Why are feminists so adamant about defending Ironic misandry ?

LacklustreFriend · 2019-12-07T18:07:05+00:00

The "official" or common explanation given by feminists (as many do in the threads you linked) is that in the male-oppressor female-oppressed society ('patriarchy'), women who hate on men are punching up and men who hate on women are punching down. They subscribe to "prejudice plus (institutional) power" model of discrimination often used to describe racism in social studies and social justice activists. That is, because women have no power, they are literally incapable of discriminating against, being sexist or harmful towards men. This is sometimes taken further, where statements like "kill all men" or "men are trash" are not only not harmful, but become just rallying calls of an oppressed group against an oppressor, a form of societal "self-defence" if you will, under the pretext that such statements can't "really" hurt men, only remove their oppressive power.

Now I won't go into why the patriarchy male-oppressor female-oppresed model is wrong here, as it's been criticised many, many times on this and related subs. But even if we were to accept the patriarchal model of society as generally true, there's still a glaring issue - power is dynamic and situational, not static and unidirectional as the patriarchal model implies.

Even if we accept men in government and corporations do oppress women in the general societal sense, what about situations where that is not a relevent factor? For example, a small boy being raised by an oppressive and domineering mother, who tells him all men are trash. Who has the power in that situation? What about a man who wished to register a complain to an all-female HR department? Or men who risk humiliation by women in the dating scene? Aren't there certain social institutions in which men do not have power? Does that mean men cannot be sexist in those situations by the same logic?

There is also the socio-biological factor that there is an implicit social bias favouring women, e.g. The Women Are Wonderful Effect and related phenomenon. In a nutshell, both men and women are more favourable towards women and their actions, and tend to morally rationalise/justify their negative behaviour. This is what I think is the "real" reason people are accepting of sexism towards men.

ur_waifus_prolapse · 2019-12-07T17:29:17+00:00

Because "ironic" misandry is about as "ironic" as "ironic" Nazism or Stalinism are.

Forgetaboutthelonely · 2019-12-07T17:21:15+00:00

Because if it's not seen as ironic people will see those feminists for what they really are.

IM_MAKIN_GRAVY · 2019-12-07T20:30:37+00:00

"Sorry you went through that, but here's what they really mean/here's why you shouldn't be upset/here's why it was okay"

These are two different types of emotional abuse known as emotional invalidation and gaslighting.

There is a societal pattern of emotionally abusing men, often enforced by women. Especially (although not always) in the feminist movement.

More on this here.

AdministrativeDirt08 · 2019-12-07T19:12:24+00:00

You know what argument always gets lost on me, "men have been oppressing women for centuries so this is justified." I don't see how a "you did it to us so now we'll do it to you" mentality is progressive in the slightest. Maybe someone can prove me wrong? It just seems like a hinder to the feminist movement, I promise you that screaming "men are garbage" will only push people away, no matter how much you want to believe to enlightens them to the injustices women face. It's not very tact.

People who do this sort of thing generally say they're letting off steam. but jokes don't need to be offensive or at the expense of other people either, but that isn't really what this topic is about and there's a difference between making fun of bigoted people and just making fun of an entire gender or sexual orientation or gender identity (trust me, lots of "ew straight boys" stuff out there too). I think people can make jokes like this, but they need to be specific to the issue at hand. If you're currently angry about guys who catcall? Say "Guys who catcall are gross", not "all men are trash". I would think that this is pretty much social interaction 101 stuff but unfortunately not. :/

thereslcjg2000 · 2019-12-07T17:24:29+00:00

I wonder the same thing. I’d think that giving men and women equal rights should mean they have to be kept to the same standard. Of course, some people argue that because of all the history against women, saying bad things about them is inexcusable while doing the same for men is alright. I think that’s bullshit. Generalizing huge groups of people and saying hateful things about them, hell even advocating for their murder, is not funny.

Me, I suspect they partly defend it simply because it’s more fun that way. A lot of the appeal of feminism is that women can be together and feel inherently empowered because of their gender. Having to monitor their speech about men doesn’t exactly feel empowering. It’s sometimes a cliche and an oversimplification when people say that feminists want equal rights but not equal responsibilities, but it can sometimes be accurate.

Aaod · 2019-12-07T17:35:44+00:00

Because they put people into the bad guy or good guy camps and obviously people on my side have to be the good guys right? People are dumb and want to think in as simplistic and tribal identity based as possible.

