What is misogyny?

Great Debates
21

I’d have to say I disagree here.

Is there a rampant outbreak of women demanding dick pics? No.

But it’s been my experience that men will fuck with each other in the same way they fuck with women. For example, when greeting my best friend, I will usually try to come up with the most insulting and degrading thing I can say to him (and he will do likewise.) His favorite pet name for me is “cum dumpster.” Thing is, that’s how we show affection. If he didn’t like me, he wouldn’t waste his time coming up with insults or trying to get under my skin.

Most of my male friendships are like that.

Men, through genetics or culture or socialization or whatever, do weird shit. Watch “Waiting” and you’ll see a pretty elaborate “dick showing game” played between the male employees of a restaurant. In high school, we not only tried to get other dudes to look at our wangs (and then make fun of them for looking) but we also had a fairly strict set of rules for mooning–the most points could be had for forcing an unsuspecting friend to actually look into your rusty sheriff’s badge. In Army basic training, there was frequent use of “the gobbler.”

So I’d contend that men, for the most part, don’t go out of their way to treat women “differently” than we treat each other; if anything, the males I know try really hard to calm that shit down when there are women present. But to say that the played-out “tits or GTFO” is an illustration of misogyny or sexism…? It can be taken that way, I suppose, and perhaps in some instances it is, but I also think it lacks insight into the way males behave with males. I’m an admin of a horror movie message board (self-admitted nerd) that basically only has male members, and I see the phrase “cock or GTFO” daily.

Is it stupid and immature? Yes. So are dick and fart jokes, but I still laugh. My point is, those trainwreck threads just seem to be either cases of “doth protest too much” or “much ado about nothing.” People are going to call people cunts. Sometimes it’s funny (generally if the person is, in fact, a cunt; bonus points if the person doesn’t know he’s a cunt. Double bonus points if the person knows she’s a cunt but simply doesn’t want to give the satisfaction of acknowledging it.) It’d be like being accused of being a sociopath for laughing at dead baby jokes. I can just see the reaction now: “OMG you’re a horrible human being with no emotions or empathy and you HATE people who have had stillborn children!”

And if people want to pick up their toys and go home, then it seems obvious that they’ve chosen the GTFO option. Shrug

I have to remind myself sometimes that the internets are serious motherfuckin’ business!

22

I think it’s bit similar to “antisemitism”. Technically, it could be understood as solely the hatred of women. But it’s not the way it is actually used in common speech. When an accusation of misogyny is thrown, what is said isn’t "you hate women"and most reasonable listeners wouldn’t understand it that way. Responding “I’m not misogynist because I don’t hate women” is quite disingenuous.

As for what should count as misogyny exactly, that’s another matter entirely open to debate.

23

I guess that kind of stuff is pretty okay if you… basically don’t care to ever discuss anything with women ever?

It’s kind of shitty.

24

So, reading between the lines, “you’re just another one of those aspie mouthbreathers trapped in his mom’s basement with no social skills constantly bitching about how women don’t like him.”

Within the context of the scary movie message board, that’s not a topic that tends to attract the female demographic. It’s not that the 3 admins established a “boys only” club; that’s just how the chips fall on that particular topic. The occasional female who signs up usually has cool shit to contribute, so sure I enjoy talking to them. Of course, the ‘culture’ of the board isn’t geared towards women’s issues, so they do have to put up with the boys playing grabass with each other. Some can handle that, and stay; others can’t, and they leave. 'Tis no great concern of mine either way.

We do have a female charter member who happens to be quite intelligent and physically stunning (she married another member a couple of years ago, but began her posting as single.) And, unfortunately, because she is a Pretty Girl On the Internet, some members would creep her, PM her constantly, ask for pictures, etc. That’s both bogus and sad, and my impression is that those are, in fact, the basement-dwellers who have no basis for existence other than the intertubes. Our solution to that problem was to make the woman a mod, and after a couple of judicious applications of the banhammer, those losers don’t really bother her anymore.

It’s just contextual. I enjoy talking to people both on the internet and IRL, but I have to be honest and say that my priorities are in the real world. Here, all of this is just a series of ones and zeros. I only get a couple of hours per day to veg out and surf the net, and I treat it as (mostly) fun and entertainment. Whether I talk to women, men, or transvestites doesn’t matter fuck all to me.

The thing is, I’ve been around the board since about 2000 as a lurker, and I think the Dope has gotten worse, too. Part of it may be some misogyny and racism, but the bigger part is just the general nastiness we show to each other. It’s almost always about proving some moral or intellectual superiority through snark or sarcasm, which can be fun when used in good fun by both parties, but most of the time it’s mean spirited here. I don’t require a hugfest by any means, but one of the reasons my post count is so low is because I just don’t especially want to get into a bunch of backbiting. I’d posit that there are many more members who have taken breaks, left the board, or simply lurk because of that than because of rampant misogyny.

