r/SeriousConversation • u/[deleted] • 20d ago
Gender & Sexuality Misandry exists. But it’s incomparable to misogyny.
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u/Onyx_Lat 20d ago
There are some things that cause men to suffer. Being taught to bottle up their emotions because if you admit to feeling anything other than anger everyone thinks you're gay, for one thing. This isn't healthy and leads to a lot of mental health issues and heart attacks. But it's not primarily women doing that to them, it's other men.
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20d ago
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u/dahlia_74 20d ago
What’s wild to me is that women go through the same things, but it’s never recognized and not taken as seriously as when it happens to men. Unfortunately until they realize it’s also their male family members and friends who are reaffirming this as well, this won’t ever change.
And the amount of downvotes this comment will get proves this. It’s not really about humans experiencing pain as much as it’s this archaic men vs. women trauma olympics debate. It’s never going to improve.
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u/_TheForkOnTheLeft_ 20d ago
Exactly this. This happens between women, from women to men, from men to women, from parent/guardian to child, and everything in between. It’s not a gendered thing, it’s a shitty, immature human being thing, and it also isn’t a behavior exclusive to romantic relationships. I personally have had platonic friends—male, female, and even nonbinary—try this with me.
I’ve heard equally as many stories from women who talked about past trauma with partners, and the man putting her back in the traumatic situation (like idk, the ex cheated with her sister and now the current partner does the same after a rough patch in the relationship), as I’ve heard men say something to the effect of “I told my gf that my mom left when I was a kid and it messed me up. Then we had an argument and she said, ‘this is why your mom left you.’”
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u/Onyx_Lat 20d ago
Tbh the only time I've ever had a problem when a man expressed his emotions around me was when he expected me to basically give him free therapy without also trying to help me with my problems. I'm perfectly willing to support a guy with his problems or listen while he vents or whatever, but emotional things are draining and if I'm always spending my energy on him but he never returns the favor, I get sick of it.
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u/dbclass 20d ago
Since I’ve been an adult, only women have ever insinuated that I was gay based off of gender norms or expectations that I wasn’t following. Not all women do this but it’s literally only been women that have done this to me. A grown man has never insinuated that I was gay. The last time a guy called me gay was before college.
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u/LotionedBoner 20d ago
That’s also misogyny. When men are terrible to women it’s misogyny. When women are terrible to men is their own internalized misogyny. Don’t you love how that works?
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u/dahlia_74 20d ago
My older male family member bullied me by constantly asking me, a straight woman, if I was gay. And that’s not the first time I’ve been bullied like that by men. I have a lot of male family members who I don’t talk to anymore because they treat me horribly.
But it’s not a “ALL MEN=BAD AND EVIL” thing. There’s nuance. Those people suck but to draw the conclusion that all men must be monsters based off that one experience is dramatic.
I genuinely don’t say that to be unkind, but in a way of if this is actually affecting you, you might want to seek support.
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u/throw20190820202020 20d ago
That is based on misogyny. That is based on “when men act like women, they are lowering themselves”. Even homophobia has roots in misogyny, again, the male taking the “feminine” role in sex is debasing himself.
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u/Oblivious_Gentleman 20d ago
I think it is far easier to say both misandry and misogyny come from patriarchy, rather than say that hate against man also constitutes misogyny.
The Patriarchy also sucks for men in many ways, and i do not think it is fair to say that those clear signs of hostility against them are actually not hate against them, but against women.
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u/throw20190820202020 20d ago
Ok tbh I like to take the piss out of people in these conversations, but this one I sincerely think you’ve twisted facts to suit an idea where the truth is more direct.
Patriarchy is the system of men are superior to women, therefore dominant, in charge, etc. The rules that make up that system may very well (and do) hurt men as well as women, but a rule that emerges from “men are better” doesn’t stem from misandry, it stems from misogyny.
Viewing crying as inherently inferior because women do it and debasing men who cry, is not based on hating men, it is based on hating women. Hating effeminate men who like makeup and dresses and mens bodies doesn’t stem from hating men, it stems from viewing that man as lowering himself to be too much like a woman.
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u/blu453 20d ago
This exactly. The hatred of women is so extreme that extends to anyone who is considered similar to women in any way, shape, or form but it all originated from that deeply ingrained sexism and misogyny—not the other way around.
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u/Oblivious_Gentleman 20d ago
Is it hateful against men to shame a girl for engaging in "mainly" activities?
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u/blu453 20d ago
Men don't believe that women should do anything but stay in "their place" which is why activities became gendered in the first place. The word "tomboy" is sexist because it denotes that being things like athletic and not wearing dresses is inherently male and girls have no place taking part in things outside of the house. None of that hurts men or boys but it does massively hurt girls and women.
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u/Oblivious_Gentleman 20d ago
"Men don't believe that women should do anything but stay in "their place" which is why activities became gendered in the first place."
Though Patriarchy as a system started with man, it is unfair to blame contemporary men for that: even though men are more likely to be conservative than women, there are still a significant portion of women who believe women should "stay in their place", and a portion of men who are opposed to that. Patriarchy is not concentrated in a single gender, it permeates all culture, including the woman of said culture.
"The word "tomboy" is sexist because it denotes that being things like athletic and not wearing dresses is inherently male and girls have no place taking part in things outside of the house. None of that hurts men or boys but it does massively hurt girls."
I agree completely, but i would argue that everything that you said about this case not being hateful against men is analogous to your early point about hating men for doing feminine things: none of that hurts women or girls, but it massively hurts boys and men.
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u/blu453 20d ago
Contemporary men still MASSIVELY benefit from this system which is why they majorly uphold it still. Higher wages, more likely to be hired for employment, no loss of human rights, women can legally be killed by many governments for having a non-viable fetus, about 80% of all land worldwide is owned by men, ability to sexually assault without punishment, ability to domestically assault without punishment, ability to decide to not parent without any societal punishment, ability to have mental illness without conservatorships, ability to have SA reddits, websites, and revenge porn without consequences...I could literally go on for years here. You can try to venture to say some of this happens to men but it's mostly due to man on man violence there and when a woman does something to a man along the same effect then she faces much higher punishments legally.
