Misogyny: A Feminist Production

In the feminist lexicon, the word misogyny is before all else a semantical device. A stratagem. A stretcher. It is meant to encompass, and to stigmatize, anything that might directly or indirectly block feminist innovation. The success of this stratagem has been considerable, though far from complete. They want to get as much artificial mileage out of the word as they possibly can, but in practice they haven't stretched the meaning of misogyny quite so far as they would like because there isn't enough fabric to accomplish that without partly uncovering their intellectual chicanery. But they keep trying.

They are hyping this word noticeably more than they used to. They have given it a special rank in their arsenal, and they appear to hold high hopes for it. To hear them talk, you'd think misogyny packed a megatonnage comparable to racism, fascism, antisemitism or that Marxist-Leninist classic, imperialism. Personally, I don't see what the hype is about. All they are doing is sculpting a bogeyman. And yet, be advised: whenever they gob you with this word they are shoving you into the same ballpark with Ted Bundy.

When evaluating people like feminists, cynicism is a good bet if you aim to hit the bulls-eye on a high order of statistical average. So I will offer you a cynic's definition of misogyny, or rather I will cynically suggest to you what a misogynist is according to real-world feminist usage:

misogynist, n. a person who believes that women are responsible adults, and holds them accountable when they fail to act so.

In the real world, feminist use of misogyny and misogynist typically comports very well with the posted definition—which is to say that if you fit the given profile, the odds are good they will call you a misogynist. I, the present writer, do fit the given profile. And yes, the charge has occasionally been laid at my doorstep. You may judge if this has thrown me the least bit off my stride.

There is a fine line which separates bona-fide woman-bashing from fair criticism, and my sport, if you will, is to play "chicken" with that line. But I always keep to the correct side of it. Now the feminists would dearly love to recalibrate that line so far in the direction of abject male timidity that any critique of any woman, or of women generally, is ruled out of bounds. Finally, they wish to pull ALL opposition to their plans within the perimeter of so-called misogyny. I say they would dearly love this, although the outcome has eluded them in practice. But I consider it an exercise in political hygiene to stay on the cutting edge of the battle by crowding the zone and choking it to the very last centimetre: they want to push their envelope as far as they are able, so I push the opposing envelope with all the audacity at my disposal in order to block them and cancel their energy. Considering the phenomenal audacity of feminism itself, one fights fire with fire.

Misogyny. Even with the best will in the world, this term is operationally unclear. But as an item of feminist lexicon, that's the whole idea! It is meant to trigger emotion and nothing more, being little better than a handy-dandy smear word—and whoever would make it a political pejorative is either dishonest or mentally lazy. In truth, the word sounds like clinical terminology—and so ought its usage to be constrained, because certifiable misogynists are a rare class of humanity.

Most of the so-called misogyny that you'll hear from people like MRAs is merely an artifact, arising from their lack of rhetorical discipline—their emotive use of language, their want of concision, even their want of wit. They are like oxen cavorting on the high crags and ledges where only mountain goats ought to venture. But all they are really doing is voicing their disenchantment at the deplorable state to which many women have fallen—and I must in good faith acknowledge a kernel of truth in their observations! In some cases you might arguably call them "chauvinistic"—another feminist word trick, by the way. However, "chauvinism" is a separate item: it is not the same as misogyny and should not be conflated with it, even if it often accompanies it.

To deplore the existing state of women, as to deplore the existing state of anything, is to admit the possibility of pathology in theory and call attention to it in the event. For example, if there should be an outbreak of feline eneritis in my town and I were to remark upon the prevalence of diseased cats, would that make me a cat hater? Or if the case involved Dutch Elm disease, would it prove that I hated elm trees?

Misogyny is said to mean "hatred of women". At least that is the core of the idea, although the feminists and their cohorts have given it a fuzzy perimeter—making the word signify, in some mysterious way, ever-so-much more. But for now I want to keep things simple, so I will proceed with simplicity.

