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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

misandry doesn't exist

517 replies

MitchierInge · 06/01/2012 10:14

not in a sort of homologous (if that's the word?) way to misogyny anyway - society just isn't that evolved yet

OP posts:
messyisthenewtidy · 07/01/2012 00:34

Thunder I think you are misunderstanding what I'm saying. There are a gazillion of negative portrayals of men if you want to look for them , from the sex starved boob obsessed manchildren of inbetweeners, big bang theory, friends, etc, to the kindly yet half brain celled characters of Tracey Beaker, Dani's House, Ice Age etc who are ostensibly no match for the wise manipulative female characters, not forgetting those ads like theBoots one where the men are too babyish to get off their arses to get their own medicine.

But that is my point. These characters just provide the opposition with the opportunity to cry "reverse sexism" and obscure the fact that every single sodding comedy panel is overwhelmingly male and that men are over represented in the media at every level. Plus the fact that the trope of the shrewish wife vs hard done by incompetent hubby leaves us feeling sorry for the husband. Think Mr/Mrs Bennett and who we are supposed to side with.

And yes you're right. All the popular shows you quoted are male dominated. Because women watch men but no one expects men to watch women leads. Women leads are marginalized to chick flicks and special interests. But women support men at every turn. It's tiring and not gonna change till kids films bring girls out of the princess sideline.

KRITIQ · 07/01/2012 00:41

Ha - no way am I going to start watching tv again. When I do, it feels like it's poisoning my brain! :)

But, you're right in your point that it's all about cherry picking examples from the popular media to "prove" how men are now objectified and demeaned as well. The reason is either to argue that it's "fair game" to objectify and demean women because look, it happens to men, too, or to "prove" some grand feminist conspiracy to turn the tables and dominate men.

KRITIQ · 07/01/2012 00:43

Snap messy! :)

messyisthenewtidy · 07/01/2012 00:59

Thanks Kritiq Grin the joy of someone getting what I'm on about. - Never happens to me in RL.....Blush

ThePoorMansBeckySharp · 07/01/2012 20:45

Thunder, with respect, I never understand your posts. It is a logical impossibility that somebody could hate men because female infanticide? Sorry to sound facetious but that genuinely seems to be about the gist of your argument.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 07/01/2012 21:00
Confused

Did you skip a page somewhere?

LeBOF · 07/01/2012 21:25

Misogyny is not just a word that expresses the hatred an individual has for women which is entirely separate from the way society is organised, though. It conveys the participation of people in a system of hatred-fuelled oppression.

There is no systematic hatred/oppression of men by women. There may well be individual women who have decided they dislike men, because they have generalised their personal experiences with them, but they are not participating in any system rooted in society. So there is no 'misandry', per se. Just because you can think of a word, doesn't make it actually exist.

ecclesvet · 07/01/2012 23:56

Did a bit of research, as I find this really interesting.Found this blog post, which argues that if forcing women/girls into gender roles is misogynistic, then the flip-side must be that forcing men/boys into gender roles is misandronic. That certainly happens on a scale that could be described as systematic.

But then, from Wikipedia: "Gilmore also states that neologisms like misandry refer "not to the hatred of men as men, but to the hatred of men's traditional male role" and a "culture of machismo". Therefore, he argues, misandry is "different from the intensely ad feminam aspect of misogyny that targets women no matter what they believe or do"."

Trills · 08/01/2012 10:44

I guess the dictionary is wrong then.

Trills · 08/01/2012 10:45

The thing that I say exists is based on what the dictionary says the word means, not based on "making up" anything.

If one is required to have special knowledge that says "the word means much more than the dictionary says it does, therefore the thing doesn't exist because the word doesn't mean what you think it means" then I'm out.

sunshineandbooks · 08/01/2012 10:51

The forcing of men into gender stereotyped roles is not a byproduct of systematic misandry though, it is a byproduct of systematic misogyny. It is the flip side of keeping women in their place.

Feminism has always recognised that the patriarchy harms a lot of men as well as women.

MitchierInge · 08/01/2012 10:53

it would be a very flat and dull world if all our verbal and written expression was constrained by dictionary definition of the words we choose

but my question wasn't 'do some people feel antipathy towards men as a group' but as a counterpart to misogyny is there such a thing as misandry?

OP posts:
thunderboltsandlightning · 08/01/2012 11:38

Depends which dictionary you're looking at. Ten, probably five years ago, the word wasn't in any standard dictionary (not the kind that has every obscure word listed). Misogyny was.

So does that mean that suddenly man-hatred has appeared as a phenomenon and thus needs a word for it in the dictionary, or is the backlash is in full swing and MRAs have had influence that feminists aren't able to match? I'll go for the latter.

edam · 08/01/2012 11:40

what thunderbolt and sunshine said. (That's a strange sentence for you...)

