Saturday, December 3, 2022

Wading into the turbulent waters of misogyny and misandry

 One of the most prominent ‘hot-button’ social issues, over the last decade in North America, along with the emergence of the LGBTQ+ community, is the issue of misogyny. Defined as contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women, the word and the publicly documented instances of its cruelty abound in shameful headlines, in court rooms, and sadly in homes and workplaces around the continent.

 Hopefully, the anthropologists with be among the number of researchers who examine critically the relationships between men and women in various cultures. Historically, traditionally, often liturgically and also religiously cultures  have perceptions of both genders, and the appropriate (and inappropriate) models of relationship. Functionality and need have been central to the ‘assigned’ roles of men and women in the communities. 

Rebecca L. Upton, in a piece entitled, Gender, November 19, 2019 (from oxfordbibliographies.com) writes an introduction to the anthropological lens on ‘gender.

Gender is a key concept in the discipline of anthropology. Sex and gender are defined differently in anthropology, the former as grounded in perceived biological differences and the latter as the cultural constructions observed, performed, and understood in any given society. Often based on those perceived biological differences…..Many early monographs in anthropology were grounded in perspectives determined by the interests of largely male ethnographers. Despite early female pioneers in the field, it was not until the1970’s and 1980’s and the real rise of feminist anthropology that gender as a distinct area of theoretical and methodological interest took hold within the discipline. Women were no longer sees as a category of culture and society outside of the realm of the everyday….The study of women, men and the intersections of gender across cultures has become a key aspect of any holistic study or methodological approach in anthropology today.

Meanwhile, while the scholars are conducting their research, and theorizing about their observations and conclusions. The Canadian Women’s Foundation, on their website, report:

More than 4 in 10 women have experienced some form of intimate partner violence (IPV) in their lifetimes. In 2018, 44% of women reported experiencing some form of psychological, physical, or sexual violence by an intimate partner in their lifetimes (Statistics Canada, 2021)…Approximately every six days, a women in Canada is killed by her intimate partner. The proportion of women killed by a spouse or intimate partner is over eight times greater than the proportions of men. In 2020, 160 women and girls were killed by violence. In 2021, 173 women and girls were killed by violence. In 2020, one in five women killed in Canada was First Nation, Metis of Inuit….Indigenous women and girls are 12 times more likely to be murdered or missing than any other women in Canada, and 16 times more likely than white women. Women are more likely than men (39% to 35%) to report experiencing violent crime at some point since age 15. Women are five times more likely than men to experience sexual assault. Approximately4.7 million women, 30% of all women  5 years of age and older, report that they have experienced sexual assault least once since the age of 15. This is compared to 8% men.

On September 12, 2020, The Calgary Journal’s Bill Atwood writes, in a piece entitled, “Male victims are being left out of the domestic violence conversation:

(A)ccording to a Statistics Canada report), Family Violence in Canada: a Statistical Profile, men self-reported to have been abused by their partners at a higher rate than women—with 4.2 percent of men and 3.5 percent of women being victims….Experts explain that because these self-reported stats are often overlooked this can lead to male victims being left our of the conversation, and without proper support. They also explain that there has been an overuse of the police-reported statistics by both academics and the media. This has led to situations where male victims have not been believed by police, and in some cases even face accusations of being the perpetrator….The bulk of crimes within the family are never known to the police….The Canadians in the victimization survey were asked if their victimization was ever reported to the police, and 70 percent of them said no.

In our contemporary culture in which the “protection of women and children” is one of the most powerful motivators of both policy and perception, the public consciousness of the tensions and conflicts between men and women and the manner by which each gender is perceived, processed and supported reflect a playing field tilted in favour of women. And while all supports for female victims

continued support, both in financial and in policy and practice terms, a significant shift to a more balanced attitude, based on both a shift in perceptions about the various and complex varieties of conflict between the genders.


How we behave when we encounter a conflicting situation, will result in the convergence of a plethora of both external and internal forces. And some of those forces, for each of us, may well be beyond our conscious awareness. A study at the University of Florida, evinced data that tended to point to a high percentage of both men and women who inflicted cruelty on the opposite gender having experienced physical abuse, or had witnessed abuse between their parents. That is one of many contributing factors to our myriad of options including and between the ‘fight-flight’ classical response. Our experience of betrayal, abandonment, bullying, gossip, and our capacity to recover from those experiences, will impact however we perceive and act when confronted with cruelty subsequently.

Given that the vast majority of public information and public attitudes tend to shine light on, and thereby to tend to favour, the plight of women as a social and a political issue, the equality of the genders, a stated goal of both feminists and advocates for androgyny, remains a distant mirage. Remaining silent, for example, when enduring emotional, psychological or even sexual abuse by a female partner is a pattern explained by a number of militating factors:

·        men are proud and by sharing such a story, they expose themselves as being “less than a real man” especially to other men;

·        men are also insecure, and any form of abuse is undoubtedly going to trigger feelings and even a belief that one’s neurosis is not only real but perhaps even crippling, given the abuse that is taking place;

·        men, at least many men, resist getting in touch with their emotional energy, including ascribing names to complex feelings, listening to the messages of those feelings, reflecting on the patterns of the recurrence of those feelings, and envisioning the potential options that might be available to both share and deal with those feelings….most likely not with another man, especially a stranger, a therapist, or even a coach or mentor;

·        men are raised and imprinted with the psychic/emotional/social/familial archetype of strength, force, physical fitness, physical skill, endurance, athletic prowess, competitive obsession with winning/success, especially of the kind that brings physical rewards, trophies, medals, coloured ribbons, and cash.