"Hatred of women" means disaffection toward a plurality of people, since women is the plural of woman. So clearly, if you think every female on earth is swell you can rest easy: you are assuredly not a misogynist! But how if your case is the extreme reverse? Do you contemplate everything female with ice-cold fury and do you spit like an angry cobra any time a woman comes near? Well then, I think it is safe to call you a misogynist; I can't honestly think of a better name.

Between those outside field markers lies a continuum of possibilities, and the more thoughtfully we investigate this continuum the more difficult becomes the question of who is or is not a so-called misogynist. Finally, the idea itself becomes so thoroughly problematized that no entirely coherent understanding of the word is even possible. Such is the outcome of our investigation.

A moment's thought makes clear that the extreme cases noted above are, for all their polar opposition, equally irrational. Either possibility bespeaks a suspension of critical powers in favor of an extraordinarily peculiar monomania. By contrast, a healthy person of robust intellect allows that the human fabric is not morally monolithic, and does not flinch either to behold people in their flawed diversity or to draw distinctions of a judgmental character.

Feminism harbors man-hating at its core—and it seeks to rationalize this. So the feminists have adopted the idea of woman-hating in order to invert their own hatred of men and project it onto the non-feminist world. They aim to provoke the exasperated anger of non-feminist men in order to "prove" the existence of misogyny as a societal pandemic. And that X number of genuine misogynists do exist, naturally facilitates conflation and makes their game easier.

In the molten core of its worldview, feminism is hostile to the very idea that men should criticize women for any reason whatsoever. And so the universal admirer of women described in the first instance, weird and unreal as he sounds, is the feminist ideal of the perfect man. He is a silly, servile wretch who waits at the bottom of a slippery slope down which feminism wants every man to slide. To resist the slide is "misogynistic". To resist angrily is "angrily misogynistic". And so on. Therefore it becomes wonderfully easy to find "misogyny" everywhere you look, and if not. . . just goad somebody into it!

Misogyny is an accusation hurled too casually by the feminists and their cohorts. For example, it is plausible to suppose that a misogynist dislikes the majority of women yet makes a few exceptions. But if a man should dislike certain broad categories of women while leaving equally broad categories unscathed, the case becomes problematic. So where must we draw the line? The questions go on and on; the ratios and permutations never end. However: the organic drive underlying all feminist innovation is to gradually squeeze all male opinion into a corner where all independent judgment within this realm becomes nearly impossible. Crudely stated, the feminist worldview will ultimately accomodate nothing short of abject pussy-worship.

Truly, the way some people use this word, you would think that misogyny meant any adverse remark under any circumstance about anybody or anything female. However, in the name of lucidity, coherency and intellectual honesty, I would insist upon some very simple criteria. A body of speech or writing may be classed as misogynistic if, and only if, it meets either or both of the following conditions: a.) it contains globally pejorative statements of the form 'women are X', or b.) it persistently and overwhelmingly portrays females in a negative light while expressly calling attention to their femaleness.

In the foregoing paragraph I have solved the entire problem. The rules laid down there should be stringently applied at all times. If this were done, all confusion and intellectual dishonesty surrounding the word misogyny would vanish outright from the realm of public discourse. No further feminist chicanery would be possible. Mind you, the test would NOT infallibly identify every possible misogynist, as an individual—for admittedly some might escape the net. What the test would do, however, is demarcate the bounds beyond which the quest for so-called misogyny would no longer yield dependable results and would therefore fail a societal cost-benefit analysis.

But I would like to seize the offensive and turn the tables against feminism as such. What is presently most notable in feminist rhetoric is the amorophous, variable, and inconsistent application of the word misogyny itself. The word is applied haphazardly to a gamut of operations, conditions, behaviors or mental states which lack organic continuity amongst themselves and don't always reliably signal disaffection toward women as a class. Simply put, when feminists talk about "misogyny" they are talking about a range of things that barely cohere with one another.

Clearly, we need to put asunder what feminism has dishonestly joined together, so do a mental inventory: break apart "misogyny" into its separate ingredients and compose a checklist. Let us say your list embraces 12 items. Study those items one by one and make an honest decision: is the behavior in question something that only men do, or is it something that both sexes do about equally? If the latter, immediately cross off that item as a thing of no further utility in the field of anti-male politics. For if women do it too, it is no longer a male issue but a human issue. So if "misogyny" refers to 12 different things, then we must use a separate word for each item. And if the word misogyny itself is to be used at all, it must be used in a constricted way and not tossed indifferently into the same salad with 11 other things.

