The ironical irony of ironic misandry

Paul Elam, on Manstream Media recently, talked about the lengths Feminists will go to in order to silence men talking about their own issues. “Ironic misandry,” that is, Feminist Approved Misandry, is one such tactic.

This “ironic misandry” is really just loathing in a pathetic, phoney disguise. It’s almost like a primary school girl telling blatant lies, but then claiming immunity from sanction because she secretly had her fingers crossed behind her back. Misandry is hatred by definition, but when the bigotry is called out for what it is, out comes the word “ironic” to dress it up as respectable.

In Slate, Amanda Hess begins the irony in a piece entitled “The rise of the ironic man-hater”.

“Misandry”—literally, the hatred of men—is an accusation that’s been flung at feminists since the dawn of the women’s movement: By empowering women, critics argue, feminists are really oppressing men.

So, for the hard of thinking: women are trying to free themselves from men’s oppression. The men, seeing equality as second best, are just being cry babies and claiming “misandry” when it clearly is not. The claims of misandry, therefore, are yet another example of misogyny.

Now that she has established that Feminists don’t actually hate (this is irony already), Hess gives us some examples of the comedy.

Now, feminists are ironically embracing the man-hating label: The ironic misandrist sips from a mug marked “MALE TEARS,” frosts her cakes with the phrase “KILL ALL MEN,” and affixes “MISANDRY” heart pins to her lapel.

Hess argues that their ardent uptake of this latest fad is just to show how ridiculous it is to accuse Feminists of misandry.

Sarah Begley, of Time, however is concerned that this ironic misandry might… wait for it… give Feminism a bad name. Ironic or what? To avert the damage to the brand, she is insistent that its all just fun. In fact, too insistent.

When feminists joke that they are misandrists, they are riffing off the misguided popular notion that they are man-haters. They mean to satirize the women who say they are not feminists because they love men. It’s an inside, inside joke.

Throughout the piece, Begley continues with these assertions, because, of course, Feminists don’t hate, right? After all, its about equality, right?

Wrong, says Dayna Evans at Gawker. She starts her piece as she means to go on:

***Disclaimer: I hate men. Do not read on if you like men.***

This is another spin on the crossed fingers ploy. She’s declared her hate, and gave her warning, so all responsibility simply evaporates. Evans agrees with Begley up to a point. Begley says:

What feminists really hate is the patriarchy—the web of institutions that systemically oppress women.

But Evans then points out:

We can hate the patriarchy, but doesn’t the patriarchy have to be held up by someone?

With this logic, Evans argues that she is justified in her hatred of men. Again we’re back in the playground, “He started it.”

Surprisingly, Begley makes something of a valid point.

But inherent in this word “misandry” is hatred. And inherent in phrases like “ban men” and “male tears” are cruelty and violence. If a man wore a tee shirt that said “misogynist,” even if he were a dyed-in-the-wool feminist, wearing it tongue-in-cheek, it would not be funny. It would be misguided.

“Misguided” is just mild irony. What is true is that every Feminist mentioned thus far would be screaming blue murder, pointing to it as irrefutable evidence of Patriarchy and systemic misogyny.

Evans responds to Begley’s point:

An interesting point. But Begley fails to mention that men have been wearing misogynist t-shirts since there were men on the planet to wear t-shirts. Simply put, every t-shirt a man wears is, in effect, a misogynist t-shirt, whether it is boldly emblazoned with such text or not.

It seems that men breathing is misogynistic too. But is Evans missing the point of cultivating men as allies?

Do women lose allies by alienating the men who aren’t in on the wink-wink joke? Maybe. Are those men worth losing? Probably.

We can only guess that when she says “maybe” and “probably” she is just being ironic. I don’t think she actually wants any of us on her team.

But, in case you are worried, men don’t need to miss out on the misandric action. In Salon, Haley Krischer shows us that men, or at least some men, can get their ironic misandry pom-poms and cheer from the sidelines.

Men understand this. This includes my husband, who, when I told him I was writing this story, said: “Yeah, men suck.” This doesn’t make him a self-hating man, this just makes him a man who understands the problems men can cause.

Maybe, if we say, “Men suck” really loudly, and really, really, really mean it, Krischer could persuade Evans to lessen her hate for us just a little.

See? I’m getting with the irony program.

Of course, for Krischer, misandry can be funny because it isn’t quite the male equivalent of misogyny. That’s because hating women is far, far worse than hating men.

But the truth is that feminists as a whole, despite what has been perpetuated, don’t hate men or wish for the torment of men. This doesn’t mean that male bashing doesn’t exist. It also doesn’t mean male bashing is somehow equivalent to female bashing. There is nothing equivalent to rape threats, sorry.

