What constitutes Misogyny?

[compared2what?]

Yeah, in one of the places I lived (I lived in a great many growing up), the standard insult to call a guy was a "woman." "You woman!"

I always thought that was just comically stupid. I never used it. Then again, I was despised by one and all at that particular school, a small town in Southern Wisconsin, where German-born new-kid actually-seen-part-of-the-world me, was a complete FREAK.

This was in the mid 70's. Anyone else experience this usage, or was it local?

It's pretty nearly global, as far as I know. Or, less vaguely, it's common, has been in use (at least) on and off for (at least) centuries, and isn't confined to the western world. Though it might not occur in every culture throughout all of time everywhere. Like that really needed saying, I know.

[23]

When asked to list the dominant planetary issues, Johan Galtung includes misogyny (second reference):

[charlie meadows]

Yeah, in one of the places I lived (I lived in a great many growing up), the standard insult to call a guy was a "woman." "You woman!"

I always thought that was just comically stupid. I never used it. Then again, I was despised by one and all at that particular school, a small town in Southern Wisconsin, where German-born new-kid actually-seen-part-of-the-world me, was a complete FREAK.

This was in the mid 70's. Anyone else experience this usage, or was it local?

always? just? never? by one and all? complete?

Has anyone?

Isn't that what this thread is about, really: Always and never...

[brainpanhandler]

Okay. I wanted to review the post I critiqued to see if I was putting words in Nordic's mouth unfairly, or if I still thought that the post really did use such universally understood and (sorry, N., not personal) classically cliched phrases and stereotypes to refer to women from start to finish that pretty much anyone reading them would know what their unstated implications were without even thinking about it.

....

This stuff is, as I said, ubiquitous and routine and easy to overlook.

You can't have it both ways and you had it right the first way. It's not easy to overlook. Rather it's easy to be other things I'll leave unexpressed.

I mean, that's such widely recognizable language and stereotyping that sitcoms use it

This is no exaggeration. I thought I was reading parody.

The restraint and patience of the women on this thread is admirable regardless of it's origin.

[Joe Hillshoist]

if you want to see mysogeny scratch the surface of Australia a little.

We've got a (shock horror) female PM, who even worse, is unmarried, childless and a proclaimed atheist to boot.

The entire media in Australia is a little bit like the Tea party in the US at the moment. The TP know somethings wrong with a black mussie illegal running the country but need to use words like socialist and big government to make it acceptable in public.

The fuckers in Australia don't even bother with that. Hence Mr Rabbit's "make an honest woman of her" comment earlier in the week. The media in Australia are still spinning out, with comments on the PMs wardrobe and the size of her fucking earlobes FFS. And other politicians making comments like "if she doesn't have kids how can she be a proper woman" - ok maybe they didn't those exact words, and "barren" (yes thats how she was described, before she became PM I think.)

Yeah anyway...

[Stephen Morgan]

We'll have to disagree there. Fredrick Douglas and Malcom X spoke with authority which couldn't be matched by academic detachment.

Yes, but their authority came from the passion generated by their experiences, it doesn't imply that they have an objective and comprehensive grasp of every facet of that which they opposed. You could just as easily say the Klan, who support as enthusiastically as Malcolm X and company oppose, are the real experts on racism. What knows more of a tree, a caterpillar in the branches or a worm in the roots?

Women are not an oppressed class.

Not agreed.

Of course not, you may not be able to present a compelling case for the oppression of women in modern western society, but I don't expect you to disavow it.

I support the men's movement's position wrt access to their children. I'm sure there are specific cases where I'd not support someone - say an abuser trying to continue his abuse by bringing legal action upon legal action against the mother -

I hardly think that needs stating, and the fact that the first thing that occurs to you when you think "legal rights for fathers" is "abusers" is telling.

but otherwise I consider it a part of my feminism to bring fathers way up in status. Equality, that's what I'm after. My motives are not entirely unselfish though. Women will never be equal in the larger society until fathers are equal in the smaller society.

As I'm not a father myself, my motives are merely an interest in abstract justice.

