Misogyny

Post Reply New Topic

I would be more than happy to turn the focus away from OP because I think you have indirectly raised a very valid question about definitions of 'misogyny' much more generally.

What might then, in your terms, constitute - or be the individual precursor of - misogyny in an individual, if an indeterminate, self-generated/uncaused, generically-targeted condition of debilitating women-focused rage is not? I am genuinely interested in how you would use this word, if indeed you ever would at all. If there is no scenario in which you could ever contemplate using the term, that would naturally give rise to questions about your personal thresholds of acceptable expression and risk-management; but that doesn't make this a trick question per se. I would genuinely be interested to read your response.

Thanks.

If I may chime in on what appears to have become an obscurely personal exchange, I do have an answer to this. What you describe is not misogynistic, because it is not the fact of [an aspect of] womanness that causes your hatred; your response is actively elicited by the exhibition of specified behaviours by known/knowable individual persons. You would presumably apply the same judgment to all other persons of any gender who exercised the same abusive behaviour, and would not apply it to those who did not. A bit of a leap on my part, granted, but I have no reason not to assume you're basically a standard-issue, reasonable sort of person.

The great difference between what you posit and the amorphous rage described elsewhere is that yours is real-life based. It is personal/interactive, it is for cause, and is the product of the intersection between your values and actual, observed/ experienced behaviours. It appears to be stable, under control and rationally applied. It is not imagined, or pre-emptive, or existing in a vacuum without any experiential data to support it.

The proof of the pudding, of course, is in the ... bad metaphor. [Very, very bad metaphor.] Regardless of how anything reads on paper, it's what you do with it that counts in the long run. So this is just a conversation, not a clairvoyance session, okay? To me, misogyny is something real that represents real risk to real women and therefore is best identified and dismantled wherever possible. At the very least, in its raw state, it causes damage to the carrier. At the intermediate level, when published or otherwise promulgated, it can have the effect of promoting afresh, crystallising or activating ill-feeling in self or others. The worst-case scenario is well-known, and far from imaginary.

Australians will recognise the slogan 'Be alert, not alarmed.' Well, that's my approach to misogyny: just be aware of the possibility and know what you're looking out for, but don't go around in a fugue of paranoia.

i don't assume that because all we have to work with are his words. he could have stated that he felt similarly about both men and women but chose not to do so.

it doesn't really matter if his hatred of a subgroup is based on real-life observations and experiences. if he applies his feelings to all members of the subgroup without the benefit of a personal experience with each and every one of them, he has unfairly generalised to the whole group and it qualifies as misogynistic. he simply cannot know the entire story or actions behind each person he has labeled, so there isn't any way to fairly apply a generalised hatred.

He said it was specifically abusive women that he hated. MCalavera, do you see a parallel between yourself and the OP? You see neither as misogynistic, hyperlexian sees both as misogynistic, I see only the one the hates women as misogynistic. Interesting.

the OP hates women who are beautiful, and MCalavera hates women who are abusive. even though they are 2 different groups (actually they could overlap, but i am overlooking that for the sake of argument), it is an identical phenomenon.

OP hates strangers who are beautiful - which is twisted. MCalavera hates people he knows to be abusive. If you're calling those the same thing you're diluting the concept of misogyny to where it's no longer useful, in my opinion.

That's weird. The name makes far more sense as MCavalera.

not diluting at all. you're allowing your personal bias to enter into the equation. your thought process could probably be broken down like this:

beautiful women=not deserving of hatred, therefore if someone hates them it is misogyny
abusive women=deserving of hatred, therefore if someone hates them it is not misogyny

you don't get to cherrypick which groups should be included in a term like misogyny. simply because you may believe one subgroup to be worthy of hatred doesn't make it any less misogynistic.

if a man hated all women who eat red meat, it would be equally misogynistic. or all female pedophiles. or all women who are taller than 6'1". the grouping is irrelevant, it is the identical sentiment that is important.

one other problem (not related to the definition, but related to the idea of grouping women like this) is the fact that we do not know his criteria behind the label of abusive. it is extremely rare to observe one person being truly abusive to another, and we do not usually know the surrounding circumstances around isolated incidents. we do not know where he draws the line or what would constitute abuse. is he the judge and jury to pass judgement?

Fair enough. Let's see what the big deal really is.

Misogynism, misandry, and such are heavy words with strongly negative connotations as perceived in today's world. Just seeing/hearing the word "misogynist" will set the alarm for many men and women today even without examining the context surrounding the claim. And this leads to unjustified prejudice and bias against the person being named as such. So one needs to be careful with applying the word to any one lest he gets "hunted down and put on the stake" ...

