Above, the unintentionally ironic MRA meme of the week, courtesy of A Voice for Men’s Facebook page, their main distribution center for unintentionally ironic and otherwise terrible memes. I’m not sure what specific week this is the ironic meme for, given that Emma Watson’s speech to the UN took place last September and this meme was posted on Facebook only this week, but just roll with it, people!
So what exactly makes this meme ironic? Well, for starters, Watson didn’t actually say the words in question or otherwise order men to talk to women about their feelings.
What she said was a good deal more subtle. She started by saying that one of the things that led her to embrace feminism was her realization, at age 18, that “my male friends were unable to express their feelings.” Then she went on to talk in more detail about the ways breaking down gender stereotypes helps to free, well, everyone.
We don’t often talk about men being imprisoned by gender stereotypes but I can see that they are and that when they are free, things will change for women as a natural consequence.
If men don’t have to be aggressive in order to be accepted women won’t feel compelled to be submissive. If men don’t have to control, women won’t have to be controlled.
Both men and women should feel free to be sensitive. Both men and women should feel free to be strong… It is time that we all perceive gender on a spectrum not as two opposing sets of ideals.
If we stop defining each other by what we are not and start defining ourselves by what we are—we can all be freer and this is what HeForShe is about. It’s about freedom.
The big irony here? This is exactly what a real Men’s Rights movement should be promoting, not raging against.
Adding to the irony, whoever made this meme made clear that they aren’t just unwilling to listen to women’s feelings; they’re unwilling to listen to a woman’s logical argument. Which is why they simplified her comments and distorted their meaning.
But what wins this meme the grand prize for irony this week is meme maker’s assertion that “WE DON’T NEED OR WANT TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT OUR FEELINGS.”
Really? Because in fact MRA dudes and MGTOWs and the rest of their ilk talk about their feelings constantly, and loudly — with anyone willing to listen and some who aren’t.
Sure, it’s true that most MRA dudes and their ideological soulmates don’t like to talk about their feelings of sadness or anxiety or insecurity or doubt. You know, the sorts of feelings it would be good for most of these guys to explore and understand and, when possible, get past.
But they love, just love, to talk about how angry they are, how angry they think other men are, and how much feminists, and the women of the world generally, are going to suffer if they refuse to listen to angry men and do what they say. Hell, the so-called “father” of Men’s Rights in the UK? A guy who calls himself Angry Harry. (And he more than lives up to the name.)
The cherry on top of this Irony Sundae: the memester’s decision to use a picture of a homeless man to represent a man oppressed by demanding women.
Men don’t become homeless because some evil woman asked them to talk about their feelings. Indeed, given how many homeless people are mentally ill, most homeless men (and women) would benefit from having the opportunity to talk to a trained professional about their feelings and from better mental health services generally. (Not to mention better services for veterans suffering from PTSD and other war-related maladies.)
In the US, many homeless people who are mentally ill were dumped onto the streets by facilities that didn’t have the money to properly care for them; some of the facilities were and are so bad that their former inhabitants actually prefer the streets.
Oh, and one of the main reasons mental health services are so shitty in the US — and why, in particular, so many men are so poorly served? The old-fashioned notion that men “DON’T NEED OR WANT TO TALK … ABOUT OUR FEELINGS.”
So I award AVFM this week’s IRONY AWARD in MEMING, for once again promoting ideas that actually make the world worse for men!
Of course girls. Please don’t hesitate to absolve yourselves of any wrong doing for your part when THIS issue arises.
Because I’ve been involved in many discussions regarding the raised issues affecting men in today’s society.. But all you get from feminist forums in discussion of whatever the raised issue regarding mens rights etc is OH YOU POOR MENZ or WHINEY MAN BABIES or BOO HOO or “MALE SUICIDE, CRY ME A F***ING RIVER”
And don’t try to pretend this isn’t true because you know it is.
Men ARE TRYING to speak about their insecurities and the problems they face BUT they have to approach it in THEIR OWN WAY.. NOT THE WAY YOU THINK THEY SHOULD.
Totally off topic, but I thought everyone might find this sad boner troll and the blogger’s response to him hilarious. I did!
I had the same thought as David upon seeing that, er, meme, if we can grace that drivel with that useful word. Feelings? That’s ALL MRA’s want to do, is talk about their feelings. Their aggrieved, whiney, petulant fee-fees. I mean come on.
