Tag: MRA

a voice for men a woman is always to blame antifeminism crackpottery creepy empathy deficit entitled babies evil fat fatties evil sexy ladies evil women feminist dudes hypocrisy irony alert memes men created civilization men who should not ever be with imaginary women ever men who should not ever be with women ever MGTOW misogyny MRA nice guys reactionary bullshit red pill sexualization straw feminists straw futrelle taking pleasure in women's pain the olden days unsolicited penis updates

How A Voice for Men's Facebook memes inadvertently reveal the deep sexual insecurities underlying the misogyny of the Men's Rights movement

Detail of a perhaps inadertently revealing A Voice for Men meme — Detail of an unintentionally revealing A Voice for Men meme

The We Hunted the Mammoth Pledge Drive continues! If you haven’t already, please consider sending some bucks my way. (And don’t worry that the PayPal page says Man Boobz.) Thanks!

From time to time I like to check in on the Facebook page for A Voice for Men, to see how that eminent men’s human rights organization’s program to advance the human man rights of human men through badly designed and even more poorly conceived graphic “memes” is going.

Well, I can report that this program is going, and going, and going, a bit like a famous battery-powered bunny.

Looking through them today, I couldn’t help but notice the weird sexual undertones — and overtones — of many of the memes, and realized that, while none of the memes tell us much about the world, they do, in an altogehter accidental way, offer some pretty interesting insights into the ids of those making and “liking” them on Facebook.

You don’t have to be a trained psychoanalyst to see the not-very-well-hidden straight male sexual insecurities that lie behind a large number of AVFM’s memes — both the ones they create themselves and the others that seem to have arrived on the AVFM page after being forwarded via email from someone’s cranky misogynistic uncle. Let’s take a look at some of them.

evil women imaginary backwards land imaginary oppression mansplaining men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA oppressed men prison rape rape rape culture reddit

"Feminists lie about rape because it's a badge of honor," and other insights from the upside-down world of Men's Rights Redditors

Oopsy daisy.

You know how, in The Poseidon Adventure, the giant cruise ship gets flipped over by a huge wave and the passengers have to make their way through the upside-down ship to the bottom of the hull, which is now the top, in order to survive?

Well, the Men’s Rights subreddit is kind of like that. The only way to get upvotes is to look at everything upside-down.

See, e.g., this comment addressing the issue of rape, and why feminists allegedly lie about it:

a voice for men antifeminism atheism minus entitled babies imaginary backwards land imaginary oppression misogyny MRA oppressed men paul elam richard dawkins schadenfreude

Men's Rights activists outraged that Richard Dawkins has never heard of them

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date December 9, 2014
172 Comments on Men's Rights activists outraged that Richard Dawkins has never heard of them

The Men’s Rights Movement: To silly even for Richard Dawkins?

Richard Dawkins, I think it’s fair to say, is a bit of a dick. Though he’s an expert popularizer of science he seems to be a bit of a blithering idiot on every other topic he tries to address; his broadsides on religion are patronizing and profoundly ignorant, and his forays into gender politics are even more cringey.

He puts his foot in his mouth so often on Twitter that it’s sometimes difficult to tell the difference between his real account and this absurdist parody.

#gamergate alpha males antifeminism drama kings men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA oppressed men precious bodily fluids PUA red pill reddit spermjacking

Misogynists can't agree: Should you guard your sperm with your life — or spread your "super serum" as widely as you can?

SuperSperm, not to be confused with Sperm Clark Kent

It’s not exactly news that Men’s Rights Activists are obsessed — seriously obsessed — with sperm.

Several days ago, one Redditor took to the Men’s Rights subreddit to warn fellow sperm-generators to keep a close watch on that sperm of theirs, telling the tale of how he allegedly caught his alleged wife allegedly “scooping … up” the sperm he had thoughtfully deposited on her belly during sex and “PUTTING IT IN HER VAGINA!!!” He is now allegedly seeking a divorce.

But this is hardly the first time Men’s Rights Redditors have worked themselves into a lather over the dangers of spermjacking. Or even the hundredth. If you do a search for the word “sperm” on Reddit’s Men’s Rights subreddit, you’ll find literally hundreds of posts — many with hundreds of upvotes and/or comments — on the importance of safeguarding one’s own sperm.

antifeminism butts evil sexy ladies imaginary backwards land imaginary oppression misogyny MRA reddit warren farrell

Butt Seriously: The Men's Rights Movement is as ridiculous as The Onion's fake political cartoons

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date December 2, 2014
342 Comments on Butt Seriously: The Men's Rights Movement is as ridiculous as The Onion's fake political cartoons

Not a real editorial cartoon

Over on Reddit, a regular on the Blue Pill subreddit — devoted to mocking Red Pill ridiculousness — recently reposted the cartoon above, one of The Onion’s brilliant parodies of the terrible political cartoons that are pretty much omnipresent in every second-string newspaper in the country. I don’t think I’ve ever posted it here before — I’m not sure I ever saw it until today — so I thought I’d share it here as well.

