“I hate men/women/gays/ blacks/Jews etc…” BAD. Divisive. Inflammatory. Gendered.
“I hate people.” GOOD. Inclusive. Gender neutral.
If you say “People are the worst”, nearly everyone will agree.
Say “Cincinnati Redheads are the worst”, some may agree. But most will just kinda nod along.
Weird line.
Oh fuck off. Might as well just go around talking about how you’re afraid of black people but it’s okay because they commit the most crime.
This 👏 shit 👏 is losing 👏 elections and pushing 👏 men right.
If we’re not simultaneously acknowledging how the system also makes men feel worthless without sexual/romantic success, then yeah it comes off pretty misandrist.
Are we also forgiving men for saying they hate women because women’s lib stripped them of the dignity of being a “provider” while women largely still expect them to provide? Not that I’m saying women’s lib is wrong, it’s certainly for the best in the long term, but upsetting the system affects all parties. Excusing resulting sexism on one side, but not the other, is itself sexist.
Why do we expect men to accept being hated for things beyond their control, instead of being treated as fellow victims of a broken system?
As a man myself, I get it. We’ve been living with privilege for millennia, and the system is almost entirely the product of that privilege. The shift to women holding power, or even self-autonomy, is very recent, and they still have an uphill battle. And at every turn, men continue to fight them for it.
And every single post on this community that points out how unfair life is towards women has at least one person going “but what about men? You say the system is bad for women, but it’s bad for men too!” Which is a whole other conversation you’re trying to force on this one. And the system is built by men, so it’s still men who caused the problem!
Side-note, the system of capitalism has made it near impossible to support a family on a single income, so both man and woman (in a straight relationship) have to provide. Don’t blame this on women.
I didn’t say anything about privilege, I’m talking about hatred. Why are men supposed to accept being hated for a system they had no hand in creating?
…Privilege. The answer to your question is privilege. You have been benefitting for your entire life from a system designed and supported across the centuries by men, for men. You don’t even realise how much you’ve been benefitting. Based on your first comment, you think a woman being able, or forced, to provide for herself is stripping you of dignity.
A rich man sees a poor man get robbed, and simply walks away. The poor man condemns the rich man for his apathy. The rich man argues “it’s not like I’m the one who robbed you.” But the rich man still isn’t helping.
Based on your first comment, you think a woman being able, or forced, to provide for herself is stripping you of dignity.
That’s not what I think, and it isn’t what I said. The “system” assigned gender roles: women raise children and keep house, men sell their labor to provide for the family. Women’s lib has changed the parts of that system that degraded women, while quietly ignoring the privileges women had, like not being forced to die in the wars that were much more commonplace through those centuries, for example.
I have no problems with women having the opportunity to provide for themselves, in fact I was very explicit that I think it’s good long term. The issue I raised wasn’t the abandonment of gender roles, it’s the selective abandonment of gender roles. Specifically, women who want men to fulfill the provider role while refusing to fulfill their complementary role.
Being treated as an unlimited ATM, with zero commitment or reciprocity, is degrading. I cannot count the number of women I’ve known who want to work and keep their money, but still expect men to pay for everything, while also being free to move on to a more exciting man the second the whim strikes them. That’s a new privilege.
If we’re going to hold all men emotionally responsible for the hate women feel because of the way some men treat women, it’s misandrist to not hold all women emotionally responsible for the way some women treat men.
Slap Now, instead of defending yourself, I want you to sit back and listen to why the mistreatment I’ve received from others made me do that.
This shit is ridiculous 🙄 Well said on the “victims of a broken system” thing.
If women are allowed to say “I hate men” and we pretend it means “I hate the way men treat me” do you advocate for the same treatment of men who say they hate women?
I think you misunderstood the meme, it’s not a moral license to allow women to make problematic generalizations like “I hate men” - it’s clearly still problematic.
Instead it’s attempting to explain where women are coming from, to provide context that women are reacting to a situation … and yes, that situation is different for men, that’s the whole point.
So no, when men say they hate women it’s not coming from the same place as women, the situation is not equivalent.
I think if a man was, for example, physically or emotionally abused by a woman, got PTSD as a result, and he got out of that relationship, and later said “I hate women” in private to other men and/or trusted women, I wouldn’t feel great about that, but I would understand in that context why he would say it.
