Manne is arguing against a weighty and well-established school of thought. Catharine A. MacKinnon has posed the question: “When will women be human?” Rae Langton has explored the idea of sexual solipsism, a doubt that women’s minds exist. And countless theorists talk about “objectification,” the tendency to deny women’s autonomy and subjecthood, and to scant their experiences. Like Fiske and Rai, Manne sees a larger truth in the opposite tendency. In misogyny, she argues, “often, it’s not a sense of women’s humanity that is lacking. Her humanity is precisely the problem.”
Men, she proposes, have come to expect certain things from women—attention, admiration, sympathy, solace, and, of course, sex and love. Misogyny is the mind-set that polices and enforces these goals; it’s the “law enforcement branch” of the patriarchy. The most obvious example of this attitude is the punishing of “bad women,” where being bad means failing to give men what they want. But misogyny also involves rewarding women who do conform, and sympathizing with men (Manne calls this “himpathy”) who have done awful things to women.
Happy Valentines Day everyone!
I love the Olympics, but I also know it ain’t without problems.
Here’s one:
The anniversary of Hypatia’s death is coming (International Women’s Day, the day after my b-day).
The grace of this 23yr old woman is amazing.
I love the part where she says, “well I read”. She’s so nice and polite about it, but it’s still a burn. Because, of course, the extrapolation is that those TV people don’t read.
And she’s probably right
Go Chloe:
Ahhh, the mansplaining goes on:
The epic response:
…the mentally ill men who don’t do that, too.
An article I read just recently (I can’t find it now), made the point that the common element in mass shootings is not mental illness at all. It’s anger, which is often apparent well before the shooting, in the form of domestic violence and abuse, and angry posts to social media.
And of course, if you’re looking for a way to generate lots of anger, just look to American right-wing media.
This one?
The one I’m thinking of was more recent, but that expresses the idea very well and in more detail.
Yeah I have seen another article, too. But it’s interesting as I learn more about abuse that abusers don’t act on anger. They use anger as an excuse to hurt. They act as if it is impulsive and uncontrollable, but it’s deeper. To pull off s shooting takes planning. It’s not rage, it’s - honestly, I think these school shootings to the shooters seem fun. Like a game. A project.