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Dear ‘Crocodile-Tears-MRAs’, Stop Blaming Women For Misandry
More from Shambhavi Saxena
By Shambhavi Saxena:
Dear crocodile-tears-MRAs (men’s rights activists), you, who have never checked your privilege, got yourself cornered by simple logic and your own outrage about these ‘non-doormatty‘ women, are very talented at crafting myths – like the one where you blame women for the army’s perceived conscription policies, even though very few countries still have conscripted armies. But blaming women for the creation of “misandry” is by far your best and most sinister one. Just think of it! A real live myth, spun and hung daily, with the sole purpose of derailing the discussion and returning attention to a male-centric world view.
The thing about words is, they don’t fall from the sky with no attached history and intent. Sure, in the end, language is an arbitrary system of sounds and symbols, but the meanings we attach to words should not be taken lightly. The same goes for a word like “misandry“.
Misandry (Greek: Misos + anēr/Andros) in very simple terms, means the dislike, mistrust or hatred of men and the masculine. It seems to suggest the existence of a system in which the social, political and economic dignity and integrity of men is constantly undermined by women, who have dominated positions of power across space and time.
The earliest use of the word “misandry” was recorded in 1803, which comes centuries after the concept of “misogyny” was introduced in ancient Greece. The term seeks to de-recognize the structures of misogyny that operate in detriment to the sexes, and particularly to females. Some people will use it to cry wolf, when women ask for the rights men already enjoy. Some think feminism is synonymous with misandry, like Shailene Woodley, whom a generation of girls looks up to, when she denies being a feminist “because I love men, and I think the idea of ‘raise women to power, take the men away from the power’ is never going to work out because you need balance.”
Let’s contrast this with misogyny – which, as Julia Serano puts it, is a “tendency to dismiss and deride femaleness and femininity.” Allan G. Johnson identifies it as the reigning ideology manifest in anything from “[certain] jokes to pornography to violence to the self-contempt women may be taught to feel toward their own bodies.” Now, I’m not here to argue that women can’t be abusive, or harassers or rapists. What I’m saying is that a system which permits, tolerates, condones, congratulates and normalizes aggression and bigotry, exists in favour of men. The same cannot be said of women.
If misogyny was not the foundation of oppressive structures, then why did Marissa Alexander face imprisonment for firing warning shots to ward off an abusive spouse, when Elliot Rodger’s killing spree was justified with mental health arguments? The race angle to this was highlighted by both Ferguson and Baltimore protestors, but that’s another discussion. If misogyny was not the foundation of oppressive structures, then why does our legal system still believe marital rape is simply part of the arrangement?
Misogyny ensures there is no infrastructure ready to give women engaged in unpaid domestic labour the opportunity to choose their profession. Misogyny establishes control over women’s bodies by dictating the terms on which sexual relations and abortion are allowed as well as what spaces women can or cannot occupy. Misogyny teaches our daughters not to get raped, but doesn’t teach our sons not to rape. Try gender-swapping the last three sentences and see if it still holds true for the world we live in, go on, try it. Recently, Micah J. Murray wrote an effective, satirical piece on exactly how “misandrist” feminism really doesn’t have the centuries of ideology and customs and politics to back it up, not the way misogyny has it all down.
The emergence of the word “misandry” that happened when it did, was no coincidence. Women’s suffragette movements were flowering all over the Western world, and something as simple as the vote was ruffling the feathers of the patriarchy. The need to establish the concept of “misandry” as a threat to men is, at best, a juvenile response, an attempt to derail the argument, and indicative of the inability to recognize how misogyny harms men. Yes, you read correctly, the hatred and systemic oppression of women harms men as well. It does so by casting them as savage monsters incapable of being rational or exercising control over their physical urges, by treating them as expendable labour in hazardous workplaces, by burdening them with joint-family-sized economic responsibilities, by pigeonholing them in damaging roles of hyper-masculine aggression which stunt their personal growth, by ridiculing and punishing men for displaying lowly ‘feminine‘ traits, and more!
I think it’s time to discard this barely two centuries old word, nothing more than an illusion. It’s time you MRAs stopped screaming yourself hoarse about “misandry“. Wouldn’t it be far more productive to tackle actual men’s issues than making up words to vilify the entire female gender?
Misandry, much like reverse-racism, does not actually exist. Women being prejudiced against and verbally or physically hurtful to men does happen, yes, but is not an instance of misandry, because said abusive behaviour is not institutionalized, normalized and romanticized by our power structures and cultures. And you need to recognize that.
