"Until inequality is challenged, things often seem to be just fine; when groups stand up and demand equality, we suddenly see how fiercely people will defend their privilege."

Word, effing word. I've been scrambling for a way to articulate exactly this for several years, and here it is :) thank you.

do you suppose the defacers are even conscious of the fact that they're endorsing oppression, or is it a kind of knee-jerk gut response? Do they take these signs personally? Is the person who defaced the "real men don't let men rape" sign admitting the fact that he's a (potential) rapist, or has he just learned that it's funny to insult easy targets like feminists?

It's so scary to think that someone believe rape is an inherent urge within men. Rape is about power. It's about patriarchy, and patriarchy is not about attacking men. Patriarchy is not about a group of men or an individual male or the entire male species for that matter. Patriarchy is a system, an institution of capitalism that promotes males over females as way to divide and oppress us as a people. We can't claim that "real men rape" and we can't promote signs that say "real men don't let men rape." Men are raped. Women are rapists. Men suffer from patriarchy, as females do. It's in different ways, of course, but it hurts them. Masculinity, just like femininity, is a dangerous socialization process. We can't continue to separate ourselves when issues like rape affect all of us. If it affects all of us, all of us must be part of the solution.

Hi everyone,

I took the first three photos (and the other scene was discovered and posted by Stephanie K., who posted the photo).

Here's some background -

The first two photos were taken in a bus shelter at one of the two main bus stops at the campus. The "treat women with respect" flyer was torn down within a few days after I noticed it.

Regarding the second photo (with the remnants of the original flyer) -
I think that the caution tape happens fits with the conflict here, but it's only coincidental that the tape was there.

The "do not let men rape" message was in a less visible location near the bus shelter. I missed it at first. By the time I did notice that "do not let men rape" message, it seemed as though the flyer had already been partially ripped away and then taped back down. In the second photo above the tape along the right side is different. I think that side might have been taped back down after it was pulled away from the surface.

(On a day not long after I posted that "do not let men rape" photo I noticed that the sheet was still there, but it was only taped down at the top and the bottom; and the tape along the right seemed to be completely gone.)

If the dates on Flickr are correct, the "real men do rape" photo was taken six days after the "do not let men rape photo." Stephanie tore the sheet down after she photographed it.

I found her photo very upsetting; I took the modified sheet as a pro-rape message, and I was shocked to see that someone would present such a message.

Now I wonder if the "real men do rape" statement was meant to be a way of criticizing men --
all men.

I've written about the gender and sex conflicts associated with those photos

... here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tobanblack/3215929685/comment72157613369107770/
(in a comment under the caution tape photo posted second above)

... and here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tobanblack/3216214895/
(under the "do not let men rape" sheet)

... and here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tobanblack/3211592108/
(under the "treat women with respect" photo)

===

The "do not let men rape" photo was posted on the Feministing blog. People commented on that photo here -
http://www.feministing.com/archive/013532.html#comments

I just wanted to add to the "real men do rape" discussion by saying that IMHO rape "jokes" seem to have become much more prevalent in the past few years. The word "rape" is being treated more and more casually. I can't imagine anyone six years saying that a Hollywood re-make of a classic kid's show was "raping their childhood" without most people around them being appalled by such a ridiculously analogy.
Now, the phrase is practically a cliche. Is this part of the backlash?

I don't know whether it's backlash or what, but I do agree casual use of the term rape is becoming disturbingly common. I played World of Warcraft for quite a while and it'd be rather common to hear "we raped that boss" if people had taken down an end boss or "he raped me" is someone lost hard in one-on-one combat. Objections were ridiculed.

Of course, a great many WoW players are sexist as all get-out. There are guilds on there who will flat-out refuse women membership because they supposedly could never play as well as men.

come on, backlash? are you kidding? it was probably someone who was tired of seeing aggravating posters who saw an opportunity to amuse themselves/others by defacing a sign. the chance that this was done by rapist defending his case is very small.

