What drives this contempt for women?

[GenderIsAPrison]

I’m thinking of the Warwick rape threat case, recent case in Edinburgh where a male student was convicted of sexual assault. And the general incel, TRAs culture.

How did we get to this place where so many young men have such little regard, respect and empathy for women? Treat them with such utter contempt and hatred. Regard themselves with such narcissistic sexual entitlement.

Is it a highly sexualised media? Feminism backlash?
Porn? Internet? What drives this hate? I don’t believe it’s always been this bad.

Btw. Not saying AMALT.

That NAMALT may be significant, what is the difference ? (apart from them being decent human beings)

It definitely feels like things are getting worse over the last few decades not better

is it:

1. Social media’s effect on social interaction? The shit we post we’d never have the gall to regurgitate to someone’s face.
2. The role of online distribution networks in the dissemination of extreme porn.
3. Political strategy. The alt right is seeking to break left coalitions. They have succeeded very well here. The left have cheerfully abandoned women and children’s rights, and now even amongst GC women we are at risk of turning on each other as a result of ideological purity arguments.
4. An erosion of job and life quality, as a result of rising inequality, with women baring the brunt of men’s anger and resentment.

All of the above? Especially porn.

Porn, porn, porn, porn.

NAMALT but ALTAM (All Like That Are Men). I think something happens to them in adolescence when they start to experience belonging in groups with other males and the sense of power, entitlement, ownership of physical space and diminution of other people that belonging to such a group engenders. Someone must have done a PhD on this ...

Porn and websites/chatrooms that encourage such views.

But mostly porn.

Its probably the same way any extremist group or cult recruits and trains its members.
One person with an agenda can influence the behaviour of a group pretty easily. The more moderate people leave the group and the rest go along with it.

The themselves often tout that the social and economic changes since the 50s have meant men (at least men who are not in the 'upper' league in terms of looks, status, finances, social skills) cannot get or keep partners as easily. They think, rightly of wrongly, that economic necessity and social & religious pressure made women more dependant on men, on having a husband and on being/acting how he wanted (just in order to leave home, get married, have a family, and be financially stable) ... Now they think financial independence and the relative lack of 'punishment' for being single, divorced, promiscuous (they have a very limited interpretation of female promiscuity, like one partner plus outside marriage) make it much much harder for lower status men to get a partner. Thus they are deprived, lonely, sex starved, involuntarily celibate (incel), depressed, frustrated.

It's often not as simple as not being able to get a partner at all- they also take particular issue with their seemingly only choice being what they see as used up, trashy, promiscuous, poor decision making etc women.

Behind it all is the entitlement, judgement, insecurity, seeing women as commodities, dolls, only for what functions they perform for men etc , unfortunately hardly something new in the make psyche.

Male psyche.

(And I should say that only seeing the opposite sex in terms of what functions they perform for you is not entirely missing from the female psyche either ie the romance novel genre, which has a lot of readers, almost exclusively features wealthy, powerful, attractive, high status men.

I did a Women's Studies module at uni years ago and there was a big debate about whether porn had an effect on men's actions in the real world. I think the evidence is now indisputable.

I think misogyny is timeless though and its roots are biological. It's the expression of it that's so vile right now thanks to porn. Mind you, having just typed that, I think of FGM and child brides and all manner of shitty ways women have been treated over the millennia. Maybe horrible sex is just the new way of treating us nastily in a society in which supposedly equal rights gives men less scope to overtly oppress us. Hitting and strangling us in the guise of the 'new normal' sex: genius.

In any case they have turned all that into vitriolic hatred, prejudice and bitterness toward women.

I think misogyny is timeless though and its roots are biological.

Agreed.

It's become clear to me that just by di t of having different sexual organs from them, some men will never ever see you as people, it's so basic but they just can't see past it. They can't see or get past their feelings and instincts towards the opposite sex with their different sexual organs; it supercedes everything else for them. It's so basic and dumb, but even some intelligent men can't seem to think past it.

