'Man-hating feminism'

[MisterDarsey]

There's an article about this in the Times today by Libby Purves, provoked by Lionel Shriver's portrayal of the boy in 'We need to talk about Kevin'

Just thought you'd like to know

This thread is bizarre.

If women really are so good and men are so awful, then why has the female police officer who could not achieve the required time for a shied training run as part of riot training throw her toys out the pram and is now suing the police for £30k? People like her give women a bad name. Instead of slating men as a whole, look at slating men and women based on individual people and their actions.

Well done to cat milk.

Catmilk, you are mistaken. Did you just scan the thread for the "All men are rapists" quote, then sit back, arms folded, with a triumphant smile?

cookcleanerchaufferetc, it seems the Employment Tribunal agreed with her claim for indirect sex and age discrimination (which is not sex specific). Shall we wait to see the text of the claim and the ruling before taking the Mail's cherry picking journalism as gospel? And btw, up to £30, 000 could mean 50p. The issue of physical tests for jobs would make an excellent thread, if you want to start one.

Aye robot ... If she can't do a test that is part of the job then tough shit. What right does she have to sue?

This was a test forming part of the requirement to be trained for having a specific front line role in a riot. She can allegedly do the rest of her job, just not one that requires you to actually wear the full riot kit which is bloody heavy and be able to do a specific role whilst wearing one. So what right does she have to sue? This is bloody pathetic.

part one. I realised that maybe a thread on the Feminism page might not be indicative of all mumsnetters, but since my time here I have seen how the extreme feminists man-haters rule the roost, and with my last thread asked if anyone thought there was a man-hating element to some feminism and noboday agreed... further off-site reading has made me sure I have the right idea.

Some problems/highlights of this thread -

quireelquarrel - I detest this 'branch' of feminism. And it is a branch and it should be stamped out....
The two most strident feminists I know are full of mysandric vitriol. Whenever they say something perceptive and sensible, they will invariably follow it up with something vituperative about the men they've known, or men in general, or "they are the cause of all this...oh for a man-free world!" etc.

msris What is this 'branch' of feminism? I haven't seen it.

sardqeen = How strange. I don't think I know any women who hate men as a group.
I know some women who are scared of men, and so don't like them.

That's different though I think.

-[the point here is ALL of us have met some women who hate all men, and some of them ccall themselves feminists. Just denying it makes you look guilty or stupid.]

anyfucker - I have never met a woman who hates "men" as a generic group

TrillianAstra - I have read things written by people who claim to be feminists who appear to feel that men are the enemy. Therefore they are man-hating feminists.It's not what I would call feminism, but then perhaps I am confusing myself with a form of humanism and I am not feminist at all.

[yay Trilian btw]

SybilB
I haven't come across this either. Definitely not a 'branch'.

[ooh you fibbers!]

Beachcomber - Uppity is a bloody great word isn't it? It just reeks of women who don't know their place type sexism.

[I have never been called uppity in my life nor seen it applied to any women in print anywhere!]

Sybilb - IME the people who complain about manhating feminists are the same people as the ones who think Andrea Dworkin said all men were rapists.

[Let loose the dogs of straw!]

MrIC - It is a popular misconception of feminism though, probably a myth perpetrated and augmented by sensationalist reporting (by men, I imagine)But it's also very pervasive - I've got a couple of female students who consistently come out with extremely pro-feminist statements, but then when we talk about feminism their reaction is very "oh no, it's not for me - I actually like men." We're talking about highly educated, proficient-in-3 languages, assertive women here, yet they've still somehow appropriated this misconception about feminism.

[Yes, there will be nothing in this thread making it clear that some 'feminists' hate men]

MitchiestInge - would it actually be completely unreasonable to nurture a little hatred of men-in-general-with-a-few-exceptions though, given that most horrible things in the world are usually their fault?

[Minge! You're not supposed to say it so openly!!]

dittany - I get called a man-hater. (smiley emoticon)
Feminists get called man-haters simply for pointing out what men as a group actually do.

Trillian - Msot individual men are just as good as most individual women.

