Misandry

Misandry is the hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against men or boys.
Men's rights activists (MRAs) and other masculinist groups have characterized modern
laws concerning divorce, domestic violence, conscription, circumcision (known as male
genital mutilation by opponents), and treatment of male rape victims as examples of
institutional misandry.
In the Internet Age, users posting on manosphere internet forums such
as 4chan and subreddits addressing men's rights activism have claimed that misandry
is widespread, established in preferential treatment of women, and shown
by discrimination against men. This viewpoint is denied by
most sociologists, anthropologists and scholars of gender studies, who counter that
misandry is not a cultural institution, nor equivalent in scope to misogyny, which is far
more deeply rooted in society, and more severe in its consequences.
Many scholars criticize MRAs for promoting a false equivalence between misandry and
misogyny, arguing that modern activism around misandry represents
an antifeminist backlash, promoted by marginalized men.
Etymology
Misandry is formed from the Greek misos (μῖσος, "hatred") and anēr, andros (ἀνήρ, gen.
ἀνδρός; "man"). "Misandrous" or "misandrist" can be used as adjectival forms of the
word. Use of the word can be found as far back as the 19th century, including an 1871
use in The Spectator magazine. It appeared in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate
Dictionary (11th ed.) in 1952. Translation of the French misandrie to the
German Männerhass (Hatred of Men) is recorded in 1803.
A term with a similar but distinct meaning is androphobia, which describes a fear, but
not necessarily hatred, of men. Anthropologist David D. Gilmore coined a similar term
—"viriphobia"—to show that misandry typically targets the virile male machismo, "the
obnoxious manly pose", along with the oppressive male roles of patriarchy. Gilmore
says that misandry is not the hatred of men as men; this kind of loathing is present only
in misogyny which is the hatred of women as women.
Background
The term misandry started to be used in men's rights literature and academic literature
on structural prejudice in the early 1980s. It has been used on the internet such
as usenet, and blogs since at least 1989. Usage of the term misandry in the internet
age is an outgrowth of antifeminism and misogyny. The term is commonly used in
the manosphere, such as on men's rights discussion forums on websites such
as 4chan and reddit, to counter feminist accusations of misogyny. The critique and
parody of the concept of misandry by feminist bloggers was reported on in periodicals
such as The Guardian, Slate and Time in 2014.
Overview
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Men's rights activists (MRAs) and other masculinist groups have criticized modern laws
concerning divorce, domestic violence, the draft, circumcision (known as genital
mutilation by opponents), and treatment of male rape victims as examples of
institutional misandry. MRAs invoke the idea of misandry in warning against what they
see as the advance of a female-dominated society. The word misandry forms a core
part of the vocabulary of manosphere online spaces. The use of this term in the
manosphere provides justification for harassment of people espousing feminist ideas by
online groups, citing Gamergate as an example. Arguments based on the concept of
misandry are used by the men's rights movement to counter feminist accusations of
misogyny.
Proposed examples of misandry in popular culture include frequent portrayals of men as
absent, insensitive, or abusive, as well as a legal process that discriminates against
men in divorce proceedings, or in cases of domestic or sexual violence where the victim
is a man. Other examples include social problems that lead to men's shorter lifespans,
higher suicide rates, requirements to participate in military drafts, and lack of tax
benefits afforded to widowers compared to widows. In a 2016 Washington
Post article, Cathy Young wrote that terms using "man" as a derogatory prefix, such
as mansplaining, manspreading, and manterrupting, are part of a "current cycle of
misandry".
Religious studies professors Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young examined what they
called the institutionalization of misandry in the public sphere in their 2001 three-book
series Beyond the Fall of Man, which refers to misandry as a "form of prejudice and
discrimination that has become institutionalized in North American society", writing,
"The same problem that long prevented mutual respect between Jews and Christians,
the teaching of contempt, now prevents mutual respect between men and women."
Warren Farrell is a men's rights activist trained as a political scientist. Farrell argues that
men's rights publications are censored online and it is difficult to publish books on the
topic compared to feminist issues. He argues that men are often socially rejected for
expressing feelings, while at the same time being blamed for not doing so. He argues
that there is gender bias, reinforced by feminism, of who is considered to deserve
protection and who is held accountable for problems with women tending to be seen as
both unaccountable while needing protection, arguing that this needs to change to
remove gender roles. In response, philosopher James P. Sterba argues that women
may have been excluded from dangerous professions such as the military to protect
male status, citing the example of Eritrean–Ethiopian War where he argues women
gained status in society by virtue of fighting in the war and contrasting it with Israel
where he says that women's exclusion from military national service and the military in
general diminishes their status and as a result their influence in politics.
Sociologist Michael Kimmel states that claiming an equivalence between misogyny and
misandry is "utterly tendentious". Marc A. Ouellette argues in International Encyclopedia
of Men and Masculinities that "misandry lacks the systemic, transhistoric,
institutionalized, and legislated antipathy of misogyny"; in his view, assuming a parallel
between misogyny and misandry overly simplifies relations of gender and power. David
Gilmore argues that misogyny is a "near-universal phenomenon" and that there is no