They also want to control sex and reproduction and try to control and repress women to do so.

I think it's very easy (and would go so far as to say it's innate human nature) to ascribe negative experiences with individuals of any 'foreign' group as being innately negative qualities of that group in its entirety.

..and is that necessarily a bad thing as such...or the subconscious way of risk assessing in short cut form.

Misogyny. That’s the word for it ( sorry, I hadn’t quite made the link).

Yes and huge gaps in expectations between the sexes of what to expect from a relationship, especially wrt sex. Plus huge gaps in expectations vs reality. Fuck it. I don’t know, maybe it’s nature’s revenge against over population of the planet and evolutionary biology s way of limiting reproduction...random ramble...sorry.

It’s always been around. It used to be confined to men’s limited social groups or at work, but social media has made it more open and prevalent. So-called “lad’s mags” became openly sold in shops, leading to the idea that women’s bodies/wank fodder could be had for little money.

But also I’ve always thought that it’s a feature of puberty, that boys start to become not only sexually aware but are also moving towards independence. I’m thinking back to the times when youngsters often left school aged 15/16; maybe the delay in reaching independence these days also plays a part.

Over my very many decades, I have thought that misogyny is a reaction to men’s experience in their early years of being controlled by females – their mothers, and their (mostly) female teachers in junior school. So they have this sexual need to possess females, yet resent females still being in control when they’re adults.

It’s a dilemma for males, and they don’t know how to deal with it, so they do the child/adolescent reaction of hitting out at the target of their frustration. They hate us because they don’t understand us. They don’t have the emotional intelligence to see us as people.

Do I really have to do the NAMALT thing? ....

... the romance novel genre, which has a lot of readers, almost exclusively features wealthy, powerful, attractive, high status men.

I have a theory that what romance novels are really about is reliable men. The fantasy trappings are wealth and status because they spell security, but the essential fantasy is men who will come through, no matter what.

That’s not all there is, but romantic heroes have got their beloved’s backs, no matter dastardly villains, crocodiles or sinister assassins. It’s a giddy fantasy for women with partners who won’t make them a cup of tea on a cold day.

As for men? I dunno. Simone de Beauvoir says women are the other for men, the shadow onto which is projected all of those things most despised by masculinity. Perhaps the bigger the gap between a male reality and their understanding of the demands of masculinity, the more projection of those despised fears and desires onto women. And then, of course you can hate and despise women as the carriers of your poisoned dreams without ever having to look into yourself.

It’s the fault of women, not you, not your culture.

And porn feeds that hatred, the shame men feel at their perverted arousal, projected onto the women who are the victims.

Patriarchy.
Under patriarchy, the place for us (women/girls/females) is "less than" we are "other".

It's not new - but the the socially/politically stronger we are the more visible the fight back becomes and they will attempt to deny us, ridicule us, belittle us, shame us, hurt us - any way they can.

It's always been this bad. Seriously.

Family, school and societal conditioning - they model what they see around them. Lundy Bancroft writes about this and the disrespect for women.
I think many men just don’t have the emotional intelligence capacity as women, yet think they are best suited and entitled to make decisions for everyone else when they lack the base competencies to do so - hence the mess the world is in.

Empathy is developed in boys up to age 13 - if they don’t learn it by having limits, consequences and having healthy role modelling during that period then that’s it - they never get it - set up to corrupt another generation of males and women. Porn etc make the objectification worst but it can’t take root if the base empathy is in place. The nuclear family, male only schools and patriarchy have a lot to answer for.

*I have a theory that what romance novels are really about is reliable men. The fantasy trappings are wealth and status because they spell security, but the essential fantasy is men who will come through, no matter what.

