Men's Awareness

Misandry. You may have never even heard this word before, yet it is everywhere. The Free Dictionary defines it simply as hatred of men. Growing up as a male in America, I've been made aware of what is considered sexism towards women. I have been taught throughout the entire process of growing up, and even into adult life, that anything I could say or do that is hateful or degrading to women is WRONG for me to say. I have been taught this even if I have no natural inclination towards hate. For example, respectable male news anchors would never degrade a woman's private parts on any respectable TV news show, like, for example, The Today Show. Why is it then, that hardly anyone made a fuss when Today Show host Katie Couric asked a jilted bride during an interview "have you considered castration as an option?". Do you think a male anchor who asked "have you considered ripping her uterus out as an option?" would still have his job the next day?

Misandry doesn't end with Katie Couric and it did not begin with her either. Her comment stands out, but anti-male sentiment has spread itself through popular culture without the same "social filter" through which negative speech or even harmless jokes about women are often suppressed. Glenn Sacks notices the anti-father bias in TV commercials. Glenn says this: "I've often complained about the way men and fathers are mocked and denigrated in television commercials. In November, 2004 we launched the Campaign Against Anti-Father Verizon Commercial, asking Verizon to stop running the commercial "Homework." In that ad a bumbling father tries to help his little daughter with her homework and is treated with contempt by both the girl and her mother, who orders the father to "leave her alone" and "go wash the dog." Our campaign made 300 newspapers, and the Verizon ad stopped running a few weeks later." Now, Glenn is out to ask Volvo not to give a contract to an ad agency that has a history of making anti-father advertisements. The company is Arnold Worldwide, they made the commercial where the father wins a ping-pong match against his very young daughter and begins to gloat and go into some sort of a victory dance while the girl just stands there expressionless. They also made a commercial with an anti-male spin where a man is parking a car with a woman in the passenger seat who is probably his wife or girlfriend. The man acted like parking the car was a major accomplishment, then the camera pans out to show the parking lot is empty. His female companion looks disgusted and walks away. Arnold's next anti-male advertisement was an ad which shows a man playing with a kid's toy in a pediatrician's waiting room while a little girl and two women stare at him with disgust. Arnold made this statement: "Put simply, our work speaks the truth. It always comes out of the truth of the brand and connects with consumers in ways that we’ve found ring true with them." Glenn made this statement: "Portraying men and fathers as idiots is "the truth"?" He is trying to influence Volvo to use a company called Euro RSCG to fulfill their advertising needs. Euro is one of the companies currently competing for a contract with Volvo. Click here to e-mail and fax a letter to Volvo executives.

In Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture (Paperback) (Amazon) authors Paul Nathanson and Katherine K. Young detail how contempt for men has become so ingrained into popular culture that it, like misogyny at one point in the past, is hard for people to recognize, even men. Katherine K. Young is a Tenured college professor. She admits that prevents her from being fearful of how her book might impact her career. It is not surprising she would have such an apprehension considering some women have made comments to her, calling her the enemy.

Another book by the two is Legalizing Misandry: From Public Shame to Systemic Discrimination Against Men (Hardcover) (Amazon) details the anti-male laws and biases against men in the legal system.

Anti-male and female-first bias can also be found in the legal system when you look at outcomes of divorce and custody cases. Similar patterns also show themselves as special treatment for female sex offenders versus male sex offenders. However, those topics are for another article.

Greeting cards are one of the new outlets for man-hating. Here are some of them:

American Greetings Card: The outside of the card says "Men are always whining about how we are suffocating them." The inside says: "Personally, I think if you can hear them whining, you're not pressing hard enough on the pillow."

3M Post-it Notes: "Men have only two faults: everything they say and everything they do."

Hallmark Shoebox Card: "Men are scum ... Excuse me. For a second there I was feeling generous."

In an article by a man named John Leo called 'Anti-male bias increasingly pervades our culture', this is an interesting quote from it: "Barbara Wilder-Smith, a teacher and researcher in the Boston area, was recently quoted in several newspapers on how deeply anti-male attitudes have affected the schools. When she made "Boys Are Good" T-shirts for boys in her class, all 10 of the female student teachers under her supervision objected to the message. (One, she said, was wearing a button saying "So many men, so little intelligence.")."

Women's studies classes are riddled with bad statistics about domestic violence and rape like these following nuggets of untruth: 79% (probably more) of domestic violence incidents are caused by men, 1 out of 4 women are sexually assaulted (or 1 out of 3 depending on the class), anything men say can be sexual harassment. The fact is that women are just as likely as men to commit domestic violence according to blind studies from different independent organizations in the U.S., U.K. and Australia. More on that in future articles, but the point is there is a male-bashing bias in college-feminist culture, which has created classes that allow misandry both in and out of the classroom. V-day on the university campuses is a good example of how it works outside of the class. The day that is built around chivalry (men spend 75% of all of the gift money on valentine's day in the U.S.) is used by campus feminists to remind everyone just how violent-natured and naturally abusive to women men are. The real truth is that where there are a lot of bad men, it is generally men's instincts to protect women and if they gave any acknowledgment of that they wouldn't be able to exploit it so effectively.

There is an article called Male-Bashing is Unacceptable by Terri Stoddard, a grandmother and single mother who is associated with at least one family rights group. From the article (she relates to an article she read elsewhere): "I read an article called "Are You Going to Let Him Manipulate You?" on a website called Latin Bay Area. Like so many articles I come across on abusive relationships, the author chose to label all males as perpetrators and all females as victims. While I applaud Maria Marin's desire to empower women, like many others she does it by degrading men. I find this unacceptable."