User:SecondSight/Misandry

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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. "Male-bashing" can be considered a form of misandry. Misandry is also conceptualized as a "sexism against men" (analogous to how misogyny is considered to be sexism against women), sometimes called "reverse sexism."

Contents

[edit] The debate over misandry

Numerous writers argue that misandry is a feature of Western culture, and criticize it. Misandry is the subject of the books Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture[1] and Legalizing Misandry: From Public Shame to Systemic Discrimination Again Men[2] by Paul Nathanson and Katherine K. Young. In Why Men Are The Way They Are, Warren Farrell devotes a chapter to what he calls the "new sexism:" sexism against men,[3], which he later calls "misandry."[4] Judith Levine's My Enemy, My Love discusses and criticizes the hatred of men.[5] Many members of the men's rights movement criticize misandry, such as Glenn Sacks.

Some of the various propositions argued for by critics of misandry:

  • Misandry is pervasive in Western culture, embedded in popular culture and academia
  • Misandry is more socially acceptable that misogyny
  • Misandry is largely unrecognized, even by men
  • When made visible, misandry is often excused, trivialized, or even justified
  • Misandry results in a lack of empathy for men, and involves men being seen as disposable
  • Misandry results in unjust discrimination against men in law
  • Misandry teaches males to accept damaging and destructive identities
  • Feminism, or particular forms of feminism, is implicated in spreading misandry and making it acceptable

[edit] Conceptualization of misandry

Nathanson and Young argue that misandry is the hatred of men. They view hatred "as a collectively shared and culturally propagated worldview, not a personal emotion such as dislike or anger."[6] Nathanson and Young also consider misandry to be a form of sexism, analogous to how misogyny is sexism against women.[7] Farrell writes: "sexism is discounting the female experience of powerlessness; the new sexism is discounting the male experience of powerlessness."[8] Farrell also discusses "male-bashing" as a form of misandry.[4][9]

[edit] Polarization

Various authors argue that misandry is part of a human tendency to polarize groups against each other, specifically, women vs. men. In this view, misandry is a product of polarization, and it creates polarization. Farrell writes that "human beings have always had the need to find an enemy. As black pride diluted racism, and as women raised consciousness, men became the new enemy."[10] Nathanson and Young argue that misandry involves dualistic thinking: "Those who hold dualistic worldviews internalize the source of good and identify it with themselves but externalize the source of evil and identify it with some other groups of humans beings. 'We' are good, in short, and 'you' or 'they' are evil."[11] They believe that there is "nothing new" about this mindset, and that "only the names have changed."[12] In their view, men are now seen as "them." Judith Levine argues: "Man-hating is an emotional problem inasmuch as it creates pain and hostility between women and men. But it is not an individual neurosis ala 'Women Who Hate Men and the Men Who...' Man-hating is a collective, cultural problem—or to refrain from diagnosing it at all, a cultural phenomenon—and men, as the object of man-hating, are part of it too."[13]

[edit] Analogies to other forms of bigotry

Numerous authors draw analogies between misandry and other forms of prejudice such as misogyny, racism, anti-semitism, and homophobia. They argue that men are stereotyped in various way that dehumanize them, and that would be considered unacceptable if applied to other groups such as women and minorities. Farrell argues: "In the past quarter century, we exposed biases against other races and called it racism, and we exposed biased against women and called it sexism. Biases against men we call humor."[8] Farrell compares dehumanizing stereotyping of men to dehumanization of the Vietnamese as "gooks."[14] Nathanson and Young write that "misogyny, unlike misandry, has been carefully monitored, declared politically incorrect, and publicly excoriated."[15] They argue that "belief in the the full humanity of men has been dangerously undermined by stereotypes based on ignorance and prejudice, just as that of Jews was.[16] According to an article in the Washington Post, "It's politically incorrect to bash minorities and homosexuals, but 'it's OK to bash regular, straight guys,' says Victor Smith, head of Dads Against Discrimination in Portland, Ore."

[edit] Misandry and Feminism

Some critics of misandry believe that feminism is partially responsible for the phenomenon. Individualist feminist Wendy McElroy argues that "gender feminists" have redefined feminist views of men such that a "hot anger toward men has turned into a cold hatred".[citation needed] Nathanson and Young conclude that "one form of feminism—one that has had a great deal of influence, whether directly or indirectly, on both popular culture and elite culture—is profoundly misandric."[17] They call this branch of feminism "ideological feminism."

[edit] Gynocentrism

Nathanson and Young argue that all schools of feminism are "gynocentric" (i.e. centered on the needs and concerns of women),[18] but that "being woman-centered, by definition, gynocentrism ignores the needs and problems of men."[19] In their view, gynocentrism doesn't necessarily to lead to misandry on its own, but "even though misandry is not an inherent feature of gynocentrism, it is an inherent possibility."[20] Nathanson and Young believe that gynocentrism can easily lead to misandry: "all it takes to produce misandry is the ideological proposition that 'they' are not merely irrelevant but inadequate or evil."[20]

[edit] Ideological feminism

Nathanson and Young say that they use the term "ideological feminism" for two reasons. The first is to distinguish it from what they call "egalitarian feminism." Nathanson and Young argue that while egalitarian feminists "supported the reforms that had improved women's lives over the past century, they recognized that reforms carried too far were creating injusticies for men and boys," and that "two wrongs, they agreed, did not make a right."[21] The second reason was to "link ideological feminism with other political ideologies on both the political left and the political right."[21] Nathanson and Young offer this characterization of what they call ideological feminism:

