Is feminism all about man hating?

[PedanticPanda]

When feminism is brought up around my DP and my other friends they all say the same thing,

I agree with feminists who want equal rights for men and women, but not feminists who hate men and want women to be treated better than men.

Do these feminists actually exist? I assumed that feminism was all about equal rights etc, I thought all the man hating was a stereotype but wasn't actually true, but, most people I know seem to think this is the idea of the majority and it's the minority of feminists who want equal rights.

Seeker, let's not fall out. I agree that the man-hating thing is way over-used. In the media it's a lazy journalistic device for putting down feminists rather than entering into any analysis of real issues. Still, it is par for the course for most UK newspapers.

Unfortunately, the idea that 'men hate/despise/fear/envy' women is also bandied about from time to time, in here and other forums. As a bold statement, it is clearly untrue for the vast majority of the male population.

In both cases, it makes further debate very difficult, as it puts the other party on the defensive immediately, and stifles any further reasonable discussion.

OUr culture is a patriarchal one, so there are a lot of aspects to it that are hostile to and dismissive of women, so ingrained that lots of people don't see it for what it is. Plenty of men are sexist, and buy wholesale into the culture, including its more woman-hostile elements, WITHOUT EVER REALLY THINKING ABOUT IT. Plenty of feminists would probably say they hate women. They'd probably be astounded.

Plenty of feminists who hate patriarchal culture, especially its more woman-hostile elements, get accused of hating men. Because to some rather unreflective people, those two things are the same.

I do hate some specific men: Michael Gove springs immediately to mind. And Gideon. Just saying.

Eldritch, that is my point exactly. Surely hate requires concious effort and focus. Conforming to societal norms does not equate with hatred. Otherwise, women who also conform to patriarchal standards, consciously or not, could also be accused of the same hatred, again WITHOUT THINKING ABOUT IT.

Oh well, yes, true. But hating Michael Gove is probably most people's default-you have to negotiate a special exception of NOT hating Michael Gove. And pay extra council tax for it. Or something.

Surely hate requires concious effort and focus.

No, not necessarily. When you specifically hate it probably does, but not for everyone. I do think that some people can hate a class of persons quite easily and to them, naturally, without conscious effort and focus. I have personally experienced both racism and misogyny like that. But I think it is the exception and the more common situation is what I put in my earlier post.

I'm sure it is possible to dig up some feminist somewhere saying that all men should be killed or un-made.

Not as easy as it is to find quality women-hating in Men's Rights circles, mind you. Most feminists follow the Dworkin model, saying to men: we believe in your humanity, despite your behaviour's evidence to the contrary.

I've noticed that feminism isn't so much man-hating as man-disregarding - , but feminists putting their primary focus on women, whether it's a woman-only space, a please let's just talk about women in this thread, or whatever, seems like man-hating. As in, "Please take your discussion of men's experiences of [whatever] elsewhere, because in this place at this moment we are talking about women's experiences of [whatever] and concentrating on women." And that focus on women is often experienced by others are man-hating, because our culture is so used to the focus being on men, that the idea of NOT concentrating on them, their feelings, their experiences, their absolute right to be heard and put first.... that 'ignoring just for now' seems to translate to some people as 'hating men' and 'being extremely anti-men' or whatever.

It reminds me of that great Melissa McEwan post about patriarchy being like the Matrix - it's everywhere, but once you've seen it, it's hard to unsee. Feminism is taking the red pill: it opens your eyes and you see the matrix/patriarchy for what it is.

Once you've taken the red pill you notice that all-male panels on Q.I or Mock The Week or Radio 4 whatever are considered "Normal" (not anti-women or excluding women or ignoring women, just 'normal') wheras an all-female Today Programme or Mock The Week is worthy of national comment. Or would be. If it ever happened.

Final note in this rather long post: There was a Harvard study done in the nineties (I think? Not got the link bookmarked on this computer but it's searchable) in Undergraduate classrooms, about how much male and female undergraduates spoke, and were perceived to speak, by their peers.

Generally, the male undergraduates dominated the conversation, speaking most in the seminars.

When the female undergraduates spoke more than 30% of the time they were perceived to dominate the conversation.

When the young women spoke for less than 70% of the seminar, they were perceived to speak 51% or more of the time. We are so unused to hearing women's voices that when they speak for less than 70% of the time, we imagine they are talking for more than half of the time, taking up more than their 'fair share' of the talking-time.

This is why I think Feminism is perceived as man-hating, to be honest. When people who don't know much about it say 'Feminists want women to be above men' or whatever, I think that it is because anything that is perceived to be all about women (even for 30% of the time!), is so radical, so revolutionary, that we imagine it's a hostile takeover of the Way Things Are.

If we mean different things by the term 'hatred', then it probably isn't worth getting het up over, so I'll bow out. I do think there are better ways of describing societal attitudes than using such an emotive word, although I can see why some people would choose to use it.

This post "How To be A Reverse Racist" made the rounds on social-networks recently. It's fantastic and well worth 5-10 minutes to read.

It's a tongue-in-cheek 'step-by-step guide to being a reverse racist' that the writer produced in response to being accused, in their anti-racism work, of 'being a reverse racist'.

Some examples of 'how to be a reverse racist'

"1. Enslave their bodies.

Ship them from Germany, Sweden, and other exotic countries. Force them to build entire cities, roads, bridges. Force them to plant and harvest all the food everyone eats. Let an entire economic system be built on their backs, with their blood and sweat. Later, deny them access to the system they have been used to build, and accuse them of being extremely lazy.

1. Steal their land.

If they were here before you, steal their land. This is essential. Basically, just go in there and take it. If you have to kill some of them to get it?no worries. If you have to kill almost all of them to get it?shit, no worries. After you steal their land, make sure you create laws to keep them from ever returning to it. If they try to return anyway, build fences, and let bands of POC vigilantes patrol the borders with guns. If they somehow get past the borders and into your country, no worries, you can always just deport them.

