Ebony and Ivory
Black and white. Up and down. Right and Wrong. Good and Evil.
Opposites. As they point in opposing directions.
Misogyny and Misandry.
These are not opposites, they are the same thing, with the only difference being one is directed at women, the other at men. What is interesting is that while they are the same, they get treated differently, even in a simple definition search.
misogyny
/mɪˈsɒdʒɪni/
Misogyny is the hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women or girls. It is a form of sexism that enforces lower social status for women and maintains patriarchal power structures.
misandry
/mɪˈsandri/
Misandry is the hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against men or boys.
The second one should include;
It is a form of sexism that enforces lower social status for men and maintains matriarchal power structures.
Because, they are the same thing, with a different target. Defining them differently removes the fact that they are identical other than the focus, which creates a biased understanding and perpetuates systemic structures. I guess double-standards are still standards.
The double-standards around the public narrative of gender inequality has always annoyed me, because it is so obvious and hypocritical. For instance at the moment in the news there is the story of some comedian saying something about women in the gym dressed like whores and it being lambasted. However, you know what, I have heard the same thing being said about how some women in the gym dress - by other women. And they weren't comedians.
Whether your kind of humour or not, comedy is comedy.
But when it comes to women talking about how men dress, that is fine of course. It is the same for all of the magazines that will at one point complain about women having their bodies judged, while on the next page be judging the same women on what they wear, which is often on how see-through their dress on the red carpet is, or pictures of them at the beach. If they are in shape they are celebrated for taking care of themselves at x-age, and if they are fat they are celebrated for being "brave" wearing a bikini. And men in shape are referred to as thirst traps, and men out of shape are "dad bods" or ridiculed.
It is all pretty disgusting.
But when it comes to looks, we all judge including apparently blind people who generally want their partner they can't see, to be attractive. But because we all have our various preferences for looks and size and personality and whatever else, we are constantly comparing. It is what we do as humans. Preferences are a filter of exclusion. That is okay. But I don't think that we should ridicule others who are filtered out of our preference group. That is just bad behaviour.
But, as far as public discourse goes, when something is said about any particular group, whether positive or negative, it is automatically going to exclude others. When a magazine shows all the "beautiful" women and they all tend to have the same plasticised look about them, the same altered eyes, sculpted chin and injected lips, what is that telling all of the other women who are not like that? When they say "natural beauty" of someone who has obvious breast implants, what is it telling other women who are going to naturally compare about their own bodies?
They say "be happy in your own skin" but what these myriad publications do are advertise looks of people who barely have any of their "own skin" left as ideals of beauty. And it isn't men doing this or targeted at men, it is women pushing it to other women. And the ideals getting pushed of how men should be don't align with reality either, especially in looks. You don't see many pics celebrating the looks of Joe Pesci, and the "average man" looks nothing like Chris Hemsworth.
As I see it, as everyone has preferences on looks and personality, and that they also have preferences for humour and whatever else, it is all part of a stupid conversation that shouldn't be highlighted. What it does is make perpetuate the problems because the brain can't process "don't do" as it doesn't understand negatives. If you say "don't smoke" all the brain really understands is smoke. So, it learns as if everything is positive, which means that when it is surrounded by "Don't dos" it is only really going to remember the do. And what this means is that the media is surrounded with the worst kinds of messaging all of the time, where the "normal" is abnormal and the lessons taught are the opposite of what should be taught.
You might not know this, but the media does.
It is intentional and what has happened is that grassroots movements that were improving lots of social problems, have been reversing for years as the media has taken them on and driven them to polarising for attention. Racism was improving and now it has degraded again. Sexism was improving, now it is degrading again. The media doesn't want improvement, they want to sell their product.
Misogyny and Misandry are both poor personal positions. But when pushing content out to a massive audience, there is no way to include everyone or not offend anyone. And then what we have created is a culture that will then take the worst view of whatever is said, without the spirit of how it was said or in what forum or context, and create more polarising content on it, pitting one side against all other side, all on all. And what this means is nothing gets said that actually adds to the conversation, that changes opinion. It ends up being picked apart and consumed by people who will shape their behaviours on a narrow perspective, creating polarised individuals.
Radicalised individuals, with ever-narrowing preferences.
Extremists.
Can extremists ever be good?
Taraz
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