We Hunted The Mammoth
Every Friday is Memeday here on We Hunted the Mammoth. Today, we’re taking a look at some terrible antifeminist cartoons. But not just any terrible antifeminist cartoons: terrible antifeminist cartoons done in the style of old-school editorial cartoons. You know, the kind with stuff all labeled and shit.
My recent post featuring some of the lovely “posters” I found on MGTOW.com was just the beginning. Here are nine more bizarrely misogynistic MGTOW posters that will brighten any room.
Inspired by a post on GamerGhazi highlighting some terrible MGTOW graphics, I went and took a look in the archives of MGTOW.com, and found a bunch that were even more terrible, including the one above.
Let me ease you into the terribleness, starting with some whiny, self-pitying fat-shaming:
Cartoon contest!
This morning, on Twitter, “Married MGTOW” and famous angry Tweeter @DeanEsmay asked his followers to draw him some cartoons.
So far, no one has responded to his queries, so I thought I would give him a little signal boost:
So I found the “meme” below on the A Voice for Men Facebook page. It purports to show what the Men’s Rights movement is really about:
I found this “meme” on the A Voice for Men Forums, and it was too special not to share.
The AVFM “Graphics and Art” forum is kind of a gold mine for baffling and terrible “memes,” terribly drawn comics, and “graphics” that aren’t really graphics at all — like, for example, these graphically challenged entries:
Sometimes I wonder if we’re being unfair to Men’s Rights Activists by allowing them to handle their own publicity. I mean, it’s pretty clear that they’re terrible at it. Worse than terrible, really. Terribler. Possibly the terriblest.
I mean, just this week we saw the official social media director of A Voice for Men’s conference in Detroit announcing the conference’s new venue with this:
We have a winner in the We Hunted the Mammoth Banner Contest!
Well, two winners, actually. And they are:
Dani, who designed several variations of a banner which will soon become the banner of We Hunted the Mammoth. I actually haven’t quite decided which of these to use, but I like them all, and it will be one of them! (Tell me which one you like best in the comments.)
Leocigale, who did the awesome cartoon below. Even though it’s not, technically speaking, a banner, I plan to use it on We Hunted the Mammoth as well. So Leocigale is also the winner!
Well, we all are, really.
Dani and Leocigale will split the cash prize of $100.
Well, actually, it might be a bit more than that: a few people made donations during the contest and didn’t leave a note specifying whether they were for the contest or not. If you were one of them, and you want your money to go to the contest winners, email me and I’ll add it to the prize. Once I get that sorted out, I’ll post an updated number here, and a breakdown of the donations in the comments below (I will break them down anonymously, of course).
Thanks to everyone who submitted entries! There was a lot of awesome artwork to choose from.
EDITED TO ADD: The cash prize ended up being … $170!
Here we go again. Like small children who have just discovered the power of the tantrum, the terrible people at A Voice for Men seem to have realized that the only reliable way for them to get the attention of the world is to act like complete assholes in public. And so some fans of AVFM have decided to bring back the “Don’t Be That Girl” campaign — you know, the witless and misogynistic “parody” of the successful Canadian “Don’t Be That Guy” rape awareness campaign. Now they’re postering in Halifax.
But there’s one difference: this time they’ve put the logos of the real sponsors of the real “Don’t Be That Guy” rape awareness project on their phony posters. (You can see the whole list by downloading one of the pdfs of the real posters on this page.)
So far, two of the organizations listed on their phony posters – the Bryony House shelter for victims of domestic violence and the Halifax Police Department – have made very clear that their logos are being used without permission.
https://twitter.com/BryonyHouse/status/448148862193389568
@Allisomething Tk u for reporting. We're not a sponsor of this campaign and find it deeply troubling. We'll be looking into this further HT
— Halifax_Police (@HfxRegPolice) March 24, 2014
It’s a pretty safe bet that the other organizations whose logos were appropriated feel similarly.
I’d like to encourage anyone who can afford it to follow up on a suggestion from Cloudiah in the comments and donate to Bryony House so that some good can come out of all this.
Now, I’m no expert on Canadian law, but it seems rather unlikely to me that it’s legal to simply stick some organization’s logo on something and pretend that they have endorsed it. Especially when that organization is the police.
Apparently some MRAs disagree with me on that:
https://twitter.com/AVoiceForMen/status/448225043026149376
“Your consent is not required” seems to be the operating assumption of a lot of those drawn to the Men’s Rights movement.
In later tweets, Elam claims that using the logos is legal because of “fair use,” which is not actually a term used in Canadian law, and promises that the “[p]osters will continue, cupcake.”
I guess we will see. Here are several more photos of the posters. There’s more discussion of this in the AgainstMensRights subreddit.
Lots of real comedians around town apparently… pic.twitter.com/P92KmW3I41
— Handsome Adam Barrett (@im_adam_barrett) March 24, 2014
and one more before I vomit everywhere pic.twitter.com/jEJTXSSHXG
— Handsome Adam Barrett (@im_adam_barrett) March 24, 2014
EDITED TO ADD: Elam has now responded to the critics, and promises to bankroll any legal challenges against the posterers. It’s pretty clear that he doesn’t understand why the logos are a problem.
EDIT/CORRECTION: It’s not completely clear that this postering campaign originated with AVFM. It’s pretty clear, though, that it’s supported by AVFM, and that those involved in it are supporters of AVFM. I’ve made a few changes to the headline and first graf to reflect this.
Well, I’m still sick, and at the moment my cough is more productive than I am, so instead of a full post let’s take another trip down memory lane with this important document from the early years of second wave feminism. In this 1972 pamphlet, the radical feminist collective known as the “Marvel Comics Group” spelled out their five-point program for feminist revolution.
As you can see, it consisted of:
See the awesome blog Sequential Crush for more on this comic-book guide to the romantic side of Women’s Lib.
