ON MISOGYNY AND MISANDRY

I have never been a feminist, at least in the modern sense. And I hate using the word "feminist" because immediately, you've polarized the topic. Granted, not at any fault of your own, but purely as a result of our surrounding cultural attitudes. But here I challenge you to not associate the word "feminism", "misogyny" and "misandry" with any emotional or political predisposition. As you read this, I want you to purely reflect on your life experience and only that, and I want you to know as well that this is in no way a persuasive effort or political agenda.

While I've studied the evolution of the feminism movement since the initiation of its first wave in 1920 at the Seneca Falls Convention, into the movement's second wave which gained cultural influence in the mid-twentieth century, the current model of feminism and gradual push towards post-modern feminism is taking cultural effect. Because of the current state of the Western cultural environment, I find that evaluating this issue in non-objective means proves far more valuable and relevant to us as women, and upon this evaluation, I hope for a new spark amongst my community here within LGCollective, as well as the greater community of women as a whole.

Let me set the scene: you're a sophomore in high school. You and your friends, peers etc. are standing on the bleachers late on a Friday night, with the stadium lights blinding your phone camera, dressed your best attempt to match whatever obscure theme the school had designated, watching your shitty high school football team achieve yet another loss. But I never cared about football, and I honestly have never dedicated as much time as I have to watching something I personally find deathly boring. What was I watching then at this football game if not the football itself? I was watching the crowd, analyzing the divisions between grades and friend groups, observing the differences in energy levels within each row of intoxicated high school students. And in doing this, one thing stuck out to me, that being the very front row was entirely men. And this theme reoccurred in everything, basketball games, pep rallies, really any social gathering I took part in.

But I was driven by curiosity. Why did the men seem to innately know they were to be in the front, leading the crowd? They had that sense of their place, or social positionality, as we all do, regardless of whether we’ve consciously identified it yet. Was it that men were more capable of setting the atmosphere through energy, noise or the occasional clever chirp one of them would throw at some unsuspecting member of the opposing team? Was it that they subconsciously retained some entitlement, and weather that stemmed from cultural environment, parenting, feeling of relevance to the event or conformity to the norm? - This I still do not know entirely.

Yet this theme kept appearing to me in different ways. When I told a joke, the men suppressed their laughter (and granted I am aware when a joke is plainly not funny; and I tell them frequently). When I was at social events with people around my age, I would walk up to groups of men in their little circles, with either a past boyfriend or friend. And I would stand there, tall, head held high, and I would look at the people in the circle, making every non-verbal effort I could to appear present, unafraid and relevant. But time and time again, I wasn't acknowledged with an introduction from these strangers, a handshake, and oftentimes not even eye contact_.

But unfortunately for you all, I am abhorrently stubborn. So I'd turn to a member of these circles and I'd loudly ask their name, or who they were, or add something relevant to an ongoing conversation because I despised, in the deepest part of me, this indifference. And it was never a direct offense, rather a lack of something the man was automatically entitled to. Despite the fact that the man I entered into the social environment with always, without fail was acknowledged; I was not.

Now I do want to preface, I am not trying to demonize these individuals I have encountered, I look at them neutrally. And I do not believe that these "social misses" are a usually committed without deliberate or malicious intent, but they exist, and they deeply bothered me.

And so naturally, I began to analyze and justify. And I came to a very important conclusion, which is the individual experience of an issue almost never is to be held to the individual who committed the offense, which is why I included my previous preface. Instead of harboring this perceived inequality into anger or indifference, I began to ask why.

Granted, I had my justifications and various opinions, but I eventually did come to a sort of conclusion, which was these social practices and hierarchies were a result of a subconscious, demographically distinct culture, which was so incredibly engrained into both men and women alike. But this root cause was not reflective of any tangible inequality, and professionally/structurally, I do believe women have achieved a sort of isolated equality. It was an attitude, a feeling as a result of an interaction, and I do believe this aspect is by far the most detrimental to true social equality and femininity itself.

