I Hate Men

by Pauline Harmange

‘Maybe you should ask yourself why men don’t want to talk about it. A few possibilities: the aggressive – hate-filled, even – attitude of feminists towards any man who doesn’t say “I’m ashamed to be a man! Down with men!” The day you accept the relationship between men and women for what it is – then we’ll listen to you. In the meantime, you’re just going to be dismissed as sex-starved shrews, and you’ll keep doing a disservice to your cause.’

The very least a man can do when faced with a woman who expresses misandrist ideas is shut up and listen.

There’s a whole world of difference between ‘understanding the mechanisms of oppression and one’s own place in the system’, and ‘appropriating it in order to

take centre stage and make it all about yourself yet again’.

We want men to know their place. Actually no, what we really want is for them to learn how to take up less space.

At last we’ve woken up to the fact that we’re not alone, whether we’re being wolf-whistled in the street, or assaulted[fn2] by some guy we thought we could trust, or because we’re stuck inside keeping the home fires burning; the reason we’re fed up isn’t because we’re the weaker sex, or because we’ve got an aggressive temperament, but because of a profound sense of an injustice of which we are all victim.

I’m not perfect either. Nobody is. It just seems to me that women’s efforts to make themselves more pleasing to their spouses are rarely reciprocated.

I’m the one who shoulders the entire emotional burden of the relationship. That’s what women do, because in a heterosexual relationship it’s always the woman who’s learned to do that. Of course, men could learn to do it too, but it’s a bit like learning a foreign language: it’s that much harder once you’re an adult, and if there’s already someone there prepared to make the effort to speak the other person’s language, why bother?

his habit of waiting for me to offer up my pre-digested concepts and reflections about masculinity, rather than deconstructing his own as much as he can;

To announce point blank that one doesn’t like men is to personify an anger that is far larger than our own selves, and to lay ourselves open to confrontation – with society in general, which gives so much space to men, their idiosyncrasies and their crimes; and with individual men, if they’re not prepared to listen to how we feel.

If our misandry alienates us from men who can’t cope with our anger, are they really worth our time?

I’m not really a misandrist, I wouldn’t dream of suggesting that we’d be better off without the influence – even without the presence – of men in our lives. The fact is, I’m not joking at all when I say I’m a misandrist, so why should I pretend I am? I have no desire any more to waste my time and my energy pretending to be sweet and pleasant.

if you’re a misandrist, you deserve no better than a misogynist. In the collective imagination, misandry and misogyny are two sides of the same coin, that of sexism.

Misandry and misogyny cannot be compared, quite simply because the former exists only in reaction to the latter.

The reason society is patriarchal is because there are men who use their male privilege to the detriment of the other half of the population.

Fundamentally, any man who believes that the patriarchy is merely the fruit of the feminist imagination rather than a concrete reality is complicit in systemic sexism.

Our misandry scares men, because it’s the sign that they’re going to have to start meriting our attention.

neither the violence we encourage in boys nor the passivity we impose on girls is an appropriate response, for ourselves or for other people, in situations of injustice or conflict.

Only someone in a position of dominance can permit himself to be calm and reasonable in any circumstance, because he’s not the one who is suffering.

For a while now my guiding wisdom in life has been Canadian writer Sarah Hagi’s Daily Prayer to Combat Impostor Syndrome: ‘God give me the confidence of a mediocre white dude’.

Standards are very low for men, and far too high for women. Let’s reserve ourselves the right to be ugly, badly dressed, vulgar, mean, bad-tempered, untidy, exhausted, selfish, incompetent …

It turns out, in fact, that single women who don’t have children are the happiest demographic of all.

Men always want to find a solution, sort out my problems, rationalise my pain, when very often all I need is a kindly ear and a shoulder to cry on. I sometimes wonder if this male tendency to position oneself as a purveyor of solutions – as a saviour – isn’t in fact an attempt, however unconscious, to get me to shut up.

So now I’ve decided to privilege women, in the books I read, the films I watch, the culture I imbibe, and in my close friendships, so that men just aren’t that important any more. Instead I privilege this sisterhood, which is so supportive, which nourishes me – in my creativity, my radicalism, my thinking both about myself and about society – in so many areas of my life, where, I’ve finally realised, I have no need of men to shape the person I am.

the truth is, they’re honing their virility as a way to extend their power and consolidate their networks, in a great big cockfight.

I believe we mustn’t be afraid to rouse and express our misandry. Hating men and all they represent is absolutely our right. It’s also a celebration. Who would have thought there was so much joy in misandry? It’s a state of mind that doesn’t make us bitter or lonely, contrary to what the patriarchy would have us believe. I believe that hating men opens the door to love of women (and of ourselves) in all the forms it might take. And that we need that love – that sisterhood – in order to be truly free.