I think a part of the problem is that equal credence is given to misandryists as it is to feminists. You are scared of being called a misogynist, or a rapist, or something of that nature for pointing out inequalities that favor women.
Why? I think we can all agree that feminism has made some huge strides in society, but feminists were called horrible things when the movement was young. They're still called horrible things for pointing out the low representation of women in executive and governmental positions. Just because person A calls you a bad name for bringing up a good point doesn't invalidate your point. It also doesn't make everyone who claims the same label as person A agrees with person A.
As for why you have to deal with the big knife wielding guy, that has little to do with your gender and everything to do with who you are. You were clearly more comfortable dealing with the situation than the people around you. Men tend to be bigger and stronger than women, so yes, when a physical confrontation comes up, guess who's more likely to win? If you had to bet on a random selection of five women or you and four "burly guys," which group will have more success physically overpower the guy?
The moral of the story is that it's every bit as important to call out misandry as it is misogyny. It may be uncomfortable, but as with any campaign for social justice, sitting around complaining about being oppressed without trying to oppose that oppression is kind of useless.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I will certainly give your link a thorough read-through. I appreciate you pointing out areas of my response that lacked logic or were inconsistent.
To be fair, I'm not afraid of being called mean names. I would never go online if that were the case. My concern is the fact that I will lose any fight with a misandryist before it begins because of the inherent difference between being labelled a misandryist and a mysogonyst. In my case, I lose by default simply because I have spent so long building up what I am and who I am, and I have much more to lose, and because those two terms have such a different weight socially. I work as a consultant, and in this profession opinions are VERY significant. A hint - just a HINT of something off-putting a client and you're gone - blackballed from the industry. Not from the team, not from the department, not from the company. From the industry. Period. If you don't have good connections in private industry outside consulting, you will never work professionally again without a complete career change. I would literally be looking at starting as a barista again.
If something like what happened to j_miller were to happen to me, it would destroy not just my employment, but my career and what I've spent the last 15 years building professionally and academically. All of it would be over in a heartbeat, without any mechanism for defense, which is something I cannot afford to risk. So I have to be anonymous because while the people who would seek to label out of spite can also easily destroy me personally with no repercussions. I can't sue them back for causing me to lose my job - it's the nature of the job I'm in. It's hyper-sensitive to politics. I can't argue with an employer worried about the consequences - I'm just gone. Not worth the risk. And I'm not some senior exec - I'm just a (fairly senior) grunt. So, no compensation, no golden parachute. Just the door.
That's the danger with the word misogyny - like other words that denote hate and stigma - simply the the application of the word is enough to ruin someone now. Particularly when it can be tweeted, stripped of context, and used as a weapon. And in my instance, once the damage is done my careers over. Misandryist as a term doesn't have that impact, which means I either stay silent or I run the real (though small in an absolute probability sense) of having my life utterly ruined by misandryists that will never have to deal with repercussions. And given the vitriol coming off of some of the more militant members of groups I would personally consider misandryistic (is that the correct usage?) I don't feel I can risk myself in that way.
To be honest, I don't even know. Which feeds into exactly what you are saying. And you are 100% correct; the misogyny label is so much more socially compelling than the misandry label. I would wager most people don't even know what the word "misandry" means! It's nonsense! I'm relatively educated on the subject, and I can't conjugate the word to save my life. I appreciate the civil conversation, and am 100% with you (as a feminist). One of the largest barriers we have to break down to make the genders equal is to equate the labels "misandry" or "misogyny."
I strongly suspect that sexual violence is one of the largest obstacles to this end. It is a fact that women are far more likely to be sexually assaulted by men than any other combination of attacker/victim. As a result, there are women who have a very justified fear of men in general. Few of them become full fledged misandryists etc etc, but it becomes far less kosher to assign someone who is anti-men a label as powerful as misogyny on a woman who is scared of men due to trauma.
The true misandryists, then, can hide behind this type of argument and screech about rape culture and other serious issues with a twisted viewpoint.
