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Cookies and Fascism
(lemmy.dbzer0.com)
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this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2025
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changing the defenition of misandry is just as bullshit as changing the definition of antisemitism to include critism of isreal.
misandry doesnt exist for the same reason reverse racism doesnt exist. there is no system of oppression against men, there is no system of oppression against white people. and all misogyny/racism is inherently systemic.
you are confusing a personal prejudice caused by systemic mistreatment with systemic mistreatment. it is an important distinction to make.
men hating women is misogyny because men have societal power over women. women hating men due to discrimination theyve faced is just them hating their oppressors. when men receive lower salaries than women, have lower rights than women, have their bodies policed like women, are treated like objects and property like women, and are raped and murdered like women, then we can say that misandry is a real thing.
not everything is for you, not everything is about you. you can acknowledge that things and behaviors are bad without pretending they are systems of oppression. if you would prefer to quote a dictionary than actually educate yourself then thats fine, but it doesnt make it any more real.
“you being more offended by the mere implication that some of your peers can be bad than by the harm that they actually cause makes you part of the problem”
i already knew of and dismissed this exact argument before you made it. i don’t know why you thought it was a good idea to make the exact same argument and hope for a different outcome
changing the defenition of misandry is just as bullshit as changing the definition of antisemitism to include critism of isreal.
lol it's not even an argument it is an accepted fact in academia. your misunderstanding of higher level concepts is not a valid argument against it
It's not so much a misunderstanding of concepts, it's people using 2 different definitions.
You must know by now that misandry can both mean "systemic oppression of men" and "bigotry against men" - sorry, "unfairly being mean to men", just as misogyny or racism can mean different things in a systemic and personal context.
People are complaining about bigotry, or "being meanly treated" if you want to imply dismissiveness, and the word they use for that is misandry/racism/misogyny - that these words imply systemic oppression in an academic context doesn't matter, we are talking about the other context.
And if you think it should not have this other definition at all, because it makes it harder to talk about the more important systemic issue, or for another reason: don't be a pedantic prescriptivist on these definitions, language is fluid.
when have men ever been systematically oppressed? misandry doesn't mean that, because it doesn't happen.
and what words mean in an acedemic context does matter, because when the academia says one thing and people use it to mean another, it furthers the meabing from reality and science. especially when it's something like this, when what you're using as is just something not grounded in facts.
The academic definition does matter in an academic context, but outside of that, other definitions are used. Misandry does exist and is grounded in facts, because people can use misandry to mean bigotry against men. In fact, that is what people mean more often than not. Linguistic is a real science as well, you know?
Again, being a pedant about what it should mean isn't helping anyone, least of all you.
not to mentioned that:
these ideas and definitions are not the “academic definition,” whatever the fuck that means. this opinion isn’t a common one, even in academia. academics aren’t fucking stupid…
there… have been plenty of times in human history where men were an oppressed group. acting like those people didn’t suffer is getting up there into holocaust/holodomr denial core shit. that’s not an overreaction if you actually know your history unlike these fake pseudo leftists/feminists!
Please name one time in history where men were an oppressed group?
Well excuuuuuse me princess…
The assertions that "men have always been dominant," “men do not experience oppression in the way or scale women do historically,” or even “men have never been oppressed,” are all historically and anthropologically imprecise. Power throughout human history has been mediated primarily by class, lineage, and economic control, not by biological sex alone (Lerner, 1986). Most men in all known civilizations lacked authority, being peasants, laborers, soldiers, or slaves subordinated to elite hierarchies of both birth and office (Scott, 1990).
In ancient Egypt, women possessed independent legal and property rights; queens such as Hatshepsut (18th Dynasty) and Sobekneferu (12th Dynasty) ruled as Pharaohs with full titulary (Tyldesley, 1996). In matrilineal West African societies such as the Akan (Rattray, 1929) and among the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy) (Morgan, 1851), women held decisive roles in lineage, inheritance, and the selection or removal of male chiefs.
Throughout European feudalism, the overwhelming majority of men were serfs, legally unfree laborers bound to the estates of noblemen or ecclesiastical landlords. The feudal order did not empower "men" as a sex class but rather privileged noble birth (Bloch, 1939). Similarly, in imperial China, millions of peasant men faced forced conscription and corvée labor under dynastic systems ruled by male bureaucratic elites (Fairbank and Goldman, 1998).
