What are the examples of misandry, male disposability & common male tropes in fiction?

krautbube · 2023-04-05T11:58:14+00:00

Women slapping men across the face because he did something stupid is a very common trope and is always portrayed as funny/quirky.

In action films, men are never allowed to kill or harm women, even if it would make sense for the plot, and even if the same film features hundreds of men being mowed down by bullets. If a woman does get killed, it's always in a less gory or direct way (e.g. she gets pushed off a cliff).

HumansDisgustMe123 · 2023-04-05T10:51:28+00:00

Well there's always the soaps. I watch the odd episode of Coronation Street from time to time, which has always been pretty terrible at handling male characters (they're literally either thick as pig-shit, emotionally stunted robots, or murderous villains), anyway they recently did an acid attack storyline.

I heard the acid attack story was coming, and the supposed target was to be one of the women characters, but I already knew weeks before I saw the actual episode that a man was definitely going to jump in the way at the last second, and lo and behold, one did. Some might look at that as a "knight in shining armour" trope designed for the "male ego" (because obviously we belong to a monolithic hive-mind, duh /s), but I see it as a calculated move to provide drama without compromising a character people will care about.

The men on the show are very disposable. One main character has successfully murdered 2 men in the past few months, will be killing a third next week, and yet practically nobody has questioned the disappearance of the two men. They literally only existed to die and be universally forgotten, just as this most recent one exists now to be an acid-sponge. The acid victim has also been rejecting visitations in hospital, so I can now expect a storyline about how "men create their own misery by closing themselves off from the world" or something to that degree.

TisIChenoir · 2023-04-05T13:55:02+00:00

In recent memories, there are a ton of movies where they show the male characters to be incompetent at best, and female characters to be almost infaillible.

I think about Star Wars mostly, but look at The Ring of Power, most Marvel stuff (Thor is a buffon, and female Thor is perfect. Hulk learned to master his powers for decades, and She-Hulk surpasses naturally, Loki is replaced in his own show by Female Loki who is superior in every respect, ...)

The last Jurassic Park where you discover that the (male) geneticist who allowed everything (he was a baddie but still) stole everything from a very young woman, because of course.

Anyway, that's fucking everywhere. I just went to see Mario with my 4 y.o son, and thankfully it's not there, but I've seen rumors pass that the producer wanted Mario to take a backseat and have Peach save everything, and Shigeru Miyamoto had to stop that from happening.

It's sexist against men because we deserve to have heroes that are heroes and aren't overshadowed by other characters in their own films, and it's sexist against women because it depicts flat characters that are pretty fucking irrealistic. And refusing to make your female character flawed because you think women can't handle that is insulting.

dr-korbo · 2023-04-05T10:16:41+00:00

Violence against men by women is trivialized.

Examples in Harry Potter books and movies:

In the 6th book, Ron flirts with a girl. Hermione, who is jealous, summons many birds who attack Ron. This behavior is never denounced as problematic. Ron is only described as a jerk. In the 7th book (and movie), Ron leaves Hermione and Harry after an argument. Hermione is very depressed after he leaves. He comes back several month later and Hermione attacks him physically and wants to use a spell against him. She cannot do it because Harry has her wand. The scene is presented as funny in the movie.

An other problem in the books and the movies is the use of love potion to seduce boys and men. It's never considered problematic. Ron drinks a love potion by mistake (it was intended to be drunk by Harry) and is in love with a girl. Once again, the scene is supposed to be funny. If boys or men did the same thing everyone would be horrified. In the same way, Voldemort father drank a love potion given to him by Voldemort mother. Their sexual intercourses are basically rape. But Voldemort father only seems like a jerk because he left behind Merope whe she stopped giving him the potion.

shit-zen-giggles · 2023-04-05T12:00:08+00:00

/r/MisandryInMedia might be a good place to digg into and to ask as well.

LoganCaleSalad · 2023-04-05T14:38:41+00:00

Men are stupid, incompetent, & clueless about everything without the calm rational women around. How often do you see a woman being legitimately calm or rational vs men? Seriously how often do you see men in media that can't cook, can't change a diaper, can't do laundry, & can't stand up for themselves.

