Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Responding to Questions about Misandry: a "How To" Tutorial, from Yahoo Answers

image is from here
I'm not sure I'm up for doing it, but someone named Toto Gotawa is. Below are three examples of how to honestly and effectively answer questions about the non-problem of women disrespecting or "hating" men, which is what some men want the rest of us to believe is a significant and serious human rights issue.

You have to be pretty damned ignorant about the systematic human rights abuses and atrocities occurring across the world to believe feminists are an enemy of anyone at all! And that level of ignorance usually comes from living in a structural political location high above everyone else--a position of privilege and entitlement to make anything you endure that's painful seem, using smoke and mirrors, "far worse" that what white het men do to everyone else every day. People being raped, terrorised, and mass murdered--usually and commonly by men, are serious human rights issues. Custody of children being given to battering and incest-perpetrating men and not to the abused women is a serious human rights issue, as is courts not offering appropriate levels of protection to women terrorised by men. Man-hating ("misandry") is not. And a few quotes from a few feminists taken out of context doesn't make it a serious human rights problem, in case you weren't sure about that.

Resolved Question

What do you guys think of misandry?

Misandry is a term used to explain a hatred or prejudice of men or boys.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misandry

Its a pretty rare term to use, considering the society we live in nowadays. Let me ask you this, when was the last time you heard something positive on the news about a man? Or better yet, when have you ever heard that a man hasn't committed a crime or done something he shouldn't of?
"A man has raped...." "A man has killed...." "A man has stolen..." Is all you will here. Mostly because there's a constant media barrage saying that men are evil or chauvinistic.

http://www.youtube.com/user/manwomanmyth…

The above link shows a video that focuses on daily society and the elements of misandry. Watch it, I think you'll be surprised.
  • 1 week ago

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

Media doesn't have a term for the crimes men commit against each other. I think "misandry" should refer to the social problem of men degrading, beating up, raping, and murdering other men. There's not enough media attention on prison rape, for example.

Wouldn't it be appropriate for the media to report honestly on who commits the violence most often? Men are also far more likely than women to be the victims of violent crime, with the exception of rape. Black men and other men of color are portrayed by the media as *the* perpetrators, not white men. See fair.org, linked to below, about racism and the mass media.

In the West, you'll find that two problems with the media is racism and anti-gay bigotry. There is no significant bigotry against straight white men in those countries, or anywhere else, really. In the media, straight white men are usually portrayed as the *victims* of other groups of people:

--of men of color, who are stereotyped as thieves and gangsters, even while we watch Tony Hayward and the rich white men of the U.S. Financial and Banking industries cause their companies to need bail-outs--but they still get their million dollar bonuses and get re-employed. In the U.K. the targeted group is Middle Eastern and Muslim men, not white or Christian men. In Australia, the bigotry is aimed at Black and Indigenous people. In the U.S. it is usually Black and Latino men who are scapegoated, with Mexican men being reported to be "stealing" jobs from white men (media's focus on white men as victims).

--of gay men trying to "destroy marriage" for example, by wanting equal rights. When white straight men in North America got a disease, called Legionnaires, it got all kinds of media attention--it was seen as a serious problem. When white gay men got AIDS in the 1980s, Ronald Reagan and major news media, wouldn't even talk about it--for years. It spread and has killed 300,000 gay men in the U.S. Reagan and the media would have spoken out right away if that population impacted was straight white men, just like they did with Legionnaires. Outbreaks of Legionnaires' disease receive significant media attention. However, this disease usually occurs as single, isolated cases not associated with any recognized outbreak. (Linked to below.)

The discovery and spread of HIV and AIDS was met with governmental indifference—specifically in the United States—to what was initially perceived as a gay disease. I also link below to a website that shows exactly which populations are most impacted by HIV/AIDS: there's very little media coverage about it now, because it mostly impacts poor people of color--disproportionately women and children.

--of women, with feminism being blamed as victimizing men. It is doing things like addressing the problem of women not being paid as much as men. Women earned 59% of the wages men earned in 1963; in 2008 they earned 77% of men's wages—an improvement of about half a penny per dollar earned every year. Feminists fighting for basic human rights that white men complain about as "man-hating" is a product of media distortion--it's always been feminists who want violence against boys to end, not men. Catholic priests are all men because they don't allow women to be priests. It would be a whole lot better for boys if the Catholic Church did.

Did the media tell you that 3000 women are killed each year in the U.S. by the men they live with or leave? And that's the same number of people killed by the Taliban on September 11, 2001. The media will tell us how many U.S. soldiers die each week in Afghanistan, because those men are seen as usually white and straight, or "boy-next-door Americans." Their deaths matter to the media.