1. Enslave their minds.

From these systems, build a long lasting institution of reverse-racism until all the violence and microaggressions make many white people into suspicious people with a lot of internalized self-hatred, health problems, and mental illnesses. Then deny them access to adequate mental health care. Or, adequate health care of any kind, while you?re at it. ?Cause, you know, fuck ?em."

That's the first 3 our of 10, and I think it does a really good job of highlighting how historical and ingrained social racism is. For goodness' sake, white people used to OWN black people, raping and killing them at will and profiting from their unpaid labour - as we do even now when we walk through the streets of cities built on the profits of slavery. A few black people pointing out that, actually, racism isn't really cricket - that hardly makes a dent in White Privilege, unfortunately - and it certainly isn't reverse-racism.

When people complain that feminism is all about man-hating or 'being sexist against men' I think in my head:

Step 1: Control and/or own their bodies and minds for about two thousand years.

Control the bodily movements and intellectual possibilities of your sons and husband(s). You decide where the family lives, as head of the family. You decide whether or not your husband(s) can work, and you take the money earned and you decide how to spend it. Make sure your religion helps you with this. Don't hesitate to use violence or the threat of violence to make them do what you want, it's sometimes the only language they understand. Teach them that it means you care about them.
Control their sexuality. Make sure you have hundreds of bad words for a sexually active man, teach them shame about enjoying their bodies, teach them that their genitals are dirty and confusing, and they exist to be enjoyed by women. Make sure your religion helps you with this.
Make sure that your son's marriage ceremony contains a ritual where you, the mother, hand the son over to his wife for guarding and possessing. Make it a law that your son's name changes to the name of his wife, when he marries. Teach them that their worth comes from being owned and loved by a man, teach them that their needs come second and their duty is to obey. Make sure your religion helps you with this.

When, about 2000 years into this project, they begin to emancipate themselves from your rule, owning their own property and bodies and believing in their right to happiness and self-determination, make sure that the leaders of this movement are vilified as extreme women-haters who want to destroy the family/society. When this pressure stops working after about 100 years, make them figures of fun, mock and ignore them.
During this time, make sure your sons and husbands are murdered at the rate of around 2 a week by their wives/partners. Make sure that this is not really talked about. Also, assault 1 in 4 men during their lifetime, rape about 1 in 5. Make it shameful and difficult for these attacks to be reported, believed, and prosecuted.

Step 2: Either take their stuff, prevent them from accruing stuff, or destroy their stuff."

etc. etc. etc.

I don't think feminism is about hating men. I do think it is about seeing what is in front of you, and wanting to change it.

OR, shorter - what hothead said.

Heh, I too am a lover, not a fighter. But sometimes one is called to fight, it seems.

Het up? No, not at all. And please don't leave, the exchange of differing views is what makes this section so interesting.

what, as in "Cillit Bang!- Bang! - and the dirt is Gone!"?

[ puzzled emoticon]

At a risk of sounding like a po faced, humourless feminist, saying that women are getting "het up" when they express themselves strongly is a classic silencing technique.

no in a "I am a lover" way

Ah. Fight you for blackcurrants, then?

I really don't think this denial helps the argument. Its patently (and empirically) absurd and just makes a lot of the people you want to persuade shake their head and walk away as they think you've lost the plot before you've started your 2nd sentence..

Whereas IMO saying "yes - a % of Feminists/women hate men. A % of men hate women. Its pretty small overall, and thats the way life is - now, lets get on with the discussion". It defuses the issue - as Hully said above, you move onto "and some women hate cats, some hate ....".

Blackcurrants, your posts are spot on. That is why i am so when people say feminism has gone too far the other way and I'm like, fgs it'll take more than a few waves to wipe out the effect of thousands of years dogma.

It is all about what we're used to isn't it? When I see a spate of women talking on tv I notice it and think "mess what are moaning about?" until I realise that I have noticed it because it is unusual.

It is like this charming guy who once told me that the beeb was overrun with women producers. The actual figure is about 30% but to him it seemed like a lot because he simply wasn't used to it.

feels Barry White-ish

But it's impossible to move on. The problem is that any woman saying "we live in patriarchy and there is a powerful strain of misogyny running through society" is called a man hater. But nobody ever calls a man a woman hater, even if he's for example, a rapper who makes money out of sickening anti woman lyrics, a user of violent porn, a politician who wants to control women's bodies ......I could go on.

Both things can be true at once.

ie yes of course a few women hate men, DUH, but what the fuck has that got to do with anything? blah blah blah back to the point...

I 'hate' patriarchy and what it does to people in the same way that I 'hate' capitalism and what it does to people. Both are systems which favour some people over others. Some people defend both of those systems (often because the systems are kind to them) - I don't hate those people but I reserve the right to believe they are very very wrong, and sometimes morally repugnant. Interestingly there seem to be more men defending patriarchy and capitalism than women, so chances are I find more men people than women people morally repugnant, but that's because of the privilege they fight to keep not their biological sex or gender.

'I agree with feminists who want equal rights for men and women, but not feminists who hate men and want women to be treated better than men.'

Feminism is about recognising that sort of statement for what it is -- an expression of male entitlement and resentment, maybe even fear, at having their preferential treatment taken away from them, leaving them competing with other members of the human race with only their own merit going for them.

Feminism is about learning to recognise when people think something is a birthright and the methods they use to defend that right, including the unproven and unfounded implication in that statement that there are women out there who hate men and want to be treated better than men, that taints all feminism and all feminists and puts them in the position of addressing the fears of men, answering the accusations of men, and proving to men that they are not the scary sort of feminist.