Well,I got carried away there. It’s not literally the whole world. Only a teensy weensy portion of it.
The fellows at A Voice for Men, you see, evidently stung by criticism that they aren’t activists, have begun engaging in real, honest-to-goodness real-world activism, by which I mean that a handful of them, some in Canada and at least one in Australia, have been putting up posters advertising the AVFM website.
In other words, their activism consists of putting up posters for a website whose only activism thus far has consisted of putting up posters for itself.
Well, eventually they’ll get the hang of it, I guess.
In any case, the A Voice for Menners have discovered something about activism: if you do things that are offensive enough, people will be offended. And so they’ve managed to offend some people in Canada and in Australia where their posters have gone up. In Australia, there have even been a couple of news articles written about them! For example, one in Melbourne’s Herald Sun says:
A MAN who is littering the city with posters promoting a website that encourages men to support rapists has declined the opportunity to explain himself.
The website, which the Herald Sun has chosen not to name, is campaigning to get men sitting on juries for rape trials to “vow publicly to vote not guilty, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that the charges are true”. …
The website’s publisher, Paul Elam, told the Herald Sun he was too busy watching the movie Air Force One to be interviewed, but later said by email he stood by the campaign.
Ooh! How very, very alpha of him.
Other articles (see here and here) describe the posters as “hate posters,” because one of them seems to suggest that women provoke domestic violence against themselves. The text of the poster reads “Domestic Violence Women Are Half the Problem.”
In fact, Elam and company are trying to suggest that women instigate half of all domestic violence, and thus are “half the problem,” but they’re so wedded to the easily misunderstood “half the problem” slogan that they somehow cannot seem to get this idea across in poster form. (This idea is itself incorrect, but that’s a whole other kettle of angry dudes.) Elam and company don’t quite seem to understand that an important part of activism is actually conveying your ideas to the general public rather than simply provoking people.
You can’t buy this kind of publicity!
Well, technically, you could, but no one would, because no one would willingly pay money for a publicity campaign that makes them appear to be hateful assholes — and in fact, even a teensy bit more hateful than they actually are.
So, congratulations, I guess?
If anyone wants to help AVFM in its publicity campaign, the super-sarcastic poster below, and a number of other poorly thought out and badly designed posters, can be downloaded from AVFM here by “anyone who wants to print and distribute them.”
Note: THIS IS A REAL AVFM POSTER. I didn’t make it up. See here.
@AlexB: I’m sorry I can’t think of anything better, but my friend’s sister owns a copy of The Game. She uses it to spot a douchebag easily.
So I’m away for a few days, the frontline collapses and y’all let the kitties take over?
@kladle
I’m in Sri Lanka atm, i can try and look him up. I’ll just look around women on bicycles and keep my eyes peeled for the man frothing at the mouth behind them 😛
@Al Gore Deformed
So your argument is that if the store doesn’t ban you then it no longer becomes shoplifting?
The kitties stole all the Frontline to get rid of their fleas. After that they couldn’t be stopped.
@Dracula
I warned y’all about this house of cards of ours, but you were all too arrogant to listen!!
Also, I’ve taken the dog pill.
Puppy! That is a cute doggie.
A thought occurs: Just imagine how much it would piss off the trolls if the randomly generated avatars were all kitties.
I actually thought the randomly generated avatars WERE kitties, for a moment.
Rutee: I thought the same thing. Best WordPress upgrade ever.
So did I. Wordpaws.
We can only hope.
@ Polliwog
“Frankly, the feminist feline fanciers of Manboobz feel frankly, forthrightly, and fervently fantastic about the future prospect of no longer facing your frankly fallacious and frothy foolishness, to be frankly frank, frankly.”
Holy FUCK. LOL!
What if it was wild cats instead of domestic cats? Would the trolls still find the association demeaning because cats have girl cooties?
Speaking of which, check it out – this woman taught her pet serval to fetch. See how evil American women are?
I’m not changing my gravatar to a kitty because I ain’t no goddamned cat carousel
Did anyone notice the other kitty sitting on the bench watching Jabari catch the ball?
His leap reminds me of seeing my Katie-cat catch a bird on the wing, once. Young wattlebird sits on branch squawking at her, takes off and she jumps and catches it (and a few leaves). That unfortunate bird did NOT learn from its mistake. My oath, she was fast.
@Alpha – cat carousel ROFL!
If she has a sip of wine and then flirts with you and you are not under the influence of a substance then just call the cops. We live in a pear culture — and justice is pear-shaped in a pear culture. All the cattiness in the world cannot change that. All that catnip is gulag-bait.
Pam | August 26, 2012 at 11:51 am
A MAN who is littering the city with posters promoting a website that encourages men to support rapists has declined the opportunity to explain himself.
The website, which the Herald Sun has chosen not to name, is campaigning to get men sitting on juries for rape trials to “vow publicly to vote not guilty, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that the charges are true”. …
I offered Courtney Crane and Stephen Drill an interview about the poster runs which they agreed . They decided to reneg when the AvFM film crew arrived!
I am convinced that the entire existence of MRAs is actually a very elaborate and far-reaching hoax. The horribleness of their graphic design skillz only cements my theory.
this is another fake arcticle attempting to discredit MRA which is nothing againts women and MRA strongly condems rapes. But they also condems unfair laws which enocurages women to send men to prison by accusing them of rape without evidence. The very fact that this article was written indicates that MRA are becoming sucessful in their fights for equal men rights under the law on issues such as child custody, divorce, alimony, unfair laws on boys and misandry. Keep it up MRA.
Jennifer, We don’t really need to try to discredit MRAs since they do a pretty good job of it themselves. We just mock them when they do. Thanks for necroing a thread that is nearly a year old, though!
And what laws are these, exactly?
And these ones?
Come back when you have found any actual examples of laws which discriminate against men or boys. Take your time. Search thoroughly.
And when you fail to find any, how about you come back and apologise for being such an idiot?