The rappers and Gordon Gekkos of this world are the misogynists, although as they also hate most men the term loses some of its meaning. But they hate women, on the surface at least, for being women and men for other reasons. But they shouldn't be viewed as the wrongful father figures, but the wronged sons. They are the diseased minds produced by a diseased situation in their youth.

I agree. Perhaps you can extend this analysis to the women you rail against.

I don't rail against women as a group, only against those with whom I disagree on equal terms with men. And they are all the products of their environment.

[Infanticide] is an example of a defence women have in court that men don't. Clearly it is unjust to be particularly lenient specifically because you kill your own children.

well, men can't have that defense since they can't give birth. I believe that the defense is based on hormones and post-partum psychosis.

It is therefore fundamentally unprovable, but probably shouldn't be allowed anyway. If you were hormonally imbalanced due to adrenaline, say, you wouldn't be able to use it as a defence in court, nor if you were clinically depressed, the best you could hope for would be confinement to a mental institution for being a danger to yourself and others.

Why did I start the thread if not to debate Stephen? To debate the rest of you. Stephen is a lost cause, any woman can see that. The rest of you though, that's different.

As with barracuda above, I reject the contention that woman have better vision that men. You, my dear, are a sexist.

well, I've just gone against my own better judgement anyway.

We can't be too bound by our past judgements.

[Joe Hillshoist]

The Asian women said the racism was present only in her own mind.

Bullshit, it was present in the arsehole's treatment of her.

Lots of arseholes are ... racist arseholes. If some arsehole calls me a dirty boong cos they are an arsehole it doesn't mean the racism exists only in my mind. Despite the fact that they are probably also a bullyingly violent rapist jerk about to lose some teeth, and the sort of arsehole who treats people like shit they are also racist. They make those comments because they want to inflict some sort of pain/power trip on other people, and generate a particular emotional response. Same with the parking attendant.

[Joe Hillshoist]

I hope I get to like a lot of you in person this summer

On the topic at hand, I think the bottom fact of mispgyny is the association of the female or feminine with weakness, and the concomitant association of the masculine with strength. Over time, those that see themselves as strong (or who wish to be seen as strong) can very easily come to regard those they see as weak with contempt.

There's pretty good anecdotal evidence for this in the content of male verbal sparring. What do males [particularly young males] call other males when they really want to insult them or degrade them? They call then names for women, parts of women, or names for homosexuals:

"Shut the fuck up, you whiny bitch!"

"Don't be such a pussy, you goddamn faggot."

Or simply: "Awww, what's the matter, are you going to cry? What are you, a little girl?"


Callin another man a 'woman' in an effort to insult him only makes sense if it is understood by all parties that to be seen as a woman is a very bad thing (maybe the worst thing).

Some have argued that contempt is part of the 'hard core' of fascist ideology. So yeah, misogyny is still a pretty big deal.

You know what? If you really want to provoke a(n adult) guy, call them a crybaby or a child.

That really does work. Even quicker than attacking his gender.

[Stephen Morgan]

Let's not talk about it, though, okay? Because we've been over it pretty damn thoroughly already. And while I can't speak for you with any certainty, it was at least my impression that neither of us gained so much as a single bare and pathetic scrap of any damn thing of any kind and/or in any form (known or unknown) throughout and quite likely beyond the universe during the process.

Yes, debating gender issues tends to be an unproductive matter. I still don't understand how anyone can think of women in the modern west as an oppressed class, or of this board as hostile to women and so on. It's nice to occasionally find common ground, though.

Neither reciprocity nor reply is at all necessary, btw. Although if I didn't address the question to your satisfaction, needless to say, please let me know.

I wasn't so much thinking about what you thought of what I was writing, as of how I was writing it. What sort of attitude towards those with whom I correspond may be imputed to me. Specifically in your first post to Nordic you were condemning society for creating in him a mindset which causes him to react to talk of misogyny with, I suppose, a sort of objectification of women. I was wondering if you think I fall into the same category, and whether you see me as being, say, dismissive towards people.

[Nordic]

Hesitant to jump into this at all, because, well, when women say "we have to talk", it's usually a time where you REALLY have to watch what you say.

Just FYI, everybody who has trounced me because of this, this was meant to be a joke. Light hearted but slightly biting bit of jocularity to start my post.