Given the inherent mendacity in the way this word is bandied about, I am not in duty bound to take it seriously when it crops up in speech or writing. I am entitled in all cases to view it as a suspect item. And there is no harm in that, since it is only a word. And in back of the word it is only a concept. That said, bear in mind that the feminist concept of misogyny is naught but a mental model of reality. It is not reality as such, and worse, it may be wildly different from reality. So we are entitled to question it.

And now, being the mountain goat that I am, I will demonstrate some appalling leaps upon dangerously narrow cliffs. Observe:

It has been said that the abstract creature called "men" can "stop rape". Okay, fine! I'll grab a beer and sit here watching and see how "men" accomplishes such a feat. I'm sure it will be interesting. But seriously: the anti-male social order in which I'm embedded doesn't pay me enough that I should trouble my head about women's issues. In a purely objective sense, given the present political status of men as a group, NO male citizen is obligated to so trouble himself—although assuredly, at his sovereign pleasure, he has the option of so doing. Now I understand that certain women may have had an unpleasant experience involving somebody male (e.g. getting raped), but the minute they adopt feminism as a moral-political stance upon this earth, they forfeit any actual or theoretical claim upon my sympathy. And such a counter-feminist reaction, in light of its narrowly political constriction, cannot be accurately deemed misogynistic.

What I have sketched in the foregoing paragraph sounds harsh. However, it is an asperity which permits of no egress. I am simply describing the objective state of the world as my conscience guides me to do, and being a man of conscience I can do no less.

So: are we to believe that disaffection toward the opposite sex exists ONLY among one sex? If misogyny exists among men, what constrains us to assume that no mirror equivalent exists among women? Which is the more extraordinary claim: that such feelings occur in both sexes, or that they occur in one sex only? To be honest, I could as easily credit the latter as believe that X volume of water poured onto a dead-level surface and spreading in the natural way, would halt arbitrarily at some straight-edged boundary with nothing purely topographical holding it in check.

My customary modus operandi is to lean with the more plausible explanation. And as it happens in this case, experience lends further weight given that my personal observation of the class of females called feminists leaves me in no doubt that the female counterpart of misogyny is alive and well upon our planet. So if such feelings occur in both sexes, how can we hope to rationalize the inordinate, one-sided attention focused on the MALE version of this syndrome and the virtual green light given to the female version?

If we cannot properly rationalize this, I believe that we can at least partly explain it. Simply put: if I were a feminist I would see no political advantage in calling attention to the brazen double standard, and I would either ignore man-hating among women or seek somehow to exonerate it.

However, I am not a feminist. Rather, I am a male non-feminist. And so I freely direct attention to man-hating among women: I neither ignore this nor seek to exonerate it. And too, I candidly acknowledge the existence of men who dislike women and will testify that I have occasionally met such individuals. It does not interest me to make excuses for them nor, to be honest, does it interest me to assume any posture toward them whatsoever. They are small beer in the scheme of things and they are welcome to their opinion. Thought is free. A man's mind is his castle, and I wouldn't dream of intruding because I am not a totalitarian.

And seeing that "misogyny" is socially interdicted while its counterpart "male-bashing" is socially licensed, I cannot in good faith summon any special moral urgency as regards "misogyny". If men are saying snarky things about women then, given that an equal but opposite traffic flows from the female side as well, I can't honestly see what the problem is: the currents balance each other and cancel out to something like zero. So I wash my hands of it. All of it. "Misogyny", whatever the exact meaning of that term, can fend for itself. I shall neither help nor hinder. It is no worry of mine.

