Misandry

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Misandry (IPA [mɪ.ˈsæn.dri]) is the hatred of males as a sex [1]. The word comes from misos (Greek μῖσος, "hatred") + andras (Greek ἄνδρας, "man"). Although misandry is sometimes confused with misanthropy, the terms are not interchangeable, since the latter refers to the hatred of humanity. An idea related to misandry is androphobia, the fear of men (male humans), but not necessarily the hatred of them. The reverse of misandry is misogyny, the hatred of women.

Although misandry is discussed less frequently than misogyny and is less understood, there is increasing research into and discussion about the topic. According to researchers Nathanson and Young (2001), "misandry in popular culture remains a dark secret" and "gender watchdogs" use a double standard that exposes the evils of misogyny but are "notably silent" about even the existence of misandry. They assert that "unlike misogyny, misandry is still generally unrecognized as a problem."

Contents

[edit] Causes of misandry

Modern misandry researchers, Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young believe that the gynocentric use of the word 'gender' as a tool to blame all men "as those who created the problem of 'gender' in the first place" form the root assumptions for modern misandry. To Nathanson and Young, this has meant that men are society's official scapegoats responsible for all evil, women are society's official victims responsible for all good, and that men must be penalized and women compensated collectively for crimes against women throughout history. They believe that underlying "gender" as social construct are core assumptions that "the end justifies the means", and that "collective rights trump individual rights".

Nathanson and Young assert that the roots of misandry can be found in 'ideological', (as opposed to other forms of) feminism. They believe that 'political correctness', academic deconstructionism and what they call "fronts" are strategies used by feminist ideologues to "make the world safe" for promoting a misandric worldview. They posit that underlying ideological feminism is "an ideology derived from Marxism and romanticism but with class or nation replaced by gender as the central concept" to perpetrate the intolerant hatred of men as a class.

Individualist feminist Wendy McElroy notes that gender feminists have redefined feminist views of men such that a "hot anger toward men has turned into a cold hatred". Men as a class are considered irreformable, 'all' men are considered rapists, and marriage, rape and prostitution are seen as the same things. Similar to the assertions of Nathanson and Young she notes "a new ideology has come to the forefront...radical or gender feminism", one that has "joined hands with political correctness-a movement that condemns the panorama of western civilization as sexist and racist: the product of 'dead white males'."

Media Studies professor Laura Kipnis suggests that man-hating scorn is a sort of perverse psychological bond which women as a group use to escape their own self-hatred by displacing it outward onto males in whose very presence women feel inferior and who are the supposed cause of all female frustrations.

[edit] Types of misandry

Nathanson and Young noted the following types of man-hating behavior, they see as prevalent in popular culture. In Spreading Misandry, they devote a chapter to each type of misandry as follows. While Nathanson and Young attempt to show the full scope of misandry other independent authors have weighed in as well with similar but more specific observations. Therefore, for brevity, this section uses Nathanson and Young's classifications and characterizations as a preliminary guide within which to contain the anecdotal observations of other authors. The section begins with what Nathanson and Young consider the most benign forms of misandry, proceeds to ever more virulent types of man-hatred and, ends with misandry's most malignant manifestations.

