Is feminism all about man hating?

I've known a lot of women and a lot of feminists over the course of a long life and I think I have met one who genuinely hated men. I have met a lot of men who, if they don't hate women, certainly dispise and disregard them.

People who think feminism is man hating are almost always people who actually hate women and don't believe women are subjected to sexism

I don't think it's helpful to deny that some Feminists hate men, nor to argue that those whp point it out are all woman haters. It is very visible to other Feminists and neutrals as well, and denial just looks naive and reduces credibility.

Some women hate men. A lot of men hate women

I'd also suspect that the ratios are quite similar, and relatively small. As a species we wouldn't have survived the way we have if the vast majority of the sexes rather liked each other.

It's fine for men to hate women.

But let one woman even so much as suggest that she might just on occasion think that men might just not all be paragons of all earthly virtues and the whole edifice of feminism is shown to be a sham.

Bizarre.

Some women hate men. A lot of men hate women. I'm not advocating hate, but it frustrates me when guys get all butt-hurt at the idea of some women hating them. It happens. Get over it. Don't decry a whole movement just because some members are man-haters.

Totally agree (as usual) Krumbum!

People who think feminism is man hating are almost always people who actually hate women and don't believe women are subjected to sexism. It's not worth listening to these stupid people, that have nothing to back up what they are saying and don't understand feminism.

I hope you stick around, black currants.

I usually wonder what starts people off on tangents of personal abuse. I really wonder if there are some of us who are susceptible and others not.

Here's a bunch of people talking with made-up names, and most of us will never know any of the others personally. So is that a reason to allow yourself to get worked up over things, or a reason not to?

Blackcurrants, I just had a quick read to the last pages (came back after... 7 pages, OMG!!) and I think you shouldn't leave, you really should stick around longer because I guess that.. one poster's opinion isn't everybody.

I've seen many threads, in many boards, locked because of the hot topic discussed in it. I think feminism is one of those topics. Well, let's say that after a while it's easy to stir the pot in such threads.

You shouldn't feel insulted, I tend to believe that nowadays being a online hater is kind of a job. I guess these people have really nothing else to do ;)

Big hug :)

Kind of you to say so, AF - and I used to love it here and would miss it, so I'll probably stick around a bit longer. There are some interesting thoughts being thought, some good discussions happening, but my god there are a lot of people gleefully trashing the place and giggling to themselves, aren't there?

I can go to feminist sites for feminism without the angst, y'know? So it makes this place less appealling.

Sorry for self-indulgent derail, OP. Bit of a low, today.

blackcurrants I think it 's a great shame (and a loss for these boards) that you rae feeling driven away by a minority who make it their business to needle, whine and delight in derailing threads

has someone left and come back VG? not sure what you mean.

Well, no VG - the evidence I had read recently was that he 'rose above' the sentence, and female hormone treatment, and was getting on with plans for other work. Hated it but it didn't stop him.
But yes, avoidance of the punishment of prison was still severe.

Anyway, it's very irritating when people leave and then come back so I'll leave it at that. I just thought it was important.

Do you mean Copeland's impression of Turing's death? I'm less than convinced.

Turing ingested cyanide, and was known - his friends clearly stated - to have been traumatised and ashamed by his conviction, and never recovered from having to abandon his work. The incident for which he was convicted came to light only through blackmail.

He was treated appallingly.

That's a bit offtrack - my real point was that Turing's punishment was more severe than a prison sentence that he just didn't serve. That most people don't know whitewashes (IMO) how gay and lesbian people have been treated. That they won't pardon him continues this treatment.

hmmm..some recent doubt about the suicide thing. Popular at the time, but less convincing now it seems. IT would have been popular as it fitted in with gay people being unhinged, wrong, and irresponsible as well as ashamed. AT showed no evidence of any of those things.

Alan Turing was chemically castrated for being gay and killed himself two years later. He has yet to be given a pardon despite an ongoing campaign. Just shows how far we have left to go.

Hi Blackcurrents - whom I think is British but living in America (I'm the other way round, just to keep up the confusion! :) ) The story of how hearing of your flatmate's father's experience of racial discrimination made you feel really struck a chord. It isn't a barrel of monkeys to hear that someone has been abused, excluded or suffered in some way because they don't have characteristics that you just take for granted.

We tend only to see them as privileges when someone points out that they aren't entitled to the same things because they don't share some aspect of your identity (e.g. race, sex, class, etc.) But it can hurt like hell (as you say) to hear that stuff, so some folks respond in a very classic way - you know the drill!

Minimise - (Oh, it can't have been/be quite as bad as you say. Surely you're exaggerating. It can't affect that many people/can't happen that often.)

Deny - (I don't believe you. Where is your evidence? Actually I read that the problem is actually WORSE for people like me than it is for people like you because everything has gone too far the other way.)

Blame - (If people like you didn't kick up a fuss, you wouldn't get treated like that. Okay, people like you have a tough time, but people like you are also responsible for that bad thing that's happening over there, that much bigger and more important thing for which I have no evidence but I'll keep thinking up things somehow to divert attention and make you look like the guilty party.

The Pan, yes I read something about Alan Turing recently. I think it's definitely positive that some folks who were marginalised or "written out" of history because of their identities are being recognised later on. When I trained as a nurse over 20 years ago, we heard all about what Florence Nightingale did, but nowt about Mary Seacole, but that's changed since then, too.

as a ps, Alan Turing was sentenced to prison ( which he didn;t serve) for a homosexual act (1950's) despite doing work on the Enigma Machine in the 2nd World War. You can help save the nation, but if you are gay we will lock you up..