Now anecdotally, I know why this issue held such significance to me. That being that I have a strong sense of self, and I do know I am intelligent, funny, relevant, and driven. I recognized the greatness in what I strive to do with my life, as well as in the characteristics I have and constantly drive to further develop: those being honesty, work ethic, reliability, grace, empathy, intelligence and ambition and a myriad of others I really don't care to mention. Furthermore, unfortunately for me, I am a horrendously logical and analytical thinker, which has its positives and negatives. But to continue, I recognized and loved these things very subconsciously, and admired them in some way. But because I had that sense of awareness, I then looked outward, to find these characteristics in everyone I met. Yet most significantly: what I hated the most, and what really motivated this ramble of a blog was that I hated the fact that I couldn't demonstrate these qualities to either those who doubted me, nor converse with like minds because I was a woman. And because of that condition of existence I could not set foot into the same social room (at least not one of 18-22 year olds). I could be as intelligent, witty, kind or impactful as humanly possible, but the men would never know because perhaps, in some way, they deemed me undeserving of the microphone, of attention or acknowledgement.

And for a second, I felt this generalized bias towards men as a whole. And while I quickly reasoned that away, it allowed me to connect some intriguing little cultural dots.

I idolized the "I hate my boyfriend" girl. She’s effortlessly cool, she’s his muse, she’s strong and independent, niche, driven and direct. She has her value set, and no one, least of all a man, could take that away. All of which, I find to be remarkably admirable traits. And in a boarder sense, the "I hate men" culture, which was so prevalent within social media, and has been for years was a source of "motivation" for me in various ways. It was a social band aid. It was so prominent as I began to look for it, my female friends and acquaintances alike would somewhat comedically throw in a little diss towards men in every situation, along the lines of "Oh you’re being dishonest with your male-friend? Well it’s okay, he’s just a man." An overall justification for personally committed injustices in platonic and romantic relationships. And I fucking loved it, it was funny to me, and it felt good. And I realized, by this attitude that that’s exactly what the phenomena was - a way to feel good; as aforementioned, a social band aid.

This led me to my next conclusion, which was identifying that a counterculture of ironic misandry had cultivated in response to the frustrations on which I'm writing about. Like many social movements, it was a rebellion, a push back from being pushed down in this socially ambiguous way subconsciously and systemically throughout life. But because I (for some reason) had even taken the time to think as much as I did to reach that conclusion, I then felt obligated to evaluate its effectiveness, which lead me to where I stand now - still without any fully confirmed conclusion or opinion.

However, I do believe that this counterculture is ultimately ineffective, and rather, may act as a catalyst in furthering this social divide. Additionally, I think it’s a false cure to an oppressive, systemic objective which may be malicious in nature opposed to an issue with the individual offenses we experience. As I grew older and had a moral framework which was universal in nature as well as very much centered on empathy, justice, and logical deduction, I realized quickly this was wrong. Despite the harm of this counter-culture's motive, I do believe that responding to hate with hate is deeply counterproductive, as well as spiritually and socially harmful. I do believe in many ways, this has been a secondary formational factor in the construction of a society which puts man against woman, and woman against man. Opposed to man against his own morality, empathy and humility, and blinded women from making substantial effort to change the root causes of injustice.

And this "root cause" remains somewhat a mystery to me, despite considering historical contexts, systematic oppression and the objective means by which men and women were not equal.

One potential conclusion I have considered is a greater political objective, which utilizes division as a form of control - as clearly supported by past and present systems of racial injustices: putting the people against one another as a distraction, disarming the united population emotionally, intellectually, and socially so that we conform ourselves to a monitorable standard.

I do acknowledge, however in writing this, that my argument does contain assumption and fallacy, and in order for any sort of validity to be confirmed or unconfirmed, you must read this through the lens of theory and possibility, and further, must take it with you into the world to evaluate and observe. All and any opinions, questions, discourse, comments and concerned are highly encouraged. Thank you.