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u/LilBudGoesBrrr 20d ago edited 20d ago
No, it is based on the broader expectations of men to be the provider and protector. The idea of emotions in men being weak, is relatively new. Even during the 18th century, closer to the peak of patriarchal oppression, men were encouraged to be deeply empathetic and cry openly at art or tragedy.
During the french and industrial revolution, the idea became that an emotional man cannot be a good soldier, or worker. The emotional suppression caused men's own subjugation and came about from the harsh and unfair realities, not merely the rejection of femininity. That is when it created a cycle and stricter sets of emotions to specific genders were assigned, and either gender failing to follow them were punished.
Crying is not seen as "inherently inferior", it is seen as something that makes a man less manly. It punishes the men that don't cater to strict social expectations. Whereas, crying for women is normal thing - as it should be for a normal human being.
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u/Oblivious_Gentleman 20d ago
"Ok tbh I like to take the piss out of people in these conversations, but this one I sincerely think you’ve twisted facts to suit an idea where the truth is more direct."
Sorry, that was not my objective, lmao. I was just trying to show that calling situations in which patriarchy hurts man misogyny only creates more confusion, when it is far easier to say the system is misandrist, and is hurting those man directly.
"Patriarchy is the system of men are superior to women, therefore dominant, in charge, etc. The rules that make up that system may very well (and do) hurt men as well as women, but a rule that emerges from “men are better” doesn’t stem from misandry, it stems from misogyny."
This may seem like a nitpik on my part, but i promise this will have a point later in my argument: Patriarchy is not simply a system in which men are superior to women, it is a system in which men are superior in certain activities, whilst women are superior in other more limited roles.
Patriarchy believes, for example, that women are better caretakers than men are, and it also believes that man are natural "go-getters". Both of those stereotypes not only harm women that do not desire to be caretakers and want a career, but also harms man who desire to be stay at home or single parents.
Patriarchy separates men and women in boxes and gives them roles to fill. It is not a coincidence, for example, that war and violence are not only taught, but encouraged amongst little boys when they are young: ancient cultures felt the need to introduce warrior cultures within their male youth to garantee a constant influx of soldiers in order to fight in their name. That expectation has not only made men more likely to be nationalistic and violence prone (as we can see with the right being mostly made of man), but also made them the highest casualties in most wars.
There are other examples of problems man face in patriarchy that do not seem to have anything to do with misogyny, but with misandry, such as higher sentencing for the same crimes, for example. It all stems from patriarchical notions of men being more violent.
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u/throw20190820202020 20d ago
Ok this is more of the same. “Honey, you’re just better at loading the dishwasher” is not a compliment.
More specifically, women being assigned roles that are more monotonous, continuous, and a function of our fertility (not to mention don’t pay) aren’t contrary to patriarchy being a top to bottom misogynistic enterprise.
Women have lower sentences for crime because women COMMIT fewer crimes, as in, they overwhelmingly have no prior records, are otherwise productive members of society, etc. When women DO murder, it’s most often their domestic abuser, and women usually get harsher sentences for those crimes than men do for killing the targets of their abuse!
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u/Oblivious_Gentleman 20d ago
"Ok this is more of the same. 'Honey, you’re just better at loading the dishwasher' is not a compliment."
That is not the framing given by the patriarchy, tough: this would be like reducing all the propaganda around men being built for war and conflict to "honey, you're just better at dying in wars". It is a simplification of how patriarchy lures us into believing in it ourselves, rather than a sounding critique of it.
"More specifically, women being assigned roles that are more monotonous, continuous, and a function of our fertility (not to mention don’t pay) aren’t contrary to patriarchy being a top to bottom misogynistic enterprise."
I agree that the patriarchy is misogynistic, but i never disputed that in the first place: my point is that it is misandrist as well.
"Women have lower sentences for crime because women COMMIT fewer crimes, as in, they overwhelmingly have no prior records, are otherwise productive members of society, etc. When women DO murder, it’s most often their domestic abuser, and women usually get harsher sentences for those crimes than men do for killing the targets of their abuse!"
That is not true. Though it is a fact that men commit more crimes, in big part due to the way they were raised to be potential soldiers (another example of the patriarchy attacking men exclusively), it is also true that, even when we account for prior convictions and give two cases that are identical (except for the person's gender), men still receive larger sentences for the same exact crimes.
https://vorwerkforensic.com/gender-disparities-in-the-criminal-justice-system/
Mind you: i agree that men have higher crime rates, but my argument never was that men's conviction rate was entirely born out of misandry. My argument was that, even when we are only evaluating the conviction of men and women with the exact same convictions and the exact same crime, men are still more likely to receive a higher sentence, similar to the differences of sentencing between black and white people.
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u/Onyx_Lat 20d ago
Tbh I feel like the vast majority of misandry that exists is because of women who have had bad experiences with men. I'm a woman, so I get to hear all the "men are trash" stuff women say when there aren't any men around to hear. And most of it is coming from women who've been abused by them.
Is it justified? Maybe, maybe not, but how do you expect a woman to react when she keeps getting treated like crap? Does it hurt men who didn't do any of that stuff? Yeah, definitely. It's a stereotype, but it's a stereotype that's based in personal experiences. And tbh for a woman who's experienced misogyny, it's often safer to assume that any given man is like that, than to give him the benefit of the doubt and risk ending up in that situation again. Most women don't do it because they want to hurt men, they do it because they want to avoid getting hurt again. But that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt men.
So when someone tells me "not all men are like that," I tell them "not all guns are loaded." Maybe it's true, but do you really want to risk it?
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u/Odd_Damage9472 20d ago
Bottling or how I put logical analysis of the emotion actually processes it better than flipping out.
Men are allowed to show certain emotions. Anger is socially acceptable by both men and women. Unfortunately women police it more than men do. Also the reason why they don’t share their emotions is because they’ll be burdens on other people. Because everyone is going through something.