More strikingly, numerous historical systems imposed direct and gendered subordination upon men themselves. In imperial China, court eunuchs were castrated to ensure their political subservience, a literal removal of male autonomy in service to dynastic stability. The Ottoman devshirme system forcibly extracted Christian boys to be converted and militarized as Janissaries, a state-managed gendered slavery. Among the Aztecs, ritual warfare (xochiyaoyotl) overwhelmingly targeted captured men for sacrificial death, showing the expendability of the male body. In modern conscription regimes, from the Napoleonic levées to industrial-age mass mobilizations, millions of lower-class men were compelled to die for national elites, a pattern of sex-specific coercion persistent across state systems.
Thus, while elite men frequently monopolized formal authority, this cannot be conflated with "male dominance" as a universal structural relation. Historical patriarchy was a hierarchy within the male sex as well as between the sexes, a pyramidal rather than binary order. Men as a sex were not the rulers of history; rather, history has often ruled through men, using them as laborers, soldiers, and instruments of elite power.
To claim that "men have always been dominant" is therefore not merely an oversimplification but a categorical error. It substitutes an elite fraction of men for the entire sex and erases both the agency of women and the subjugation of the majority of men under class and state domination. Or, to borrow the ironic tone of a certain 1980s adventurer, well, pardon us, princess, history is more complicated than that.
I don’t think any of that matters to you though, you’re just going to continue on and argue that these instances of oppression are somehow categorically different because you’re most likely a bigot yourself. I’d say good day but I don’t like bigots.
References
This whole exercise of injecting academic terms into common discourse and pretending like they're the only "correct" definition is at least 15 years old now and has achieved nothing. Where is your victory? If a woman hates all men just for being men she's engaging in misandry. No matter how many times you explain that a system of oppression against men is required in the definition, all you will be doing is preaching to your ever shrinking choir. That definition is only useful outside academia because certain people want to excuse bigotry, and that's all.
There were already terms for this - the word "systemic" was already in use. Systemic racism vs racism for example. But this insistence that all of society must accept that racism is actually defined as systemic racism and racism without systemic elements simply doesn't exist is so absurd and silly that it is has no ability to gain any mass appeal required for systemic change which is why its confined to terminally online leftists (and not even all of them).
im really just not gonna waste time engaging with bad faith strawman arguments that start with "the dictionary defines this word as"
i hope that life treats you well and that your beliefs take you to great places
This is some LilyOrchard double standard typeshit.... is that you Lily?
All your arguments hinge on broad generalizations and so they can be dismissed offhand. You make the mistake of thinking that if Group A has majority power vs Group B, then that means they have absolute power. You completely diminish and cut down any power or leverage that Group B has. Basically doing learned helplessness to justify prejudice. You ignore any cases where your assumption doesn't hold true or use those instances to justify "well it's okay if they do it back!", completely negating your whole point that "doing that thing is bad".
this is,,,, this is just a "misogyny isnt systemic" argument
broad generalizations such as "men have systemic power over women" and "men get paid more than women"
next will you say black people can be racist towards white people?
If you think that only white straight men have a monopoly on bigotry and hate, you are a lost cause.
if you think that the systemic oppression of women as people for the benefit of men is in any way shape or form comparable to "this girl was mean to me this one time", you are a lost cause.
the idea of "misandry" has always been weaponized against women in a misogynistic way by denying them even the ability to express anger at their oppression. women who "hate men" would not hate men if men did not systemically oppress them in every aspect of life. you can say "misandry is real its just not systemic" if you want, but its like saying "all lives matter" has a meaning outside of its use as a racist dogwhistle. not a very serious take. additionally, you cant say that while also comparing it to misogyny, which is systemic.
gender essentialism and bioessentialism are bad, we all agree on this! we dont have to silence women talking about actual issues and experiences in order to do so.
if you are a man and you feel the need to say how misandry totally is a real problem, you have to remember first that you are benefiting from patriarchy right now whether you like it or not
like i said to begin with, the line of reasoning that misandry exists is the same line of reasoning that is used to say reverse racism exists. and last i checked we all know that isnt the case.
