The Ick Chasm

Misogyny and misandry aren't two sides of the same coin

Anti-suffragist ad, 1910

Social media is wild. One minute you’re merrily scrolling, minding your business, and then bam! Some random bit of nonsense hits you smack in the algorithm.

And that, kids, is how I found myself watching a reel by a man who was very keen to tell me all about the biggest “ick” factor in a woman. Now, stuff like this can go sideways a dozen different ways, a dodecagon of potential bad takes. I watched through half-closed eyes, the way I used to watch scary movies as a twelve-year-old.

Turns out his ick factor, the thing that makes him scrunch up his nose and go ewww, isn’t chronic halitosis, lipstick that bleeds, or those skin-colored leggings that always make me do a double take. It wasn’t even overuse of the word fuck, or salty Feminist writers on the internet.

Nope. It was “a woman who isn’t prepared to receive.”

Dear reader, I won’t lie. For a second, I thought we were going to dodecagon all the way to the border of Fetishville, but no, it turns out he meant women who aren’t willing to receive a man fulfilling his true role as head of all the things and provider-in-chief. He assured me—with the confidence that only a coiffed white man with well-manicured facial hair on the internet could proximate—that men were placed on this green Earth for that very reason.

And here I thought it was to open my pickle jars. Damn.

It’s funny, though, because my biggest ick factor? Learning there are men who visit websites like Motherless, where there are instructions for drugging and raping women, as if you can follow a plan for violating women like you’re assembling an Ikea bookcase. Another ick? People who tell me that I need to open myself like a goody bag to receive men’s benevolence.

But hey. What do I know? I’m just a woman.

I’m sure that if I kept scrolling, someone would tell me I’m wrong. In fact, they’re probably already responding in the comments below.

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Sarcasm aside, I couldn’t get the ick factor difference out of my mind, because it felt like an example of a much bigger conversation. An ick chasm, if you will.

Like the way we think and talk about misogyny and misandry.

Por ejemplo.

Woman on the internet: Jesús Cristo, stop drugging women and uploading rape photos to creepy websites.

Man on the internet: Women think all men are rapists. They hate men.

We’re not on the same page there.

We’re not even in the same library.

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On the surface, misogyny and misandry seem like tit for nut, right? A direct counterpart. Dislike, prejudice, or hatred based on sex. Flip the coin, substitute the F for an M, and samesies, jinx you owe me a Coke.

But one of these things is not like the other. One of these things is not the same.

Stereotypes, diminishing men’s mental health challenges, or dismissing the way that rigid masculinity norms harm boys and men, hell, even snarks about opening pickle jars—all meet a dictionary definition of misandry. The word, for what it’s worth, didn’t emerge until the late 19th century, right about the time women were starting to get loud about suffrage. Quelle coïncidence!

Misandry, the concept, wasn’t coined to describe or criticize a systemic or ingrained hatred of men. It emerged as a reaction to women advocating for crazy shit like the right to vote, novel reading, owning property, and leaving their cheatin’, beatin’ husbands. From the very beginning, the word was synonymous with Feminism.

Right out of the gate, misandry linked the idea of women advocating for themselves with hating men. The fine print? If a woman gains, it means men have lost something in return.

There’s a lot of heavy lifting that was—and is—happening to make it seem like misandry and misogyny are equally destructive. But heavy lifting ignores systems, history, and dynamics. Plus, it hurts your back, and before you know it, you’re laid up on the couch with a heating pad, researching linguistic etymology.

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Are there women who hate men? Yes. Are there people who think women are superior to men in all but pickle jar opening? Sure, and maybe even the jar opening. Those views, however, are not mainstream, widespread, or historically baked into the frameworks we live within. Those views do not underpin legislation, practices, and so-called norms, most of which lead to discrimination, some of which lead to violence. While negative views of men might harm individual men or even groups of men, the harm is not systemic nor endemic.

On the other hand, nearly 90% of the world harbors discriminatory views against women. 90%. Those biased views don’t exist in a vacuum. They’re not limited to stitch and bitch sessions, coffee klatches, or internet comment sections.

Discriminatory views against women affect power dynamics—who holds it and who doesn’t. Those same views are what barred women from positions of leadership, education, owning property, applying for a mortgage, divorcing, and knowing what and where her clitoris was for waaaay too long.

I’m not arguing that hate or prejudice toward men doesn’t exist or that it isn’t harmful. I’m arguing that it’s not harmful in the same structural, systemic way.

It’s not two sides of the same coin. If misandry is a coin, then misogyny is the banking system.

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An incomplete list of things I’ve seen labeled as misandry

Advocating for women’s rights
Demanding accountability for pedophiles and rapists
Demanding the end of violence against women
The bear
Women exercising precautions around men
Women making choices that benefit them as individuals
Women choosing not to center men
Women choosing not to marry or have children
Women making choices about their bodies.

If a woman who puts her own needs first is seen as hateful, if a woman who wants equality under the law is somehow discriminating against men, if a woman wanting men to stop raping is a misandrist?

Forget the same page or even the same library.

We’re not even writing in the same language.

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Misogyny is rooted in subjugation. It was planted long ago in a soil of mistrust, and fertilized with the bone meal of dead women until, over time, it’s blossomed into something big enough to cast a shadow over us all.

The shadow still lingers. In fact, it covers 90% of the globe.

If we understand misogyny as a foundation that leads to oppression, then misandry should be understood as a reaction to that. Both are damaging, but not to the same degree.

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There is no large-scale group, dynamic, or political party that is arguing for the subjugation of men, for men to lose rights, strip their bodily autonomy, bar them from education, or pay them less than women. Even if there was such a group, they lack the power to put a stiletto on the neckties of men.

Feminism is not synonymous with misandry or hating men. There’s that heavy lifting again, working to create a false equivalency between the two, as it’s been doing since the word first sprang forth.

There are women who hate men. Sometimes, the hate manifests as a Themyscira fantasy, living with a bunch of other women and not having to wear a bra.

There are men who hate women. Too often, that hate manifests in dead women.

That’s not a difference between the two, or even a chasm. It’s a canyon.

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Thanks for being here. It’s always easier when we’re in it together.

The drill is the same: like, comment, subscribe, or drop a tip in the jar. If you notice harmful comments, report them so that I can delete and block to keep this space as safe as I can.

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