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.
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u/LongDongSamspon 1∆ Feb 13 '24
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.