Why Does Feminism Hate Men?
A quick post about a theory of where the misconception the feminism is about hating men comes from. Using feminism/sexism for brevity here, and because a discussion about feminism vs MRAs is what made me think about it, but this probably applies for any marginalised group.
I think it comes from two central facts:
1. Oppression is largely invisible to those with privelege unless they make a conscious effort to learn about it
2. Most oppression is committed by people who are unaware they are being oppressive, and aren't intentionally or maliciously doing so.
This leads to two attitudes towards feminism i.e. women who are vocal about their experiences of sexism.
1. Women are exaggerating. Sexism isn't really a big problem, because if it was, men would know about it! They'd see it all the time! Women are mistaken, or fishing for sympathy, or bitter or lying. We don't NEED feminism!
2. Defensiveness. I haven't done anything wrong! I'm not a bad person! I don't HATE women. I'm not being sexist on purpose or campaigning to take away their votes, so why are women criticising me? Why are they angry at me?
Combined, these create the attitude that:
Women/feminists are angry at men for no good reason.
When this isn't true at all.
Think of a time when a woman told you about a piece of sexism she'd experienced and you had no idea stuff like that was going on, or that she'd been dealing with it. (Jack - for years I thought I was naturally inferior at games because I was a girl not because I hardly fricking played them, and you had no idea). Ask a woman what her last experience with sexism was. Now multiply that by a hundred. Because for every one she's told you about there are a dozen more she hasn't. And you had no idea, right? Like I said, invisible.
Women have a right to be angry at those who oppress them. They have a right to say "Dude, I know you're not purposefully trying to be evil, but you're hurting me and being a dick, please stop it." That's all feminism is. A plea to please stop hurting us. And yeah, we get angry, because most of the time the reply we get is "Shut up. I'm not hurting you. Calm down."
So maybe the question we should be asking is, why do so many men hate feminists?