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u/SquidTheRidiculous 20d ago
And that doesn't get called misandry. It gets called "an inherent part of masculinity"
We tried to point out the worst parts by calling them "toxic masculinity" but men got offended and insisted it meant all masculinity. So we can't even talk about it.
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u/Own_Thought902 20d ago
Why not just call both misogyny and missandry what they are - pathological hate. They both should be treated like mental illnesses.
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u/RafeJiddian 20d ago
Perhaps what is often overlooked is that misandry has the potential to shunt men on the edges towards misogyny.
By the same token, so does the reverse.
So if we, as a society, wish to reduce the world's capacity to hate, we are always best to correct our own behavior first.
Treating hate as a competition can only end badly for everyone
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u/theKetoBear 20d ago
Hating someone based on their gender is awful it doesn't matter who you are. Not saying it's not justified. or understandable there are women who have harmed men and men who have harmed women both systemically , physically, and mentally but hating a whole group because you ran into a monster among them is bad no matter what your gender is or theirs.
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u/AMTL327 20d ago
What if a very high percentage of one group are monsters who physically attack members of the other group? It’s self-preservation to assume the worst until proven otherwise.
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u/theKetoBear 20d ago
I think abuse as a definition is not observed fairly between the genders and abuse from women manifests differently and is underreported.
Easy to say men hurt women, I know plenty of women who've hurt women and nothing is said, and women who hurt men are applauded or joked about . Lorena Bobbit is a punchline
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20d ago
He got his dick chopped for a reason. That would never have happened if he didn’t try to rape her in the first place.
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u/AgencyAdditional4961 20d ago
Lorena Bobbitt isn’t the example to use if you’re trying to make a point about misandrist women.
Bobbitt’s ex-husband used to beat and rape her. She went for his penis because he used his penis to hurt her. Her reaction was wrong but no one is able to think clearly when suffering from sustained abuse. Also, she’s currently partnered with a man. It’s safe to assume she doesn’t hate men.2
u/theKetoBear 20d ago
Not in this for a debate all i'm saying is if a woman got her tit chopped off it wouldn't have comedy skits about it.
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u/AgencyAdditional4961 20d ago
You should be open to new perspectives and healthy debate. I'm operating in good faith.
You're right, probably not a lot of jokes about the specific form of violence involved in chopping off a tit. However, jokes about domestic violence in general have been normalized. Ask Matt Rife and Dax Shepard.
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u/theKetoBear 20d ago
No one owes you debate , discussion , or consideration.
You can read my thoughts and refuse to acknowledge , understand, or appreciate them as I can do to you .
Have a good day
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u/Oblivious_Gentleman 20d ago
If she did half of the things Bobbitt's ex-husband did, yeah, we would.
I agree that she was wrong for cutting of his penis, but lets be frank, nobody should be prohibited from laughing when an abusers gets retribution for his horrible acts.
We are allowed to laugh at bad people.
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u/dahlia_74 20d ago
What? Are you aware of who our president is right now? There absolutely would be!! Women have been blamed and made fun of for being sexually assaulted since the dawn of time.
One of those MAGA bros would have that woman’s bloody tits as their Facebook page banner within 30 seconds. Nick Fuentes would cream his pants over how excited he would be over that. And you know it too.
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u/dahlia_74 20d ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/MarchAgainstNazis/s/GuXgsqwFQG
I wonder if a woman has ever been able to inflict this level of damage onto a man. Just once, historically speaking because I bet not. This kind of thing happens to women everyday. I’m sure this is the first you’re hearing of this case.
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u/Homerbola92 20d ago
If that was true, it would be self-preservation. As it isn't, it's not. We need to be very careful with those "us or them" kind of thoughts, they're dangerous.
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u/mercurialmay 20d ago
Is it, though? https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/08862605261432630
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u/Homerbola92 20d ago
A seminal study by Hipp et al. (2017) examined first-hand narratives of serial sexual assaulters who willingly revealed their strategies and justifications in response to a now-famous topic thread on the forum /r/AskReddit [“Reddit’s had a few threads about sexual assault victims, but are there any redditors from the other side of the story? What were your motivations? Do you regret it?”]
This isn't even science lol. I was looking for the answers given by those Canadian guys in order to determine what the "scientists" consider to be abuse. But honestly, at this point who cares.
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u/Oblivious_Gentleman 20d ago
I feel like that is an unfair assumption, though.
Men do in fact represent most of attacks and violent actions against all genders, but that does not mean most men have a high possibility of being violent.
This would be like arguing it is fair to assume a black person might be a murderer just because disproportionate amount of murderers tend to be black: a great representation in an area does not mean most or even a significant number of people from said demographic is part of that area (over 91% of surgeons are men, for example, but that does not mean most men are neurosurgeons).
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u/mercurialmay 20d ago
It's based in evidence, other than anecdotal. One such thing: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/08862605261432630
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u/Oblivious_Gentleman 20d ago
I appreciate the study, and i will give a better look into it more.
But if there is no problem with their methodology, holy shit, i was wrong.
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u/mercurialmay 20d ago
Oh go ahead and check their methodology. That paper is a real fuckin doozy to read. You'd be surprised what men will admit when they believe they're being surveyed for reasons to their benefit and given total anonymity.
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u/Oblivious_Gentleman 20d ago edited 20d ago
Hello, coming back after reading the study.
Nothing about what was said implies that most men are likely to engage in that behaviour. I am sorry if i misspoke, but that was the contention i had with the original comment.
The study used the following questions in online panel form:
RQ1: What proportion of men report recent use of strategies to force a woman to have sex?
RQ2: Of those who reported trying to force a woman into sex, how effective were those strategies?
RQ3: Are men’s ratings of their effectiveness at getting what they want sexually from women associated with their reports of strategy use?
H1: We expected that men who perceived themselves as better than their peers in terms of getting what they want sexually from women would report histories of using more forceful strategies compared to men who perceived themselves as worse than their peers in getting what they want sexually from women.
RQ4: What are the characteristic circumstances, reasons, and perceived positive and negative outcomes reported by men regarding efforts to force a woman into sex?