  • Laughing at Men: In this, the most benign form of misandry, reverse sexism is applied to popular forms of humor. Men are routinely made the objects of steoreotypical ridicule in ways that would generate sustained outrage were the sexes reversed. Nathonson and Young note that feminists "may sometimes find it hard to laugh at themselves as feminists, though not as women, but seldom find it hard to laugh at men."
  • Looking Down on Men: Misandric "feminists have convinced many people that women are somehow superior to men." For whatever reasons, many men believe this as well. Like other groups, feminists interpret differences between the sexes as "an excuse to assign superiority and inferiority" in the usual hierarchical fashion.
  • Bypassing men: In this view, men are "not necessarily evil, just superfluous." Feminists like Andrea Dworkin urge as little contact as possible with men, separation of the sexes and indifference to men (rather than hostility toward men). Men are considered useless as lovers, husbands, fathers and as human beings.
  • Blaming Men: To blame men for all of human history, gender-feminists use the conspiracy theory of history to claim that "all of human history can be reduced to a titanic conspiracy" of men oppressing women. Nathanson and Young note that "evidence is often deliberately falsified to make (misandric) political claims about gender." The result is that "men are collectively or vicariously responsible for most or all of human suffering."
  • Dehumanizing Men: In this form of misandry, men are shown as inherently evil while women are seen as inherently good or even heroic. Men are highlighted as the evil predatory sex that preys on an innocent, morally superior [2] sex as represented by women. Evil women who commit heinous crimes against men (or children) are rarely shown or are shown using double standard interpretations that conceal female inhumanity. In essence, men are considered morally unredeemable beasts while women are considered morally redeeming human beings.
  • Demonizing Men: Men are shown as demonic, both as sinister subhumans and as evil superhumans. Men are directly demonized by being portrayed as devils or as evil aliens. They are also demonized indirectly by being relentlessly identified with hideously predatory men whose actions "either are not or cannot be explained entirely or adequately to viewers in rational terms."

[edit] Types of misandrists

The types of misandrists below are labeled using Nathanson and Young's systematic research on all aspects of misandry. Nathanson and Young created classifications for describing the various types of misandrists and their motivations. Therefore their preliminary criteria are used here to make distinctions between the various types of misandrists. Other observations from independent authors who have made similar but less systematic comments about misandry are included here as well.

  • Male feminists or what Nathanson and Young call "honorary women" who self-righteously defend women from men to seek favor from women.
  • Ideological feminists who see all men as evil brutes and all women as 'good' human beings.
  • Women who justify misandry as a legitimate "choice" for women or a "voice" for those who have been "silenced."
  • Women who justify misandry as an expedient for political purposes.
  • Women who justify misandry with "something far more sinister in mind: revenge."

[edit] Misandry and misogyny

Christina Hoff Sommers notes what she calls a 'corrosive paradox' of misandric gender feminism: the idea "that no group of women can wage war on men without at the same time denigrating the women who respect those men." She says, "it is just not possible incriminate men without implying that large numbers of women are fools or worse." To Hoff Sommers, women who respect men are seen as being 'in the camp of the enemy" by gender feminists. Therefore, "mysandry becomes misogyny," perpetrated by gender feminists whom Hoff Sommers sees as a radical and unrepresentative minority of women.

[edit] Degrees of misandry

Misandry may be exhibited to differing degrees. In its most overt expression, a misandrist openly hates all men simply because they are 'men', exhibiting 'masculine' traits that are not to the speaker's liking. Stereotypically, these 'masculine' traits include machismo, emotional bluntness, and a loutish demeanor. Or, a misandrist might simply hate men for a perceived common physical attribute, such as large muscles, a large gut, or copious body hair.

Other forms of misandry are more subtle. Some misandrists simply hold all men under suspicion, or hate men who do not conform to one or more acceptable categories. Entire cultures may be said to be misandrist if they treat men in ways that are perceived hurtful. Misandry is often not recognised, since it exists under many different guises, disguised and qualified. {Judith Levine, 'My Enemy, My Love', 1992}

Misandry is a negative attitude towards men as a group, and as such need not fully determine a misandrist's attitude towards each individual man. The fact that someone holds misandrist views may not prevent them from having positive relationships with some men. Conversely, simply having positive relationships with some men does not necessarily mean someone does not also hold misandrist views.

[edit] Responses to misandry

Nathanson and Young believe that "many ordinary men have a vested interest in not seeing the pervasive misandry of everyday life." For a man to see himself as a victim of attacks by women he would have to acknowledge his vulnerability and therefore become less of a man. This creates a double-bind for men vis a vis confronting misandry because men "who admit to feeling vulnerable are attacked as cowards, and by no group more effectively than women." Nathanson and Young assert that women can easily shame men into silence, "a form of abuse that few women today would tolerate."