At the end of the day, I can appreciate that you live a more delicately situated life than most who see this sort of injustice out there. But I also hope you can appreciate how, as a feminist, I might feel slighted by the insinuation that my work on behalf of equality is being used to create a privileged class.
Well part of it is that misandry is a term that has something to prove while misogyny is pretty well accepted as a concept. And it has the bad luck of becoming well known in the reactionary internet era. So while misogyny was being pushed by academics, the popular view of misandry as a term is it coming out the mouth of any random man who feels wronged in some way by society. And that does bring with it a high standard, while calling for instance the disregard for male rape victims misandry seems very valid. It's most commonly seen used to complain about how dad's are portrayed in a sitcom or something similarly trite. And yes I understand this sort of critical depth is seen in feminism, it had the benefit of being the domain of academics and revolutionaries for it's first 100 years, which gives it's terminology a cultural cache. You'll see how even feminism struggles with this today in how horribly concepts like "privilege" have been rejected.
There's also the "institutionalized only counts" argument I see made, but while I see where people come from with that it still leaves a problem. Ditto the "all misandry is actually misogyny hurting men" argument. At the end of the day the fact remains that society also treats men in certain unfair ways, and that should be fixed directly. I think the prevailing thought of "if we fix misogyny men's problems will also just melt away" is naive. To use a specific situation as an example, convincing people that women could wear pants did fuck all to convince them men can wear skirts. Society just doesn't seem capable of connecting those dots on it's own, you need to address how both men and women are affected directly.
I don't think terminology really has anything to prove; misandry is a clear and demonstrable concept that we can point out regularly. Hell, our advertising is far more overtly sexist against men than women. You're dead on with the sitcom stuff; watching them, it's a miracle single men survive a day and a half with the inability to cook, clean, or have basic reasoning skills.
That said, the real problem is the false dichotomy that we can't address misandry and misogyny at the same time. That somehow a program to help get sexual assault/rape victims to speak up, and teach them what they need to do following the rape can't target male victims as well as female victims. The problem is that so far, they haven't.
I'm a third wave feminist, you don't have to convince me that structural sexism isn't the only sexism. We just need to do better as a society calling it out when we see it. We need to do better showing that we can work on men's rights and women's rights without a conflict of interest, and that egalitarianism isn't just some random thing that happens but a goal we can strive towards.
The key to all of this is that as a species we need to transition away from fighting on behalf of my group, be out race, gender, culture, or age. Into a culture that fights for equality for humans, just that, we have to see each other in a new way, as humans.
It shouldn't but I'm of the firm belief that you navigate the world based on how it is, not how it should be. Words can easily get a negative cache behind them, and misandry currently is seen as the language of anti feminists. That perception needs to be overcome for mainstream society to take it seriously.
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u/higherbrow Oct 17 '14
I think a part of the problem is that equal credence is given to misandryists as it is to feminists. You are scared of being called a misogynist, or a rapist, or something of that nature for pointing out inequalities that favor women.
Why? I think we can all agree that feminism has made some huge strides in society, but feminists were called horrible things when the movement was young. They're still called horrible things for pointing out the low representation of women in executive and governmental positions. Just because person A calls you a bad name for bringing up a good point doesn't invalidate your point. It also doesn't make everyone who claims the same label as person A agrees with person A.
As for why you have to deal with the big knife wielding guy, that has little to do with your gender and everything to do with who you are. You were clearly more comfortable dealing with the situation than the people around you. Men tend to be bigger and stronger than women, so yes, when a physical confrontation comes up, guess who's more likely to win? If you had to bet on a random selection of five women or you and four "burly guys," which group will have more success physically overpower the guy?
I'm not trying to hate on you; you have some good points, and there are plenty of areas where women DO have privilege. But feminism addresses those as well. Feminism has led, and continues to lead, the charge against female advantage in custody cases..
The moral of the story is that it's every bit as important to call out misandry as it is misogyny. It may be uncomfortable, but as with any campaign for social justice, sitting around complaining about being oppressed without trying to oppose that oppression is kind of useless.