Misandry: Mrs. the mark

“Why are you crying? Man up.” “Men are incompetent without women.” “All men are creeps.”

Misandry, defined as the dislike of or prejudice against men, emerged as the opposite force to misogyny, the prejudice against women. Though the term is less well known than its counterpart, misandry is nevertheless present in society as a subtly oppressive force.

Misandrist stereotypes, microaggressions and expectations, like believing that all men are disrespectful, only further embed themselves in society as time goes on. Men are often ridiculed, rather than understood when faced with physical or mental pain.

“When men are in unsafe situations, when it comes to sexual assault or assault in general, it gets downplayed by a lot of people because they’re men and they’re ‘supposed to be attracted to this,’ or ‘supposed to want this’ or ‘supposed to be able to defend themselves,’ but that’s not always the case,” said senior Anisa Nicole Oliver.

Misandry, being rooted in prejudice, serves to introduce more negativity into society, belittling men in the same way women have been discriminated against. Rather than canceling each other out, misogyny and misandry work to create further societal divides and continue a cycle of oppression.

“[Since] misogyny is violence against women, I don’t think that you should be fighting violence with more violence,” said senior Sarah Walter. “[Misogyny and misandry are] two separate sides of a spectrum, but they’re also similar in the way that it’s an exclusion of someone based on their gender or sex.”

Though less well-exemplified in history than misogyny, misandry is still a serious issue, possibly emerging from frustration due to the collective societal ignorance towards misogyny.

“The biggest cause for misandry was probably society doing nothing about misogyny,” Oliver said. “It just made women hate men even more than they already did and some people just went overboard with it and started doing the same thing that we’re trying to fight against.”

Even so, cases of misandry can occur daily, often through subtle comments.

“I’ve heard [misandric] comments directed towards men who are working in traditionally female-dominated fields, like childcare or nursing,” said senior Trevor MacMillan. “[Once], I heard a woman talking about how she thought that men who were interested in art and sewing were intruding on spaces for women, and I thought that felt wrong. I figure that hobbies are something that should be able to be enjoyed by anyone, regardless of ethnicity, race, sex, gender.”

On a local level, misandry is also far less common than its equivalent, likely due to the way the two prejudices developed in the past and the historical influences on today’s societal norms.

“[Misandry] isn’t that prevalent in a lot of places,” Walter said. “It doesn’t have that same sort of social ingraining that misogyny does … because misogyny is in our culture, as a default [result of the] patriarchy and how the world has worked for so long. You see misogyny in almost everything. You see it in fashion … the workplace … your everyday life … in politics, everywhere, so you don’t see misandry at all: it’s [in] very small circles, it’s not really taken seriously in most cases and misogyny is everywhere as a default.”

Some people hypothesize that misandry was derived from the more extreme feminist movements.

“People took the feminist movement 1,000 times too far,” said sophomore Naomi Dulac. “It’s very different to say ‘I wish for equal rights between men and women’ and saying ‘I hate men because of what they’ve done to women, I hate every single male that I encounter because all males are the same’ … I don’t think that … putting [men] down is going to make women seem more empowered.”

This prejudice serves to belittle men on unjust grounds instead of creating positive change. Choosing to put down men likely won’t help solve the problem of inequality, as it doesn’t resolve the issue on a fundamental level. Though it’s possible that there will never be a true way to diminish misandry due to its connection to misogyny, being more conscious of what one says and what stereotypes one perpetuates can bring us one step closer to equality.