Wow! I had no idea how bad the male apologism is on this website. This is unfortunate. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised seeing as the majority of users here are likely heterosexual and partnered with men.

Many women, I think, resist feminism because it is an agony to be fully conscious of the brutal misogyny which permeates culture, society, and all personal relationships.

Andrea Dworkin

In this case, I would replace "feminism" with "a realistic evaluation of the male condition," LOL. Then again, I'd be willing to bet that a significant chunk of users here don't consider themselves feminist but "gender critical." Not so critical that they're willing to take a good hard look at their Nigels, of course!

The speculation in my comments range from her being a lesbian who has never had an intimate relationship with a man, too naive about what intimate relationships with men are actually like, to her being far too heavily influenced by the porn she's seen.

Report that misogyny, please. This shit is just another variant on, "She just hasn't had the right dick yet."

If you want to go around hating and fearing every single man then I pity you.

🙄 kay. God forbid women talk about the shit men actually do to women. Report that too.

Before I say anything else, I agree with your premise that pointing out male depravity is not misandry. And arguing that a lesbian can't be right about what men are like because she doesn't have intimate relationships with them (by choice, anyway) is obviously lesbophobia.

Now onto the more negative: I don't think I can agree with the rest of your analysis. Sometimes, yes. Because sometimes it sure does seem as if they simply are inherently like this. On the other hand, there is evidence that this can't be the case. And I don't think we'd be doing ourselves any favours to ignore that. It doesn't even undermine our case, as men choosing to be this way is worse than them being like this naturally. At least the way I see it. If they are simply like this, it's almost pitiful. One half of a species, with a brain developed enough to be able to make conscious choices, yet they can't choose to be decent. However, if they choose it, we can hold them fully responsible. If they have other options, a working conscience, and they still choose to treat us like this? Now that is truly being evil.

Some specific notes I have on your post:

Please give credit for the things you copy off of Tumblr. I'm not just talking about the one you actually signalled as being a quote. I've noticed you do it multiple times in this post. I would like to know the OP for the "men aren't inherently evil" quote in particular though, as I'd like to read more of her writing (and the Tumblr search system is worse than useless). Speaking of that quote, I don't see how you can say it sums up your own stance and then go on to say the complete opposite, essentially.

Re: the part about primates: as you seem to want to draw conclusions about human behaviour from them, chimpanzees and bonobos are going to be the most obvious choices, as they are our closest relatives. And yet, you seem to entirely discount bonobos (don't take it personally though, people often forget about bonobos in discussions like these). Among bonobos, it's the females that are dominant. They manage to do this despite being smaller than their male counterparts, because they form strong bonds with each other. Which is extra noteworthy, because these females are often not related to each other. The highest ranking male is usually a son of an important female in the group. They are also a fairly peaceful bunch, because sex for them appears to be a way to diffuse conflict. Not only between the sexes, but among the sexes! (Here's an interesting article about bonobos if you'd like to read more about them)

Your mileage may vary, but to me this does not sound like it supports the notion of human men naturally being Like That.

Are there other primate exceptions? Yes! There's those famous baboons whose culture changed when the violent males died (and it remained that way, even when new males joined). And ring-tailed lemurs are another example of female-dominant primates (while again, the females tend to be smaller).

We are NOT magically special and different from our animal cousins. We have the same biological drives, urges, and instincts.

The concept of instinct is controversial even when applied to other animals, but definitely when applied to humans. Behaviours previously thought to have been instincts have been shown to have been learned, instead. Regardless, there is often a lot of variability within a species (different troops of macaque monkeys show different degrees of paternal care, for example), so you definitely cannot simply draw conclusions about humans from looking at other animals.

Violence is encoded in men's DNA by evolution as a response to sexual competition for mates and a reproductive strategy for passing on their genes.

Violence is not the only reproductive strategy and females adapt just as well, by the way. Female ducks have adapted to male ducks' propensity for forced copulation, for example. This makes it a less succesful strategy for the males.

The grim, yet objectively observable result of this strategy is that it manifests itself on a society-wide scale in the form of male supremacy.

How is this different from the MRA argument that patriarchy is simply natural?

We know that the Y chromosome has shrunk greatly (bottleneck effect) because at some point in history a minority of men mated with a majority of women.

Assuming you're talking about the Neolithic Y chromosome bottleneck, this is not correct at all. The genetic diversity of the Y chromose shrunk, not the Y chromosome itself, and the most likely explanation is patrilineal groups being wiped out. The Y chromosome does shrink, but that's a natural phenomenon.