It might be helpful if I actually posted the link, huh?
https://fatheffalump.wordpress.com/2015/06/06/fat-activism-is-not-about-your-boner/
Anybody who is worried about Mike Huckabee — he’s not running for President to run for President — he’s just playing the Rudy Giuliani game, trying to stay on TV and keep those speaking fees coming …
Another unintentionally hilarious thing about the meme: the botched parallel sentence construction in that second photo. It makes it sound like they’re demanding that women stop destroying the lives of men, while simultaneously using them as personal slaves/cash machines. Um…okay?
BQS: apparently English syntax and sentence structure are feminist conspiracies. Or, more likely, their English teacher was a woman so they didn’t listen to her.
@GrumpyOldSocialJusticeMangina – And don’t forget, proper grammar and spelling are only for when you’re trying to impress a hot babe!
@PoM:
It amuses me to think of MRAs reading Huffington Post.
My introduction to MRA and vicinity came about through my posting on HuffPo back in the day (in its glory days, that is, pre-FB involvement).
I had no idea who these men were, usually in the Women and Divorce sections, who spouted such seemingly concerted and degoratory toward women nonsense; but was soon enough clued in by other, more sophisticated discussion participants as to their MRA identities. Paul Elam himself “graced” HuffPo discussions on occasions, and yes, he was as despicable as always. Karen Straughan also engaged there, as did Esmay and several other better known loudmouthed ‘spherians, in addition to the garden-variety no-name MRAs.
On the positive side, they were always pummelled by reasonable folks (in those ancient pre-FB times, one could have a pretty decent discussion on HP).
I suspect a search of the site may still show some of their comments (not that anyone should / would want to see them).
BQS: I don’t think so — I don’t think that is the sort of thing you can just turn on and off.
My wife broke up with her previous boyfriend in part because she found his constant use of “You know” terminally annoying. (There were issues with the TV remote as well.) She is the grand-daughter of an English professor. In the early years of our marriage some of our most impassioned battles were over whether “Drive slow” was acceptable or “Drive slowly” was the only grammatical form.
@dawn
I guess your comment appeared after the ones beneath it, else someone else would have written a response by now. Oh well, here goes mine.
Feminists DO accept that men have issues and disadvantages, and believe that patriarchy is the root cause e.g believing that women are naturally mothers, that men must ‘be a man’ and deal with their burdens etc. I’m also aware that women do perpetuate the problem of shaming men who do openly talk about their emotions. For that I’m sorry.
HOWEVER. From what we’ve read of MRAs they rarely talk about men’s issues except as a weapon to try and show how awful feminists/women are. That’s pretty much it. Other than that, there is a lot of rhetoric from that that basically stems from entitled whinging. THAT’S the stuff that feminist boards make fun of. To break it down…
What indeed are men’s rights:
*The right to equal custody with their kids if they want it (and of course, are adequate fathers. I’m all for keeping abusive parents (of both genders) away from their children).
*Efficient mental health services and encouragement to be themselves, to express themselves instead of squeezing into a forced ideal of masculinity.
*Male contraceptive pill
*Efficient services for the homeless, or better yet a system where loss of a job won’t cause you to lose your home after a few months.
*To not pay for a child he didn’t want IF and ONLY IF he took provably sufficient steps in trying to prevent conception. (IMHO anyway).
What AREN’T men’s rights, yet the MRM won’t shut up about:
*For women everywhere to be boner pleasing to the eye, always. No fat chicks.
*For said boner pleasing women to satisfy a man’s boner upon request, no argument. And no condoms if he doesn’t want them.
*For men to be able to marry a submissive virginal woman, under 25, who will bear his children and take care of the house, no argument.
*For men to be able to “paper abort” a child (in other words, abandon it) at any point in the child’s life. No child support, nothing.
*For men to have the final say in whether their partner aborts a pregnancy or not.
*For marital rape laws to be abolished. (?!?!?!)
*For women who falsely accuse rape to be severely punished – and by “false accusations” they mean every trial that doesn’t end in a guilty charge for the perp.
*To be able to hit women without repercussions. I’d agree with this if they meant in self defence, but MRAs like Paul Elam seem to have a long and wide list of what a woman could do to “deserve” being beaten…Needless to say AVFM gets called the “abusers lobby” for a reason.
