An authors says it should be okay for women to not like (or even hate) men. She argues that women and feminists should embrace the concept of misandry since society is misogynistic. Men as a whole are bad even if some individual men might be good.
This sounds like a, lets say, interesting current idea. What do you think?
No good will come of this. Hate begets hate.
While I disagree for myself. The way everyone has a right to be gay, trans, transgender, anti this anti that. I think we should throw out the rule book. Do it… Just let everyone do absolutely anything their heart desires. No judgements, no laws. Actually this would be good for overpopulation, climate change and humanity in general. I really think this is the only way to save humanity if there is any left to save. Still a win for our earth.
The old saying you dont miss what you have until you don’t have it.
We need a catchy name or WWHM ie women who hate men.
There’s a long list of stuff on this glorious planet that I’m gonna be concerned about. And sure, any time one class of people hates another, that goes on the list. But a woman who declares a general antipathy toward dudes based on patriarchal bahaviors, and who isn’t espousing violence or institutional discrimination or anything like that? That goes on the list somewhere above “crumbs left in the plastic bag that I want to reuse but I don’t remember what they’re from so I have to throw the bag out” and somewhere below “person who stares at me for a second too long at the grocery store and it’s a little uncomfortable.”
One thing that has kept me from embracing feminism is the group within them that is anti-man. I believe in equality. Like, for everyone. POC, LGBTQ+. Why can’t we just do this already?
Depends.
I’m OK with anyone (woman or otherwise) “not liking men” if they’re doing it as a generalization and it is based on behavioral patterns that they observed men, in general, to exhibit (more so than non-men, that is). And that they still remain open to the likelihood of exceptions and don’t harbor a hostile bigoted attitude towards the whole sex as if it were a biological defect or a built-in inferiority or something.
“Man”-ness, as opposed to physiological maleness, is behavioral, is role, is attitude, is a way of being in the world; and, as such, it isn’t something that a person born male of body is automatically exhibiting. As such, male people are responsible at the individual level for their behaviors, however much there may exist social penalties for not engaging in them or rewards for doing so affirmatively.
Where you get into moral shaky ground is taking a generalization and treating each individual as the local embodiment of the generalization whether it fits or not.
But there’s no creed you have to adopt when you decide to embrace feminism. There’s no council of bishops that denies you communion if you don’t agree with every position. You don’t sign a contract before they’ll give you your feminism card.
It’s a la carte. Adopt the beliefs you find reasonable, reject the ones you don’t, and Bob’s your uncle. Or aunt, whichever.
The author’s sole claim to fame is this one essay, which gained popularity due the Streisand Effect. I do think that one of her points, that women should stop giving men a free pass just to keep their support, is valid.
Right. But I don’t like to align myself with hate. Thus why I dropped my Republican status, and don’t talk to a lot of my family.
Replace the word “man” with the word “black people” and read what you wrote. Or with “women”. Or “Chinese”. etc.
Not really a great sentiment. Your subsequent caveat that it’s OK to dislike them all as long is it’s at least conceptually possible you might someday find one example who meets your standards for passing as the good kind of human is pretty thin camouflage.
Well, right–because historically, hatred for black people has resulted in slavery and Jim Crow, and hatred for women has resulted in millennia of rape and lack of rights, and hatred for Chinese people has resulted in things like the anti-Chinese riots of the 1880s in California. Whereas women’s hatred for men has resulted in…
…hold up, remind me what it’s resulted in?
It’s 100% legit to look at a hatred like this in historical context. Some things, like hatred of Black people, has led to straight up mass murder. Other things, like hatred of men, has led to some hurt feelings.
As somebody almost said upthread, the sound humane goal is to move humanity away from kneejerk resorting to us- them- group-based thinking.
I agree with your point that men-hating, even if it becomes a fad beyond this one author and a few lesbians-during-college, would have to grow wildly and persist for centuries before the consequences equalled the accumulated historical harms of other group hates.
But “Not quite as bad as apartheid” is hardly a ringing endorsement for a new movement, now is it?
I’m okay with discriminating against men, like say, only hires women, only will see a female doctor, female only gyms, etc…
But hating on men? Eh, if that’s what you need to do to feel better about yourself, so be it. But frankly, I just feel sorry for the author.
I’d also argue that it is already “OK” to hate on men to a certain degree.
“Quite” and “nearly” aren’t synonyms. It’s not nearly as bad as apartheid. It’s not quite as bad as sighing judgmentally when someone wears too-tight jeans. Way way way way down on the list of things to worry about.
Nobody’s disputing that. But if we seek a society without the hatred and bigotry that has caused great harm, is this a productive way to go about it? Does embracing misandry foster the dismantling of misogyny?
This seems pretty vanilla compared to e.g. “All PIV sex is rape” kind of memes that went round a few years ago.
Why are these author’s views getting so much play?
I’m not saying it’s great. It’s definitely worse than the “mysterious crumbs in a plastic bag” example, which is obviously not great. I’m just saying it’s triflin to worry about it.
This is really non news. There have always been some feminists who “hate men” in the “I hate men” way rather than the “you feminists just hate men” way. It’s pretty understandable and unremarkable. As the author is quoted on in the article:
“I just don’t have confidence in them. This comes less from personal experience than from being an activist in a feminist organisation that helps the victims of rape and sexual assault for several years. I can state for a fact that the majority of aggressors are men.”
I haven’t read the book, and I’m not likely to, but I’m not seeing a message of “We should hate men!”, but, as the headline says “We should have the right to not like men”. And I think she should have that right.
But what about “Well then I should be allowed to hate women!”? Well, if you hate women because you don’t feel safe in the presence of women and mistrust most women due to your work with battered husbands, you should.
Is it a healthy trend for society? Probably not, but the cure isn’t to declare “No women should be allowed to state her feelings towards men in general if her experience have made those feelings negative in general!”, it’s to work towards making those experiences less common.
My take-away from that is, as Riemann mentioned, that hating on a group causes problems and that we shouldn’t be giving this woman a pass, even if it’s to say her hate isn’t as bad as others’.
One of these things is not like the others. Of course a woman as an individual can decide that she wants to choose a female doctor for her personal physician, and wants to work out only in the presence of other women, and so forth. But if she’s making hiring decisions or has other responsibilities where anti-discrimination laws apply, I don’t think she can have a no-men-allowed policy.
As for whether an individual personally dislikes or distrusts all members of a particular group, I don’t care if that’s how they feel, but it’s rude of them to say so out loud.