What do you say to people who call you a man-hater? Feminist Advice Friday
This is designed to be a thought-terminating cliche, not an actual argument you can counter. The men you are talking to, as you correctly identified, feel threatened. So they want to shut down the discussion by depicting you as hysterical, out of control, and angry.
The argument rests on two ridiculous ideas: that it is always wrong to have any animosity toward men, and that anyone who suggests any man or men should change necessarily hates men.
When you argue that you don’t hate men, you’ve actually ceded significant ground, and allowed your opponent to set the terms of the debate. Suddenly the discussion isn’t about whether, when, or how men should change, but whether you hate men. It’s taken as fact that negative emotions toward men are inherently wrong—a belief that is totally divorced from the violent world women occupy.
Women have every right to hate men. That doesn’t mean they can harm men, but people are entitled to feel however they damn well please. And arguing about emotions is inherently silly, since there’s no real way to prove or disprove how someone feels.
So instead of focusing on this “you hate men” nonsense, you need to read the subtext of the discussion. A man who responds to my work, or to other feminist work, with this kind of nonsense is telling you a few things:
My work is about him. It’s not about all men because not all men are misogynistic monsters. A hit dog hollers.
He views manhood as synonymous with misogyny and abuse. If speaking out against male violence is hatred of men, it can only be because men are violent, or because manhood is inherently violent. Nothing could be further from the truth, but misogynist men need to believe that all men are like them, so they can feel better about their behavior.
He is more concerned about his feelings than about the facts. And the facts point toward horrific, ongoing, widespread abuse of women by men. Which means he wants to feel good about himself as a man, without changing, more than he wants a safer and more just world for us all.
He is threatened by accountability.
He is so emotional about misogyny, and so committed to his own misogyny, that he is unable to think critically or rationally about masculinity, manhood, or feminism.
Is this really someone who is worth your time?
A person who is so hostile to the notion of feminism that he perceives it as personally threatening—or the rare woman who views feminism as a threat to the men in her life—is not someone who is amenable to changing their mind.
They’re only going to waste your time, draw you into an obnoxious argument, and then, when you finally get frustrated, use that as evidence of your man hatred/hysteria/illogical nature.
Don’t waste your time on it. Stop allowing people who can’t comprehend reality to steal your time.
ncG1vNJzZmiykay7b7%2FUm6qtmZOge6S7zGinaK%2BYlsFusM5msKitXaiuunnTqGSpnZ%2BluaZ51qGmZpuRobk%3D