"Some Feminists are Man-Haters"

I understand your frustration, Sun.

It's okay, try to ignore them and keep being yourself. I keep getting bashed with bigotry for being a Muslim, ignorance and racism for being Saudi, and even local racism for being of a minority in Saudi Arabia that the vast majority of the world does not know of.

They as well could be saying it in an impulse really meaning it that not all feminists are bad. First even when I heard people saying Muslims this Muslims that, I thought they meant it as a clever slur too, but as I conversed with some of those people and found them friendly with being a Muslims, I realized it was just not meant to insult, but to complain about some acts some Muslims do.

Don't let it bother you much. At worst, try to answer them back with clever slurs too if you really need to

Buttercup said:

This calling feminists "man haters" is rooted in the same type of societal pressure women have put up with for ages when we don't act sweet and pleasant all the time. Women get accused of being *****y, man haters, unpleasant, touchy or troublesome when we don't conform to the lingering effects of a patriarchal society. We aren't acting they way "we should". I see this name calling of "man haters" in largely the same frame of reference.

Click to expand...

I think that the label "man-hater" is the product of a great generalization towards the feminist movement. Two feminists can be the exact opposite of one another, and yet males tend to consider feminism and feminists as something monolithic.
Feminism is a very generic term. I can be a feminist because I want to fight for women's rights; this doesn't mean I hate men. I can be very diffident towards those men who think that women should have less rights, but I don't hate them.
I think we don't live in a patriarchal society any more. Most "aggressive" feminists believe we still do: that's why their diffidence towards men can turn into hatred....because they think that the "war" is not over yet.
Generalization is quite wrong because women are very different than one another. There are very sensitive, submissive and sweet women who have dominant and bossy male partners. And these women may develop a sort of fear or diffidence towards the entire male gender. (this happened to me too).
And there are sensitive and patient men with aggressive, petulant and a bit misandric women. These men can perceive them as "man haters" and develop diffidence towards the entire female gender.

Sunstone said:

Funny how "Some feminists are man-hatters" keeps coming up in conversations about feminism, even when the topic is not specifically about those relatively few feminists who are indeed man-hatters. Funny, because the same people who bring up the point are quite often not the sort of people to say things like, "Some Progressives beat their dogs" or "Some Conservatives are drunkards" in general conversations about Progressives or Conservatives, for instance.

It would be one thing if the point that "some feminists are man-hatters" only came up in conversations specifically about feminist man-hatters, but why does it come up so frequently in just about any conversation about feminism?

Do you think it's a clever slur? Why or why not?

Do you think there's a bit of a double standard here in the sense that all feminists, apparently, are expected to be decent people, but not all Progressives, Conservatives, etc? Why or why not?

What do you think?

Click to expand...

Feminism as a whole is pretty difficult to criticize. To criticize it is to basically say that you don't want equality for men and women. Not all those who really don't want equality are willing to admit it.

Therefore, it's easier to single out the bad apples and use them to argue against an extreme position as if it were feminism in its entirety. Other people are simply ignorant and take the image of the man-hating feminist as a standard rather than an exception.

Progressivism and Conservatism don't quite have this same quality since they encompass so many different things. You could be socially progressive, but economically conservative for example. Now I'm aware feminism has a wide range of issues to tackle, but they largely fall within the same "theme" if you see what I mean?

Erebus said:

Feminism as a whole is pretty difficult to criticize. To criticize it is to basically say that you don't want equality for men and women. Not all those who really don't want equality are willing to admit it.

Click to expand...

Let's see... if my female feminist friend tells me her male partner raped her in her sleep and then proceeds with "I hate men" is that her feminism talking?
If my female non-feminist friend tells me her male partner raped her in her sleep and then proceeds with "I hate men"
Where is that coming from?
Some of my female friends hate men... some of them have been feminists and some of them haven't. They don't go out of their way to hurt men though...most of the time, their man hating just involves avoiding men.
So I hate to break it to the anti-feminists but in private women in general often "hate" men over a cup of tea with their other female friends. Peace!
P.'s as my home girl Audre Lorde said, this is just a tactic to keep the oppressed preoccupied with the master's concerns.

Smart_Guy said:

I understand your frustration, Sun.

It's okay, try to ignore them and keep being yourself. I keep getting bashed with bigotry for being a Muslim, ignorance and racism for being Saudi, and even local racism for being of a minority in Saudi Arabia that the vast majority of the world does not know of.

They as well could be saying it in an impulse really meaning it that not all feminists are bad. First even when I heard people saying Muslims this Muslims that, I thought they meant it as a clever slur too, but as I conversed with some of those people and found them friendly with being a Muslims, I realized it was just not meant to insult, but to complain about some acts some Muslims do.

Don't let it bother you much. At worst, try to answer them back with clever slurs too if you really need to

Click to expand...

Drat!
In what way don't you fit in at home?

Apex said:

Click to expand...

I don't really understand what you're going for here.

