Trigger warning for brief mentions of rape.
Ozy and I were talking over what we’ve learned from hashing gender issues out on this blog, how writing about things has clarified our thinking, what answers we’ve been able to glean, what we’ve learned from discussing these matters with others, and we noticed a very specific and predictable pattern. Any theory or ideology that is based on a big and usually bullshit generalization about women invariably carries with it an unspoken corollary: a big and usually bullshit generalization about men. And vice versa.
Try this out on some of your favorite misogynist and misandrist tropes, it’s fun. Men are all slobs… women should be keeping house. Women need to cover up their bodies or they deserve to be raped… men are animals who commit immediate rape at the sight of cleavage. Women are all gold-diggers… men are only valuable for their success and money. Women are only valuable for their looks… men are all shallow. I can keep this up all night, ladies. (…men like dumb sex jokes.)
Based on this, we are proposing a rule of thumb that we’re calling Ozy’s Law: It is impossible to form a stereotype about either of the two primary genders without simultaneously forming a concurrent and complementary stereotype about the other.
Or, more simply: Misandry mirrors misogyny.
This isn’t to say that in any given case, the misandry and misogyny are necessarily equivalent. Sometimes they are, other times one or the other definitely predominates. But they’re always paired. Often they’re just an unspoken assumption, something people are taking for granted as axiomatic. The problem is that it’s possible to question one half of an unspoken assumption without even really examining the other half.
Thus, you get women who (rightly) complain about the wage gap without seeing how men are made into “success objects”. You get men who complain about the stupid-manchild-husband trope in media, without seeing that it always comes with the humorless-killjoy-wife trope. You get people unable to see past their own sense of grievance to look at how the system that’s hurting them is hurting other people.
Feminism has been having this problem for a while, and is only starting to engage with it. More and more feminists are realizing that men’s issues have gone undiscussed for a long time, and are too intricately bound up in women’s issues to be ignored any longer. This is evidenced by, for example, the existence of this blog and the many incoming links to it from prominent feminist spaces. I think that’s a good trend and one to encourage, especially given how, if we’re taking Ozy’s Law as true, most feminism has been effectively blind in one eye. A lot of ugly stuff and a lot of pain has gone unnoticed by a movement dedicated to unpacking and examining the stuff that used to go unnoticed. That’s not good, but at least it’s starting to change.
About Noah Brand
Cher said it earlier in the movie to Tai but what i’m talking about is later on when Murphy’s character became popular she turns around and says it to Tai, despite showing interest in him earlier in the movie. And in that context I certainly take it as a “know your place” comment.
Murphy’s character is the one named Tai. Breckin Meyer’s character is named Travis. And like I said, the time I remember it is when he has cleaned up and is no longer on the Grassy Knoll
In any case, I think it’s not a good phrase because to the majority of the population, the term refers to the JFK assassination.
Eh I got the character names mixed up (but that line is used twice in the movie, once by Cher and once by Tai, both to Travis). I guess Im just weird like that.
In short: This. All of it. Good.
On feminism: I can’t help but feel that the feminist community is a perfect test case for the social change they claim they want to effect. You have a lot of well-meaning people who are too wrapped up in Being A Feminist to realize that they’re an active contributor to culture, even if that means going against an idea or person that has been stamped FEMINIST. Not at all unlike fandoms where pecking order is based on who has best memorized canon.
Although I don’t know if that’s better or worse. Instead of a gaggle of misandrists, you have generally good people with a huge self-imposed blind spot, and who have allowed the extremists to wrest control of the movement.
illannoying:
“Instead of a gaggle of misandrists, you have generally good people with a huge self-imposed blind spot, and who have allowed the extremists to wrest control of the movement.”
Something like that, yes. I remember from my youth how very sensible people just to the left of the political middle avoided criticizing the communist dictatorship in the Soviet Union to any large degree, and those just to the right of the middle avoided criticizing the “right-wing” dictators in Latin America. I got a sense of a primitive “don’t give them an inch, or they’ll run you over” defensive reaction. Very, very unproductive as I see it. But a very common reaction pattern in humans. At least two successful and popular schools/tools in psychotherapy (Motivational Interviewing and Cognitive Therapy) derive much of their success from being careful to avoid eliciting this general group of reactions. The trick (VERY simplified) is to not tell people what you think they ought to change (which elicits the defensive reaction), but to ask them questions that guides them towards getting the idea themselves that they want to change these things.
After I read this I let out a huge sigh of relief. All I can think is Finally someone else “gets it”. I think I’m really going to like it here.
Hi,
This post is spot-on what we were trying to say in our Hebrew feminist blog.
Can I please translate this into Hebrew and publish on our blog, with due credit and trackback, of course?
Tal
@Tal: Sure, feel free. And thanks for asking.