Have you ever converted a misogynist?

[IABUQueen]

Have you ever had a positive influence on a misogynist (man or woman) and it resulted in positive results ? With them changing their thinking and adopting a more fair view of gender differences ?

Could you please share your experience?

I suppose just because a man doesn't understand feminism doesn't necessarily make him a woman hater? Or does it? It just feels like splitting hairs.

I think men are very quick to blame women, especially their mothers, for their misogyny. I read a book once detailing that the reason the Japanese raped an entire city of women during the war (Nanking) was because their mums had been controlling

The case in question is of someone coming from an extremely abusive childhood. After doing some reading it seems common that misogyny stems from childhood trauma...

Perhaps try thinking about what you might do for someone who had the opposite problem, who had issues with men because of an abusive childhood? What might help that person?

I think sometimes nothing helps totally, but it can help them to see that many people do not have the same experience, or they do but the abuser is not the same sex as their own abuser. That it is about abuse, not the person's sex.
It can also help I think if you consistently, in a kind way, point out flaws in their thinking when they make those kinds of comments. So if this person says, "Women always are doing X" you can say "that hasn't really been my experience, I find y." Or "I don't think you can make that generalisation" or whatever.
This sort of thing is a long term project I think. It's very difficult to change a response or thought pattern rooted in an abusive experience.

I think it’s one of the “rules of misogyny” that everything is women’s fault.
Just look at that statement from the book you quote, Sakura - that the rape of Nanking was the fault of the soldiers’ MOTHERS!
Is that a get out of jail free card for all rapists- “My mother was controlling, boo hoo” - or just military ones?

My mum was one of the greatest misogynists I've ever met. It blighted my childhood and I ended up going NC with her.

She genuinely believes rape; divorce; child abuse etc is the fault.of the females it happens to.

Nothing ever did, or ever will, change her mind on that.
M

How do you know he had an abusive childhood?

I think it’s one of the “rules of misogyny” that everything is women’s fault.
Just look at that statement from the book you quote, Sakura - that the rape of Nanking was the fault of the soldiers’ MOTHERS!
Is that a get out of jail free card for all rapists- “My mother was controlling, boo hoo” - or just military ones?

It's also very much part of psychiatry and psychology. To say that "people's" individual crimes and behaviors are random and based on childhood or even WOMB trauma

Then you have to ask why is it mainly men who go on to commit almost all the crimes . Like, are women not also affected by childhood trauma?

To answer your original question, not me can change another person. I believe people have huge capacity to change but it absolutely has to come from themselves. I imprisioned myself into trying to change 2 misogynists who happened to be my parents. It was like the old adage “don’t wrestle with a pig, you’ll both get dirty but the pig will love it”.

*not me = no one

I read about it in Greer's The Whole Woman, that men who had committed heinous crimes and were in prison were given therapy which encouraged them to blame their mothers

“don’t wrestle with a pig, you’ll both get dirty but the pig will love it”.

This is why even though I love reading the trans threads on here I don't get involved in trans issues anymore. I did for a very long time, even making YouTube videos about the issue.
Men are absolutely loving the trans fight

Women are affected by childhood trauma just as men are. Women trend towards developing neurotic conditions and men personality disorders.

Also if men are aren’t capable of understanding feminism, and not understanding feminism = misogyny then all men become misogynists, but not by choice but by nature. You have also absolved men from moral responsibility as in order to have that one must be able to discern and choose, but if it is against our very nature to understand we cannot therefore choose.

Finally it’s my view rapes would be more the fault of the rapists father than mother. A son is going to learn how to treat women by observing their fathers.

Finally it’s my view rapes would be more the fault of the rapists father than mother. A son is going to learn how to treat women by observing their fathers.

Most certainly. I did not mean that his mother was to blame. In fact I knew his parents and I know for a fact his mother was the more decent parent, however the weaker one. Their life at home was dominated by their very abusive father who physically abused their mother. Which he was very affected by..

But I do know that his mother and society encourages him to be a “man” and shamed him for “crying like a girl” and so on and as the theory says, those children need to dissociate themselves form their mothers so they can identify as “men” and the only other example they have is their father...(who he also hates for his abuse of him and his mother) but it seems like at that age they knew no better?

