# womens voice **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 6, 2003, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-voice/199860 "2003-09-06T01:42:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Satisfying\_Andy\_Licious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Satisfying\_Andy\_Licious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satisfying_Andy_Licious)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2003, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-voice/199860/61 "2003-09-09T04:57:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by AHunter3 \* > \*\* > Did I meet individual feminists who either said they hated me for being a man or made it apparent in other ways that they did? Sure. Same as I ran into folks in the Black Students Organization who took a personal dislike to me because I’m white. > … > And at first glance, sure, I can see how you might think of being a Man as something you’re born with and born into and have no choice about. But that isn’t how they are using the term. With (again) _rare_ exceptions they don’t hate people for being _male_. As John Stoltenberg has done, you can refuse the mantle and identity “Man”. I’ve done it too. I don’t like Men either. Never did. And I am not of them. \*\* I have moved these two paragraphs together so I can say this: It doesn’t make a bit of difference whether they hate you for being a “man” or hate you for being a “male.” It’s a semantic three-card monte to finesse their bigotry. It is pretty much like the white racists who say “I don’t hate black people for having dark skin – I hate them when they act like n-----s.” Also, I note a strong correlation between being a male feminist and suffering from male self-hatred. > [@](#): > > I’ve lived in the South, Andy, and while I can’t give you supporting citations, subjective experience says the “batting average” for genuine hostility towards men is a hell of a lot higher among women who disparage feminism and hide their rage towards men than among the feminist women who are open and forthright about it. Oh, feminists don’t have any sort of lock on ill will toward men. They just try to exploit it and institutionalize it for personal gain. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2003, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-voice/199860/62 "2003-09-09T05:40:29Z")
> [@](#): > > Also, I note a strong correlation between being a male feminist and suffering from male self-hatred. Stereotyping. I was in the NU production of The Vagina Monologues (I was involved because this year, groups of men and women got to create their own performances, so despite my issues with the show I decided to avail myself of the opportunity). One of them suggested we close the sketch by saying “In a world without violence against women,” (that was the designated theme) “I would be less ashamed to call myself a man.” For a minute, the idea seemed laughable because it was such a stereotype. I’d never met anybody who actually expressed a sentiment like that. Then I realized how emasculating and dumb it was. I told them it was stupid and that I didn’t want to prostrate myself and beg for forgiveness, that it was completely contrary to what I was performing, and I wouldn’t say it at rehearsal. The director agreed. We didn’t use it. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2003, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-voice/199860/63 "2003-09-09T13:05:37Z")
**Andy** is correct about the racists among the suffrage-mvmt feminists. (Wasn’t all of them, though, but those who didn’t agree weren’t noisy enough. I was taught this in women’s studies, in fact. And racism within the modern movement has been a major internal issue, as has anti-lesbian sentiments from some participants, e.g., read up on the “lavender menace” event at NOW in the 70s) re: refusing to be a “Man”, etc: > [@](#): > > I have moved these two paragraphs together so I can say this: It doesn’t make a bit of difference whether they hate you for being a “man” or hate you for being a “male.” It’s a semantic three-card monte to finesse their bigotry. It is pretty much like the white racists who say "I don’t hate black people for having dark skin – I hate them when they act like n-----s. Ever heard: ‘Be a man.’ ‘Act like a man.’ ‘He’s a real man.’ ‘Prove you’re a man.’ etc? The dictionary denotation of “Man” may indeed be “male” but the working definition is pretty tightly tied to those other connotations. It’s not like the feminists could readily use some _other_ word to designate this sense of being a man and expect everyone to recognize it. But aside from that, let’s go back a few frames. Early radical feminism was an expression of rage, and when people are really mad at someone they are close to, people towards whom they’ve been stifling their rage for a long time because they have to live with them, the first stuff that comes out generally _is_ pretty hateful. But often such conversations clear the air and lead to much better closeness; often the angry person is quite conscious of that being the desired goal and the intent. (If you weren’t going to reconcile, why bother trying so hard to communicate with someone about whom one’s first complaint is the absence of listening?) Robin Morgan: upper class leftie, seriously into the neoMarxist campus stuff of the time, occupying th elitist magazine office with her ‘brothers’, etc – was part of