Posted on 03/15/2024 3:42:11 PM PDT by nickcarraway
How feminist women have been seriously misunderstood.
-Feminism is often misrepresented as an anti-men ideology.
-Misogynistic men use the misandry trope as just cause for threats and abuse toward feminist women.
-Research shows that feminists do not hold more hostility toward men than non-feminists or other men.
-For women’s safety, it is important to resist and dispel misperceptions of feminism as anti-men.
Feminists hold a strong belief that patriarchy harms everyone, including men, and that liberation will be had by all when we dismantle patriarchy and the sexist oppression it props up. Despite that, feminists remain seen by some as little more than man-hating misandrists.
Misandry refers to prejudice, discrimination, or hatred directed toward men that is rooted exclusively in their gender. Opponents of feminism, both men and women, believe that feminists are misandrists who serve only to create division and “gender wars.” Contemporary U.S.-based polls indicate that almost 50 percent of men and women view feminism as an ideology that unfairly penalizes men for women’s issues (Barraso, 2020; Hamel et al., 2016).
Even among feminists, there is some divide about whether misandry exists and, if it does, whether it is useful. Some feminists believe that outrage and anger toward men are useful for keeping the boot to the throat of oppressive systems that impede women’s liberation (Agostini & van Zomeren, 2021; Morgan, 2014). Other feminists, however, view those mechanisms as antithetical to the feminist movement, citing the need to invite and include allies in the work of fighting injustice toward women (hooks, 2000).
The public perception of feminists as misandrists has real-world consequences. Indeed, a rising cohort of men who identify as “men’s rights activists” or MRAs view themselves as an oppressed class, and name feminists as their oppressors (Pry & Valiente, 2013). Their contempt toward feminist women has escalated, with these men believing that both digital and physical intimidation or abuse of feminists is the natural consequence of their man-hating behavior (Beale et al., 2019; Diaz & Valji, 2019). But are their perceptions of feminists as misandrists valid, or simply a fabrication from their own minds?
Contemporary Research on Misandry in Feminism
A recent study (Hopkins-Doyle, Peterson, Leach et al., 2024) revealed that misandry as a feminist trait appears to be a myth. Their research, spanning across six studies and including almost 10,000 participants, provided several key insights about feminism and misandry. First, they found that feminist women, on the whole, do not hold any harsher opinions of men than non-feminist women or other men.
Second, feminists actually tend to hold a positive regard for men, but unsurprisingly, that regard is mediated by how safe or threatening they perceive a man to be.
Third, they found that feminists generally perceive men as fundamentally similar to women, and that the differences we see in our genders have more to do with the ills of patriarchy than core differences in our natures. Their issue, then, is with patriarchy and the sexist oppression it upholds, rather than with men directly.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly when it comes to men’s perceptions of misandry, feminist women in the study were not significantly more hostile toward men than non-feminist women, but were significantly less benevolent toward them. This indicates that although feminist women do not hold hostile views toward men, they are less likely than non-feminist women to coddle men, to give them a pass for their intentional harms, or to practice meekness and humility when correcting them. This suggests that men—particularly those who spend time in MRA circles—perceive feminist women’s refusal to capitulate to men as a sign of hostility and misandry, which, it should be noted, is not accurate.
What Does This Tell Us About the Future of Feminism?
Misandry is a myth. Although it is true that there are some feminists who identify as misandrists, those women are the exception, not the norm. To those men who apply “not all men” arguments to every discussion about men’s harms toward women, this should be a relatively easy concept for them to grasp.
There is some empirical evidence suggesting that women are more likely to identify as misandrists when they have first gained consciousness of their own oppression (Downing & Roush, 1985). Over time, as they become more aware of the systems that underpin sexism and sexist oppression in a patriarchal culture, they disengage from the hatred of individual men and begin engaging with systems instead. If misandry exists at all, it appears to be a belief system with a short half-life that exists in only a small portion of all self-identified feminists.
Men who are dedicated to viewing feminists as misandrists may never be convinced otherwise. However, since those men view their misguided perception of misandry as a justifiable excuse for threatening and abusing women, we must try to dispel these misconceptions anyway. To keep women safe, perhaps feminists who have realized that fighting systems is better than fighting individual men should engage compassionately with women who aren’t there yet. They should gently urge those women to channel their anger and outrage toward dismantling systems of oppression that can actually lead to our liberation, rather than espousing hate toward individual men, or men as a whole. It is not a matter of protecting men’s egos, but rather of keeping women safe. After all, anger is a worthy, valid, and useful tool in the feminist movement. But perhaps, for our safety, it is just better reserved for the systems of power.
No doubt, part of challenging those systems will mean engaging with individual men who do not support our liberation. In those scenarios, anger is justified and perhaps even necessary. So, a safe and successful future for feminist women may mean applying anger and outrage where they are useful, fighting systems of power rather than individuals, and resisting misinformed stereotypes that depict feminists as misandrists.
References
Agostini M., van Zomeren M. (2021). Toward a comprehensive and potentially cross-cultural model of why people engage in collective action: A quantitative research synthesis of four motivations and structural constraints. Psychological Bulletin, 147(7), 667–700.