Men are incapable of being good parents. Just look at how men are glared at or straightup harassed (confronted by karens or have cops called) when out alone with their children or are babysitting niblings. They're presumed to be automatically predators & have stolen those children. Have experienced this many times over the years when out with my godkids or niece & nephew. Never had cops called but definitely been questioned or had a lot of death glares thrown my way. Occasionally got hit on by a single mom or nanny but it was rare vs being watched cuz none of those kids could possibly belong to me.

Men are either the stalwart heroes that will simp for women at every chance or the unscrupulous villain that will use or harm women at any chance. Almost never see a well written masculine character that is self-aware, intelligent, emotionally stable, respectful within reason, & is willing to call women out for shitty behavior or harm them in self-defense.

AskingToFeminists · 2023-04-05T15:05:30+00:00

Well, if you want to establish a character as a villain, you jave two options : either randomly kill one or more of his male minions, or have him hit a woman. And generally, you're expected to be more outraged by the hitting a woman than by the killing of men.

I believe you should have a look at tvtropes :

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MenAreTheExpendableGender

OfficialMitchell2000 · 2023-04-05T15:57:21+00:00

Whether the action protagonist is either male or female, all of the pawns that they kill will be male.

I was scarred as a kid watching an adult ‘sexy’ woman walk into a little boys washroom and have the LITTLE BOYS be portrayed as gross for flirting with her, she proceeds to rape them

Just last night I watched a short film in which the female action star grabs a male pawn’s genitals for her advantage to force him to move as a human shield

One that never fails is when male abusers are portrayed they are always bigoted and practically begging to be killed and tortured with no redemption or reason in sight, but women abusers always do worse stuff but ALWAYS they’re portrayed as just misunderstood and have mental problems, it’s not their fault!!

And now I can’t scroll on TikTok safely because there is a sound (that I’m unable to block btw I have to report it) about how men who don’t have huge genitals are worthless and nobody wants them, people think it’s a great sound and the few who call it out get bullied, some times it comes up when I least expect it and it really sucks.

So yeah these have all taken a drastic toll on my mental health

Ho6org · 2023-04-05T10:38:20+00:00

"many tried before you" - some wannabe heroes who's skeletons are not lying around before the great obstacle. It's a way of showing that our hero is not the first to try and the place is dangerous. Always men, never women.

The villains servants - stormtroopers from Star Wars, goblins from Lord of the rings, you name it. Every serious villain should have some. No brain, no threat despite being described otherwise. Completely disposable.

Gay best friend - they are not here to have their life, their own goals, their own mountains to climb - no, they are here to listen for a woman protagonist problems.

"It's my turn, boys" - Woman nonchalantly stepping in out of nowhere, declaring that men are arrogant and "step back, it takes a woman hand for this job" just before destroying all the obstacles using her woman plot power boost.

Pseudo-hero himbo prince charming being actually useless, egocentric, clean shaven asshole, being unable to do anything on his own (Shrek 2 and 3 are the best example of this). Propably jumping on a tree the moment he sees a squirrel, waiting for a woman to save him from the real nature.

The first Police patrol - those guys who appear on the screen just so our monster antagonist is able to destroy them as they scream pointing flashlights at them. (a good entrance, showing how dangerous he is since the first minutes on the screen)

The adorator - a handsome man-doll with great muscles and zero self respect competing against the others of his kind for an attention of either "just a normal girl" Mary Sue or "not like other girls" Mary Sue. He'll of course get rejected, he only exist to extend the girl badassery aura. He's most likely shown to be shallow and dumb to exsuse Mary Sue treating him like air.

barb_jellinsky · 2023-04-05T11:02:50+00:00

Maybe im being petty but current barbie marketing: She is everything. He is just Ken.

And I 've noticed whenever movies are made that center around women where they have more pro active roles, men are not merely just brushed aside, like how it typicaly goes in the reverse scenario, no they also have to be degraded in some way to boost how awesome and unique and revolutionary women^TM perspective is.

Movies that deal with women navigating through societal problems often have the more or less prominent thesis that its against men^TM. They they are the defect backwards gender blocking progress. When movies are usualy centered on male protagonist dealing with generaly men's issues, never is there a need to make derogatory comments or be condescending to women, and problems that men face are typicaly positioned against society in general. The worst thing that happens is that women are not in the spotlight.