Sheeesh!

What color should we use for that? Or maybe we should start having a laugh track.

Or maybe people are just touchy, touchy ......

[Nordic]

I've been doing a little research tonight, and I have found that indeed, advertisers in our country are blatantly sexist. It's disgusting!

[compared2what?]

People are definitely touchy. And understandably so. I mean that in a value-neutral-to-nice way, I should add, in the spirit of spelling things out. Men have a very, very tough time in many, many regards, emotionally and experientially. In fact, those men's rights sites that go on and on about how men are sensitive and women are callous have got it half-right, imo. I think that just about anyone who's loved a man or boy in his or her life knows that they didn't get we-need-to-talk sensitive out of the clear blue sky (assuming that they are we-need-to-talk sensitive). There are real cultural reasons for them to feel that women are going to indict, accuse or reject them for something they either didn't do or didn't mean that way. Starting in childhood.

I would never use that phrase, myself. For that reason. Or even bring the issue above up at all of my own initiative IRL. Because it would probably be heard as "We need to talk." I just try indirectly to make the fella feel good not bad about himself wrt his thoughts and feelings about women and sex. (Believe it or not.) It's one of those kind of least-said, soonest-more-good-feeling-fella gestures of love and sympathy that actually can't be noticeable as such and still be effective, by definition.

I'm sure there are some that go the other way, too. But assuming they were effective, I'd never know, would I?

I apologize. But why didn't you just tell me it was a joke and that I was a humorless bitch? Oh, wait. I realize why! But you know, in context, there was no way of knowing that. It was very like stuff you say fairly regularly, and cheek-by-jowl with a number of other examples. On another topic, I probably wouldn't have said anything to you about it at all. Both because it didn't and therefore still wouldn't have bothered me personally. And because I wouldn't have expected a productive response, all things considered. So, you know. I certainly wouldn't have done it just to fuck with and annoy you. I don't get any kick out of that kind of thing. Irritating though I might be.

It was the on-edit that prompted me to post, actually. I thought: Aw. His stepdaughter. I should ask him if he knows what that sounds like to a girl.

Sorry. Tired. Rambling.

[compared2what?]

Ha. If it weren't off-topic, you'd be sorry you brought those ads up. I've done detailed, detailed research on those and could give you chapter and verse on every single force that lay behind each and every example from the time of their introduction in the '90s to (roughly) the end of the decade. And there hasn't been that much change since then.

But I'll spare you, it's just marketing shit. Demo specific. Not representative of the demands culture places on all men. Or its objectification of them for all purposes.

As I do believe you already knew, you troublemaker.

[Nordic]

Actually it wasn't just you, it seems that particular statement of mine got a wide response from a fair number of people, which is why I wanted to go on the record and state that it was meant in a humorous way, so the reactions could perhaps stop and we could spend our valuable time talking about things that actually mattered.

You bring up something I have been meaning to add to this thread, which others have touched upon, and that is that women often treat men as if we have no feelings. We are expected to watch every nuance of what we say, including our tone of voice, our body language, every little thing, yet women seem to feel a complete freedom in spouting off whatever the hell they feel like saying to us, no matter how hurtful, and expect us to have no emotional wounds from it whatsoever.

Men do have feelings. As much as women do.

[Nordic]

Ha. If it weren't off-topic, you'd be sorry you brought those ads up. I've done detailed, detailed research on those and could give you chapter and verse on every single force that lay behind each and every example from the time of their introduction in the '90s to (roughly) the end of the decade. And there hasn't been that much change since then.

But I'll spare you, it's just marketing shit. Demo specific. Not representative of the demands culture places on all men. Or its objectification of them for all purposes.

As I do believe you already knew, you troublemaker.

I do already know that, but it's the same for the ads showing women in all their physical and erotic beauty. All marketing shit, demo specific.

I walked past a Hollister store today and was met with a 6 foot tall picture that was particularly striking, of a boy, that made me think of this thread. I can't find the photo online, however. Methinks it would appeal to gay men of all ages and girls in the 12 - 15 age group. I wish I could find it because it was particularly .... striking.