Is it easy to spot a misogynist?

Or how he speaks about current partner. Mentioning she's overweight or not his idea of attractive is a red flag.

I’m also suspicious of a man telling you he is a feminist without it being part of the conversation. It’s like saying ‘I’m a nice guy,’ it immediately assures me that you’re not.

I would also say how he speaks about ex partners, so many guys with kids seem to going about the mental ex, how she stopped him seeing the kids, how she ruined their relationship - I always wonder hmm what’s the other side of the story here?

I have not been good at identifying this historically outside of work. In work however, as a civil servant, it is at such a high level, that it is inescapable.

On one occasion at work when I was new, two men standing at my desk, looking down on me frequently and disturbing me, were having a loud disagreement about a legal matter for over an hour, one was my manager.

I had the bare faced temerity to interject the actual answer, with reference and ask that they move their conversation elsewhere. The look of horror on their faces was profound, shock that a woman had spoken up was painfully evident in their open mouthed, up down, gobsmacked stare.

Unlike my usual crawling away embarassed, I acknowledged that they were indeed accustomed to women only being given typist or admin roles, however, nowadays they could be qualified and everything! Rude I know, but their behaviour did improve slightly thereafter. (Still manager got gropey at parties etc)

The higher manager also advised me that whilst I was clearly highly competent at my job, my personality just didn't fit in to how women should behave in the office. I treated the admin staff and typists too well and this was not to be encouraged (aka the women). He suggested I leave and focus on having a family.

Apologies for the typo - I meant fear of offence

*the feminists I most admired had an absolutely irreverent attitude to men.

I don't mean they hated men, but rather refuse to modify their thinking for great of offence.*

So true! It was a great eye-opener for me when I read statements in response to whataboutery here on MN like "I'm not talking about men. I'm talking about women." No need to justify women's needs, rights or even preferences. No need to split our attention when discussing or accessing them. Women can think about women without reference or deference to men!

I agree.

One thing occurred to me a while ago was the realisation that the feminists I most admired had an absolutely irreverent attitude to men.

I don't mean they hated men, but rather refuse to modify their thinking for great of offence.

I suspect that sometimes misogyny can be difficult to spot because we are so used to it being part of our daily lives.

Yes it’s very easy to spot them. Most mysoginists give themselves away within minutes of meeting them.

The worse ones though, are the ones who give the appearance that they genuinely believe they are “a good person”. They’re usually self declared feminists.

See the fact that these women respond politely as affirmation their input was welcomed. Can't see that women find it intimidating whenever men do this and so respond politely in order to both avoid trouble and get rid of them as quickly as possible

I’m in a Wild Swimming Facebook group and there are absolutely loads of these ^ type of men in there. A bloke posted recently about “etiquette” on finding a very secluded swimming spot and finding a woman swimming in there on her own. He wanted to swim at that particular spot too and was at great pains to point out how he’d hate to make her feel uncomfortable, so he’d go to great lengths to chat to her, put her at ease, give off “signals” to make sure she knew he was one of the “good ones”. She got out abs left within minutes of him getting in and he would simply not accept that probably the best and only way to really make her feel comfortable would have been to walk on another 10 minutes or so and find another spot to swim instead.

Yes I've seen that in action on many occasions.

Plus the parallel train of though that a woman's words contain a secret underlying agenda whilst a man always says what he means.

Hence one is untrustworthy whilst the other is not.

And giving every neutral thing a woman does a negative interpretation while giving every neutral thing a man does a positive interpretation

IME yes it is.

It's often (though sometimes) not what they say but how they behave.

They generally "out themselves" without even realising it.

Sometimes it's quite subtle, for example in a long email thread with multiple participants, noticing the polite vs curt responses depending on the sex of the person they respond to.

Speaking over women/interrupting them in meetings but never the men present regardless of seniority.

In an interview going to great pains to make eye contact with the men present but not the (sole) woman there until they finally clock that she's actually the most senior person in the room and the one who will make the call on him getting the job.

Always asking the woman in the meeting to take notes because she's good at it (yep well she's had a lot of practice).

Always choosing a woman to organise any work socials/parties/client entertainment.

Requesting client entertainment that's centred around the hobbies/interests of the men attending at the expense of the women who should actually also be there (because for example they don't get to play golf one night after work a week and all day Sunday because they are looking after their kids)

And so on and so on. I could write millions of examples and as you might have guessed the above are all true snapshots of my experiences (though different men in each case).

Yet all these men would never think of themselves as being misogynistic.

I know plenty of women who hold mysogenistic views. However, they can't rape us, are unlikely to murder us or assault us, rarely use prostitutes, are far less likely to send round porn images of women being abused on WhatsApp groups and hold far fewer ceo/md/senior/powerful positions and are therefore statistically less able to fuck women over with promotions, salaries etc.

Yeh, same, i used to be able to join in the chat st work but it turns out, many men dont hear words that come out of an older woman's mouth, never mind find your jokes funny. I am quick witted, i know iam. But quick wit is apparently rendered slow white noise when acconpanied by an older face!

I've only really understood feminism/mysogeny/men as I've turned 48/49 and my looks have faded. My god have my eyes been opened.

This. I think it may have been the comedian Joan Rivers who said, "Ugly women understand more about men than beautiful ones". I may be paraphrasing slightly, but this was the gist. Any man who thinks that the raison detre (sp) of women is to look good for the menz. Who apply no such rule to themselves, of course

Very much so. Totally agree with that. And you can't even explain it to these men because, well, ugly women don't count...

My dad is a misogynist though he would never identify as such. Things like the way he talks about Nicola Sturgeon (he is Scottish and lives in Scotland) - there’s a real bile of hatred shining through compared to when he talks about male politicians he doesn’t like.

Also men who find any excuse to call women bitches, sluts etc ie when annoyed by a woman driver etc.

@breathandfocus i used to work with a man like that. He was the first to conplain if he perceived somebody to have made a homophobic remark. Yet he called women "bints". I pointed this out to him and he hated on me from then on. I was a middle aged single mother and yet the very ordinary men in the office were more at ease to chat to me than to him. I felt like he hated that men liked women, and was conflicted with hate, bitterness and confusion if a man chatted to a woman who was no use to him. He was a horribly toxic misogynist.

And any man who announces he's a feminist is open to being asked how that impacts on his day to day life. If he is reluctant to answer or can't evidence his claim, he's not a feminist.

If he is, you'll probably learn a lot from him, and he from you.

He also said that he hadn't found a woman who was on his intellectual wavelength

He was possibly correct about that but not for the self-aggrandising beliefs that probably underpinned that view for him.

Yes, i feel i can tell instantly.
I can also tell a covert scapegoating narcissist easily too and my slight wariness around them triggers them :-/

Oh, you can tell pretty much straight away when you meet one; they talk over you.