“Misandry without institutional, financial, and cultural power is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
I wrote the above comment on a male misogynist’s post this week and personally, I think I may have just won the internet. Of course winning the internet isn’t a thing, even influencers and content creators are finally admitting that, particularly (one story I read recently) those who were as children exploited by their parents, female children now grown who were and are being followed – including stalkers – by a whole lot of creepy men. Ick.
Here’s the thing. Are there women out and about in our world who hate men? Yes, of course. But we live in a patriarchy, not a matriarchy. We live in a world and amidst family and culture and religion wherein women are accepted and pre-determinedly relegated to second class citizenship; this is not a world where, at the same time, men experience anything close to that – not even close, although yes, men of color sure do know what the sting of living as less than in the ‘land of equality for all’ feels like.
I deliberately identified that misogynist on line as a male for a reason, because women also embrace the unholy mess of our misogynistic culture. Why? Because it’s fucking hard and demoralizing and exhausting to be a feminist, to fight the daily barrage of bullshit and slights and unconscious biases, including and perhaps especially within ourselves. Because they benefit from not having to fucking think or do anything about it. Because life is hard enough already, plus – their husband/father/pastor told them so. Or they got hit, beaten, shunned, or ostracized for asking a question, once, twice, three times – or saw some other women experience the same, or worse.
Misandry simply does not exist, just like black racism against white peeps doesn’t exist – because it has no institutional traditional power, because it has no hold on our unconscious minds, on our behaviors, on our lives, cultures or dominant religions. Misandry is not real. Misogyny is, as is racism. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely (Lord Acton). There is a reason why men, not women, kill their wives or exes and even at times their entire families, including small children; it’s the power, y’all, it’s the inability to see women and children as anything other than possessions, extensions of the all-powerful (and powerfully crippling) male ego, and when women say, nah, not playing anymore – the hate, the willingness to destroy, to dominate even to death, is white hot.
Misandry isn’t real, because if it were, I know like I know like I know that if women were killing FOUR men per day, every day as men are killing women in the U.S. (and goddess knows what the body count is in even worse, more repressive cultures), it’d be on the news nightly, we’d have a Presidential task force, and massive amounts of funding to study and fix the problem, as well as laws forbidding guns purchases by women, particularly those going through menopause (that’s an attempt at a joke, peeps).
Misogyny is real, and it harms all woman and all girls, even the ones who play along or are true believers. Misandry ain’t real. Not all men act on their misogyny, but all men benefit from the patriarchy. Yes, all men.
From writer LeAudra Lee Baker:
“Patriarchy is like a man, having his boot on a woman’s neck.
Feminism is a woman complaining about the boot.
Conservatives insist there wasn’t a problem with the boot being on the neck until the woman started talking about it. If she would just be quiet about the boot, there wouldn’t be a problem.
Male allies think there’s a way to talk about the boot being on the neck that appeals to everyone and doesn’t “alienate” those that would help remove the boot.
“Good Guys” insist that not all men wear boots.
Women with internalized misogyny insist they have a boot on their neck by choice and they love it!
They insist something is wrong with women complaining about the boot.
The boot is never removed from the neck.”