Thus despite what Nathanson and Young argue is a "massive assault" on men's identities, most men remain too confused to honor their unconscious knowledge that something is wrong. Most are not "equipped to identify or analyze" misandry. Those few men who are able to see misandry for what it is are rarely rewarded and are usually shamed for speaking about it in public.

According to Nathanson and Young, until very recently the "few feminists who dared to speak out against misandry were usually declared enemies of feminism, or even enemies of women, and thus effectively silenced." They state that "most feminists deny misandry" and that "when challenged" most feminist excuse, justify, and/or trivialize misandry. They note that "despite the vaunted capacity of women for empathy, only a few feminist publications, albeit ones of profound moral significance, have so far expressed sympathy for men in general, except as a way of encouraging men to believe that feminism is in their own interest."

[edit] Misandry in mythology

The Amazons of Ancient Greek Mythology were a nation of women warriors. The primary depictions generally focus on role-reversal, swapping the classical Greek ideals of "female" passivity and dependence for "male" strength and ability. In some versions, the Amazons display misandry through actions such as forbidding men to reside in Amazon country; killing their male offspring (the result of their yearly mating with the all-male Gargarean tribe) or exiling them to return to the Gargarean fathers (Strabo xi. p. 503). The women of Lemnos, filling a similar role in the myth of Jason and the Argonauts, commit acts of mariticide and patricide and proceed to rule their island themselves.

However, these are the exceptions to the classic tale. In other tellings, the Amazons are simply a target of male conquest, as in the tale of Heracles and Theseus attempting to obtain the girdle of the Amazonian queen Hippolyte (Apollodorus ii. 5). Furthermore, some tales (e.g. both of the previous) conclude with Amazons welcoming, marrying, or congenially procreating with the male heroes.
Most modern (20th century) depictions, on the other hand, are not misandric at all. Instead, the modern Amazon is treated sympathetically and is a character whose respect and cooperation the male heroes are challenged to earn. (See Modern Depictions of Amazons.)

[edit] Misandry in literature

 The neutrality of this section is disputed.
Please see the discussion on the talk page.

Elements of misandry can be observed in literature.

"Marriage is an institution developed from rape as a practice."
"The penis must embody the violence of the male in order for him to be male. Violence is male; the male is the penis; violence is the penis..."
Andrea Dworkin, Pornography
"Men's need to dominate women may be based in their own sense of marginality or emptiness."
"While men strut and fret their hour upon the stage, shout in bars and sports arenas, thump their chests or show their profiles in the legislatures, and explode incredible weapons in an endless contest for status, an obsessive quest for symbolic 'proof' of their superiority, women quietly keep the world going."
"He can beat or kill the woman he claims to love; he can rape women, whether mate, acquaintance, or stranger; he can rape or sexually molest his daughters, nieces, stepchildren, or the children of a woman he claims to love. The vast majority of men in the world do one or more of the above."
Marilyn French, the War Against Women
"I believe that women have a capacity for understanding and compassion which man structurally does not have, does not have it because he cannot have it. He's just incapable of it."
Barbara Jordan
"Men who are unjustly accused of rape can sometimes gain from the experience."
Catherine Comin
"Men's sexuality is mean and violent, and men so powerful that they can 'reach WITHIN women to fuck/construct us from the inside out.' Satan-like, men possess women, making their wicked fantasies and desires women's own. A woman who has sex with a man, therefore, does so against her will, 'even if she does not feel forced.'"
"I feel what they feel: man-hating, that volatile admixture of pity, contempt, disgust, envy, alienation, fear, and rage at men. It is hatred not only for the anonymous man who makes sucking noises on the street, not only for the rapist or the judge who acquits him, but for what the Greeks called philo-aphilos, 'hate in love,' for the men women share their lives with--husbands, lovers, friends, fathers, brothers, sons, coworkers."
Judith Levine
"Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation, and destroy the male sex."
"To call a man an animal is to flatter him; he's a machine, a walking dildo."
Valerie Solanas
"The male is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness...can be trained to do most things."
Jilly Cooper
"I feel that 'man-hating' is an honorable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them."
Robin Morgan
"And if the professional rapist is to be separated from the average dominant heterosexual (male), it may be mainly a quantitative difference."
Susan Griffin
"MALE:...represents a variant of or deviation from the category of female. The first males were mutants...the male sex represents a degeneration and deformity of the female."
"MAN:...an obsolete life form... an ordinary creature who needs to be watched...a contradictory baby-man..."
'A feminist Dictionary', ed. Kramarae and Triechler
"In general, most men are really selfish. They see only one side of the story. Most women have the ability to see two sides of things...I think I am superior to all men. I think women are superior to men but society doesn't allow them to feel that way. I think most women feel subservient to men. Women really do have all the brains and all the power."
Joanna Angel

