The idea of man-hating feminists is something that the women's rights movement has been trying to combat since the suffragette era. I am not foolish enough to believe that what I am saying here will put an end to all of that. Rather, my hope is that this may dispell some of the confusion around the subject in as far as I am concerned. Perhaps there are other feminists that echo this ideal, however, I can only safely speak for myself.
I do not hate men. I see no purpose or validity in hating men. However, I have no qualms in admitting that I hate men who hate women. I think there is an important distinction between woman-hating and sexism. I would argue that all women haters are sexist, but certainly not every sexist person is a woman hater. Sexism is hearing about a doctor and automatically referring to them as 'him' without any mention of gender. Sexism is judging women for stripping while saying nothing about the married men who come to see them. This way of thinking is everywhere and we ALL internalize these messages. It becomes ingrained in us so deeply that we can never completely undo the conditioning. Still, it is our duty to spend our lives trying to do just that.
I don't think that any rational person hates these sorts of men, who are far and away in the majority. I think plenty of people are frustrated and angry. I also think that it is absolutely just and rational to expect men to understand that. Men are adults that are just as capable of emotional responsibility, patience, and caretaking as women are. Men have the capacity to acknowledge their vistas takes and say sorry without holding onto resentment. We do every man, woman, anyone other or
So what about men who hate women? Does my hate for them validate their hate for me? I believe that it doesn't. Because while I hate these men, I do not hate them in the same way they hate me. I hate them. But not enough to be apathetic to one of them being raped, let alone to do that to them myself. I hate them, but not enough to murder them, douse them in acid, beat them, or tell them that they deserve any of those things. I hate them enough to engage in an argument in the youtube comment and use the words 'loser' 'jackass' and 'jerk'. But certainly not enough to start throwing out words like 'whore' or 'cunt'.
This distinction is something that all of us, but men, in particular, need to become better acquainted with. When someone says "I hate it when men do X" they should not have to clarify that that doesn't mean all men. Simply put: If you don't do X, then we aren't talking about you.
It's remarkably similar to a person of color talking about white people. My interruption of "not all white people" is not going to be some great revelation for everyone in the conversation. It is, however, going to derail it. My action changes the subject from a huge social issue to my feelings about something that has little to no negative impact on me.
This is also true for the phrase "not all men". We know not all men exhibit whatever degrading or dehumanizing behavior that we are talking about. And we need you to understand that some of them do. If someone is saying something about men in front of you, she probably assumes that you are not a woman-hating sort of man, a man looking for any excuse to hurt a woman. If you, as a man, want to combat sexism, then you need to understand that when women talk about the way normal men treat us, we are not trying to compare you to Ted Bundy. If I am trying to tell you about the problems that I face from men, as a woman, your priority should be on the issue at hand. There is no need for you to stop me in order to reassure me that you aren't a part of the problem out of fear that I might perceive you as being a woman-hater. I believe that the first thing every man who believes in women's rights has to learn is that you can be problematic without being a monster. We don't need your reassurance of that fact, we just need you to listen.
