“Misogyny” once upon a time meant an irrational hatred of women, ‘irrational’ being the operative word, it has now expanded it’s definition.
In 2021 it means :
Any criticism of a woman or groups of women.
Disagreement with the aims of feminist ideology.
Any display of anger directed at a woman or women generally.
It apparently lies behind all male on female violence.
Much like “racism” it has become so ubiquitous it’s virtually meaningless, except that the use of it identifies the person using it as someone who thinks in a particular way.
Admirable post, thank you. I’d voice similar opinions but don’t want to be doxxed and accused of, well, misogyny. In seriousness , you have adroitly skewered yet another instance of a word being weaponized by a cadre of puritans to shut down debate. Not new, but it’s depressing that so many have failed to grow out of the behavior.
Or maybe in a world in which men have overwhelming physical, political and material advantages, the abuse of this power is only starting to be now called out. Thus standard patriarchal behaviour cannot be dismissed as banter. Maybe the world is becoming a more equal place – but many are not comfortable with this.
The problem is perceiving patriarchy as bad in the first place. It was a system designed to keep men in line, and yes, perhaps reward them too. Without patriarchy, women have to look to the state to protect them, and now that transgender ideology has the West in its group, the state is doing away with the notion of women altogether, thus removing any special protections they once had under the much bemoaned ‘patriarchy’.
Agree – taking the hammer to something one half understands usually has unintended effects. The other predictable outcome is that the cheerleaders for change are conspicuous by their absence when the sh*t hits the fan.
The thing is Matty, human beings don’t change, behaviour may be forced on us by tyranny but as soon as we are left to our own devices we’ll return to the default.
Patriarchal societies evolved along with us, the humans. “The Patriarchy” is only a feminist theory not an historical reality.
Instead of the old co-operation between the se xes, which lasted hundreds of thousands of years, the current market driven competition between men and women for jobs, status and money across the West, is resulting in a fall in the birth rate of Europeans, but just 65 years ago it was rising post war.
Things change all the time, nothing stays the same for long.
For another angle to this series of replies please examine: https://www.marcluyckx.be/english it offers a different perspective of the meaning of patriarchy
Women are by a small margin the majority of the population, and the political landscape is what they have chosen (they elected Biden for example).
Women have been a majority of graduates for 25 years. If they have not used this to achieve the commanding heights of society, with all the hard work and personal sacrifice this entails, then that is by choice.
Men are more likely to be homeless, be in jail, commit suicide, and undertake the most dangerous and uncomfortable jobs in society, accounting for virtually all deaths and injuries in the workplace.
There are no rights that a man has that are denied to a woman, and that now has been true for some time.
So to assert “the abuse of this [patriachal] power is only starting to be now called out” bears little relation to reality.
Dustshoe Richinrut
2 years ago
America endeavoured to be snap, crackle and pop! Instead it had ended up snap, crack-up and pot. But at least it tried. Tried to lead the way. Such that Americans can say that they are guilty, but “not so dern awful guilty” as the old saying in the Wild West went.
America did its best to lift the world. It was like a child trying to entertain its younger sibling: the more carried away it got, the less the sibling responded. Until too many whirls tipped the act to the ground. The world needs to save America now, if the world can be bothered. But the world is a feckless lot. Otherwise America will no longer be able to bail the world out. Give you one example: the functioning of the world’s trade over the past sixty-five years about has only been possible because of the US Navy. The alleviation of poverty around the world would not have been possible without America’s navy. It’s time the world became a little more American. Not wholly. But it’s high time, in fact, that it should be a little more.