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B
MISANDRY IN THE MEDIA- Only women are human beings.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=misandry+in+the+media
Pvblivs
Feminism is working very hard to suppress and oppress men to the point of dehumanizing them.
The way I see it, there IS institutional misandry. We’ve just been trained not to see it. As a society, we see misogyny whenever it appears. But misandry is invisible to us. It’s like the air that we breathe. And, yes, I think feminism is a great cause of this. Feminism is not what it pretends to be. It is instead a female supremacist movement.
When a victim of domestic violence is male, he is not given shelter. Instead he is accused of being the batterer. Feminism has fought hard to make that so.
In a (no fault) divorce, the wife automatically gets everything — including the lion’s share of the husband’s future earnings. Feminism has fought hard to make it so.
Female-only spaces are encouraged. Equivalent male-only spaces are often banned. Again, a successful objective of feminism.
Men’s activists lay men’s problems at the door of feminism because that is where they belong. Feminism has had such good PR that people don’t want to see it. They want to see feminism as liberating women from oppression. But that oppression is make-believe. It gets a lot of political traction. But it’s a lie.
Aditya
So according to you Misandry is myth eh? watch this and you’ll know the plight of men in our country:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_2gl7lz25E
Anonymous
Feminists don’t get policies passed by stating men and women both face similar problems. They get support for their cause by projecting the image that women are oppressed victims of an misogynistic patriarchy and that males of course face no such issues.
Admitting the many policies that discriminate against men, admitting that misandry exists, etc. would work against their agenda.
Once one realizes feminism is a special interest,that has an agenda and spreads propaganda to promote their agenda, it’s easy to see why they push what they push and say what they do, including denying misandry.
Anonymous
You will be surprised how many men tell me that a woman who is a total stranger simply glared at them rudely for no particular reason. They theorised that these women could be totally misandric, as a result of the dominant matriarchal system (patriarchy is a feminist myth) which moulds their mentalities, or simply, racist.
I remember sitting in a restaurant and watching two women look at a noisy group of young Indian men celebrating the promotion of one of their compatriots. Yes, they were noisy, but well behaved, though the women were prudish enough to convince themselves that these were uncivilised men who deserved total contempt.
The men soon disappeared and a group of well built Iranian youth took their table and proceeded to drink and be merry with even more gusto. The women now dispensed with their previous distaste and actually eyed the youth with admiration, and often smiled to themselves while continuing their own conversation.
Yes, misandry and racism while viewing lesser privileged (or what they believe is lesser privileged) Indian men is a fact of life and Indian women are almost 100% guilty in this regard. They should take a long, hard look at themselves and where they are going wrong.
Monistaf
Ms Saxena, by title of the article, you imply that Misandry exists. The only question is who is to blame. If it is not the feminists, please enlighten the rest of us as to who is spewing so much of hatred towards men and the masculine gender? Your definition is “the dislike, mistrust or hatred of men and the masculine”.
Does #killallmen ring a bell?
How about #banfathersday?
How about Elizabeth Sheehy, a feminist author and law professor in Ontario trying to legalize murder of abusive husbands in Canada?
In our own country, the feminists are against gender neutral legislation for rape, domestic violence and the very popular IPC section 498 that strips men of their basic human rights of due process. They do not seem to have any empathy for the untold numbers of men and boys who are raped (Only a woman can be a victim according to IPC section 375) and a woman can never be prosecuted under that same law because, you see, they are so pure that they cannot be perpetrators of any form of sexual assault against anyone else, regardless of gender. So, thanks to the feminists..
Boys and men can be legally victimized and traumatized by rape in India
Boys and men can be victims of domestic abuse in India and have to suffer in silence (Domestic Violence act of 2005 only protects women)
Anyone can be arrested and jailed with no evidence or probable cause based on a simple statement of harassment by a wife (Section 498)
The vast majority of victims of violent crime in India and the rest of the world are men
The vast majority of victims injured and killed in conflict are men
But we still have to expend all available resources to safeguard and protect the demographic that is least effected by crime and conflict.
The proof for misandry is endless and a “True feminist” (I know it is an oxymoron), fighting for “equality” or claiming to do so, will at least be able to acknowledge the imbalances on the other side of the gender divide, if not fight to correct it.
