Degrees of Misogyny

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by Bowser, Nov 13, 2015.

  1. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Correct. So there is an obvious and substantive difference.
     
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  3. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    It's wrong anyway. As a linguist you should recognize when a dictionary that eschews prescription is handing you a muddle in its down-list definitions due to a prevalence of imprecise and mistaken usage in the general public.

    Sexism is obviously not a synonym for misogyny, simply on grounds of gender specificity - right? Then turn to whether misogyny is based on traditional stereotypes of gender roles (it isn't), and by the time you have considered whether misogyny (or sexism) can be accurately described as an "attitude", you should realize you have a problem with your dictionary.
     
    Last edited: Dec 30, 2015
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  5. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    "According to sociologist Allan G. Johnson, "misogyny is a cultural attitude of hatred for females because they are female." Johnson argues that:

    'Misogyny .... is a central part of sexist prejudice and ideology and, as such, is an important basis for the oppression of females in male-dominated societies. Misogyny is manifested in many different ways, from jokes to pornography to violence to the self-contempt women may be taught to feel toward their own bodies.[4]'

    Sociologist Michael Flood, at the University of Wollongong, defines misogyny as the hatred of women, and notes:

    'Though most common in men, misogyny also exists in and is practiced by women against other women or even themselves. Misogyny functions as an ideology or belief system that has accompanied patriarchal, or male-dominated societies for thousands of years and continues to place women in subordinate positions with limited access to power and decision making. […] Aristotle contended that women exist as natural deformities or imperfect males […] Ever since, women in Western cultures have internalised their role as societal scapegoats, influenced in the twenty-first century by multimedia objectification of women with its culturally sanctioned self-loathing and fixations on plastic surgery, anorexia and bulimia.[5]'===https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misogyny




     
    Last edited: Dec 31, 2015
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  7. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    To which? Point me at it, or post it again. I'll do my best to answer.
     
  8. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    In some sense, an interesting discussion. The interesting question is why should one care?

    In a normal society, it would be natural that some people, usually men, hate women. This is common and natural - people who have made negative experiences with several members of a group tend to develop negative prejudices against the whole group, and prefer the company of people from other groups, where they fared better. Of course, unjust, but such is life. There is a simple solution for this problem for the members of the despised group as well as for the individuals with such prejudices - to avoid contact. For the members of the despised group, it may be useful to have a name for such individuals, so that they can warn other members of the group, but "don't talk to him, he hates ...." will do it too. In particular, no precise definition is necessary.

    What can, now, create a necessity to get precise, accurate definitions for such inherently imprecise things like having some prejudices against some groups?

    There is one natural reason for this: The wish for security. If being an antiXYZ becomes a crime - thought crime or real violation of a law does not matter - one wants to be safe of the accusation of being an antiXYZ. And this safety can be obtained only by a precise definition.

    Once one recognizes this background, one can evaluate the proposals made by various people. One can expect (and usually observes) two groups: One group prefers a wide, broad, comprehensive definition, the other a tight, narrow, precise one. What does this tell us about these groups?

    In a free society, as explained, nobody would argue about this, except a few linguists, and the position of these linguists would not tell us much about them. This is different in a society where being an antiXYZ becomes a serious accusation and where one has to think about defending oneself against such an accusation. This already gives a motivation for one camp: Defense of the own freedom by restricting the domain of what is forbidden by a narrow definition of the forbidden behavior.

    But what is the motivation of the other side? The most plausible motivation seems that this other group wants to be able to use the antiXYZ-accusation to attack other people. In this case, a wide definition increases the number of those one can attack.

    Let's see what happens in the extremal cases: If those who prefer a narrow definition win, we have a free society. The antiXYZs will be reduced to those who have murdered several XYZ because they are XYZ, thus, deserve criminal punishment anyway, and one is, again, free not to like the XYZ. The other extremum is what I name a totalitarian society: Nobody can be sure that he cannot be accused to be an anitXYZ, there will be no real possibility of defense because the definition is so wide that everybody fits, and the penalty for being an antiXYZ will be harsh. What is XYZ plays exactly no role here.

    So, one can understand the fight between the narrow and the wide definition as a fight of freedom against totalitarianism. But let's note that it is a fight where the totalitarians are on the winning side. Why? If the freedom fighters would be on the winning side, they would react differently. Like "I have had some bad experiences with XYZs, so that I prefer a company without XYZs. I simply don't like A, and in my experience XYZs often like to do A. In this sense, I'm fine if you name me antiXYZ. But this is nothing serious, I just don't like A." If the freedom fighters already defend not the right to hate XYZ, the totalitarians are already on the winning side.
     
  9. Waiter_2001 Registered Senior Member

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    No one hates women (everyone loves them) and homosexuality does not exist! I'd be interested to hear the Darwinian explanation for the evolution of homosexuality!

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  10. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    1) Neither misogyny nor sexism necessarily involves hatred, and most perps are not self-aware enough to manage their own behavior.

    2) Misogynistic men are strongly motivated, by sex as well as other psychiatric compulsions, toward making contact with women. Avoidance of women is not a "solution" for them, but a severe penalty that would have to be enforced by law.

    3) Sexism is often designed to force women to avoid men, and vice versa, by excluding women from high paying jobs and positions of social power, in severe cases even the freedom of walking down the street. Having women avoid men exacerbates the harm done by sexism.

    4) Women cannot avoid contact with men except by essentially imprisoning themselves, restricting their lives, joining a convent or the like.
     
  11. Waiter_2001 Registered Senior Member

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    The women could kill the men...
     
