Why do men hate us so much?

[niadainud]

Just off the top of my head, in no particular order:

Incels
Afghanistan
Excessively patriarchal religions where women are totally subservient
Using sex workers
Human trafficking
Domestic violence
Rape
Low-level sexism
Andrew Tate, etc.
Erosion of women's rights including, but not limited to, transactivists
Shitty dating behaviour such as ghosting and negging
Drag / "womanface"

Yes, I know some of the above can be perpetrated by women, but it's usually men, isn't it?

Low level misogyny is also so damaging and this is the type of mysogyny that affects women as well as men. This is why women give away our own rights or decide they want to identify out of womanhood. I myself was not a good woman.

I think it stems from seeing women as less important than men. I do think we humans still have survival mechanisms from more dangerous ages such as flight or flight, maybe it's because in those days being physically strong mattered more - for food & protection.

I agree. Blaming religion doesn't get to the root of the issue. Women suffer in countries under the sway of many religions and none. The Abrahamic religions always get a mention but also:
Widow burning (India, in the past - Hindu)
Foot binding (China, in the past - Confucian)
Selective abortion of female fetuses (India, China and doubtless other places too)
Forced prostitution (Japan, in the past - Shinto)
Abortion as a means of contraception (under communism)
Rape as a weapon of war (too many examples to count, but Russian and Japanese troops in WWII were noted for it)

Religion, which can be a force for good, has been used a tool of female repression.

Men have enslaved women for their sexual, reproductive, and manual, labour, because their physical superiority makes it possible and in order to control paternity. That makes them into abusers, and abusers always hate their victims. They fear that we are conspiring against them, maybe even laughing at them.

Of course there are lots of men, even in Afghanistan, who treat individual women with love and respect. They tell themselves that the women are really in charge, while the men have to do all the heavy work and the fighting (this gives us something in common with that other famously all-powerful, yet simultaneously persecuted, group, the Jews).

(The hatred of women by low-status males stands outside this paradigm, as, IMO, does serious sexual violence outside the domestic context. Things like serial rape are committed by only a tiny minority of men, or in very particular circumstances, like warfare, and are motivated less by hatred than by the adoption of a (unconscious) hit-and-run reproductive strategy, in contrast to the more usual long-term coercive/collaborative model.)

I have a friend who is basically a decent guy and certainly wouldn't recognise anything on my list as applying to him. But at the same time he doesn't believe that everyday sexism exists, he doesn't like seeing women depicted in senior roles in TV dramas as he thinks it's unrealistic, he talks disparagingly about his mother, he is totally selfish in bed, he expects women to want sex with him without commitment and recently commented that a woman he went on a date with was "the wrong sort of feminist" because she didn't want to sleep with him.

But he was totally shocked when I told him I didn't think he liked women very much.

Are you sure he's basically a decent guy?

'@murasaki ·
It's that saying again, when you're used to privilege, equality feels like oppression. So they get angry and lash out.'

Exactly, centuries of women being seen as inferior human beings unable to make their own decisions and as the 'property' of men...

In Western societies some men just resent the fact that they are no longer born with privilege just for being male and the fact that women can be independent financially and can choose who to have sex with.

Religions as far as I can see are disturbingly misogynist and reinforce the concept that women and children are the property of men and they can do whatever they want with them.

The title of the post doesn't say "all men."

Yes. I've given a very biased list of his less favourable points. But he is also reliable, generous, supportive, good company and looks after his parents well even though they don't have the best relationship.

If it was a small percentage of men, why are we living in a patriarchy? Why do the majority of men watch degrading porn?

Why are a quarter of women in the UK going to be subject to abuse in their lifetime? Why is sexual assault and rape so high (we don't know the actual figures because it's rarely reported) and prosecution so low?

If the majority of men believe in equality and respect, why are the majority of mothers working and doing most of the childcare and drudge work?

Why are stereotypically female professions so badly paid? Why aren't women working in the media instead of being objectified by it? Why is there only a tiny percentage of women in powerful positions where they can exert influence?

Not all men but enough men.

This is it. The more you read about the foundations of civilization and the move from basic animals to more complex societies, the more you understand that men hate the fact that women create life and no man can do that.

Hence the current obsession with surrogacy and IVF etc - trying to break the link between women and life creation. They even tried to remove the word mother from the Irish constitution this year - and got a 75% rejection.

