Misogyny: “a widely accepted social attitude in a sexist world” includes beliefs that “demean [women’s] bodies… abilities… characters and… efforts.”
Misandry: “1) a refusal to suppress the evidence of one’s experience with men; 2) a woman’s defense against fear and pain; 3) an affirmation of the cathartic effects of justifiable anger.”
–from A Feminist Dictionary, compiled by Cheris Kramarae and Paula Treichler
“I feel that ‘man-hating’ is an honorable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them.” – Robin Morgan, Ms. Magazine Editor
By : In the past I’ve written about sexism, patriarchy, and articles based on the differences between men and women. Most of this has been filled with footnotes, historical examples, or anecdotal observations. Here, I’m attempting to write a more anecdotal tale, covered in two parts. It may not read like a straight line. The main reason I’m doing this is to help other men who may have gone through similar phases and events as I did getting here. I know for myself, dealing with life in general, reading about other peoples’ experiences, and their interpretations of them, have always helped me learn and grow. So I’m going to try to help do the same for others, even if this does come with an air of vulnerability.
I’m also doing this partially in response to the backlash I’ve gotten, which has been surprisingly minimal up to this point. Most of the backlash I get, despite the great care I take in explaining things in the most calm, simplest, and benevolent manner, involves people not even reading what I wrote, and assuming the worst.
I personally hate using the term “sexist” to describe myself, because for many people this means the hating of women. This never happens the other way around, even though people, especially women, often display sexually discriminatory behavior and remarks towards men. The term “sexist’ was probably invented by feminists, and its use was formed around describing their perpetual victim complex.
Because of this, I don’t see the use of describing myself as sexist in a public forum. To many people saying that would probably sounds like I approve of wife-beating and make regular indulgences to the local “gentlemen’s club”- both of which I am not a fan of in the least.
However, ‘sexism’ is the only word I can find that describes how I think, and why I think that way. Not for the horrible reasons people would imagine; I simply make judgments about others based on their gender. I don’t do this with malice. I don’t do this to prevent people from achieving or go out of my way to put individuals in boxes. Most of the time, I make judgments about men and women out of caution, and to determine an appropriate course of action. For example, according to assault/robbery/homocide statistics, I have more reason to fear a strange man on a street than a woman, and as a man I am more likely to experience all of the above then women are.
In regular everyday interactions, if I eliminated all the prejudiced, judgmental perimeters for “male” and “female” in my head, life would not make sense. People would also think I that my behavior was weird. In the long run, I would just reinvent them all over again.
In my lifetime, up to the point where I admitted I was sexist, and looked at things from a different perspective, I was always trying my hardest not to be sexist. I had to go out of my way to do this. Being ‘non-sexist’ put me behind in life. It set me up with poor relationships, and caused me to miss opportunities. This is because, for men, being non-sexist means doubting yourself, and holding yourself back.
Surprisingly enough, despite making an effort to not be sexist, I was called sexist all the time by feminists, and occasionally by so-called ‘white knights.’ This is because feminists hate men, and white knights do too. Needless to say, after a few years I started to believe it. Whenever I was accused of being sexist, as a mid-late teenager, I would think in my head “she’s just on her period,” or “she’s not smart enough to argue with me, so she’s just calling me names.” I used to say this to myself as a joke, except I came to learn these inside jokes could be pretty accurate.
Ever since I made the switch, it’s worth admitting that nothing too major about my outward behavior towards others has changed. I have not turned into a raging, bigoted monster (this was the sole reason to fear being a proud patriarch) I still act polite towards others, women in particular (but apparently this has always been sexist behavior). In the past I had been as unassuming and helpful as possible. I would try to hear both sides of the story. I would listen. I would try to help solve problems. I actually thought (or told myself to believe) that the sexes were equal. I still do the same things, except that last part. Now I recognize that there are many times I have to read in between the lines. A lot of the time, its entirely impractical to treat men and women the same. It’s easy for the soft, liberal types to understand this on a physical level. But I also mean this in a social and spiritual way as well.
The Patriarchy cradled Feminism because it was a Woman
“In the 1960s, when women first muscled into the work force, at-home moms all but apologized for what they did. But once those same boomer women started families (often late in their 30s), staying home with the kids became the preferred thing to do… ‘A lot of women my age don’t feel a big need to work because they know they can if they want to,’ says… a [32-year-old] mother of two… [Barnard College economics professor Diane] Macunovich says… [W]omen are using their earnings to buy back personal time.’… A higher portion of women are choosing ‘women’s work,’ such as nursing and teaching. It’s no coincidence that these jobs offer many options for part-timers.”
—Jane Bryant Quinn, Newsweek, July 17, 2000
“The most important reasons for the ‘gender gap’ have little to do with employer bias. Increasingly, the gap is the result of choices women make as they seek to maximize their own happiness and achieve a broad mix of life goals.”