(People like to bring up Aileen Wuernos as a gotcha, but if she were a guy, she'd be indistinguishable from the hundreds of other male murderers).

No, she wouldn't be. Never heard of a male murderer exclusively killing sex buyers.

That's why men are the most dangerous when they are away from their communities and social networks because they provide a level of accountability and social control needed to keep them in line.

This and a good chunk of what comes after it does not make a whole lot of sense knowing that most of the violence against women is perpetrated by men they know.

First of all, Wuornos did nothing wrong. Johns are rapists and should be killed. The only problem was how men used legal force illegally to punish her for her valorous acts.

Secondly, it is not irrational to hate men. The way they behave makes it irrational NOT to hate them. That hatred can be used to change the status quo if we can get enough women to open their eyes and embrace it.

Otherwise, yeah. I am really surprised you got so much pushback. That doesn’t seem common in my experience. Most of this stuff is taken for granted here.

I don’t buy that men’s sexuality is inherently linked to the violence they commit. I think the radfem basic of its male socialisation matters. Sexual violence is about power and dominance and entitlement and objectification. I’m not sold sexual violence is coded in male dna. Yes it’s been an effective reproduction strategy over the centuries, but off spring survive and thrive more when men aren’t violent. I don’t think animal behaviour is necessarily proof of this, equally animal behaviour is poorly interpreted by humans who view it through our own bias (seeing proof of patriarchal structure because that’s human dynamics, too much confirmation bias -there’s an incredibly insightful and interesting mumsnet thread knocking about on this from last couple of years - phenomenal knowledge and detail and analysis of how we see what we want in animal communities) also, there’s lots of examples of varying male roles in animals that seem overlooked. Male socialised entitlement means males think their dicks matter above all and their awareness of their greater strength, social (financial) power, and women’s vulnerability because of our biology, creates a perfect storm to hot house sexual violence becoming the only way they see sexual relationships. I don’t think this is inherent or coded into their dna, but I think it’s something that’s inevitably a high risk given their physical dominance and society has been structured around this, which further entrenches and intensifies the patriarchal hierarchy. But if women as a class were truly liberated from male oppression and sex role socialisation dismantled and new socialisation established, I don’t think it’s inevitable that male sexual violence would necessarily continue- I don’t buy it’s coded in their dna. Men (as a class) are solely responsible for choosing to be violent and are capable of changing that. There’s no cop outs that it’s part of their dna, I buy the radfem argument that it’s male socialisation that’s the problem. And it does matter that men start socialising boys to recognise the risk men (as a class) pose to women and girls and to see it’s not inherent and inevitable if they change this.

Pattern recognition is the basis of risk assessment, which is essential for survival. It matters to objectively say the risk men pose. That’s not misandry and I really don’t buy misandry exists. Women and girls need encouraged to trust their gut and see the red flags for what they are and to think critically about the risk men pose. Safeguarding exists because of the evidence and it needs prioritised. But that’s based on data and isn’t related to male sexual violence being coded in their dna. The few decent men there are, always understand what other men are like and don’t buy misandry exists.

I think you have to ignore an awful lot of evidence to say that there is no inborn aspect to violence. That doesn't mean the element of choice doesn't exist, but clearly there is something that makes men more likely to be violent. If it were simply due to men's ability to be violent, we'd see women being equally violent to babies and small animals, which we don't.

So my position is that yes, there is an inherent quality that makes men more violent, that is exacerbated by socialization. But that ultimately, the final call is up to the individual.

I have to disagree about hate being irrational, however. It sounds like another way of dismissing women's arguments. Hatred, like all emotions just needs to be controlled. It's an emotion, and emotion is useful.

Also, Aileen Wuernos did nothing wrong.

Great post. It's good to talk about this, especially when there is disagreement.

Yeah but why shouldn't we hate men for what they do? I mean at this point I'm indifferent but you can only become truly indifferent if you had a good man hating phase. Hate is the last men objectively deserve, they really do. Taking down the denial, self deception and dissociation strategies which allow you to not hate men will make you hate them. And only after you've raged enough to avenge a lifetime of mistreatment you can say yeah, I don't care anymore.

This is really worthwhile, thank you.

THIS is what gender studies should be

Not how straight people become oppressed when they choose funny colored hair dye

(Which I used to like the look of, but now has me going the other way)

I’m going to save this to reread, plus the comments

Excellent post. Definitely need to read this when I have more time

Great post!