition to feminism.
Against my better judgment, I agreed to take pictures of them with signs spelling out their objections. None of their arguments make much sense to me, but, hey, they’re entitled to make their case on the internet if that’s what they want.
There’s just one little complication: the two antifeminist females in my household are not, you know, human females. They’re cats. Not being, strictly speaking, women, they can’t really post their pics to the Women Against Feminism blog.
So in the interest of free speech and fair play, I’ve set up a Tumblr blog where my cats, and other cats who share their beliefs, can take their stand against feminism – no matter how ridiculous their arguments are.
There’s just one rule: your cats must be genuinely confused about why they oppose feminism, and generally unclear about what feminism is.
And the ideas expressed on their signs must be their own. In other words, I don’t want any Men’s Rights Activists paying cats on Fiverr to hold their signs for them. That shit won’t fly in this litterbox!
All that said, blatant photoshopping is perfectly fine. This is the internet, after all.
And if your animal friend is something other than a cat, that’s fine too. As long as it’s possible that they might think that they’re a cat.
Also, feel free to put the word “Poland” or the Polish flag on your pictures. A lot of the women on the Women Against Feminism blog do that, for some reason.
We have moderators! To better protect this blog from terrible comments by terrible people, I’ve invited several longtime Mammotheers to be mods, and they have graciously accepted. You may know them as Kittehserf and emilygoddess, but from now on they will be known as, well, the same names but with “MOD” at the end, and they will help to enforce the comment policy and keep discussions running smoothly.
Those of you who aren’t mods, feel free to contact me or any of the other mods when you see a troubling comment or a commenter who deserves the boot. You can email whichever of us is on duty at [email protected] or you can put a request for a ban (or moderation, or for an over-the-line comment to be deleted) in the comments themselves.
To make it easier for all of us mods to find these requests in the comments, please accompany your request with the words “MOD REQUEST” in all caps. Put that in the subject line of any emails you send as well.
Hopefully with more mods on board and a tougher stance on trolls we’ll be able to keep the comments a safer place for everyone. (Except asshole trolls, but they don’t count.)
I’m also bringing back Troll Challenges for some annoying commenters who might not deserve a full ban, just to see if they’re willing to follow some basic rules. Feel free to suggest Troll Challenges to me and the other mods.
Oh, in all the excitement I forgot to mention that I was on the radio yesterday, on the show Femisphere on CKUW in Winnipeg. I talked about, well, you know, the stuff I usually talk about.
You can find it archived here; it’s the show for June 26th.
Feel free to ignore the weather report at the start, given that it’s for yesterday, and probably only relevant if you have a time machine and live in the Winnipeg area.
Thanks, Jen, for inviting me! Hope to return at some point.
Your Martin Luther King impression just isn’t cutting it, dude.
The human rights visionary looked down at what he had just written and smiled. Would these be the words he was remembered for?
Thomas Jefferson had that line about all men being created equal. It was bullshit, of course, but people ate that crap up. Martin Luther King had that thing about his kids not being judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. That was pretty good, he had to admit. People love cute stories about kids.
Gandhi had that thing, how did it go? That thing about everyone laughing at you, and fighting, and then you win something? That wasn’t quite it, but Gandhi was kind of a wuss, anyway. Would people even remember that dopey skinny dude in a diaper in a hundred years?
He chuckled quietly to himself.
They would certainly remember him, he thought. And they would remember the words he had tapped out on his laptop shortly before midnight that fateful summer night, on the eve of the historic conference that would, he knew, change the world forever.
One day, he was sure, these three sentences – well, two sentences and a sentence fragment, to be more precise – would be etched in stone.
So anyway, just a reminder: if you missed me on Al Jazeera America’s The Stream on Tuesday, facing off against AVFM’s Robert O’Hara, they’re rerunning the show today at 12:30 PM ET.
It’s only on TV, though, not online. Click here to see if you get Al Jazeera America on your TV provider.
Just a quick heads-up: I’ll be appearing on The Stream on Al Jazeera America today at 12:30 PM ET, debating Robert O’Hara of A Voice for Men. We’re in the opening segment of the show, which covers both the Men’s Rights movement and (in a separate segment) the issues of Father’s Rights. Also weighing in on Men’s Rights, the awesome Soraya Chemaly. For the rest of the people on the show, see here.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Al Jazeera archives episodes of its shows, nor does it stream its shows online, so you’ll have to watch this using that “television” thing that used to be such a big deal. The show will be rerun on Thursday, also at 12:30 PM ET.
To find out if your cable/dish company gets Al Jazeera America, go here.
Oh, and I have a favor to ask: if any of you have a way of recording your TV and a way of getting that video into a form that could be, say, emailed to me, could you do that? I would love to have a copy of the show. Thanks!
