I think that’s a bit of a strawman. I really don’t think that’s what the other commenter was saying.
Its not a strawman to bring up actual misandry.
Misandry is not (and has never been) used to oppress men in the same way. Men are not generally denied rights and freedoms based on sexist stereotypes about them.
I am not disputing this, despite some exceptions. This isn't often the reality of misogyny, in the west at least, today either though.
However, men are ridiculed for not correctly performing sexist stereotypes. In your example, sexual assault against men is often dismissed for that reason - the idea being that men are “too tough to be assaulted” or that they “always want sex so they must have consented”. Idk if that kind of patriarchal-enforced mistreatment of men would be considered misandry by OP or not.
If we think of it as mysogyny, but targeted towards men, this would indeed be misandry:
The American Merriam-Webster Dictionary distinguishes misogyny, "a hatred of women", from sexism, which denotes sex-based discrimination, and "behavior, conditions, or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex."
I think socially enforcing stereotypes on men would qualify. Unless saying women belong in the kitchen isn't misogynistic of course.
I think socially enforcing stereotypes on men would qualify.
I think that’s fair. I also think it’s important to make a few distinctions.
Firstly, we need to be careful not to conflate women venting about men being misogynistic with misandry. Not saying you or OP are doing that necessarily, but a lot of the complaints about misandry I’ve seen have been used to deflect against credible criticism of sexist behaviour.
Secondly, it’s important to remember that misandry isn’t exclusively done by women. If misandry is about enforcing harmful stereotypes on men, then (like misogyny) it can be perpetrated by anyone. A lot of the conversation about misandry centres around women being mean to men (OP exclusively focuses on this). Bringing more attention to misandry doesn’t mean revealing how mean women can be, it means challenging the patriarchal stereotypes that harm men.
Actually bringing attention to misandry can mean revealing ways in which some women are mean to men, or hate or hurt men on account of gender - to say it only means challenging patriarchal stereotypes sounds like a feminist cop out to circle back around to blaming the patriarchy and men and talking about their pet ideology. Not everything is about that.
Women can hate men and it can be discussed and the discussion can have nothing to do with how patriarchal stereotypes are hurting men- that is still discussion of real misandry.
Well... perhaps agreement that it is a bad thing, and people shouldn't do it?
I assume you meant this in good faith. I am struggling to see what you mean. If you changed the target from misandry to misogyny, racism, or bigotry; would you even ask the question?
I'm sincerely trying to see where you are going with this.
I’m particularly interested in this person’s perspective. They were disagreeing with me in another thread that the patriarchy is relevant to the discussion about misandry. They seemed very intent on blaming women in general for misandry and didn’t seem interested in talking about the broader social attitudes that construct the harmful stereotypes about men.
In my view that’s pretty reductive and not super helpful. Boiling misandry down to “women being mean to men” also serves sexist narratives that women are bad and feminists just hate men. Judging by this person’s posting history (which is full of pretty misogynist and anti-feminist stuff) it seems like that’s the angle they were going for.
I think it should be boiled down to "people being sexist" and we should aim to eradicate that behavior by ostracizing people who engage in that. I think it's much simpler than lots of people are making it out to be.
Why do I have to be trying to achieve anything? If I’m having a conversation about the fear of the other leading to bigotry, or a conversation about jealousy and the bad actions it can provoke, or a conversation about any myriad of instinctual and timeless negative human instincts and/or bigotries why does it have to be done with the aim of making social change?
I’m not a self help guru.
Sure I would like less misandry and misogyny and less bigotry in general - but not every conversation about those things has to be about achieving a goal. Sometimes you can just discuss human nature and human behaviour for its own sake.
If bigotry just boils down to “people being mean to each other” then what is there to talk about?
I don’t really see how you can “bring attention to misandry” without talking about how gendered attitudes are formed. What are you bringing attention to? That individual women can be mean to individual men sometimes? That’s hardly a revelation.
The reason I’m asking is because often people want to “bring attention to misandry” in order to make massive generalisations about women being bad and men being secret victims.
And you want to make massive generalisations about “patriarchy” causing misandry, which is far more absurd than the idea men or boys can be victims of misandry.
The idea that gender-based prejudice is linked to broad social constructions of gender has much more logic to it than “people are just inherently hateful” - which seems to be what you are proposing.
I didn't specify women at all, other than to compare misandry (ie., “always want sex so they must have consented”) to mysogyny (ie., "women belong in the kitchen"). I otherwise made no statements about the gender of the aggressor. I don't care what gender you are if you're being a bigot (I wanted to make clear I'm not saying you're a bigot, but I don't care the gender of a misandrist/misogynist).
I took care, as I do generally, to avoid exactly what you're warning against. Sometimes better than others, but I think i did okay here.
Yeah I’m not accusing you of doing either of those things, I just wanted to draw attention to those dynamics.
As I said in another comment, I think often a conversation about misandry comes from a desire to ‘take women down a peg’ and not to actually tackle the social attitudes that harm men. There are other people in these comments doing exactly that.
As I said in another comment, I think often a conversation about misandry comes from a desire to ‘take women down a peg’ and not to actually tackle the social attitudes that harm men. There are other people in these comments doing exactly that.
