You Gotta Keep ‘Em Separated
So I wasn’t planning on commenting on this mysterious little Men’s Rights protest that managed to draw a meager seven protestors, with only two signs amongst them, one of them impossible to read at a distance. I mean, despite the poor turnout, they’re actually making an effort to do something in the real world, right? And that’s something, even if the person posting this picture didn’t bother to tell us when this happened or who organized it or even what the protest was about. (Circumcision? Or Men’s Rights generally?) But, hey, baby steps, right?
But then I saw this little exchange in the Men’s Rights subreddit about it:
Feminists: Everything everywhere is always their fault.
Like this:
Posted on June 2, 2012, in actual activism, antifeminism, false accusations, MRA, oppressed men, oppressed white men, paranoia, reddit. Bookmark the permalink. 60 Comments.
HAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHHA
I’m gonna die early from all this laughing. XD
None of these people have cell phones? Private emails? Could post a general meeting location?
Are we sure the MRM isn’t just a vast, dedicated group of performance artists?
What is going on with the dinosaur?
How can you laugh about this? If their mommies had arranged their protest-playdate like they were supposed to it would have been super-gigantic-huge! They could have all met up by the sandbox, had some art time to make signs then marched all the way to the swing set before having juice boxes and cookies.
Mean old feminist conspiracy always spoils everything.
are we certain notc isnt joking? that cant possibly not be a joke.
Are we sure NotC wasn’t trolling? Having a hard time processing the idea that that comment could have been serious.
Dammit, sharculese, you type faster than me.
“What is going on with the dinosaur?”
Did they hunt the dinosaur for the wimminz one hundred million years ago?
Yeah, I legitimately think NotC is pulling their legs… XD XD XD
But no, please, keep thinking we focus all our energy on you. That’s totally the high point of my day, yepperoni XD
lolwhut
HAHAHAHA. Sure, we’re what’s keeping them disconnected. It’s not the fact that that they could fuck up a one car parade, nope, not that at all.
nevermind, i just googled ‘notc mens rights’ and he’s been featured here before:
http://manboobz.com/2012/04/03/mens-rights-redditors-defend-a-guy-who-says-he-punched-his-sperm-stealing-girlfriend/
hahaha
Dear MRM,
The femigynoconspiracy is just our way of saying “We Care”
Sincerely,
The Mgt.
Also, I don’t think NotC being an actual r/mr denizen precludes zir being sarcastic here.
Oh THAT guy? The sperm-thief puncher story-teller? Wow.
@scarlettpipistrelle,
he responds to the sperm-thief puncher story-teller, telling him that he “got a freebie” because sperm-thief-girlfriend threatened him.
That sperm-jacking reddit thread is something else, did they seriously suggest he plead temporary insanity? That’s spectacularly bad advice even by MRA standards, take your <5 years for simple assault and make it "until you're not insane anymore" level bad advice. I am actually awestruck by the stupid, that's almost impressive.
On-topic — one guy missed the memo so it must be a conspiracy? I'll remember that excuse the next time I oversleep…
I do think Notc is joking, but that ZimbaZumba is serious.
Yeah, Pal, the government is stopping you from facebooking each other. Idiots.
Oh, and he’s got nothing to do, and he’s some how soooo oppressed with all the work that females are making him do.
Seriously? I mean activists in South Africa* under an overtly oppressive regime managed to figure out ways to organize to END FUCKING APARTHEID, but the “Fem Lobby” keeps them from telling Falsfield and others on r/mr about their little event until after it’s over? The best thing about MRAs is that they cannot organize their way out of a wet paper bag.
*As just one example out of many.
that picture really is fucking amazing
Yep - evidence against the conspiracy is proof of the conspiracy. You think the lack of evidence is just because there isn’t any? They got it all piled up in area 51 where the secret alien feminist mind control spaceships are at, man.
So civil rights protestors in the 60”s managed to show up in the thousands despite the constant threat of violence from white supremacists and barrage of high-pressured hoses and attack dogs from racist police forces, but now organizing a casual get-together through Reddit is too hard? Good to know.
is notc supposed to be a pun on ‘nazi’ because that is… super stupid
Didn’t you know? Zuckerberg is a part of the secret feminist conspiracy - if you try to send MRA related messages via Facebook he has them deleted.
I’ve said too much.
