@Viviennemary
I can't bear the way this word is now bandied around all the time. It never used to be. What does it even mean anyway. Too annoying.
It's been 'bandied around' by loads of women esp feminists for decades!
And it's always been a word that was not generally well received.
It's a word to encompass the root cause of the reasons for the oppression of women and girls by men (and boys?).
It does not suggest that all women are horribly oppressed/ victimised.
Nor that men and boys never have bad things done or said to them by women/ girls.
It's a way of encompassing the whole historical and current situation re male/ female social role and dynamics.
It also does not suggest that it's about literal conscious hate.
EG when women were considered chattel. Or the way the Taliban think of and treat women. It wasn't all the men thinking I hate women let's fuck them over. That's a function of a deep belief often societal, that we are lesser, need to be tightly controlled etc. And definitely it can be said that's not the same as hate. It's certainly isn't positive.
The word has been in use for a very long time. And it encompasses a range of attitudes towards us.
Of course in plenty of attitudes and action it is obviously hate.
But like I say. It's a term that's been really disliked for an incredibly long time. I'd say likely because it's one used most often by feminists and generally anything feminists say is deeply criticised by many.
If a different word was used, that would be criticised as well.