  12. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    This is another interesting aspect of modern Western discourse - psychiatrization. In a classical discourse, it is completely normal to have personal preferences and aversions. And one is supposed to behave in an adequate way, taking into account these personal likes or dislikes: One prefers the company of those one likes. Misogyny means one does not like women, and, thus, one is expected to prefer the company of men.

    In the modern discourse, misogyny means not only a deviation of the usual preferences - what is added, is also a completely irrational, psychiatric deviation from the normal way to handle such a difference in preferences. In (1) the misogynist is not aware of his hatred, and in (2) he even wants more contact with what he hates. In above cases, we have a psychiatric deviation from a normal reaction to specific own preferences. What makes this interesting is not the trivial fact that almost everything can happen also in some psychiatric variant, but that the very existence of the the normal variant - a misogynist who is aware that he hates women, and, therefore, prefers a company of men - is questioned. Every misogynist is psychiatric, needs medical help, or, even better, compulsory hospitalization.

    The other two points are also interesting. As the normal reaction to misogyny I have proposed, for the misogynist, to stay away from women, and for the women, to give those who hate women a name - misogynist - so that they can tell each other who is misogynist, to stay away from misogynists. But, sorry, from misogynists, not from all men. But the reaction is as if I would have proposed women to stay away from all men:
    I remember a similar reaction in a past discussion of segregation. My point was if racists prefer the company of people of the own race, fine. Allow them to segregate. There have been similar reactions, as if I would have argued for racial segregation. What I'm afraid is that this is not some intentional misinterpretation of my position, but a quite unintentional error based on the wide, broad interpretation of the evil property: If women would decide to avoid contact with misogynists, they would have to avoid contact with all men, because, in the wide, broad sense every man is suspect to be a misogynist. Simiarly, if blacks would prefer not to have contact with racists, they cannot have contact with any white people, because in the wide, broad definition of racism all white people are suspect to be racists.

    At a first look, quite strange - in the first two points, the misogynists are reduced to a small minority of the misogynists, those with an extremal, psychiatric variant variant of misogyny. In the second two points they are extended to all men. But if one looks at this from the position of my previous post http://www.sciforums.com/threads/degrees-of-misogyny.153037/page-9#post-3349165 all fits nicely. The totalitarian society has to present everybody as suspect of being a dangerious, psychiatric monster.
     
  13. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Is this what you are looking for an answer to?
     
  14. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Homosexuality exists in the animal world. It is not a human construct.

    It is speculated to have evolved possibly as a way of relieving sexual tension (thus avoiding unnecessary fighting and death) in an overpopulated community where breeding mates may be scarce.
     
  15. PhysBang Valued Senior Member

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    I think it is more likely that homosexuality is just something that you get when you have a population with a strong sex drive. The targeting mechanism, from the point of view of reproduction, is off target.

    But it would be foolish to try to derive a morality from evolution.
     
  16. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    But there is sex and family and so forth, which means the misogynist is strongly motivated to seek out and maintain a proximity to women. Hence the problem. If the misogynists would all go live in the woods somewhere and avoid women and not blight their lives via sexism, we would have much less trouble with misogyny. And many fewer men walking around in the public streets of the US, sitting in corporate offices, etc.

    The objection to your nonsense was that you were overlooking the central issues of wealth and control. We do in fact have the voluntary segregation you argue for, in the US, and it leads directly to serious oppression of black people, all of the evils of racial segregation, if not curbed, because white folks own all the stuff and possess all the power. The preferences of the rich and powerful have to be restricted in their influence over the rest of society, if you want liberty and freedom for most people.
     
  17. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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  18. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Apologies Tiassa, I am not trying to be deliberately obtuse; I did not see the link there. You have pointed to this post, which contains two questions:

    What are you asking me here? Who said the above quote? How am I supposed to answer this question?

    This sounds like another quote. Who is saying these things? What is it you'd like me to parse? Someone's expressed thoughts? How would I know?

    Can you phrase these in a way that I can answer them - at least give some context in which they were said? I will do my best.
     
    Last edited: Dec 31, 2015
  19. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    It's too prevalent, in humans. A targeting mechanism that prone to error would have been under extraordinary selection pressure for the last few million years - it's a direct reproductive hit combined with full gestational and developmental costs, right in the wheelhouse of Darwinian selection.

    More likely: an "error" with an elimination cost has instead become a feature, by acquiring valuable roles.
     
  20. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Aye, sir, that would be the one.

    Then again, tomorrow is [American] football and beer. Today for some folks. Er ... all I can say of your later inquiry is that I'm presently having a hard time comprehending how you're missing the device.

    Meanwhile, there is this symbol of the New Year; be well, sir.

    In truth, I'm not giving this thread much thought until ... sometime after football and beer.
     
  21. Schmelzer Valued Senior Member

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    He has some motivation, which he shares with everybody else. He has a personal aversion. This may be a problem, may be not. If the society is tolerant enough, it would misogynists to live without much contact with women. Actually society seem interested to destroy all possibilities for misogynists to live without much contact with women.
    This is already beyond my understanding. If you have a problem with a lot of men (instead of, say, aggressive misogynists) walking around in the public streets of the US, you seem to have simply a problem with your own misandry. What else?
     
  22. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    May the force be with your team.

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  23. Waiter_2001 Registered Senior Member

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    I do not have a problem with homosexuality! I believe it is perfectly possible for one man to love another: I am male and I love my Father. Of course it's a different type of love, but love regardless. I also like lesbians but I do not know any personally.
     

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