This, with knobs.

I don't think it's a conscious thing as hate. I don't think they think about us much as all which is why there is a staggering lack of awareness or empathy.

I think there is a societal, low level resentment perhaps that appears when feminism is brought up or as a defensive mechanism when make violence is mentioned.

Ultimately, boiled down, men want us and resent that we don't want them. Their entire mindset is based around sex, they don't understand that women aren't fixated in the same way or they think we are, so must be withholding it to be mean/manipulative. They think they are great (as society tells them they are) and don't understand why we can't see it too or worse are wary or have boundaries. Why can we just look pretty and laugh at their hilarious jokes before a no strings shag!?

the average bloke on the street is not a wife beater, has never raped anyone

No, he's lower than average, not even mediocre, that's why he feels the need to beat and rape.

For the unbelievers … read “Men who hate women” by Laura Bates and you will see that, in fact, men hate women.

It all comes down to basic instinct and I don't even believe they can put their own feelings into words if they were asked to but my guess is that their hate comes from their sexual desires and the fact that they depend on women to satisfy their sexual needs which in theory puts women in charge.

I disagree that the Christian Faith is to blame at all, but I do think that Christian and also Jewish men, especially some of the relgious leaders, are culpable by their ignoring the verse in the OT that says that human beings , male and FEMALE , are created by God in His image. I think it's the Sin of Pride, or inflated ego, that runs through nearly all men like the name of a seaside town through a stick of rock, that has caused it, because a true Christian man would remeber this, see women as made in the image of God and be prepared to lay down his life for his wife like Christ did for the Church.
Furthermore, I can't think of one thing that Jesus said nor did that I could consider remotely sexist against us, never mind misogynistic. St. Paul's writings seem sexist but he was a Jewish scholar and Judaism is overtly sexist still to this day, plus his writings are open to being twisted. Too many men who deem themselves Christian love to use his writings to back up their domineering women, and forget that they are supposed to humbly and selflessly SERVE us, just like Christ serves the Church, to the point of being willing to die for their wives! Too many of them ignore that part- they don't like it at all but tough, Christ is NOT sexist and they are supposed to strive to emulate him. As for Mary the Mother of God, they use her as a way to put us down but that's not her fault at all and I would suspect there's some envy at the root of it, because she is the most elevated created being of all. In the Christian Faith, at least in the Catholic and Orthodox denominations, the created human person nearest to God Himself is a woman.
To summarise, blame the failure of Christian men, not the Christian Faith and certainly not Christ- Jesus isn't sexist!

It was the men of those religions twisting a lot of it for their purposes.

This seems like an unmined seam for psychological research. We all know incels - stereotypically - resent not getting sex from women. But what's with transwomen envying us our uteruses?

Of course, men wrote and interpreted the holy texts.

The Female Eunuch is also informative (and a shocking new perspective in its time, of course).

Some men are angry because in most of the world we're emerging from millennia of being chattel and they're pissed off they can't 'own' us anymore so keep trying to find ways of telling us that we should let ourselves be chattel again.

I think hatred is often borne from lack of respect. They don’t respect us and resent the fact that these days, we demand it. Many of the examples you’ve described are different ways of ‘putting women in their place.’

Honestly, I think it's the availability of sex. Men want it, and women control it.

Most of your list is a direct result of men wanting sex and not getting it... incels, rape, trafficking, domestic violence, sex workers, (you forgot porn!)... that list is effectively them horridly venting their anger.

I don't believe it - so I've just ordered the book from Amazon. £2.99 for the kindle version.

Great post.
I am an atheist, but I think it's important to emphasise that religion, especially established religion, arises from or is influenced by the pre-existing culture. The Abrahamic religions as practised are misogynistic because the middle eastern culture they all arose in is misogynistic. Jesus did honour women, but the compilers of the new testament edited out the gospels written by women and later prominent male Christians added their own glosses to his teachings. There's so much in the Bible that you can use it to justify anything (slavery, for example) if you take it out of context.
And just as another example, this time from Islam - Mohammed said a man could have more than one wife if he could treat them both the same - but only Allah was capable of that. The patriarchal males, in a polygamous society only paid attention to the "a man can have more than one wife" bit and ignored Mohammed's actual meaning which was - polygamy is not allowed.

Edited for grammar.