—Katherine Kersten, Newsletter of the Women’s Freedom Network, Spring 1996
“Economist Nancy Pfotenhauer … said women often choose to take jobs that pay less for flexibility and time for children and family… ‘Women make decisions all the time based on things other than salary — enjoyment of the job and ability to have time with their families,’ she said.”
—Associated Press, April 3, 2001
After spending so much time around feminists, and reading feminist material, I’ve come to the conclusion that feminism is a waste of time. I no longer care about their petty diatribes. I don’t care about what they suppose men think about them. I don’t care about their fake statistics, or the societal phantoms that chase them every day. I don’t care about them slut-walking around in lingerie and nipple tassels with signs saying “stop objectifying me/don’t rape me.” I don’t care about ironic political philosophies that go like this: “The government needs to stay out of my bedroom, and no one should be able to tell me what I can do with my body; but the whole nation should pay for my birth control/abortion.” You literally cannot have a discussion with these folks and propose an alternative viewpoint without rousing them to a fiery, passionate rage (which I’m sure only reinforces stereotypes that all females are temperamental and irrational).
As far as behavior in the Patriarchy is concerned, I think how I’m acting now is the way it always was. Some social customs have changed (some drastically so) but our memory of the past has been distorted by feminism. I can recall one woman making a joke towards an older man over a commercial that showcased how sexism was supposed to look in the 40’s. The man in the commercial made a passively degrading remark to a woman. After being chided about the commercial, the man in real life responded with a sincere admission: “Men never talked like that to women back then.”
I’ve also had conversations with older women who have confirmed this, and have made similar observations about pre-60’s male/female interactions. Many of their attitudes about feminism were anything but positive. From what I’ve read in books, or heard from actual people, men were not domineering macho Patriarchs. I don’t think domineering macho patriarchs would have ever given women the right to vote, or voted for the equal pay act. If women were as strong and dangerous as the feminists say they are, and the patriarchs as evil and oppressive as the feminists think they are, I think the patriarchy would have found the “inquisition/witch hunt” approach more appropriate than granting them voting rights and equal pay.
But don’t mind me, I’m only using logic.
The image doesn’t match the reality, and yet this oppression image is essential to feminism. But think about how this oppressive narrative goes: “The oppression gave us voting rights. The oppression gave us the equal pay act. The oppression gave us free/legal abortion and birth control. The oppression lets us walk the streets with our breasts out in protest.” If you discuss this reality with them on a one on one, reasonable women will sway back, and agree; the feminist narrative does not make sense. Die-hards will lock down, and their heads will explode because your oppressing them with facts.
Shifting from Feminism
“In studying female aggression, Dr. [Wendy] Craig [a professor of developmental psychology at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario] found that girls are just as aggressive as boys. Unlike male aggression, which is physical, female social aggression is covert and, therefore, hard to detect. ‘Girl aggression tends to be social in nature — that is, emotionally rejecting, dismissive, and verbally abusive,’ she says. ‘This kind of aggression has as many negative consequences as physical aggression. The victims of social aggression become anxious, depressed, fearful, and have a lower self-concept.’ The implication is that, as future parents, socially aggressive females have the potential to inflict great harm, which can go undetected by society.”
—Queen’s University press release, March 18, 1997
“[Women] bully in more or less the same way [as men] with the exception that females are actually much better at it, they’re much more devious, much more manipulative, much more subtle about it and they leave a lot less evidence as well — and they can often do it with a smile.”
—Tim Field, who established Britain’s National Workplace Bullying Line in 1996
Another story, I had an important woman during one period in my life who always seemed to listen and give advice. At one time, I was trying to express to her a problem I was having that, in my mind, was a very crucial experience of my life. I remember the moment in which she dismissed me in a childlike manner (not that she thought I was a child, but her concern was that of a careless child). At this point, I realized that she had no idea what I was talking about, because I was a man, and she was a woman. There was nothing either of us could do to bridge that gap.
In that moment, it became painfully obvious. Were it not the realization that we were different, I would have felt invalidated. I realized that up to now, much of the time she had only pretended to understand me. To me, at that moment, she seemed stupid. She seemed weak. She seemed like an idiot. Perhaps this was fury that said this, because I felt mad she had been lying to me up to the point where she brushed me off. After this point, a wedge was drawn between her and me. Eventually, I grew to hate all the ‘advice’ I had gotten from her, because it appeared to be useless, ‘wove-dovy’ bull crap that did not apply to what to do or how to get the job done- or worse, they were mere illusions of empathy that she had learned to fake. I had been giving this person false rewards for them showing me a facade.
That they (women in general) would present me with a facade under the guise of honesty, has been the source of great contempt from my side when I was younger. Lying to me about silly things, as well as important matters; from emotions, to facts, to dating. Over half the time you can’t get a straight answer. Arthur Schopenhauer said that “dissimulation is innate in women, and almost as much a quality of the stupid as of the clever.” I wish I had been taught this at a younger age, instead of feminism, because of its ubiquitous reality.