When is the last time you saw anything in the major media about what's happening to Native American men--and women? Did you know that one in three Native American women are rape survivors--with 80% of the rapists being white men? (Link provided below.)

When white men do commit crimes the crimes against women are usually not reported. Usually such crime is blamed on the man being drunk or on the woman being "a gold digger," who was "out to get him" like with the recent Mel Gibson case. Media loves to blame women for men's violent behavior. I hope you can see now that straight white men are a very privileged and protected group in the world, and are in charge of every major social, religious, medical, media, and political institution in any country where they are a majority.

When men of color commit crimes the crimes are seen as "typical" of that group. Only white men can run a business into the ground and get paid well (and rehired) if and when they get fired from their job. What Black men does that happen to? Ask any Black man if he'd be getting a million dollars at the end of a year in which he did his job poorly, and see how much he laughs, or cries.

Source(s):

  • 1 week ago

These two questions can be combined:

J D J D
A Top 
Contributor is someone who is knowledgeable in a particular category.
Contributing In:
Gender Studies

Should "misogyny" and "misandry" have parallel definitions? Why or why not?

According to http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/m… misogyny is "hatred, dislike, or mistrust of women."

That made me think. For a long time, I think I was unduly trustung of women, excessively charitable in my interpretations of female motives and intentions. Now, even in my calmer, more even-tempered moods, I certainly do not trust them. At all. "Hatred" would be too strong a word, but "mistrust"? "Dislike"? Perhaps I am a misogynist.

But then, I thought, many feminists must be misandrists even when they don't say things like Dworkin, Daly, Solanas, and such. After all, a lot of "moderate" feminists express a good deal of mistrust of men!

However, look at this http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/m…
Unlike some dictionaries, they actually do include "misandry". But misandry requires actual "hatred" of men, not mere "dislike" or "mistrust"?

Why the difference? Is it justified?
  • 2 weeks ago

and:

Is misandry even a word?

its not in my YA dictionary I think men just made it up
  • 1 week ago
Toto Gotawa by Toto Gotawa
Member since:
April 14, 2010
Total points:
150 (Level 1)

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

The question isn't only "is misandry even a word", it is also: when it is used as a term, what is it referring to by the users? Is it being used to mean something socially real, or socially imagined?

"Misandry" is a relatively new term actively promoted by predominantly racist and homophobic white men (this may be verified at the "antimisandry.com" website, which routinely uses terms like f-gg-t and b-tch and ignores the reality of white men's hatred of Black men and other men of color). The people who currently promote the word "misandry" want you to believe that straight white men are as oppressed as straight Black men, gay men of any color, and women of any color, and that's not true.

Woman-hating shows up in "men's magazines" and in "women's magazines." It is not only "a feeling" some people have and exhibit. It is much more than that. Don't confuse "a feeling" (such as "misandry") with systems of harm and oppression combined with very brutal and lethal hatred of women. (Link below detailing these abuses by men against women globally.)

Misogyny, unlike "misandry," is a term used to describe patriarchal societies where men's violence, degradation, discrimination against women is thousands of years old and crosses cultures and ethnic groups.

"Misandry", therefore, is not a parallel term for "misogyny", which is what many advocates for its use would support us believing. Misogyny is not just a feeling some men have. It is, more accurately, the interpersonal and institutionalized patriarchal hatred of women worked into every aspect of society: male dominated and controlled customs, media, religions, and laws.

There are no "parallel" societies in which women's violence against men is endemic, supported, protected, encouraged and made into "sexy" entertainment, produced for women, giving women billions of dollars annually in profits. The pornography business does make billions of dollars annually for straight white men. There are almost no societies left on Earth that are not patriarchal and male supremacist. And the more matriarchal societies that do still exist do not practice anything that can or ought to be called "misandry".

There are patriarchal/male supremacist societies that make men's hostile rape of women seem "evolutionarily necessary," or naturally inevitable. Some misogynist AND man-hating apologists for rape actually argue that "men, naturally, are rapists" as in the published book "A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion", by two Australian white men, Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer. (Link below.)

There are no feminist books that argues men's rape of women is "natural" or "inevitable". Or that males are born to rape. Not one. Feminists believe men can stop raping women and must stop it. That's a very pro-humane view of men. There are far too many men who argue they "couldn't stop themselves" from committing rape against women. And often rapist men blame women for the rape, which is pure misogyny. That is misogyny in action, socially and legally. Even when men rape men, men do it to make men feel like they want women to feel when they rape women: degraded and terrorized, violated and made to submit to a rapist's hateful will. In prison, the raped man is called the b-tch, for a reason, and that reason isn't an example of "misandry." Once again, it is an example of misogyny, and man-hating among men.

