To think men just hate women?

[Justsomethoughts]

The more I think about it, the more I conclude that men must despise us. I think the news today about Wayne Couzens has got me pondering… My thoughts as follows:

Ive read so many threads on here about how little men contribute to household work.
Women are expected to do 99% of housework and childcare whilst sucking it up and looking pretty. This percentage doesn’t seem to change much if they also work. God forbid women complain (I refuse to use the word nag, a word only used by men when talking about women!) as they asked for a family and should be grateful they have a husband and children.

We should look visually appealing/maintain our appearance for as long as possible but not too much - that would be ‘asking for it’. If we don’t we will probably be replaced by a younger/more attractive model.

We can’t walk alone at night as we are at risk of harm (by men).

A very large proportion of female homicides are committed by males living with the victim

The list goes on and on. I know these aren’t brand new facts and obviously ‘not all men’ before people come for me but my god it’s so depressing when you think about it.

Individual women hate individual men.

Individual men hate individual women.

Some people are arseholes.

Perfect response.

But wasting your time I suspect.
People who don't get it, don't want to get it.

There seem to be a lot of attempts being made to suggest misandry isn't a concept at all because it isn't as widespread, ingrained or endemic an issue as misogyny. I don't see the logic of that. I can't speak for anyone else, but personally all I mean by misandry is female hatred of/prejudice against men. In order for a concept to exist and have a term to define it, it is not necessary to measure it up against other concepts, or to compare it with other concepts, imho. It'd be different if I'd said 'misandry is as big and problematic an issue as misogyny'. But I didn't.

OK. But other than suggesting that there are abusive relationships whereby the woman is the perpetrator and the man is the victim, can you explain how it affects any man at all if women hate them?

It has absolutely no bearing on their lives whatsoever.

If all women hated all men, thought they were a bit useless, didn't pay any attention to what they said, how would this have any impact on any single man?

I mean, other than being single and celibate?

It just wouldn't. It's not comparable in any way.

No one is denying that some women hate men or hate individual men but how does it impact on men as a class?

I mean, I don't really hate anyone. I strongly dislike some people (male and female) and I've ended relationships and friendships on the back of it.

And I'd be prejudiced against relationships with certain types of men - eg those with 'crazy exes' or who expected me to be 'ladylike' or who were just arseholes. For example.

But it doesn't need a special term to define it.

Last one!

Misandry and misogyny as concepts are not comparable. They are not two sides of the same coin. They're not even the same currency.

I think the reason people are arguing this is that you said a few posts back:

But we're not likely to agree on much because misandry is very much a thing as far as I'm concerned. (and yes, I am a woman, just in case the above comment leads to any accusations by you or others.)

You said misandry was very much a thing. Granted, you didn’t say it was a problem of comparable magnitude to misogyny - but you implied some sort of magnitude with that statement.

Now you seem to be back-pedalling by suggesting it’s just a concept that needs a name. There are lots of concepts with names that are just theoretical though (time travel, for example) - but you wouldn’t say they were ‘very much a thing’ unless you were trying to establish their real and significant existence.

Misandry does not exist on a societal level to the widespread disadvantage of men as a class and when deployed as whataboutery during discussions about misogyny it is tiresome.

In a nutshell, this.

I've never given the concept of misandry any serious thought, for the reasons you've outlined. Here's my first-time effort:

I recognise that we live in a male-centric world, which tends to overvalue men and definitely down-values women. Life on average is much harder for women than for men in this world; it's always more difficult for a woman than for a man of the same characteristics & status. The 'default human' is male, not female. That's patriarchy.

I hate the fact of patriarchy. On a personal level, I don't hate individual men just because they're male. I like a lot of them and love a few. But patriarchy benefits men at women's expense, all of them. So if I hate the system that privileges men and is maintained by men, is that the same as hating men? Some would say so.

Perhaps being a 'misandrist' is a bit like being a 'transphobe'. Any effort to prioritise women, defend our rights & freedoms, even to name our sex, is understood to be transphobic. While pointing out that this logically means 'trans rights' are anti-women, I'm forced to accept the label as defined by the group that coined it.

Similarly, if being pro-women is labelled misandry, I'm forced to accept it. This does carry similar implications: that the only way to avoid being a misandrist is to welcome harms done to my own sex. God knows what label would apply to men who are anti-patriarchy or pro-women: are they misandrists, too?