Barroso A. (2020, July 7). 61% of U.S. women say ‘feminist’ describes them well; many see feminism as empowering, polarizing. Pew Research Center.
Baele S, Brace L, Coan T (2019) From ‘Incel’ to ‘saint’: analyzing the violent worldview behind the 2018 Toronto attack. Terrorism and Political Violence.
Díaz PC, Valji N (2019) Symbiosis of misogyny and violent extremism: new understandings and policy implications. Journal of International Affairs 72(2): 37–56.
Downing N. E., Roush K. L. (1985). From passive acceptance to active commitment: A model of feminist identity development for women. The Counseling Psychologist, 13(4), 695–709.
Hamel L., Firth J., Clement S., Brodie M. (2016, January 28). Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation Feminism Survey. Kaiser Family Foundation.
hooks B. (1984). Feminist theory: From margin to center. Taylor & Francis Group.
Hopkins-Doyle, A., Petterson, A. L., Leach, S., et al. (2024). The Misandry Myth: An Inaccurate Stereotype About Feminists’ Attitudes Toward Men. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 48(1), 8-37.
Morgan R. (2014). Going too far: The personal chronicle of a feminist. Open Road Media.
Pry A, Valiente A (2013) Women battle online anti-women hate from the ‘manosphere’. ABC News, 16 October.
So they undermined the concept of gender and said anyone could have whatever traits they wanted. But instead of gender going away, it multiplied into hundreds of new genders: one for every unique group of traits a person might choose.
Now that anyone can be any sex or any gender there are no safe spaces for women and no way for them to get a leg up on men without men in dresses getting ahead of them in the benefits line.
All I ever wanted was to be paid the same wage that a comparable male was paid for doing the same work. I lifted weights. Males withdrew from situations of which I took charge.
Yes, except the Communists are willing to reward those who support them and since men wouldn't, women they reward women instead.
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers−out of unorthodoxy." ― George Orwell, 1984
Nothing about feminists, just lots of attractive females wherever and whenever they were, I have never dated or wanted to, I just liked to party and have fun, which is one reason that lesbians and feminists and last fling-type females were so frequently available.
When I asked that NOW president why she changed she said that before me she hadn’t known that men were so much fun, she had only dated normal college boy types and had never seen the wild side of life so she hadn’t actually known males of the more interesting type, she learned something about the difference between the male and the female of the species.
It is against the law not to pay men and women the same wage if all things are equal and any business would want to make all of their employees the lower-paid version if that was a reality.
You know that pay-gap stuff is nonsense right?
I suffered much in my life because of them. I have restrained myself from getting revenge.
But I will not accept their attempt to rewrite history.
Psychology Today?
What a joke🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Thought his was from The Bee. That at least woulda made sense.
Rush was right every single time.
Amber Wardell: “In my mid-twenties, I parted ways with my Christian upbringing.”
https://medium.com/@amber_wardell/losing-my-religion-for-the-second-time-dae70baf6cac
It would have been more appropriate in Psychopathy Today.
So, “Misandry” is a Myth, though “Patriarchy” isn’t? How convenient everything just arcs that way in history?
A better explanation was heard by me, the story goes Gloria herself was on the payroll for the spook agencies, the entire “Feminism” schtick in the 1960s wasn’t a grass roots phenomenon, it was an op.
A big part of the reasoning revolves around the fact that the most basic unit in any society or civilization is the family. By disrupting historically successful strategies better enables the breakdown, in order to usher in the great new Utopia they have planned for everybody.
It’s no coincidence therefore, (to people who hold this view) that wages have been stagnant since the 1970s.
Females were not in the workforce in large numbers in the 1970s. They didn’t go to college in large numbers. This horrible vestigial “Patriarchy” where single breadwinner workers came home to an intact family, where Mom took care of the kids - on their own. Nobody would accept charity or “relief” as they called it.
I would say in retrospect, with north of 100 Million Americans on some form of “assistance” from their fellow taxpayers, the “Feminists” might not be so bad, but a government or group that serves to dissolve and weaken the basic family structure is pretty damned Evil.
If the intent was to destroy the family with drugs, feminism, whatever, I would say they succeeded.
I know plenty of who never fell for feminism and chose the wiser path in life.
I knew this was written by a woman by just the title. The article you linked to noted that she had left “Christianity” twice. Nowhere did she tie in Christianity with the Bible. It was just a church she had selected. By reading her column, you come to the conclusion she wants Christ to agree with her. Like many, her God is herself. I pray she finally discovers Christ as opposed to her feelings.
Doesn’t every “equality project” turn into a “revenge project?”
Who caused more marriages to break up, Gloria Steinem or Phil Donahue?
They do not want men “fighting systems of power” controlled by females.
Lol.
I don’t know, but if someone told me Phil Donahue was on the spook payroll right along with Gloria, I would believe it. Tim Leary? Sure.
Once you kind of know what to look for, certain personalities, certain events, start to take on a different hue.
Haha love it. Rush’s undeniable truths
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