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I've written a great deal about the myth of man-hating, including about the allegedly anti-man quotes, that misogynists and other anti-feminists promote and peddle online as "truth". Here's the latest incarnation of it, presented as a seemingly innocuous question:
Did Andrea Dworkin hate men?
How about Susan Brownmiller?
Catherine MacKinnon?
An answer, by JulianReal
Andrea Dworkin didn't hate men and the proof of it is in her work and her life. She was very close with and respectful of her father, brother, nephew, and life-partner, who was a man. People who accuse her and other white feminists, like Susan Brownmiller and Catharine MacKinnon, of hating men just don't appreciate it when women of any color name and challenge the myriad ways men hate women in law, custom, and daily personal life. Not respecting or catering to men's misogyny (in the form of rape, battery, trafficking, sexual harassment, sexual and economic discrimination by men against women) as God-given or natural-and-inevitable isn't an example of women being "hateful" to men; it's a simple declaration of respect and love for women.
Andrea Dworkin, Susan Brownmiller, and Catharine A. MacKinnon spoke out eloquently and intelligently about patriarchal abuses, male supremacy, and misogyny perpetrated and perpetuated by men. What's hateful to anyone about doing that?
The more relevant question, imo, is why do so many men hate women, discriminate against women, harass women, batter women, rape girls and women, traffic and enslave girls and women, and insult and degrade women for entertainment and economic profit?
Read more: http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/2652040#ans11727702
I am not sure if all feminists would agree with this but what I have noticed is that the WHM react a bit differently to a white female feminist verse a WOC feminist.
ReplyDeleteWhen a white female feminist speaks out against the atrocities committed by WHM, the WHM immediately brand her a man-hater and try to discredited her - they declare war on her.
When a WOC feminist speaks out against the atrocities committed by a WHM she to will be branded a man-hater but the WHM tend to be much quicker just to sweep her a side as if she is just some idiot who does not know what she is talking about.
Perhaps the reason for this is that the WHM expects the white feminist to know her place and when she steps out of line then there is hell to pay. As for the WOC feminist, well she is just the slave girl according to the WHM, so yes she must also be dealt with but at the end of the day shes not really human so the WHM does not need to strain himself too much.
I agree with you, Christina.
ReplyDeleteI think, generally and structurally speaking, that white men don't know how to interact with women of color, particularly feminist or womanist WOC, as equals, as intellectual peers or as people who are intellectually, socially, and politically more insightful and analytic than white men--or any men.
And, tragically for all of humanity, as men seem to assume the world revolves around men, I also think whites generally assume the world revolves around other whites, and so anyone else who speaks up or speaks out is assumed to be not saying anything worth paying attention to.
I think the question should be, 'Why should women like men?'. Some women do hate men. Don't some people of color hate white people? And why shouldn't they? They certainly have good reason to.
ReplyDeleteI get tired of having to say to anti-feminists, 'Don't worry, we don't hate you."
If men rape women every three minutes, hit women every 18 seconds, murder at least four women every day
and sexually assault and abuse their daughters, why should we like them?
Hi Lauren,
ReplyDeleteI don't question any oppressed person hating their oppressors. So in that sense, I agree with you. And it is remarkable that more women of color don't hate all whites and all men.
Yet, by and large, women of color don't hate all whites and all men. The politics of hatred are that being in a subordinate position structurally doesn't come with it a mandate to hate "the other". But being in a dominant position, while not requiring the oppressor to hate the oppressed, does come with it an open invitation to do so and to make that hatred seem natural, normal, or appropriate.
I find the claim to be unfounded and absurd that white men face a social problem of white men being hated. Even if individuals hurt and harmed by white men did hate white men, there's no institutionalised support for that hatred to manifest in the kinds of systematised gross exploitation, abuse, and neglect that is endemic against all women and also men of color.
As an African American woman told me years ago, the problem for whites in the US has never been people of color in the US hating them. The problem has always been how whites hate and ignore people of color, and the many systematised forms that hatred and ignorance takes.
The fact that the oppressor aka (white) males hates those he oppresses is nothing new. It most likely stems from the fact that he believes he is so superior to those he oppresses that he can only look down on them and hold them with content. The Nazis believed that they where superior to Jews and had every right to oppress Jews because in their sick minds Jews where lower than animals while they were the pure race.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that there aren't more women hating men is a surprises. Maybe we have been held down for so long that we don't believe we have the right to hate or maybe because of male on female violence we fear men so much that we push any possible hatred out of our minds thinking that if we are good and do as our oppressor tells us to do we will not be harmed.
As for what Lauren said "I get tired of having to say to anti-feminists, 'Don't worry, we don't hate you."
On my blog I created a post called "Proud to be a man-hater" in which I mentioned how feminists seem to spend more time trying to prove that they don't hate their oppressor instead of discussing real issues that effect oppressed people. And as could be expected some jackass left a message declaring me a man-hater. I did not post that comment as I have far better things to think about and discuss.
I think if the white men who complain about their plight in life as an exploited and harmed class would become less politically and spiritually myopic, and would learn how to confront one another more on matters of white and male supremacy, they might realise how structurally and institutionally protected and empowered they actually are.
ReplyDeleteAnd I've written here before about how "man-hating" if we're speaking about white het men being hated by people they structurally oppress, isn't really a social problem (or reality) at all. Any woman, for example, who dares to publicly and socially hate men, is usually already so socially marginalised that whatever she feels for men isn't consequential, unless to inspire other women to care less about a class of people who do the most horrid things on Earth to women, unrelentingly.