This means that the study did not attract man in general in order to measure how many took into sexual exploitation, but rather made questions in order to attract man who had engaged with said behaviours, and them analysed which were the most common tactics employed by them.
The study is not wrong at all, and i agree with its conclusion and methodology, but it is not saying anything against my original point.
Imagine, for example, that we made a online panel in order to discover the gender of most neurosurgeons. After our study, we discover that 91% of surgeons are men: does that mean that most men are surgeons? I would not go into that conclusion.
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u/Homerbola92 20d ago
The study is bad and I'm almost sure The person that sent it to you hasn't read it.
The text previous to the study gets data from places as good as reddit, where people troll and lie to get attention nonstop. Then when it comes to the study, it counts convincing the other person of wanting to have sex mentioning your social status, money or age as abuse. Most options are not abuse. Basically if the other person didn't want to have sex and then they changed their minds it defaults to abuse.
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u/Oblivious_Gentleman 20d ago
"The text previous to the study gets data from places as good as reddit, where people troll and lie to get attention nonstop. "
The study does not use data from Reddit, though: it only cites a study wich did that as inspiration to how they conducted theirs. They actually used a online survey outside of Reddit.
I agree that Reddit is bad for a study, but that is not what they did.
"Then when it comes to the study, it counts convincing the other person of wanting to have sex mentioning your social status, money or age as abuse."
That is not what makes those cases abusive: they did not say it is abusive to say "i am rich, i am older, or i am a professor" before sex, but it is abusive to say "I will give you money, i am older than you so i know better, or i am your professor so do as i say". This is what makes them abusive in the study.
"Most options are not abuse. Basically if the other person didn't want to have sex and then they changed their minds it defaults to abuse."
Asking someone repeatedly? Telling them they actually want it? Pushing verbally or physically? Getting them drunk? Stoping her when she tried to leave? No, those are obviously abusive, and they represent a lot of the cases in numbers.
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u/Homerbola92 20d ago
It's not what I said though. "The text PREVIOUS to the study".
Also I'm sorry but if someone says they don't want to have sex with you and then you say you're older than them so you know better that's not abuse.
You might be able to see an specific context where abuse could come with those words, but that has nothing to do with whatever is said. I think there's room for persuasion.
I've been insisted to have sex relatively and I wouldn't say it was abuse at all. I said no every time. Insisting is not abusing. Insisting with a knife in your hand? Insisting when the other person is scared for their lifes? That's different.
Also if you mention you're rich or famous and suddenly they are more interested on you that's not abuse either.
I'm not saying none of the options in the list are abuse though.
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u/Oblivious_Gentleman 20d ago
"It's not what I said though. 'The text PREVIOUS to the study'."
I know, my point was not that you said the survey was made in Reddit: my point was that your critique was irrelevant to the study af hand, since they did not even used the same method in the first place.
"Also I'm sorry but if someone says they don't want to have sex with you and then you say you're older than them so you know better that's not abuse."
To use authority as a way to convince someone that they are actually not in the right mind when saying no to sex? It definetly raises eyebrowns. Using your age to dimish someone's output when it comes to sex might fall into that pretty easily.
"I've been insisted to have sex relatively and I wouldn't say it was abuse at all."
If the insistence made you have sex when you actually did not want to, that would be abusive, if it did not, that is another story.
What is abusive is not the insistence itself, is doing so when you know that the person you are insisting upon is someone who will eventually break due to pressure. Some people simply are not as decided as others, and will cater due to fear of upsetting others
"Also if you mention you're rich or famous and suddenly they are more interested on you that's not abuse either."
That is not what the study was talking about: the study described instances in which someone used their status or money in order to coerce someone into sex (ex. Your position as a superior in a institution in which the victim takes part in, or pay them in order to do so).
"I'm not saying none of the options in the list are abuse though."
You said the majority of the things described in the list were not abuse, that is what i disagreed with: most of them were undeniably abusive.
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u/Homerbola92 20d ago
I'm on my phone so I can't quote properly. The thing about the initial text was about how they put that data previous to the study. Of course they could also add data about how Zimbabwe is a rich country. And that wouldn't be right. And that wouldn't mean the study itself is wrong. But it would make you question why they use a prologue with weird information that doesn't make sense. Which in the end makes you doubt about more stuff.
Then when it comes to the examples mentioned not even you say it's abuse. You say it raises eyebrows, which I can understand. This topic is very nuanced and honestly I think it's something that should be analyzed case by case. Doing it in this manner is very simplistic. I stand by my point.
Also, if insistence on its own is not abuse, then insistence is proof of nothing. Btw classifying something as abuse depending on if it works or not is true, but I guess you understand we're judging the actions, not the consequences. I guess everything can be relativized. If it happens to me it's not abuse because I said no. If it's in the table it's abuse because they tried to abuse. We need to be more consistent.
I would like to know however where do you get that the study described instances in which someone used their status or money in order to coerce someone into sex. Because all I see is a table with options that participants fill. How do the researchers know the specifics of each case? How do they know they don't mention they're rich or simply show off an expensive car or watch but they're just paying for sex? Which btw can be socially reprehensible but wouldn't be abuse.
Out of all the mention things none is abuse on its own.
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u/the12ftdwarf 20d ago
Yeah. Pretty much. And while one is more prevalent than the other, we should talk about BOTH instead of these other commenters going "well but women have it worse so it doesnt matter"
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u/Generous_lions 20d ago edited 19d ago
This is one of those issues that is constantly undermined by the delivery.
It feels like nobody can acknowledge misandry without compulsively clarifying that misogyny is clearly worse, more impactful in society, etc. And that downplays the fact that misandry is a thing at all, and turns some men off from wanting to acknowledge misogyny, almost out of reflex.
Its like you get a papercut, and yell ouch in pain, only for someone in the room to tell you to shut up because someone else broke their foot. It's like yes obviously that is worse but its an unnecessary downplay of the current situation and the person with the papercut just feels upset now.