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male equivalent to misogyny. He argues that misandry is "different from the intensely ad
feminam aspect of misogyny that targets women no matter what they believe or do".
Racialization
Misandry can be racialized. According to some researchers in Black male studies such
as Tommy J. Curry, Black men and boys face anti-Black misandry. E. C. Krell, a gender
researcher, uses the term racialized trans misandry describing the experience of Black
transmasculine people.
Psychological studies
Glick and Fiske developed psychometric constructs to measure the attitudes of
individuals towards men in their Ambivalence toward Men Inventory, AMI, which
includes a factor Hostility toward Men. These metrics were based on a small group
discussion with women which identified factors, these number of questions were then
reduced using statistical methods. Hostility toward Men was split into three
factors: Resentment of Paternalism, the belief men supported male
power, Compensatory Gender Differentiation, the belief that men were supported by
women and Heterosexual Hostility, which looked at beliefs that men were likely to
engage in hostile actions. The combined construct, Hostility toward Men, was found to
be inversely correlated with measures of gender equality when comparing difference
countries and in a study with university students, self-describing feminists were found to
have a lower score.
Ancient Greek literature
Classics professor Froma Zeitlin of Princeton University discussed misandry in her
article titled "Patterns of Gender in Aeschylean Drama: Seven against Thebes and
the Danaid Trilogy". She writes:
The most significant point of contact, however, between Eteocles and the suppliant
Danaids is, in fact, their extreme positions with regard to the opposite sex: the misogyny
of Eteocles' outburst against all women of whatever variety has its counterpart in the
seeming misandry of the Danaids, who although opposed to their Egyptian cousins in
particular (marriage with them is incestuous, they are violent men) often extend their
objections to include the race of males as a whole and view their cause as a passionate
contest between the sexes.

Shakespeare
Literary critic Harold Bloom argued that even though the word misandry is relatively
unheard of in literature, it is not hard to find implicit, even explicit, misandry. In reference
to the works of Shakespeare, Bloom argued:
I cannot think of one instance of misogyny whereas I would argue that misandry is a
strong element. Shakespeare makes perfectly clear that women in general have to
marry down and that men are narcissistic and not to be trusted and so forth. On the
whole, he gives us a darker vision of human males than human females.

Modern literature

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Sociologist Anthony Synnott argues that there is a tendency in literature to represent
men as villains and women as victims and argues that there is a market for "anti-male"
novels with no corresponding "anti-female" market, citing The Women's Room,
by Marilyn French, and The Color Purple, by Alice Walker. He gives examples of
comparisons of men to Nazi prison guards as a common theme in literature.
Racialized misandry occurs in both "high" and "low" culture and literature. For
instance, African-American men have often been disparagingly portrayed as either
infantile or as eroticized and hyper-masculine, depending on prevailing cultural
stereotypes.
Julie M. Thompson, a feminist author, connects misandry with envy of men, in particular
"penis envy", a term coined by Sigmund Freud in 1908, in his theory of female sexual
development. Nancy Kang has discussed "the misandric impulse" in relation to the
works of Toni Morrison.
In his book, Gender and Judaism: The Transformation of Tradition, Harry Brod, a
Professor of Philosophy and Humanities in the Department of Philosophy and Religion
at the University of Northern Iowa, writes:
In the introduction to The Great Comic Book Heroes, Jules Feiffer writes that this is
Superman's joke on the rest of us. Clark is Superman's vision of what other men are
really like. We are scared, incompetent, and powerless, particularly around women.
Though Feiffer took the joke good-naturedly, a more cynical response would see here
the Kryptonian's misanthropy, his misandry embodied in Clark and his misogyny in his
wish that Lois be enamored of Clark (much like Oberon takes out hostility toward Titania
by having her fall in love with an ass in Shakespeare's Midsummer-Night's Dream).
In 2020, the explicitly misandric essay Moi les hommes, je les déteste (I Hate Men) by
the French writer Pauline Harmange caused controversy in France after a government
official threatened its publisher with criminal prosecution.
In feminism
The role of misandry in feminism is controversial and has been debated both within and
outside feminist movements. Opponents of feminism often argue that feminism is
misandristic; citing examples such as opposition to shared parenting by NOW, or
opposition to equal rape and domestic violence laws. The validity of these perceptions
and of the concept has been claimed as promoting a false equivalence between
misandry and misogyny. Radical feminism has often been associated with misandry in
the public consciousness. However, radical feminist arguments have also been
misinterpreted, and individual radical feminists such as Valerie Solanas, best known for
her near-fatal shooting of artist Andy Warhol in 1968, have historically had a higher
profile in popular culture than within feminist scholarship.
Historian Alice Echols, in her 1989 book Daring To Be Bad: Radical Feminism in
America, 1967–1975, argued that Valerie Solanas displayed an extreme level of
misandry in her tract the SCUM Manifesto, but wrote that it was not typical for radical
feminists of the time. Echols stated: "Solanas's unabashed misandry—especially her
belief in men's biological inferiority—her endorsement of relationships between
'independent women,' and her dismissal of sex as 'the refuge of the mindless'