I strongly encourage you to strive for more precise language. If observers regularly make the same rhetorical rebuttals to your statements, that's a signal that you should seek a clearer phrasing.
When you say something like "misandry isn't a thing" or "blacks can't be racist towards whites", it's very easy for someone not already familiar with modern usage to hear "[hating men because they're men] isn't a thing" or "blacks can't be [racially biased against] whites", even if you meant "[sexist oppression of men] isn't a thing" or "blacks can't be [systematically advantaged over] whites." And then we all get to waste time arguing over the precise meaning of words while those in favor of oppression gleefully watch.
Likely every white guy you've ever met has a first or second had experience of being presumed dangerous because they're a man or being presumed a bigot because of their skin color. These presumptions are often soft and quickly discarded, and they certainly aren't a big a problem as rape-culture or the school-to-prison pipeline, but just because the wrongs are lesser does not mean they don't exist.
Ah right, my mistake, folks who are oppressed by inherent power imbalances are treating those that have privilege with prejudice because *checks notes* they...vibe check...folks...that look like their oppressors? Yep, nope, that definitely checks out.
I'm sorry if you at all got the impression that I don't understand why being a white guy gets treated with prejudice by those who are traumatized by the systemic oppression of a society biased towards rich white guys.
But quoting me and eliding the part where I specifically note that such prejudice is lesser and understandable is bad form.
It's not like it was hidden from view for anyone reading the thread, or that I didn't make it clear that I was eliding a part of the quote.
People responding to their trauma isn't prejudice. What you're saying is rape culture. I'm an SA survivor myself. Telling me that my being cautious is somehow hateful towards men is a wild approach.
Just because a judgement based on someone's sex or race is based on honest fear doesn't make it accurate or fair.
You arent just "being cautious". This is a topic-based social media platform in the comments of a topic specially about the experiences of young men, where you've actively dismissed the subjective experiences of men even when we concede that our discomfort is of less urgency than your trauma.
Whether or not you are motivated by hate, your actions can still do harm.
Pointing out that misandry doesn't exist is seperate from me being cautious in my everyday life. Trying to conflate the two as a gotcha to win an internet argument is also perpetuating rape culture.
I haven't denied that men are treated with prejudice at times, or that they face discomfort. I am saying that the definition of, say, misogyny, is systemic. Therefore, misandry cannot exist in our current society.
All of this honestly feels like an MRA op or something, similar to the "queer is a slur" TERF op in the early 2010s that started on tumblr. Innocent bystanders spread that stuff too, I'm not claiming you're an MRA.
Seriously wondering about leaving the Fediverse because of this stuff. You literally don't ever see these takes on Bluesky, outside of some folks that get shunned, even amongst men there. I genuinely wonder if it's because there's no PoC on the fediverse, all of them have been chased off whenever they point out racism. If there were, they'd probably bite the head off anyone claiming you can be racist towards white people.
Also just, people unironically using the term "terminally online leftists" in this thread is insane conservative nonsense. Other countries and cultures exist, and in most of them the Overton window is far to the left of the US'. I'm a member of a far left political party, I've been to rallies and involved with other leftist orgs. When conversations come up around the topic in the OP, no one says fuck men and no one says "misandry" is the problem. Most of the conversations centre around how to regulate US social media companies, how algorithms radicalise young men, how there's no way that's an accident.
So I agree, figuring out a way to talk to young men already radicalised is important, and a discussion that is lacking in leftist spaces. But parroting MRA talking points, like that they are facing systemic prejudice, in order to deradicalise them just ain't it chief.
It can and does though, you changing your definition of these words to try and avoid reality and blaming criticism of your arguments on rape culture is exactly the sort of problematic behaviour that is pushing boys away from the left.
Except, it's not.
Maybe you should try and be introspective about why you are twisting definitions to downplay poor behaviour from particular groups.
It's really fun how there's a bunch of men in my replies acting like their behaviour isn't misogynist right now :D
It's not misogynistic to point out when someone is wrong and to say they should consider their own biases. Jumping straight to assuming that is another example of the sort of behaviour which pushes men away from the left. Your comments read like a bad right wing caricature of the left so assuming you aren't a troll going for that persona I would recommend going and touching some grass.
