Misogyny & Misandry

Putting together ones life with the modern world.
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Cerastes
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Re: Misogyny & Misandry

Post by Cerastes »

Thank you everyone for the interesting input.
Cancer wrote: Mon Jun 24, 2019 5:54 pm I don't see what in your post could produce justifiable antipathy.

I had expected some antipathy, because my last conversation about mysogony did not end so well. That’s partly my fault since diplomacy is not exactly my strenght and this is an emotionally charged, explosive topic which must be discussed in a more cautious way. (Which is what I’m trying to do now...hopefully it works :D )
However it is very pleasant how calm and appreciative the discussions in this forum are, even though there are often many different opinions.

Cancer wrote: Mon Jun 24, 2019 5:54 pm The anima-animus-phenomenon (if there indeed is one; I can only speak for my anima) could maybe be explained by non-conforming children experiencing much of the pettiness common to all people "through", or among, other children of the same gender. All that is dull and oppressive about everyday life would thus be associated with that gender, and the soul - all that is exciting and liberating about inner life - with another. This would certainly fit my experience. Nail polish and shoujo anime eventually became signifiers of freedom for me because no-one had tried to push me in their direction. Many "boyish" things, on the contrary, felt stifling, because so many authority figures had expected me to like them.

Yes, this is a good point. It is, I believe a way of breaking free from social and cultural suggestions which is certainly not the most comfortable way of living. This could be a reason why you like to polish your nails and I prefer grinding wood.

I tend to think that a women with a strong masculinity cause less rejection or even aggression in society than a feminine man which would be a clear sign that masculinity is rated higher. Do you see this tendency in Finland too?

Nefastos wrote: Tue Jun 25, 2019 11:27 am That corpse is still in move, huh? That is vile. (I take that you mean by "metaphysical significance" that this interpretation could justify putting limits to undestanding & abilities of each sex? Most probably to one opposite to the interpreter's own?) I thought that this kind of psychosomatic jail argument that the other sex is somehow soulless or unable to understand because of an innate lacking would now have been mummified inside the tents of those evangelists still living the middle ages.
The corpse is just crawling out of it’s tomb again in a brandnew dress but ist stinks even more. Jehovah‘s unquestionable word, or the misinterpretation of it, has been replaced by the absolutism of science although most people don’t even understand basic statistical mathematics and use those studies for a kind of deductive, dogmatic categorization. It reminds me on „Women can’t be leaders because god made them for men“.
Wyrmfang wrote: Tue Jun 25, 2019 1:05 pm I don´t still fully understand what it is that doesn´t work, but luckily the issue is not that acute as I somehow managed to get a relationship, and have been in it almost 9 years. I guess it is some aspect of sensitiveness, which is not allowed for men, and which I mysef haven´t fully recognized, even if in most other matters I don´t care much about social expectations. I was very much into the model of thought today labeled as "incel" (luckily, at that time these communities and the concept did not exist, or at least I was not aware of it).
Could it be, that you are communicating on a different level? (Just a guess)
It happens every now and then that others talk to me on an emotional or personal level, and I respond with factual or intellectual answers because I just do not notice how emotionally involved the other person is. This was taken as a rejection quite often and left me with an alien-like feeling because it took me a while to understand what went wrong. It was also problematic when I tried to make female friends and I see it as a leftover of my slightly misogyn mindset that involved the illusion of rationality.
“Granny Weatherwax was not lost. She wasn't the kind of person who ever became lost. It was just that, at the moment, while she knew exactly where SHE was, she didn't know the position of anywhere else.”
(Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters)
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Re: Misogyny & Misandry

Post by Wyrmfang »

