The Roots of Misogyny

[wukter]

Why is practically every human society across all times, places and cultures dominated by men?
I have read that War on Women article that MillyR linked to. It's chilling. Why is it everywhere?

I would be interested in your thoughts, or maybe there is actually a simple, widely accepted answer that I could be pointed to.

Sincere apologies to anyone on this thread I have annoyed, y'know it's very hard sometimes to stay and reason it out when I keep getting told to piss off...lol

Please carry on and I promise I wont post again...

DWP? Dept of work and pensions were trying to encourage women to become lapdancers? you are KIDDING!? (i mean now not, obv, but really...)

oh and i got that last from dp on the dpunk bingo! see my post of 14.11 yesterday. lol. just such utter bullshit coming from her. and for the record, saf, i believe she has in the past gone on both those sections and done just that... for she is a TROOOOOOOOOLL.

fucking hell.

wow. glad it is now changed

I wanted to come back to the degree point, although it was raised by DP who I assume has gone. I try to never post anything that couldn't be understood or easily looked up and read about by someone who has no experience of higher education. When I put forward something that is merely opinion, like the possibility that male dominance may be connected to agriculture, I try to make clear that it is merely an informed opinion and not a fact.

I think that other people posting in the feminist section try to do the same, and I do not feel exluded when people talk about areas that I have only a little knowledge of, as I think people generally explain their knowledge well. I hope that people do not feel excluded when anyone on here raises points that are quite specialised.

well the thing is, millyr, that we all have tongues in our heads and nothing to lose on the internet so we can ask if we don't understand something, such as i did with saf. we don't need to understand everything on first reading, in fact if we don't and ask the question then the supplementary stuff will help everyone.

so, basically, as everyone else has said, ignore dp.

That's what's so good about MN MillyR, there are experts on everything willing to share and explain their knowledge, and not pitched at a low level.

precisely, wukter. don't let a wind up merchant like dp make you feel self-conscious about your knowledge, milly.

"There was an interesting discussion on the radio last year with some anthropologists who blamed the invention of fire/cooking with the start of the oppression of women"

had to laugh at this (sorry elephants )

because of course we cant blame the MEN, just the invention of fire......

I also would not claim to be an expert or an authority on any of the things we discuss!

Annoyingly the earliest history I have ever learnt about was the Romans. I remember coming out with a torrent of juvenilia-snark in yr6, after reading something in a textbook along the lines of: "Women were regarded as less intelligent than men, and weren't allowed to vote etc etc etc etc...But it wasn't all bad, a woman who kept house really nicely would be respected by her neighbours."

The difficult thing is, great advances like writing and printing have made it easier for misogynistic writings from older times to be distributed. So anyone with a woman-hating problem in the 17th century could just go "Look, Ovid agrees with me and THAT PROVES I'M RIGHT!". Authority, in the sense of respect accorded to people who wrote stuff (author-ity IYSWIM) has meant a whole heritage of misgogyny has been preserved intact.

Also I do not have a problem with religious beliefs, but institutionalised religion has done a hell of a lot of terrible things to women, even up to now.

ElephantsAndMiasmas wrote - "The difficult thing is, great advances like writing and printing have made it easier for misogynistic writings from older times to be distributed."

I agree. We also have lots of Ancient Greek texts, yet all of that writing has apparently failed to record the name of any woman living in Athens during the 5th century BC.

The more I think about, the more I think misogyny is just a tradition. It started who knows where, but people have liked it enough to keep it going for all these millennia. And because men can, if it comes to it, threaten women with violence at a personal level, the bigger institutions founded on misogyny have been able to survive.

I was talking to my dad this morning about misogynist writers like Normal Mailer, DH Lawrence etc, and how they get to become known as "great writers". Seems it's down to the fact that the editors and publishers and - most importantly - critics and editors who decide what is reviewed, have been/are to a massive extent white men who felt slave-like admiration for the willy-waving bullshit of such writers.

By the time something is "popular" other people just get bowled along and it becomes a bestseller. Then it looks like "everyone" is interested in some tired old lothario getting his kicks from fucking beautiful young girls who haven't the wit they were born with [or insert other generic storyline]. And suddenly they're the "voice of a generation".

Smashing.

i give you philip roth.

"willy-waving bullshit "

totally agree. It's everywhere, in the arts, just everywhere.
I'm glad some academic has finally come out and said that Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwan are over-rated. I thought I was living in a parallel universe.
Sorry to all the McEwan fans. I was so confused. He's just not that good compared to some of the unsung masterpieces I've read, some by men, some by women.

guardian article

hahahaha Sakura I loathe him, and actually got into university on the strength of saying so (at least i got a bit ranty in my interview). What's the obsession with underage sex/rape all about? Is it in every book?

Yes, but that's because you can only compare women with other women, don't you know anything dittany?

That's why that same university course presented me with 7 topics on various genres of literature, then 1 about "women writers". The tutor agreed it was stupid. It's hardly as if Aphra Behn and AS Byatt have much in common, initials and presumed genitals aside.

I complimented my brother the other day by comparing him with [women very good at same job], and he just didn't know where to put himself. He wasn't insulted, just confused.

Bob, you are the next Jane Austen.

Jenny, you are the next Thomas Hardy.

One is clearly a compliment, the other less so, because being compared to a girl is baaaad. Even if she is 50 times better at writing books than T Hardy.

Yes Atonement is vile.