Some may say this sentiment is ‘misogynist’ or hateful towards women, but it’s not. This is just how women feel they have to protect themselves, or test others before they trust them, or get around in life- and also how some women practice social engineering for personal gain. When I was a feminist, I’d had women use dissimulation with me more times than I can count, but I refused to see through the smoke and mirror; even when it was painfully obvious. I doubted myself instead, because all other attempts were met with contempt – and if you made a woman mad, for any reason, you were obviously sexist. This cost me a lot in my adolescence.
Sexual Assault Changed It All
“I want to see a man beaten to a bloody pulp with a high-heel shoved in his mouth, like an apple in the mouth of a pig.” -Andrea Dworkin “Among the low-income couples we observed, the battle between the sexes often looks more like outright war, and many women say that they regard men simply as ‘children,’ ‘no good,’ or ‘low-down dirty dogs.’”
—Researcher Kathryn Edin, as reported in ‘The American Prospect’, January 3, 2000
“Looking at how easy it is for women to treat men in cruel ways is oddly liberating.” –Naomi Wolf
But running into girls who lie isn’t what really changed me. If that was the only factor, the transformation could have taken forever. It was the first time I got sexually assaulted at work that made the most drastic change in my thought process. It happened when I was a late teenager, and when it occurred, every one there, man or woman, couldn’t care less that it had happened. When I reported it to my boss, he knew exactly who I was talking about before I even told him. He even indicated with his fingers that he had a file on this woman the size of a phone book, full of sexual assault reports that she had accumulated over a couple of years with other men before me. When I asked why she hadn’t been fired yet, he told me that “HR does not take female on male sexual assaults seriously, because of the stereo-type that women can’t be aggressors.” When I asked why he specifically did not fire her for her blatant unprofessional, criminal behavior, he said “-Oh, well, I uh… I need her to work here.”
I ended up quitting my job. My old boss died of cancer a few months later. So it goes.
This was where I realized that the game was more rigged than I could have thought. After this happened, I felt very angry. I realized that the vast majority of people are simply programmed to think that a female on male sexual assault or rape is not even possible, and when they hear it, it simply does not compute, and they completely ignore it – they will do this in their minds even if they see it.
Every time I’ve shared this story with feminists who get up-and-at ’em about sexual assault, instead of making some motion to come together as people to solve all sexual assault across the board, they weave back around to make it more about themselves. It’s because of this that I hate feminist ideology with a certain kind of malice. Because despite being about “equality for all,” it’s very narcissistic and only about people with specific genitalia.
Their reactions were always the same: they can’t think up a response to this type of behavior, because the stereo-types is that males are always the aggressors, and it can never be vice versa. In the event that I say, “I have been sexually assaulted by a woman,” and I tell them what happened, they either go silent, or start magnifying their own feminist narrative- as if talking about themselves will block out what happened to me.
I’ve been led to wonder if they actually care about sexual assault and rape, or if they are just using it as a political tool for their own personal gain; they exploit false rape narratives; they promote rape stories without evidence, sometimes after they have proven to be false; they don’t witch-hunt after women who tell fake rape stories, who harm the reputations of the men they accuse, and make it harder for women to actually come forward about real rape cases, because they won’t be believed; and they only show outrage for female-victim rape stories, never cases with male victims.
I’ve never seen anyone even get riled up over the fact that I’ve been sexually assaulted, or express concern afterwards. Not the way they do when they hear this happens to women or children – which makes me think that none of these feminist women actually have genuine empathy for others – it’s all a game, and my experience doesn’t fit in their rule book. Never mind that, heaven forbid, if I was merely accused of such behavior, without any evidence they would call for my arrest. If I had done something that horrible, I would have been subject to violent assault from the other males on the spot before the cops even got there.
That someone can do that to someone else is immoral. Period. The leniency with this behavior happening towards me starts with this: I am a man. Being told that I should enjoy it and be proud someone wanted to do that to me is the male equivalent of “she was asking for it”, and its just as atrocious. It’s also stupid, and people who talk like this are absolute morons.
Still, many people couldn’t care less, because I am stronger and when something bad happens they believe I should “just deal with it.” In general world/life problems, I suppose this can rightfully apply to everything I do or am supposed to do. However, people are not allowed to do whatever they want with me, I don’t care who they are, and I am not going to tolerate abuse from anyone. Meaning I will react back towards abusive behavior. Especially if I am not going to receive the same aid others would in such a situation. If prejudice is what is going to keep organizations and individuals from taking action to come to my aid, then I am going to react in a form of self-defense if and when that ever happens again- and I am not going to be apologetic about it. People who behave that way should have been taught that sexual assault wasn’t okay for anyone to do, and that person should have thought about the consequences before they grabbed my balls.
About Travis Scott
Travis Scott is a currently a student, freelance writer, and a practicing Latter-Day Saint. Athletic hobbies include martial arts, dance, climbing, and working out at the gym. His other hobbies are reading, camping, spending time around nature, and having good old fashioned conversations with other people.
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