I haven't changed any misogynists but I've given some sexists reason to think again. One told me that men could compartmentalize their lives more than women could and that women didn't think about sex as a separate activity from relationships. This was a conversation in bed after we'd met for the first time in a hotel to fuck. He then said 'well, perhaps you're boyzy' and I said 'or perhaps I'm a woman and you just haven't met one like me before.' He looked briefly thoughtful.

I think it's pretty much accepted that both men and women are affected by abusive childhoods in all kind of ways.

Somehow I'm not expecting anyone here to start popping up in discussions about abused women and saying that we shouldn't consider their abuse as an explanation or cause of their (potentially questionable) current thinking and behaviour.

@IABUQueen, agreed that’s a complete nail on head point. It’s by not allowing the full spectrum of emotions to be felt by either gender that is unhealthy.

Also if men are aren’t capable of understanding feminism, and not understanding feminism = misogyny then all men become misogynists, but not by choice but by nature. You have also absolved men from moral responsibility as in order to have that one must be able to discern and choose, but if it is against our very nature to understand we cannot therefore choose.m

There was one man, Richard Leader, who wrote a feminist article years ago. He did get it.
That was about it really, in all the years I've been doing feminism.
Other men who do feminism are just in it for the cookies

Does one HAVE to be a declared feminist to not be a misogynist? I think a lot of people don’t understand it.. but might just subscribe to the moral obligation to being fair to all humans and be open to reason. I don’t think these are misogynist.

Does one HAVE to be a declared feminist to not be a misogynist?

I think it's a really interesting question actually.
I don't really think men can be feminists but they might see some wrongdoing. Some men speak out against porn, which inadvertently helps women, but when you actually look at their reasoning it has nothing to do with women being people who shouldn't be dehumanized. It's about other things like men lose the ability to get it up if they watch too much porn, or reasons not really related to feminism. I'm not going to stop them preaching about porn though because it's useful to feminists. Or they often do it because they're getting paid.

So is a man a misogynist just because he isn't a feminist? Feminism seems to be about regarding women as being human beings. And a lot of men struggle with it, apparently

It’s not the fact that women are human beings I struggle with, it’s that a significant amount of feminist thought exists through a politically left wing lens. As I have become more skeptical of left wing politics that does create an issue with me on the subject of identity politics.

That said I do see problems with sexism, racism ableism etc, that we’ve got to try to do something about. I do find feminism is the only show in town that are bothering to tackles issues like prostitution, trans based abuse of children, and a general promotion of women’s achievements and capabilities.

As I’ve said before I’m not a feminist or even an ally necessarily, but there are some issues I’m happy to follow a feminist lead on. I. certainly do not care for feminist cookies! I’m also I and I can’t stress this enough necessarily right about anything I think, I’m actually sure of very few things philosophically, but life still requires you to take a position on things if you intend on having any integrity.

In reality I think it's difficult to imagine anything less left wing than identity politics, but it does seem to be the case that identity politics has infected the left, including within feminist discourse.

IdPol is not left wing, it is neoliberal.

It’s not the fact that women are human beings I struggle with, it’s that a significant amount of feminist thought exists through a politically left wing lens. As I have become more skeptical of left wing politics that does create an issue with me on the subject of identity politics.

Feminism is essentially left wing, at least liberal feminism is. Left wing socialist policies benefit women as much as Right Wing austerity measures harm women

But women always realize too late that left wing men betray them.

That's why Dworkin wrote Right Wing Women: to try and understand why women are right wing even though the right is so obviously woman hating. Her book is very convincing, and ... kind.

Radical feminism is off on its own somewhere, but it is still class based. It doesn't regard any of the political structures to be beneficial to women, regards politicking as essentially a pointless waste of female energy

Thing is not all women exist on the political left, and getting to a point where only one political ideology is the correct one is dangerous. As you have identified the left is perfectly happy to throw women under the bus when it suits them. Do you know one of the demographics that suffer the most abuse online are women who identify as politically on the right?

Sakura184

I read a book once detailing that the reason the Japanese raped an entire city of women during the war (Nanking) was because their mums had been controlling I've never thought of Japan as being a society where women had so much influence. What was the author and title of the book I'd be interested in the thesis, sounds rather Freudian to me.

I've never changed a misogynist: what I have done is introduce a misogynist's wife to radical feminism.