25

That, however, is a serious problem; particularly so if we are trying to minimize the amount of misogyny in our society. When we allow colloquial speech to blur or become converted into a “catch-all” term, we lose the precision in our ability to draw a line where we say “go no farther”. There are already good terms for much of what women endure in our society; sexism, paternalism, infantalism, etc. Many of those can overlap with misogynistic practices as well, but they don’t necessarily have to. Moreover, those other practices are not always unwelcome (in select circumstances), or ill-intentioned. That is part of the reason for creating and perpetuating a more narrow and precise language.

26

I think you’re overthinking it- I take “no means no” as an instruction to follow, not as a sort of philosophical concept. That is, if a woman says “no”, a man should act as if she is explicitly saying “stop what you are doing” (the action that prompted the “no”), whether or not he thinks she feels that way.

27

That’s more or less my point - rather more than a third of the time, it’s not an instruction to follow.

What I am arguing against is the excluded middle - if you don’t reflexively agree that “no means no” all the time no matter what, you are a misogynist. IYSWIM.

Regards,
Shodan

28

We can clearly see that formal definitions of ‘misogyny’ make it difficult to use the term when there isn’t a clear cut expression of hatred, but is there a way we can apply ‘misogynistic’ to describe certain behavior?

The ATMB thread is essentially asking for modding of ‘misogynistic’ posts. It doesn’t seem to define that very well though. Is there another term better suited for those circumstances?

29

Google defines “misogyny” as, “The hatred of women by men: ‘struggling against thinly disguised misogyny’”.

30

That is a terrible misreading of that statistic. Did you read any of the follow-up, or did you seize on that one stat and stop?

Some examples might be helpful. In the other thread, I offer “When you women calm down, we can discuss this” as some pretty clear misogyny. I stand by this assessment: not only is it playing off a demeaning stereotype of women (that they’re too emotional to have a good conversation), but it’s also done in a way designed to insult specific women. By virtue of being a man, I was excluded from the insult, even though I was arguing things similar to the insult’s target.

Someone else posted, basically, “Women should take better care of their safety.” I find that position really problematic as well, and there’s pretty good reason to analyze it as sexist, but it’s not misogynistic. Rather, it’s paternalistic.

Other people post “Pics or GTFO!” or whatever. That’s really problematic too, but I don’t think I’d call that misogynistic by itself; rather, it’s self-centered boorishness. Of course, if someone posts it in a serious thread as a way to shut down a female poster, then it might rise to the level of misogyny–but I don’t think it’s misogynistic without more context.

Misogyny manifests as ascribing essentialist negative traits to women and expressing some level of disdain, resentment, or irritation with women for the imagined essentialist traits. Certainly that’s sexist, but it’s not the only sort of sexism.

31

Or, you know, what I said in the other thread :). I do appreciate Tripolar starting the discussion here, where it belongs: it’s a legitimate discussion to have in the appropriate place.

32

Well a safe set of circumstances might be:

Both posters share a set or have an overlapping set of social mores. (This avoids problems of ethnic or cultural customs)
The post is sexist.
The post is objectively negative to any reasonable outside reader.
The post lacks any logical justification of its position.

I’d be fairly comfortable labeling such a post as “misogynistic” in nature, that is it exists merely to degrade another person as a female, and has no other value.

33

Except that I didn’t say any of those things, and it’s pretty gross of you to pretend that I did.

“How the chips fall”. I love it. Like it’s just a fact of nature that nobody can ameliorate. No, it’s how the chips “fall” because the board you administer has an atmosphere that female horror fans recognize as one that is unfriendly to them. Yes, there are female horror fans. No, by and large they don’t want to post to a message board where their every post will be met with obnoxious mugging and titty pic requests. At best.

Obviously not.

And what about the women on your board who aren’t mods? I guess they just don’t tend to stick around too long. Not that you care, of course. That’s “just the way the chips fall”! I bet they didn’t even like horror movies that much anyway, right?

That’s nice. Oh, hey, aren’t you the guy who bumped a 10-month-old thread just to make a bizarre comment about the lack of attractiveness of one of our female posters? How come you haven’t done that to any of our male members yet?

Posit all you like, but I’ve seen no evidence that this is true.

34

I would posit that men sexually objectifying women is not, in and of itself, misogynistic; it’s just an expression of (raging) natural instincts. (It would, perhaps, be misogynistic to treat a woman as a sex object and nothing else; or, that might merely be an instance of being a selfish asshole, a status by no means limited to misogynists.)

35

What is “sexist”?

36

There’s a thread for that.

37

colander, I bow to your superior intellect and morality, and I will go forth and sin no more. I’m glad that you approached the topic with humility and an open mind, and kept the exact backbiting I was talking about to a minimum. I’m sure if anyone were looking for “evidence” of the culture of this board, they would need to look elsewhere to find it. Peace and chicken grease.

38

Perhaps “bigotry” and “racist”.

A bigot will almost certainly be racist, but objectively racist measures may not prove bigotry, as one can be racist out of ignorance, cultural artifact, etc.

Edit: admittedly racist has a greater connotation of deliberate bigotry.

39

I like that when you make nasty comments it’s just a joke, and when I point out your cruddy behavior it’s backbiting.

Bye.

40

I fail to see how the “instinctualness” or lack thereof of these actions has any bearing on whether they are or are not misogynistic.

Perhaps? How generous of you!