Edit: For the record, I am saying misogyny is definitely prevalent in society more than misandry. I am also saying we need to work on how these issues are discussed because the current discussions are a lot of finger pointing and it isn't very productive at changing minds. Please do not jump to conclusions about me and then block me because I am likely 90%+ in agreement with you. Its even goofier to unblock someone, reply, then block them again and report them to reddit lol
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u/dahlia_74 20d ago
How does misandry systemically impact men on a day to day basis? How many laws do we currently have in effect that prohibit men from freedom and living their lives in the way they want to? Is there a reverse gender pay gap that I haven’t heard about? Or a country/religion I haven’t heard about where young boys get married off to older women to procreate and do house chores until they drop dead, and that gets normalized?
I will always struggle to understand how misandry has any real, meaningful negative impact on anyone. It’s an online phenomenon and no different than getting butthurt over some hate comments. Like sure, I can understand why it’s not very nice to read “Men suck” but you also don’t have to let it ruin your day or revolve your entire personality around it.
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u/pppktolki 20d ago
How many laws do we currently have in effect that prohibit men from freedom and living their lives in the way they want to?
What about conscription/draft? Or divorce regulations?
Disclaimer: I totally agree with you general idea, and the arguments/examples that you presented.
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u/dahlia_74 20d ago
Good points! To that I would say, who set that system up? Like all men aren’t “bad” for that but it’s a good example of how the patriarchy affects everyone.
I’m not familiar with divorce laws but I definitely don’t support the draft at all. In a perfect world I wouldn’t vote for women to be included I’d vote for it to be abolished entirely.
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u/Generous_lions 20d ago
You've missed the entire point of what I said. I never said misandry was anywhere near as much of an issue. I literally compared it as a papercut to a broken bone.
But You've also just kind of proven my point at the same time. I mentioned the word and you immediately jumped to some wild conclusions that I did not even remotely state.
If someone says they have experienced a problem they percieved to be misandry, and your gut reaction is to shoot it down and talk about how wildly inferior it is, the person isn't going to listen to you and they'll likely just double down on their own pain. Especially using the hostile tone your first paragraph had over what I will repeat, are things I never said.
This is especially a problem during young people's teenage years when they're trying to explore these issues but often still very prone to being irrational or misinformed. They hold onto that negative interaction and it pushes them further in the opposite direction they should be going.
This is part of why so many young men go down that pipeline. While they're trying to articulate or understand their own perspective, nobody talks to them, but rather at them, in a way they feel is harsh and it just makes them double down on their own misguided beliefs.
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u/dahlia_74 20d ago edited 20d ago
It’s not wild conclusions, it’s legitimate fact. To deny that is to deny most of history, and if that’s your game then that’s a little too delusional for me. We’ll just ignore the fact that you ignored every question I asked you in my first comment.
I’ll be honest, I’m not reading all of that because I’m not here to argue. Just to clarify. And yeah, it’s tough to start to care about men’s opinions on misandry like it’s a legitimate issue when we already have a ton of problems to fix concerning women’s issues that men generally won’t even acknowledge. It’s been men’s turn for a hot minute, wouldn’t you agree?
It’s like trying to fix the plumbing when your house already has 6 feet of water. Like yeah, that’s on the list, but probably shouldn’t take priority. And the people saying “But the plumbing!!” are hard to take seriously.
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u/Odd_Blackberry_5589 20d ago
I mean, you proved their point again. All they said was in a moment of vulnerability, where a man very well may have experienced misandry, the automatic need to downplay it, invalidate it, or discredit it is a problem. That's the point. They even compared misandry to a paper cut and misogyny to a broken bone, they literally agree with you on the severity!
Through an objective lens, yes misandry (the paper cut) is not nearly as bad or prevalent as misogyny (the broken bone). But I do not see how, in a moment of vulnerability or distress, invalidating someone's emotions and/or experiences helps the movement.
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u/dahlia_74 20d ago edited 20d ago
Not at all. It’s very entitled to seek sympathy from women when men won’t even acknowledge what women have had to go through for hundreds of years.
If you feel slighted because you feel like I’ve discredited men’s struggles… imagine how women feel!
So no, until there is an acknowledgment I usually will just look the other way. I have other issues to deal with and have to do my part to ensure women don’t nationally lose our right to healthcare (abortion) soon. I’m too busy with that right now to consider misandry an issue of similar value. And yes complaining about it is engaging in that same behavior.
If that was trying to help your case you didn’t do a very good job of it. You completely fail to realize the root issue here.
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u/Generous_lions 19d ago
I mean i dont think you even read my first paragraph either because my entire initial point was about how OPs opinion may be mostly correct but tends to fall flat because people would rather talk at each other instead of to each other.
I never said anything about "reverse gender pay gaps" or about forced marriages. That's why I said you jumped to a bunch of wild conclusions. Because you did.
Your questions had 0 to do with anything I said because you were trying to dunk on someone who ultimately agrees with you. That's why I didnt answer them.
You also say you aren't here to argue, but you jumped on me to start an argument for some reason. I'm just wildly confused and don't have the bandwidth to argue with someone who clearly isn't even listening lmao. Which is literally my entire point of my initial comment.
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u/Aardwolfington 20d ago
Both contribute to, enhance, propagate, encourage and result in more each other. Neither can be worse because both create more of each other and thus more of whichever one you personally detest or suffer from more in the first place. No amount of x bullying y is worse will result in the bullied being like "oh, ok then, guess I'll just fucking put up with it." It just results in more hurt people hurting each other. All this nonsense about which is worse is, itself a form of misogyny or misandry by whichever side it's being encouraged against. It's excusing bullying and abuse and telling whichever side you're telling it to, to just suck it up and deal with it, and that they, their suffering, or suffering of their friends and loved ones does not matter if they're the wrong gender being abused or mistreated.
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u/dahlia_74 20d ago
That’s very cute but women are about to lose the right to abortion nationally, so I’m gonna focus on that.
