The History Of The Word 'Misandry'

 




















Well, I've been meaning to write this for awhile - every day I am reminded by spellcheck that 'misandry' is not a proper word I should be using & wouldn't I like to pick another? Or, as the feminists would have it, "There’s No Such Thing as Misandry; its a modern, made-up word that makes you look stupid. and its as misogynist as fuck, so stop using it." (That's an actual, genuine quote, by the way, from the feminist website Femonade, Aug. 30, 2009).

Putting aside the curious logic displayed there - ALL words are made-up after all, they don't just come into being by themselves - the excellent research done by St Estephe over at The Unknown History Of Misandry shows that this is simply not the case: there are examples he provides in English as far back as the 1880s, & one in German from 1803. Here's one from a book review in 1871:

“We cannot, indeed, term her an absolute misandrist, as she fully admits the possibility, in most cases at least, of the reclamation of men from their naturally vicious and selfish state, though at the cost of so much trouble and vexation of spirit to women, that it is not quite clear whether she does not regard their existence as at best a mitigated evil.” [From review of novel “Blanche Seymour” (anonymous), The Spectator, London, Apr. 1, 1871, p. 359] 

It's a long, exhaustive but fascinating read, much like the site itself, & I recommend you go over there & give them both a deeper look. In the meantime I will just post a few of the clippings he has on display:

".... She was, however, a voracious reader and wealthy enough to satisfy her cravings in this direction. On her death her library was found to contain nearly 18,000 volumes — all written by women. This was said at the time to be the most extensive collection of this kind ever formed."  - [“Man Hater's Library.” The Oelwein Daily Register (Io.), May 8, 1912, p. 3]

"Feminists Against Violence Against Men"

So while debating some pond life on youtube the other day, I was instructed to google "feminists against violence against men" to see how many of the sisterhood are working tirelessly in pursuit of true equality & looking out for us men & boys with the concern they loudly devote to women.

While fully expecting a single blank page with the sound of crickets chirping & tumbleweeds scraping lazily by in the wind, I dutifully did as I was told, curious to see how many pairs of open arms & eyes of love were out there waiting for me in the womyn's space.

Try it yourself, see what happens. Here's what I got:

One website article, & a single puff piece by The Guardian. Everything else was either a men's rights site or feminist criticism of the idea of defending men at all, saying why violence against men was a non-issue.

Still, I went to the solitary site in question (desifeminists.wordpress.com), looking to see if this was some new ifeminist-type branch of the feminazi party but sure enough, all it said was while violence against men was not nice, & we should all say so, it is nowhere near as big a deal as violence against women, & probably the result of the patriarchy or something.

Elsewhere on the very same site, which I had flown to in hopes of the sweet balm of compassion, I found this:

SCUM is the Society for Cutting up Men.
Is it any surprise that of all the feminist thoughts and writings out there, SCUM is all that makes it into pop culture? This is once of the few topics I actually heard of while browsing TV channels, rather than in my Women’s Studies classes.
I had dismissed SCUM as some weird and obviously unsupported, obscure writing dreamt up by a crazy woman. But luckily, I got to have a new perspective as a fellow feminist on Feministing.com posted the link to the whole document. Now after actually reading it, I see it as a brilliant satire. It just reverses all the utter bullshit and hatred that patriarchy has spewed about women. If any readers find the claims made in the SCUM manifesto absurd, then consider how equally absurd the hateful claims about women are? Such claims are made by idiotic, sexist religious leaders, politicians, husbands, scientists, fathers, and any Joe Schmo alike (and even sexist women, I should add).
Recently I’d been thinking about the ridiculous makes-me-want-to-vomit kind of women-hating pseudo-spirituality that many ISKCON leaders spread. I was also think about stupid male chauvinistic scientists whose aim in life is to “prove” that women are less intelligent than men, because, you know, their interpretation of research data is “objective” while the rest of us get to “personal.” The SCUM Manifesto would be my response to all those douchebags. I hope you like the satire as much as I did

There was one comment there before me, left by someone whose tenuous grasp on the concepts of satire, reason, & indeed reality itself had led her to remark:


"It’s funny because anti-feminists actually take it seriously, not realizing that it’s satire."

So I added:


"I think the punchline where the psychotic woman who started a movement called ‘The Society For Cutting Up Men’ went out the very next year & shot two men, killing one & then attempting to kill a third, that was particularly funny. I can’t believe some people still don’t get it."

Never got through moderation.