[another credit to Astra there]

Mitchiest - If men don't want to be hated why do they give us so much ammunition?

dittany - worrying about man-hating boy hating is ridiculous when you look at what women and girls go through at the hands of men every day in this world.

[It is ridiculous to worry about man-hating because women suffer. at the hands of presumably all bastard men. don't lump my sons, brothers and father in with tht crap!]

Trillian - I disagree entirely. All hatred should be opposed. Anything that suggests that there is or should be a "battle" between the sexes is wrong.

[Trillian is the ONLY person on this site who is taking issue with the man-hating guff going down. Speaks volumes]

dittany - There isn't a battle between the sexes, there's a war on women and girls.Man-hatred doesn't exist. It's a figment of misogynists' minds created in order to disguise real woman-hatred which takes the form of rape, assault, battering, murder, forced marriage, femicide (100 million missing women and girls), womens second class status across the world.

[any man who thinks certain women hate all men is just covering up his own misogyny - brilliant logic! ]

Ormirian -"a deep rooted sense of female superiority"

Ooh where do you get one of those from? I think every woman should have one. To match the 'deep rooted sense of male superiority' that all men have.

[Yes, ALL men do have that, haw haw haw ffs]

Llyodegen - I agree with SardineQueen, all hatred is wrong. I worry as much about all the "little monster"/ smelly / lazy / useless stereotypes that get fed to boys as I do about all the revolting pink princess crap. The way we bring up boys and the way society sees them will have a direct impact on how they go onto relate to women / the world when they are men.

[agree completely L]

quirrelquarrel- But they definitely do exist... I came across these people on the Internet and otherwise they are so intelligent that I can't believe they produce this sort of rubbish. I doubt that it's tongue in cheek.

[me too q!]

dittany - "But they definitely do exist." Evidence?

[she's on trial now? how about believing shes not lying experiences? cue more 'no, i've never seen those type of women/femisnists, how strange, hahaha!]

*quirrel I haven't come across what you are talking about so some examples would be good.

*show us some links then Quirrelquarrel.

[like she is going to have every post from someone like that she's read saved somewhere.
'I've met some racists in my time...' 'evidence please or it never happened']

stopthewholworld -Here's a good quote.
'The truth is that women create the human race and it's women who have kept it going. Men have basically acted like parasites.'

SardineQ -I think that's from a thread on here isn't it stoptheworld? Not sure how it's evidence of an organised branch of man-hating feminism though.

[Er, if that comment wasn't met with fierce rebuttals on here - and i doubt it was very much, then THIS place would seem such an organized branch Sardine]

dollius -I have never met a "man-hating feminist". Am rapidly coming to conclusion that she is largely a myth.
ElephantsAndMiasmas -'The truth is that women create the human race and it's women who have kept it going. Men have basically acted like parasites.'

I don't remember this quote but I can imagine the context in which it would have made sense - if it had been on a thread about how sexism came into existence, for instance, where there was a lot of talk about how early societies worked.'

[Yes i'm sure in that context it would 'make sense' Even though thats not what it says. ie more excuses for man-bashing]

vesuvia - Some non-feminists hate some men.
Some anti-feminists hate some men.
Some feminists hate some men.
All misogynists hate all women

[True! but should read 'some feminists hate some men (about 99% of them]

MummyJerryJuice - Man-hating feminists is just another way in which to dismiss us.
[No, it's useful way of sorting out useful , rational feminists from ones who hate men. Plenty of people support feminism but think there are many feminists who just hate men]
MisterDarcy - 'The truth is that women create the human race and it's women who have kept it going. Men have basically acted like parasites.'

Whoever said that actually is a man-hater, surely?

[I bet you'll find they can't possibly be Mr D...]

E;lephants - No it isn't, that was just scientific error. This sounds like someone commenting on the fact that women have the children, generally look after the children, cultivate the food, cook the food and feed the children, care for sick people etc etc etc - most of the necessities of preserving life are fulfilled by women in most countries.

[Nobody says - yes, to be honest if someone says that they are clearly a man-hater. dittany boasts again about being called a man-hater. Nobody suggests this is a bad thing]

dittany - The day I beat up, rape or kill a man purely because he's male is the day you can call me a man-hater. Until then, fuck off.