Simon Denis
2 years ago
A very interesting article. It seems, if I have read it aright, to diagnose alcoholism as the root of the man’s problems, but one can’t help wondering whether the “anomie” of American and now western society lies deeper still. It’s the complete absence of motive and / or commitment which is key, no? And might this not arise from some degree of isolation? Which in turn relates to the withering away of all those structures and conventions which bound and rooted people: family, religion, active society? Yes, these involve downsides; people try to escape them; and drunks exist in traditional societies – but to the same degree? In the same number? The American / western “dream” of self-realisation may not be for everyone – and a “self” may depend more for its coherence and solidity on a cultural setting than we have allowed for many years – “Anywheres” and “Somewheres” again, but this time with direct, psychological implications.
Last edited 2 years ago by Simon Denis
Dustshoe Richinrut
2 years ago
In that twee-settee setting that is the picture above, updated, only one member of the family today would be watching the bright big box. The rest would be on their phones. Where’s the family dog? It would be asleep: the only sane creature were it so.
(A potted plant on to of a TV? Better not water that one!).
My mother persisted in putting a pot plant on the top of the telly in the 70s… how we didn’t die of electrocution (or electrocution followed by immolation) I still can’t fathom. Mind you, we kids were slowly succumbing to the blue fog of fag smoke which filled the lounge and so I suspect awareness of any impending doom might have been, well, somewhat blunted.
Last edited 2 years ago by Richard Parker
Drahcir Nevarc
2 years ago
Interesting article. The author’s own enthusiasm for the subject comes through, which always makes for pleasant reading.
LCarey Rowland
2 years ago
The missing element in this developing Great American story is: Work.
Real work. Not Writing, not couch-sitting in parental homesteads, but real work, as was done in Steinbeck’s agricultural California, back in the day, or in Oklahoma before the Dust Disaster changed the American work ethic forever.
Work, for pay, a “job” that must be maintained while the next Steinbeck or Hemingway or St.King is being cultivated in the fields of literary favor.
Work, as in . . . a side job, something to pay the bills until Simon & Schu or Random Haha decides to check their over-the-transom Inbox and then discover . . . Marlon Brando, sweating it out down on the docks, or Forrest Gump discovering the utility of labor on a shrimp boat.
Work. That’s what’s missing in the new great American vision. Real work that is maintained until your ship comes in . . .
“Misogyny” once upon a time meant an irrational hatred of women, ‘irrational’ being the operative word, it has now expanded it’s definition.
In 2021 it means :
Any criticism of a woman or groups of women.
Disagreement with the aims of feminist ideology.
Any display of anger directed at a woman or women generally.
It apparently lies behind all male on female violence.
Much like “racism” it has become so ubiquitous it’s virtually meaningless, except that the use of it identifies the person using it as someone who thinks in a particular way.
Admirable post, thank you. I’d voice similar opinions but don’t want to be doxxed and accused of, well, misogyny. In seriousness , you have adroitly skewered yet another instance of a word being weaponized by a cadre of puritans to shut down debate. Not new, but it’s depressing that so many have failed to grow out of the behavior.
Or maybe in a world in which men have overwhelming physical, political and material advantages, the abuse of this power is only starting to be now called out. Thus standard patriarchal behaviour cannot be dismissed as banter. Maybe the world is becoming a more equal place – but many are not comfortable with this.
The problem is perceiving patriarchy as bad in the first place. It was a system designed to keep men in line, and yes, perhaps reward them too. Without patriarchy, women have to look to the state to protect them, and now that transgender ideology has the West in its group, the state is doing away with the notion of women altogether, thus removing any special protections they once had under the much bemoaned ‘patriarchy’.
Agree – taking the hammer to something one half understands usually has unintended effects. The other predictable outcome is that the cheerleaders for change are conspicuous by their absence when the sh*t hits the fan.
Sorry, I would’ve replied faster but have only just got my breath back. Haven’t laughed so hard in ages. Thanks for the lolz…
More equal ? Never has income inequality been worse.
The ravings about gender equality are merely attempts to disguise the fact that many women are oppressors.
The thing is Matty, human beings don’t change, behaviour may be forced on us by tyranny but as soon as we are left to our own devices we’ll return to the default.
