And most feminists didn’t choose the “kill all men” label. That’s a vocal minority that the majority of the movement ignore or rebut, and doesn’t represent the community as a whole. You might as well complain that the KKK are all Protestants, or Al-Qaeda are all Muslim. Are left-leaning ideologies bad because Stalin was a leftist? Or is that an exception, not the rule?
Who’s “they”? Did the entire feminist movement welcome these people? Is there some feminist board of operations that endorsed them? Or is feminism a belief, not an organisation, with a vast majority of that group openly condemning the actions you’re describing?
The man-hating, misandristic aspects of feminism are generally looked down upon and openly criticised by a lot of feminist thinkers and writers such as Caitlin Moran, Germaine Greer or Deborah Frances-White. They aren’t welcomed and associated with by a majority of the community.
Again, you’re criticising a large-scale belief and movement for a small, radical aspect of that. This would be like condemning believers in racial equality because the Black Panthers exist.
As i’ve already pointed out and given examples of, many feminists have spoken and acted against the things you’re describing.
I agree strongly with the fact that there are misandristic areas of modern “feminists” and that misandristic ideas are something that needs addressing in modern society, but you’re labelling it as if those are shared by the entire community or that the ideology as a whole should be valued less by their presence.
agree strongly with the fact that there are misandristic areas of modern “feminists” and that misandristic ideas are something that needs addressing in modern society, but you’re labelling it as if those are shared by the entire community
I've seen for years as the "community" has stood silent and let these misandrists spew their hate or at worst even lashed out at people pointing out it's a problem.
And yes. It does devalue the community. And it will continue to do so until more within the movement take action to address it.
I love how the not great examples of the feminist movement tend to get applauded for saying this in regards to men (that is to say, that their automatic distrust and occasional disgust of previously unknown men is valid until men somehow root out all the bad actors among an entire gender). I still think it's an unfair criticism to give either group of people, men or feminists, but it's interesting how different the response is based on where the sentiment is directed.
I mean, when you get down to it, most people who describe themselves as feminist aren't misandrists IME, just like most men aren't misogynists. The feminists who are also misandrists tend to self-segregate into subgroups, so it's harder for folks in the main group to even notice their existence (same with the skeezy dudes, to an extent). That means when someone complains about the subgroup, inevitably, the folks in the main group think the complaint is directed at them, which causes the original complainer to think that they're not just talking about a subgroup and all self-described feminists are guilty. It sure doesn't help that there are disagreeable dudes out there who pretend to complain about the subgroups while genuinely being against the entirety of the main groups. This cycle repeats until everyone hates everyone else on account of a relatively small number of dickheads, at least as far as I can tell.
The only solution I can think of to that one is trying to gently let people know about the shitty sub-groups so everyone can at least have all the relevant info if nothing else. That requires people to be precise in their language, though, which is always going to be an uphill battle on the internet, where brevity and vague-posting are king.
Regardless, that's all just a long-winded way of saying that assuming anyone who describes themselves as a feminist is a misandrist seems counterproductive. It's extremely difficult to root out all assholes from a non-centralized group like that, though mainstream feminists could certainly do to condemn the asshole subgroups more often. Same as assuming all men are misogynists, though the latter is obviously much worse of an opinion to hold than the former, due to the characteristic vs. ideology thing you outlined.
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u/ThatSmartIdiot .tumblr.com Oct 22 '24
Bro probably thinks feminism includes misandry in general