To celebrate International Women’s Day, I want to focus on the myth in society that feminists are men-hating individuals. I flat out hate it whenever this myth pops up because feminists do not hate men in the slightest and it is often misogynistic men using the idea of misandry as a just cause to threaten and insult women that pelt this myth. Therefore, in this social psychology podcast episode, you’ll learn what is feminism, why feminists do not hate men and why sexist men push this awful and anti-feminist myth. If you enjoy learning about social psychology, social activism and more then this will be a great episode for you.
Today’s psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Social Psychology: A Guide To Social And Cultural Psychology. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca.
What is Feminism?
Feminism is the strongly held belief that the patriarchy harms everyone, including men, and this is why I have always supported feminism. Feminism just means the equality between genders, so no one is better than the other regardless of your gender. As well as certain genders do not have a higher status than other genders. Also, feminists believe that everyone will benefit from the liberation from the patriarchy and the sexist oppression that it supports.
Unfortunately, by some people, feminists are simply seen as little more than men-hating misandrists as well as extremists.
What is Misandry?
In case you’re brand-new to what misandry is, like I was up until last year, misandry refers to the discrimination, prejudice and hatred aimed at men that is rooted exclusively in their gender. Therefore, people who don’t like feminism and this includes men and women, believe that feminists are simply misandrists who only want to divide the world and create “gender wars” so they can further their agenda.
Unfortunately, Hamel et al. (2016) and Barraso (2020) shows that almost 50% of men and women in the United States see feminism as an ideology that unfairly punishes men for women’s issues.
Moreover, there is some debate about the existence of misandry, and even if it does, whether this is a positive or negative. Some feminists believe that anger as well as outrage towards men is useful because it helps keep pressure on the throat of the oppressive systems that stops women from being free of the patriarchy as supported by Morgan (2014) and Agostini and van Zomeren (2021). Whereas other feminists believe that misandry is a mechanism that is against the ethics of the feminism movement, because misandry makes it more difficult to invite and include allies in their work fighting the injustice that women face (Hooks, 2000).
Personally, I am firmly in the second camp, I do not support misandry because no one should face discrimination, prejudice or hate because of their gender. For me and so many others, the entire point of feminism is that all genders are equal and no one faces discrimination and hate. Using misandry and men’s gender against them as a weapon is flat out wrong.
Why Does The Myth of Feminists As Misandrists Matter?
The recent why public perceptions about feminists as misandrists matter is because it has very stark real-world implications. For example, so-called Men’s Rights Activists are increasing in number because they name feminists as their oppressors (Pry and Valiente, 2013). As well as in the final year of my undergraduate degree, I had a lecture on incels and extremist misogyny and one of the reasons why these men want to kill, beat and rape women is because they believe women are a threat to male rights.
Therefore, this has led many so-called Men’s Rights Activists to only increase their hate towards feminists in recent years. These men use digital and physical forms of violence to hurt, threaten and attack feminists. These men see it as a natural consequence of feminists’ men-hating behaviour (Beale et al., 2019; Diaz and Valji, 2019).
Let’s see if there’s any truth behind this myth after all.
Why Is Feminism As Misandry A Myth?
My supervisor is actually part of the main study for this podcast episode, which is exciting.
As a result, a study by Hopkins et al. (2024) found that misandry as a trait of feminism is a myth because they conducted 6 studies and recruited over 10,000 participants to study the traits of feminists and misandrists. Their first finding was that feminist women generally speaking did not hold any harsher opinions against men than non-feminist women or other men. As well as feminists tend to perceive men as fundamentally similar to women and the differences we see between men and women are actually a result of the patriarchy than the core difference in our nature. Therefore, men are not the issue in themselves, the issue is with the patriarchy and the sexist oppression that it supports.
Moreover, feminists actually hold men in positive regard but this regard is moderated by how threatening or safe a man is perceived to be. Also, when it comes to what men think of misandry, feminist women in the study weren’t significantly more hostile towards men than non-feminist women, but feminist women were less benevolent towards men. This suggests that although feminists don’t hold hostile beliefs and attitudes towards men, feminists are less likely than non-feminists to coddle to men, to practice humility when correcting them or give them a pass for their intentional harms.
Overall, this study shows that the reasons so-called Men's Rights Activists believe feminists to be misandrists is because of their refusal to capitulate to men and men see this refusal as a sign of misandry and hostility towards them.
This is not an accurate interpretation of this refusal.
Why Do Some Men View Feminists As Misandrists?
The last section covered why feminists being misandrists is a myth. As a result of whilst it is true that some feminist women do identify as misandrists, it is important to note that these are a tiny minority and are not the norm amongst feminists. If there are anti-feminists who cannot understand that difference then it is the same as men who apply the “not all men” argument to every single discussion without fail about men’s harm towards women.
