I'm not a misandrist. I like men - some of my best male friends are men. But I've seen many a Men's Rights Activist (henceforth MRA) throw the term around when hating on their brother Male Pro-Feminists (MPFs?), and since our whole history is basically an experiment in the social utility of misogyny I thought I'd explore the benefits of a hypothetical misandrist movement. I'm assuming that the the movement's influence is substantially subordinate to mainstream misogyny.* Off the top of my head:
-Occasional exposure to misandry would perhaps deepen some men's understanding/appreciation of women's experiences.
-A small increase in the preferential selection of women might close the wage gap more quickly and lead to a more equitable distribution of power.
-More generally, the movement would be a boon to women's social support structures, which would also help address inequities.
-And this is maybe my most out-there proposition, that a broad-based misandrist movement could elegantly (and maybe necessarily?) incorporate a serious critique of capitalism. Could the
aforementioned support structures be the basis for social transformation?
*This is, of course, where most MRAs are likely to object - that misandry isn't limited at all, that every day it threatens their manhood.
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It is conclusory and inane observations such as yours that engender disrepute of the enture blogosphere. The fact that you relish punishing an entire class of persons, including the innocent, for the perceived sins of some members of that class is proof positive that your opinions aren't worth considering and that you would do the world a disservice by never writing another sentence.
"you would do the world a disservice by never writing another sentence"
thank you!
I kind of agree that the sort of "eye-for-an-eye" mentality of men learning what it's like to be a woman by experiencing misandry maybe isn't the most productive way to move towards gender equality, and it might even spark a more vitriolic anti-woman backlash. (The response to race-based preferential selection has generally not been that white people are saying "oh hey, so this is what it feels like to be discrimintated against!" but rather claims of "reverse racism" and anger.) So I don't think that misandry can cancel out misogyny.
I do think that men need to be brought to an understanding that sexism and misogyny are real, and I'm not sure how to do that, since our society generally seems to think it only exists in the heads of some upper-class, hairy-legged feminists. Thoughts on this, Elbow, would be appreciated.
Thank you for your comment, you nameless coward.
Yeah this post was somewhat tongue in cheek. Anti-feminists do a lot of writing about the social value misogyny, so I thought I'd turn the tables. I think the last two bullets are the most interesting/plausible but neither of them require widespread misandry, just a vastly strengthened women's movement. At the same time, I feel like we're going to have a hard time with "the revolution" if we don't seriously challenge some basic precepts of masculinity, which would probably strike most people as misandrist.
But you're right, this is a big problem. I think this goes back to something I wrote earlier:
"This actually brings up an aching tension, a tense ache, in my thinking - how do we grapple with issues that can't be solved by changing institutions? Even if, as is my hope, high energy prices force Americans to remunicipalize economies and governance, how will we deal with deep-seated misogyny, racism, and heteronormativity?"
This is the problem with even marginally radical political programmes - how do you advocate for real social transformation without alienating the population you're trying to change?
I really have no idea. In this instance I think one response has been "funfeminism" as it's known - a feminism which adopts traditional misogynist tropes to sort of sneak in the equality message through the back door. I don't think this strategy makes much sense. What are your thoughts?
It's interesting that PETA does the same thing - that is, it often encourages women to voluntarily participate in I think obviously degrading ad campaigns etc in order to slip the radical critique in while the men are distracted by the nudity.
I'm trying to think of some other leftist groups that do the same thing.
I don't know, I guess it seems to me like those campaigns that use women's sexuality to "distract men by the nudity" are in some sense just playing into the misogynist agenda... if utilizing women's sexuality as a tool is still an option (and using male sexuality is not... and let's be honest, it's not), then I think there's something fundamentally wrong with the options. And in PETA's case (I'm thinking about the "chicks in cages" act they did in DC, I think), I don't think their point was to criticize misogyny, but rather to use misogyny to criticize something else. And even if the protest was tongue-in-cheek, that can't be expected to have widespread appeal-- people will interpret it how they want unless there is a clearer message.
You're right that it is not about changing institutions. The question of misogyny is especially tough because parts of our gender roles, our sexual attraction to one another, etc are arguably part of biology (or at least ambiguously part of biology enough that people can make the argument that women are SUPPOSED to be mothers, providers, sex goddesses to the exclusion of all else). I think the best way to address it is to tackle people's perceptions/misperceptions head-on, which is another difficult task due to a) a history of feminism that now gives people the right to call feminists whiny bitches who just aren't satisfied and b) misogyny itself, which makes some men loath to listen to intelligent arguments by women, or at least to take them seriously. I think one way, perhaps, is just for time to pass, for more women to fight their way to the top and disprove misogyny until one day, although that seems like a pretty pathetic solution.
Another solution-- or I guess this kind of piggybacks with the last one-- is that some feminists have chosen to cut men out of the equation all together in the feminist-lesbian movement (not saying that all feminists are lesbians or vice versa, just that there is a movement of feminists who believe you can't be one unless you liberate yourself from men sexually as well). And maybe that is an effective solution. So much of misogyny, and even self-hate or self-misogyny by women (you know what I mean?) is rooted in sexuality and the way men and women interact with each other sexually (or would like to), and if men are cut out of the equation, then maybe women can gain some sort of empowerment from that. But maybe I am being heteronormative in thinking that lesbian relationships are free of misogyny.
Thoughts, Elbow?
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