(er, because thats how all men behave? No, I think I'll call you a man-hater now]

MummyBerryJuice - The more time I spend semi-lurking on here the more I respect what you have to say, dittany.

celadon - I heart dittany

[end of pt 1]

"Why would you bump this thread nearly a month later?"

Found it a good example of male-bashing going unchecked, which I have already seen plenty of in the 2 weeks I've been here

"Why are you on MN?"

Thought it might be a nice forum for mums. Thats not really what it is or has become.

Oh and this is the part where you all accuse me of being a man - because no woman could find constant male bashing offensive, right? The same as how no man would ever complain about sexism or misogyny ('They wouldn't!' say some members here...)

Bit weird to quote posters out of context to create a dialogue that didn't exist originally

maybe quilting could bring you peace?

ROFL @ quilting

I have heard that meditation is very calming for a troubled soul

Oh Catmilk sorry, but you have just made me laugh so much. I can't get the image of you in a Sherlock Holmes style deerstalker with a big magnifying glass examining MN for evidence that 'feminists' (LOVE the inverted commas) hate men, out of my head.

"Mumsnet is a farce, It only welcomes mothers if they hate men, and if you hate men whether you are a mother or not isn't really important"

WTF??

fucking hell Catmilk-theres going to be a part 2?
wow-and its only 10 am.
instead of pulling apart peoples posts would you like to talk about the real reason youre angry instead?
i did wonder if you was a troll but from seeing the time on youre first post and now seeing youre last post i dont think this.
you obviously have a problem with feminists-so talk about it.
its ok to be angry here-this is a safe space,
women are allowed to be angry here.[we are not man hating and bitter]
why are you angry and why are you directing it at people on here?

blackcurrants -People call you a man-hater when you don't namby-pamby, 'Oh of course I don't mean YOU, not all men are like that, well it's not so bad really as it was, oh dear let's not upset the precious little menz' around the place and say what's really wrong with men oppressing women.

[No bc, I suspect you might hate men when you use phrases like 'lets not upset the precious little menz - reverse the sexes and see how it looks]

Sardine - There are a lot of people who post on this board about how feminists hate men, and they do everyone a disservice, and how if feminists were less strident/shrieky/argumentative/uncompromising and would just stop for a minute and arrange some flowers then they'd get a lot more done then more people would listen etc etc.

{No, its not about some feminists being strident or shrieky, as yr straw man has it - its about the number of feminists who treat all men (except their darling feminist partner so how could they hate all men QED!' (like misogynists saying 'but I love my mum, so i can't be!') all men except feminist partner (but sometimes him too) as the enemy, and conflate the bad ones with all of them, and and suggest all men are into keeping women into their place when most men like women and want them to have all the rights and opportuities as anyone else, are against sexism etc]

Ayerobot -Disappointed in Libby Purves. She is of course, entirely misguided both in her view of feminists and the point of the book.

I wonder if she has an understandably skewed view of a difficult book about a mother and a son given that her own son committed suicide a few years a ago.

[Charitable!? A unfounded kick in the teeth more like - and anyone want to dispute the idea that the loss of a son will possibly make you critical of feminism a kicking? No? Thought not]

sakura - Lionel Shriver definitely has a misogynistic streak in her. In the beginning at that book she says that a shiver of revulsion runs through "people" when they see a pregnant woman. Here, I assume people= men

[I bet you like assuming stuff eh,, sakura. especially if it helps you man-hate]

sakura - And misogynistic writers are always given an enormous platform, whether they're male or female
[orsinian enters with that list of man-hating feminist quotes]

end of part 2

I'm seriously baffled as to how anyone could come on mumsnet and deduce that 'we' all hate men. There must be thousands of people posting on here - individuals with their own ideas and opinions, of different ages, posting across class, racial, and geographical boundaries.

It's pretty obvious this group of people are going to have divergent opinions and will disagree with each other. Some people will get along and some won't.

That's pretty basic stuff, isn't it?

The only things 'we' have in common, broadly speaking, is that 'we' post on Mumsnet.

If you're going to say all of MN 'hate men' you may as well say all women hate men.

