Male Tears

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About

Male tears, not to be confused with "manly tears," is a reaction image series based on animated GIFs of various male characters crying. Online, they are commonly used to taunt anti-feminist remarks and/or perceived attempts at mansplaining in discussions about gender-related issues.

Origin

The precise origin of "Male Tears" as an image macro series remains unknown; however, the earliest instance on record comes from the French Tumblr blog FeministPicture in a post on August 25th, 2012. Titled "male tears," the post describes it as "a concept to make fun of men who whine about how oppressed they are, how hard life is for them, while they still are privileged"^[1].

Spread

Beginning on November 13th, 2012, the Tumblr blog Male-Tears^[2] was launched as an ironic take on Men's Rights Activists and the noton of Misandry by curating hundred of reaction images and gifs mocking the phrase, including "Male Tears" ones. These latters were reused in different feminist articles such as Dance WIth DIssonance^[3] in relation to street harassment or Not Sorry Feminism^[4] in relation to GamerGate.

Various Examples

I Sip On Male Tears

I Sip On Male Tears is a catchphrase and photographs showing women taking a sip from a mug with the words "Male Tears" written on it. While male-tears-themed merchandise existed prior, the first photograph showing a woman sipping from a mug sporting the phrase was posted by Tumblr user Lunarynth in mid-July 2013 with the comment "The best hangover cure. Your anguish sustains me." (shown below) before being deleted later on.

This started a trend on Tumblr and Twitter of Feminist women taking pictures of themselves drinking from similar mugs (shown below).

On January 7th 2015, Twitter user and Escapist Magazine writer Lizzyf620 posted a photo of herself holding a mug with the words "That Means Semen"^[16] (shown below).

The photograph was taken as a response to the trend in order to highlight how "Male Tears" and "Man Tears" have been defined as a slang for sperm online since 2010^[17]. In the wake of the revelation, many antifeminist activists jumped in to mock the pictures (shown below). It includes a novelty twitter account named "That Means Semen"^[18] which has been using Liz's photograph as a response to mentions of "Male Tears" on Twitter. Liz herself did the same thing quite a few times as well.

I Bathe In Male Tears

On July 30th, 2014, feminist and Guardian columnist Jessica Valenti tweeted^[5] a photograph of herself posing In front of the sea while wearing a sweatshirt with the words "I Bathe In Male Tears", adding "I took a special picture for all the misogynist whiners in my feed today. #bestvacationever" as a comment (shown below).

The photograph was met with an intense backlash from Men's Rights Activists websites and blogs such as Mansplaining Central^[6], A Voice For Men^[7] or Canadian MGTOW^[8], criticizing its alleged sexist nature against men, which led to the creation of a few parodies (shown below):

White Tears is the social justice equivalent of "Male Tears" concerning racism and privilege discussions. The earliest image using the phrase comes from a Tumblr reply from luckythinks91^[19], on December 19th 2011, to a now defunct post about white people being offended when they are told not to use the word "nigga" (shown below).

A definition of the slang was added to Urban Dictionary on November 3rd 2013^[20]. In the past few years, various black-people-oriented websites commented on the usage of "white tears" among minorities online, including What Whites Will Never Know^[21] and Very Smart Brothas^[22].

“White Tears” is phrase to describe what happens when certain types of White people either complain about a nonexistent racial injustice or are upset by a non-White person’s success at the expense of a White person. It encompasses (and makes fun of) the performative struggle to acknowledge the existence of White privilege, and the reality that it aint always gonna go unchecked.

In similar vein as "Male Tears", parodies in the form of images, animated gifs and photographs of people drinking from mugs were made (examples shown below).

Black Lives Matter Protester

On August 8th, 2015, two Black Lives Matter activists disrupted a Bernie Sanders rally in Seattle (shown below, left). Soon after the event, one of the protester posted a photograph of herself drinking water from a glass while wearing a shirt with "Sipping on male tears" printed on the front (shown below, right), which led to a backlash on twitter and the photograph being heavily reposted to the r/punchablefaces sub-reddit on August 10th. More information can be found in the Black Lives Matter.

Criticism

Following the accusations of misandry and sexism that they have received, many feminists wrote opinion pieces and articles about the "Male tears" phenomenon, defending the practice as an ironic take on the man-hating feminist stereotype online in order to ridicule it. This subject was first tackled by Slate writer Amanda Hess in a piece titled "The Rise of the Ironic Man-Hater"^[9], on August 8th 2014. It was further analyzed by Huffington Post writer Mina Samuel^[10], as well as on Femspire^[11]. Nevertheless, some have expressed their concerns about the joke and how it affects feminism as a whole. This was the case for Time writer Sarah Begley who argued about the trend being "terrible PR for feminism"^[12]. This opinion is shared by other bloggers such as TUTUS AND TINY HATS^[13], Guardian columnist Ally Frogg on Free Thought Blogs^[14] and A Voice For Men^[15].