Cerastes wrote: Tue Jun 25, 2019 2:04 pm
Wyrmfang wrote: Tue Jun 25, 2019 1:05 pm I don´t still fully understand what it is that doesn´t work, but luckily the issue is not that acute as I somehow managed to get a relationship, and have been in it almost 9 years. I guess it is some aspect of sensitiveness, which is not allowed for men, and which I mysef haven´t fully recognized, even if in most other matters I don´t care much about social expectations. I was very much into the model of thought today labeled as "incel" (luckily, at that time these communities and the concept did not exist, or at least I was not aware of it).
Could it be, that you are communicating on a different level? (Just a guess)
It happens every now and then that others talk to me on an emotional or personal level, and I respond with factual or intellectual answers because I just do not notice how emotionally involved the other person is. This was taken as a rejection quite often and left me with an alien-like feeling because it took me a while to understand what went wrong. It was also problematic when I tried to make female friends and I see it as a leftover of my slightly misogyn mindset that involved the illusion of rationality.
This makes a lot of sense, thank you very much. I have recognized this issue in other contexts, even in written text also in this forum, but somehow I have never connected it with the problems I wrote above. Obviously, regardless of the origin of a problem, when it becomes the Issue in life, it suffices to hinder any positive development. I guess there are many interrelated reasons, and then the self-destructive cycle of thought, which is the most important. Hopefully it would be today at least a bit different, but right now I am just so happy that I don´t need to stress about it.
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Cancer
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Re: Misogyny & Misandry

Post by Cancer »

Cerastes wrote: Tue Jun 25, 2019 2:04 pmI tend to think that a women with a strong masculinity cause less rejection or even aggression in society than a feminine man which would be a clear sign that masculinity is rated higher. Do you see this tendency in Finland too?
In certain contexts, yes. Women can generally wear what they want, for example, while I've internalized too much shame to go walking down the street in a dress, even though I sometimes feel like it. (Strangely it seems that when women are derided for their choice of clothing, it's also because of too much, or of a certain kind, of femininity: looking "slu*ty" etc.) On the other hand, I've gathered that an aggressive or even just very confident woman is still often perceived as more of a transgressor than a man with the same qualities. "Inner masculinity" would thus be more jealously protected by men than mannish looks. At least the specific combination of feminine presentation plus expertise / confidence seems to be hard to digest for certain people.

And then again, there's the ways in which men's emotional expression is restricted as well: no crying, no non-sexual intimacy, etc. (to use more of somewhat clichéd examples; of course these norms are not equally compelling for every man, and not every man experiences them as oppressive). Considering all this, I'd say you're largely right.

Cerastes wrote: Tue Jun 25, 2019 2:04 pm
Nefastos wrote: Tue Jun 25, 2019 11:27 am
That corpse is still in move, huh? That is vile. (I take that you mean by "metaphysical significance" that this interpretation could justify putting limits to undestanding & abilities of each sex? Most probably to one opposite to the interpreter's own?) I thought that this kind of psychosomatic jail argument that the other sex is somehow soulless or unable to understand because of an innate lacking would now have been mummified inside the tents of those evangelists still living the middle ages.
The corpse is just crawling out of it’s tomb again in a brandnew dress but ist stinks even more. Jehovah‘s unquestionable word, or the misinterpretation of it, has been replaced by the absolutism of science although most people don’t even understand basic statistical mathematics and use those studies for a kind of deductive, dogmatic categorization. It reminds me on „Women can’t be leaders because god made them for men“.
I confess that some of my more pessimistic perspectives on these issues probably originate with my tendency to spend unhealthy amounts of time in the slimier corners of the internet. (At the moment I'm trying to decide wether smoking or Twitter is the more harmful addiction. I've replaced the former with the latter, and will soon probably be hoping that I'd just embraced the future lung cancer.) That is to say, the unbelievably vile things I've read and heard online might have distorted my picture of what the average person thinks of various vexed questions. I certainly hope that this is the case.