What makes this particular cartoon extra delicious is that its “argument,” such as it is, is one that a lot of Men’s Rights Activists actually believe. Indeed, it calls to mind the cover of the revised ebook edition of Warren Farrell‘s seminal MRA manifesto The Myth of Male Power, in which a picture of a woman’s posterior is presented as if it truly is, somehow, a threat to the rights of men:

a voice for men actual activism advocacy of violence domestic violence facepalm men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA not-quite-plausible deniability paul elam

The Men's Rights activist behind a fraudulent White Ribbon website accuses the real White Ribbon Australia of fraud

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date November 25, 2014
108 Comments on The Men's Rights activist behind a fraudulent White Ribbon website accuses the real White Ribbon Australia of fraud

Sydney’s White Ribbon Day walk this year

November 25^th is White Ribbon Day in Australia, a day devoted to ending domestic violence against women. This year – the 25^th has already drawn to a close in Australia – there were reportedly hundreds of White Ribbon events held across the country, including a massive march in suburban Sydney that drew thousands of participants.

White Ribbon Australia, which describes itself as “Australia’s only national, male led Campaign to end men’s violence against women” calls on men to “swear never to commit, excuse or remain silent about violence against women.” It helps to coordinate events in schools and workplaces, and has gotten support from police departments across the country as well as from various branches of the nation’s military.

It’s also gotten the attention of the folks at A Voice for Men.

#gamergate a voice for men antifeminism attention seeking entitled babies evil SJWs men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA oppressed men paul elam

Men's Rights elder Paul Elam to #GamerGaters: Pay attention to MEEEEE!

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date November 18, 2014
95 Comments on Men's Rights elder Paul Elam to #GamerGaters: Pay attention to MEEEEE!

I don’t think you’re going to make it, dude

Pity poor Paul Elam! The Men’s Rights elder has spent, by his estimation, nearly half of his life ranting and raving against the supposed evils of feminism, and for what?

The movement he claims to lead has had no tangible victories in the real world beyond sullying its own name; traffic at his website has stalled out; and his latest publicity stunt – appropriating the name of the White Ribbon antiviolence campaign for his own dubious ends – has put him and/or his allies at legal risk without garnering him much of the attention he clearly craves.

#gamergate antifeminism antifeminist women dark enlightenment entitled babies evil SJWs harassment literal nazis men invented everything misogyny MRA oppressed white men reactionary bullshit red pill

With #GamerGate floundering, the Internet Douchebag Squad whips up a #Shirtstorm

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date November 16, 2014
399 Comments on With #GamerGate floundering, the Internet Douchebag Squad whips up a #Shirtstorm

Graph tracking the decline of #GamerGate, and the surge of #Shirtstorm, posted by GGer @Eggkin “thanking #shirtstorm & the femloons for keeping the spark alive.”

By all rights, the furor over rocket scientist Matt Taylor’s cheesecake shirt should have died down by now. After being chided earlier this week for marring the celebration over the landing of a space probe ON A GODDAMNED COMET by doing interviews in a tacky shirt covered with half-naked ladies, Taylor offered a brief but heartfelt apology. You would have thought we’d all be able to move on.

Not so fast. Because these days apparently no controversy can ever be over as long as it serves someone’s interest to keep it going. And so a loose but very familiar coalition of reactionaries and antifeminists and angry techies have started flogging an amorphous cause they call #Shirtgate or, more popularly, #Shirtstorm, purporting to be outraged that Taylor was “humiliated” into apologizing.

a voice for men bullying doubling down empathy deficit harassment hypocrisy misogyny MRA paul elam red pill transphobia

In which Paul Elam, alleged human rights champion, tells me to kill myself

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date November 14, 2014
102 Comments on In which Paul Elam, alleged human rights champion, tells me to kill myself

So that was A Voice for Men founder Paul Elam’s response to a recent post of mine talking about Christopher Cantwell, an AVFM contributor who also likes to tell people to kill themselves.

In an AVFM post also titled David Futrelle: Please kill yourself, Elam waxed eloquent upon this theme:

David, please go kill yourself.

You should, however, before you slip away into the dark void that resembles your capacity for logic, consider that you may want to get out more. A lot more, actually.

“Please kill yourself,” in the context of Twitter and a lot of other internet exchanges is par for the course.

That is sadly true, Paul. I see that as a problem; you apparently see it as an excuse for the harassment and abuse you and your followers so enjoy heaping upon your opponents in the name of “Men’s Human Rights.”

Apparently, in Elam’s world, the best way to fight male suicide is by telling other men to kill themselves.

Oh, but one of Elam’s fans has an answer to that, too:

Human rights advocates at work!

#gamergate a woman is always to blame antifeminism creepy entitled babies evil sexy ladies evil SJWs friend zone gamebros hypocrisy imaginary backwards land imaginary oppression irony alert men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA nice guys okcupid oppressed white men playing the victim reactionary bullshit reddit twitter

#GamerGate's new champion is a wax replica of Patrick Bateman who thinks gamers are a bunch of dateless nerds

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date November 14, 2014
218 Comments on #GamerGate's new champion is a wax replica of Patrick Bateman who thinks gamers are a bunch of dateless nerds

Actual unretouched photo of Mytheos Holt, #GamerGate’s new champion

Watch out, Milo Yiannopoulos, you’ve got competition! #GamerGate has a new journalistic champion — and this one, like Milo, seems to have come straight from central casting, a virtual embodiment of every snooty reactionary preppie stereotype from every bad 80s movie.

A libertarian think tanker and erstwhile journalist with the unlikely name of Mytheos Holt, this new contender has one great advantage over young Milo: as you can see in the photo above, which I have not photoshopped in any way, he appears to be made entirely of wax — which means that unless someone accidentally sets him near a heater he will last forever.