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!
I think Huckabee is mistaking “political correctness” for just plain “correctness.”
Ugh. Next thing you know he’ll be going “I will NOT be censored by the Nazi liberals! FREE SPEECH!”
Isn’t that just another version of “trans women are totes just men trying to creep on women,” only 100x creepier because Huckabee is saying “gee, I wish *I* were one of those men trying to creep on women?”
@kirby
Yes, but worse, because Huckabee’s example involved creeping on teenaged girls.
Can’t say I’m terribly surprised by this Huckebee thing.
Seems like another one of those “I know I’m a voyeuristic perv, so all people born with similar genitalia to mine must also be voyeuristic pervs” cases.
I think others may have commented on this already, but the homeless person in that miserable meme could very well be a woman — in fact, judging only by the small body size, long hair, and relatively prominent hip area (most significant indicator) it probably is a woman.
@Aunt Edna
Yeah, we’ve thought of that. Some of us kinda hope it is a woman for, you know, irony sakes…and stuff…you know what I mean!
@Pandapool:
I know what you mean, irony-wise (not that MRA get that, being irony deficient). Though I wish no person, woman or man (or child, most of all), would be homeless. Just as we all do.
I think we should have more brain bleach here
http://youtu.be/7AUeM8MbaIk
http://youtu.be/j_SjhcdF_J4
http://www-static.weddingbee.com/pics/53947/baby_animals.jpg
The more I look at that picture the more I think that it is indeed a homeless woman. I’d also like to make a quick point: I don’t think the meme is saying that men talking about their feelings causes homelessness, but that women “using men as cash cows” does. Which, regardless, is still miles from the truth.
The image comes from Getty Images and was taken by Spencer Platt. The description just says it is a “homeless person” sleeping on a Manhattan street. You can see a higher-quality version of it on Getty’s site.
It was used on a HuffPo article last year, which is probably where the “meme” “creator” found it.
@Fruitloopsie
I can’t see a monarch butterfly anymore without thinking of this guy.
@POM
Seriously? They couldn’t even google “homeless man” and go from there?
They really must assume that there are no homeless women.
Here’s some fishy brain bleach.
http://images.wikia.com/bettasplendensfish/images/4/46/HalfSunButterfly-001.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2360/2075986919_f4b2da189e.jpg
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/saiCxypusbA/hqdefault.jpg
@sunnysombrera
Having captured both version of the image and having compared them against the “meme,” I am convinced that the image used was the shrunk-down, lower-quality version from the HuffPo article. Take a look for yourself:
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/2065416/images/n-HOMELESS-AMERICA-large570.jpg
http://imgur.com/sQGAru7
As far as I have been able to determine, the HuffPo article is the only place it has been used on the searchable web other than its home on Getty Images. If you blow up the HuffPo version, it is blurry in all the same ways as the one used in the meme, whereas the Getty Images version is much higher quality at the same resolution as the meme.
It amuses me to think of MRAs reading Huffington Post.
@.@
Those fish…they’re, like, fans.
Fan fish.
Panda pool
I believe they are called ‘Betta fish’ or ‘Siamese fighting fish’
AltoFronto:
While that is an troubling/intriguing story line, it wouldn’t work with this drug – to have any effect, the pill needs to be taken regularly over an extended amount of time. The results develop slowly, much like with most antidepressants. Spiking someone’s drink won’t do much (thank goodness).
Aaaand then they have for their leader a guy like Paul Elam…a Deadbeat Daddy who wants you to give him all your cake, in addition to keeping all his own cake and never sharing it with those pesky kids that those conniving harlots saddled him with.
One would think these guys (and their token feeeemales) would catch on and realize that their “family” structure is dysfunctional, but nope. Not until Deadbeat Daddy Paulie boots them out of the AVFM treehouse, and often, not even then.
DID SOMEBODY SAY BETTAS.
I would die for a true green butterfly halfmoon, but they’re the single rarest variant. I’ve only seen one for sale ever and he was $250. ;__;
Yeah. How does a woman getting a man (who is apt to be better paid and more steadily employed) to pay her way translate to her rendering him homeless? It doesn’t. I mean, unless he is fired from his better-paying, more secure job, and it’s all because of her somehow, it just doesn’t!
@Bina
I think they’re trying to say that women take all of men’s money through alimony and child support and such like, (because those amounts are totally set by the ex-wives and not the courts) or women demand men spend all their money on them and then when the man runs out of money she leaves him.
Like wtf. Job loss is the number one cause of homelessness, followed by more outgoings than incomings. Yet again MRAs are blaming feminism for an issue that HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. MRAS, YOUR BEEF IS WITH CAPITALISM. FFS.
Ironically enough, the number one cause of homelessness for women is escaping an abusive partner. Funny how AVFM doesn’t mention that.
Sfhc
They certainly are beautiful
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/8guo5iY_gLM/maxresdefault.jpg
I’ve always feel bad whenever I see them in pets stores, they’re kept in tiny containers all day and night. 🙁
I’m still waiting for the perfect betta tank. They’re always either too small or have weirdly powerful filters, or sometimes no filter at all. I don’t know what’s so hard about an airstone-powered undergravel filter in a 2 or 3 gallon tank.
Preach it.
And of course, they won’t tackle capitalism, because they know damn well that it is overwhelmingly dominated and run by MALES*. And because that points up to them just how small and powerless they are against such a huge MALE-DOMINATED* machine, they have to make themselves feel bigger somehow…and to do that, they pick on smaller folks. Namely, women and children. Whom they blame for eating up all that sweet, sweet money that the capitalist system won’t let them have.
(*sorry for the ALL CAPS — not shouting at you, but at them. Because they are just so damn dense.)
Oh, but that’s because men are the abused ones! Abused by women! Women demanding that they talk about those pesky, money-draining (non-anger, non-rage, non-fury) feelings!