Yes. Men and women sometimes snark about each other. They sometimes take cheap shots at each other. They sometimes take the low road with each other. That's life; get used to it! However, some men and women rarely or never partake in such games while others, it might seem, do little else. Between those endpoints stretches a varied continuum. And I, the present writer, being an ethereal philosopher with an elevated viewpoint, see no need for the snarking .
However, if the case goes beyond mere snarkery, to the point of physical violence or some egregious offense, then I would recommend the alleged offender be given due process in a court of law under applicable statutes. Such offenses may or may not flow from a misogynistic mindset, but they are not misogyny in themselves and must be regarded separately.

At all events, I will use context-sensitivity in every case, whether or not to align with any feminist moral injunction. So rather than apply feminist ideology as a template or filter, I will formulate my judgment upon the existential factuality of the matter at hand—which could differ wildly from case to case. In the instance of a word-trick like "misogyny", I will assess as I deem fitting and not allow feminist semantics to cloud my understanding. In this manner I will assert the vitality of non-feminist agency and autonomy.

If so-called "misogyny" is the only weapon men have got, then make no mistake, they will use it. It would be fatuous to expect otherwise. For if men and things male are under siege in society at large, it is only natural that certain men will mount a critique of women by way of counterattack, and that this critique will sometimes have a the character of misogyny imputed to it by others—particularly by feminists, who are trigger-happy that way! Such are the inevitabilities. And I the present writer can assume no responsibility for this. I will suavely counsel men to go easy on the woman-bashing rhetoric, but there is a limit to how far I will venture in the field of admonition. It is no task of mine to be a feminist enforcer; if the feminists don't like what disaffected men are saying they are free to speak for themselves in their accustomed manner as they have always done. They certainly don't need any help from me.

So what, really, is misogyny? Would it be propagating the idea that "women are the problem", in the same way that feminism propagates the corresponding idea about men?

Men are the problem: The more you propagate that idea through the culture, the worse the problem will become. I, the present writer, take no responsibility for any dysfunctional male behavior, en masse, which may afflict the world in years to come if my words go unheeded. I wash my hands of all that. Nor would I answer for any ill-fortune that might befall the reader who is presently scoffing at this. That individual has been informed, and has free choice to either modify his presentation or carry on as accustomed.

If broad masses of women are passively implicated in the feminist assault upon men, and if such women do not eventually show signs of awakening to the crisis and amending their passivity, then it may be predicted that the sum total of misogyny upon the planet will show a net increase. Over the course of time women in significant numbers would need to demonstrate that they "get it", by standing up noisily against feminism and in favor of equitable treatment for men. Failing this, more and more men will conclude, A.) that most women don't get it, or B.) that they do get it, but prefer to benefit passively or complicitly from the status quo. Both A. and B. will foster the growth of disaffection toward females, and men will be the least blameworthy party to the conflict. Assuming certain trajectories, there would be no help for any of this. The only possible help would be to modify the trajectories.

Feminism, both openly and covertly, both directly and indirectly, both consciously and unconsciously, encourages the growth of man-hating. It follows therefore that a symmetrically corresponding growth of woman-hating ought not only to be anticipated, but positively welcomed by the feminists as symptomatic that feminism has been SUCCESSFUL. For it is naturally to be expected that if women hate men, men will reciprocate—and it would surely demand too much of human nature to expect otherwise! It is a simple case of action and reaction.

Think about it: when you drive a wedge between Group A. and Group B, does it draw those groups closer together? Or does it drive them apart? Does it foster trust? Or does it foster suspicion? Does it augment the fund of good feeling on both sides? Or does it deplete that fund? I know that you know the answer.

Jesus Christ said "love those who hate you", but that sets the bar unmercifully high for the majority of people. We cannot take for granted that most humans would measure up to such an inhumanly elevated standard. And it would be stupidity of the most blazing kind to construct public policies or cultural institutions upon the back of any such assumption. The popular feminist saying that "men must control themselves" is a filthy, abhorrent, man-hating maxim. In fact it is thinly veiled sadism, and more to the point, a license for women to behave sadistically toward men—who must "control themselves" by turning the other cheek! But again, we mustn't count upon the "imitation of Christ" as a normal occurrence. A certain number of saintly chaps, no doubt, will obligingly undertake this. However, we mustn't expect the male population at large, in point of statistical averages, to endure any such arrangement of life. Nor would such arrangement generate a stable social order. In my considered opinion it would generate a social time bomb!