Is Krischer being ironic, or does she seriously think that men can’t be raped? Or threatened with rape? Or is it, and this might worry her husband, that men being raped doesn’t actually count.

And I don’t mean “count as rape”. I mean simply “count” as in “who gives a shit?”

It is here that the real irony kicks in. The Politically Correct, led by Feminists have been taking the humour out of humour for decades now. Slapstick is all but gone. Irish jokes, Jewish jokes, miserly Scottish jokes or any other race or nationality jokes are not “ironic racism”, just bigotry. But now the sour-pusses want to paint their own faces and put on the big red nose suddenly “Clowns with a grudge” are in vogue.

Clemintine Ford, in Daily Life, takes Krischer’s indifference to men as a class to another level. She too takes up the Sacred Babble on ironic misandry. For Ford, though, her ironic misandry is saved for a special breed of men: MRAs.

Sorry, Honey Badgers. You just vanished in a puff of irony.

Because it’s ironic, and the bastards deserve it, she can hate as much as she likes. I loves the smell of irony in the morning. It smells like a consequence-free zone.

Humour is a vital tool for feminists lest we lose our marbles completely when dealing with the irrational and factually incorrect bleatings of people who, among other things, argue that sexual violence statistics have been made up by feminist run government agencies to oppress man’s sexual nature.

Now, have sexual violence statistics been made up? They most certainly have. MRAs would agree with this so statement so far. The figures have been manufactured, fabricated, and plucked out of thin air for decades. Is that by Feminist run government agencies? You betcha! MRAs are still on board.

But don’t ask us, with our bleating ways. Ask Dr Murray Strauss (not an MRA), who tells how feminism corrupts domestic violence research (see link below). The sexual violence figures are just as corrupt.

So, then, to the bit on the end, “… to oppress man’s sexual nature.” Is that the ironic bit? It seems to me to be simply the misandric bit. There’s an implication to me that man (not “a few men” or “some men”, just “man” as in “the male of the species”, or “those with a penis”) can only achieve sexual satisfaction when women are abused. Every man. All of them. Every. Single. One.

Yes, Krischer’s husband. That’s you too.

And this is something that Ford claims MRAs are demanding as some kind of right. Not on this site. A Voice for Men’s position on violence has been clear from the start. (Check out the mission statements and other policy statements in the menu bar at the top of this page.) I listened to all of the speakers at the recent International Conference on Men’s Issues (find the links on this site or the main site). Not one speaker made such a claim.

Ford’s claim sounds hateful to me.

I would have said the dodgy figures are to justify a Feminist Funding Frenzy myself, but that’s not the least bit funny. Because there are many Feminist agencies that get government funding as a direct result of those numbers, and they do nothing to prevent sexual violence. They just use the money to “educate”, that is propagandize, and get more statistics. And that’s not funny either.

But the worse is yet to come. At the end of a burst of the Sacred Babble that I cannot parse, never mind summarise, she gives us this piece of misandric bile dressed as light entertainment:

Or, as the little girl in It’s A Wonderful Life might put it, everytime a bell rings, a family court judge kidnaps a man’s children from him.

First, let’s look at Ford’s own justification on why this special kind of hate is alright.

There’s a generally understood rule about sensitivity in comedy, and it is that jokes must seek to kick up not down. Simply put, it is funny to make sport of the people and institutions who enjoy power and privilege in the world because they have not only the means to defend themselves but also the luxury of being rewarded simply for existing. On the other hand, it isn’t funny to make sport of the people on the lowest rungs of the ladder because it’s like ganging up on someone smaller than you.

So just who, exactly, is ringing those bells? Ex-Family Law Court judge David Collier (not an MRA) said on his retirement that false abuse claims are “one of the ways of completely shutting husbands out of the child’s life.” This tactic, he said, was not only commonly used, but the frequency was increasing. And this, of course, is because the tactic is successful.

So who is the smaller? In the blue corner we have the mother, backed by the Family Court, the police, the social workers and other arms of the government. And let’s not forget a sympathetic media.

In the red corner, all on his lonesome, is the father being kicked out of his children’s lives. And as long as he’s trying to fight it in the Family Court, his lawyers are bleeding him dry.

And Ford, as any caring, consultative, inclusive, empathetic Feminist would do, stops her laughter just long enough to get a cup of his tears.

Other than the usual angst ridden, hand wringing guff of Feminists that I call the Sacred Babble, this “ironic misandry” is simply hatred with big sunglasses and a badly fitting wig.

And the disguise just makes them look uglier.