DrDalenQuaice · 2023-04-05T11:37:24+00:00

Worst I saw recently was the sexual assault of the "duke" in season 1 of Bridgerton by his wife. Was trivialized because he had selfish reasons

Oncefa2 · 2023-04-05T15:01:26+00:00

This might be useful.

https://np.reddit.com/r/Male_Studies/comments/vbbj76/the_battered_husband_syndrome/

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1979-08674-001

One of the main points of this paper was to document evidence about the normalisation of female-on-male violence in society and in the media, including in older print newspapers and comics.

Some of her research looked at popular comic strips from as far back as the early 1900s to demonstrate that female-on-male abuse, not male-on-female abuse, is what's accepted and normalized by society.

This normalisation of violence against men is what makes it difficult for men to contextualise their situations as abusive. Which often allows things to get worse until they finally take things into their own hands.

There are also several articles on this site that are relevant:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BumblingDad

ArmchairDesease · 2023-04-05T15:03:50+00:00

I recently saw Babylon, and I noticed there were two instances of "comedic deaths":

The extra pierced by a spear during the war scene and the sound engineer who dies from heat.

Both made the whole theater (me included) laugh. Both were work related accidents caused by absurdly unsafe work environments.

And guess the sex of the victims...

Now that I think of it, my impression is that the characters whose death is used for comedic effect tend to be overwhelmingly male.

MealReadytoEat_ · 2023-04-05T19:18:50+00:00

TV tropes has you covered, https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenderAndSexualityTropes is a long list with links to pages about these issues with extensive references, such as https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MenAreTheExpendableGender

AleksandrNevsky · 2023-04-05T19:01:19+00:00

Incompetent Male-Hypercompetent Female duo. Treasure Planet subverted it a bit with the goofy Doctor saving the day while the professional and highly trained female captain was rather useless during the climax.

Double Standard Rape: Female-on-Male and Double Standard Abuse: Female-on-Male. Both for the same reason. It shows that heinous acts become acceptable and even fun when the target changes. If you're a man that's gone through either what are you supposed to take away from that? I want to see the female rapist get her head blown off for once not end up dating her mark in a rom-com setting. In a similar line, women being violent to men for little to no reason. Things like slapping, striking, hitting, or even shooting at them (Captain America) or leaving them to die because they're mad at them (Blake Holsey High) for things they had little to no control over or are disproportionate to what they've done.

Men Are Useless. Just like the Adults Are Useless trope it's fits the same pattern. Any males in the work are portrayed as incompetent, lazy, or otherwise unable to help resolve the plot. It's done entirely as a way to disparage men as a whole. It's cliche, obnoxious, and harmful at this point. And it's present in nearly every major work now. It's just the 1950's "screaming woman" trope but even more obnoxious and insulting.

There's no name for it and I can only come up with "Men Are The Disposable Gender". Anytime a male death is shown it's trivial especially if it's a side character (2012) but when you want stakes raised you kill a woman. In the former it's not a big deal and no one really cares much in the latter even an unnamed character that's introduced in just that scene is given more emotional impact. Even in ones that live women are special for just existing, men are the default. Even in real life you see shades of it. Women are praised for just being a woman who's also an X regardless of aptitude. While on the other side men are expected to fill a role like this or they're not worth as much. This trope is in reality as much as it is in fiction. A female soldier is exceptional and noteworthy a male one is cannon fodder. A female doctor is exceptional and empowering a male one is just the default. How can you measure up when no matter what you've achieved is never enough and the other person is praised just for showing up?

CompetitiveOwl2 · 2023-04-06T00:43:22+00:00

This may be more about the thinking behind the tropes than tropes themselves but I thought I'd add it to the conversation:

I was listening to a podcast about the alien franchise, of which I'm a big fan, and there was an interesting discussion about violence towards men and women in horror. The view given in the podcast is that in horror the deaths of women are lingered over for the purpose of titillation. I feel it may be just as valid as to say that the deaths of men are barely shown and the women are lingered over because we won't be horrified by the deaths of men in the same way. I also find it insulting that people believe men in general are titillated by violence against women.

