Misandria

The misandria or misoandria (from the Greek μισο- miso - 'who hates', derived from μισεῖν miseîn ' hate', ἀνήρ, ἀνδρός anḗr, andrós 'male' and -ia) is a term that refers to hatred or aversion towards males or men or the ideological or psychological trend that It consists in despising the male as a sex and with it everything considered masculine. Misandry can manifest itself in a number of ways, including denigration, discrimination, and violence against the male. It is considered the sexist counterpart of misogyny, and should not be confused with the term androphobia.

Definitions and context

In 1909, the encyclopedia The century dictionary (published in New York) published the following definition:

Misandria: I hate men; bad opinion about men, regarded as unfair and oppressive towards women.

The word reappeared in 1946 in the British magazine Scrutiny to refer to women who defend themselves against misogyny by feigning misandry. It was post-war times when soldiers returned to their homes, With the nostalgia for the traditional feminine archetype of women, she succeeded in redefining the "angel of the home" archetype, encouraging women to abandon their profession to dedicate themselves exclusively to domestic chores.

In 1947, Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young asserted that misandry makes men the scapegoats for all social ills and women the official victims responsible for all that is good. book that their method is not scientific and that, not being sociologists or psychologists, they do not rely on surveys or questionnaires.

In 1960 B. Kaye published a book in which she described as misandry the traditional resistance to marriage by women in the culture of the Chinese province of Guangdong, in which daughters are considered a burden until the end. extreme of justifying abortion in China and the death of newborns.

The term appears again in 1978 when the newspaper The Observer, in a citation to the Oxford English Dictionary, defined misandric, ca as the opposite of misogynistic, na. At the end of the 1960s, a new feminism emerged, the Women's Liberation Movement, one of whose engines was the creation of thousands of small RC groups (consciousness raising, 'conscientiousness process').

In 1993, The Guardian newspaper stated that the subject of the action could be male or female. A little later, in 1994, The New York Times used the term as something typical of feminist women.

For its part, the International encyclopedia of men and masculinities (2007) defined "misandry" in the first paragraph, referring to hatred of men on a genotypic basis. In the second paragraph, reference is made to the fact that the concept is gaining support among groups of men who fight against what they consider to be divorce laws that unfairly protect women and discriminate against men.

In the context of the femicides in Ciudad Juárez, the State of Mexico issued in 2008 a norm for the prevention of workplace harassment (or mobbing) that includes the definition of misandry among the glossary of terms. Misandria is ―for the purposes of workplace harassment and the promotion of equality― «Psychological phenomenon that refers to the hatred, rejection, aversion and contempt of women towards men and, in general, towards everything related to the masculine. It is expressed in violent verbal and/or physical acts."

Literature

Literary critic Harold Bloom argued that although the word misandry is relatively seldom heard in the literature, it is not difficult to find implicit, even explicit misandry. Referring to Shakespeare's plays, Bloom argued: "I cannot think of a single case of misogyny, while misandry is a strong element. Shakespeare makes it perfectly clear that women in general have to get married and that men are narcissistic and unreliable, etc. In general, he gives us a darker vision of men than of women ».

Writer Anthony Synnott argues in his book Re-Thinking Men: Heroes, Villains and Victims that there is a tendency in literature to portray men as villains and women as victims, and claims that there is a market for "anti-masculine" novels without a corresponding "anti-feminine" market. They cite The Women's Room, by Marilyn French, and The Color Purple, by Alice Walker. He cites the comparison of men to Nazi prison guards as a common theme in literature, portraying the male as a villain would ignore not only the positive contributions of men to society, but also the male victims.

Criticism of the concept

Asymmetry with misogyny

Sociologist Allan G. Johnson argues in The Gender Knot: Unraveling our Patriarchal Legacy, that accusations of hatred of men have been used to disparage feminists and to draw attention to men, reinforcing a male-centered culture. Johnson argues that the culture offers no anti-macho ideology comparable to misogyny and that "people often confuse men as individuals with men as a dominant and privileged category of people" and that "[given the] reality of women's oppression, male privilege, and men's application of both, it is not surprising that every woman has moments when who resents or even hates men." Marc A. Ouellette argues in International Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities that "misandry lacks the systemic, transhistorical, institutionalized, and legislated antipathy of misogyny"; in his opinion, assuming a parallel between misogyny and misandry oversimplifies gender and power relations.