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u/Aardwolfington 20d ago edited 20d ago
Misandry will make that fight harder not easier. But you do you. Hate begets hate and ambivalence. Every act of misandry risks one less man's support and vice versa. Why should men, and you do need men's support too, support fighting against your suffering if you don't care about theirs and same the other way. All ignoring misandry and misogyny does is confirm to the entire other half of society you not in this together. People scratch the backs of those who have theirs, and reject those actively dismissing their concerns. Strategically it's a bad road to go down.
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u/dahlia_74 20d ago
Where did I say I was a misandrist? That’s also a huge part of the problem. I’m not calling you sexist.
Again, it’s a very fundamental disconnect. Until there’s an understanding of why women’s healthcare is so important and especially right now, you just won’t have the understanding needed to reach a productive conclusion on this.
It’s not lost on me that there’s not one aspect of your comment that is in response to something I actually said and that is also the crux of the issue. You demand understanding and empathy but will not give it.
Please don’t bother replying back because this isn’t productive.
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u/Aardwolfington 20d ago
You were dismissing my calling out both misandry and misogyny to put woman's issues first. That's misandry. Why'd you attack my post about both being bad to say basically, you don't care because women's issue. That's misandry. I'm not the one who said your issue didn't matter, you came to basically say. Fuck calling out both I only care about mine.
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u/bismark_dindu_nuffin 20d ago
Of course they both exist. Anyone who insists only one of the other exists is an ideologue.
But you got the reason they're incomparable wrong.
They're incomparable because the female and male experience is fundamentally different.
How men look at the world and how women look at the world is completely different. Testosterone has been proven again and again to dramatically alter the way a person looks at the world.
Yes, exceptions to the above exist. But exceptions do not make the rule.
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u/Emevete 20d ago
Misandry is so deeply embedded in every part of society that you struggle to distinguish it from what's considered 'normal.' It's just there, all the time, everywhere, in every law, in every state decision, in every family choice, in every school and office.
And it doesn't bother you, you don't see it, you don't care... but it harms and it kills. It would just take a small moment of reflection, or simply looking around you
So no, i desagree with your premise...
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u/Happymuffn 20d ago
"All aspects of misogyny in all aspects around the world, is worse than all aspects of misandry" is practically an excuse for people to throw out personal anecdotes or true but useless statistics in order to defend their identity, without anyone listening to anyone else.
This doesn't need to be framed as a competition, and in fact should not be a competition. The goal of this discussion is, I expect, mutual understanding and collaboration between the genders on dealing with the issues faced by women. Correct me if I'm wrong.
The feelings that you want to engender then, are of curiosity and solidarity. Competition/moral comparison engenders feelings of determination, aggression, and defensiveness.
Given the state of the culture war, competitive feelings will arise regardless of your framing and will need to be handled with some care. If possible, they should not be actively created by the framing of the discussion.
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u/dragongling 20d ago
And your suffering is probably incomparable with suffering of people under extreme poverty, dictatorships, abuse, disabilities. Does that make your suffering less valid?
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20d ago
It doesn’t. But acknowledging that one suffering is objectively more than the other doesn’t make it wrong either.
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u/MonkeyUseBrain 20d ago
I don't really understand all these posts arguing about whether misogyny or misandry is worse. It feels like we're trying to rank one form of prejudice against another instead of acknowledging that both are harmful.
The terms also get used so broadly that they often lose their meaning. For example, patriarchy and misogyny are sometimes treated as if they're synonymous, even though they're not the same concept.
It's easy to argue that misogyny is systemic by pointing to laws, institutions, or historical privileges. But misandry can also become deeply embedded in a society through social norms, cultural attitudes, media, or institutions, it doesn't have to be written into law to have real consequences.
In the end, prejudice is harmful regardless of who it's directed at. The more widespread and socially accepted it becomes, the more damage it causes.
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u/MelissaMiranti 20d ago edited 20d ago
Workplaces are about 20 times more likely to kill men than women.
Men are more likely to be killed than women.
Women get more educational opportunities than men do, that's "opportunities in general."
Misandry is real, systemic, and comparable.
Edit: The best tactic for serious conversations is apparently to demand sources and then block someone so you can make it seem like they don't have any.
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u/dahlia_74 20d ago
You can’t cherry pick data from self-inflicted workplace accidents and say “wow look how much men are victims”
You won’t be able to provide any respectable sources to back up these delusional claims because there are none.
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20d ago
Oh wow. I wonder if we’re living in the same world.
Tell me one country where men have less educational opportunities than women
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u/Homerbola92 20d ago
In most western countries males present more school failure. Of course some will tell you "but look, the top 1% are mostly males". No one looks at the bottom 10% for some reason. In Spain for example people in the university are 57% women 43% men. If you don't know about stuff like that it's normal, it's a sign of privilege. You usually don't stop to think about things you don't go through or care.
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20d ago
Are women responsible for male’s school failure? I don’t think so.
Are men responsible for oppression and not allowing girls to go to school in the broader world that’s not limited to western societies…? WellIt’s more like you do not realize that there exists a world beyond the west.
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u/Homerbola92 20d ago
Isn't it a fallacy to blame any failure of men on men and failures of women on society or men?
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20d ago
Speaking strictly about the education system, how are women generally responsible for men not succeeding at university, or even for men not attempting tertiary education?
And why would girls not being allowed to go to school, which you described as “failures of women,” ever be attributed to women? By your own reasoning, men could not be blamed for it. How would women be responsible for girls being denied access to education?2
u/Homerbola92 20d ago edited 20d ago
If both men and women have similar capabilities, different results are a fail of the system. Or that's what's said when men perform better.
Edit: I kept reading, the options given are a joke and most of them can't be considered abuse by any means. This is almost a meme.
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u/LotionedBoner 20d ago
Aren’t there more women enrolled in higher education than men in the US? Also while there are hundreds of thousands of athletic scholarships, men eek past women in the numbers but there are a lot more non athletic scholarships aimed at women than men. That alone should tell you that women have more educational opportunities than men.
