A campaign started by the Labour MP Stella Creasy to consider misogyny as a form of hate crime has resulted in the Law Commission deciding to consider whether misandry should be categorised as a hate crime, too. It is the ultimate example of whataboutery – when a group of people cries, “But what about X?”, to distract attention from any legitimate discussion of Y.
While misogyny has centuries of research, evidence, statistics, law and legislation, oppression, death and suffering behind it, misandry is harder to pinpoint. Some people even ask the question: “Does misandry exist?”
This is not because we believe that men are not harmed, that men cannot be abused or that men cannot be oppressed – but because misandry seems to be thrown around (generally at women) for some pretty tenuous things that definitely are not hatred or hostility to men.
When I read the news today, I thought about all the times I have been called a “misandrist” or accused of “misandry”.
Last year, I was accused of misandry for launching a study in forensic psychology to explore the way women were blamed for rape. I received hundreds of messages over a three-month period calling me every name men could think of, because, as one put it, “You are clearly a man-hating bitch to run this study only about women. What about men?”
However, in 2013 I opened the first male mental health centre in the UK with my husband. We set up the centre after police found the body of my father-in-law, who had died after a long battle with trauma and addiction. Every year I write about the way gender role stereotypes harm men and women – especially when anti-feminine, hyper-masculine gender roles are contributing to the high suicide rates in men and boys who are told to be strong, be emotionless and to deal with their problems themselves.
However, as it turns out, I am also a misandrist for talking about that, too.
In the wake of World Suicide Prevention Day this year, I received a week of abuse for saying that gender roles harm men, and I was called a “misandrist” for thinking I had the right to comment on men at all. Men tweeted to warn other men that our male mental health centre was “founded by a misandrist”, and not to seek support from us. I received vile abuse from men, 24 hours a day, for a week.
I was sent everything from pictures of their penises and rape and death threats, to comments about my face, hair, body, shape and even my glasses. One man sent pictures of me with my head cut off. Men told me I was so ugly, no man would rape me. I was told I should be infertile, so I couldn’t procreate. I was called a lesbian hundreds of times, as if that were an insult I should be horrified by.
I was sent real misogynistic abuse by the men who were also writing to tell me I was a misandrist. Check that out for some cognitive dissonance.
So, I’m a misandrist for not including men. And a misandrist for including men. Go figure.
As if to add insult to injury, I reported the accounts to Twitter and Facebook for “hate speech” and “misogyny” and not a single account was taken down. Apparently, the abuse I received “did not violate the community guidelines”.
The point is, when we talk about misogyny, we are talking about the global societal issue of the life-threatening prejudice, hatred, harm, oppression, rape, marginalisation and harassment of women and girls purely based on their gender – millions of women and girls being mutilated, sold, objectified, dehumanised and even murdered for being female.
Misandry, on the other hand, seems to be anything a woman says or does that any man doesn’t like. State that the majority of all violent crime is committed by men? Misandry. Turn men down because you are a lesbian? Misandry. Choose to research women’s and girls’ lives? Misandry. Talk about oppression of women? Misandry.
The concept of misandry is dangerously vague in comparison to the reality of misogyny. I predict that if misandry is taken forward as a hate crime, it will be used to curb discussions of male violence and female oppression. Again.
Jessica Eaton is the founder of VictimFocus. She is an author, researcher and speaker in the psychology of sexual violence. She is writing up a PhD in psychology of victim blaming of women and girls, and founded The Eaton Foundation, the first male mental health and wellbeing centre in the UK