LRDtheFeministDragon · 08/01/2012 12:15

trills, 'God' is in the dictionary, too. I never realized that arguing with atheists had such a simple answer ... do you think I've solved that issue once and for all now?

LRDtheFeministDragon · 08/01/2012 12:16

(Also 'basilisk', which frankly gives me more cause for concern.)

Trills · 08/01/2012 12:22

And if someone started a thread about basilisks I might think "well Harry Potter isn't the best basis to start a discussion, I'll look it up in the dictionary and base what I say on that".

If I responded to a thread about basilisks thinking that a basilisk was "a mythical reptile with a lethal gaze or breath, hatched by a serpent from a cock?s egg." and then people said "no actually we mean something entirely different so your opinion doesn't count" I might be a bit annoyed.

I don't say misandry exists because it is in the dictionary.

I say that misandry as defined by the dictionary is a thing that exists.

The thing that you are calling misandry (an institutionalised hatred or mistreatment of men analogous to the misogyny that is ingrained on our society) does not exist, that is something we agree on.

The thing that the dictionary calls misandry does exist.

thunderboltsandlightning · 08/01/2012 12:25

"It is a logical impossibility that somebody could hate men because female infanticide? "

No talking about non-existent "misandry", in the face of the reality of misogyny, is incorrect, and in it's own way, woman-hating.

Men are not hated for being men. Nowhere in the world does that happen.

thunderboltsandlightning · 08/01/2012 12:29

Also I listed female genocide (not infanticide) amongst other horrors as evidence of misogyny existing.

What is the evidence for "misandry"?

LRDtheFeministDragon · 08/01/2012 12:38

But Trills, the dictionary does also explain that misandry is a neologism, and misogyny is a word with a long history, and the two have different applications.

If you look in a sufficiently basic dictionary, you can find words defined with great simplicity. That does not mean that it's incorrect to point out that these two words do have more precise meanings and connotations.

Take the word 'utopia'. Most people nowadays would associate the term with a perfect place, or an idealized world. The etymology, obviously, is 'nowhere'. The dictionary would get into all the historical layers of meaning built up from Thomas More onwards.

Then take the term 'dystopia'. It's a relative neologism, though the time difference is much less than that between 'misogyny' and 'misandry'. The etymology is just as clearly rooted in Ancient Greek, and just as simple to state. The meaning 'a bad place' is quite simple too. But if you looked up the word, and if you thought about it, you'd find it very hard to understand the term without the cultural freight of the pre-existing term 'utopia'. Because the second word is piggybacking on the first.

If you wanted to say simple 'duh, bad places exist in the UK so the UK must be a dystopian society', you'd be correct insofar as your statement recognizes the most basic etymological content of the term. But you'd also be judged incorrect by anyone who understood how the one term as derived artificially from the other.

'Misandry' is derived from 'misogyny' for political reasons, by people who would like you to think that everything is so equal, women hate men just as men hate women. But if you understand the history of 'misogyny' as a term and of 'misandry' as a term, you can't simply go to the etymology or to the 'dictionary definition' in isolation and expect to make sense. IMO.

(No idea if that clarifies or not, if not I'm sorry.)

LRDtheFeministDragon · 08/01/2012 12:42

Incidentally, 'the dictionary' doesn't 'say' anything at all. Various dictionaries are compiled by sequences of humans, who are intelligent and careful, but also fallible and biased. I would promise you that any published dictionary has errors in it. The only consensus is going to be etymological, since this is relatively easy to establish. thunder clearly knows about 'misandry' as a term and it's not particularly unlikely that she actually knows better than whoever compiled the latest OED.

AyeRobot · 08/01/2012 12:46

Who benefits from the bumbling, can't clean the oven, can't look after the baby portrayal of men?

Not women, that's for sure.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 08/01/2012 12:49

Quite.

AyeRobot · 08/01/2012 12:52

I will say, again, that gender stereotyping hurts everyone and often in ways that are not immediately apparent.

Another reason why I'm a feminist.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 08/01/2012 13:00

Aye - agreed.

IMO this may be one of those differences between 'equalism' and 'feminism'. IMO we don't actually have to believe that for every element of discrimination against women, there could be an equal and corresponding element of discrimination against men, even if that element is much less in evidence.

That is not the sort of equality I'm interested in. Bending over backwards to insist that misandry exists ... why bother? What good comes of it?

I freely admit sexism against men exists. If no-one wants to accept that misandry (if it's a counterpart to misogyny) would refer to a systematized, institutionalized oppression of women, then:

  1. Why have two words, 'misogyny' and 'sexism' which appear to mean the same, unless it's because you feel a burning need to make men's oppression as important an issue as women's oppression?

  2. What word are we going to use for the systematized, institutionalized oppression of women? We need a word. If misogyny isn't it, we need one.