An Observation

[Content Note: Silencing technique.]

Virtually every time I am speaking about hating the patriarchy, or male privilege, or some narrative or behavior or cultural tradition that is born of male privilege, I am accused of hating men.

Very specifically, I am accused of being "a man-hater." Which reduces me to a creature—"Man-Hater from the Misandry Lagoon!"—that is the sum of a disposition I don't even actually have.

If I say, in my defense, that I don't hate men—that, in fact, I like many of them quite a lot, including, for example, my husband—then the men for whom I have an affinity simply become the target. My husband must be weak, pathetic, self-loathing, whipped. Not a real man, in any case. My male friends must be sniveling pretenders, who only affect respect for women to get laid. In this equation, gay/bi men don't even exist.

(All of which, that manner of policing and disappearing certain kinds of men, seems rather quite man-hating to me.)

If I say, in my defense, that I don't hate men, but do hate male privilege, then, if I'm dealing with a sophisticated sort, I might hear some old chestnut like how male privilege doesn't exist; and if I'm dealing with a less sophisticated specimen, I will probably hear that I am a stupid fat cunt. In either case, there is never a viable rejoinder to my eminently reasonable distinction between hating men and hating male privilege.

(All of which, the denial of institutional misogyny and use of misogynist epithets used to try to harm me, seems rather counterproductive for someone trying to convince me that men are likeable.)

If I say, in my defense, that I don't universally hate men, although sometimes I am indeed angry at an individual man, or specific men, because they have earned my ire, in response to some expression of male privilege or display of misogyny or some other kind of bigotry or objectionable behavior, then comes the most vicious accusations that I am indeed a man-hater after all.

(GOTCHA! They say. Having got naught.)

I have found that it is the men who give me some reason to be angry who are most inclined to accuse me of man-hating.

It is easier, you see, for them to believe I have a blanket hatred for all men than to address the fact that I just don't like them. With good reason.