THE INVISIBLE CONTEMPT

“All this pitting of sex against sex, of quality against quality; 

all this claiming of superiority and imputing of inferiority, belong to the private-school 

stage of human existence where there are 'sides,' 

and it is necessary for one side to beat another side, 

and of the utmost importance to walk up to a platform 

and receive from the hands 

of the Headmaster a highly ornamental pot.”

 - Virginia Woolfe

Misandry - 

{a strong prejudice against men} 

a term with which few are familiar.

And that is dangerous, for a reality without a known name is invisible and is doubly toxic because of that.

Almost everyone is familiar with misogyny, the contempt and devaluing of women.

Yet, that misogyny exists does not give license for misandry to thrive.

History hardly helps the reputation 

of the Male gender.  

Most murderers are male.  

Most tyrants from Caligula to Hitler to Stalin have been male.

 Angelization is a dangerous outgrowth of misandry

The political demonization of men is complemented 

by the angelization of women in a moral bi-polar totally sexist evaluation of gender: 

women/good and men/bad. 

Take Maria Montessori 

 Montessori broke gender barriers 

and expectations 

when she enrolled in classes 

at an all-boys technical school, 

with hopes of becoming an engineer. 

She soon had a change of heart and began medical school at The University of Rome, 

where she graduated – with honors – in 1896. 

She was a single mother. 

Her educational method is in use today in many public and private schools throughout the world.

After all that struggling against male bigotry, she swung to the other extreme --

 "Perhaps...the reign of women is approaching, when the enigma of her anthropological superiority will be deciphered. 

Woman was always the custodian of human sentiment, morality, and honor."

Human Nature being what it is, both sexes are flawed. 

To demonize the entire gender for the flaws of many of that sex is ... non-productive and untrue.

But our perception of reality depends on where we are standing, doesn't it?

The homicidal war against men kills mostly men. 

Men are the principal victims of homicide. 

But never mind reality. 

Politics is all

 POPULAR CULTURE

It gets into the act as well.

Misandry is now institutionalized in popular culture.  Take a few T-Shirts I have seen:

"Dead Men Don't Rape." 

Nor do most living men, of course.

{What do you think the outcry 

would be if that button said:

"Dead Black Men Don't Rape?"}

"So many men. So little ammunition." 

"What do you call a man with half a brain? 

Gifted." 

And so it continues. 

The ghost of Mark Twain just chuckled beside me:

"What would the future be like without males?  Barren, son, mighty barren."

 Our sit-coms portray men as bumbling fools and idiots and usually overweight, 

with the women as sensible, together and attractive. 

Everybody might love Raymond, but he's an idiot. 

 Misandry is everywhere, culturally acceptable, 

even normative, 

largely invisible, taught directly and indirectly by men and women, 

blind to reality, 

very damaging and dangerous to men and women in different ways and de-humanizing. 

Misogyny or misandry is not a status or a belief; 

it is just a flawed view of Mankind.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?