A potential response from feminists when the misandry perpetrated by feminists is called out

SomeSugondeseGuy · 2024-07-28T15:17:48+00:00

"As long as you don't also call yourself a feminist, you may be as bigoted as you want."

xijokayo · 2024-07-28T19:18:53+00:00

The tactical answer would be to question the history.

"All of this is a reaction to the rape and oppression of women by men throughout human history."

Well, it's a reaction to the perception of the rape and oppression, I'd agree. But there's at least some historical evidence that adds nuance to that story. In fact, you can find historical evidence to the contrary even within the tradition of feminism.

You could start with Mary Ritter Beard, a suffrage activist and historian who disputed the narrative of universal subjection of women in her 1946 book, Woman as Force in History. She writes of her book in the preface:

"In the first place, it is a study of the tradition that women were members of a subject sex throughout history. This tradition has exercised an almost tyrannical power over thinking about the relations of men and women, for more than a hundred years."

She tackles the popular idea that women were, in the past, the property of their husbands, or that women were not allowed to own property. Mary Beard traces this idea back to William Blackstone's commentaries on English common law and the practice of coverture, the idea that man and woman become one person under marriage, with the woman's identity subsumed into the man's. Under this practice, a married woman could not own separate property because she was not a separate person.

Mary Beard demonstrates that women were, in fact, were able to secure independent property and inheritance through the use of equity courts, a system of law that developed at the same time as English common law, and that feminist reliance on Blackstone is mistaken. Unfortunately, the idea of women-as-property persists.

She notes elsewhere that:

""""

It has long been a favorite practice of incautious historians, sociologists, and propagandists to select from the documents of the past a few or numerous citations to “prove” this or that about men and/or women. Often such pieces of alleged “evidence” are chosen from records of peoples scattered through fifty or more centuries and of peoples distributed over the vast surface of the globe.

It is possible to assemble thousands, no doubt tens of thousands, of extracts from whole or fragmentary documents illustrating pro-fusdy[sic] (a) the inhumanity of men to men and/or women, and (b) the inhumanity of women to women and/or men. It is also possible to assemble thousands, no doubt tens of thousands, of extracts illus- trating (a) the humanity of men to men and/or women, and (b) the humanity of women to men and/or women.

No practice has been more common among writers who stoutly maintain the doctrine of women’s historic subjection to men than that of collecting numerous quotations from the works of travelers, missionaries, historians, and sociologists and treating the quotations as proof that the subjection of the wife to the husband was the custom at least in all the ages prior to our own.

""""

I don't know if it's possible to establish a grand history of gender relations. Practices vary according to time and place, and change for reasons that are unclear. Ancient Athens was notoriously misogynistic, but the same wasn't true of Sparta or other ancient Greek city-states. There's a certain anecdote in which an Athenian woman remarks to Sparta's Queen Gorgo that "you Spartan women are the only ones who rule their men." To which Gorgo replied, "Yes, we are the only ones that give birth to men." A sentiment straight out of r/MensLib.

I don't think there is a quick rebuttal that you can offer, but any hole that you can poke in the story of universal historical female oppression is productive. It takes away excuses for feminist abuse, it indicates that we in the present are not as morally innovative as we like to believe, and opens a line of argument that perhaps another form of feminist abuse is its distortion of history itself. It is quite possibly defaming its own society in order to create a regime of collective guilt even without proof of a collective crime.

Link to Woman as Force in History

Grow_peace_in_Bedlam · 2024-07-28T16:30:12+00:00

I can't think of a tactic that would work. My rational response would be to ask, have the women and men of today been alive throughout human history? Is collective punishment something we want to support? How is punishing men for the historical misdeeds of some men any different from killing innocent Palestinians for the deeds of Hamas?

luther9 · 2024-07-28T17:43:03+00:00

But you have to remember that all of this is a reaction to the rape and oppression of women by men throughout human history. So we shouldn't be surprised to see misandrist ideas within feminism and it's completely understandable.

That just isn't how you fight for equality. If it's valid to respond to bigotry with more bigotry, than men would be justified in continuing their alleged misogyny in response to any misandry they see. It won't matter which side has the upper hand, or which side is more collectively guilty, because bigotry and division will still dominate society. If you really want to fight for equality, we have to guard against bigotry on both sides with the same fervor.

If they reiterate the point about "throughout human history", I'd say that collective punishment is a particularly vile form of bigotry, so please explain why I should care at all how powerful or historical the supposed patriarchy has been.