I suspect my last post was probably pointless.

Something tells me that Catmilk is not interested in a reasoned debate/discussion.

sparky, thanks - I'm sorry, I'm leaving. There are lots of ways I could say 'this place is too welcoming and enabling to subtle and not so subtle man-hating' and this is how I'm doing it, quite arbitrarily I suppose. To many, the man-haters, it will be easily dismissed - because rarely do they say 'all men are bastards. But nevertheless I think my quote grabbing shows the truth about the group think here)

[It's important to quote the list of feminsist man-hating quotes. Its a list that is easily found on the net. It contains some of the worst feminsist male-bashing, though is of course by no means definitive.It is ALWAYS met with the response 'some of those are out of context, or things a character said in a book']
Occasionally some women who will identify themselves as feminists, and who are sometimes held-up as the very essence of feminism will say or write something that gives credence to the idea that men-hating is apparent.

Fortunately most of the time such instances come from American sources, where a particularly extreme form of feminism resides. There are a few similar instances from the UK, but those are generally from feminists trying to emulate our American 'cousins'. The quotes though come from just a small minority of feminist writers and academics, notably Marilyn French, Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, who appear to have spent entire careers providing quotes for opponents of feminism to liberally (perhaps not the best word) employ whenever in a tight debating spot.

You will struggle to find similar quotes from beyond the white English-speaking world.

Of course most if not all of the quotes below could be simply taken out-of-context. I've read a few of the books mentioned in the past, and couldn't unfortunately find any such instance.

"As long as some men use physical force to subjugate females, all men need not. The knowledge that some men do suffices to threaten all women. He can beat or kill the woman he claims to love; he can rape women...he can sexually molest his daughters... THE VAST MAJORITY OF MEN IN THE WORLD DO ONE OR MORE OF THE ABOVE."
Marilyn French (her emphasis)

'My feelings about men are the result of my experience. I have little sympathy for them. Like a Jew just released from Dachau, I watch the handsome young Nazi soldier fall writhing to the ground with a bullet in his stomach and I look briefly and walk on. I don't even need to shrug. I simply don't care. What he was, as a person, I mean, what his shames and yearnings were, simply don't matter."
Marilyn French; The Woman's Room.

"All patriarchists exalt the home and family as sacred, demanding it remain inviolate from prying eyes. Men want privacy for their violations of women... All women learn in childhood that women as a sex are men's prey."
Marilyn French

"All men are rapists and that's all they are."
Marilyn French, Author; (later, advisor to Al Gore's Presidential Campaign.)

"All sex, even consensual sex between a married couple, is an act of violence perpetrated against a woman."
Catherine MacKinnon

"I believe that women have a capacity for understanding and compassion which man structurally does not have, does not have it because he cannot have it. He's just incapable of it."
Former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan.

"The traditional flowers of courtship are the traditional flowers of the grave, delivered to the victim before the kill. The cadaver is dressed up and made up and laid down and ritually violated and consecrated to an eternity of being used."
Andrea Dworkin

"The media treat male assaults on women like rape, beating, and murder of wives and female lovers, or male incest with children, as individual aberrations...obscuring the fact that all male violence toward women is part of a concerted campaign."
Marilyn French

"Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release."
Germaine Greer.

"Men who are unjustly accused of rape can sometimes gain from the experience."
Catherine Comin, Vassar College. Assistant Dean of Students.

"Men renounce whatever they have in common with women so as to experience no commonality with women; and what is left...is one piece of flesh a few inches long, the penis. The penis is the man; the man is human; the penis signifies humanity."
Andrea Dworkin

"You grow up with your father holding you down and covering your mouth so another man can make a horrible searing pain between your legs."
Catherine MacKinnon (Prominent legal feminist scholar; University of Michigan, & Yale.)

