misandry doesn't exist

I think it is possible for a woman to be a misandrist, just as it is possible for a man to be a misogynist.

I don't think that on a global scale the two can be considered comparable. That is not to say that misandry doesn't exist.

Good explanation Cogito.

Hatred is something that happens in people's heads, therefore if it happens in one person's head then it exists.

I think definitions do matter - otherwise we all end up talking across purposes.

But proving the existence of the word does not prove the existence of what the word refers to. Saying that 'misandry' does exist because some people hate men only makes sense if you think 'misogyny' is just hatred of women, with no attached structural reinforcement in wider society.

There is nothing wrong with defining misogyny and misandry in that way (save that the word 'sexism' already exists and is perfectly good). But then we would, I think, need a word to describe the systematic oppression of women in society, to which there is not an equivalent or equivalently systematized oppression of men in society.

Just because you can create a word doens't mean that the reality it's claiming to represent exists.

Evidence for misogyny is domestic violence, rape, femicide (100 million missing women and girls in India and China), the global second class status of women, forced birth, forced abortion, forced sterilisation, child marriage of girls to older men, prostitution, pornography and so on.

What is the evidence that "misandry" exists apart from the cobbling together some greek words?

Men are not hated as a group, men are seen as superior because of their ownership of a penis and receive many economic and social rewards because of it.

I think it exists, albeit in a much more minuscule state which has far fewer conseqences because the world is so male dominated. There will always be hateful people, both men and women.

Agree with Cogito. Good explanation.

The term for all of it is bigotry.

'Mis' as a prefix means 'hatred, distrust, dislike'. A misanthrope hates the human race, a misarchist can't stand authority, a miserotic dislikes sex, a misocynist hates dogs, a misogynist loathes women and a misandrist hates men. Misandrists and therefore misandry does exist.

If you're elevating misogyny to a political system in its own right, it's equivalent would be misandronism... a fanatical belief that all the world's problems are caused by men. And I'm pretty sure I've heard that view expressed even if it's not the prevalent view.

Tell that to George Orwell, Trills.

Words have power, they shape people's thoughts and actions.

thunderbolts Oxford dictionary says

noun
[mass noun]
the hatred of women by men:
she felt she was struggling against thinly disguised misogyny

I thought we should better stop arguing over definitions of words and just get on with it, that's all :)

I like Manatee's distinction. Men are punished more when they stray from cultural norms of manliness, but conforming to the norms is not as restricting/limiting for (most) men as it is for women.

If women want or do "manly" things then there is a combination of you can't do that, it's for men and well of course manly things are better so we can see why you would want to.

If a man wants or does "female" things then the question is (as Orm says) why would he want to do that, is there something wrong with him?

What do you call the male equivalent of a tomboy? A sissy? There's no non-pejorative word that I can think of.

It's a logical fallacy to argue that because misogyny exists it must have a counterpart in this thing called "misandry".

Misogyny = the destruction of women

Misandry = ?

I think any society that permits prejudice against either sex is a society in which misandry exists. A society that mistrusts men working with young children for example is a society where misandry exists. Because it is making an assumption that only paedophiles would have any interest in spending time with toddlers. The fact that that assumption comes off the back of the misogynistic one that looking after children is one of the few things that women are good at, is relevant but doesn't negate the misandry of the premise.

Sexism is sexism. It limits and damages everyone. The fact that to date women have suffered more from it in general doesn't alter that fact.

We do divide people up into "boys and girls" far more often than necessary, don't we?

I read a post (or possibly a blog or article or something) a little while ago by someone who was a primary school teacher who had decided to stop saying "make two lines, boys and girls" and decided to ask them to make lines based on who liked green and who like blue, or who liked cats and who liked dogs.

OP - feel free to clarify and we'll stop going round in circles and try to discuss what it was that you actually wanted to discuss :)

Twenty years ago almost no-one would have been aware of the word or know what it was suppoesed to mean.

It's just another way of calling women who object to male abuse, man-haters. It's offensive.

Misandry was a word that mens' rights activists came up about the beginning of the 90s with to attack feminists for pointing out real woman-hatred, and to try and pretend that men were victimised in the same way women are victimised by men.

It's not a valid concept. There is no equivalent of misogyny in this world.

But if we had a society that did not recognize 'race' as a category, a person who discriminated accordinng to a made-up category loosely tied to appearance and geographic origin would simply look mad. No-one would look and say 'Oh, he's a racist', because that concept of race would not exist.

I think it is a good analogy, because it is only in this world where we use biological sex as a primary way of categorizing humans, that misognyny or misandry could develop.

x-posts again

I didn't say it was a naturally occurring thing. I said it was a thing that was defined by the beliefs of a person. If a person were to believe that thing then it would exist regardless of what society was like.

Maybe racism is a bad example because there are not clearcut distinctions between races as there are with men and women.

I believe that sexism is something that can exist in people's heads regardless of whether society sanctions it or not. Society may lean in one direction but that doesn't mean that there are not people who believe and feel and think the opposite. Not just a lack of the condoned form of prejudice, but a prejudice in the opposite direction.

It depends on how you define sexism. Men get punished much more severely than women by parents or peers for violating stereotypical gender norms, and have significantly higher incidences of substance abuse and suicide - generally reliable indicators of mental health difficulties - that a lot of researchers within psychology and gender studies have connected to anxiety around failing to conform to gender role.

If you define sexism as compulsory conformity to gender roles, under threat of ostracism or other forms of punishment, then men definitely experience it. If you define it as lack of access to positions of power and privilege based on gender, then perhaps you could argue that there's no such thing as sexism against men.

I think this is why it's so important to recognize the underlying structures of discrimination ... the fact that you just accept that 'race' exists and is an unproblematic category to be used for identifying people says it all.

Yes, I believe racism is something that has been integrated into the structure of society. As has discrimination against women. That is why these things are so powerful - they have a deeply ingrained presence in the structure of society.

You cannot hold the prejudiced belief tht one race is superior to others all on your own. Because 'race' is itself a social construct, not a biological fact. If we lived in a non-racist society and an individual tried to argue that all people with blue eyes were one 'race' and all with brown another, he or she would simply look mad.

Racism is not a naturally-occurring thing, I refuse to believe that.

So you are putting racism in the same box as misogyny and not in the same box as sexism?

Racism is still racism even if it is anomalous and without sanction. You can hold the prejudiced belief that one race is superior to others all on your own and you are still racist. That's what racist means.