"has he just learned that it’s funny to insult easy targets like feminists?"

it's called trolling, people do it in real life just like on the net. it's that the poster makers put themselves in a place where it was very very easy to anger them, and to a lot of people, doing so, in it self, is funny.

I don't think this is specifically against women. People deface signs all the time for amusement, especially if part of it can be torn away or blacked out to make an inappropriate message. I guess the "humor" comes from seeing something official endorse a horrible message. For example, a town nearby has the words "hell" in its name (surrounded by other letters of course), but year after year the kids from the neighboring high school paint over certain letters so the welcome sign says "Welcome to hell."

Not that this makes it right or hilarious, but I'm not sure it's an automatic indication of inequality.

As other commenters have brought up, the word "rape" to describe something has become increasingly common. This bothers me a lot too, but I wonder why we as a society don't look upon "kill" or "murder" in the same way. "Wow, we got killed back there by that boss" doesn't have the same creepiness despite murder also being a horrible crime.

Now I wonder if the “real men do rape” statement was meant to be a way of criticizing men –
all men.

Given the context -- that being Western, I'd say chances are good that no, it wasn't. Scratch most of the guys on campus there at any time in the last 20 years, find either a rapist or a rape apologist, IME. And, judging by the stuff I overheard in classes when I was there (including some stuff deliberately said in foreign languages so the target wouldn't understand), getting a woman intoxicated so she wouldn't be able to defend herself (or wouldn't say no) isn't just the Done Thing, it's the Done Thing for Lulz, too. Place woulda been a lot better if about 3/4 of the student body could have been raptured off to Frat House Valhalla...

Not that this makes it right or hilarious, but I’m not sure it’s an automatic indication of inequality.

You're, uh, unsure the inequality exists or something? I don't think the two situations are analogous, because in the case of "Welcome to hell," the joke isn't being perpetrated on an entire oppressed class. Also: Anyone who thinks that humour consists of reinforcing the status quo by kicking an oppressed class when they're down needs their comediometer recalibrated.

"it’s called trolling, people do it in real life just like on the net."

Sounds like you would know, Joe.

On campus activism is always hit or miss especially with things that might be perceived as preachy or condescending. University students are a volatile bunch and it's difficult to attribute their actions to any particular bias. (They drink and use drugs though....)

@ James: "University students are a volatile bunch and it’s difficult to attribute their actions to any particular bias."

no, it really isn't. It's only difficult if you deny the fact that misogyny exists. (same goes for racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc.)

To put it another way...woman-hating trolling is only funny for the troll if he already hates women and thinks it's funny to demean them as an entire class of people. It's called power-tripping, and it's spoiled, entitled, and nasty.

@ Anne: "People deface signs all the time for amusement, especially if part of it can be torn away or blacked out to make an inappropriate message."

The thing is, the type of message the defacer sends is absolutely indicative of his/her personality. For example, the person on my campus who altered "CLASSROOM" to "ASSPOO" would fit your description of harmless prankster, because "asspoo" is just toilet humour and doesn't subjugate anybody. However, the person who tacitly endorses rape reveals his misogyny to the world, because his weapon of choice isn't toilet humour but hatred for women. Consider it analagous to the difference between the kid writing "fuck" on the bathroom mirror and the kid drawing swastikas on it.

Obviously, words matter. I personally don't give a shit if someone screams "faggot" at me because s/he "just wants to get a rise out of me," or if s/he "actually means it." The sting is the same, the fear for my safety is the same, the spoiled bigotry is the same.

@Interrobang: I did not say that inequality doesn't exist. I just said that defacing signs doesn't *automatically* mean inequality, because we don't know the reason behind it.

@pcwhite: I also didn't say it wasn't bad (I even said that it's a "horrible message" they're making the signs into). I don't know if they're harmless pranksters or if they truly hate women just from seeing these signs, because people do stupid things all the time without thinking. That doesn't make it right, or not hurtful. I just question whether the defacer is actually a rapist or approves of rape, or whether s/he wanted to shock people. It doesn't make the actual action better, but it would make me much less worried about society in general if the only goal was shock.

