Pauline Harmange - I Hate Men

4th Estate

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This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2020

First published in France as Moi les hommes, je les dteste by Monstrograph, Collection Bootleg, in 2020

Copyright Monstrograph and Pauline Harmange 2020

English translation Natasha Lehrer 2020

Cover design: Julian Humphries

Pauline Harmange asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Natasha Lehrer hereby asserts her moral right to be identified as the author of the translation

The chapter title is taken from the song I am Woman by Helen Reddy and Ray Burton. Lyrics Universal Music Publishing Group, BMG Rights Management

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780008457587

Ebook Edition November 2020 ISBN: 9780008457600

Version: 2020-11-03

Contents

One day I wrote on my blog that I was fed up of mens apathy and general lack of interest when it comes to womens rights. Almost immediately an anonymous lurker left a comment: Maybe you should ask yourself why men dont want to talk about it. A few possibilities: the aggressive hate-filled, even attitude of feminists towards any man who doesnt say Im ashamed to be a man! Down with men! The day you accept the relationship between men and women for what it is then well listen to you. In the meantime, youre just going to be dismissed as sex-starved shrews, and youll keep doing a disservice to your cause.

With these words, this delightful gentleman was making a barely veiled accusation of misandry against me. Im far from the only woman charged with manhating: plenty of feminists and lesbians are repeatedly accused of such an affront. As though challenging male power, or simply not being attracted to men, constitutes nothing more than hatred.

The accusation of misandry is a mechanism for silencing women, a way of silencing the anger sometimes violent but always legitimate of the oppressed standing up to their oppressors. Taking offence at misandry, claiming its merely a form of sexism like any other, and no less unacceptable (as if sexism were genuinely reviled), is a bad-faith way of sweeping under the carpet the mechanisms that make sexist oppression a systemic phenomenon buoyed throughout history by culture and authority. Its to allege that a woman who hates men is as dangerous as a man who hates women and that theres no rational justification for what she feels, be it dislike, distrust or disdain. Because, obviously, no man has ever hurt a woman in the whole course of human history. Or rather, no men have ever hurt any women.

As a result of the way its been misunderstood or misconstrued, theres a tendency in feminist movements to argue that misandry as a concept doesnt actually exist. In a way, of course, this is true, because there is no coordinated, structured system for denigrating or coercing men. And because even when we do sometimes put all our messieurs in one basket, its more to laugh at them, its kind of tongue in cheek, if you know what I mean. Honestly, were very nice, underneath it all.

But what if misandry were necessary healthy, even? I get why women reject it. Its unnerving to be accused of being a horrid extremist who hates men. Thousands of women were burned at the stake for less.

But you know what? Im going to have a go. Ill admit it: I hate men. All of them, really? Yes, the whole lot of them. By default, I have very little respect for any of them. Which is funny actually, because ostensibly I dont have any legitimacy when it comes to hating men. I chose to marry one, after all, and I have to admit that Im still very fond of him.

That doesnt, however, stop me from wondering why men are as they are. Theyre violent, selfish, lazy and cowardly. It doesnt stop me wondering why we women are supposed graciously to accept their flaws what am I saying, I mean their deficiencies even though men beat, rape and murder us. Boys will be boys. Girls, on the other hand, will become women, and will learn to make their peace with this, because theres no way to escape the narrow vision of our destiny as refracted through the crystal ball of the patriarchy. Come on, were perfectly capable of putting up with their little idiosyncrasies. In any case, we dont have a choice. What kind of woman are you if you avoid the male gaze? Take your choice: sex-starved, dyke, or hysteric.

Apart from the fact that it undermines our cause, it appears that misandry is also very difficult for men to deal with an intolerable brutality that adds up to the shocking outrage of precisely zero deaths and zero casualties. Apparently, what with all this feminist bullshit, #MeToo and the rest of that crap, its very hard to be a man nowadays. They dont know how to flirt any more, how to get in a lift with their female colleagues, how to crack a joke. What do they still have the right to do now?

So much existential dread, for which I dont feel a great deal of sympathy. All that time they spend snivelling about how hard it is to be a poor persecuted man nowadays is just a way of adroitly shirking their responsibility to make themselves a little less the pure products of the patriarchy.

Strangely, not many men actually stop to wonder why feminists dislike them so much if they did they might notice the statistics are quite damning. But theyre too busy explaining to us that theyre not like that, that its really not nice to generalise like that. And if we alienate them with all that talk of men are trash, the risk is they wont join in and help us in our struggle. As if we were incapable of organising our struggle without them, as if we havent been doing precisely that for years and as if, when they invited themselves into our ranks to join the struggle, they didnt always end up taking over, talking over us and even imposing their decisions on us while they were about it.

I see misandry as a potential way out. A way of refusing to accept these norms, of saying no with every breath. Hating men as a social group, and sometimes as individuals too, brings me so much joy and not just because Im a crazy old cat lady.

If we all became misandrists, what a fabulous hue and cry we could raise. Wed realise (though it might be a bit sad at first) that we dont actually need men. I believe too we might liberate an unsuspected power: that of being able to soar far above the male gaze and the dictates of men, to discover at last who we really are.

I think at this point its worth defining the concept of misandry as I employ it in this essay. I use the word misandry to mean a negative feeling towards the entirety of the male sex. This negative feeling might be understood as a spectrum that ranges from simple suspicion to outright loathing, and is generally expressed by an impatience towards men and a rejection of their presence in womens spaces. And when I say the male sex I mean all the cis men who have been socialised as such, and who enjoy their male privilege without ever calling it into question, or not enough (yes, misandry is a demanding and elitist concept).