Brenda
You gotta be kidding me. If misandry isn’t real I don’t know what is. I’m a girl, and I need men’s rights. Not “feminism.” Men’s rights. Here is why. Everything that feminists talk about that women can’t do or are socially punished for arise directly and immediately from misandry. Not “misogyny.” Misandry. Whether I am playing sports, working in sciences, driving, having sex wherein I am dominant in any way, wearing the wrong color, talking the wrong way, moving the wrong way, flirting/making the first move, or not paying attention to how I look, when society punishes me or derides me or marginalizes me for these things, it is happening because they are things men, not women, are expected to do, and our society at large fucking hates men.
Has that sunk in yet?
Women, can you even think of a single goddamn way you have ever been mocked that wasn’t related to something that a misandrist society sees as masculizing? Even when tall women are mocked for their bodies, they are referred to as having “man-hands”, for fucks sake. How do you expect to improve those things with “feminism?” What are you fighting for? I can tell you what I think you’re fighting for. I think you’re fighting for the right to contain and control misandry, and direct it back at men, where you think it belongs. You want to maintain your privilege but erase its consequences, and that’s why your movement is farcical; it’s a big fucking feedback loop. How do you expect women to be free from the peripheral effects of misandry when you refuse to even fucking believe it’s real?
The Joker
Shambhavi, why so serious? Lets put a smile on that face!
Truth
Our male ancestors created civilization. They gave up their lives to protect women and children. They gave up their lives to provide for women and children. They built, designed, invented, discovered, explored, and created basically everything that we take for granted today, and that feminists use to demonise men: offices, printing presses, electricity, computers, word processing software, the Internet.
Do men collectively get any thanks or appreciation for all that we have done throughout history to make life easier and more pleasant for women? No: Men are oppressors. Men are privileged. Men are abusive.
James
You are fucking stupid. And I’m a man telling you this. Go ahead and aide with misogyny but it won’t save you from it. Misandry doesn’t exist stop sucking male tears for male approval
ItsJustMe
Everything Truth said is 100% correct. There is no fabrocation so unless you can come up with some genuine argument, stop messing around.
irate_pirate
Misandry exists. Why are men expected to earn and support the family? Why are men expected to provide for children’s education/ ? And here is the big one- Why are men expected to look after their parents? Men make huge sacrifices to look after their parents , their sisters, and their children. In many indian subcultures , the “mama” i.e., the mothers BROTHER, a man, even has to take social responsibility of his sisters children. Life for an average Indian man is full of responsibility. Is the Indian woman willing to take these up? If she isn’t , she shouldn’t complain about domestic work and child rearing. Its called division of labour, without which society would cease to exist.
fed up
The author of this article or rather this juvenile rant, has in one broad brush generalized all mens rights activists as privileged people whose suffering ought to be dismissed off hand simply because it does not fit into her feminist narrative. In the process she has exposed her ignorance and also her lack of empathy as a person. Many MRAs have suffered deeply and unfairly. Many men and women have suffered mental torture because of draconian laws like 498 a. But she doesn’t want to even hear them out. Misogyny and misandry that we see in this article are really two sides of the same coin. Articles like these do feminism no favors. They preach to the choir and do a great job alienating potential male allies as the double standards and selective empathy comes across so emphatically
a_common_man
I completely agree with the second last line, ” Women being prejudiced against and verbally or physically hurtful to men does happen, yes, but is not an instance of misandry, because said abusive behaviour is not institutionalized, normalized and romanticized by our power structures and cultures.” But, the problem is, very recently, there are some budding ‘power structures and cultures’, who have been trying to ‘institutionalize, normalize and romanticize’ ill-treatment of men.
It is also completely true that this is an extremely recent problem, and also, the occurrence of of such cases is very small compared to what most women still face almost everyday, but this is a budding problem, and it surely exists. To completely debunk it, well, that is really a bit like what men have been doing to women’s problems for so long, until they became this bad.
ItsJustMe
Classic man hate article. Great piece to showcase man hate by feminists. Especially not surprised it came up in YKA
Anonymus
Oh! , Misandry is a myth really? Then kindly explain all the false rape and dowry cases being lodged? Kindly, explain the sexist that always show the bride as a victim but not the groom whose bank balance and salary is cautiously assessed before marriage? And how dare you call us liars. Please do us all a favor and resign your post and stop being a journalist! You are unfit you self-victimizing waste of carbon!!
Raj Sankla
I couldn’t agree more with you!
Raj Sankla
Oh of course. And the thousands who get falsely accused of Rape are nothing but propaganda.
Does it feel nice, standing on their graves and blatantly stating that their victimhood was just propaganda?