Men who believe they aren't misogynists because "I love women"

[PinkyofPie]

They need to realise they don't love women, they love sexualised women and that's about it.

Does anyone else ever come across this bullshit? These men actually believe they "love women" as well and therefore they can't be sexist

[OlennasWimple]

It's along the same lines as "I can't be racist, some of my best friends are black", isn't it?

[VestalVirgin]

It's along the same lines as "I can't be racist, some of my best friends are black", isn't it?

No, I think it is different. The man who claims to "love women" want to use women sexually. They love women like women love chocolate - for consumption.

The equivalent, I suppose, would be a factory owner who says he's not a racist, because all his underpaid employees are black and he just loves how hard they work for him.

I have also met men who said "I can't be misogynist, some of my best friends are women", and yeah, that's probably equivalent to the "black friends" thing.

Bullshit, all of it.

I never trust a man who claims to "love women". They usually mean "I want to fuck women" and not "I prioritize women emotionally and financially because I realize that patriarchy is shit and I should balance that out", or whatever else female feminists tend to mean by stating that they love women.

[PinkyofPie]

Well said Vestal.
I also don't think it's good enough for men to 'not hate' women. They actually need to acknowledge the patriarchy and genuinely care and contribute towards womens' rights. Otherwise surely they're just all part of it?

[OlennasWimple]

Hmmm, I'm not totally convinced.

I've met plenty of the misogynist type, who either don't acknowledge what they actually are or are seeking to diminish or deny it to themselves.

I've also met plenty of men who genuinely do love women but also occasionally do or say sexist things (mostly unwittingly - eg buying pink "because it's a girl", asking what little sister is going to do while the boys are off playing football etc) who would vehemently reject the misogynist label, probably correctly

[OlennasWimple]

I agree OP - but that brings us to the problem of many women rejecting the term feminist, never mind men

[AyeAmarok]

I also take (misogynist) men saying "I love women" to mean "I love to fuck women".

Usually they also have very little interest in the woman enjoying the sex, or whether she feels degraded by what he "wants to do to her". She's there to be fucked how he wants to fuck her. Then he fucks the next one.

Urgh.

[ChocChocPorridge]

It's the gilded cage isn't it - as Buffy says - othering women as something to be admired, rather than as actual people with thoughts and feelings and the ability to be both lovable and unlovable

[NeverEverAnythingEver]

Buffy & ChocChoc - that explains it very well to me.

[VestalVirgin]

The very thought process of needing to single out women as a group they 'love' reveals that they regard women as other.

Yeah, that's why I have a very different reaction to the Christian idea of loving people in general than to "I love women."

That they only "love" women, not men, implies that this love is sexual.

(As mentioned above, (female!) feminists who say that they love women have an approach more like the Christian idea - an approach where you actively decide to love someone, and be kind to them, regardless of whether they are lovable or not.)

This is a flaw of language - that "love" can mean so many fundamentally different things. It is, no doubt, a flaw that those men who claim to "love" women like very much, as it is useful for them.

I could write a whole essay on how men in patriarchy form language so that it serves their purposes.

[TheSparrowhawk]

Saying 'I love 3.5 billion people who have XX chromosomes' is entirely meaningless anyway. As Buffy says, it lumps women into one group of non-people who are not individuals with personalities but just walking wombs and boobs.

[VestalVirgin]

What men who say this mean, is that they love slim, attractive, young women who they can flirt with and be admired and looked up to by.

Oh yes. Other women do not fall in the category "woman" in their minds.

Like when they complain that "women have it so easy, men approach them and buy them drinks and they just have to pick" ... this does, of course, not apply to most women, but a woman who is not pretty, slim and young, is so unimportant to them that they don't even think about her.

This probably partly explains why transwomen feel entitled to be considered women - they're used to the male privilege of being allowed to define who is, or isn't, a woman.

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

Saying 'I love 3.5 billion people who have XX chromosomes' is entirely meaningless anyway

Saying I hate 3.5 billion people who XY chromosomes isn't?

The very thought process of needing to single out women as a group they 'love' reveals that they regard women as other. Might be a benign sort of othering, if such a thing exists, but othering I it is

There is a thread about hating men.

I agree there are many , many awful and hateful men in the world and they will outnumber the awful and hateful women but neither position has much to recommend it.

[ChocChocPorridge]

Love or hate 3.5 billion people is meaningless.

Luckily those aren't the only two options - you can be completely ambivalent towards people until you figure out how you feel about each one.

Just like in the hate all men thread (last time I was there at least), most people are saying that it's not a logical position, and those thoughts need to be examined rather than accepted.

[VestalVirgin]

Saying I hate 3.5 billion people who XY chromosomes isn't?

It is a much different point of view from the one discussed in this thread.

However, I would say it is about as dishonest a statement, coming from most people.
Women who claim to hate men are nice to most men. Men who claim to love women are assholes to most women.

[ErrolTheDragon]

lass - do you mean the thread where the op is trying to combat her negative feelings? not sure how that's relevant here tbh.

Vestal - yes, we could do with more nuanced words for 'love', to distinguish the agape/philia from the eros (OT but wtf do we have the word 'paedophilia', when its totally the wrong meaning?)

Hm, maybe if a bloke starts saying how he loves women you should say something like 'great, old Mrs Smith two doors down needs her shopping doing'

[bingolittle]

I agree that it's the lumping together that's the problem. Basically they don't see women as people.

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

There is lumping together on both threads.

[Mamaka]

Hi, I'm the op in the other thread! It's a fair point about me also "othering" or lumping together all men and I'd not really thought of it like that so yes guilty as charged. I came on here to unpick my thoughts and it's helping. Maybe the lumping together that I'm doing is down to the fact that I really don't have any good examples of genuinely feminist men around me? So all the men in my life are entitled princes who range from subtly to overtly sexist. I haven't really done the lumping, life has done it for me!

[VestalVirgin]

I haven't really done the lumping, life has done it for me!

Hits the nail on the head, really.

I don't know a single man who doesn't have his sexist, shitty moments. My male relatives are mostly okay, but ... well, just okay. Not perfect.

I'm sure there's some decent men out there, somewhere. I'd love to meet them. But every time I get to know a man better, he turns out to be a sexist asshole, to varying degree.
There have been a couple of times where I was dazzled by a man's seeming rebellion against gender stereotypes, but then it turned out that he loves porn, or is anti-woman in some other way.

I now get through life by not getting very close to men. On the surface, many are okay. You just shouldn't dig too deep, or you risk waking the misogynist balrog that dwells there.

[cadnowyllt]

Balrog ! - run you fools....

(or am I thinking of something else, meh ?)

[Grimarse]

or you risk waking the misogynist balrog that dwells there.

That genuinely made me laugh //grin

[Grimarse]

Oops , not //grin