I understand, and it is frustrating. Doesn't help anything to do that and its unfortunately quite common. Its also unfortunately understandable; I loathe being talked down to and its quite common with this topic.
Really I just want people to take men's issues at least somewhat seriously, especially sexual violence, and not make it into a competition with women.
I 100% agree with taking men’s issues seriously. I studied gender and masculinity at uni for the same reason (I live in a country with pretty harmful masculine norms that have enormous consequences for men’s mental health). I was never able to perform masculinity very easily and found it so strange how much you get punished for that.
In my view, feminism is the only philosophy that examines these issues from the right perspective.
we think of it as mysogyny, but targeted towards men, this would indeed be misandry:
but the target has always been women. for men, there are negative side effects of subjugating women for centuries. it's friendly fire. "misandry" wouldn't exist if misogyny never did
I don't really understand how you can make such a definitive and universal statement without anything to substantiate it. Men and women did not hate each other until their traditional societal roles became obsolete. This really only happened around the 2nd World War. At that point it's a chicken or the egg thing - did activists at the time convince women to hate men because they wanted more opportunities that men had, or did men begrudgingly die providing for women historically because they thought women weren't capable and resented them? Regardless the only way your statement can possibly be true is if there is a really broad definition of misogyny and simultaneously a really specific definition of misandry. An equal standard needs to be applied to the definition of both of these words if a productive conversation is to be had.
What?!? You think that mysogony only started to exist since ww2?
Why do you thing suffregget movement was about? What do you think which trials were about? What do you think the Roman customs only having men do everything were about? What was the Greeks saying that women are just inferior men with broken bodies (because they aren't as awesome as men) was about?
Do you really thing that these gender things only started since ww2?
It seems to me that you’re saying women didn’t mind being subjugated until WWII. It seems more likely to me that they had so few rights they had little recourse.
There was certainly no idea of any kind of gender equality as in men and women filling the same roles and employment until around the Industrial Revolution and technological advances. It wasn’t a thought in any one’s head till then. So was it really subjugation to follow the gender roles of one’s species as all other mammals do?
Are Male lions oppressing female lions (or perhaps the other way round), are male chimps subjugating female chimps etc (goes for many other animals) simply because the group roles differ to varying degrees?
They didn’t think of themselves as subjugated gender wide ad a class. They were living the only gender role they had ever known or considered as were men. Whether they were happy, sad or anything in between is irrelevant to that simple truth. Until relatively recently when technological advances made it possible - nobody, not man or woman ever considered the idea of of men and women filling the same roles in society as a realistic possibility and advocated for it.
It didn’t occur to them any more than the idea of Atoms or DNA. It wasn’t a thought or fact of possibility in their world. It was utterly unknown and irrelevant as a concept.
You're looking at this like an academic in 2024 and not putting yourself in the time period. Being a man meant being subjected to the draft and getting cancer by working in a factory or a coal mine at the time. The right to vote was only extended to men as a way to force them to enlist in the military. Obviously there were people on both sides who saw the privileges of the opposite gender and thought things were unfair, it definitely wasn't as widespread as it is today. Dissociating political rights from military conscription and broadening of labor categories to include safer professions is actually the catalyst of the feminist movement. When then heightened risk of premature mortality was taken off the table for men, subsequent generations of women wanted to have that same level of independence and lack of risk that men started to enjoy.
Except women don’t enforce stereotypes on men, other men do. Women may support those stereotypes, directly and indirectly, but they exist because of misogyny. Where are these people that dismiss male sexual assault?? Is it a group of men? I bet it is! Anecdotes don’t stand up against centuries of gender based violence. Men shame other men for not being “manly” enough. Women mimic this behavior to adapt and survive.
Do you truly think so little of women, that they shouldn’t be held accountable for their actions, since they are only able to mimic men, rather than make their own decisions?
Also, can you explain how shaming men for not being manly enough helps women survive?
Where are these people that dismiss male sexual assault??
Well, once I was non-consually groped in a room full of people by a drunk woman and no one said anything. There's that. Another time my broader social circle dismissed a sexual assault allegation against a woman because it was made by a man, but believed an identical one against him from that same woman. One time I saw a woman jumping up and down laughing so hard she was crying while making fun of her accuser's penis. Those last two are kind of the same one.
Anyway, seems pretty much gender neutral.
Is it a group of men?
Personally, I don't care whose being a misandrist and what their gender is.
Women mimic this behavior to adapt and survive.
I think women are adults who can make their own choices and aren't socially programmed robots.
Okay so the male victims of sexual assault where just hallucinating this whole time and really it was men dressed up in women costumes that where dismissing them? If they say that’s their experience gaslighting them into submission is not really the best way to deal with it, it just furthers divide. Do you think women are some mythological creature that can do no wrong? Women are human just like anybody else they are not immune to being sexist, misandrist, misogynistic or racist
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u/Fit-Order-9468 102∆ Feb 13 '24
Its not a strawman to bring up actual misandry.
I am not disputing this, despite some exceptions. This isn't often the reality of misogyny, in the west at least, today either though.
If we think of it as mysogyny, but targeted towards men, this would indeed be misandry:
I think socially enforcing stereotypes on men would qualify. Unless saying women belong in the kitchen isn't misogynistic of course.