Action Alert

Two weeks ago, mainstream news and social media sites joined forces, convincing Amazon

to remove adverts for T-shirts with wording such as 'Keep calm and rape a lot' and 'Keep calm and hit her'.

The sexist slogans were a result of a computer programme generating thousands of random phrases,

the manufacturer claims. What cannot be written off as an accident, are the eight ads

still on Amazon for “Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them” gear, 13 ads for a man-shaped knife block, two ads for an “ex-boyfriend punch bag”, and dozens more ads for T-shirts calling men “pigs”, “dogs”, “idiots”, and “animals”.

You may think comedy items targeting males or females are just a bit of harmless fun, but according to 2008 research by Professor Thomas Ford et al, of Western Carolina University, sexism is

spread by the use of sexist humour in particular.

Jokes about women's violence towards men get easy laughs even though violence by women is on the increase. In one survey, 60% of female university students thought it acceptable for wives to hit their

husbands. The marketing and media authorities should be setting a better example by cracking down on depictions of violent humour against men, as with women – but it is up to men's rights activists to put pressure on the relevant authorities to make them change.

I contacted Amazon over a week ago ago by phone, and the call centre worker said she had escalated the complaint to management who will investigate the anti-male products on sale. Men's rights activist Glenn Sacks launched a high profile partially successful campaign 10 years ago to get the “Boys are stupid” range banned, so it is time to finish the job. It has taken a few days to get some violently misogynistic T-shirt ads removed, but 10 years and counting to get some well known violently misandric merchandise banned. You can contact Amazon here.

Tom Martin is a men's rights activist and film maker. Email, sexismbusters@hotmail.com -

twitter: @sexismbusters - youtube: sexismbusters