misandry doesn't exist

See, I would be really disturbed if someone came on here saying they really felt it was important to use the term 'black supremacy' in order to denote the way that black people oppress white people. I would think such a person was a raving racist. And I would be deeply dubious of his or her motives.

If someone came on and said 'I think black people can be racist to white people', I'd be saying 'erm, yes, true'.

The same is IMO the case with 'misandry'. Women can be sexist towards men, but I am disturbed by people who argue that we should adopt the term 'misandry' happily.

But Trills, some have suggested that endorsing use of the term "misandry" gives legitimacy to the idea that sexual prejudice happens in the same way, with the same frequency and with an equivalent impact when it happens against men AND women.

Do you believe sexual prejudice operates the same way, with the same frequency and with the same impact on men as it does on women?

Fair enough.

Actually, I didn't call your logic into question, I commented it was interesting. No more.

I do find it interesting that you don't feel the need to search for a term for racism by black people against white people, you just accept 'reverse racisim' isn't a meaningful term and that white people can be racist agaisnt black people.

But it seems important to you and others on this thread that there must be a term for women hating men. I don't get why that is so important? Why aspire to have equality in hatred?

I was responding to a specific point you made about the logic of saying that there is no such thing as reverse racism. Not trying to show anything. You called my logic into question, I explained it.

Misandry does exist if you define it the way I do, it doesn't exist if you define it the way you do. I have said this already.

And, once again, all you're showing is that misandry could, in theory, exist. We all know that. You're not getting any closer to showing it does or doesn't.

You were challenging me saying "reverse racism doesn't exist" while saying that misandry could, so I explained that it is because one term is directional and the other is not.

I agree there is no such thing as reverse sexism (I never said there was).

Nor did I ever say (nor did anyone else say) that it's not conceptually possible for misandry to exist.

But, in our society, it doesn't.

I don't understand what's being added here except straw man replies.

There's no such thing as reverse sexism, because sexism is a non-directional term.

Misogyny is a term that specifies a direction for the hatred of one sex by the other. Therefore it is at the very least conceptually possible for the opposite to exist.

Whether the opposite does exist or not depends on which definition you choose (as seen in about 100 posts above).

And I agree, that is a very good point about legitimizing.

I do find it deeply depressing that the argument I got in RL about this was 'oh but you can't have misogyny if we can't have misandry'. In those exact words.

(Yes, because you'd be so lucky to get misandry, right? )

See, I find it so interesting that you can say 'no such thing as reverse racism' but can't accept that there's no such thing as 'misandry', even though loads of people have described ways in which misogyny leads to bad things for men as well as women.

Okay, perhaps this sounds like playing with language and at the risk of going in circles, I see a distinction between racism (racial prejudice + the systemic economic, political and social "weight" to back it up) and racial prejudice (individuals not liking others because of their difference, but not having that "weight.")

In a similar way, you can have individual women who dislike men, even who might wish them harm, but you don't have the backing of history, culture, the law, traditions, social attitudes, etc. to translate that dislike on a large scale basis to harm huge swathes of men. However, when individual men dislike women and wish to do them harm, their position is at least to a degree supported by the history, culture, laws, etc. on a wider basis.

I think it IS important to look at whose views carry the most weight in society and where possible, distinguish between the attitudes and practices of people in those groups from the attitudes and practices of those outside the groups. Otherwise, there's the risk that everyone will be seen "as bad as each other" and the systemic oppression that underpins the bigotry of some will be ignored. Injustice will prevail.

No such thing as reverse racism. Racism is racism no matter who is doing it to who. It's not a directional term.

(should there be a whom in there?)

Yes, LRD, that seems to be the key point here. You could say the same about the terms "reverse racism" or "heterophobia." The purpose in coining them was to dilute the significance of racism (institutionalised prejudice of and oppression against non-white people) and homophobia (institutionalised prejudice of and oppression against non-straight people.) The problem with promoting the use of these terms, like misandry, is that it effectively legitimises the concepts they were founded on - i.e. that systematic oppression based on ethnicity, sexual orientation and sex "goes both ways," when quite clearly, it doesn't.

'Big' and 'small' are, in your example, qualified. You're saying two terms, when qualified, are, erm, qualified in their meaning. Well, yes, they are. So?

I think saying that misandry exists does downgrade misogyny, seeing as how the word was coined precisely for that reason.

