Casual misandry

Casual misandry is a phenomenon where unfounded negative claims are made about men as a group, or men as a group are insulted or put down. Both men and women can engage in casual misandry. Casual misandry is a more broad term than male bashing which is usually more direct in its attacks on men. Casual misandry often consists of over-simplification, half truths or in some cases outright lies. Casual misandry may be a recent learnt behaviour. It has certainly become more prevalent in recent decades.

Selected examples of casual misandry are presented here.

Examples

Men can't maintain attentiveness as well as women

A recent article on The Times of Israel highlights this belief:

Speaking in her officer’s presence, she never once swiveled her head or removed her eyes from the screen. “Their powers of concentration are incredible,” the intelligence officer said, noting that very few males would be capable of maintaining the grueling attentiveness necessary to patrol a stretch of road for four straight hours.

In actuality men have routinely maintained vigilance for long periods of time during conflicts (and for other reasons) throughout history. Software Developers (85% men) routinely stare at screens without interruption for periods that are often much longer than four hours.

Men speaking condescendingly to women (Mansplaining)

Mansplaining is the notion that men routinely speak to women in a condescending manner and in particular do so far more often than they would do so to men. This term is now widely used by women. Stories of men engaging in this behaviour are widely available online.

Men complain unduly when sick (Manflu)

When ill with a minor virus men complain more and remain sick for longer. See here for more on this topic. Some companies even feel it is acceptable to refer to a man as a man-child while sick.

manflu.info tells us:

Man Flu is a crippling and debilitating disorder indiscriminately striking down male members of the human species without warning. The illness is often referred to pejoratively by female members of the species who are in fact immune from the illness as man flu is now known to exclusively attack the XY chromosome carrier. If Man Flu is kind enough not to kill the infected party it will definitely leave him weak, sick, hurting everywhere and in dire need of TLC.

While this site is obviously intended as satire the sad truth is that a lot of people, especially women, believe this to be true despite solid evidence to the contrary.

mamamia.com.au states:

What’s that? That sounds a lot like regular flu you say? Well spotted and correct! Man flu presents exactly the same as it does with regular flu except for an added degree of difficulty commonly known as “chronic exaggeration”. In fact, Man Flu, according to absolutely no credible source whatsoever is:

13 times worse than normal flu

More unbearable than childbirth

Easily recognisable when the patient continues to tell you he really wants to go into work but is too selfless to risk spreading his awful condition amongst his work colleagues.

Only cured by moaning. A lot of moaning.

Men are Obsolete

This highly offensive notion was the title and subject of a recent Munk Debate. While the question was about men the organisers saw fit not to include any men in the debate. Apparently they ascribe to the notion that only women are entitled to discuss gender issues.

The above munk debate was followed by an article in TIME of the same name by one of the debate participants, Hanna Rosin.

Males are stupid

Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them is a line of products produced by the corporation David and Goliath. This product line held to the notion that boys are stupid and endorsed violence against them. The products continue to be available for purchase. This clothing line is just a particularly egregious example of a widespread trend.

Men are immature or child-like

Today it is very common for opinion pieces and even mainstream news articles to claim that men are child-like or are not growing up.

This criticism is often levelled at men who are choosing to remain single throughout their lives. The argument seems to me that since these men are not following a tradional path of forming a permanent relationship and choosing to have children that they are immature. This is an inherent value judgement. Men who recognise that they do not want to be fathers (or are not cut out to be fathers) and make sure this doesn't happen may well be more mature and responsible than men who plunge in to relationships and parenthood without having considered the long term ramificiations of these choices.

Men are emotionally stunted

CNN argues that women are better at dealing with emotional problems than men. It would be more accurate to say that men and women tend to deal with emotional problems in different ways and claiming one method is better than the other is making a value judgement.

Women can multi-task but men can't

This one is an interesting one. It is actually true that men can't multi-task, but neither can women. The overwhelming evidence suggests that anyone who thinks they can multi-task is deluding themselves and that people who try suffer a net loss in productivity. Attempts to multi-task may even increase stress levels and ultimately impact health in a negative way Humans are capable of continuous partial attention which allows then to perform multiple activities at once but in general these must be simple activities and there is still a net loss of productivity.

Men have fragile egos

The claim is made that men are so emotionally fragile that opening the door for them damages their self-esteem and self-confidence. The Wire tells us that Men Are Fragile and Do Not Need Your Common Courtesies, Says Science.

Men are linear thinkers

Another widespread but baseless claim often made today is that men are linear thinkers while women are not. Variations on this idea include that men are more rigid thinkers, that women are more capable of thinking outside of the box or that the male brain is more specialised.

These claims include the notions that men are unable to alter their thought processes to match a changing situation and are less able to think of novel solutions to problems.

These claims tend to ignore the fact that men are responsible for the overwhelming majority of innovation, invention and problem solving, today and throughout history and form the vast majority of people who work in unstructured work environents (eg, police) or who solve problems for a living (eg, engineers). Women tend to choose occupations where the tasks are more structured and clearly defined (as well as generally being cleaner and safer).

Claims relating to women thinking outside of the box are in fact nonsensical. One can only think outside of the box relative to those thinking inside of the box. As such, if we consider that men and women in general think differently then each group will tend to think outside of the box relative to the other. This is in fact a corollary to the notion that diversity in opinions on solving a problem can lead to better outcomes.

Claims about male thinking usually go on to claim that women will lead in the 21st century and that this is reflected in increasing female participation in the labour force. Interestingly while female labour participation rates increased from the 1970s they peaked around 2000 and have been steadily declining since that time

Men think about sex every few seconds

The claim varies in frequency. Some reports state that men think about sex as often as every seven seconds. This claim has been debunked.

Men don't ask for directions

It is often claimed that men do not ask for directions. Despite how widely repeated this claim is there is very little evidence to suggest it is actually true.

The Y chromosome is broken or defective

Recently many people have talked about the Y chromosome in very negative ways, suggesting it is a broken or defective chromosome, presumably because it is smaller than the X chromosome and contains less genes. These sorts of simplistic claims show a fundamental misunderstanding of genetics. Every difference between men and women comes, directly or indirectly, from the Y chromosome. To claim that the Y chromosome is a disadvantage for men is to reject all of the achievements of men, now and in the past.

Women are more selfless than men

This claim is usually based on data that suggests more women volunteer than men. Perhaps the reason men apparently perform less volunteer work is that they have less free time outside of work commitments. Men consistently work longer hours than women in paid employment, and tend to live further from their work place, resulting in longer commute times.

These claims tend to report only per person participation rates and do not take in to account the amount of volunteer work that each person does. It is possible that each man that volunteers does so for a greater number of hours than a woman who volunteers.

Men are simple creatures

Statements like the one below suggest men are more simple than women:

Men have two emotions, hungry and horny. If you see him without an erection, make him a sandwich.

Men aren't as effective or efficient at paid work

From time to time it is asserted that women are just better workers than men. For examples, this article in the Daily Mail:

Women DO work harder than men: How female employees are less prone to distraction and more likely to get a job done This alleged study monitored male and female employees for 10 minutes per person and failed to control for various factors, such as the men and women actually performing different jobs or even establishing what constituted work. Someone reading a technical article would appear to not be working in the above study. In contrast at least some hard data suggests men are slightly more productive workers, at least in blue collar roles.

See Also

• The End of Men
• Men are Obsolete
• Violence

References

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