·        men are inversely imprinted with the obsessive avoidance, resistance, denial of the opposite of strength, including emotions, physical pain, evidence of crying, withdrawal from a fight, ‘wimping out’ in whatever form and situation he faces

·        men are taught, both formally and informally, that physical structures, bridges, equipment, transportation devices, hockey sticks and equipment, golf clubs, memberships in clubs, teams, and a shared pursuit of a common goal (of winning) is a sign of maturity, inter-dependence, leadership training and social acceptance.

·        men are enculturated to train, to earn a living, to climb up various competitive ladders, for themselves, their families of origin and eventually their adult families…all of this a matter of action, leaving reflection as a mere after-thought if at all entertained.

Without attending to the inherent nuances of different perceptions, attitudes, training and enculturation of women, specifically, it seems fair and reasonable to attest that each gender has what might be termed an empty bucket of both experience and knowledge, cognitive and emotional, of the other primary gender. Both genders frequently attend the same schools, in both elementary and secondary levels, where the primary gender stereotypes are discovered, reinforced and imprinted. Through the literature, the history texts, and even the sociological texts and classes, (although this dynamic is shifting fairly rapidly), adolescent males and females enter at the beach of gender relationships, with the biology of each gender is in a hormonal tornado.

Enmity, cruelty, power imbalances are all included in both the formal and the informal maturational processes of both genders. The models of relational behaviour adolescents witness from the adult world, doubtless, are not as inspiring and uplifting as one might hope, especially as the dominance of male models surrounds all of us in North America. Even with the evolution of various academic and corporate and ecclesial and social organizations now experiencing a dramatic shift in female leadership, compared with only a few decades ago, it is only in the last decade or so that women have felt comfortable in leadership, not having to mimic the alpha male archetype.

In our employment and workplace protocols, men and women, in order to be truly considered as equals, we will have to abandon the stereotypical prohibition of workplace romances, based as they have been on the assumption that the male (power figure) had to be taking advantage of the female subordinate, and vice versa. In our transformation of our cultural archetypes we have to shift from a male dominance presupposition, to a perception and the concomitant attitudes that each man and woman is capable of making his/her own independent, ethical, moral and authentic decision. Our “template of abuse” based on masculinity’s perversity has to give way to a much more objective, empirically centred, gender-equal premise that resists the political rhetoric of instant assumptions of guilt, by men, and innocence and victimhood by women. Locked in stereotypes, again originated by a male dominated culture, in which men were attempting to “over-protect” and thereby to patronize women, perhaps in a manner that men themselves considered ethical, we have to confront such psychic and cultural snares of reductionism.

Shifting to a more complex, nuanced, and effective model of the perception of equality of intellect, of imagination, of resourcefulness, of ambition, of skills of endurance (even if defined differently and not exclusively physical) of both male and female, we have the prospect of potentially reducing the incidence of both misogyny and misandry, that word that is so rarely heard and so absent from our cultural vernacular.

In a 2014 piece in the Vancouver Sun, by Douglass Todd, entitled, “She’s fighting to bridge the gulf between women and men,” we read:

Katharine Young isn’t in the habit of picking fights. But the (then) 70 year-old Hinduism specialist didn’t like what she witnessed in the 1990’s when a hard-edged stream of feminist scholarship started gaining traction as conventional thinking in higher education and popular culture (And I might add within the mainline churches!)…While Young remains leery of the spotlight, she and McGill University colleague Paul Nathanson have found themselves in the past 15 years at the incendiary forefront of exposing a trend in North America—the sexist counterpart of misogyny, which they call ‘misandry’….Titled Replacing Misandry: A Revolutionary History, (the book) explains how technological advances have harmed men and boys, reducing the value of physicality….With ideological feminists, the only males who are granted approval are those Young terms ‘honorary women,’ which includes all males who agree all females are oppressed, as well as gays and visible minorities. (A) second book by Young and Nathanson is titled Legalizing Misandry: From Public Shame to Systematic Discrimination Against Men..explores ways males are discriminated against in the legal system in regards to sexual abuse, violence against women, workplace harassment, child custody, and prostitution. Legalizing Misandry ‘exposes how ideologies based on an assumed superiority..have no place in the quest for social justice and equality, (Edward) Kruk writes in  New Male Studies. Judges and legislators are basing decisions ‘ on the assumption that women constitute a ‘victim class (and are thereby devalued as inherently weak.)’

Clearly, it is not only ideological feminists who, alone perpetrated this misandry. They had, and in some cases continue to enjoy, the full support of those ‘honorary women’ many of whom, as self-emasculated men, served as leaders in organizations and churches that imposed their imbalance and inequality and injustice and unfairness in their desperate decisions.

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