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.
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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