Her Playbook

Misandry is a grim reality, largely invisible, underrated, but existent. Let us delve deeper and ascertain its roots. A large part of it could be borne out of the reality of misogyny. The real or perceived oppression of women by men has created imbalance and distrust in both men and women. Gender biases have done more harm than any other social ill. Misogyny generates misandry.

History, or the misreading of it, may play a role in this. Most of the anti-heroes of the last century have been male: Hitler, Stalin, Ceauşescu, Slobodan Milošević, Saddam Hussein, and Osama bin Laden. But the misreading of history is threefold. First, their villainy was a matter of power, not gender. Second, women with absolute power have been absolute villains, too. Third, we cannot ignore the male heroes who fought against tyranny and died doing so. It is insular to generalise and to look at the malaise through the prism of gender.

About 90 per cent of all murders in North America are committed by men. The Top 10 on the FBI Most Wanted List are usually all male. Most of the corporate CEOs and CFOs arrested recently, from Enron to Bernie Madoff have been men; Martha Stewart was a lowly exception. So, there seem to be real grounds for misandry. But this is the Cyclops syndrome: to see with only one eye, in only one dimension, and only half the reality. Cyclops people stereotype the male by the actions of a minority, define the exceptions as the rule, and ignore the minority of female culprits for a cleaner, clearer picture. Most murderers are male, but most males are not murderers, and some women are. The complexity of the situation must not be ignored. But misandry is less about reality and more about politics.

Some misandry is likely to be grounded, like misogyny, in bitter personal experiences. Many women say that they have had unpleasant personal experiences with men: fathers, brothers, lovers, co-workers, bosses, et al. We have all been failed by our opposite gender and our own, too, but to extrapolate from a minority to the general is unfortunate and unfounded.

It is also not clear whether misandry is grounded more in historical understanding, personal experience, or gender politics, but certainly, misandry is deep-rooted in our culture.

This new sexism, reverse sexism, is widespread in feminist and pro-feminist literature—or propaganda, one might say, but largely ignored. One does not criticise feminism. But a fair number of feminists have criticised men in sexist terms. Marilyn French called men “the enemy”. Germaine Greer wrote, “women have no idea how much men hate them.” Betty Friedan, amazingly, referred to suburban domestic life as a “comfortable concentration camp” for women, and their husbands as SS prison guards. Rosalind Miles described men as “the death sex.” Valerie Solanas wrote the SCUM Manifesto, the ‘Society for Cutting Up Men’, and Robin Morgan obligingly publicised this hate literature. Alice Walker’s The Color Purple won the Pulitzer and is totally misandric. Such movies have also been very popular among women. Misandry sells. Why these Black women should demonise Black men, compounding sexism and racism, I don’t know. It just reinforces racism.

The political demonisation of men is complemented by the angelisation of women in a moral bipolar, totally sexist, evaluation of gender: women/good and men/bad. Women have always been expected to be the custodians of human sentiment, morality, and honor, and sadly, most of the time, it is women who enforce this. This is the other end of the bipolar spectrum, reeking of depravity, giving rise to another misandry.
Misandry escalated in the 1990s. The battle of the sexes became the war against women. It was mostly about the media criticism of feminism.

Misandry is now institutionalised in popular culture. Joke books, fridge magnets, T-shirts, coffee mugs, newspaper cartoons, TV sitcoms deride men all the time. There is no equal opportunity contempt because women have to be dealt with ‘sensitively’, but one wonders about the need for contempt. T-shirts say: “Women Rule. Men Drool.”

“So many men. So little ammunition”—an advocacy of violence which would be unimaginable were the sexes reversed. “What do you call a man with half a brain? Gifted.” The consequences of such male-negativity are not clear, but such negative affirmations have, over decades, harmed both sexes: self-loathing and a resistance-generated misogyny among men, and contempt for men among women.

Our sitcoms portray men as bumbling fools and idiots, usually overweight, with the women as sensible, together, and attractive. Everybody might love Raymond, but he’s an idiot. The same idiots are replayed every night: Beavis and Butthead, Trailer Park Boys, The Simpsons, Home Improvement…We may laugh at such sexism, not recognising it as such, but we do not laugh at racism or misogyny. We are all constantly being bombarded with messages that men are stupid, and it would be surprising if we were not internalising them. Sitcoms may be low-culture comedies, but watching them is like going to school: we inculcate the values and attitudes around us.

Michael Kimmel, who owns Men’s Studies in the US, is particularly misandric, opening his book Manhood in America (1996) with a long list of male villains—not a hero, hard-working man, good father, Nobel Peace Prize winner, not a useful Newton, Darwin, Freud, Einstein, Gandhi, Mandela, King, Carnegie Medal winner in sight. It’s amazing. Then in Men’s Lives, he adds more villains and this suggestion: “Perhaps we should slap a warning label on penises across the land. WARNING: OPERATING THIS INSTRUMENT CAN BE DANGEROUS TO YOUR AND OTHERS’ HEALTH. One wonders if he is wearing this label on his own penis. Does he practice what he preaches? More: two of the more misandric and dehumanising observations are that men are bad, women are good; and no awareness that women commit about 10 per cent of all homicides, and 15-25 per cent of the domestic homicides, and that mothers commit the majority of domestic homicides of children under 12.

To conclude: misandry is everywhere, culturally acceptable, even normative, largely invisible, taught directly and indirectly by men and women, blind to reality, very damaging and de-humanising. It’s time we acknowledged and addressed it for a fairer society.

behaviourMen-women relationshippatriarchypeoplesociety