[edit] Misandry in popular culture

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An analysis of popular culture (e.g., literature, television, film, greeting cards, comics, advertisements, etc.) provides numerous examples of misandry and misandry-related occurrences in modern Western society, such as [Nathanson & Young, 2001 & 2006]:

General neglect of male issues and elements of opression (in fact, as in the case of mysogyny, an important part of the misandric phenomena has more to do with omission than explication), such as the facts that:

  • Depression affects more than 6 million men in America alone[1], but the figures may be even higher due to the social stigmas attached to reporting it.
  • A much higher percentage of male teenagers commit suicide than female teenagers.

Men constitute approximately 80% of suicides.[2] White males commit most suicides (an extreme act of powerlessness) compared to all other groups, yet the "white male" is also usually portrayed as being in the clear and unambiguous position of privilege and power in most feminist discourse.

  • Men make up more than 90% of the prison population in the United States.[3]Misandric discourse denies a connection between offending and a condition of disenfranchisment and frustration
  • The majority of alcoholics[4], drug addicts, and homeless persons are men.

Men have lower levels of university attendance, do increasingly worse in high schools and middle schools than women, and are far more frequently diagnosed as supposedly being afflicted with learning disorders such as ADHD.

  • Men, on average, have a significantly lower life expectancy than women.
  • Popular culture often depicts men as sex-crazed, and overbearing, an extreme exaggeration of most men's natural interest in sexuality and evolutionary ability to act aggressively.
  • Depictions of genuinely gentle, nonviolent men as "sissies", unattractive to women
  • Depictions in sitcoms, advertising, and other television shows in which men (especially fathers) are shown as bumbling and inept.
  • Recounting of death in which the body count as described in terms of "X fatalities, including Y women and children," which reduces the value of the adult male lives lost.
  • Numerous cultural double-binds, such as:
    • Men and women are expected to be equal, but men are often expected to be the sole monetary contributors towards expenses (for example, buying expensive jewelry, paying for meals, etc.).
    • Men are told to be increasingly accepting of women who do not fit their expectations of attractiveness, while simultaneously being told (by advertising, print media, etc.) to make themselves increasingly attractive to women.
    • Men are expected to be masculine, aggressive defenders of women, but also to act feminine and embrace typically female traits.
    • Men are taught from a very young age that women are to be kept "on a pedestal" and revered, but the same cannot be said about women to men.
    • The increasingly popular cultural focus on the importance of having an above-average penis size, while simultaneously depicting focus on breast size, waist-to-hip ratio, and other attributes of female sexuality as sexist.
  • There is a dichotomy between how men and women are perceived as attractive — women are often depicted or discussed as being beautiful even to other women, while men are regarded as being innately less attractive.
  • Sexual oppression of men, often leading to desperate destructive and/or autodestructive acts, is still rarely discussed, while the sexual repression of women has finally been recognized in the last several decades .
  • Men are expected to repress their sexuality, and are taught that admiring women's bodies is wrong.
  • Workplaces will often taken the word of women over men when considering sexual harassment claims, even if no evidence supports the women's grievance.
  • Rape of men by women is often considered 'desirable' by judges. There is a huge double standard in criminal sentences for rape, incest and other sex crimes that women commit against men versus those that men commit against women.
  • When considering crimes of equal magnitude, men will often be dealt harsher sentences than women.
  • Advertising and other media frequently depict men in painful or humiliating circumstances (e.g., being hit in the testicles, threatened with castration, sexually harassed, deliberately denied sexual interactions for control or amusement, raped, verbally assaulted, etc.) as being acceptable or even humorous.

