Women have very little idea of how much men hate them.

Germaine Greer

I generally dislike using quotes and those who quote frequently/constantly either in speaking or writing. I teach my writing students that, unless their essays are specifically about discussing the ideas inherent in a particular quote, to try to avoid using quotes altogether because it breeds a dependency on them and a lack of originality in thinking. My problems with quotes are multi-fold. First, most things have been said before in different ways by many people. Second, men frequently get credit for things that were most likely said by women first (often their mothers or female spouses, but also friends and colleagues). Third, nasty and/or dumb people live on in history for some chance statement that they have stolen and said loudly enough to be heard, and are then remembered as clever or noble. And finally, heavy reliance upon quotes can be problematic as it prevents you from trying to use your own words, and I find that most of us misunderstand the original meaning of quotes or get the attribution wrong. Quotes can be handy for starting discussions or to start an essay, but addiction is easy.

I do take a bit of exception to feminist quotes because for one, women, their existence, their ideas, and their words are typically erased from history by men. When a feminist says something important that is remembered, I try to preserve it. As well, feminists tell us very important truths about reality, and we’d all do well to remember them. Women tend not to remember or even acknowledge their realities. So I have a choice slideshow of feminist quotes in my sidebar, and today, I’ve pulled one of my favourites, one of the simplest and easiest to remember, and of course, one of the messages that pretty much all women forget.

It would be easy and convenient if it were only rich, white, Christian, straight dudes who were the thorn in Woman’s side. They could easily be targeted and dealt with. They certainly are not the majority in the world. But alas, it is not true. The truth is that all men hate all women. It might be seething violent hate manifesting openly in criminal behaviour against women. But it can also be as hidden as an undersized testicle, no one finding out about it until the right set of circumstances put you into direct contact with it. But it is there, in all men. On a continuum from violently open to extremely well-hidden. And one thing women don’t want to believe is that even men who are clear or visible members of Oppressed Groups™ hate them too. One of the worst mistakes a woman can make is to assume that a man can bond with her over being silenced or erased.

No, you see, men are men and all that comes with it (this is the differential interaction effect of nature and nurture on females and males). Key among their group qualities is a real and significant inability to empathize. And this means that men in groups that are hurt by society are unable to feel anything for other marginalized groups and are often quite easily able to abuse those people without any kind of self-reflection. And by ‘those people’, I mean women, primarily. Oppressed men can frequently feel some kind of kinship with men from other marginalized groups, but not with women, in general, or women in said groups. So in this way, a poor man can show support for a gay man, but is open about his rape fantasies of lesbians or watches ‘lesbian’ porn. Likewise, men of any and all groups will take the PTSD of male soldiers seriously, but will have a laugh about or just dismiss the rape of female soldiers by these same male soldiers. (Oh, and by the way, soldiers are not ‘oppressed’ – quite the opposite, in fact, as they are state-sanctioned murderers, and the males are state-sanctioned rapists, as well. I’m referring to PTSD, a mental health condition, which is marginalizing.)

And within groups themselves, women have discovered that fighting the good fight alongside their male counterparts hasn’t been all it’s cracked up to be. Lesbians don’t get support from gay men. Poor women don’t get support from poor men. Atheist women don’t get support from atheist men. Black women don’t get support from black men. Rather, they are expected to do all the grunt work, act as cannon fodder on the front lines including getting arrested, take charge of feeding and watering the male members, look after children if there are any, and (except in the case of LGB groups – although that is changing since adding the T and Q) provide sex. When there are movements for change, what women forget is that men aren’t interested in equality. They are interested in moving up the ladder of power, the rungs of which are women’s backs, and we see this time and again in revolutionary movements. The underclass fights the oppressors, and then replaces them and keeps the same male hierarchy in place. Nothing changes. Women are still on the bottom and left wondering what the fight was for.

So let’s get to gay men – that is, after all, the topic of this post.

I recently wrote a post about another marginalized group – atheists. And as atheist men hate you, so do gay men.

I just spent three weeks travelling through California, which means I was surrounded by tons of out-and-proud gay men loudly spewing woman-hate, and not caring if women were around to hear them. I sat in restaurants PAYING for service that didn’t just include food, but also large sides of misogyny. PAYING to sit there listening to the gay men across the room – including gay staff members – talk about bitches and cunts and say some of the most misogynist things I heard on my trip, even surpassing the bullshit said by straight men I encountered. If I were a gay man having to listen to homophobia in a restaurant, I could probably sue. But as a woman, I have no rights to feel safe in a public place. I would have been laughed out of the joint.

You don’t have to look far to find nice little object lessons. And yet another was presented to me the other day online. The latest horrific piece of news in Trans-World is that some smug little MtT is looking to take leadership within the UK’s National Union of Students as the Women’s Officer. It is distressing. And women are blogging in protest. I headed over to the reblog of an article on this by a woman I read only to find some dude was already jizzing all over the comments. He had provided an insulting reference to a female public figure commenting on how the trans looked like her (he didn’t, actually – I couldn’t see the similarity). He also couldn’t figure out from the title of the original blogged article what the issue was with a trannie heading up the arm of a major women’s organization. He went on a mansplaining, dick-wagging, woman-shaming blah-blah-blah about clothing and how lesbians dress or don’t dress. It actually didn’t make any sense and had nothing to do with why the article was reblogged. If the mainsplaining didn’t give him away as a misogynist, it was the inability to understand the problem with the article that did.

I normally try to resist interacting with clueless men, but he asked a question: what is the issue here? He thought it was clothing. I had no idea he was gay or actually known to and a friend of the female blogger. All I knew was that he was pro-trans and thus anti-feminist. I mean seriously, he has nothing to lose from a man taking over a woman’s movement or women’s spaces. So, of course, he will promote it. Only women are hurt by this. So I let him know that the information about what was being disapproved of was clear in the title (directly naming ‘male pretendbian’, which we all know means ‘MtT pretending to be a lesbian’) of the post. I mean come on, my Chinese students have better reading comprehension, I said. The misogynist responded with a flurry of woman-hate, calling me both a genius AND an imbecile, which was hilarious, and for some bizarre reason, telling me that the article was a reblog, which I and everyone else knew. And then, when I addressed the blogger on the woman-hate in the comment section, Dood attacked me again by announcing his gayness and positing that the only way he could possibly hurt women is by throwing a glitter bomb on us. Clueless, but given that he supports men in dresses, and by definition, of the pro-trans right of men (in dresses) to demand sex from lesbians, this is not a big surprise. Men think they are harmless. Even when they are in the middle of being harmful.

Gay men may not actually rape us, but they play an important role in normalizing violent and denigrating thinking about women and about normalizing the idea of women as objects (e.g., negating women in the LGB movement) and filthy, hateful things (e.g., the ‘ick factor’) or as walking pornified sexual stereotypes (e.g., gender reinforcement through drag queening). And they are often more vocal in their misogyny than straight men. And they are just as excellent at mansplaining as straight dudes. And because they are marginalized, they get away with it.

The lesson here is that you should never forget that no matter how marginalized a man may say he is or that society says he is, he is always more powerful than all women. As I appear to continually say (because it’s true, goddammit), penis trumps vagina. Always. Always. Always. Don’t be fooled. Gay men hate you too. And it’s more than just glitter bombs and cat fights they threaten you with.

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