There is also the fact that the filmmakers wanted to make men "cross their legs". There was the belief that men don't understand the sense of fear and vulnerability about loss of bodily autonomy. Of course this is true in the very specific sense that we (cis men specifically) cannot be forced to bear the child of a rapist but the idea that men are not violated and do not fear violation more generally is, I feel, rooted in misandrist views of male hyper-agency.

I can't say these things are absolutely the case so you'd probably have to examine these yourself in more detail but hopefully it's an interesting avenue for you.

meemsqueak44 · 2023-04-05T18:46:37+00:00

I think a common trend is that women’s adultery is romantic and justified whereas men’s is selfish and lustful.

Recently read a book (Wahala by Nikki May) in which the female main characters talk a lot of shit about men, particularly Nigerian men. They also lie to and disrespect their husbands in horrible ways. The book shows them realizing they were wrong, but it still mostly sides with the women.

Punder_man · 2023-04-05T19:44:57+00:00

If you want an example of this then look no further than then critically shamed Kevin Smith's "Masters of the Universe - Revelation" Aka "The Teela Show"

The show was hyped up as an homage to the fans of the classic 80's He-Man And the Masters of the Universe cartoon and the promotional material showed the titular character "He-Man" front and center and everything looked great.

Then Kevin did an old bait n switch on us and what we got was not what was promised.
literally the only 'homage' to the original cartoon was the first episode where they littered it with references and nostalgia bait.

I would put a spoiler tag here but frankly its been out long enough and its not really a spoiler at this point..
But at the end of the episode they kill off the main character.

In the next episode Teela finds out that He-man was in fact Clark Kent.. I mean Prince Adam and instead of being upset that one of her closest friends is dead she instead goes full Karen and complains about how they kept the secret from here.

There's a small time skip and she has become a stronk independent woman with the side of her head shaved to show how tough and bad ass she has become.
Anyway the story essentially follows Teela and is centered around her and her 'struggles'

Aside from this piece of media being yet another example of woke feminist garbage what I want to highlight here is that all the characters who die in this show are men..

Mossman
He-Man / Prince Adam
Orko
Roboto

Those are the deaths in the first 'season' aka the first 5 episodes..

Id say that counts as an example of "Male Disposablity"

Specific_Detective41 · 2023-04-05T19:52:56+00:00

Have no intention of seeing it but heard about it from others. 40 Days and 40 nights. Male character is tied to a bed and gets raped by a woman. He is then expected to apologise to his girlfriend because she considered it to be cheating. Director did an ama on Reddit where someone mentioned it but he just deflected by making fun of the persons username.

OddSeraph · 2023-04-05T13:43:50+00:00

Do the writers of Abbott Elementary still let the principal sexually harass the teacher with no repercussions and use it as a punch line?

el_jefe1978 · 2023-04-05T14:42:17+00:00

The shows Leverage and Leverage: Redemption. They repeatedly have (mostly women) drug men, and it's "acceptable". It's like the message is, you can drug people as long as you don't sexually violate them. I personally am a fan of the show, but these scenes pass me off because if the genders were flipped, that would end the show.

themolestedsliver · 2023-04-05T23:45:18+00:00

Oh boy where do I begin? Off the top of my head the show friends has A LOT.

There's an episode where Joey's new girlfriend has a habit of slapping/hitting him as hard as she can whenever he makes a joke or does something funny. His friends give him tons of shit for it "oh is a little girl beating you up?" Type shit. That's bad enough but do you know how it's resolved? The girlfriend in question pulls the hitting shtick on Rachel who I believe kicks her in retaliation. The girlfriend wants Joey to defend her (which he doesn't cause he wants to break up) causing her to storm out.
That one is more casual misandry/sexism but a really fucked up episode is when chandler comes back from a business trip of some sort away from his (now wife) Monica and she smells cigarette smoke on him. The two have a fight though Monica still wants to try to conceive a baby. Knowing Monica is still mad at him Chandler doesn't want to only for Monica to assure him she isn't mad anymore. Convinced the two kiss and fade to them post-coitus. The two under the covers in bed Chandler wants to cuddle only for Monica to immediately start giving him the cold shoulder again. This plays out for the B storyline for the rest of the episode until I kid you not the resolution is chandler saying something along the lines of "I get to have sex, why should I be upset?" Cause all men care about is sex after all? eye roll

JJnanajuana · 2023-04-06T04:18:01+00:00

Male incompetence, especialy of fathers.