Hey, at least they’re doing some actual activism, and anti-circumcision is a respectable cause. I don’t see a problem here.
Read Red Summer by Cameron McWhirter for some USian context on people organizing in dangerous contexts. (1919 was called “red summer” because it was the year that the highest number of incidents of racial violence against African Americans occurred. They did not take it passively, but organized at great risk against lynchings and race riots.)
Look also at how people have organized to fight repressive militarized regimes in S. America, Europe, etc. Talk about courage!
Fucking MRAs have no idea. Pisses me off.
@pangea Absolutely, doing things is good, better than just complaining on the internet. (In support of what cause is important also, though.)
But I think the mockery here is mostly about how they think there’s some oppression going on against them, and so a number of us have been providing examples of what real oppression looks like (and how people have fought it with more courage than MRAs have ever demonstrated).
Paul Elam =/= Nelson Mandela, for example. Or Gandhi, as much as they like to appropriate his words.
they really aren’t tho. seven people standing around with two incomprehensible signs is about as lazy as activism gets. if it were part of a broader campaign to put anti-circumcision (anti-foreskin snipping, mind you, they don’t care about girls) in the public eye and get local measures considered, that would be one thing, but they aren’t, they’re just posting on the internet and organizing half-assed meet-ups they forget to tell anyone about, and then they blame everyone else when they’re not treated seriously.
no, they don’t get a cookie for trying.
lmao… I wonder what they think of the scented candles for men?
This is OT, but anyone interested in some crazy MRA posts, including the one about removing infant girls’ voice boxes, check this out. Sorry if you’ve seen it before, but maybe some haven’t.
http://www.somethingawful.com/d/weekend-web/spearhead-forum-misandry.php?page=8
There’s this website called “Meetup” where you can create groups and events for those groups. I’m a brony so I subscribe to a brony group and get all kinds of emailed events right to my inbox. Plus there’s also this website named “Facebook” where you can create “groups” in which you can also create events for said groups.
There is really no reason why MRAs can’t get organized other than the fact that they either do NOT want to get organized, or they’re so fragmented full of “in-DUH-vidualz” that they just can’t agree on any one person to listen to about anything.
*shrug*
Or maybe they’re just idiots.
PS: Pretty much every feminist I’ve ever read or spoken with is outspoken against male genital mutilation AS WELL AS female genital mutilation.
Feminism has always been about bodily integrity and personal choice in life as well as breaking down illogical gender and sexual roles in society- it would be incredibly hypocritical to ignore the injustice of male circumcision and violation of male infants’ bodily integrity.
Yay Father Ted!
Wow, the fact that people organized massive protests decades before the internet whereas these guys who have specific internet forums dedicated to their cause can’t get even a dozen dudes to stand outside and rage says a lot about just how huge of a failure their movement is and how much they’re really just looking for an excuse to bitch about women and not to actually do anything.
like if someone ever tells me they need a picture of the internet its all ready to go
@nanasha
idk like occasionally i wonder how it would be different if my pipe wasnt cut but on the whole it is pretty much a thing i do not care at all about
@Sharculese
My husband and I are both anti circumcision. I think less people are doing it, and gradually it will fall out of practice. But people should be educated, so if MRAs want to do that, I’m fine with it. But knowing them, they’ll link circumcision to a feminist plot and make the anti circumcision movement look stupid.
I have to assume that they imagine that “the Feminist” is sort of brain-worm in the tap water that makes them forget about important stuff like that.
The drunk, geriatric priest from Father Ted reminds me of Uncle Elmer (he just needs to mention his FOREIGN BRIDE every 2nd sentence).
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tNY376o2XMY
For the life of me I don’t know why, but I look at that picture of those guys and the last line of the refrain from “Billy Jean” plays in my head.
One commenter writes:
You don’t say…
The crazy old Gandalf figure certainly completes the picture!
I dunno… I was against the MRM, but according to that picture, the movement consists of a wizard and his six companions. I can’t help wondering if there’s a treasure map on the other side of that sign.
Maybe, this is the problem - they’re just confused fantasy characters who don’t understand the difference between a ‘civil rights movement’ and an ‘expedition to the Barrier Peaks’. Instead of mocking them, we should chip in and get them some sort of magic wardrobe, and send them all head off to Narnia.
Or maybe Gor. I guess they’d prefer Gor.
D’oh! Ninja’d.