All i meant is that I've lived at universities and seen many things defaced not because of what they were but just because they were there. I would be much more likely to scream misogyny if this happened on a street corner in the city. Campuses have too much random.

I'd like to consider my experience of reading these signs, and to imagine the physical circumstances, to try and suss out what might be objectionable about these signs beyond the messages.

The author is anonymous, so I can only imagine one. Since the (invisible) author has no group or individual reputation to stand on, they must instead rely on graphic design and diction to establish their authority. Hence the capitalized, sans-serif font , that oozes "authority" or at least pretensions to it. Hence the simple word choice and short, declarative sentences. Finally, the images in the background also try to establish authority: in the first one, a howling baboon mocks those who dare not agree with the text. In the second, a stop sign (another "adorned" public artifact) echoes the text, in a similar sans-serif, all-caps typeface.

The signs are scotch-taped up on a bus-stop wall. I'll imagine seeing one. I have no choice but to wait at this stop, because I need to catch the bus. This sign keeps drawing my attention. It has pretensions to officialdom, but lacks some of the outer trappings: official notices or proper advertising are usually packaged better, they come in frames or lie behind glass or at least are more expensively produced and hung.

The scene and the rhetoric are at complete odds. The words and design say "I am authoritative, I speak for the group", but the anonymity and shoddy presentation say, "I am a loner, I speak for nobody but myself." This experience is so muddled that I can respond in many ways that have nothing to do with its informational content.

I wonder if signs like this really help? Is there really no approach that isn't somehow either more authoritative or, better yet, more human?

Ok, I'm going to start by saying this. Vandalising anti-rape signs is (duh) wrong.

But here's why:

Even if the vandal doesn't think s/he is a misogynist, even if some of those who view the vandalism think the perpertrator was probably just being brattish rather than deliberately cruel, destroying signs that plea for an end to violence against women obviously shows a contempt for that message. The vandal simply wouldn't do it otherwise. S/he'd go and vandalise something else instead.

No amount of apologizing (I'm sorry, but that's what a lot of the comments here sound like to me) for the vandal/s by saying things like "oh, but it's a campus, campuses are random", or "oh, but the vandal is unlikely to actually be a rapist - it's just a messed up idea of a joke!", or "oh! But the signs don't look very official! People are bound to mess with something that doesn't look official!" , etc etc etc is going to change that.
No - no amount of grasping for more palatable explanations is going to change the fact that this vandalism wasn't just a random act of destruction against a random campus poster. It was an act of destruction aimed at a particular oppressed group of people in our society - women. It was specific. That's why this vandalism comes across as particularly hateful, because it actually does express a very particular hate.

Those posters could have been left up around campus for months for people to read, benefit from and think about. Men could've looked at those posters and been felt encouraged to help stop violence towards women. Rape survivors and women who have suffered or are suffering from violence could have drawn strength from them, knowing that somewhere out there there are people who want to support them, and they could have felt better and more secure knowing that they live in a society that supports the message that violence towards women just isn't acceptable.

Instead, they were defaced after only a few hours on display and their message cruelly subverted.

And the message that that fact sends is this:

Violence towards women *is* acceptable.

Yes, even if the vandal himself is as apparently innocuous as a lunkhead frat boy trying to shock for lulz, THAT is still the message that is sent to the passerby. In fact, the REAL MEN DO RAPE practically like a celebration of violence against women.

And that is why I desparetely hope that those posters go back up straight away, a hundred times stronger.

Blathered Osmo, I agree with your critique of the sign designs and also agree that the message of the signs is good but was poorly presented and doesn't help the situation.

perhaps the poster that was torn down was removed by a woman who was waiting at the bus stop because she had just been beaten by her husband and was upset with having to be reminded of her pain.

Thank you, Tyrone. I don't understand why people are leaping to the defense of the person / people who vandalized these signs...why is it so hard to acknowledge that they're hateful?

