Rumination on Misogyny

[malthaussen]

X-post from GD, where I presume it will fall dead-born from the press. FWIW.

I have been ruminating a bit on the issue of misogyny here at DU, and thought to share the fruits of my labor so far. And I will start by referencing a different, if related subject, that of rape.

When the woman says the man raped her, and the man says she loved it, in the absence of witnesses, whom are we to believe, or if not believe, grant the greater benefit of the doubt? Now, the moderate and even-handed individual might, at first blush, sadly shake his head and say that, since it is the man's word against the woman's, no determination can be made. Let's look a little deeper at that, though. The first objection to that position that occurs to me is this: by proclaiming neutrality, we automatically cast doubt on the woman's word. This is inescapable: we are telling her that her assertion has no validity unless she can prove it. Yet no such burden lies on the man, and in fact we implicitly endorse his assertion that she loved it by not questioning it. Of course, if the opposite were true, and we discounted the man's word out of hand and accepted hers, then we are denying validity to him while placing no burden on her. But since this is not the practice, it is an empty point, although one might wish to ruminate on whether it is a greater injustice to be falsely accused, than to be bereft of recourse.

But let's look a little deeper, if you will. The second thing that strikes me in this situation is that the woman, in asserting rape, is making a statement about herself. She is telling us what happened to her body, her psyche, her right to her own physical and emotional integrity. The man who asserts she loved it, however, is making a statement not about himself, but about someone else. One might reasonably ask which has the greater claim to authority, in this case: the one who speaks of herself, about whom she could reasonably be assumed to have rather more certain knowledge and understanding than you or I, or the one who speaks of another person, and arrogates to himself the final word on what she did or did not feel, did or did not experience. To me, this seems rather a telling point.

So now we proceed, willy-nilly, to misogyny. I have seen, recently, rather a number of conversation threads that go like this: A, a female, states "I have seen/experienced a lot of misogyny here on DU. B, a male, responds "It's not a lot, and those who do it are banned." These threads usually go rapidly downhill from there.

How, then, does my earlier rambling about rape relate here? Well, it occurs to me that if an individual says she has experienced certain behavior, she is rather more of an authority on her experience than the interlocutor who tells her she is misrepresenting/misinterpreting the situation. Whereas the individual who asserts that her experience is a misrepresentation/misinterpretation is arrogating to himself veritable status as arbiter of what does and does not constitute misogyny, and who does or does not experience it.

Another thought occurs to me, unrelated to the rape illustration, but with bearing on the question of misogyny. I am a male. In 58 years of life, I have never been subjected to misogyny, and never shall. It is, one might say, a biological necessity. I may have experienced other forms of bigotry, insult, belittlement: I have never felt misogyny. I may have witnessed acts, been exposed to circumstances or statements to which I would attach my own definition of the word, still I have never experienced misogyny. It is not, therefore, for me to define the phenomenon for those who have had such experience. It is rather for me to learn from them, that I might become wary enough to recognize it, and courageous enough to oppose it.

-- Mal

[seabeyond]

1. good post. and related. a couple men were saying, where... is the misogyny. after hours insisting

there is relatively little. i did a quick post naming off 20? more or less, situations. recent'ish and easily to grab from memory. both these men said, so sorry you experienced, that was wrong, shouldnt happen.

next breath out of both mouth is, where is all the sexism on du.

[seabeyond]

3. hm

[seabeyond]

5. who are you

[seabeyond]

8. always good.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

6. Welcome back to DU. Enjoy your stay.

[seabeyond]

9. lol my woman. nt

[malthaussen]

16. Dear hijacker;

Welcome to DU. I regret this thread does not have enough fuel to make Cuba. I request you take this discussion to PM.

-- Mal

[RandySF]

11. In our legal system, the hand tilts toward the accused..

as the burden of proof is on the accuser. As for whom people outside of the court should believe, I would tend to believe that, given the trauma of such an event, the accuser is probably right. Best I not be on a jury.

[malthaussen]

14. I think it is reasonable that the hand should so tilt.

It is the most vexatious question of a system of justice, and no solution as yet derived can satisfy both the falsely accused, and the victim without proof. I would think, a priori, that particularly in cases of sexual assault, there would be less of a tendancy towards false accusation because of the tribulations of making such. But it would be hard to demonstrate this objectively.

Of course, the post is intended to be about misogyny, and not rape. No criminal charges as yet apply to misogyny, so one might argue that the consequences of a false accusation are less than in a criminal case. Yet one does have a right to a good reputation, provided he does nothing to disallow him from such, so it cannot be claimed that no damage results in such a case.

-- Mal

[DURHAM D]

17. One more post and you can start an OP. nt

[seabeyond]

19. kicking your thread. sorry about thecdude whatever his isßue. nt

[malthaussen]

20. I found him funny, actually. I was just pushing for that DUzy.

I also like the guy in the GD version, who apparently didn't read my whole post, since he thought I was female though I clearly stated I am male. That's the problem with writing complete paragraphs around here.

-- Mal

[seabeyond]

21. lol. nt

[nomorenomore08]

22. An individual is (virtually) always the greatest authority on his/her own experiences.

I tend to approach discussions with this in mind, and it hasn't steered me wrong yet. I can't believe the arrogance of those who go around insisting their version of reality is the only one.

[ismnotwasm]

23. Logic is great stuff.