Could be that they had the organisation, but… and this is controversial… lacked the numbers to get a decent protest going. Maybe there just aren’t enough of them in that area to get more than seven people who can be arsed to make an effort.
Seven protestors? They’ve got a ways to go before they get their million man march.
BTW, I too am against circumcision. I won’t be surprised if they do try to link circumcision to feminism.
Don’t you realize? The proof is that there is no proof. That’s just how crafty the Government and Feminist Lobby is! They lurk everywhere. They might even be here right now!
Sometime I wonder about the Poor Put-Upon White Male, Conspiracy Theory Division. I mean, I have enough to do in my day that I don’t sit around and think these things up. But I suppose if I was, say, a milk machine technician, I might have enough time to contemplate conspiracies. Instead, I have to think about which street I should cry in so that I can get the best deals. I mean, couponing is better, but there’s no glory or thrill in cutting up and sorting little squares of paper.
Somehow Sir Rugglesby, I think you’re right. *shudders*
Of course not. Don’t you realize that managing one’s calendar is women’s work? Obviously, if their wives, girlfriends, mothers, daughters, sisters, and/or female co-workers didn’t a) notify them of the upcoming event, b) put it in their calendars, c) remind them the night before, d) make sure their clothes were clean and ready and that their signs and packed lunches/lunch money were all prepared, and e) wake them up on time (and remind them again), then IT’S A FEMALE CONSPIRACY!!!!
/sarcasm
(The huge core of truth in this is why I didn’t make it too far up the secretarial career ladder.)
Hey Pecunium, we totally were more than halfway to an MRA-sized protest going last week! If I’d known, I would have brought my Disapproving Rabbits sign.
Huh? Wha? I’m surfing the net on lunch break from a weekend long art salon my husband and I are featured in, sorry. Did someone say something about me being unfullfilled after 25, or without having kids?
Oh! I get it! Scented candles might make our gallery area smell good! Thanks for the tip, shieldmaiden! (why does that sound like a colloquialism for a dental dam?)
/humblebrag
@morkais
it’s not an either/or
Serious question: I don’t believe in circumcision (male or female, or coercively-reconstructed intersex genitalia), but I know that in the west, circumcision is partially a religious thing, so where does bodily integrity go in relation to religious freedom? I mean I’d like to think that parents wouldn’t be allowed to have a procedure performed on their children, but I know there’s also a time frame that’s kind of important, so… what? What do you do with that?
Sharculese: Fair point.
@gingersnaps
in the us, the test for these kinds of situations is ‘facially neutral law of general applicability’. that means if a law targets a particular social good or ill unrelated to religion (like bodily integrity) and isnt directed at a particular group of people, it’s not a violation of your first amendment freedom of religion.
that said, that test was developed in a case where people fired for cause after they ingested peyote in traditional native american ceremonies were denied unemployment benefits. it’s hard to imagine it would go over so well if applied to ritual circumcision. but it’s also hard to imagine such a law getting passed without a religious exemption a mile wide
Sharculese: Yes, and no. Look at how marriage was dealt with in Utah. It’s interesting that some of the basis for the ruling (social strife caused by an imbalance of women in the territory) isn’t quite the same. It’s arguable that the disparity still isn’t redressed, because there aren’t more women than men. On the flip side, female agency is more widely accepted.
But Mormons have, institutionally†, decided they don’t like polygamy, and the idea that non-Mormons might be allowed to be polygamous is not to be borne.
†I have a lot of Mormon friends, and they have different personal views on polygamy; most holding that it’s either completely daft, or that three is the right number of wives. The theory being they can’t gang up on the man, and they won’t, permanently, gang up on each other.
Poly, of course, as practiced by “Gentiles” is seen as an evil sin marking the total breakdown of civilisation. If it’s not in “The Church” it’s one man/one woman.
@pecunium
i want to respond but i’m not sure which part of what i wrote youre addressing. could you clarify?
That was a “yes and no to the religious exemption”, i.e. I can see it being crafted in way which only allows certain religions to practise it.
Well, it’s a dramatic improvement on the last photographed MRA get together:
http://manboobz.com/2012/02/19/mens-rights-in-the-real-world-no-one-showed-up-to-the-event-but-organizers-say-the-lack-of-attendance-is-not-due-to-a-lack-of-interest/
And who can forget “Sink Misandry” - when the MRM started “taking it to the streets”.