Blatherard Osmo, I've gotta say that your analysis of the posters is baffling in its obfuscation. It's obvious to me that the posters are an example of guerilla activism...the home-made aesthetic makes them more personal, and therefore clearly the expression of individual outrage. It's like the little guy (in this case, women) standing up to the Man (in this case, entrenched rape culture). A less official aesthetic also increases the likelihood that people will pay attention, in the same way that text ads are more effective than banner ads...people tune out professional advertisements, because they surround us so much they become essentially wallpaper.

If you think strong fonts combined with scotch tape is bewildering enough to obscure a message, then you're too easily confused. Either that, or you're just looking for reasons to not listen.

Although these signs are sexist against men, they should not have been vandalized. Sexists have free speech rights too and their signs - no matter how insulting to 99% of men - have a right to be left alone.

I see from the last photo there are several other printed signs taped up there -- were they similarly defaced? I'm guessing "no," which throws all the "kids will be kids!" arguments out the window.

In addition, I was that kid who was always erasing a few letters when my middle school teacher wrote "organism" on the board so it read "orgasm." I'm also the kind of person that would definitely tear down, doodle on, etc, any annoying fliers I found at a bus stop (or anywhere else, really). But does that mean I would deface an anti-racist message to make it racist, because LOL THAT'LL REALLY MAKE 'EM MAD? Hell no! Making the sign of the small town you hate read "welcome to hell" is making a change to accurately reflect your perspective. So is changing an anti-violence sign to read "real men do rape" -- which is an absolutely unacceptable and disgusting perspective.

Coincidentally to OPminded's ridiculous comment, a sign saying "real men do rape" is NOT covered under "freedom of speech." Words that incite violence are not protected, despite whatever crap Fred Phelps has been spewing.

how are the slogans "treat women with respect" and "real men do not let men rape" sexist? :|

because its a sign that implies men are the only ones who rape. its exclusionary based on a sexist belief that women don't need to follow the same rules.

"its exclusionary based on a sexist belief that women don’t need to follow the same rules."

I think it's more to do with the fact that most rapes are committed against women by men. Again, another ugly truth that we would do better to confront than ignore.

The Freshman class at a university can have 17, 18, and 19 year-olds in it. Some of these kids are still just that; kids (in terms of emotional maturity anyway). I've seen people ripping things down or defacing them like that, and it really was merely angst-ridden adolescent nihilists showing their asses. The person or persons who vandalized the signs probably weren't thinking about women, or oppression, or rape, or anything except "hey watch this!"

If there was more to it than that, and someone actually was endorsing oppression, then consider this quote from Abraham Lincoln:
The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.

A-fucking-men, Tyrone. Perfect analysis.

And no, it's not "sexist" to point out the fact that the vast majority of rapes are committed by men. Only someone desperate to protect his privilege (or remain in good standing with her oppressors) would say such a thing.

Real Blacks don't let Blacks use crack.

(insulting)

"Thank you, Tyrone. I don’t understand why people are leaping to the defense of the person / people who vandalized these signs…why is it so hard to acknowledge that they’re hateful?"

Because rape apology and misogyny apology are the first impulse of far too many people. We can't have a single conversation about these things without others barging in with WATM! and reverse sexism! nonsense.

_++"

"because its a sign that implies men are the only ones who rape. its exclusionary based on a sexist belief that women don’t need to follow the same rules."

Actually, it acknowledges the plain and simply truth that men are the most likely rapists and women the most likely victims.

but, of course, we can't talk about it. It's far more worthwhile to talk about the ways in which the poor, poor menz are terrorized by signs acknowledging the humanity and rights of women. The poor dear. However will they survive!

