N.B. misandry is not real because men are not systemically oppressed (uninternalize your reddit MRA today: men suffer some drawbacks under the patriarchy but ultimately still maintain it due to the large amount of privileges they receive under it!)

  • khizuo [ze/zir]26•1 month ago

    Oh another thing for the "misandry is totally real it's just not systemic" people: "misandry" as a term is itself antifeminist. It's a manosphere and mra chud term that manosphere and mra chuds use as a weapon against feminists. As a comparison: you can say that "all lives matter" has a literal meaning outside the context of its use as a reactionary dogwhistle, but in the real world that's the way its used and you can't separate it from that use. Find me a place where "misandry" is discussed as a serious thing that isn't a reactionary space. You can't, but good luck. Ironically, the idea of "misandry" is weaponized against women in a misogynistic way by denying them even the ability to express anger at their oppression. If you're going to go to bat for the idea of "misandry" as a real, coherent issue, even if you add the caveat that it's not the same as misogyny, just know that you're going to bat on the side of manosphere and mra chuds.

    Women who do actually "hate men" would not hate men if men did not systemically oppress them in every aspect of life. This shit doesn't exist in a pool of neutral generalized bigotry that could be theoretically directed anywhere and just happens to be worse towards women. We live in a world that oppresses women. And a world in which reactionaries have always tried to discredit feminism by painting it as being motivated by hatred towards men. (And don't bother bringing up TERFs/radfems, who direct their "hatred of men" towards being misogynistic towards trans women and enforcing patriarchal bioessentialism + cissexism.)

    • EelBolshevikism [none/use name]17•1 month ago

      Some sort of differentiation needs to be made towards the natural skepticism of men as they are the dominant group and commonly hurt people (what “misandry is real” chuds are trying to complain about) and the kind of weird over-the-top “kill all men” takes that make me deeply uncomfortable as a born AMAB non-binary person (how would you know someone isn’t trans or non-binary and hasn’t realized it?), and has historically been a source of massive amounts of indirect misogyny (both in the TERFs you mentioned and in feminist movements blaming women for IE being straight, because they should “know better” than to sleep with men)

      I agree with you btw, it’s just that some of your phrasing makes me very uncomfortable, and I just don’t want anyone coming to this thread coming away with the conclusion being that political lesbianism was somehow good (🤮 cringe political movement).

      everyone should read whipping girl

      • khizuo [ze/zir]9•1 month ago

        (Totally did not mean to delete my last comment, it was a complete accident, so I'll just rewrite it as best as I remember it.)

        Oh no I totally understand, that is what I meant by "enforcing patriarchal bioessentialism + cissexism" if it wasn't clear! Gender essentialism is really harmful and antithetical to feminism, as it relies on upholding misogynistic views rather than challenging them (like when TERFs argue that trans women shouldn't compete with cis women using misogynistic ideas of women as "weaker".)

        I am totally not an advocate for political lesbianism or radical feminism, and please let me know what parts of my phrasing made you uncomfortable, I'll edit them and do some self-crit. And I definitely need to pick up Whipping Girl soon.

      • @bane_killgrind@lemmy.ml4•1 month ago

        https://archive.org/details/whippinggirltran0000sera_y0i6

        Or

        https://www.ebookhunter.net/whipping-girl-by-l-jacobs-epub/

        These are very different books

        • EelBolshevikism [none/use name]10•1 month ago

          Thank you, and rereading your comment I don’t think I actually see any particularly bad phrasing. I think I’m being paranoid of my position on the subject being basically erased from existence, mostly by the sheer quantity of dudebros complaining about “removed” and reverse sexism. Basically I hate how this conversation is always primarily dominated by cis men’s insecurities whenever it comes up anywhere, and overwhelms any actual introspection about how harmful gender essentialism is to groups that are not as dominant or fortunate.

          Edit: gamergate terminology is automatically censored? based-department

          • khizuo [ze/zir]7•1 month ago

            I would maybe edit my own original comment to say that radfems engage in "gender essentialism" more broadly because it's not always necessarily bioessentialism, though of course bioessentialism is a huge part of gender essentialism. And yeah, I totally feel you on how this whole thing always becomes about cis men's feelings.

            I should also clarify that I put "hates men" in quotes just because I know that a lot of chuds claim that feminists hate men when they don't actually hate men, they're just angry at patriarchy. I know what you're talking about with the whole over-the-top "kill all men" takes though, and those are definitely gender essentialist, and the material effects of those statements are directed towards transfems and non-transfem AMAB nonbinary folks rather than cis men. Intersectional feminism and transfeminism are the way to go!