In my experience, girls don't dig bad guys; they dig confident guys.
Mirror, this response kind of reeks of what a responder to Little Light, linked above described as Woman [or, more likely, "Girl" as you choose to call us] As Vending Machine / Arcade Game. People who respect adult females, i.e., women, understand that women are not a strange species who have a single set of attractions, e.g., to "confident guys." An idea such as yours, that "girls [all] dig confident guys" leads pretty readily to the feeling: That asshole over there is pushing buttons and lighting the whole system up! Damnit, this Woman is broken! They tried up-down-up-down-left-right-left-right-B-A-stat, too, did someone give them the wrong cheat code? The last woman said that she liked this, why doesn't this woman respond to it?. So, I guess I'm kind of bothered by the tone of this.
Is there a gender-neutral term for misogyny? Something that simply means "the hatred of the opposite sex?"
This question has come up a few times before on Barbelith. Here's how I once explained my discomfort with a direct parallel between misandry and misogyny, in the context of suspicion of men/masculinity within feminism as being exactly the same as the degradation of women/femininity by men, in the context of a discussion of transphobia in feminism.
Now, in this context, I'd also add that the term "opposite sex" is an understandable term, but it has a whiff of the old "battle of the sexes" cliche and the normalization of heterosexuality, as does the earlier comment that "girls dig confident guys." It's not that it's wrong in some PC scolding sense of the term to say "opposite sex," it's that it implies a framework of thinking about these things that may have had some uses, but has also created huge blindspots and made us stupider rather than smarter about sex. So becoming a little more thoughtful, allowing it to be a kind of red flag, can actually help us come up with better terms, terms that help us to think more carefully, more accurately about these things. There are not simple "opposite sexes" on barbelith or in the world, many people on barbelith and in the world are not primarily engaged romantically by the "opposite sex" and things are just more complex than that.
There's a link in an earlier comment of mine to Marilyn Frye's essay "Oppression" that compares oppression to a "birdcage". I think if you read that short essay and think more carefully about the way oppression works, by creating double binds for an oppressed group, while sometimes still "harming" members of the group that largely benefits from oppression, you'll start to see why simple equations between misogyny and "misandry" are not appropriate. The structure is not there supporting misandry.
And I also want to make it clear that while I'm typing this, I'm working very hard to not explode angrily: "Jesus, we've had this discussion 12 times in this thread alone, already, haven't we?!!!" I'm making the assumption that you are teachable and that you care. If you could take some time to respond to this, and indicate that you are reflecting on what women have said here, that would be appreciated. |