Horrorble said:

Let's see... if my female feminist friend tells me her male partner raped her in her sleep and then proceeds with "I hate men" is that her feminism talking?
If my female non-feminist friend tells me her male partner raped her in her sleep and then proceeds with "I hate men"
Where is that coming from?
Some of my female friends hate men... some of them have been feminists and some of them haven't. They don't go out of their way to hurt men though...most of the time, their man hating just involves avoiding men.
So I hate to break it to the anti-feminists but in private women in general often "hate" men over a cup of tea with their other female friends. Peace!
P.'s as my home girl Audre Lorde said, this is just a tactic to keep the oppressed preoccupied with the master's concerns.

Click to expand...

Do you have friends who hate black people too?

Apex said:

Do you have friends who hate black people too?

Click to expand...

You say that as if everyone doesn't have friends that hate black people...
Or do you mean ww whi whi ... nah forget it!
(Lol@ Men not realising what wifey says to their girlfriends)

Revoltingest said:

Drat!
In what way don't you fit in at home?

Click to expand...

Come again?

Erebus said:

Therefore, it's easier to single out the bad apples and use them to argue against an extreme position as if it were feminism in its entirety. Other people are simply ignorant and take the image of the man-hating feminist as a standard rather than an exception.
Progressivism and Conservatism don't quite have this same quality since they encompass so many different things. You could be socially progressive, but economically conservative for example. Now I'm aware feminism has a wide range of issues to tackle, but they largely fall within the same "theme" if you see what I mean?

Click to expand...

The same technique is still applied to more than just feminists.
Conservatives are even more so the the red headed step children of RF.
Many seem to expect that there are no positive examples.
A representative thread.
http://www.religiousforums.com/thre...conservative-news-source.174918/#post-4207606
And then there are even threads about science showing their brains are of lower quality.

We all get challenged & even attacked at times.
We just notice it more when it's "us" rather than "them".
But when we have friends on the other side, eg, ssainhu & Smart Guy, we notice when other groups (Muslims) are targeted.

Smart_Guy said:

Come again?

Click to expand...

You're a minority in Saudi Arabia.
How so?

Revoltingest said:

You're a minority in Saudi Arabia.
How so?

Click to expand...

Oh, that!

Saudi Arabia is a big country and was originally different independent kingdoms/states. I belong to what was called the Kingdom of Hijaz. Out of all other places in Saudi Arabia, this part with specially distinct in accent/dialect and customs. We even mostly look specially different since we didn't mind mixing with other races. I've been bullied like hell in school for that. It was easy to distinguish me because of my looks and accent/dialect.

Now where's my ice cream?

Smart_Guy said:

Saudi Arabia is a big country and was originally different independent kingdoms/states. I belong to what was called the Kingdom of Hijaz. Out of all other places in Saudi Arabia, this part with specially distinct in accent/dialect and customs. We even mostly look specially different since we didn't mind mixing with other races. I've been bullied like hell in school for that. It was easy to distinguish me because of my looks and accent/dialect.

Now where's my ice cream?

Click to expand...

Just for you.....

Revoltingest said:

Just for you.....

Click to expand...

I want plain vanilla ice cream with hot chocolate sauce on it

Revoltingest said:

The same technique is still applied to more than just feminists.
Conservatives are even more so the the red headed step children of RF.
Many seem to expect that there are no positive examples.
A representative thread.
http://www.religiousforums.com/thre...conservative-news-source.174918/#post-4207606
And then there are even threads about science showing their brains are of lower quality.

We all get challenged & even attacked at times.
We just notice it more when it's "us" rather than "them".
But when we have friends on the other side, eg, ssainhu & Smart Guy, we notice when other groups (Muslims) are targeted.

Click to expand...

You persist in misunderstanding -- perhaps artfully misunderstanding -- the argument made in the OP. The OP is not discussing cases in which criticism that groups contain "bad apples" is the focus of a conversation, but rather cases in which criticism that groups contain bad apples has so little to do with the focus of a conversation that it is all but irrelevant, or even wholly irrelevant.

The difference is the equivalent of someone criticizing someone's excessive drinking when the subject is that person's excessive drinking, and someone criticizing someone's excessive drinking habits when the subject is that person's recent promotion at work.

Do you really find that distinction too difficult to understand? I ask because you persist in treating this discussion as if it was about any and all criticism leveled at a group, and not just irrelevant or nearly irrelevant criticism.

Smart_Guy said:

I want plain vanilla ice cream with hot chocolate sauce on it

Click to expand...

So demanding.....but here you go....

I think it often is an instinctive attempt at disregarding the subject matter as poisoned and unworthy of attention.

Erebus said:

Feminism as a whole is pretty difficult to criticize. To criticize it is to basically say that you don't want equality for men and women. Not all those who really don't want equality are willing to admit it.

Click to expand...

Good point!

Revoltingest said:

So demanding.....but here you go....

Click to expand...

Woohoo!

Gimme that!