“ Ideological feminism is the direct heir of both the Enlightenment and Romanticism. From the former it takes the theory of class conflict, merely substituting "gender" for "class" and "patriarchy" for "bourgeoisie." From the latter it takes the notion of nation or even race, focusing ultimately on the innate biological differences between women and men. The worldview of ideological feminism, like that of both Marxism and National Socialism—our analogies are between ways of thinking, not between specific ideas—is profoundly dualistic. In effect, "we" (women) are good, "they" (men) are evil. Or, to use the prevalent lingo, "we" are victims, "they" are oppressors.[21] ”

They describe features of "ideological feminism" in addition to dualism:

  • Essentialism ("calling attention to the unique qualities of women")
  • Hierarchy ("alleging directly or indirectly that women are superior to men")
  • Collectivism ("asserting that the rights of individual men are less important than the communal goals of women")
  • Utopianism ("establishing an ideal social order within history")
  • Selective cynicism ("directing systematic suspicion only toward men")
  • Revolutionism ("adopting a political program that goes beyond reform")
  • Consequentialism ("asserting the beliefs that ends can justify means")
  • Quasi-religiousity ("creating what amounts to a secular religion")

Nathanson and Young argue that ideological feminism has been influential in spreading misandry, or in making it acceptable to exploit misandric ideas that already existed.[17]

[edit] Feminist critics of misandry

Feminist archaeologist Lynn Meskell criticizes what she considers to be dubious usage of archaeology to justify claims about prehistoric Goddess worshiping societies. She argues that "many of these initial gynocentric theories of prehistory share a fundamental commonality to prior androcentric premises since they both employ 'sexist' paradigms in reconstru(ct)ing the past. Thus they do not promote credibility: rather they damage and delimit the positive attributes of gender-based research, due to their poor scholarship, ahistorical interpretations, fictional elements and reverse sexism."[9]

[edit] Popular Culture

"Popular culture reflects feminist assumptions that are pervasive and deeply rooted in our society." [22]

N&Y p. 8 criteria

V Monologues

[edit] Dehumanization

According to various writers, men are often portrayed as animals, including dogs, pigs, wolves, sharks, turkeys, worms, and guppies. Nathanson and Young argue that in popular culture, men are often "turned metaphorically into beasts—that is, into subhuman creatures."[23] Farrell writes that, "in the last two decades, we have stopped merely categorizing men, we now blatantly objectify them into inhuman categories of worms, turkeys, and wolves."[14] Farrell documents various book, cartoons, or greeting cards that depict men as animals, with captions like "Men vs. Dogs: Some Clear-cut Comparisons" and "How to recognize your man's breed." Nathanson and Young argue that in Disney's Beauty and the Beast, while the "horrid Beast finally turns into a sweet prince," that "he is just another patriarchal villain for most the story, a 'grouchy bison' who growls and snarls at everyone who fails to obey him instantly."[24]

[edit] War

[edit] Law

[edit] Controversy

http://www.adonismirror.com/10152006_leader_misandry_and_misanthropy.htm http://www.thismagazine.ca/issues/2004/09/mantrouble.php http://www.glennsacks.com/confronting_women_bashing.htm http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_2_16/ai_58617319

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Nathanson, Paul; Young, Katherine K. (2001). Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture. Montréal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. ISBN 0773522727. 
  2. ^ Nathanson, Paul; Young, Katherine K. (2006). Legalizing Misandry: From Public Shame to Systemic Discrimination against Men. Montréal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. ISBN 0773528628. 
  3. ^ Farrell, Warren (1985). Why men are the way they are. New York: Berkeley Books. ISBN 042511094X. 
  4. ^ a b Farrell, Warren (1999). Women can't hear what men don't say. New York: Tarcher. ISBN 087477988X. 
  5. ^ Levine, Judith (1992). My Enemy, My Love. Doubleday. ISBN 0385410794. 
  6. ^ Spreading Misandry, p. 229.
  7. ^ Spreading Misandry, p. 230.
  8. ^ a b Farrell, p. 194.
  9. ^ a b Meskell, Lynn (1995). "Goddesse, Gimbutas, and 'New Age' archaeology". Antiquity 69: 74-86. 
  10. ^ Farrell, p. 194-5.
  11. ^ Spreading Misandry, p. 201.
  12. ^ Spreading Misandry, p. 7.
  13. ^ Levine, Judith (1992). My Enemy, My Love. Doubleday. ISBN 0385410794. 
  14. ^ a b Farrell, p. 199.
  15. ^ Legalizing Misandry, p. xiii
  16. ^ Spreading Misandry, p. 4.
  17. ^ a b Spreading Misandry, p. xiv
  18. ^ Spreading Misandry, p. xv
  19. ^ Legalizing Misandry, p. ix
  20. ^ a b Legalizing Misandry, p. 310
  21. ^ a b c Legalizing Misandry, p. xii
  22. ^ Spreading Misandry, p. 237.
  23. ^ Spreading Misandry, p. 167.
  24. ^ Spreading Misandry, p. 165.