The "metaphysical significance" I referred to does not necessarily manifest as bigotry. I simply meant that there is a common tendency to unthinkingly elevate the world-description of some natural science (physics, biology...) into the "truest truth" at the expense of the social sciences, or even of (usually other peoples') personal experience. This is well expressed in the Yle headline: this is how women actually are, as if the social category "woman" could unproblematically be applied to physical objects such as brains. Gender is social - or archetypal, it doesn't really matter here - something, that is, that we in a certain sense create in our human world of meaning. It is connected to our physical bodies, of course, but it is very haphazard to say that people of gender x as people of that gender are a certain way because of their brains (the concept of physical sex should be used instead). As I see it, there is bad, scientistic metaphysics without bigotry, but not bigotry without some form of bad metaphysics, be it conscious or not.
Tiden läker inga sår.
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Nefastos
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Re: Misogyny & Misandry

Post by Nefastos »

Cancer wrote: Wed Jun 26, 2019 6:13 pmIn certain contexts, yes. Women can generally wear what they want, for example, while I've internalized too much shame to go walking down the street in a dress, even though I sometimes feel like it.


Again I must say, for my own part: not only shame. There is also actual danger involved. Dressing "funnily" makes one an almost legitimate target of not only ridicule, but also violence. While at home I almost always wear skirts & dress & robes (so much easier and elegant), but I dare to do that very seldom when walking the streets of Helsinki. I am so hubric that I don't feel actual shame (I consider myself a superior being), but it is simply too exhausting to face the constant psycho-sociological – let alone psychic – stress. To even consider wearing my home dress to some lecturing or business meeting would be suicidal. Yet I am doing some slow work by talking about these things whenever I can, so at some point people will hopefully know me to be so eccentric that the lynching will no longer happen.

Nefastos wrote: Mon Jun 24, 2019 11:56 amIn Finland we have compulsory military service, for men only (...)


More hilarious news from Yle, our biggest media, today: "Finns still debunk the compulsory military service for women." At least we seem to be in synch. A poll was made from opinions of one thousand Finns. A great start, right? Well... The possible answers to choose were (translation verbatim):

(1) "There is no need to change the current law"
(2) "Compulsory military service should include also women"
(3) "For women a similary compulsory civil service should be tailored"
(4) "I don't know"

For people like me, who are strongly against compulsory service and, even more than that, militarism – these are Sophie's Choices:

"Hi Johannes, this is Yle calling! Would you like to:

(1) Be forced to give a year from your life to be taught how to kill people?
(2) Number one, plus also your possible sister, wife and daughter are forced to do the same?
(3) Those sister, wide and daughter should instead do laundry for a year, while only you are forced to learn the art or murder?
(4) You don't know?"


I apologize my snarky bitterness. :oops: I am not trying to call upon some holy hatred by this; indeed, it might be a good idea to drop – or split – the subject (of military service) to another thread altogether. But I think this makes my point that some of the biggest problems are those which are not even welcome to discussion. Like I said in another post about news in Finland not long time ago, I am positively fascinated by this kind of use of implicit power, the power to leave some directions of thinking straight out from discussion. This is one of the most devious misuses of power in our time. Of course, it may also be used for good; but the instrument is very dangerous.

Cancer wrote: Wed Jun 26, 2019 6:13 pmI simply meant that there is a common tendency to unthinkingly elevate the world-description of some natural science (physics, biology...) into the "truest truth" at the expense of the social sciences, or even of (usually other peoples') personal experience. (...) As I see it, there is bad, scientistic metaphysics without bigotry, but not bigotry without some form of bad metaphysics, be it conscious or not.


You might have guessed this already, but I partly blame the "religion of science" here. Once again, like Cato, I'd ask that the implicit amorality of science would be realized to be like the most common bad religion of the modern Western society. Or at least European, perhaps in the US there really are enough "tents" also for these mummified relics, to be afraid of them being revived to unlife. But in Europe, our moral problems stem often from the idea that "science/physics is more real than philosophy", and – O humanity! – philosophical statements are then drawn from these scientific ideas...!

Cancer wrote: Wed Jun 26, 2019 6:13 pmI confess that some of my more pessimistic perspectives on these issues probably originate with my tendency to spend unhealthy amounts of time in the slimier corners of the internet.


I certainly hope there's a sweet spot of living informed and not losing hope also in our internet era. But if there is, I'm afraid it is quite tiny and requires quite a lot of scorpion swamp adventures before found.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
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