Sensitive_Housing_85 · 2024-07-28T15:22:33+00:00

Simple , women gave also contributed not just to the abuse of men but women , mainly white women , even some black women should i assign that blame to you as well

SentientReality · 2024-07-29T00:43:29+00:00

The Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

As long as you are A-Okay with men who make no effort to treat women with kindness, dignity, or respect because that man has suffered abuse from women at some point in his life .... then sure, your argument is valid. If you want to use past trauma as an excuse to behave in a self-justified bigoted manner toward an entire group of people, then you must be ok with everyone else also doing the same to you. I am 99% sure you are not, actually, ok with this, so that would make your argument hypocritical.

henrysmyagent · 2024-07-28T20:25:11+00:00

Do. Not. Argue. With. Feminists.

What a complete waste of time.

THEbeautifuLIE · 2024-07-28T19:23:29+00:00

Okay, this is messed up, I agree. But you have to remember that all of this is a reaction to the rape and oppression of women by men throughout human history. So we shouldn’t be surprised to see misandrist ideas within feminism and it’s completely understandable.

((response)) Oh, I agree 100%! This didn’t just come out of nowhere! Like, take for instance that serial gRAPIST that people despised for intimately assaulting all those women. He had been SA’d by his mother & aunt back in the day. It’s PERFECTLY understandable that he would react in that manner.”

Oh, I agree 100%! This didn’t just come out of nowhere! Like, take for instance that serial killer who only targeted women. He watched for decades in America as woman-after-woman-after-woman was convicted of murdering a boy or man in their life. Why wouldn’t he respond by murdering abunch of women?? His response is PERFECTLY understandable.”

Oh, I agree 100%! This didn’t just come out of nowhere! Like, take for instance that gang of black guys who were kidnapping white children & forcing them (under threat of extreme violence) to perform tasks for the gang. What would you expect from a group of kids who read about the American Chattel Slavery system that ended over a century ago? Of course, they would attempt to enslave white people as soon as they got the chance! That’s PERFECTLY understandable.”

Oh, I agree 100%! This didn’t just come out of nowhere! Like, take for instance the circumstances surrounding 9/11. American has ALWAYS had strained relations with those in the Middle East & have often gotten violent. Why wouldn’t a terrorist organization declare war on the U.S., fly passenger-filled commercial aircrafts in the World Trade towers & the Pentagon and murder nearly 3,000 people & injure another 6,000?? That’s precisely how they should’ve reacted - perfectly understandable!”

[[FYI: there isn’t a single thing about these examples or any others you give that will sway a close-minded, misandrist feminist who justifies misandry on the basis of misogyny. Direct your energy towards more reasonable, balanced, objective individuals who actually want better for male-female relations moving forward, my friend.]]

Nobleone11 · 2024-07-28T19:53:13+00:00

I faced similar tactics of deflection when drudging up evidence of feminism's underlying misandry from The Declaration of Sentiments.

Always, an apologist comes forth with "Times were different then. Men did subjicate women."

This only served to inadvertently validate that feminism was never about equality. Only to elevate women while spiting ALL men, stomping them down, including the ones at the bottom rung whom, on record, had serious struggles of their own. Men that didn't own property, for example, and were exempt from participating in the voting process unless they voluntarily ceded their body to the military.

Sparrowphone · 2024-07-29T14:57:29+00:00

"If past grievances make present day hatred okay, does the slaughter of men to satisfy the bloodlust of Queens also make make misogyny okay?"

https://qz.com/967895/throughout-history-women-rulers-were-more-likely-to-wage-war-than-men?utm_source=reddit.com

Former_Range_1730 · 2024-07-30T16:12:09+00:00

"Pointing out the misandry perpetrated by feminists, or in the ideology itself is often met with other feminists deploying the No True Scotman Fallacy I.e. "not all feminists!!", "they aren't true feminists!", "those aren't real feminists!!" etc."

Yeah, I run into this a lot. My response to them when they respond this way is saying, 'almost no one who identifies as a Feminist, follows the definition of feminism. They are anti- Patriarchy and gender reconstruction theorists who identify as Feminists. Including you'

That tends to cook their minds because they know it's true, and they can't disprove it. And it crushes what ever argument they were trying to propose.

maomaochair · 2024-07-28T16:09:43+00:00

By the way, I'm just afraid that it makes the "not true socialist" argument invalid, as there are indeed bad records of socialism in history.

While opposing feminism in general, I always fear that leftists might appear to be the same way.

Title	A potential response from feminists when the misandry perpetrated by feminists is called out
Author	WTRKS1253
Upvotes	71
Comments	17
Date	July 28, 2024 12:55 PM UTC (2 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/1ee6tak/a_potential_response_from_feminists_when_the/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/a-potential-response-from-feminists-when-the.1525573 https://theredarchive.com/post/1525573

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