Easy win for the left: Stop penis-shaming men
Dems worried about alienating men and boys must end sexist protest signs
The past few protests I attended with fellow progressives were ripe with men, women and children holding signs with variations of:
“Yes that MAGA hat makes your dick look small.”
“This administration has little-dick energy.”
Etc.
Do I have to spell this out? Equating an elected official’s character with the presumed size of his genitals degrades all men by implying that genital size reflects moral worth. Body shaming at its most base.
It is no wonder looksmaxxing is a thing. If you join me in worrying about these nasty trends, stop blaming conservative influencers and start addressing lefty political protest signs.
These signs are such an obvious, sexist rebuke against men and boys I feel silly typing right now. I mean, many of us feminists are still pissed that Hillary’s headband was ridiculed 30 years ago. A headband.
The left is apparently A-OK with these images punctuating countless anti-Trump and GOP assemblies over the past decade. I have yet to see any pushback on these messages or their messengers — from the left, right or center.
Meanwhile, governors and representatives around the country are falling over themselves to serve (court) male voters: Govs. Newsome, Whitmer, Cox, Moore have put forth initiatives to support men and the newly formed Massachusetts Coalition for Boys and Men which invited me to a call last week re: their aims to build on Virginia’s momentum.
Even when credentialed experts take on the seriousness of penis shaming, it is often with an embarrassed wink. On Psychology Today, Joe Kort, Ph.D., LMSW thoughtfully digs into why “shaming a man’s genital size reinforces the patriarchy and toxic masculinity,” but his headline hedges his compassion in punny giggles: Unhung Heroes: Overcoming Small-Penis Shame.
Artist Illma Gore’s nude painting of Trump with a micro-penis made headlines and elicited a physical attack from a supporter of the administration. Gore said the painting is designed to challenge our bigotry against men, according to a Rolling Stone article:
The When Gore showed a sketch of the work to her female friend, “of course she immediately laughed,” Gore recalls. When she then asked her friend why she’d responded to it that way, the friend replied: “Because it’s funny; he has a small dick.”
“That’s exactly the bias that we hold,” Gore tells Rolling Stone.
In other words: Judge men not by their bulges, but by the content of their character.
In reflecting upon the original Trump portrait, Gore regrets ignoring her personal ideology about the human form when she knew some people would ridicule him. “The idea that the perception of your body would shape the way you interact with the world is really fucked up,” she tells Rolling Stone.
Still, Gore is releasing more portraits of men with tiny members in tandem with the apology to Trump. “In order to dismantle prejudice and stereotypes we must confront our biases head on,” she says as justification.
No Kings crude posters are not designed to turn the mirror to the viewer, to challenge our ideas about gender and body and power. No, these signs are just boldly, blatantly, and unquestioned emblem of the left’s anti-man sexism that cost them recent elections.
An exception: Comic duo Chad and JT a few years ago ironically-not-ironically pushed back on this shame-fest with a Small Dong March in Los Angeles, with signs featuring woke verbiage advocating for equality and allyship, solidarity and banning shame.
By letting this continue, progressives signal they care so little about men and boys to flagrantly, in handwritten Sharpie, tell them they are dismissible as humans if their most intimate, vulnerable body parts are less than average size. Technically these messages speak to half the male population, but really they broadcast hate to all men and boys. Men and boys, after all, are bombarded with messages that they are unlovable for countless reasons, including the social media mantra that women won’t even swipe right unless a guy is “6-foot tall, earn 6-figures and has at least 6-inches.”
What to do?
I call on the elected officials and podcast bros scrambling to gain traction with young male voters and consumers. Gavin Newsom, Scott Galloway, please pipe up make it clear this school-yard belittling is unacceptable. Call your party to our higher selves.
And to you, and you and you and you reading: Call each other out. Hold one another to higher standards of civility and humanity and stop with the misandrist messages that are equally childish and intentionally cruel — and stand to cost the left the next wave of elections.
Way to go, Emma. Hoping to hear of an Emma Johnson for Congress campaign fund I can send some money to.
I completely agree with this, it's a terrible way to get men on board any political movement!