Moreover, Downing and Rousch (1985) is part of a small evidence base suggesting that women become more likely to identify as misandrists after realising their own oppression. Then over time as the woman becomes more aware of the systems that underpin sexist oppression and sexism in the patriarchy, they start to disengage from hatred towards men and engaging with hating and wanting to challenge the system itself.
This has led people to argue that if misandry exists at all then it appears to be a belief system that is short-lived in only a small number of feminists.
On the other hand, when it comes to men who view feminists as misandrists then they might never ever be convinced otherwise. Due to these men see misandry as a “good” excuse or reason to threaten and abuse women. Yet it is critical that even though it is hard to convince these men otherwise, that we keep trying because this is about keeping women safe.
It is critical all of us continue and realise that we need to fight the system because feminists have realised that it is better to fight the system than individual men, and feminists should always engage compassionately with people who haven’t gotten to the point of realising their patriarchal oppression yet. If these women who aren’t feminists yet then feminists should gently urge women to turn their anger and frustration towards dismantling the patriarchal systems in place instead of hating individual men. It is only by fighting the system that women will be free of oppression.
Social Psychology Conclusion
On the whole, when it comes to feminism, there will always be a place for anger because anger can drive us, motivate us and inspire us to take steps toward change. Yet anger must be reserved for dealing with the systems of power that oppress women, and part of dealing with these unjust systems will include engaging with individual men who do not support women’s liberation. When this happens, anger might be needed but only when absolutely necessary.
As a result, when it comes to the future of feminism, we all need to make sure that our anger and outrage are applied to where they will have the most impact and be most useful in fighting the systems of power that oppress women instead of being applied to individuals. This will help keep feminists safe and it will help us avoid those ugly and ill-informed stereotypes that depict feminists as misandrists.
Personally, I want to wrap up this psychology podcast episode by mentioning that I tried to remove gendered language as much as possible from this episode for two main reasons. Firstly, because both men and women can be anti-feminist so I wanted to avoid continuing the idea that it is men versus women, and I wanted to highlight that not all women are feminists and not all men are misogynists. Secondly, I wanted to highlight that all of human history, including the ancient Egyptians, the Byzantine empire and figures from the neolithic period have always had a third gender category. Therefore, I wanted to highlight that true feminism is about gender equality for all genders.
Here are some questions to think about at the end of this podcast episode:
· Do you identify as a feminist? How do you view feminism?
· Is your opinion based on facts or what someone has told you?
· If your opinion isn’t based on facts, could you do some research in support of feminism?
· Finally, what could you do to help protect women today and going forward?
If you want to learn more, please check out:
Social Psychology: A Guide To Social And Cultural Psychology. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca.
Have a great day.
Social Psychology References and Further Reading
Agostini M., van Zomeren M. (2021). Toward a comprehensive and potentially cross-cultural model of why people engage in collective action: A quantitative research synthesis of four motivations and structural constraints. Psychological Bulletin, 147(7), 667–700.
Hedges, T. (2024). Reclaiming misandry from misogynistic rhetoric. Feminist Review, 136(1), 84-99.
Védie, L. (2021). Hating men will free you? Valerie Solanas in Paris or the discursive politics of misandry. European Journal of Women's Studies, 28(3), 305-319.
Baele S, Brace L, Coan T (2019) From ‘Incel’ to ‘saint’: analyzing the violent worldview behind the 2018 Toronto attack. Terrorism and Political Violence.
Díaz PC, Valji N (2019) Symbiosis of misogyny and violent extremism: new understandings and policy implications. Journal of International Affairs 72(2): 37–56.
Downing N. E., Roush K. L. (1985). From passive acceptance to active commitment: A model of feminist identity development for women. The Counseling Psychologist, 13(4), 695–709.
hooks B. (1984). Feminist theory: From margin to center. Taylor & Francis Group.
Hopkins-Doyle, A., Petterson, A. L., Leach, S., et al. (2024). The Misandry Myth: An Inaccurate Stereotype About Feminists’ Attitudes Toward Men. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 48(1), 8-37.
Morgan R. (2014). Going too far: The personal chronicle of a feminist. Open Road Media.
Pry A, Valiente A (2013) Women battle online anti-women hate from the ‘manosphere’. ABC News, 16 October.
Hamel L., Firth J., Clement S., Brodie M. (2016, January 28). Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation Feminism Survey. Kaiser Family Foundation.
Barroso A. (2020, July 7). 61% of U.S. women say ‘feminist’ describes them well; many see feminism as empowering, polarizing. Pew Research Center.
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