WHY do so many (it seems) men hate and fear women?

there was a great thread on here a few years ago The roots of misogyny
will settle down to read it again now

It's for the same reason that there is so much anti-immigrant feeling: people fear that redressing power balances so that one group is not privileged over the other will cause the group with the privileged group to lose out. No-one likes to give up their privilege. This is why most of us continue to buy goods produced by exploitative labour, to invest our money in banks that invest in arms trades etc. We know it is wrong, but we won't actually use the power we have to do anything about it. We are quick to hate those who do not have our privileges who try to make those changes to their individual circumstances themselves.

The origins of misogyny have been analysed extensively, and they are almost certainly rooted in biology; then power and control.

There's also the tendency for people to blame victims for their circumstances in order to alleviate guilt and restore a sense that the world is just. This was shown in a study in Cordelia Fine's book, A Mind Of Its Own. Essentially, the worst someone had it, the more they were blamed. (Will try to find study.)

This mentality is what makes it easier for politicians to make some of us despise the poor and disabled.

So I think when men treat women badly because of how they're taught by the wider culture, they then project their feelings of shame onto the women and blame them in order to make it easier to live with themselves.

Combined with the already entrenched misogyny, it seems difficult to see really effective ways of dealing with this.

Because we have babies. (As in we are the biological sex which carries and births subsequent generations.)

Honestly, I think it is no more complicated than that (although it transfers into complex systems of social control and the socialization of both sexes). With an historical (and therefore cultural) basis to the above. And so on...

Depressing subject if you ask me.

Don't forget that the cult of masculinity (or machismo) despises weakness, and women are weaker than men physically and in terms of their place in society. In which case, hatred of women is self-perpetuating.

Did black people in apartheid South Africa wish they had been born white, or wish things were better for black people?

If 'the facts are that women have it worse', then women should wish they had been born men, but they don't.

...unhappy women who aren't getting what they want in their partner...

so put all their emotional energy into their little boy, which I don't think is a good thing.

Oh, I do actually find a lot of men with "women issues" actually have mother issues.

....So basically a power/society structure has to exist where weak men CAN get women some way, which might involve "bringing them down" a bit....

I think naturally women DO wield a lot of natural power over men, so men resent it?

If you take away monogamy, a lot of men just wouldn't have women?

Also I think when you strip away conventional mores, men "innately" need female approval a hell of a lot more than women need male approval. I care what "I" think most of all, of course, but even I care more about female approval than male approval.

I've been dating on and off for the last few years, and seriously I think it benefits men a lot more to be in a 1-1 interaction with a woman.

I found/find I could get my needs met and then some from a variety of lovers and admirers, so need that added "push" to swap that for just one man.

Maybe that's why "slut shaming" exists - to give an incentive for me/other women to pick one man.

And I wouldn't mind a 1-1 interaction, its just that most men - and I'm talking fairly good "catches on paper" - aren't of the calibre to motivate me to think that way.

I don't think a lot of them realise how much they hate women. Though it might be interesting if a man talked about it. Or it might be rather horrible.

I truly believe that brother in law falls into this category, and has terrifying reservoirs of hatred for women. I think he is completely unaware of this.

Thinking about it, there must be books by psychologists about men who hate women - there are enough serious crimes perpetrated by men against women, just because their victims were women, that there must be quite a major research literature on this subject.

Come on, feminist, psychologist/psychiatrist mn-ers, give us a booklist!

I was thinking about this in relation to religious beliefs. Religions tend to treat women as second class citizens. Religious people in power tend to be men.

I wonder if it is the fact the women create life itself. It is a hugely powerful act which no man could ever eclipse. There is therefore a necessity to punish women for being women and doing women things. To see women as 'weaker' when actually we are anything but. To create 'rules' and 'laws' (religious particularly) that infer women should be ashamed to exist and be seen.

We don't need men (in person) to procreate, we just need a little jar of jizz and a baster...

I love the sentence Buffy means Yoda, Hully.

Because it's easier to hate someone you see as weaker emotionally and physically?

Not sure, but I've met some men who really seem to think that way.

I think some of them hate everyone but society is set up in such a way that it's easier to hate women.

So he can be thinking; fuck everyone specially that massive dude, but instead he says fucking bitch about the little lady in the corner.

EhricLovesTeamQhuay: Power - they have it and they want to keep it.

EldritchCleavage: Life is easier when there's someone to blame, especially if you are a man low in the pecking order with other men, for whatever reason

I agree with Eldritch on the low-status men.

And for high-status men, I don't think hanging onto power makes sense as an individual motivation; a high-status man should if anything be more threatened by another man than by a woman, since (given societal structures) the man is more likely to be able to displace him.

At a collective level, I think that high-status men prefer to deal with 'people like them' and can marginalise members of other groups based on gender, education, etc. But although the result may be to concentrate power in a particular group, I don't think that's a motivation, either conscious or unconscious.

Entitlement, probably. Internalised beliefs that they should have whatever they want and woman is there to provide it. Starts with mummy then moves on to partners. Then when that doesn't happen they get furious. Also a belief that women are inferior and should stay in their boxes so when they don't, again, furious. Plus power. They have it and they want to keep it. They feel threatened by women and since women are inferior the act of a woman taking power is an offence and an affront, and she must be put back in her box once again.
I don't believe all men think this way, but a depressing number do.

Erm...because

1. they have an attitude that men should have dominion over women;

1. and because for many their daily realities don't bear out 1., leading to massive anger and resentment;

1. they can, they have privilege and so get away with taking things out on women;

1. Life is easier when there's someone to blame, especially if you are a man low in the pecking order with other men, for whatever reason;

1. a lot of culture is misogynist and many men have internalised very negative messages about women, not always even aware that they have done so.