Shall we ever hear a feminist declare that women must control themselves? No, we shall never hear a feminist say any such thing and that is exactly the point! So kindly don't ask me why the growth of misogyny is inexorable under the impulsion of anti-male politics! Puzzle this out for yourself; it is not quantum physics! As anti-male toxins continue building up in the social ecology, predictable consequences will continue to follow. The underlying nature of feminism cannot and will not change. So does anybody care to argue that injecting anti-male toxin into the social ecology will foster a more kindly male attitude toward women?

The feminists—or the women's movement as they have the nerve to call themselves—have made a certain "bed" for women-in-general to lie in. And unless women-in-general wake up to the harsh reality of all this and take a militant stand against it, they shall indeed have no choice but lie in that bed which their excellent superfriends the feminists have created for them. It is written in the nature of things. I am the messenger; don't shoot!

If you proclaim that "men must clean up their act" without equally proclaiming that women must clean up their act, then in the long run it is not quite reasonable to ask men to clean up their act, is it? I at any rate will preach no sermon upon that text. For men are sensitive creatures, and the hypocrisy of this would not be lost upon them. And I would not willingly play the hypocrite in their eyes.

We live under extraordinary political circumstances. Things are not normal. The time is out of joint! Oh very well, call me a misogynist. It's only a feminist word trick after all! And if you insist that women don't even need to clean up their act, then I would beg to remind you that some people (including a lot of women) would beg to differ. I would further make plain to you that the time for argument is past and that those who disagree with you are driven by the power of their convictions: you can stand them up at the gates of hell and they won't back down! So it looks like you've got a tussle on your hands. And the more you multiply your aggression the more you will multiply your enemies.

Remember that feminism doesn't merely poison the world against men, for in a social ecology the poison goes everywhere and poisons everybody. I'd like to say "poison in-poison out", but in this case the principle does not apply because there is no "out" for the poison to go to. There is only one social ecology, it stops where the noosphere stops, and so the poison can only accumulate. The good news is that the social ecology can, in time, heal itself—but only if the source of the poison be exposed and rendered inoperative. And I think you know what the source is.

It ought to be clear that if you set about to annihilate so-called "misogyny" from the world by witch-hunting or thought-policing it to death you will solve absolutely nothing. Instead, you will make the world profoundly more wretched and more conflicted. The mystical affliction will not go away, I can promise you that. And I can promise you more: it will grow and grow! The more you scream and point your finger, the faster and farther it will spread. It is like pestering somebody with the question "why are you so mean?", and watching that person grow steadily meaner and meaner. Figure it out, moron!

No, this "misogyny" is not the source of the poison. Does "misogyny" meaningfully exist at all other than as a feminist propaganda device? That is a serious question and ought to be distributed for general discussion.

However, let's wrap this up tersely. The real issue is not "misogyny" but rather ill-feeling between the sexes. Between: that is the operative keyword! Any idiot can see it's a two-way street, so I must conclude that the feminists are either in a state lower than idiocy or the most evil liars and manipulators ever to walk the planet. Yes, I say it is a two-way street. Bad feeling between the sexes is mutual: they are both giving each other the hairy eyeball! It makes no sense whatever to say the traffic flows in only one direction.

Ill-feeling between the sexes means the mood gets uglier on both sides. On the male side this translates as misogyny. However, when you shine that hypocritical feminist spotlight on the male side alone while giving women a pass, men will take it unkindly. Why? Because they are not idiots. And so they will rebel! They will raise a ruckus! They will kick like mules! Their disposition will grow worse and worse—as rightly it should!

We must define our higher task not as witch-hunting "misogyny" to extinction but as preventing the growth of ill feeling between the sexes. An ecological approach to the problem would set the locus of difficulty within the encompassing inter-relational space between the sexes and not upon one sex or the other. Any other approach would be sexist.

Accordingly, our work belongs to the ecumenical human condition. The first step toward setting the work in motion would be to cut feminism entirely out of the loop. An ideology which encourages one sex to hate the other cannot plausibly be part of the solution.