KRITIQ - an example of what you say is going on right now, in the UK,(you are in the US, I think?), and specifically in Manchester re Alan Turing who is acknowledged as the 'daddy of computer science', produced the first algorythms (whatever they are) and provided a foundation to artificial intelligence. I DO know that he did break- through work in what are the criteria for what is 'human' and what is 'robotic'.

He was gay,and a 'son of Manchester' but outside of Manchester and the world of 'geeks' he was unknown. We have come to celebrate him here, and the highway I cycle along to work is called "Alan Turing Way".
The point is, yes, until people are seeing iconic stuff being done by 'other people' and their total identity is pointed to, then the acceptance is that all developments are achieved by the 'dominant' demograph.

We're a bit proud of Alan. And he could probably have helped with that keyboard thing as well.

I just popped back in here after a nice calm few days away to see what was left after the dust settled from that appalling shitstorm.

To those of you still fighting the good fight, I salute you!

To those of you still niggling and stirring .... the horrible thing is that I think you'll win in the end. You've just about driven me off, I've so little energy left for this stuff.

And to the OP: the last time I was accused of being anti-men it was in a conversation that went like this:

Former Schoolmate : Well, why are you a feminist, women are equal in England so who needs that stuff now?
Me: [quotes pay differential, 1 in 4 women sexually abused, 2 women killed a week by DV, rape conviction statistics, in a mild tone]
Former Schoolmate : well now you just sound unhinged and anti-men!

So it seems that if you ever point out the ways that women are damaged by the Patriarchy (or even if you suggest that the patriarchy exists, that the suppression of women's rights is systematic and deliberate and has been around for thousands of years) - you are 'anti-men and unhinged.'

The fact that he said this in response to facts - hard numerical facts - about how men treat women as if they hate them - beating and raping and killing them to a shocking extent in England alone ... in response to me telling him about male treatment of women, he said I was anti-men.

So it seems the facts are anti-men.

And here's the thing, if your lovely DP gets all defensive about 'well I'm not like that' - he's feeling the pinch of his male privilege.

I had a super flatmate a few years ago who was black. She told me about her black father trying to get in to law school in the seventies in the USA and the ways that 'hidden discrimination' kept him out. And it made me really uncomfortable. I kept wanting to blurt out "well I'm not like that" or "well I wasn't even born" or "Well I'm not American!" ... because the fact is, I'm white and as such I have White privilege, I am never going to be discriminated against because of my race... but it hurts to admit that. I want to believe that I am a happy succesful person because I am so fab, not because I've won the lottery of life... but it's true.

Having your prvilege pointed out to you does tend to make you defensive. But you, personally, are not being attacked. The system that puts you on top - THAT is being criticised. And rightly so. Hard to learn how to deal with it, but it's something we HAVE to learn how to deal with, if we want a more equitable society.
The Male Privilege Checklist is a really great introduction to the idea of Male Privilege, and if your DP is a gamer (or ever was) then this article will probably grab his imagination - Lowest Difficulty Setting I really like this one, it puts it in simple brilliant language and you don't end up forgetting half of it, which I sometimes do with longer/denser stuff.

Hester, I think there have also been examples of shifts in the depiction of historical sexism in the school curriculum - not far enough in my view, but you'd have hardly seen women mentioned at all in books 40 years ago, unless they did something "exceptional" like Queen Victoria or Amy Johnson or Nancy Astor, maybe.

I believe presentations of people who've been largely "hidden" in the official versions of history (e.g. people of colour, women, Lesbians, bisexuals and gay men, working class people, disabled people, etc.) are really important for young people who share those identities so they can recognise that people "like them" have made important contributions to our political, social, economic and cultural lives. It's also important for those children who are more privileged by virtue of their sex, class, ethnicity, etc. to see that everything important wasn't achieved only by "people like them."

But, I think I was extending the point more broadly to other changes within society, not just the presentation of historical events now.

(I'm breaking in a new keyboard, so that's my excuse for the frequent and verbose posts tonight - and seeing if I can keep my resolve to Keep Calm and Carry On, ignoring all bunfights!)

SGB, emboldened by the wearing of my tee shirt and a renewed commitment to not getting into any pointless bunfights . . .

You said, "People don't, on the whole, unless they are white supremacist arseholes, whine about ethnic minority activism as being white-hating."

I have to disagree with that. My God, if I had a quid for every time I've overheard or been part of a conversation where someone has dropped the, "I have friends who are black," or "So and so is Asian, but he's alright," or some other lame comment showing that they see "good" Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people as the exception and not the rule, well, I'd be able to upgrade my car at least.

And, I could probably fill it with petrol for a year with a pound for every time I've heard a white person slating a person of colour who speaks out about racism, let alone is seen as an activist or part of a campaign. At best, they have chips on shoulders and are jealous of whites. At worst, they want to turn the tables and put white people under their black thumbs.

Deja vu anyone?

I don't think we've made sufficient steps either, Kritique. I do think, in my culture at any rate, we've made greater steps. The history curriculum was completely rewritten to try and begin to address some of the issues of historical racism as one example. I wasn't presenting it as an either or.