Some theories on why feminism is interpreted as misandry
Some people seem to think feminism (equality for women)= misandry (man-hating). Why? I don’t know for sure, but I’ve developed some theories.
1) The Gender Norms Theory: Women are, according to most constructions of femininity, expected to be passive, docile creatures whose minds are attuned to the needs of everyone, but most especially their male counterparts. When they shirk this role and all of the fuzzy maternal feelings that go along with it, they are interpreted as antagonistic, hostile, etc. It’s like if your mother said to you as a child “to hell with you little one, I need to live my own life”. You would assume she did not love you anymore, perhaps even felt disdainful towards you and the burden you had been on her. You might assume that she hated you. Men, I think, assume women hate them when women do not want to care for, nurture, and placate them because this is what women are expected to do and be like.While the women may just think “I want freedom” the men see this as “they do not love us anymore.” Hence, they assume, feminism=misandry
2) The Spoiled Child Theory: If we assume that men have historically had rights and privileges that women have not, then we can perhaps think of men analogously to spoiled children who get what they want. They might then interpret women, who are asserting their own rights even to the detriment of men’s special privileges, as taking favourite toys away from them. They see women as antagonizers who are hell-bent on making life worse for them. Women, of course, would prefer that everyone have privileges and rights, but this is not always possible. That they attempt to assert their rights even to the detriment of men’s privileges is interpreted as hateful by the men. Thus they figure, Feminism=misandry.
3) The Uninformed Person Theory: Most people have no clue what the fuck feminism is about and so just absorb all kinds of absurd, diluted, insipid, and other ill-informed conceptions of it from popular media etc. This is convoluted by the fact that the popular media often takes the most sensationalized examples of feminism and narrates them, because that makes for more saleable news. Ergo we get lots of stories of the most ridiculous and egregious of feminisms’ exploits (which tend to look like misandry). Ergo, they conclude, Feminism=misandry.
4) The Sometimes Feminism=Misandry Theory. Sometimes, for some people, it is. Oh well.
Not Me: I wonder why they dropped the apostrophe S.
Me: Actually Down’s Syndrome is properly spelled Down Syndrome. As you may notice also, this is an ad by the Canadian Down Syndrome Society, which is run by people who are “personally or professionally” connected to people with Down Syndrome. I, personally, cast a bit of a side-eye on organizations that are about disability but not at all run by people who are disabled. Because of that structure we get little ironies like an organization that claims to be about empowering people with the disability (yay right?) but also says “allow us to speak for the 35,000 Canadians with Down syndrome” as though they were not capable of speaking at all for themselves (obviously untrue). So in summary apparently all I like to read is subtext.
Also Not Me: riiiiight so back to the context……”He has a girlfriend! He loves his life!” omgerd
Me: As for the explicit content of the message, obviously I think it is good to acknowledge that people with a disability have a lot more going on in their lives than just a disability and that having a disability does not mean that the person is completely incapacitated. In other words disability may not manifest the way you expect it to. Good, if kind of obvious, message. What I assume you’re picking up on, and what also kind of bothered me about this, was the “look he’s like us!!!” implication in the message. It’s reminiscent of the way people sometimes go about gay marriage advocacy by making sure everyone thinks that gay people live their lives -exactly like straight people- in every respect except their gayness. As if the only way to speak positively about a person was to normalize them to the nth degree
Also Not Me: si si
*Main reason for me posting this: I’d also be interested in reading about what other people think about this ad or how they interpret it*
Idris Elba (via cocknbull)
All I do watching while stuff these days is stare unimpressed wondering “Where are all the POC? Why is everyone straight? Shouldn’t at least one of these people be disabled? Why doesn’t anyone even question their gender identity?” Etc. It’s super fun to watch movies with me.
(via madamedechevre
Rant on.
This was my The Hunger Games experience. My mother had the nerve to ask me in a tone that insinuated I was being over-sensitive why I was unimpressed. I told my mother flat out “Because they changed the race of the lead character for no. good. reason. and failed to make more positive changes (such as the inclusion of disabled, etc.) in the process. I mean, 1.) We have enough white hero movies. God damn Danny Glover couldn’t even get funding from some production companies for a movie because he didn’t have white heroes, and 2.) Why, as the united states becomes a more diverse population, do those in film and television feel the need to become less inclusive? If I would have seen some characters go from straight to gay, able-bodied to disabled, etc., I would have been way more lax on the race change. And no, I will not accept “Well, it wasn’t written in the book!” Go back and read the book again. Katniss wasn’t white (and neither was Rue). So if you can make her white, why can’t you change other characters?
Also: Check out this awesome commentary in the “Angry Black Lady Chronicles” archives about whether or not PoC have a stronger presence on TV now than in the 1970s and why might this be.
Rant off.
(via faamalolo)
Reblogging because the new commentary is better than mine.
(via faamalolo)
Idris Elba (via cocknbull)
All I do watching while stuff these days is stare unimpressed wondering “Where are all the POC? Why is everyone straight? Shouldn’t at least one of these people be disabled? Why doesn’t anyone even question their gender identity?” Etc. It’s super fun to watch movies with me.
(via onlyludexists)
I suggest all females watch this.
*i suggest all humans watch this.
If you haven’t watched this yet, you really should.
This is a must, girls and boys.
I agree that everyone should watch this. This is one of the few videos on female representation in the media that at least tries to point out that the way females are represented has a negative effect on everyone, not just women.
I love that this`touches also on how media affects men, but wow. Stereotypes are perpetuated by television more than in reality, and they are so skewed because they have to be provocative or funny or any number of things that aren’t complete or real enough.
This affects not only women and men, but race, gays and lesbians, trans people, all people.
We all struggle against what we are supposed to be, what we are told we should be, and yet when positions in media and PR change, the image doesn’t. Because people get those positions by conforming to that image, and breaking out risks loss.
This is why it is so hard for anyone to be who they really are, because they are so busy being what other’s expect so as not to be harassed for not being what they are supposed to be.
Oh man, Geena Davis. I love her with all -y heart.
All my followers should watch this video
Will always reblog.
I have some issues with the gender binarism this video seems to be assuming. But it’s still interesting and worth watching I think. (And it does at least nod to race/gender intersectionality).
