You've likely seen it a thousand times by now: You read a news article or a social media post about how a man did something horrible to a woman, (either by accident or out of malice), and instead of the discussion remaining on the individual, the discussion turns into a discussion about the supposed behavior of men in general:

  • "It's ALL men until it's NO men!"
  • "Men need to do better!"
  • "This is why women choose the bear!"
  • "Men must hold other men accountable!"

These are all common phrases used for the sake of the collective shaming of men. Collective shame is a way of assigning the blame of some individuals onto an entire group of people who share a characteristic. Likewise, the collective shaming of men is used to assign the blame of some men onto the entirety of men, whether it's demanding men "do better" or justifying the fear and hatred of men over the actions of some.

This collective shaming is, in my opinion, one of the biggest contributing factors to the normalization of misandry. Here's why:

I. Collective Shaming Is Used To Justify Misandry

Collective shaming is an especially powerful tool in the hands of bigots (which includes misandrists). With collective shame, all a bigot has to do is bring up the worst members of a group to justify hatred and punishment towards an entire group, which there will inevitably be plenty of bad people in-- not because the group is actually made of mostly bad people, but because it's realistically guaranteed with a large enough group that some will be bad regardless of efforts to keep it pure.

And because of the way collective shaming is used to justify bigotry, it can be especially difficult to push back against, because any attempt to call out the bigotry may be disingenuously misconstrued as defense for bad individuals rather than a call out for the bigotry and generalization itself.

As you might have noticed, this is a form of confirmation bias by only presenting the worst members of a group and never presenting the best or even mediocre parts of it. Bigots don't care about that though, because try as they might to rationalize it, their bigotry is inherently irrational, often being an emotional response to an "outsider".

The same "logic" also applies with misandrists who collectively shame men. They present the worst individual men but ignore the best/average individual men to justify their hatred of men. They present the rapists, serial killers, and abusers of power, but never the heroes, hard workers, or providers, because presenting the latter would immediately bring into question how rational/fair their bigotry actually is.

One trick with collective shaming is to never apply it to the groups you like and only to the groups you hate. By selectively applying collective shame, it becomes that much easier to dehumanize entire groups because it presents them as worse than others through omission, even if factually speaking, they are only about as "morally bad" as any average human being. This is yet again another confirmation bias.

II. Collective Shaming Internalizes Misandry Into Men and Boys.

Collective shaming can be so powerful, it can even internalize bigotry into its targets!

Let's imagine you were a Martian who lives on Earth; you are clearly different from Humans and you might not behave exactly according to how a "normal Human" would, but otherwise, you just mind your own business and live your life as a Martian on Earth.

Now imagine this: Constantly, on the Human Broadcasting Channels of Earth, they talk about how Martians are ruining Earth. Supposedly, these Martians kidnap Humans into their UFOs, perform unethical operations on them, turn them into food, kill them, and plot to take over Planet Earth as we know it!

You see it once, and obviously, you immediately reject it: you are a Martian yourself after all, and you've never done those things even by accident.

But unfortunately for you, this is far from a one-time thing. Day after day, week after week, month after month, you see it again and again and again. At some point, your mentality starts to wane: "Perhaps it really is true..." you think to yourself. You've started to believe that perhaps Martians truly are evil, and by then, you've mentally given up trying to fight the constant stream of vitriol and have started to just accept it as a "truth" to get it over with.

Of course, none of it is actually true, but does it really matter? By simply repeating the same lie over and over about how Martians are those evil aliens wanting to destroy Earth, they have managed to trick even the Martians themselves into hating them, and thus, the shame has been internalized.

If this "repeating a lie until you believe it" shtick sounds familiar, this is likely because this phenomenon is also known as the Illusory Truth Effect. This is the same way how the media internalizes misandry into men. By simply repeating the same things over and over again, no matter how factually dubious (if not straight up wrong) it is, people will start to believe it more and more. Similarly, repeatedly spreading misandric myths and/or shaming men as a collective makes people believe that there is something wrong with men, including men themselves.

III. Collective Shaming Frames Misandry As "Justice"

If you pay close attention to collective shaming strategies, you'll notice a very glaring pattern: Collective shame has a tendency to frame bigotry as "merely asking" for accountability and justice and that's it totally not about mistreating the "outsider" poorly for merely being an "outsider".

But let's really think about it for a second: why is this shame targeted at the entire group instead of the specific individuals responsible? Why single out this group when other groups could just as easily be shamed under the same reasoning? What is there to "take accountability" for when I, as an individual, am not responsible for what happened nor could I have realistically stopped it? Why not go for policies and actions that apply across the board instead of purposefully singling out one group for the actions of few? Why knowingly hurt a large portion of good people just for a minuscule chance to hurt a significantly smaller portion of bad people? Why treat the identity instead of the root issue?

These questions are rhetorical, since the answer is quite clear to me: Collective shaming isn't about justice or accountability but about bigotry; the fake justice and accountability aspect is merely a "sweetener" for bigotry to present it as more fair and reasonable than it actually is.

Yes, this is quite common with misandry as well:

  • Instead of shaming the specific people involved, they shame all men for the actions of few.
  • Instead of holding the specific authorities who were responsible for letting this happen accountable, they punish all men regardless of how little they could've done to stop it.
  • Instead of policies that would apply equally to both men and women, they push for policies that would specifically single out male perpetrators/female victims, letting every other combination of perpetrator/victim suffer for it.
  • Instead of proposing actually realistic solutions to the problem and realistic goals, they propose borderline unenforceable solutions with impossible goals, allowing them to collectively shame men even further for when the solutions inevitably fail.

IV. Conclusion

To fight misandry, it is essential that we reject collective shame at all costs, never accepting it no matter how hard society tries to shame you and bring you down into hating yourself for what you cannot control.

Ultimately, collective shame does not fix anything and has only ever brewed resentment and hatred between people, just like the collective shaming of men has only further divided the genders into resenting each other right now, turning into a loop of bigotry that feeds itself through misandry and misogyny.

Gender issues will never be solved by punishing one gender for every ill-will in the world; it must be solved through co-operation, love, empathy, and understanding. Only then can the world become a better place for every one of us and for future generations to come.