Patriarchal societies evolved along with us, the humans. “The Patriarchy” is only a feminist theory not an historical reality.
Instead of the old co-operation between the se xes, which lasted hundreds of thousands of years, the current market driven competition between men and women for jobs, status and money across the West, is resulting in a fall in the birth rate of Europeans, but just 65 years ago it was rising post war.
Things change all the time, nothing stays the same for long.
For another angle to this series of replies please examine: https://www.marcluyckx.be/english it offers a different perspective of the meaning of patriarchy
Women are by a small margin the majority of the population, and the political landscape is what they have chosen (they elected Biden for example).
Women have been a majority of graduates for 25 years. If they have not used this to achieve the commanding heights of society, with all the hard work and personal sacrifice this entails, then that is by choice.
Men are more likely to be homeless, be in jail, commit suicide, and undertake the most dangerous and uncomfortable jobs in society, accounting for virtually all deaths and injuries in the workplace.
There are no rights that a man has that are denied to a woman, and that now has been true for some time.
So to assert “the abuse of this [patriachal] power is only starting to be now called out” bears little relation to reality.
America endeavoured to be snap, crackle and pop! Instead it had ended up snap, crack-up and pot. But at least it tried. Tried to lead the way. Such that Americans can say that they are guilty, but “not so dern awful guilty” as the old saying in the Wild West went.
America did its best to lift the world. It was like a child trying to entertain its younger sibling: the more carried away it got, the less the sibling responded. Until too many whirls tipped the act to the ground. The world needs to save America now, if the world can be bothered. But the world is a feckless lot. Otherwise America will no longer be able to bail the world out. Give you one example: the functioning of the world’s trade over the past sixty-five years about has only been possible because of the US Navy. The alleviation of poverty around the world would not have been possible without America’s navy. It’s time the world became a little more American. Not wholly. But it’s high time, in fact, that it should be a little more.
A very interesting article. It seems, if I have read it aright, to diagnose alcoholism as the root of the man’s problems, but one can’t help wondering whether the “anomie” of American and now western society lies deeper still. It’s the complete absence of motive and / or commitment which is key, no? And might this not arise from some degree of isolation? Which in turn relates to the withering away of all those structures and conventions which bound and rooted people: family, religion, active society? Yes, these involve downsides; people try to escape them; and drunks exist in traditional societies – but to the same degree? In the same number? The American / western “dream” of self-realisation may not be for everyone – and a “self” may depend more for its coherence and solidity on a cultural setting than we have allowed for many years – “Anywheres” and “Somewheres” again, but this time with direct, psychological implications.
In that twee-settee setting that is the picture above, updated, only one member of the family today would be watching the bright big box. The rest would be on their phones. Where’s the family dog? It would be asleep: the only sane creature were it so.
(A potted plant on to of a TV? Better not water that one!).
My mother persisted in putting a pot plant on the top of the telly in the 70s… how we didn’t die of electrocution (or electrocution followed by immolation) I still can’t fathom. Mind you, we kids were slowly succumbing to the blue fog of fag smoke which filled the lounge and so I suspect awareness of any impending doom might have been, well, somewhat blunted.
Interesting article. The author’s own enthusiasm for the subject comes through, which always makes for pleasant reading.
The missing element in this developing Great American story is: Work.
Real work. Not Writing, not couch-sitting in parental homesteads, but real work, as was done in Steinbeck’s agricultural California, back in the day, or in Oklahoma before the Dust Disaster changed the American work ethic forever.
Work, for pay, a “job” that must be maintained while the next Steinbeck or Hemingway or St.King is being cultivated in the fields of literary favor.
Work, as in . . . a side job, something to pay the bills until Simon & Schu or Random Haha decides to check their over-the-transom Inbox and then discover . . . Marlon Brando, sweating it out down on the docks, or Forrest Gump discovering the utility of labor on a shrimp boat.
Work. That’s what’s missing in the new great American vision. Real work that is maintained until your ship comes in . . .