It's not even sexist to say outright that "all men are rapists." Because it's impossible to have institutionalized bigotry against the group in power.
Declaring "sexism" against men any time male privilege is called out and examined is the exact same kind of dipshittery as "why is there not a white history month," or "what if we had a heterosexual pride parade."
I suppose the next great blight on society will be rampant classism against Ivy-educated rich people.

there's also no reason to attack someone who is simply trying to participate in dialogue. i understand that rape is a tool of patriarchy that is used to exert power over women. i just believe that in order to truly prevent rape from happening we can't exclude men from this dialogue. when i read "'real men' don't let men rape" I see support for masculinity which supports patriarchy which supports rape. therefore i just found the first sign problematic to begin with.

i am not "on the side" of the oppressors or any other of the things i've been called by whoever comments in this blog. i'm just pointing out that furthering the divide between the oppressed and the oppressor only makes the situation worse.

perhaps this will make me more understood.

men have to be part of the solution, too. when we take a stand against rape we have to understand this. we have to allow men to see how patriarchy and rape affect them, too. we have to include all people in the struggle to end all oppression. we can't use masculinity to fight rape because the two are symbiotic and can't be separated.

if we really want an end to rape and an end to the abuse of women by men our short-term dialogue has to represent our seriousness. some men will read a sign like that and feel attacked, thus more apprehensive to get involved in the cause.

there are other ways to communicate about this problem. where we direct our anger about this issue (and all issues) is extremely important. i am just trying to dig deeper and find the true way to end inequality and oppression.

I guarantee you someone defaced the second sign because it's funny.

"I guarantee you someone defaced the second sign because it’s funny."

We're well aware of how funny violence against women is to college-aged boys.

++

"Declaring “sexism” against men any time male privilege is called out and examined is the exact same kind of dipshittery as “why is there not a white history month,” or “what if we had a heterosexual pride parade.”"

THANK YOU.

I understand that someone defaced the sign because they thought it would be funny. The defacers clearly don't understand the way rape affects people in this world. They don't understand the horrors of patriarchal oppression.

In no way am I denying male privilege. I would never support the concept of a "white history month" or a "heterosexual pride parade."

I am examining the ways in which we discuss rape as a society. This is why I have issues with the original sign. This doesn't negate the fact that defacing that sign was wrong, however. I am disgusted that we live in a world where rape is funny to certain individuals and groups of people. I have been a part of many campaigns and efforts to educate my surrounding community about this issue.

This is why analyzing the original sign is so important to me. What is a "real man," and for that matter a "real woman?" These questions have to be answered too. The very pressures of what make us "real" are root causes for why rape is used to disempower and dehumanize us.

That was me.

I think maybe the whole "real men" thing is a play on the idea that a minority of men hold. That is that a "real man" is entitled to dominate women. Kind of like when you see Burger King ads or whatever pushing the idea that "real men" eat Angry Whopper Burgers. I think they're trying to use the ideology of rapists against them.
Also, to Danielle, It is true that men are also rape victims, and that in a very small minority of cases women are rapists. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics 91% of rape victims are female, 9% male and 99% of offenders are male.
I get the argument that the number of men not reporting probably skews that data, but the same issue affects statistics on women. I was raped over a year ago, and I've never reported. Unfortunately there is just no point. So it is a problem that affects both men and women yes, but when we are talking about the offenders, the overwhelming majority are male. To be honest, as a woman walking down a dark street I would feel threatened by a man following me, the other way around, I'm not so sure. I think that is why most people discussing the issue tend to focus on the "male rapist" slant, because it is the easiest one to tackle.
This is going to sound horrible and someone will probably call me sexist for saying this but, I wish the number of male rapists was as low as the number of female ones.

I understand that rape is overwhelmingly more of a problem for women than men. I also understand that to reduce the number of rapes and rapists in this society men must fully understand this issue. We must be careful not to exclude them from discussions on challenges to the patriarchal system.

Even if the sign-makers were trying to use that ideology to reach out to men, they really should've thought deeper about its implications. Individual men commit rape, and a horrifyingly large number of them do, but not all men do. If we attack men as a group, men are going to be more reluctant to educate themselves and take part in dialogue. Men do have to understand patriarchy, and that's regardless of whether or not their education process is painful. It's the same with white women who need to confront racism within the feminist movement. It is important of these movements, however, to make clear they are attacking societal structures and not groups of people. The feminist movement is against patriarchy, not men.

