Too often there is this separation we invent where misogyny is a ubiquitous tool of patriarchy while misandry is somehow separate. This becomes so intense that many are not even able to admit that misandry is even theoretically possible, and even if it's undeniable it is still seen as highly irrelevant to patriarchy.
But misandry does advance patriarchy and it is a force that intensifies misogyny.
Consider homophobia. This is an obvious case where misandry advances heretopatriarchy. Certain men can entrench their status through an infrastructure of hatred against homosexual men that can be accessed by nearly everyone else as well.
Consider transphobia. Another obvious realm where misandry is at play. Trans men are shown hatred in ways that are unique to the experience of cis men, and these experiences drive cis heteronormativity.
Consider how our actions and ideas impact the world. If we live in denial of misandry we live in denial of patriarchy. Denying misandry does not make you a quality feminist. It does not make you theoretically sound. Hating men just gets in the way of challenging patriarchy.
Consider how misandry enforces gender roles. Misandrous discourse functions to discipline people. When misandry is denied, there is almost always an element of "you have to man up, because women are weak." The narrative is familiar; women are subjected to patriarchal violence and are thus too hysterical to have sound or reasonable options about men, thus, men must internalize misandrous attitudes out of sheer emotional intelligence and masculine willpower. The men who fail to do this are weak, unable to maintain a rational, stoic attitude and are thus lesser, unmasculine men. Men who can master their performance of masculinity in a self-denying or sacrificial way will benefits from misandry but will certainly be thoroughly disciplined by it.
Women, other non men genders,and queer communities often play a role in policing masculinity for patriarchy which may obfuscate the patriarchal power at play. This ultimately reinforces misogyny by haphazardly enforcing binaries, devaluing feminity, and promoting a supremacist view of masculinity.
Let me paint a situation. Imagine a comedian making a joke about their trans wife; that she removed the worst part of her--being a man. Everyone laughs in support of trans women and implicitly they laugh AT trans men and cis men. Next joke is about how stupid bisexual women are for dating men, how they make the queer community worse.
Now imagine you are a man who wants a little clarity in life. How should you feel about such language which is clearly both misandrous and misogynistic? How should you feel that it is directed at you, as a man? I'll tell you:
You should feel safe because you are a man. If you don't feel safe it's because you are a weak man, incapable of performing.
This "I was just joking" then would apply to all misogynist comments too? Or do those words suddenly have real meaning and effects?
Which grants very convenient absolution to all women here. It wasn't them, it was their conditions, they didn't have free will, they were automatons. Everyone has their story. You can play the same game with men and say it was because of their culture, peer pressure, imperialism, they were "of that time".
It's the same tired apologia.
there is a difference between punching up and punching down
This reasoning then admits all bad behaviour of women and only condemns it of men. Because all women are "down" and all men are "up". Is this your contention?
do you not understand how class works? do you think all bourgeois behave badly and the proletariat behaves goodly? class is not a measure of morality
Attempting to put words in my moth and refusing to engage isn't a substitute for discussion.
my contention is that men are an oppressor class, which should be condemned as a class based on the oppressor status. bad behaviour doesnt really have anything to do with it
Interesting. I've been accused of class reductionism for a much smaller common factor. If that's what I'm doing, then I can't imagine what you're doing here. An entire gender is a class now. I'd love to hear your argument. Is this your own concoction or is there any academic serious work arguing this?
Women as an oppressed class is pretty common Marxist feminist analysis. I did not come up with it
Yes I believe Gloria Steinem referenced Marx extensively.
As did Lenin.
James Connolly sums up this sex obsessed website really well.
“I have long been of opinion that the Socialist movement elsewhere was to a great extent hampered by the presence in its ranks of faddists and cranks, who were in the movement, not for the cause of Socialism, but because they thought they saw in it a means of ventilating their theories on such questions as sex, religion, vaccination, vegetarianism, etc., and I believed that such ideas had or ought to have no place in our programme or in our party.”
Faddists and cranks indeed.
im not sure what those quotes have to do with anything in this discussion. pulling random quotes is not substitute for an argument
I don't believe you. You know exactly what their relevance is.
For the record, I think we can imagine "men" as a kind of institution that is emergent from a cacophony of gendered relations. I don't think this is the same thing as class per se, but I do think there is overlap. In terms of scholarship I think federici was great in helping me think more about this. It is not so unlike how being a settler has relevant qualities that heavily impact how class materializes.
I'm not uncomfortable separating the institution of Men from individual men if it can be done correctly, but it is a sensitive matter and few seem to have a methodology robust enough to do that. And if we did, it would be watered down and turned against us by the time we get used to it.
Its not 'I was just joking' its 'this is whats being done to me and im flipping the table over', you really think I want to kill every single landlord personally or do away with the system of landlordism?
and yes thats quite literally what materialism is, are you lost?
One instance is a court case, when it repeats again and again its systematic.
Its not absolving the guilty, its directing the blame at the correct source; the upper class.
The states ideological apparatus produces these outcomes, you think misogyny and ID politics just appeared out of the natural spirit of the working class, or was it taught to them?
I wouldn't have a major issue with that in the right context, minus the personal killing all landlords part. It would be a tremendous task.
That is not what materialism is. I think what you're probably trying to say is that the material conditions explains behaviour. My point is that it doesn't absolve. Yet you were using it to grand absolution to all women, but not men. It's hard to know what you were trying to say beyond tetchy sniping though.
Okay? Also unclear.
Thank you for restating my point. I seem to have breathed some ML thinking into the thread finally. Please carry on with this in mind.
I never said that at all and have consistently been pointing at the upper classes schools and domination as the thing that keeps producing these outcomes for both men and women, merely observing the fact that men are put in a special status above women as the dominant hegemonic force doesnt mean that men are also not victims under this system - an inequal class divisions of oppressor and non-oppressor drives toxicity both ways, the forms they take might be different but when it comes down to it, women are the objects of the objects that are men, and men are the objects of the upper class.
The only real way to beat this cycle and resolve the violence being taught and perpetuated is to break the wheel, not keep it spinning by positioning one gender over another. That also requires actually listening to the perspectives of those 'three times oppressed' as Claudia Jones calls it.
These conversations tend to test my patience, nothing good tends to come of them other than alienated people shouting about their own trauma and grasping at the dark for answers.
Everyone can scroll up and see that this is not the case.
You say that, but then here we are. In a discussion dominated by people spinning class society as one gender over another, ignoring class, even directly replacing the common Marxist usage of the term with gender. And I'm the only one arguing at this gender reductionism. Even though out of the blue you claim to be doing the same. At least I've been able to drag it out of some here. When challenged, everyone all of a sudden rediscovers theory.
Yeah you’re the only true marxist left. Good on you