Women who critique men's violence against women aren't man-haters. They are justice-seekers and human rights activists. Don't be fooled into believing "feminists hate men." They don't. Men hate feminists, and men hate men. Men exhibit and practice "misandry", not women. Feminists are humanity-loving people.

See, for example all of the twenty-plus books by radical feminist bell hooks, especially "All About Love" and "Salvation: Black People and Love." (Links below.) See also radical feminist Alice Walker's beautiful, loving letter to Tiger Woods when white men were condemning him. (Link below.) And please understand she was called a "man-hater" for writing The Color Purple, which is anything but that. She endured very hateful criticism from men for writing a book that was honest about relationships between men and women, and among women. Read any of her many books to see how loving of humanity she is. (Link below.)

"Misandry", meaning "man-hating, if it to be used as a term with legitimate social meaning, ought to refer to men's hatred of each other. There is currently no term for this. "Misandry" could be and should be that term.

Source(s):

  • 6 days ago
Another answer:
I think to answer your question we have to look at history, what's going on in the world, and reality. Because the word misogyny isn't just a word: it's a sentiment, a feeling, and an attitude that has an institutionalized ideology behind it called "male supremacy" or "patriarchy".

Forms of hatred, disdain, distrust, dislike, and disrespect are social problems when they dovetail with forms of institutional domination and social control. These dovetailed realities are acted out in the world in really horrible ways.

As a parallel, "homophobia" and "heterophobia" are not comparable terms, if we take them to be reflective of what's actually going on in society. The same with this idea of "reverse racism." This is still a very patriarchal (and white-ruled) society. Misogyny is fused into society, commonly and violently, in a way that "misandry" simply isn't. Nor is "heterophobia." Nor is "Blacks, Native Americans, Latinos, or Asian Americans discriminating (or distrusting or hating) against whites."

Similarly, contempt for the poor is real and is reflected in social policy and prejudice. We see every election that the only economic groups that are ever even mentioned in campaign ads are "the struggling middle class" and "the rich." What is important to challenge is how rich people use their disdain, disrespect, and disregard for poor people to keep them invisible (and abused and neglected) in society and in the media--which is owned by rich people, not poor people, and by mostly straight people, not lesbians and gay men, and by whites, not people of color, and overwhelmingly by men, not women.

Here's the simplest way to determine what is and is not a social problem:
Who owns media?
Who is in dominant places in religious institutions?
Who enforces laws in your community?

Historically and currently in the U.S. the answer was and remains: not women, not the poor, not people of color, and not gay men and lesbians. To pretend terms like "misogyny" and "misandry" are in any way equal, in terms of the harm they do to human beings, is to be SERIOUSLY out of touch with what's going on. Women aren't taking over any time soon, nor are the other oppressed groups I mentioned.

Do some women hate men? Maybe. (I don't know any, but that's just me.) And, so what? So what if some poor people hate the rich?

The problem, regarding gender, is misogyny and male supremacy, acted out against women by men. The overwhelming problem isn't misandry and female supremacy, by any stretch of the imagination.

So I'd argue what when we talk about "misandry" we need to move beyond any one person's feelings, or the feelings of a very small group of writers, most of whom aren't even alive and who didn't even hate men, except for Solanas who is a tiny footnote and not even part of the feminist movement. Dworkin loved women and didn't hate men. Criticizing patriarchal abuses of women isn't "misandry." It's what anyone should do if they have a heart. Why would anyone want to defend rape and battery and sexual slavery? And when those social problems are acted out against males, it's usually by other males.

I do know lots of men who feels as you, and by the way, I sincerely want to thank you for your honesty in telling people what and how you feel. I wish more men did what you do here. My experience is this: men who hold onto a lot of anger at women express it against women, often in things like battery and rape. And even anger at men is acted out against the wife for example. Teen males physically abusing and controlling and dominating teen females is epidemic right now, not the reverse. I only hope you deal with your feelings in constructive, healthy ways, and don't express it at or to women. Thanks for asking this important question.

Here's a related question: what do we call the extreme distrust and hatred AMONG men, for and towards each other? It's men killing men in wars, for example. And men shooting and stabbing each other. What's the term for that? There needs to be that term before we start talking about a social problem that really is just a word more than it is a reality. The fact that we have no term for men who distrust and hate on men says something, doesn't it? If "misandry" referred to that, that'd make sense.

(Yahoo's spell-checker doesn't even recognize "misandry" or "misandrist" as words. There's a good reason for that.)

Source(s):

  • 1 week ago

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