the earl radical feminism that was sort of “cut and paste” from Marxist theory, take out “the bourgeoisie” and substitute “men”, switch “women” in for the “proletariat”, and discuss “the revolution”, very binary, very good guys (gals in this case) and bad guys (guess who). Well, she, and radical feminism along with her, grew up. Yes, I’ve read more than the Cliff Notes. I haven’t read Monster and her other poetry stuff, in all honesty, but I’ve read and reread all of her nonfiction. Where she ended up, theoretically, is at the perspectives outlined in _The Anatomy of Woman_. The excerpt I provided earlier in this thread was not surrounded by an ongoing rant against men. By the time she wrote it she very clearly saw men as being just as swept up (involuntarily) in the social system she and her sistren had dubbed “patriarchy” as women were – just less in a position to see the social system from a feminist vantage point as she and colleagues could. Marilyn French – hey, c’mon, _The Women’s Room_is a work of fiction. Certainly she used it to illustrate her point, but she makes her main character quite a bit more bitter and hateful towards men than she herself comes off in her actual theory work. _Beyond Power_ is not a hate book. If you want to say that there exist central leaders respected within the women’s movement who are openly and insistently anti-male and who hate men, I’d agree with you. Mary Daly qualifies, for example. But it isn’t an accurate characterization of French or Morgan and it isn’t common among the movement’s theorists, nor did I run into it often among students faculty and other everyday participants. ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2003, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-voice/199860/64 "2003-09-09T14:50:19Z")
Let’s get back to what’s important here. Anarchist flags: [Australian](http://atlasgeo.span.ch/fotw/flags/au%7Banarc.html) [Black Flag (great band by the way)](http://atlasgeo.span.ch/fotw/flags/anarc.html#tend) [Other anarchist flags](http://atlasgeo.span.ch/fotw/flags/anarc.html#tend) ---
**Author:** ![Satisfying\_Andy\_Licious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Satisfying\_Andy\_Licious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satisfying_Andy_Licious)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2003, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-voice/199860/65 "2003-09-09T17:24:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by AHunter3 \* > \*\*re: refusing to be a “Man”, etc: > > Ever heard: ‘Be a man.’ ‘Act like a man.’ ‘He’s a real man.’ ‘Prove you’re a man.’ etc? The dictionary denotation of “Man” may indeed be “male” but the working definition is pretty tightly tied to those other connotations. It’s not like the feminists could readily use some _other_ word to designate this sense of being a man and expect everyone to recognize it.\*\* Conceptions of what it takes to be a man are not, in themselves, inherently evil. If a culture defines and teaches manhood as something positive – supporting and defending your family, bearing up under adversity, channeling your energies into legitimate competition rather than thuggery – you have a generation of good men. If a culture teaches us that what it takes to be a man is violence, cheating on their wives and fathering children out of wedlock, that’s what you get. Unfortunately, feminists and Stoltenberg define male as bad. If not, cite me a feminist showing maleness as good. [qipte]But aside from that, let’s go back a few frames. Early radical feminism was an expression of rage, and when people are really mad at someone they are close to, people towards whom they’ve been stifling their rage for a long time because they have to live with them, the first stuff that comes out generally _is_ pretty hateful. But often such conversations clear the air … [/quote] Shit, I wasn’t “close” to any of the feminist bigots spewing their hatred – except in the workplace. Their hate didn’t have any love attached. What it did have was self-righteousness and greed. What you’re citing is another three-card monte to finesse feminists bigotry. Apply your theories to white bigots and you’ll trace their hatred to some inner hurt. Most of us don’t think that way. We recognize bigots as bigots. As for them stiffling their “rage” – ah bullshit. I came from a broken home, with a working mother being paid low wages. I joined the military to get the G.I. Bill and went on to college and work. There I found numerous hypocritical feminist bigots who had come from upscale backgrounds, had a father who paid for their college, had more privileges than I ever dreamed. And these bitches wanted to discriminate against me in the name of “fairness.” When preaching affirmative action to help the disadvantaged, not a single one of these ivy league bitches asked me about my background. > [@](#): > > Marilyn French – hey, c’mon, _The Women’s Room_is a work of fiction. Certainly she used it to illustrate her point. Yeah, and the Turner Diaries and Birth of a Nation are works of fiction, too. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2003, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-voice/199860/66 "2003-09-12T04:57:54Z")
Thanks for the cites. BTW, I saw nothing WRONG with the territorities’ reasoning; I love the concept of ‘enlightened self-interest’. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/womens-voice/199860.md?page=3)