The reason I'm so adamant about this issue is because I really question the role of identity in social movements. I believe identity is used to divide us from one another by political, religious, economic, and media officials. I understand that having a certain identity today makes one more or less vulnerable to social circumstances. I understand the consequences are real, but I know that we must empower ourselves to climb over these large stones and embrace our one-ness to fight this unnecessary evil. We can eradicate systems of inequality by not allowing identity to define us.

Whoever put the signs up has my sympathy. Perhaps she suffered a crime. She also seems to have some confused ideas about gender roles. I agreed with the first message but the ape photo may have been misinterpreted to mean that men are apes. Not sure what the second message means when it refers to "real men". To imply that a man who somehow "lets" another man rape a woman is somehow more feminine is also degrading to women. Perhaps this is her way of dealing with inner turmoil over a certain incident in her life. Whoever tore it down was probably angered or confused regarding the statement that the signs were attempting to make.

The second alteration, thats not cool.

The first one might have taken off myself.

Why? I say ___
"Join real society", with a monkey behind it?
I wonder, who do these people think they are?
Who do they think they are talking to?
THEY need to show a little respect. Regular People are not this stupid.
____
Remember the Golden rule? "Do not do to others what would anger you if done to you by others." as Isocrates said. The rule is born from philosophies and religions all over the world. Go read some quotes. http://www.religioustolerance.org/reciproc.htm

My personal advice is this__
Be a good person who respects people and that people have opinions and beliefs. Share your understanding with people who dont see where you're coming from.

More backlash in the form of defaced anti-sexist stickers, these from Seattle...
http://www.rebelliouspixels.com/2009/defaced-anti-sexist-stickers

"It’s not even sexist to say outright that “all men are rapists.” Because it’s impossible to have institutionalized bigotry against the group in power."

If my wife and I divorce, I am FAR more likely to lose custody of my children simply because I am a man.

If I hit my wife, and the police are called; I am arrested. If my wife beats me; I am forced to leave my house for the evening and find another place to stay so the situation can "cool down."

While applying for graduate school I obtained a list of available scholarships. Of the 17 listed, 13 were for minorities only (although I expect this is obvious, I will point out that none were for whites only).

A pregnant woman can get an abortion, or give the child up for adoption without even needing to inform the man who got her pregnant that he is a father. She can opt out of parenthood at any time. A man is legally tied to the child from the moment of conception, and if he shuns that responsibility; he is considered a deadbeat, his name is printed in the paper, and is ostracized by society.

Prostate cancer kills about the same number of men as breast cancer kills women, yet receives about a 10th of the funding.

There are innumerous examples of institutionalized prejudice against whites and/or men; the fact that you are too obtuse to recognize that doesn't make it any less true.

@Dan

Has it occurred to you that one of the reasons you are able to be in a position to even apply to graduate school is because of your relative privileged social location? Trying to equal the playing field does not equal discrimination.

There is absolutely no institutionalized prejudice against whites and men just for the simple fact that builders and maintainers of an institution cannnot discriminate against themselves. They can make their lives hell with stupidity, though. For example, when they realize that their insistence on the primary caregiver role of women backfires on them in court. Or when they oppose women's reproductive rights under the guise of "disenfranchisement" without realizing that nature has given women the absolute right to control humanity's reproductivity by placing the fetus in their wombs and not in men's. Nature obviously hates men, too.

And I see the people crying about lack of sensitivity are already here, too. God help us, oppressed people are not sufficiently nice and comforting to the oppressor class. Now we cannot educate them anymore because their precious egos have been flattened- nevermind that a whole lot of them are not so keen about being educated to begin with, never mind that a large portion of them wouldn't even give a fuck if the world went to hell in a handbasket if it meant that they could use living people as doormats until the end of their lives.
You want to learn? Then learn. Read. Think. Do not whine to people how nobody understands your heart-felt pain when you haven't made the slightest effort to educate yourself. Oppressed people have always served their oppressors without being given mercy and this education is just another kind of servitude that is meant to divert our attention from the pain that we suffer to the liberation of the already liberated so that once again our problems are put on the back-burner where they obviously belong because privileged people are so convinced of our subjugation that we aren't even allowed to take care of our own problems first.
How do you think progress is made, exactly? By being nice? By always putting the considerations of other people first? If you really think that this is the case what twisted understanding of world history do you have? If oppressed people had always asked nicely for their rights while keeping in mind the horrible pain their oppressors feel (Yeah, right.) if if weren't for social rights activists who angered powerful people women would still not be allowed to vote, to own property and to work regularly against the will of their husbands, not to mention that rape within marriage would still be legal. There would still be segregation of the races and some well-off university-educated white professor would still argue that it was the white man's burned to forcibly educate the "wild dark races".

