I must have been absent that day.

Just like everyone else to subjugate women. Out of that subjugation comes a hatred expressed from dominate to subordinate. It is a hatred both of the otherness of women as well as the challenge women pose to the dominance of men. It does not spew forth from us in literal terms, at least not always, but is instead sublimated into productive and accepted forms of contempt.

I cannot tell you how impressed I am.

Its there, in everyone who was brought up in our patriarchal society. Only the degree of its presence varies.

Comforting to know you have the universe figured out. Isn't it?

Does that make you feel better?

So no, it does not make me feel better to hear accusations leveled at groups of people.

That's the very definition of prejudice.

I mean, for whatever faults we may still have, at least we're not nearly as bad as some other places, in which a majority of men really are literally taught to fear and despise women & girls(like Saudi Arabia and northern Nigeria, for example).

And it is taught here just like it is taught in other places

But you have to admit that, as I pointed out, there are societies that really do teach the majority of their men to actually fear and hate their women. We do not, as a overall whole(though there certainly are subsets of society that do, it can also be said. Just look at so many Fundie and otherwise hardcore Evangelical families for example. Just not society as a whole, not in this country.)

Which imply that in other places the teaching of hatred and fear of women is only metaphorical, not literal.

It's a matter of degrees of severity, not of existence or absence.

But that was part of my point, though. For what it's worth, we've made humongous strides in the past century or so here in the U.S.....and a few other countries have done even better than we have(see: Scandinavia). Other places, not so much. Of course, this isn't at all to demean the work of feminists in places such as Uganda, Nigeria, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, etc., just so we understand one another.

Don't cheat by Googling it. I want you to guess, out of 147 countries, where the US sits on the list.

I'll give you a tiny little hint by saying 2 of those 4 countries you listed are in front of the US.

I do know that Norway has one of the highest proportions of women in power in their legislative body.

As for the U.S.'s position, I haven't checked the numbers in a while, though I'd guess we're at about #40 or so, give or take a few.

Though to be fair, misogyny isn't exactly the only significant factor, or the most prominent(at least not these days, anyway), even, in why we don't have as many women as Norway or Sweden in our government(though it kinda goes the other way around as well; more women in government doesn't necessarily make them more progressive than us. Either way, you do have to admit I have a good point).

And compared to much of the rest of the world, we kinda are....Teabagging idiots notwithstanding. Even if we haven't done as well as others, it still holds true.

Our society actively invites us to see women as nothings, or worse. We of course may make the active choice to reject that - But it's still there. Still trying to convince us, generation by generation, because frankly most of the time it's not rejected.

To be told all your life that you are better than someone, more important than them, elevated, innately powerful, in control over someone else... well, it's heady, and it's hard as hell to say no to.

It's not that we're innately better than Saudi Arabia - it's that we have people who make it their life's effort to counter the siren song (ahem) of misogyny, to educate and counter it, and Saudi Arabia doesn't. Were these voices in our society to be silenced, their ideas hushed - and I have seen no small attempt to do, even here on DU - I doubt we would score any higher marks than either place you noted after two generations.

Unless of course, we perform the massive feat of scraping this ideology out of our collective hides... a task much easier said than done (Ask Europe about Fascism this week, some ideological infections keep coming back like political ringworm)

She is a woman. And giggle

Yup

Stereotype much?

If you had said many men, even if you had said most men, you would probably be correct. But when you imply all men, you become the flip side of the coin.

The post is a message to men as a body which is why I address the group as such. I did not want to preclude the much smaller body of women who also have a hard time seeing misogyny for what it is but who are, nonetheless, a much smaller proportion of females as a whole. But I wanted to delineate proportion of participation.

My post was not about my feelings. It was about pointing out the uselessness of speaking about about a topic while holding the exact opposite position.

Equality will never come from equal hate.

Your feelings are why you read what you did into my post.

In all of what I said, the only thing, the ONLY thing, you took away was that I'm attacking you as a man.

(Sun) <-> (Center of mass)<--------> (Orbiting Earth)

?

(You)

I questioned what you posted, as I thought there was a chance you merely had a poor choice of phrasing.

However, you have proven that you are hypocritical, that your post will be ignored by many as being simply another man hating screed.

Feel free to pretend that you have the slightest clue to my motivations, but you are wrong.

We are done.

I think you have the idea that because not everyone posts or replies, for whatever reason, that they don't agree. It's unfair to state that 'many' here don't see that hatred of women (and men) was a factor in this horror. I believe it was just one factor, however .... there were many things that contributed to his warped view of the world and people in general.

