Sorry, Anti-Feminists: There’s No Such Thing as Misandry August 30, 2009

Posted by FCM in authors picks Tags: anti feminists

its a modern, made-up word that makes you look stupid. and its misogynist as fuck. so stop using it.

“misandry” is a word that doesnt represent any real thing, a kind of a placeholder in our consciousness for an experience that does not, and indeed cannot, exist. so why have i been accused of perpetrating it about a million times in the last month?

i have come to see the word “misandry” as a euphemism for feminism, and “misandrist” as a euphemism for feminist, rather than anything that actually exists in real life, to any troubling degree, or in any meaningful way. while anti-feminists and misogynists bandy the terms about with glee, in reality, its just another flaccid jab at feminism, and feminists, by privileged men whose perverse denial of reality leads them to believe (or pretend to believe) that they are on the receiving end of institutional sexism as much as they benefit from it. and that they suffer relational abuse just as frequently as they dish it out.

heres an excerpt from the very excellent analysis in ‘adonis mirror‘:

While men have long enjoyed attacking ungrateful women as “man haters,” the epithet seems more than a little bit silly when transposed onto the printed page—something demanded by the burgeoning market for so-called Men’s Studies materials. It certainly lacks the gravitas required to reflect the widespread injury and social disadvantages that many white males believe they endure on a daily basis. Thus a more scientific-sounding term was needed for “the hatred of men” and antifeminists crafted one out of their own perverted imagination of antiquity: misandry. (link).

as the author notes, only an anti-feminist would think to define misogyny’s ‘opposite’ as the hatred of men: more reasonably, woman-hating would be opposed to woman-loving, would it not? but leave it to a misogynist to define all things in relation to mens experience: they wouldnt think to define anything without evoking a male image, and considering (even imagining, with no basis in reality) not whether but how that “thing” would affect men.

and whether misandry even exists is entirely beside the point, isnt it? in fact, whether an inversion of the word “misogyny” was even necessary appears to be irrelevant. its striking that power-grabbing and reclaiming behaviors are triggered whenever privilege is challenged, and that the power-grabbing often takes the form specifically of creating made-up words. privileged males have historically held power over the rest of us through language, including of course the written word and literacy, but also the making of language itself. they have historically chosen how certain issues are framed, by the way they are referred to, by words. referring to sexual intercourse as the man “penetrating” instead of the woman “enveloping” for example. more broadly, those who have traditionally benefitted from social and political privilege coined the new, made-up term “politically correct” to undermine and denigrate those doing the questioning. the intellectual dishonesty is dizzying, truly.

theres a lot of great reading in the adonis mirror article, but the thing it does exceptionally well is to put the word “misandry” and those who use it in their proper historical and social context. whats revealed is that its a very recent invention, and an entirely gratuitous and unnatural inversion of an existing term that really has no corresponding “opposite” used to evoke a decidedly modern sense of, literally, terror. heres another excerpt:

As words, misandry and homicide-bomber have everything in common. Both are attempts to deliberately reframe an existing concept: neither makes any empirical sense without prior knowledge of “misogyny” and “suicide-bomber” as a reference point. Both attempt to invert power structures through their rhetoric: women and developing nations are seen as cowardly oppressors who refuse to honorably fight, and lose, on an uneven footing. Both are also tied to specific political groups: antifeminists and American conservatives. Yet while one term is a laughing stock of the liberal community, misandry has been making significant headway.

see the discussion on newsvine here. its an excellent, excellent piece that i plan to link to, every time the subject is broached. which is pretty much every day, if you are a feminist, or a bitch.

when this word is used here or anywhere, i invite readers to put it in its correct context, and to identify the anti-feminist and misogynist agenda thats being pushed. there are those who will push back with made-up bullshit when their privilege is questioned, and its our responsibility (and my delight) to push the fuck back.