The Simpsons with homer is probably the obvious example (and family guy)

But it shows up in kids shows too:

Mummy pig, from peppa pig, had gotten herself into trouble (or caused trouble) by her own actions one time i can think of, (she got stuck in a blackberry bush) every other time, its the kids or the world or daddy pig

Daddy pig has: trapped himself in concete, fallen in the pond, broken the wall and forgotten to put up the picture frame, splashed everyone, dropped the keys down the drain and ruined the beauty spot and even fallen out of an plane without a parachute.

Often preceeded by a warning by mummy pig that hes about to f*up.

Sacrificial adveture hero

Mostly happy adventure movies habe a point where one member of the party dies, on the dangerous mission. Its a man.

South park parodies this, or more spescificly the "sacrificial black guy" in "die hippie die"

mother/android

Has several moments that point to men being 'less than' women or less important or something.

Im not explaining it well, but give it a watch and you'll get it.

Near the start the main character asks her boyfriend if he would let her go to safety alone if they arent letting men in. (theres no right answer to the question) and theres the setup itself, that they might not take men.

Not too far in, she hits him and knocks him to the ground, its not played for laughs like that sometimes is, but its (i think)played as "its ok because she's upset, its hard being pregnate during the apocalypse, shes just expressing that."

There is a moment near the end where >! It brings it back to the, 'would the man sacrifice his relationship to save his girlfriend' question. But this time asks it of both of them, would they both sacrifice their life as parents and relationship with their kid to save their kid !<

>! Kind of a neat women and children first becomes only children, and now women are also in that difficult spot that the man was already in !<

Then theres all the sexual assult stuff, theres a lot of examles in there, and its only part 2

BloomingBrains · 2023-04-06T07:49:35+00:00

One big example from anime/manga is the "guy trips and accidentally touches a girl's boobs or something, so she kicks in him in the balls so hard he dramatically explodes or deforms his head". Its cartoonish violence, but still, its practically a staple of the harem romance/comedy genre. Sometimes the girl will hit or at least verbally belittle a guy simply for not realizing she is into him, or even for simply not being into her because he chooses another girl.

In fact there are probably other examples of what you're looking for in trashy harem anime, its really a shitshow. There might also be some insights in the general trope of "dere types" like tsundere (girl is cruel to the guy she likes and its cute for some reason) or yandere (psycho/jealous murderess type).

There is a really bad reverse rape gag that plays repeatedly in an anime called Shimoneta. The whole show is a bit of social commentary about how repressing sex leads to more deviancy than allowing it. One of the main girls is totally ignorant about what sex is and so she is always sexually harassing the protagonist. Admittedly, she doesn't know what she's doing, but the gag is supposed to be funny and is often more gratuitous than needed. There is also one really intense scene were its sort of implied she might have forced him to make her cum (not sure, don't really remember, but it was uncomfortable) and these other girls who lured the reverse rapist there as part of a complicated scheme, are also hiding there drawing porn of what they're seeing. Its fucked up. Just imagine that happening with a male aggressor and a female victim.

EDIT: She also tricks people into eating her pussy juices she cooked into food.

emoskeleton_ · 2023-04-06T12:25:03+00:00

The most blatant example I can remember is Horrible Bosses where Jennifer Aniston's character sexually assaults Charlie Day's and it's played off for laughs about how she is dominant and Charlie Day's character is a wimp that can't retaliate.

But male disposability is so prevalent it's hard to point to specific examples. The most popular example is Anakin Skywalker killing "not just the men but the women and children too" in Attack of the Clones as if the assumption is that the women in general are innocent but the men are ALL killers and thieves, etc.