I think the rules change when you take the same language to the public sphere, including social media, especially when factoring in that women are in a more marginalized group.
But I don’t want to get into that, out of concern for justifying society’s irresponsible use of social media across the board. The thing I think matters more is that sometimes hurt people don’t use perfect language, and in private conversations, you can better contain the fallout that can come from that.
Adult women rarely kill adult men but murders of women by men aren’t infrequent. The hatred is very different.
I don’t personally approve of the whataboutism of the top-level comment, but I do disagree that death statistics are a reason to point and say “that hatred is okay”.
If someone wants to say “I hate the fucked up system and all the people who support it”, then I am right there with them as a straight white man. Shit’s fucked, and is rapidly being further fucked, with malice aforethought, by most governments on the planet, and such policies are being met with thunderous applause. There are many people worthy of hatred. To make a blanket statement like “I hate men” when you mean something else is just a sign that you aren’t being considerate of the actual words you say, and is totally unproductive as a starting point, serving only to alienate. Even as a staunch ally of any effort to eradicate patriarchal systems, I will not show up to support a cause that starts with “fuck you in particular, (by the way, not you, you’re one of the good ones)”. That othering inherent in the choice of phrase is chosen. Maybe it does just come from a place of trauma, but it is an inherently alienating statement to make, and expecting tolerance from the people you alienate with it, so that you can qualify your lack of consideration with nuance, and then complaining when people refuse to engage with what appears, on its face, to be a blanket statement of hatred, is wholly counterproductive to any attempt to communicate with allies.
This is the best take. Imo it’s weird to expect random strangers to empathize on a personal level when the conversation starter is essentially “fuck your kind”. Then if you call them on it, you are accused of being defensive. Some people act like you cannot object to something on objective grounds if the playing field isn’t already level, so the victim should always get a pass. Yeah, if I know you personally that makes sense. But if I don’t and you’re just going to make blanket statements like that, I don’t necessarily understand where you’re coming from and I’m not as prone to empathize. And I generally am empathetic. Imagine how this comes across to people who aren’t. Or actual misogynists. They’re just going to hate women even more. No chance they’re going to see how shitty they’ve been to women when all they read is how their entire gender is trash. You can ask me to see past the phrasing and I might, but you cannot demand it and then expect everyone you encounter to abide, unless you’re okay with a lot of pushback. Probably a lot easier to rethink your word choice.
Imo it’s weird to expect random strangers to empathize on a personal level when the conversation starter is essentially “fuck your kind”.
Who do you think the message is directed at, other women or you?
If they posted it publicly without specifying, is it on me to automatically assume it’s only directed at a particular group?
Sure, I don’t disagree that a public post inevitably elicits responses from all sorts of potential audiences, but I think your choice to center yourself in the comment was kind of revealing.
You didn’t read my comment so kindly go away.
Thank you for your comment, but I see it differently. All the best 👍
So, no.
This is one of those areas that make me think social media was a mistake.
Humans exaggerate. Humans are sometimes imprecise with language, especially when they’ve been hurt. Humans aren’t poised and composed 100% of the time. This applies to both women who have been hurt by men and say they “hate them,” and the men who take the words literally. But social media kind of moved conversations that were once in private or semi-private in-person spaces out in the open. It relies on these misunderstandings to fuel retention time and boost ad exposure.
In those in-person spaces, you could feel really depressed and tell other women “I hate men” to mean “I hate how men treat me,” and you’d have a really understanding environment and feel supported without bringing in waves of hurt, defensive men.
This post is nice, and it is wonderful when male allies read the message and not the words themselves. I hope more choose that approach in the future. But I don’t think this problem will ever go away, not as long as we choose social media as the place where the message is sent. I will say I am more sympathetic about women here, since the “I hate men” declaration nearly always comes from a man doing something genuinely hurtful, whereas defensiveness over “I hate men” comes from taking the words too literally.
taking the words too literally
That’s how words work.
Words in a dictionary out of context, sure, but in a conversation we are using words to express ourselves and additional input such as body language is used to develop interpretation. The meaning changes in context and delivery. Common examples include sarcasm, hyperbole/exaggeration, double entendre, and so on.
A more developed example would be: When someone days “you ALWAYS do X”, the truth that you don’t is immediately obvious. That suggests they’re speaking from a place of emotion and that “ALWAYS” can therefore be interpreted as “too often for my liking”.