I think any unjustified hatred of any person (man or woman or other) is wrong and contemptible. For me, a typical misogynist would be someone who hates women for no clearly justified reason other than that he hates them because they're women (regardless of whether he's successful with women or not). It is usually due to either some narcissistic personality disorder or the way he was raised in his childhood culture. He does not love them in any way and he shows it through his actions more than through words. He beats his wife or mother or daughter up because they're women and inferior to him. He treats them as slaves. He uses verbal abuse against them. He uses them as scapegoats for his own crimes. He shows no sensitivity towards them.

With men, he's different. He shows special respect and admiration for men and even looks up to some of them. He doesn't treat them as slaves. And he doesn't do any of the s**t he does to the women he connects with. That's because, to him, men are superior and deserve the best treatment they can get. Both the hatred for women and the respect for men are based on the genders themselves. If you're man, you're a person of honor. If you're woman, you're a dog. That is what I perceive the misogynist to be.

I've met a few misogynists in my life. They've been with women and have shown at least a bit of success with them. But the hatred they have for women themselves is clear. They can be successful in attracting a woman and still hate her guts just because she happens to be a woman. And this results in all sorts of abuses against women.

Now let's go to a 20-year-old or older lonely virgin or lonely someone who's never been in a relationship, who's frustrated with life, and then comes here to post on a message board about how he "hates" all women because they wouldn't give him the time of day. To me, this is nowhere near what misogynists really are like and there's a reason for the hate other than that they're women. I would argue the same for women who come here and say they hate all men. It doesn't make them misandrists. They're just frustrated. Even if they confusedly call themselves by such names.

Instead of accusing these people of being truly misogynistic/misandrist, why not try to understand first where they're coming from and what the reason really is for their hatred and frustration. Maybe they've been hurt by people of the opposite gender and they just want to be loved by people who they perceive as not showing them the love they're after. There isn't here this innate prejudice against man/woman simply because of the gender itself. It's just someone almost suicidal who's talking crap out of frustration.

Boy, if I were to do like some of them members here have done in this thread, I would've condemned a lot of otherwise guys and girls in my life for being "misogynists/misandrists" and I would've been rich if I had been paid a dollar for every time I would've made such a condemnation.

Now, this is not to say, the OP isn't really misogynistic in real life. He probably is. But based on this thread alone, it's not enough to tell. People say s**t all the time for different reasons. And it's up to us to discern what he's really saying behind these words.

Making hasty judgements isn't going to make this world a better place for us all. So let's use more wisdom.

In answer to your last question, no, I don't hate women for being women. I love them and respect them in general. Unless you're the kind of person I just can't respect (man or woman).

Also, going by what hyperlexian argues, she's a big misandrist herself. So not sure who she thinks herself to be if she judges me to be a misogynist.

We have to allow that when he says he hates abusive women he means just that, as we have to allow that when the OP says he hates beautiful women he means that. That's just the rules of discussion, you can't gainsay people. Unless you have history that isn't in this thread.

I think when most people talk of misogyny they aren't talking about a hatred of female childkillers. I have no emotional reaction to abusive people, but it's a natural human reaction to be disgusted by stuff like that, whereas it's wholly unnatural for a man to dislike beautiful women. So the process is different and I would use different terms to describe them.

I'm with fraac. Not on everything; but on this bit, I think so, yes.

Interesting, indeed. I'm like "WTF?" to whatever crap she's spouting at the moment, but I'm going to give hyperlexian the benefit of the doubt now and assume she's simply had some bad experiences that led to such a skewed perspective.

no, i don't hate any groups or subgroups of people.

i would advise you to read the applicable wikipedia page on misogyny if you would like a concise summary about the subject (if you do not plan to do any actual research on the topic, as it will serve you better than making up your own definitions).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misogyny

Dear, it isn't literature that should help us define what is or is not misogyny. I'm arguing for how today's world should understand it ... for practical purposes.

MCalavera, I thank you for your thoughtful response. I do not agree with some things you say (and may respond to those later, after reflection), but do agree that it is necessary to use words of power, such as these, with very great care. It is important to preserve their meaning, and force, for the times when there really is a wolf (cf Aesop's Fable: The Boy Who Cried Wolf).

Last edited by HighPlateau on 02 Jan 2012, 12:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

Wikipedia suggests that misogyny is hatred or disrespect for all women. On that basis I'm inclined to agree with MCalavera that the OP doesn't meet the requirements.

it doesn't matter if it is a natural human reaction to hate one subgroup over another; it would still be misogyny.

people can always come up with reasons as to why they hate a group, and those reasons may even be justified (at no time did i ever say that abusive women should be loved), but the definition of misogyny supercedes the visceral reactions.

you're applying morality to a definition, which is a peculiar reaction given that you wanted to have a logical discussion. you would need to overcome your own biases and feelings and approach this discussion unemotionally to truly understand what i am talking about.

essentially, whether or not the hatred is justified is irrelevant to whether or not the hatred qualifies as misogyny.