"Man-hating is everywhere, but everywhere it is twisted and transformed, disguised, tranquilized, and qualified. It coexists, never peacefully, with the love, desire, respect, and need women also feel for men. Always man-hating is shadowed by its milder, more diplomatic and doubtful twin, ambivalence."
Judith Levine

"I feel that 'man-hating' is an honorable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them." -- Robin Morgan, MS. Magazine Editor

?I want to see a man beaten to a bloody pulp with a high-heel shoved in his mouth, like an apple in the mouth of a pig.? ? Andrea Dworkin

?The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10% of the human race.? ? Sally Miller Gearhart

"Heterosexual intercourse is the pure, formalized expression of contempt for women's bodies." -- Andrea Dworkin

"Men love death. In everything they make, they hollow out a central place for death, let its rancid smell contaminate every dimension of whatever still survives. Men especially love murder. In art they celebrate it, and in life they commit it. They embrace murder as if life without it would be devoid of passion, meaning, and action, as if murder were solace, stilling their sobs as they mourn the emptiness and alienation of their lives."
-- Andrea Dworkin

"The institution of sexual intercourse is anti-feminist" -- Ti-Grace Atkinson

"In a patriarchal society, all heterosexual intercourse is rape because women, as a group, are not strong enough to give meaningful consent."
-- Catharine MacKinnon, quoted in Professing Feminism: Cautionary Tales from the Strange World of Women's Studies.

"If life is to survive on this planet, there must be a decontamination of the Earth. I think this will be accompanied by an evolutionary process that will result in a drastic reduction of the population of males." --Mary Daly, former Professor at Boston College, 2001.

"There are no boundaries between affectionate sex and slavery in (the male) world. Distinctions between pleasure and danger are academic; the dirty-laundrylist of 'sex acts'...includes rape, foot binding, fellatio, intercourse, auto eroticism, incest, anal intercourse, use and production of pornography, cunnilingus, sexual harassment, and murder."
-- Judith Levine; summarizing comment on the WAS document, (A southern Women's Writing Collective: Women Against Sex.)

From 'A feminist Dictionary; ed. Kramarae and Triechler, Pandora Press, 1985:

MALE:...represents a variant of or deviation from the category of female. The first males were mutants...the male sex represents a degeneration and deformity of the female.

MAN:...an obsolete life form... an ordinary creature who needs to be watched...a contradictory baby-man...

"Men's sexuality is mean and violent, and men so powerful that they can 'reach WITHIN women to **/construct us from the inside out.' Satan-like, men possess women, making their wicked fantasies and desires women's own. A woman who has sex with a man, therefore, does so against her will, 'even if she does not feel forced.'
-- Judith Levine, (explicating comment profiling prevailing misandry.)

[lets see how the members here respond]

Smalles likeTeenStrop - Meh, quote mining.

ditany - Oh I love it when we get people here quoting from MRA sites.
There are a lot of men who don't want women to have freedom or equality. They prefer the status quo.

[Not really, unless you mean worldwide maybe. no one challenges this man-bashing of course]

Mitchietsminge - I actually do think it would be a good idea to thin out the male population by culling about 95%. Just to see if it helps.
[Joke? Like how it would be vicious misogny if you reversed the sexes?]

dittany - 100 million missing women and girls in India and China because of male society's hatred of women.But instead let's get upset at some made-up out of context quotes from an MRA site

[Hey its a thread about man-hating feminism ditty!]

PrineHumpty - Where's that blog post where those quotes are put into context?

Beachcomber - Ah is this bit where an MRA quotes a bunch of women out of context as proof that women are quite angry about male violence?

sprogger - Oh bloody hell, I can't believe that already debunked list of quotes has been plonked up here AGAIN.

[for the record, some are easily debunked, some are as they seem - and never will any man-hater admit that any express hatred of men. It's astounding]

Prolesworth - So how about fucking the fuck off with your MRA copy and paste bullshit. Cheers.

MummyBeeryJuice - I see orsinian has not been back.(wonder why he thinks the women on here could so easily be shut-up)Thanks though for putting those quotes in context for those of us like me.

[all is well again - man with nasty proof is gone and proof has been explained away]

SpringChicken - So reading some quotes, in or out of context, by other feminists that I don't agree with isn't somehow enough to frighten me away from feminism andsend me scuttling back to don a pinny and fall at some man's feet begging for forgiveness.