I agree, but only insofar as statements like that. I remember in 2016/2017 when I still identified as a man one of my friends would constantly say “kill all men” around me and to my face. It was really upsetting. Also listening and getting clarification is important because I do know people today that say they “hate men” and when they talk about it they openly say they’re misandrist. I don’t believe everyone saying they hate men are misandrist though. Language is messy. People use hyperbole. People shouldn’t be beholden to the literal definition of everything they say, especially in the heat of passion. But it’s also important to remember that not everyone saying that hate men isn’t misandrist, even if most of them aren’t.
Just pointing out that if someone said “I hate black people” or “I hate Jews”, you typically don’t go digging for nuance in the hopes that they’re not being literal, because even if they aren’t, it’s an incredibly fucked up thing to say and shows what kind of character the person saying it has.
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I get what you mean here. I had friends who would say similar things around me before I came out, and I would also have conflicting feelings about it. Like, if you say that about men, and you think I’m a man, is that what you think about me?
But no, not really. I’d also remember that I was trusted enough to be there for those conversations, so it wasn’t about me, even before they knew I was a woman too.
And yes, there are women who do have openly misandrist views. I’m thinking about the “political lesbians,” figures like Andrea Dworkin who believe all heterosexual relationships (and therefore reproduction) are inherently anti-woman, or those who see female separatist colonies as the answer to all our societal problems. But these people are in the minority. Most women, most feminists, have reasonable views about men. So whenever another one of those “dear men” posts come out, I do have to stop and wonder why people give them the least charitable interpretation on the internet.
lol, I said stuff like “kill all men” as a man before I transitioned. I fully endorsed misandry back then, it paired with gender dysphoria nicely.
She’s out of line, but she’s right
😄 I definitely have worked on my view of men, transitioning has given me a chance to untangle my hatred of men from my hatred & shame from having lived as a man.
But yeah, one person in my life said that the only “sign” she noticed before I transitioned was that my feminism and anger against men felt unusually personal (as if I had been personally victimized by men), which was confusing to her because she thought I was a man.
Nowadays I guess you could say I’m in rehabilitation from my misandry. It’s hard when men continue to victimize so many, but I try to remember it’s a minority of men and that patriarchy is about a whole system of power that includes class, race, etc. and isn’t just about gender. It also helps to recognize the ways patriarchy victimizes men, as well.
My education on feminism has grown significantly as a result of my transition, but I feel like I’m still in the baby steps in a way. Lots of work to do.
Thank you for sharing your experience. I think it’s hard not to get at least a little misandrist when we’re forced to live inauthentically, while being constantly associated with the patriarchy like we’re one of them. You’ve clearly acquired a lot of wisdom over your journey, and it’s nice to hear that your transition brought you peace and clarity.
I spent my entire life afraid of men, for a number of reasons, and worried about cis women being afraid of me for the exact same reasons I was afraid. While in the closet, I would obsess over looking as non-intimidating as possible and never felt like I could achieve it. At the same time, some of my best friends are men, and they’re genuinely wonderful people. I’m not sure they would have become my best friends if I’d been born a cis girl.
If there’s anything “good” that came out of my upbringing, it’s that I got to see and better understand the best versions of masculinity too.
This just seems kinda sad and self-deprecating
Without trying to diminish the importance of this specific point about misogyny I would extend that this is true of a lot of statements that people reject or see as wild and out-of-pocket when they hear them.
Most of the time, people are talking sense according to what they’ve lived, and if it sounds crazy to you then you need to get more of the full story and learn about the context from them and why they think that. It’s not always. Sometimes people are just nuts or hateful or w/e. But most of the time, if you dig into that “she’s talking nonsense that doesn’t make any sense” statement you will find some good sense in it. It might not be the end of the story but it’s usually an important part of it. Most of the time.
Are there actually any women in this subreddit? Or mods?
Yep. The manosphere like to pile on this community to tell women they’re wrong. The mod must be drowned in work I really feel for her
I hope that one day you’ll open your mind a little.
Men think its misandry because they’ve never been a woman. They dont experience the harassment or violence; and shockingly none of them will admit to perpetrating it…
Ive been practicing bitchcraft for years 🧙🏻♀️
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