"The women of Bikini Kill let guitarist Billy Karren be in their feminist punk band, but only if he's willing to just "do some shit." Being a feminist dude is like that. We may ask you to "do some shit" for the band, but you don't get to be Kathleen Hannah."--@heatherurehere


Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Misandry

mi·san·dry (mĭ-săn'drē) pronunciation
n.

Hatred of men.

*******

I'm obviously missing a lot here!

1. I'm walking down the street regularly and Women:

a. Whistle at me and tell me what a cute butt I have
b. Stare at my breasts and can't seem to see that I have eyes
c. (Seemingly) follow me down dark streets - so I look back to see if I'm in danger of being attacked.

2. All kinds of Women's Institutions Won't Let Me In because I'm a man such as:

a. Women's Colleges
b. Many Self-Defense classes
c. Womyn's Music Festivals

Certainly women often want: "women's space" and exclude men such as me from being a part of them. I won't ever be privy to much socially in my Jewish Peace Group's young Lesbian core of leadership. Individual women may pre-judge me as a Man and may "discriminate" against me in various ways.

As men we ought to push more to be teachers in our elementary schools so that it is not "female dominated". Misandry isn't what keeps things bad for little boys (when it is bad) not having male teachers. Low salaries and difficult working conditions make the job unappealing to most men (and many women).

When Lesbians "separate" from men they rarely take "female privilige" with them. Often, though not always, men take male privilige in their hunting outings and similar.

1. As men we ought to be struggling more building support with other men.
2. As men we ought to be confronting male violence towards men and boys (as well as women and girls) and see how we are socialized to injure and kill each other.
3. As men we ought to be confronting how we are the fodder for Wars - how Older Men send Younger Men to be killed usually for no good purpose
4. As men we ought to be confronting the fact that we die at higher rates from birth on and that the rates get worse as we get older (generally) and in that sense we clearly are the "weaker gender",
5. As men we ought to confront the types of pressures that other men put on us to conform - to be "real men" in so many ways. Women may make fun of us, but Men threaten us in far more dangerous ways.

Being Male often is hazardous to our Health! While individual Women do hurt us, I don't see in general how Misandry is a major force in most of our lives most of the time. I do see many ways in which we have difficult and important work to do in bettering ourselves and in making our own lives happier and safer.

Blaming Women to me is generally a copout! Blaming Men isn't helpful either. Listening, learning and growing as Men, building "men's space" that isn't oppressive is helpful in many different areas. Being the allies of both women and men is necessary.

Expecting individual women to see us as allies is not useful. It isn't helpful to talk as White People about "Black Racism" (while it may be necessary and important to confront individual unfair situations one may encounter). It isn't helpful to talk as Upper-Middle Class People of the "oppression of having money".

We should do our best for ourselves, our children, our partners and our world!

Thanks!



13 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Jeff Pollet said...

"John"
I have removed your comment for various reasons. If you have questions or concerns about why, please feel free to email me at jpjesus at speakeasy.net.

--Jeff

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Jeff Pollet said...

"Richard"--
I have removed your comment for various reasons. If you have questions or concerns about why, please feel free to email me at jpjesus at speakeasy.net.

Anonymous said...

I personally like how the comments of people who disagree with you are removed. That's fantastic. If only you could censor other blogs as well the world would be a better place.

Jeff Pollet said...

"Anonymous"
Presumably, you have no idea what the comments I removed said, so how would you know that I removed them because they disagreed with me? Unless you are "John" or "Richard", and you believe I removed the comments becasue they contained disagreements with me, in which case, you might have simply emailed me as I noted, instead of being an asshat and trying to start a fight. :)

That said, there are lots of examples of comments with people disagreeing with me on this blog--just ask Hugh.

Anonymous said...

Great job with the name calling as well. You are quite the wordsmith!!

Jeff Pollet said...

Wow, anonymous, you really know how to make a point. I stand here humbled. If you hadn't really zeroed in on the nuances of the situation, if you hadn't brought to bear such fantastic evidence, and if you hadn't stuck to the point instead of shifting your position when you were called on your bs, I wouldn't have paid you any heed. But as it is: You win. Here's your trophy. Unfortunately, it's etched for 'Anonymous', so you'd better pick it up soon, or, well, *anybody else in the whole world* could pick it up.

Anonymous said...

Misandry is a reality in a world where some feminists stoop to whatever means necessary to win regardless of reason or evidence. In a recent New Yorker article on honey bees, the obviously manhating and idiotic writer wrote about male bees (drones) as useless except for mating, as 'filthly and loutish', as merely 'tolerated' by female honey bees and then 'systemically murdered' by the workers. Her article was poorly researched sensationalism in many other areas but this vicious shot at male bees in particular stands out because these statements are false, misleading and full of barely concealed misandry. As a longtime male beekeeper I had to laugh and cry about such shameless stupidity.

To those men on this blog who called themselves men please be honest enough to take your heads out of feminism's Orwellian indoctrination program and use them for a genuine assessment of both misandry and misogyny

Jeff Pollet said...

I tell you, there's nothing more persuasive than an anonymously given series of unsupported opinions and well-poisonings.

"To those men on this blog who called themselves men"...? Sheesh.

I wish you luck on your quest to rid the world of Evil Feminists who don't know as much about bees as you do. You're one bitter beekeeper.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

I was raised by an abusive mother who regularly beat me to the point of deep tissue bruises and, bleeding. Many of these times I was forced to seek help from neighbors and family friend for physical safety. The whole situation was ignored because it was "just a woman" who was hitting me. My mother constantly told me that I would be sent away to an orphanage where I would be mocked and raped for letting (telling) that a woman beat me.
If you don't believe that misandry is real, you are a fool.
Even today I am constantly derided by women and, told that I just dont understand because I am a man. (this is accompanied by eye rolling and a condescending tone. - Just to make sure I am aware that the comment made toward me is that I am stupid.) If I preformed even a 1/10 of the things done to me towards women, the cries of sexism would ring out across the land. If I hit even half of the women who have physically assaulted me I would still be in jail. instead I am forced to shut up and take it because "I am the stronger sex". what a load of B.S.

--Brused and tired of it.

Jeff Pollet said...

What a terrible thing to have to go through, and to continue to go through. The anger and sadness I feel about your abuse must pale in comparison to the anger and sadness you feel.

I think that traditional concepts of masculinity, which include some of the BS that you're talking about as far as reactions to your abuse, are ate the root of those reactions--and as such, it's misogyny that you ought to be fighting. Part of misogyny is the idea that "women are weak" (and the other side of that coin, says traditional masculinity, is that "men are strong"--too strong to get abused by women, for instance); if we work to shift people away from misogynist thinking, lots of men have much more room to explore alternate masculinities.

(by the way, this post is very old, and the original poster no longer is involved with the site)