Do I have to pick the right side to be considered to be genuinely concerned with the tragic loss of life or is just caring about those lives lost not enough? As far as what drove this kid I could care less, really, not one iota. It's pretty ridiculous to see the DU circus time and again over things like this, if it were not for the laughs I occasionally get from peoples reactions to not sharing the same outrage they do it would be sad.

It's been my impression that the misogyny (and racism, and classism, and fascism, but mostly the misogyny) were symptoms and not causes. This was a guy filled with jealousy and narcissism, rage and self-pity, and focused those thoughts primarily against women.

I don't think he woke up one day and said, "I think I'll hate women now." I think he woke up one day and said "I feel all of these negative feelings. I think I'll blame them on women."

I dunno, maybe it's just semantics. I just think there were a lot of different forces at play.

... and his motives before he went on his rampage is just that: American Patriarchy and the extreme misogynism that women deal with every day of their lives staring back at us as we gasp at the river of blood which flowed over the edges of our consciousness becoming a shocking consequence of symptoms we all choose to unquestioningly and mostly silently live amidst every day. The #YesAllWomen hashtag has been instrumental in bringing just a small sampling of it into public view for what to too many is the very first time.

http://www.sevenbowie.com/2014/05/there-isnt-a-hairs-difference-between-the-misogynist-attitudes-of-elliot-rodger-and-those-of-the-gop/

Why are some women misogynist?

I can grok that.

But with half the population being women ... see where I am going?

And there are quite a few women who are happy, mostly, with the way society is set up. Call it patriarchy or whatever, there are some privileges that women do have.

So what's the master plan for this new society? Religious theology, for all the faults found therein, is the only master plan i can think of.

women and men cause it is a joint accomplishment and success, look at all that we have accomplished and see where we are going. i listen to our youths voices, so loud and strong and confidence and smart.

master plan... evolving, progressing forward. doing exactly what we are doing. and that means people speaking out. often. and always, when we run into the sexism, and the misogyny.

Communication is a key to unlocking the desired outcome behind the door.

In my mind the warmongering of our society witnessed in 2001 with just 10% of us saying no, is the root of why we have such problems. I get why men are such warmongerers - they are raised that way. What i don't get is why so many women are.

In my mind, to resolve misogyny, we attack the roots of the outward expression of all the pent up hatred; We become a peace loving and peace mongering society.

They are self-loathing in some capacity; a problem which is not exclusive to women, by the way.

They may also fail to identify commonality between themselves and the target of their misogyny. The target becomes a stereotype and they do not understand that the hatred they express is gender based, while also failing to understand that they share gender with the target and how that gender based hatred is actually a hatred of themselves. They don't make the connections. It's a partly a form of the defense mechanism called splitting. They fail to see the other as a whole person and instead choose to build their identity around specific, in this example, negative traits. So, for instance, the woman who has many sexual partners is a whore rather than a woman who has many sexual partners.

A symptom of self-hate? A hate also of anyone different?

Point is that things are usually much deeper than just a label. Hanging the the misogyny label on someone then expecting misogyny to be cured probably won't cut it. Hasn't yet.

This society has some serious problems. Blaming its' problems on one section is not going to resolve the whole. We need a holistic approach. What is it that grinds us down and holds us back from making progress?

If we were to travel up the hierarchy, misogyny is a manifestation of fear of other and that is a consequence of experiencing suffering which is the consequence of pain. The experience of pain is the cognition of specific sensory input. There may be other points in between these steps that I have missed.

But the consequences of misogyny can not be so reduced. They are tangible, undeniable and specific.

If a tree falls on someone, that's a tragedy. if an earthquake kills hundreds, that's a tragedy. If you're diagnosed with cancer, that's a tragedy. A tragedy cannot be helped, cannot be stopped, the victims of a tragedy are more or less fated to suffer.

This was not a tragedy. This was a massacre. A person - sick and awful as he was, yes - decided to do this to other people, because of how much he hated. This slaying is no more a tragedy than a war is a tragedy; because of some asshole's decision, people are dead, families are torn apart, communities wounded and bleeding.

Calling this a "tragedy" makes it sound inequitable, fated, something you just have to shrug over and say "well it is what it is" and try to recover from.

No. Murder is not a tragedy. A massacre is not a tragedy - tragic for the victims and those who love them yes, but let us use our language properly and call these slaughters exactly what they are.

I was reading comments on another site and dozens of them said the same thing: I'm a man and I understand that misogyny exists, but why are women blaming and stereotyping all men?

Do they think "misogynists" and "men" are the same words? No one has used them as such. This is odd. Why? I mean, if I'm walking down the street and someone yells, "Hey, asshole!" I don't turn around.