*For women to get out of the workforce in order to look after a husband and family, yet at the same time not require any financial support in doing so.
There are others, but you get the point. When an MRA starts spouting off things from the second list, THAT’S when feminists start to call him a whiny man child. And only then. It’s a shame that they only refer to the first list when they want to complain that women everywhere are awful and how men are oh so oppressed by feminists. Dudes, no. The first list has nothing to do with feminism.
*as in, feminism didn’t cause any of the issues on the first list.
And, more and more frequently since Roosh broached the subject, for all rape laws to be abolished, including (especially) the age of consent.
dawn sez:
Hey guys, did you know that every time I barge into a forum about X topic and demand to talk about Y topic instead, I get told to shut up? How incredibly rude, amirite?
@seven
Oh yes, the good old “why are you wimminz talking about rape when there are FALSE ACCUSERS out there, who ruin men’s lives!” or “Men are DYING and you’re complaining about being made to have sex?”
“Hey girls! Um, I mean, feminists….Men are telling you that you’re conniving, selfish, gold-digging bitches with no value beyond your 19-year-old pussies, and they’re accusing you of causing everything from acid rain to chemtrails, and getting SO ANGRY when the media allows you to speak in public and get taken seriously, and they’re proposing to take away your basic human rights as a result, and all you can do is make fun of them? How cold-hearted can you be?”
Sorry, Dawn, but no one is required to coddle and stroke hatred until it feels all better.
Links please? Because I have a feeling that most of the pushback you’re getting is either because you’ve derailed, or you’re talking about sad boner feels. It’s inappropriate to demand that a conversation about misogyny and women’s issues be centered around men and their feeling. Just as it would be inappropriate as a white cishet woman for me to enter a discussion about say, police shooting unarmed black people or politicians calling trans women perverted men for wanting to use the women’s restroom to complain about how I just got catcalled. Street harassment is an important issue that I care about, in part because it’s effected me, but that doesn’t mean every conversation has to be about it. Sometimes conversations are about other people. People who have problems I’m privileged not to have.
I suspect you already know this and that’s why you had to make up an extremist quote. Where have you been seeing feminists mocking male suicide? Because I’ve never seen it. It certainly wouldn’t fly here. So, until you provide some evidence that this happens, I’m calling cool story bro. Yes, bro. Women don’t tend to condescendingly call other women girls and we don’t tend to use two dot ellipses. So the feminine sounding name isn’t convincing me.
Why are so many of these words capitalized? Anyway, what do you mean approach it in their own way? Because if you mean expressing insecurities through misogyny? We’ve got every right to object.
One other thing I’ve realised about the image in the meme is that if the only location of it is in the HuffPo article, who credit the photographer and company, it means that that photo is licensed (HuffPo had to ask to use it) and AVFM are essentially stealing artistic property.
Not that that surprises me, I mean, they’ve done that sort of thing before. They know fuck all about copyright law. Guess we’d better let Getty Images know.
AVFM have already said that they don’t need to follow intellectual property laws. It’s no surprise. They’re an entitled bunch. Consent doesn’t apply to them.
IKR. They once took an image of a “Don’t be that guy” poster (to mutilate it into one of their victim-blaming memes) and failed to remove the small text at the bottom of the poster, making it seem like Save Edmonton was affiliated with their disgusting edit. Save Edmonton posted on the Facebook page asking them to take the image down as it was breaking intellectual property law and AVFM responded with…silence. Of course.
But Getty Images seems to be a fairly reputable company with money, unlike a charity. Maybe they’ll have the clout to teach AVFM a lesson about stealing.
Don’t forget the White Ribbon clusterfuck.
How logical of them. Their manbrains are clearly able to handle legal matters better than anyone else’s.
I’m sorry to spam this comment thread, but speaking of AVFM memes (again. Why do these guys keep coming up with golden turds?) here is a little something. Just in case you had doubts that the dudes over there are completely fucking dense.
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=831612773560872&id=102001393188684
THEY’RE BITCHING ABOUT A TWEET FROM A PARODY ACCOUNT OF A FICTIONAL CHARACTER (seriously, it says so on the Twitter page). HOW DO THEY EVEN PUT ON SOCKS?
Ooops, dudes and dudettes. Didn’t notice the “Jessica” at the bottom.