Männerrechtler kegeln Buch aus dem Handel, das zur "Steinigung" von Jungen aufruft

Die britische männerpolitische Aktivistengruppe HEqual, die sich auf Kampagnen spezialisiert, die zu nachweisbaren Erfolgen führen, geht aktuell gegen das Buch "Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them" vor, das HEqual in einer Mail an mich als "SCUM-Manifest für Mädchen" bezeichnet. In dem Buch finden sich demnach Passagen wie diese:

Trendy Wendy knows. She knows that boys are stupid. And smelly. Trendy Wendy, whose motto is "Buy me stuff," knows all about boys. Now she shares her urgent message – "Throw rocks at them!" – with girlfriends everywhere.

Irreverent, hilarious, and outrageous are mild words to describe this 96-page, full-colour, sad but true testament to the pathetic flaws that are ever so apparent in boys. Narrated by Trendy Wendy, the feisty stick figure with big blue eyes, Boys Are Stupid articulates exactly what girls wish they could do to boys – well, sometimes – while shining a light on the terrific attributes of girls. Along the way, she even reveals where boys come from – the stupid factory.

HEqual kritisiert diesen Inhalt:

To suggest that stupidity is somehow intrinsic to male children is clearly sexist and probably going to widen already troubling gender education gaps and contribute to the problem of our schools failing boys on a mass scale, ruling boys out of huge numbers of careers (...). Furthermore, the product exacerbates such a situation by telling girls how super they are to the opposite sex. Finally, it takes these slurs and uses them to excuse and even promote serious gender-based violence towards male children.

Von HEqual an diverse Buchhandlungen gerichtete Proteste zeigten Erfolge:

HEqual made contact with various UK business profiting from this hateful book, explaining why this publication is so problematic and asked them to stop profiting from promoting gender-based violence against boys. Our campaign has already proven to be a major success, a number of smaller retailers shared our concerns about this product and stopped selling it when alerted to its content. Our thanks to Bookshop ISBN, Pozor Books, Bangzo, Jazmin Books and OOdals for taking a responsible position on this issue.

For the second stage of the project we contacted UK book wholesalers, and we’re delighted to announce that the UK’s two biggest companies in this field, Gardners and Bertrams, have now withdrawn this product, both at wholesale level and in their retail arms (Hive.co.uk and Wordery). Our thanks in particular to Gardners, who have taken the time to share our concerns and the news of the withdrawal with the publisher of the book, and to Wordery, who have also withdrawn the calendar in the same range.

Lesenswert zu diesem Thema ist auch ein Wikipedia-Artikel über eine von dem britischen Männerrechtler Glen Poole losgetretene Kontroverse über ein T-Shirt mit demselben Motiv, die in den USA zu landesweiter Aufmerksamkeit führte. (Der Artikel findet sich natürlich in der englischsprachigen Wikipedia. In der deutschen würde ein solcher Eintrag entweder sofort gelöscht oder anhand "wissenschaftlicher Einschätzungen" von Typen wie Gesterkamp, Kimmel etc. erklärt, warum Poole eigentlich ein Nazi ist.)

Von Feministinnen wurde Poole für seine Proteste gegen das Werft-Steine-auf-Jungen-Shirt selbstverständlich angefeindet.