That’s not all there is, but romantic heroes have got their beloved’s backs, no matter dastardly villains, crocodiles or sinister assassins. It’s a giddy fantasy for women with partners who won’t make them a cup of tea on a cold day. *

In some cases I would agree, but in others the hero's are really very hot and cold, and reliability and warmth and support are not obvious features at all: more just that the heroine wins them by the end. So she wins her high status male, above all the other women (and there usually are) on the scene and she gets the resources/wealth/status that he, in almost every case, has.
The most common words on the titles are millionaire, billionaire, tycoon, prince, dune, sheikh etc. The emphasis doesn't seem to be about reliability in terms of support/devotion, but on his resources and status. (Yes his devotion eventually comes, but it's obvious it's devotion from a wealthy, high status man that romance writers have reason to believe readers want, not an 'ordinary' man).

Sorry for thread detail op.

(forgot to add, it runs from the oldest tamest Barbara cartlands through to uber wealthy Christian grey - would CG really be viewed as 'sexy' if he wasn't exceptionally wealthy, high status and handsome).

Romance novels are about power. Ultimately, the woman exercises power by "taming" the man into her love. They're conservative in that this is the time-honoured channel in which female power is permitted to run. And we all know how ephemeral that power is. It's extinguished the moment she attains the marriage she wants.

Just picking up on the ideas that nuclear family and marriage are anti-women from Previous posts. And I have often heard this mentioned in passing by feminists.

Why is that?

I understand that these could create abusive oppressive environments for women. What’s the better alternative? Surely you can’t have just have anarchy or a society without the families as a building block. Marriage (to the ‘good man’) is often a way to protect legally and financially protect women who have children.

Porn and the Internet.

The loss of physical, local community means a loss of grounding with real people who have known you since a young age and who you have to confront in reality daily. The ‘local Bobby telling yer Pa’ is a cliche but it’s true. The powerful effect of social opprobrium from a local context is gone. That reduces shame - that’s not always a bad thing (single mums/illegitimate kids etc were more shamed before) but it removes a brake on a lot of poor behaviour.

Replace that with virtual community where there are NO real life consequences to many actions. Where porn is free and universal and violent. And replace the local controlling of behaviour with the ID politics social media pile ons.

It means that people who have niche sexual proclivities can find each other and amplify behaviour. It means they have a place where others don’t judge them - that would almost never have happened before. It means that fear of wrongdoing is not focused on hurting the people around you but on compliance with whatever online tribe you’ve thrown your lot in with.

It dehumanises - porn dehumanises and because it’s online no one sees the real victims.

As a species I do t think we are ready for the Internet and I think very few people use social media in a healthy way (those who donseem to be the older, much mocked ‘granbook’ types who just keep in touch with family and have an Instagram full of hillwalking photos.

I think you're right bowl that as a species we're not ready for the internet. I'm thinking there's a parallel with the way in which an overabundance of calorie-rich food has led to a huge rise in obesity that can no longer be written off as an individual problem but a societal one. Humans are programmed to want to eat sweet, calorie rich food and that goes wrong in the obesogenic environment. Likewise, males are seemingly programmed to consume porn to a harmful, addictive extent where the internet enables that.

Major biological drives out of control.

I don't think we as a species are ready for the Internet either. It's like giving a monkey a machine gun.
I was thinking a bit about this the other day, when I realised just how much my son can pick and choose what culture he absorbs.
He can cherry pick only certain you tube videos or programmes etc, and because there is unlimited media he rarely has to experience anything outside of what he chooses, apart from at school.
When I was his age there wasn't much on TV, we had one tv for the whole family , we read each others magazines and books and were forced to hear each others music. Everybody is atomised now, in their own little bubble.
What I also see in teen boys is the influence of emerging hormones mixed with lack of healthy sporting activity/ excercise plus lots and lots of video games. It turns them into dicks.
Boys need to be running, outside, competing, burning off excess agression, not sat in too hot houses wearing headsets. They also need men around who can take them out of the house, throw a rugby ball or go for a run, and from what I see too many dad's are unhealthy and lazy, and would rather sit on their phones.
So, you have a bunch of boys watching and reading only things that feed into what they already beleive, with too much agression and nowhere for it to go, with fathers who basically can't be arsed. Recipe for trouble.
Just my opinion, based on a feeling so very possibly wrong!