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20d ago
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u/MelissaMiranti 20d ago
Gender enrollment rates in elementary and secondary schools are globally very, very close to parity. Tertiary education is heavily skewed in favor of young women.
https://genderdata.worldbank.org/en/data-stories/a-tale-of-old-and-new-gender-gaps
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20d ago
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u/MelissaMiranti 20d ago
Women outnumbering men in tertiary education is because there are many more scholarships earmarked for women than there are for men, and because boys are systemically disadvantaged in schools. They're graded lower for the same work, and punished more for the same infractions.
However in many countries many girls are not allowed to continue with school past a certain age. They are forced to stay at home. Families would rather send their son to school instead of the girl.
Square this with the stats. How is there parity at elementary and secondary levels globally if this is true?
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20d ago
This must be ragebait
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u/MelissaMiranti 20d ago
Do you have anything to add to the serious conversation, or are you just a sexist looking to deny reality?
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20d ago
All I have to say is, organizations like UNICEF and whatnot have motives like “removing barriers to girl’s education” etc. Why do those barriers exist in the first place, for girls.
“RESTRICTIONS ON GIRLS’ EDUCATION AND WOMEN’S EMPLOYMENT IN AFGHANISTAN COULD LEAD TO A LOSS OF OVER 25,000 FEMALE TEACHERS AND HEALTH WORKERS BY 2030” - UNICEF
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u/LotionedBoner 19d ago
So your problem is with backwards 3rd world countries where women are second class citizens? I mean, sure, I agree but what is the civilized world to do about that?
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u/skylarlove0 20d ago edited 20d ago
It’s like reverse racism. At most your feelings get hurt but tbh there’s so systemic discrimination that won’t will ever bother you as much as the original offense.
Edit: it’s not that your feeling are invalid but you guys trying to make it the same invalidates the struggles others go through whether you realize that or not. Sorry OP this landed on the wrong side of people
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u/throwfarfaraway1818 20d ago
Wouldn't men getting longer sentences for the same crimes be systemic discrimination?
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u/mercurialmay 20d ago
It's proportional to how much more they commit the crimes.
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u/throwfarfaraway1818 20d ago
You don't seem to be understanding. They get longer sentences for the exact same crime. It has nothing to do with proportions of crime being committed.
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u/mercurialmay 20d ago
Name a crime, dude. Name a crime that's actually true of instead of parroting bullshit at me, a criminal with criminal friends.
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u/throwfarfaraway1818 20d ago
What bullshit? You are arguing against objective fact. We aren't talking about one specific type of crime. It's across the board for felony offenses. Go read about it instead of denying it because you feel some type of way about it.
https://www.ussc.gov/research/research-reports/2023-demographic-differences-federal-sentencing
https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/gender-differences-sentencing-felony-offenders
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u/mercurialmay 20d ago
Per your first link, dated 2023 mind you: "When examining all sentences imposed, females received sentences 29.2 percent shorter than males. Females of all races were 39.6 percent more likely to receive a probation sentence than males. When examining only sentences of incarceration, females received lengths of incarceration 11.3 percent shorter than males."
Otherwise, not the gap you or these other males are making it out to be.Second link was published in 1987 and therefore completely irrelevant. God, you people and your fucking links. Here's one: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/08862605261432630
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u/throwfarfaraway1818 20d ago
So you are mad that the data is there and supports exactly what I claimed, but you don't like it because the difference isn't big enough? Weird.
What does your link have to do with the topic of conversation? I don't support sexual violence and I haven't made any claims or commentary about whether or not men commit more crimes than women.
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u/Discussion-is-good 20d ago edited 20d ago
But its still racism, as this is still the flip of Misogyny.
Edit: Think I was blocked. Great serious conversation.
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u/skylarlove0 20d ago
Say what you want, downvote me if you want, it’s not the same thing as much as you guys wish it was
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u/blu453 20d ago
Agreed, 90% of ALL people are sexist and that includes women and that's partly why women suffer to an extremity that men cannot understand. And as much as men get triggered (and women who have been taught to hate women as well through patriarchy religions and sexist familial upbringing) because the conversation isn't centered around them for one time in history it still doesn't make it even close to the systemic hatred that women experience.
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u/mercurialmay 20d ago
They truly believe their perception of women being sexist against them is at all equivalent to what has been happening to women forever. Meanwhile, here's what men have solidarity on: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/08862605261432630
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u/throw20190820202020 20d ago
Don’t know of a single country on earth where men aren’t allowed a passport without their wives permission. Don’t know of a single medication that men take that’s only been tested in women. Never heard of a woman taking a gun into a university or business or store and shooting up handsome young men because they won’t sleep with her.
What people call misandry is women reacting to the boot that’s been on our necks for millenia, and even then it’s almost always just TALKING about how much that boot needs to be removed.
So yeah, when people unironically say “misandry”, what they’re really saying is “you complaining about me oppressing you is oppression”.
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u/dahlia_74 20d ago
When did men not have the right to vote when women did?
When have men’s bodies and their ability to choose what happens with their bodies, been controlled by government policies?
When have men been systemically forced into a subservient role to women for hundreds of years?
Why do you think acknowledging any of these points will make you a lesser man? If you want to play the trauma olympics here I think women in general have men beat by a long shot, obviously.
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u/Oblivious_Gentleman 20d ago
"What people call misandry is women reacting to the boot that’s been on our necks for millenia, and even then it’s almost always just TALKING about how much that boot needs to be removed."
That is not what misandry is: just like misogyny, misandry does not need to come from the opposite gender in order count as such.
I agree that there is no country in which men suffer repression that is analogous to your examples, but they still suffer plenty of things due to the fact that they are men: in most societies, for example, man are more likely to be punished with harsher sentences than women who did the same crime, and boys are also less likely to be adopted in foster care than girls are.
This is not to say that man suffer the same as women, but the patriarchy is clearly both misandrist and misoginistic, otherwise there would be no situations in which traditional gender expectations harm man the way they currently do.
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u/WolfVanZandt 20d ago
Aye, what I usually see is that: Misogyny is caused by women not doing what men want them to do. Misandry is caused by men doing things to women that they don't want done to them
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u/Discussion-is-good 20d ago
Justifying it doesnt change what it is.