Oncefa2 · 2019-12-07T18:32:19+00:00

including that feminism is for women first and that men's issues have to be handled by men

Feminists for a very long time used to claim the opposite of this, and many feminists today continue to try and highjack this discussion in the name of "patriarchy harms men too". See for example this meme that claims "feminism is men's rights" (I don't have the original but here's some satire I made based on it in r/mramemes).

The reason Warren Farrell left feminism and became an MRA is because of this shift that feminists made away from wanting to help men (a similar shift away from caring about "equality" also happened around the same time). Christina Hoff Sommers, a lifelong feminist and an early researcher / professor in the field of "Gender Studies", wrote a book in the 1990s about this titled Who Stole Feminism.

The fact that you're claiming this as a "feminist belief" when even today many feminists do not believe this seems a little odd to me...

mtcapri · 2019-12-07T20:32:58+00:00

Because as long as they can keep it "ironic," they can maintain that they're not actually misandrist.

5th_Law_of_Robotics · 2019-12-08T06:01:54+00:00

It isn't ironic. They just hate men.

bkrugby78 · 2019-12-07T21:57:27+00:00

It's similar to when poc say "Kill all white people." If you are from a group that is considered "oppressed" then you have license to say whatever you wish (as far as society and social media is concerned).

Others have mentioned the systemic issues, so there is little point in rehashing that. It is annoying and I think for me personally, is one reason why it's difficult to listen to feminists (and BLM etc.) Not that they necessarily can police what everyone in their groups say, but it's telling that they think they have the authority to police what everyone else says and does. It's like when groups criticize the president for not calling out white supremacists. Yeah, he should, but not calling them out does not make him a white supremacist.

DignifiedAlpaca · 2019-12-08T08:13:08+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entryism

There is no membership roster or anything else to say who is a feminist and who isn't. Decentralized movements like that can easily be hijacked by people with bad intentions.

All someone who hates men has to do is claim themselves to be a feminist, claim that they are fighting for gender equality, but then turn around and say #KillAllMen on Twitter.

Under normal circumstances, it might not do anything, but if enough of them do it at once, they can tarnish the image of a movement and drive the legitimate advocates out.

The imposters can then claim that the real reason people are leaving the movement is because they either want to oppress women (if they are men) or because they have internalized misogyny (if they are women). This becomes sort of a self-fulfilling conspiracy theory since the movement, now heavily influenced by imposters, continues talking about women's rights while trying to associate the concept with #KillAllMen and other anti-male nonsense.

Eventually, many people in the general public become so used to this association that they get tired of hearing discussions about women's issues because they proactively assume that every conversation about it is going to just devolve into #KillAllMen. The imposters then use this rejection of their "advocacy" as "proof" that our entire society is a patriarchy that refuses to allow discussions of women's issues, thus convincing more socially ostracized and angry people that life is nothing but a zero-sum game between men and women, which is exactly the goal of a sexist hate movement.

The difficulty lies in telling which of the people left in the movement are the imposters vs which ones are the few legitimate activists trying desperately to take it back.

Solid_Rice · 2019-12-07T22:09:28+00:00

Because a lot of them actually hate men as a gender.

And also because they can. No one calls them on it.

mewacketergi · 2019-12-08T13:41:23+00:00

Integrity is hard, and getting away with hypocrisy is convenient for achieving political goals.

czerdec · 2019-12-09T16:00:30+00:00

They're not capable of irony.

GaborFrame · 2019-12-10T18:08:38+00:00

Because retroactively claiming that you were just kidding seems like a perfect excuse. Imagine a high-school teacher: "Hey you, are you bullying that other kid?" – "Nah, we're just kidding." – "Ah, OK then."

Xemnas81 · 2019-12-11T02:55:14+00:00

Because Feminism is a political movement, making women 'feel free' to trash men is considered consciousness raising above sex oppression, and consciousness raising is part of all radical praxis.

Same reason TRP allows so much misogyny; they believe it's justified to purge their previous self who submitted too much to wo/men.

MickDash · 2019-12-11T07:11:01+00:00

they like to womansplain

Title	Why are feminists so adamant about defending Ironic misandry ?
Author	AdministrativeDirt08
Upvotes	31
Comments	40
Date	December 7, 2019 4:34 PM UTC (6 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/e7gdhd/why_are_feminists_so_adamant_about_defending/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/why-are-feminists-so-adamant-about-defending.1064328 https://theredarchive.com/post/1064328

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