Misandry Rising.

Misandry Rising.

On the 26^th October, a BBC radio 4 program – Today, celebrated its 60th year of broadcasting. It was a live broadcast in front of a live audience in London with a number of invited guests that had been involved with the program over the years. One of  the guest for some reason was Michele Gove, him of the ‘don’t trust experts’ view; drifted into a unscripted slight contentious area during the interview when asked by John Humphreys ‘how he had liked taking part in interviews on the today program’. This simple question was referring to past interview between the two and for those that know the hard time that JH can give to some people that waffle on to avoid answering a direct question, one expert at waffle, has been Gove.

The question was just an historic illuminating opening interviewing gambit. In an attempt to be amusing and emolliating past testing contacts with JH, he responded by exclaiming: “Sometimes I think going into the studio with you, John, is a bit like going into Harvey Weinstein’s bedroom. You just pray you emerge with your dignity intact.”  It was a light hearted comment expressed on the moment and was amusing taken as a simile for the current media interest in the antics of  Harvey Weinstein being an American film producer and former film executive, who faces multiple accusations of rape and sexual abuse, which he denies. He and his brother Bob co-founded Miramax; their entertainment company and plays a big part in the progression of media ‘stars’.  The Gove comment shadowed the alleged Weinstein habit of impropriety approaches to females and accosting them in unwarranted, it is said, sexual actions.

Everyone listening to the broadcast knew what was being referred to and in the context of relating it to JH, made it a preposterous image, it was funny. Unfortunately it was not heard as funny for the range of people that have gone through or have had to put up with the pain of abusive power relationships, generally females and the back lash has opened up a plethora of exposures across the media reaching into the business and political fields.

There is a certain ferment that is being displayed by activism which is illuminating with accusation being made by and too celebrities about abuses that have taken place trawling back decades. That it is happening now may be a good thing as there is a greater receptiveness to the inequality and racial sexism levelled at females, driven if not by misogyny but by the continuing differential in power structures controlled by males that does exist within the mind set of cultures. A deferential of power abuse that is still largely unchallenged in the range of public and corporate structures which is aimed at both sexes and is often more recounted in the ongoing clash for female emancipation of equality that recognises the right to participate in every aspect of society, unhindered by any artifice of gender discrimination by power. In this it is the female positions that are given the greater attention however there is also an hidden element that is predominant in the work place that is also played out against males, it may not be of a obvious sexual nature as it is covered by the term being bullied, abused by an inability to confront the abuser, for to do so is being seen as weak, stressed, not up to the job, not a team player and being income dependant (just as some females are) fearful of repercussions to enact a complaint and that dam idea of the males “stiff upper lip”.

Although the abuse of power by people in influential roles has now been accepted as an abhorrent practice, it has been in play for many decades and has without doubt been known about and kept quiet in many business activities in order to maintain the reputational status of the business and to control financial risk had exposures been made. It has to be recognised that up to recently there was little that a person could do to take on any organisation that put its own image before any single ‘disgruntled’ employee that had claimed to have been abused, outside a clear provable rape accusation. Even then such a claim may not have carried much weight to merit a charge as the male culture was to assume the accusation could not be true or somehow self inflicted, i.e. she asked for it. So although there were private cases of individual rape perhaps as violent opportunistic attacks, unsolicited ‘date rape’ or matrimonial rape these stand out as the most repugnant being of a nature one on one (?) however Institutionalised abuses of invading personal space, touching up, unsolicited sexual advances, actual attacks and constant power abuses, (sometimes disguised as robust management) were not seen in the same moral indefensible way, as they were, in the main, successfully hidden.

Fortunately this situation of refusing to acknowledge the abuses that take place in institutions is in the process of being untenable; it has taken a little while to arrive. Over time there has been a slow trickle of incidents that have raised media attention. In isolated case they have been of a short term media interest and the public attention soon moved onto other things but in the past decade there has been a notable shift that causes people to seriously look at the culture that has allowed, fostered and ignored multiple abuses over a range of topics. Some of the key indicators that may have been precursors to the change in the climate of acquiescence to abuses might well be related to a series of exposure which on their own could well have been shrugged off as terrible news but in conjunction with other revelation could only be taken as a shocking indictment of a hidden disease within, what one thinks, is a civilised society and wonder how such could go on for so long;

For example: 2009 Ryan report on Sisters of Charity, 2012 the Jimmy Savile and the Rochdale ring child sex exposures, 2014 Rolf Harris abuses, 2017 the Newcastle child abuses and the most public presentation of sexual accusations aimed at the US president D. J. Trump matched now by revelation of sexual harassment and abuse in the UK parliament and entertainment fields.  Bearing in mind that most are relevant to the UK alone just now but these and other serial abuses stem back decades and even though they are mostly child focused due their vulnerability and generally unable to resist. It is obvious that adults (mostly female) in an alternative vulnerable position also are forced to bear sexual orientated abuses which might stem from a form of misogynist mind set, or a predatory opportunistic individual that cannot recognise any equality in humanity. As there has been in the past years a surprising number of disclosure by profiled females, of abuses, notable in the entertainment fields drawn out by a “me too” strength of numbers; it is astonishing that a similar number have not come out from the commercial business fields. Why might that be?