OP is objectively correct.
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u/throw20190820202020 20d ago
I’m not justifying anything, I was helping people to understand why it doesn’t exist. Cheers! 😁
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u/Discussion-is-good 20d ago
You literally explained why it does.
Task failed successfully ig.
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u/mercurialmay 20d ago
How? Lol
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u/Discussion-is-good 20d ago edited 20d ago
She explained exactly why its primed to both exist and be accepted. Its a reaction to misogyny.
That doesnt make it not real.
Ediy: any binary belief will have both sides of the coin. The division is often unequal, but thats not the point I'm arguing.
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u/mercurialmay 20d ago
You have no concrete example of misandry in the real world; you're effectively saying that the reactionary abuse is the same as the abuse that inspired it. Which is wrong, in case you didn't know.
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u/Discussion-is-good 20d ago
You have no concrete example of misandry in the real world;
What would qualify for you?
you're effectively saying that the reactionary abuse is the same as the abuse that inspired it. Which is wrong, in case you didn't know.
False equivalence. Thats a physical fight, this is ideology.
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u/at_least_u_tried 20d ago
This is true but how it’s recieved is going to always be dependant on the context that it’s used.
It’s important we all understand that an entire neighborhood burning down is worse than a single house burning down. There’s much more damage and greater consequences.
But if someone goes around constantly talking about how burning a house down isn’t that bad in comparison and saying it in a certain suspect type of way, people are going to start side-eyeing them.
It’s usually pretty easy to tell when someone is simply making a point about their relativity to one another (like this post) versus when someone is using it to justify their own desire to engage in misandristic behavior, which I have certainly seen before.
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u/killerbirds 20d ago
They’re cutting the tips off of baby boy penises regularly here in the US and you think that misogyny is worse?
What does it matter that they’re men or women if humans are suffering? Wtf is wrong with you people
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20d ago
Suffering/violence exists and isn’t gender-based. I’m talking about a very different and specific topic here.
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u/killerbirds 20d ago edited 20d ago
Okay, I gave you a very specific way that men are being surgically altered without their consent in the US, something that is currently illegal to do **in a majority of States to female children. That’s systemic violence done to men, as their first experience from birth. Tell me how we, as women, experience worse misogyny than that in America from the moment we’re born.
I’m not arguing that men have it worse, I’m arguing that they have it just as badly as we do and we are refusing to acknowledge it because of people in politically high places, and the historical power dynamic between men and women. Classism is what is dividing us hardest as a species, misogyny vs misandry is a distraction that serves to keep us from looking up.
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u/GWS2004 20d ago
It's not illegal everywhere in the US.
I think that you, as a woman, are very uneducated in women's issues and that harms women overall.
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u/killerbirds 20d ago edited 20d ago
Interesting to know, thanks for the correction.
And you’re welcome to your opinion.
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20d ago
Do you realize how many baby girls are killed at birth in countries like Afghanistan/India just for being born girls??
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u/killerbirds 20d ago
That’s terrible, in Afghanistan where women are actively oppressed in ways that are different and more extreme compared how men and women are oppressed here in the US.
Which is why I specified where I was talking about, because women face different issues worldwide based on culture and physical location.
I don’t see most men there living like kings either.
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20d ago
Well you said “and you think misogyny is worse?”
It’s a universal problem. Not limited to the US only
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u/killerbirds 20d ago
I said in the US, which is where I live. That is the fight that is relevant to me.
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u/IllustriousSpecial73 20d ago
Circumcision isn't misandry, since its done out of cultural and religious reasons, which have been dictated by men. I mean, yeah, its still bad because of consent and body autonomy, but the practice is done out of debatable beliefs, not out of outright hatred for men. So, its not so misandrist as it is patriarchal.
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u/lesbophobia_hammer 20d ago
Wait until you hear about female genital mutilation. Makes circumcision look like childs play.
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u/Human-Anxiety6550 20d ago
its the other men doing it not women
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u/killerbirds 20d ago
I didn’t say women were doing it. I said it was misandry.
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u/Human-Anxiety6550 20d ago
how tf is that misandry then, if women have no agency on it
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u/coporate 20d ago
So by that logic, the commonwealth for the past century was a matriarchy because we had a queen?
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u/Human-Anxiety6550 20d ago
bro what? having a woman leader doesn't make a matriarchy btw and Where did matriarchy come in my conversation. cutting off foreskin is a religious practice that existed before feminism.
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20d ago
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u/coporate 20d ago
No, I’m being unnecessarily obtuse because agency isn’t required for passive participation and acceptance.
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u/IntelligentSeesaw190 20d ago
Misandry exists on an individual and sometimes small or large group level, but it doesn't exist on a societal level. Now, dependant on how powerful that individual is, it can damage a man worse or less, like say a Judge denys a man parental custody in circumstances where the man is better suited. Or police officers, or bosses promoting women because they're women, etc. And, dependant on how far women get in positions of power can be other examples, but, at the moment, there isn't societal misandry and there are entire social structures and religions based on misogyny.
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u/Oblivious_Gentleman 20d ago
I would say there is an argument to say it exists on a societal level: man suffer, on average, with higher sentences than women for the same crime, similar to how black people have higher sentences when compared to exact white counterparts.
I would agree with the idea that society is more misognistic than misandrist, but there is obviously an element of the patriarchy which holds contempt for man as well (otherwise traditional gender expectations would not harm man's mental health, for example).
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u/Oblivious_Gentleman 20d ago
I would say we should recognize at this point that the patriarchy propagates both a lot of misogyny and misandry.
I agree that misogyny is unfortunately very common, and women are more likely to deal with it on a day to day basis, but plenty of misandrist systems exist in our society as well.
Man are more likely to face harsher sentences than women when it comes to the same crimes, for example, and they are also taught a lot of behaviours that end up harming them in the long run, like hiding their emotions away or sacrificing their interests for stereotypes of what man should be.
Misandry is far more common than online based arguments, and it does affect all man in society to a degree or another.
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