Men's Rights Memes Episode Nine: Trials and Regulations

Hello and welcome to episode nine of Men’s Rights Memes, the show where I subject myself to the rhetoric of the Men’s Rights Movement, a group of people with moral compasses so skewed that they always point South. Since I can’t legally beat their heads in with a baseball bat, I’ve settled for eviscerating them with cold, hard logic. Without further ado, here’s this episode’s offending image.

Ha, ha, get it? Because women are gross! But no, we totally don’t hate women, you guys. It’s about equality! I know it might seem odd for me to harp on what was clearly meant to be a joke, and that the MRAs are just going to use this as ammo to reinforce their bullshit idea that political correctness is destroying comedy, but I can’t let this go.

First of all, the joke is shit. It doesn’t have anything interesting or insightful to say, it’s just spewing hate under the guise of humor. But also, I think it showcases a tactic that the MRAs are all too fond of employing when it suits them, and decrying when it doesn’t. Namely, the use of humor to undermine or invalidate the problems that women face in day-to-day life. Reproductive rights are under fire, but the creator of this meme doesn’t give a shit about that. He’s using an actual, negative experience as an excuse to be a dick to women.

Where else could this have come from but Paul Elam’s hate site, www.avoiceformen.com?

Wait, hold on. It occurs to me that this might not even be in jest. It probably is, but knowing how obtuse MRAs have been in the past, it’s entirely possible that this smug, entitled man-child doesn’t believe that there’s a war on women concerning reproductive rights. Stranger things have happened, after all.

There are a variety of tactics that anti-choicers have employed to stop women from having abortions, and none of them have been effective. After all, banning things doesn’t stop people from wanting or even obtaining them. If you believe otherwise, might I suggest that you research a little thing called the War on Drugs.

As an aside, I detest the term ‘pro-life’ even more than I hate the MRAs. Well, okay, that’s not quite true, but it’s close. If these people were really pro-life, they would vote to aid the impoverished and help fight racism. There are any number of things they could be doing to help people who are already living, ideally things that do not involve robbing women of bodily autonomy.

But back to the topic at hand. It seems fairly obvious to me that there is an ongoing attack on women's reproductive rights, particularly in America. The most recent example of this phenomenon is the effort by conservative politicians to defund Planned Parenthood, in the wake of a video that has since been labeled a hoax. That's not all, though. There are also these things called TRAP laws, which stands for "Target Regulation of Abortion Procedure." Basically, TRAPS are a collection of regulations that are imposed upon abortion clinics with the intent to have them closed down. More often than not, the laws have nothing to do with the actual safety of anyone involved. Mostly, it's about shit like the height of ceilings.

In light of all that, I think it's almost impossible to claim that sexism no longer exists in the Western world. There's an entire movement dedicated to taking basic healthcare away from women, for Christ's sake! 

See, what really burns me up about MRAs and antifeminists in general is that they always portray feminists as whiny, as if us talking about sexism is the problem, rather than, you know, the actual sexism itself. If they wanted as to stop ‘whining,’ as they put it, they could easily help advocate for reproductive rights and whatnot. If sexism were gone, we wouldn’t have to bring it up all the time. Everybody wins.

But no, by all means, continue to make sexist jokes.

Further Reading:
http://www.reproductiverights.org/project/targeted-regulation-of-abortion-providers-trap