No, what I called out as misogynist was specifically you coming back to the thread hours later, finding another one of my comments in another chain to reply to, just to try and "win the internet" for the day. You don't agree? That's fine. But you trying to continue attacking me, you deciding you get to define rape culture, that's misogynistic.
If I don't get to redefine misandrist, you don't get to redefine rape culture.
If you don't mean to dismiss the prejudice men encounter, don't assert that the thing they described doesn't exist. Even if they used a word in a way you would not.
You're not the language police, and using a word as it's defined in the dictionary is not a sin against gender-equality.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/misandry
blahblahblah blocked.
And that's how you fail miserably to rally people to you cause but instead alienate them and push them into the arms of the right. Goodjob. You've demonstrated the OPs original point perfectly.
I love how this is all gen ed level college race and diversity course, and yet the majority of people here still will never even try to understand it. I try to bring this up every time I see a comment about misandry or reverse racism, fully knowing I'll get downvoted into oblivion. definitely a reminder that the majority of of lemmy skews to priveledged older white male, even those who call themselves leftists.
you guys are the ones who totally miss the colloquial opinion in academia. idk why you keep appealing to that as if academics agree with vapid moralizing anymore than anyone else. besides, that’s not even how… the humanities work? these things are not presented as facts, they’re presented as imperfect and fallible models like any other field of inquiry, because that’s all we have.
not even discussing the argument at hand, you can’t just respond to people disagreeing with you by saying they’re wrong and they don’t understand. it is immature and shows a lack of higher level reasoning.
but either way the whole line of thought here in these downvoted comments is ass-backwards. it’s not that people disagreeing are all priveleged old white men. it’s that the world literally isn’t some black-and-white place. feels like lots of people are mentally either 13 yo blue haired tumblr girls with a just world fallacy or psycho 12 yo boys nowadays, no inbetweens.
also - saying terms like “reverse racism” or the idea that misandry functionally doesn’t exist are at all common or accepted ideas in academic circles and not radical diactems, especially within sociology/philosophy fields that deal with race/diversity, is so insanely disingenuous as to either be an intentional attempt at manipulation or so obtuse and ignorant as to be buffoonery.
prejudice is still bad! misandry/reverse racism doesn't exist (full stop) but a black person could still be prejudice against white people, or a women could be prejudice again men. that doesn't excuse it, but words and connotation matter.
What's race based prejudice if it isn't racism? You can't just displace the original meaning and pretend the original never existed
Obviously it's generally much more harmful in one direction, but acting like people aren't all just people with the exact same biases, and acting as if which group has power over which isn't something that has kept changing throughout the history of humanity, and acting as if all of human experience is homogeneous (that all people with the same labels have identical experience), is all nonsensical extremist horseshoe politics stuff.
When you hear people on your own side defend Apartheid but for opposing reasons, you gotta admit those people have gone too far off the deep end. Racist extreme right people push it because they believe people are inherently different and can't integrate. Delusional extreme left people do it because "people of different status and power can't mix without abuse" and so they abdicate from the responsibility to support coexistence and mutual understanding, and so they end up helping racists push their policies.
Who in this thread was defending Apartheid? That take seemed to of come out of nowhere!
Unfortunately I've seen real people argue stuff like "black and white people can't mix", and who thought that was a progressive belief
Yes, words and connotations matter which is why the whole exercise of injecting academic terms into common discourse and pretending like they're the only "correct" definition is so pointless . It is at least 15 years old now and has achieved nothing. Where is your victory? If a woman hates all men just for being men she's engaging in misandry. No matter how many times you explain that a system of oppression against men is required in the definition, all you will be doing is preaching to your ever shrinking choir. That definition is only useful outside academia because certain people want to excuse bigotry, and that's all.
There were already terms for this - the word "systemic" was already in use. Systemic racism vs racism for example. But this insistence that all of society must accept that racism is actually defined as systemic racism and racism without systemic elements simply doesn't exist is so absurd and silly that it is has no ability to gain any mass appeal required for systemic change which is why its confined to terminally online leftists (and not even all of them - like seriously if you can't even win them over then maybe your strategy sucks?).
It's all the more tragic because this whole time feminist discourse could have been focusing on the actual problem of systemic misogyny and systemic racism instead of fighting linguistic battles that have all been conclusively lost.