[and neither should it. Its about accepting some of feminism has preached hatred of men. This is entirely denied by most, in spite of the evidence, despite it still continues - right here in this thread, unchallenged, while people claim it never happens!!]

dittany (poosinly the most obvious manhater here) - Dworkin, MacKinnon and French never hosted a rape orgy for the 100 top feminists where young men were shipped in to be fucked at will by whoever fancied it, and then had their bodies marked to show how often they had been used. D, M and F keeping of course the best male bodies for themselves marked with white arm bands.

Didn't happen. Men do things like that. And you can't even say invidual men in this case because it was a group effort that they all took part in.

Evil.

{nobody says anything about that being unfair to the non-mass rapey men like their dads or brothers...]

cladon - You know when I read that orgy link I found it shocking but not surprising

Oppenheimer -I'd like to make an admission, but there definitely is what could be described as some level of man-suspicion (not sure I'd call it hatred).

I'm a man and I've name changed but I've posted on the feminism board before. When I've been clear that I've been a man, I've had a lot of anger directed at me. When I've joined discussions where I've not given my gender (and therefore I think it was assumed I was a woman), and expressed similar views, the ire directed towards me disappeared. It was an interesting test.

Beachcomber - Feminist discussion spaces are often suspicious of men (if they even tolerate their presence that is) for a reason.

[Wait, i thought such 'man-suspicious' places didn't exist! Confused...]

JoanofArgos Perhaps if you're the sort of chap who prowls around feminist boards all cloak and dagger pretending to be a woman, you're the sort of chap who might annoy people anyway?

[Even got a mention of a dagger in the, top marks!]

[Loads more posts 'proving' why it was fine that oppenhemer encountered lots of man-suspicion when not revealing he was a male. Someone talks of opps 'male privilege, and how its like being white not black' and many posters go giddy with excitement, always loving that victim/minority status, bleurgh]

MoreBeta - I dont generally feel feminists are man haters but every political movement has a few extremists that are best ignored.

[another ultra-rare voice of sanity and honesty]

Trillian -Most men (and women) aren't actively seeking to put women down, they are just getting on with things as best as they can.

[more sense, too little too late!]

Catmilk-please dont go.
you know what-when i first come here i didnt understand this place at all
and to be fair-when i first come here it was on a fight and i dont even want to think about my first several hundred posts.
but i realised that not only were we fighting the same thing-but it was ok to be angry.ive never allowed to be angry Catmilk!
i probably come across as man hating and middle class hating.
but i dont hate either-i just talk about things from my own posision in life
partly because i am angry[i hate wrongness]and partly in hope that i can make others understand-so hopefully helping others in my posision in life.
just because i do this dont mean i hate the middle class people on here-
i guess what im trying to say is-i feel that we bring our own perspective on here-but this is a good thing.and we do have common ground.
yeah-sometimes i feel like shouting"all men are bastards"-but this would be ridicccalas wouldnt it-theyre not-its the patriarchy that is a bastard.

Blimey.

Thanks sparky, I agree with what you say, its the patriarchy thats to blame, most men like, love and support women. But I don't think enough members of this site see it that way at all. I have seen enough in my two weeks here (accused of being a man because I questioned boy (teen)-bashing, swarmed with attackers and only one person saying quit the boy-bashing - that raised a lot of suspicions. Checking out other threads, not just this one, confirmed wht i thought. Staying here would be just endless debates, with people who just throw strawmaen at you and say you support rape (happened to me)... Can't be bothered.

Also with that furore over the freakshow comment, it was clear that this place was full of too many stupid people. I'll try somewhere else ta.

yes but Catmilk-youve just said that you agree its the patriarchy that is to blame.
it is.
but because of the patriarchy theres all this ladder of wrongness.
and because of this we need to look at all these aspects of this.
i dont read feminist books cos i dont understand them but i undersatand whats going on around me.
i do listen to what others have to say though-even though i dont always understand big words.the jist of it comes to me in the end.
i can get really revved up on some subjects-and this might seem that im man bashing-im not-its just a subject that is realy relivent to me.
i can get just as revved up about gun crime/drugs and our boys.
but in this-i can see relivence in what others say about diffrent things.
its all relivent i feel.