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contravened the sort of radical feminism which prevailed in most women's groups
across the country." Echols also claims that, after Solanas shot Warhol, the SCUM
Manifesto became more popular within radical feminism; but not all radical feminists
shared her beliefs. For example, radical feminist Andrea Dworkin criticized the biological
determinist strand in radical feminism that, in 1977, she found "with increasing
frequency in feminist circles" which echoed the views of Valerie Solanas that males are
biologically inferior to women and violent by nature, requiring a gendercide to allow for
the emergence of a "new Übermensch Womon".
Melinda Kanner and Kristin J. Anderson argue that "man-hater feminist" represents the
popular antifeminist myth which has no any scientific evidences, and it's rather the
antifeminists who perhaps hate men.
The author bell hooks conceptualized the issue of "man hating" during the early period
of women's liberation as a reaction to patriarchal oppression and women who had bad
experiences with men in non-feminist social movements. She also criticized separatist
strands of feminism as "reactionary" for promoting the notion that men are inherently
immoral, inferior, and unable to help end sexist oppression or benefit from
feminism. In Feminism is For Everybody, hooks lament the fact that feminists who
critiqued anti-male bias in the early women's movement never gained mainstream
media attention and that "our theoretical work critiquing the demonization of men as the
enemy did not change the perspective of women who were anti-male." She has
theorized previously that this demonization led to an unnecessary rift between the Men's
movement and the Women's movement.
Sociologist Anthony Synnott argues that certain forms of feminism present misandristic
view of gender. He argues that men are presented as having power over others
regardless of the actual power they possess and that some feminists define the
experience of being male inaccurately through writing on masculinity. He further argues
that some forms of feminism create an in-group of women, simplifies the nuances of
gender issues, demonizes those who are not feminists and legimitizes victimization by
way of retributive justice. Reviewing Synnott, Roman Kuhar argues that Synnott might
not accurately represent the views of feminism, commenting that "whether it re-thinks
men in a manner in which men have not been thought of in feminist theory, is another
question."
Religious scholars Paul Nathanson and Katherine K. Young argued that "ideological
feminism" as opposed to "egalitarian feminism" has imposed misandry on culture. Their
2001 book, Spreading Misandry, analyzed "pop cultural artifacts and productions from
the 1990s" from movies to greeting cards for what they considered to be pervasive
messages of hatred toward men. Legalizing Misandry (2005), the second in the series,
gave similar attention to laws in North America. The methodology used by Nathanson
and Young to research misandry has been criticized. In the book Angry White
Men, Michael Kimmel argues that much of the misandry identified by Nathanson and
Young is actually criticizing patriarchy. Kimmel condemns Nathanson and Young for
their "selective, simplistic, and shallow" interpretations of sexism in film and fiction.
Kimmel says that the "bad history" produced by Nathanson and Young should only be
used as an indicator of how the "male studies enterprise" operates.

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Wendy McElroy, an individualist feminist, wrote in 2001 that some feminists "have
redefined the view of the movement of the opposite sex" as "a hot anger toward men
[that] seems to have turned into a cold hatred". She argued it was a misandrist position
to consider men, as a class, to be irreformable or rapists. In a 2016 article, individualist
feminist Cathy Young described a "current cycle of misandry" in feminism. This cycle,
she explains, includes the use of the term "mansplaining" and other neologisms using
"man" as a derogatory prefix.
Sociologist Allan G. Johnson argues in The Gender Knot: Unraveling our Patriarchal
Legacy that accusations of man-hating have been used to put down feminists and to
shift attention onto men, reinforcing a male-centered culture. Johnson posits that culture
offers no comparable anti-male ideology to misogyny and that "people often confuse
men as individuals with men as a dominant and privileged category of people" and that
"[given the] reality of women's oppression, male privilege, and men's enforcement of
both, it's hardly surprising that every woman should have moments where she resents
or even hates men".