Sewblon · 2023-04-05T20:59:17+00:00

The first thing that comes to mind is the episode of the Simpsons where Lisa thinks that she is going to become dumb because of the Simpson gene. But it turns out that the Simpson gene is on the Y chromosome. So only men are affected. So genetic determinism is true. Its just that men are the ones who are genetically stupid. At least in that one episode. In another episode it turns out that Homer is dumb because he has a crayon in his brain. So when the crayon is removed, he becomes intelligent.

Then there was the comic strip Sherman's Lagoon where Sherman got eyeglasses. Told his girlfriend that he always thought that she looked prettier, she beat the poop out of him, and Sherman's friends blamed Sherman. So a woman beating up her boyfriend for saying something mean is ok in Sherman's Lagoon.

Paul Nathenson and Katherine Young wrote a book about this in 2006 where you can find more examples. https://www.amazon.com/Spreading-Misandry-Teaching-Contempt-Popular/dp/0773530991/ref=sr_1_1?crid=O159QE0P5OVC&keywords=spreading+misandry&qid=1680770055&sprefix=spreading+misandry%2Caps%2C312&sr=8-1

neighborhoodpainter · 2023-04-07T15:44:04+00:00

Men kicked in the nuts, often used as a joke or used as a form of "revenge".

WeEatBabies · 2023-04-05T23:23:21+00:00

I don't need to look far, just watch the latest John Wick.

He kills a gazillion henchmen, none of which were henchwomen!

Also, I would like to add : where are the feminists crying for representation, are only men supposed to be depicted as evil/disposable? Is John Wick 4 a feminist psy-op?

CzechoslovakianJesus · 2023-04-06T07:26:04+00:00

Literally anything involving the Kanker Sisters from Ed, Edd, 'n Eddy. Female-on-male harassment—even outright sexual assault—is taken so unseriously that it's considered perfectly acceptable kids' show comedy.

OrangleyOrange · 2023-04-06T11:06:25+00:00

In naruto there’s a mission where essentially it’s about a little kid being disposable and wanting to fight guys who can literally kill him no problem. His mom doesn’t help, only does the “don’t go!” And this notion of “sacrificing his life for the greater good” was a running theme in that mission.

Recently rewatched it and I was like…lady he’s a fucking child, be the grown up here.

TheWorldUnderHell · 2023-04-08T00:00:17+00:00

Being a Disney prince kinda sucks ass. At least Flynn and Beast died trying to protect the heroines.

Blauwpetje · 2023-04-08T16:28:01+00:00

What struck me in Isabel Allende’s House of the spirits was that all female protagonists were wise, enterprising, daring, socialist, while the men were at best dumb and at worst evil, except for the boyfriend of the main character, who is so gentle and non-competitive that Karen Straughan would call him an ‘honorary woman’. Still being a ‘critical feminist’ when I read it, I wondered if mainstream novels were the other way round without me noticing it. Now I’m quite sure they seldom or never are.

Blauwpetje · 2023-04-08T16:45:09+00:00

The comedyseries Man about the house. Upstairs lives a man who wants sex but the two girls don’t. Of course, the man is ridiculous. Downstairs lives a woman (Mildred) who wants sex but the man (George) doesn’t. Of course, the man is ridiculous.

Forsaken_Platypus_32 · 2023-04-11T20:05:16+00:00

oh....oh.....One of THE worst sitcom ones comes from Tyler Perry's for better or worse. Angela is an abusive sociopath to Marcus and her friends are equally toxic

sammyrose7 · 2025-03-22T19:03:20+00:00

This thread is just men angry at a system they created.. who do you think keeps these stereotypes and ideas alive ? men . So really men's issues are just with each other . God men really are a joke

sammyrose7 · 2025-03-22T19:02:01+00:00

Mens problems are so small 🤣🤣 yall are butthurt over some dumb shit meanwhile women's issues are being raped and scared to walk alone ... we are definitely not the same

Title	What are the examples of misandry, male disposability & common male tropes in fiction?
Author	Specific_Detective41
Upvotes	103
Comments	95
Date	April 5, 2023 8:16 AM UTC (3 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/12cd3au/what_are_the_examples_of_misandry_male/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/what-are-the-examples-of-misandry-male.1217821 https://theredarchive.com/post/1217821

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