I am not sure what this is about then. Misandry doesn't have to be equal and opposite to misogyny to exist. Big isn't the equal and opposite of small in every case - it's all relative. A big mouse will still be smaller than a small elephant. A misandrist doesn't have to be as aggressive and damaging as a misogynist - one particular misandrist might just mutter silly stereotypes at men and roll their eyes when a man uses a washing machine, and a misogynist employer might discriminate against women in the workplace, BUT the two things can still exist and still be damaging. I dont think that accepting that one exists, downgrades the other.

eccles - if we have misogyny, misandry, and sexism, and we think they mean the same things, why bother? The usefulness of the term 'misogyny' is that it reminds us that oppression is gendered. If you want to introduce misandry as an equivalent, why bother wtih the term 'sexism' since you've effectively bled out the usefulness of 'misogyny' as a gendered term for a gendered practice.

'Patriarchy' refers to the system, not the practice. If you want to coin a term 'patriarchistic', you could I suppose. But IMO it is useful to have both words since they do refer to different things．

1) Why have two words, 'misogyny' and 'sexism' which appear to mean the same?

But they don't mean the same thing at all:
Sexism: prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination on the basis of sex.
Misogyny: the hatred of women.

2) What word are we going to use for the systematized, institutionalized oppression of women?

'Patriarchy', surely?

Aye - agreed.

IMO this may be one of those differences between 'equalism' and 'feminism'. IMO we don't actually have to believe that for every element of discrimination against women, there could be an equal and corresponding element of discrimination against men, even if that element is much less in evidence.

That is not the sort of equality I'm interested in. Bending over backwards to insist that misandry exists ... why bother? What good comes of it?

I freely admit sexism against men exists. If no-one wants to accept that misandry (if it's a counterpart to misogyny) would refer to a systematized, institutionalized oppression of women, then:

1. Why have two words, 'misogyny' and 'sexism' which appear to mean the same, unless it's because you feel a burning need to make men's oppression as important an issue as women's oppression?

2. What word are we going to use for the systematized, institutionalized oppression of women? We need a word. If misogyny isn't it, we need one.

I will say, again, that gender stereotyping hurts everyone and often in ways that are not immediately apparent.

Another reason why I'm a feminist.

Quite.

Who benefits from the bumbling, can't clean the oven, can't look after the baby portrayal of men?

Not women, that's for sure.

Incidentally, 'the dictionary' doesn't 'say' anything at all. Various dictionaries are compiled by sequences of humans, who are intelligent and careful, but also fallible and biased. I would promise you that any published dictionary has errors in it. The only consensus is going to be etymological, since this is relatively easy to establish. thunder clearly knows about 'misandry' as a term and it's not particularly unlikely that she actually knows better than whoever compiled the latest OED.

But Trills, the dictionary does also explain that misandry is a neologism, and misogyny is a word with a long history, and the two have different applications.

If you look in a sufficiently basic dictionary, you can find words defined with great simplicity. That does not mean that it's incorrect to point out that these two words do have more precise meanings and connotations.

Take the word 'utopia'. Most people nowadays would associate the term with a perfect place, or an idealized world. The etymology, obviously, is 'nowhere'. The dictionary would get into all the historical layers of meaning built up from Thomas More onwards.

Then take the term 'dystopia'. It's a relative neologism, though the time difference is much less than that between 'misogyny' and 'misandry'. The etymology is just as clearly rooted in Ancient Greek, and just as simple to state. The meaning 'a bad place' is quite simple too. But if you looked up the word, and if you thought about it, you'd find it very hard to understand the term without the cultural freight of the pre-existing term 'utopia'. Because the second word is piggybacking on the first.

If you wanted to say simple 'duh, bad places exist in the UK so the UK must be a dystopian society', you'd be correct insofar as your statement recognizes the most basic etymological content of the term. But you'd also be judged incorrect by anyone who understood how the one term as derived artificially from the other.

'Misandry' is derived from 'misogyny' for political reasons, by people who would like you to think that everything is so equal, women hate men just as men hate women. But if you understand the history of 'misogyny' as a term and of 'misandry' as a term, you can't simply go to the etymology or to the 'dictionary definition' in isolation and expect to make sense. IMO.

(No idea if that clarifies or not, if not I'm sorry.)

Also I listed female genocide (not infanticide) amongst other horrors as evidence of misogyny existing.

What is the evidence for "misandry"?

"It is a logical impossibility that somebody could hate men because female infanticide? "

No talking about non-existent "misandry", in the face of the reality of misogyny, is incorrect, and in it's own way, woman-hating.

Men are not hated for being men. Nowhere in the world does that happen.