Anyway, patriarchy's been shitting on women for 5,000 years or so and women have been pushing against it for as long. So, if all those women are to be defined by 21st-century men as misandrists, then I guess I'm in good company!

If all women hated all men, I'd have thought there'd be a lot more violence directed at them from women.

Beyond that, no it's not the same, but I never claimed it was. My whole point was that it doesn't need to be comparable in order to 'qualify' for having a name applied to it.

Not attempting to back-pedal at all, because I wasn't attempting to pedal in the first place, if that makes sense. What I said was 'misandry is very much a thing'. That's why I feel it needs to be called something. I stand by that. As you said, I didn't try to claim it was comparable.

I guess people were thrown by the ‘very much a thing’ comment; it seemed to imply that you thought it was a real problem as opposed to a theoretical idea that needed a name.

Fair enough if you didn’t.

Definitions of whataboutery are subjective, though. And isn't accusing other posters of whataboutery effectively an attempt to invalidate their contribution/s to a thread, possibly because said contributions are inconvenient to the overall narrative?

Well said!

But this thread was about misogyny so there was no need to refer to it at all.

If someone posted a thread about dogs would you go on there with a 'whataboutcats' post?

It's irrelevant to the discussion. To bring it up on a thread about misogyny is to try and draw comparisons otherwise you wouldn't have considered it relevant. Because it isn't.

This.

Or that it was even relevant on a thread about something different.

How is it inconvenient?

No one is arguing that there aren't some women who hate men. And many of those probably have good reason.

What relevance is it to a thread on misogyny? Why did it need to be referenced at all?

You've clarified that you weren't even trying to define it as comparable. So what exactly was the point in bringing it up?

Yes, some women do hate men. And?

You've clarified that you weren't even trying to define it as comparable. So what exactly was the point in bringing it up?

The reason I mentioned it in the first place was in disagreement with someone calling it 'so-called "misandry"'.

Yes, it's turned into quite the debate. But in part that's down to an apparent appetite, on the part of pps including yourself, for interrogating my POV. Wholly your prerogative - this is after all a discussion forum - but if you consider it that irrelevant to the thread, why have you invested so much time/so many keystrokes in arguing with me about it?

No.

It always tickles me when the notion of "misandry" is rolled out in these types of discussions. (Not least because it's a ridiculous comparison to misogyny for reasons others have already pointed out.)
Given men commit 90%~ of all violence globally, it's a wonder more women don't hate men. And those who do hate men aren't out there killing them, harassing them, beating them, and oppressing them - they simply avoid them. When women hate men, they want nothing to do with them. When men hate women, they try to control us, silence us, rape us, or kill us.

Discussing the problem of male violence and oppression/hatred/contempt of women, is not "misandry". It's a reasonable discussion to have and a very necessary one given the statistics and their impact on women and children.

The idea of "not all men" can get in the bin too. In my view it's all men, until it's no men. Because the significant minority of worst ones among them, wouldn't be getting away with continuing the utter devastation that they do, if they weren't being propped up and protected by other men (and some women too).
Nothing will change until men as a group start doing something about it - but as I said pages ago, they won't, because the status quo benefits them all far too greatly.
If less time were spent bleating "not all men" and more time were spent facing the reality of the problem and actually doing something about it, then we'd be at least heading in the right direction.

They're not inconvenient to the narrative, but they're usually irrelevant, exaggerated and a false equivalence, so are a bit tiresome to wade through.

I'd be very interested to hear compelling arguments in rebuttle of the OP or of any other posts raising concerns about male behaviour. I'm open minded, and would be happy to consider the evidence that shows there is not in fact a problem with male behaviour, and we have it wrong. That men as a class actually do respect women and are as eager for our equality as we are. That they are allys and are actually standing shoulder to shoulder with us to break down the systems that privilege them at our expense, but that somehow we have just not noticed.
Instead though, we just get the whataboutery that uses women's behaviour as a diversion, and the best anyone can say in men's defence (often inaccurately) is well, they are only as bad as a tiny minority of the worst women are. Not much of an accolade is it?

Amazing that people can ignore that 98-99% of sex crimes and sexual assaults are perpetrated by men.

Precisely.

Would any women be any different if she'd been born a man?