The controversial French movie Baise Moi (2000) is sometimes cited as an example of a film which has attitudes of blatant misandry; two women go on a sexual and murderous rampage of various men they encounter. A similar film by Russ Meyer entitled Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! was released in 1965. The T-shirt slogan "Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them" has been criticised by some as supporting misandry.

It is also sometimes argued that misandry is present in children's culture, most notably with the saying:

"Snips and snails and puppy dogs' tails - that's what little boys are made of. Sugar and spice and everything nice - that's what little girls are made of."

While modern gender-neutral language has changed gender-positive statements in popular narratives, such as in the case of Star Trek's 'to boldly go where no man has gone before' becoming 'to boldly go where no one has gone before'; expressions which may be interpreted as pejorative, such as The Shadow's "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" remain unchanged: "Anyone who's ever dated one" was then added by Entertainment Weekly (Nathanson & Young, 2001, p. 234) illustrating the allowability of misandry to be expressed in popular humor.

In Are Men Necessary?: When Sexes Collide (Putnam, 2005) Maureen Dowd claims that men are afraid of a strong female identity and rallies against men who are 'becoming extinct' and comparing them to 'ornamentation'. In an interview about the book on The Colbert Report, Dowd denied the book is meant to be misandric, saying the answer to the titular question "is obviously yes", but there are a variety of other examples of similarly abrasive titles, as well as commentators who would claim that Dowd's overall answer to the titular question is not "obviously yes".

In the United States, Federal laws require males to register for a military draft at age 18 but do not make the same national service requirement of females when they reach the age of maturity. Federal, state, and local laws that prevent men of age 18 who have not registered for a military draft from receiving benefits such as educational funding and a driver's license. [3]

State laws that make the felony of statutory rape applicable even to 18 year old males who have consensual sex with a 17 or 16 year old female. [4]

State laws that silently and automatically remove an absent father's legal right to future legal custody of his child. For example, laws that allow a baby to be placed into adoption without the father's notification or consent. [5]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

    References 1 "Men and Depression," National Institute for Mental Health. 2 "Suicide rates in countries throughout the world," Fathers For Life. 3 "Prison Statistics," U.S. Department of Justice, 30 June 2005. 4 "Alcoholism Statistics," Narcanon Southern California, Inc.

    [edit] Bibliography

    • Who Stole Feminism: How Women Have Betrayed Women, Christina Hoff Sommers, 1994
    • Sexual Correctness: The Gender-Feminist Attack on Women, Wendy McElroy,
    • Dead Man Walking: Masculinity’s Troubling Persistence, Brendan O'Sullivan, BITCHfest 2006
    • Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture; Paul Nathanson and Katherine K. Young, McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal, 2001; ISBN 0-7735-2272-7
    • Legalizing Misandry: From Public Shame to Systemic Discrimination against Men; Paul Nathanson and Katherine K. Young, McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal, 2006; ISBN 0-7735-2862-8
    • Professing Feminism: Cautionary Tales from the Strange World of Women's Studies; Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge, 1995, ISBN 0-465-09827-4
    • The Lipstick Proviso: Women, Sex & Power in the Real World; Karen Lehrman, 1997, ISBN 0-385-47481-4
    • My Enemy, my Love: Man-hating and ambivalence in women's lives, Judith Levine, 1992.
    • The Female Thing: Dirt, Sex, Envy, Vulnerability, Laura Kipnis, 2006
    • The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men; Christina Hoff Sommers, Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, 2001; ISBN 0-684-84957-7
    • Domestic Violence: The 12 Things You Aren't Supposed to Know; Thomas P. James, Aventine Press, 2003, ISBN 1-59330-122-7
    • The Decline of Males: The First Look at an Unexpected New World for Men and Women; Lionel Tiger, Golden Guides from St. Martin's Press, 2000, ISBN 0-312-26311-2

    [edit] External links

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