I'm so sick and tired of the desire of people to reverse reality so that it can conform to their wishes- it's disgusting and anti-progressive to only accept something that does not reflect negatively on you. Really now: fuck the rights of the people who think that their undeserved privileges were right.

Sry for the typos: it is supposed to be "burden" and not "burned" and the last word was supposed to be "rights" and not "right".

"There is absolutely no institutionalized prejudice against whites and men just for the simple fact that builders and maintainers of an institution cannnot discriminate against themselves."

I neither built nor maintained any institution. I don't make any rules of society. Like 99% of the men in the world, I try to live my life, be a good person, and treat others fairly. Yet I am told that I have to sit down and shut up when I encounter discrimination simply based on the color of my skin or the status of my genetalia.

"if if weren’t for social rights activists who angered powerful people..."

By all means, anger powerful people, fight the status quo. But when you assume the methods of your oppressors, you lose credibility. You become a hypocrite.

"Has it occurred to you that one of the reasons you are able to be in a position to even apply to graduate school is because of your relative privileged social location?"

The reason I could apply for graduate school is because both my parents and I worked hard to give me that opportunity. I grew up in a blighted, poor, urban community. Yet you are asking me to recognize some vague, nebulous benefit I have received because of what I look like. Then I am supposed to weigh that against the definite and obvious financial benefit I am denied.

Or consider this, Bill Cosby's children would have been eligible for those scholarships. I was not. Is that fair? Should I not have the right to complain? Bullshit.

I think that the second defacement could be seen as a brutally sexist description of men à la Andrea Dworkin's assertion that heterosexual sex is inherently rape. Het men are inherently rapists. Therefore this wouldn't be a defense of privilege but rather an inappropriate statement of "resignation".

Something similar happened when my women's group tried to put anti-sexual assault posters around our campus. We put up one poster (among many) that said, "Rape is never okay!" That's it. And then someone set it on fire.

why should I care women welfare, when goverment or institutions have shown favoritism toward women harming men rights? I feel offended by feminism.

Women are far more privileged than men will ever be. Who dies in wars? Men. Who builds everything? Men. Who keeps you safe from harm? Men. Who mines for your diamonds, gold and coal? Men.

Who sits on their ass all day complaining about how rough they have it? Women.

Without men, you women would be living in caves, getting raped every day, get eaten by Tigers and live to the ripe old age of 30, before dying of a tooth infection. Use your heads and praise men.

It is incredibly pathetic that some men seem to think that anti-rape activism is an affront to their masculinity. Seriously, how is stopping violence against women (and men and children) going to make heir lives worse? By infringing on their "right" to be sexually violent?

How are we as a community not also disturbed by the blatant and damaging sexism presented in the original of the second flyer? "Real men"? As a community presumably concerned with how sociological treatment of gender distinction can be very bad for all of us, I think we need to be aware that attempting to define what constitutes a "real man" - even in the service of fighting violence against women - reinforces a gender binary in which we are ALL (even us women) defined by our adherence to societally imposed gender roles.

(to those who want to reply with something about how the privileged can't be discriminated against I would like to add,
how we treat an attempt of this sort matters. We can not expect the world to learn to define people by qualities external to their gender while simultaneously reinforcing that mode of thinking for our own goals. A move towards a more equal society begins with how we treat one another, and the realization that equality must apply to all or it is simply not equality.)