That there is a constant claim for equality between the sexes, it is abundantly obvious that there can be no such clear state, males and females are, to state the obvious, physiologically and psychologically different. This at its most basic is the prime difference, male and female; with a recent adoption of gender discrimination uncertainty re homosexual, lesbian, androgynous, bisexual (LBGTQ) etc. which here on one will be describe as species.  There are of course huge variations of crossovers of physiologically and psychologically adaptation to the possible excepted ‘norm’ and it shows in the way some individual think and act; with males portraying ‘female’ attributes and females portraying ‘male’ traits across the whole range of human formation. Without any fixed parameters of what is normal the only thing one has to identify the species is the clear gender identifiers relating to sex. So it may be idealist to desire equality for the sexes in all things, it is though limited on the basis of physiological and it’s associated psychological conditioning unlikely to be a realistic achievement, even if one sees it has a form of racism. Being blunt, true equality for the species (female vs. male) is not likely to be reached until females have weapons to fight on a ‘front line’ and decide to stop having babies!

   

There is without any dissent however a demand for adopting a strong culture shift in imposing an ingrained overall social attitude for equality of the species, this of course can only apply to cultures that are prepared to relegate overbearing paternalistic controls which are often in tension within religious sects and can be difficult for sexual difference to be accepted within them, never the less the predominance of secular democratic liberalism adjusted to the belief in equality can eventually move the resistant sanctimonious. Failing to do so will continue to be a contentious aggravation for there may be individuals that will never accept species equality and still desire to undermine any form of inclusiveness. 

In order to achieve progressive equality, it is assumed in some modes that all encompassing equality must be on the basis that all sexes have the right to undertake any task and expect to be treated equally in accordance to the task in so far as it is humanly possible to do so. No barriers, no (undue positive,) discrimination, no special privileges, no restriction by effective cultural indoctrination, no stereotypical preconceptions, no artificial limitation to perform any functional cultural task. A ‘can do’ approach that takes no regard of species but based on ability to execute a given task, or shift them on. With this modal of progressive equality has to be a belief that females are just as capable of being, like males; sublime and ridiculous, good or bad, malicious or kind, strong or weak etc. This is easier said than done as there are potentially ingrained usefully used perception limitations that can benefit species with reference to the archetype descriptions of; e.g. females being more caring, nurturing, kind, weaker etc and males being logical, less emotive, a stronger achiever, more constructive, a defender etc that contributes to the fact of inequality. Each can subtly play on the perception of archetypes to gain an advantage in certain situations, adopting a role to influence others; it is not common nor successful if played too far from the innate personality. This inequality does not rule out the power differential that accrues to having control of financial or administrative resources which is something that is active in all business activities and can be linked to overt (or covert) sexual pressures, it is an element of the source of demands for stronger resistance against inequality, for equality of treatment within all aspects of society. And of course it is known that social society conditioning plays a great part in the lack of progress in achieving species equality, stereotypic expectations start early in childhood, developing into superiority potential of one over another and the subtle perhaps unintentional indoctrination of male and female roles which supports the result of one having misguided right for possessional opportunity to degrade others of the species that don’t match an accepted stereotype; hence sexism, abuse, misogyny, racism etc?  

Although there has at odd times in the past, been occasions when a female has reached a position of respected notoriety, influence and power/authority, it is by no mean the norm. For the majority of females throughout the world, the vast majority are held in low cast place for patriarchy, religious, social convenience nor so long as embedded inequality ignorance is a predominant factor is it unlikely that this could give rise to a time when it might be considered unusual for a female to not to gain prominent positions in a civilisation. In recent era the accepted and now contested state in some cultures, it is the male that dominates in all aspect of civil cultural life. Although in the west much has improved in practice and in law; in comparison, racism has by far been the powerfully promoted social ill and is far easier to attack, often raised as a litigious issue, there is still much to be done to eliminate the racial divide in modern society but as species equality is concerned, it is much easier being identified if it is located in colour so that anyone can be accused of racism or be subject to racial abuse and expose it more openly with less danger of life style repercussions but how different would it be if species (female) abuses was also seen as a racial attacks? Compared to most other developing countries in the world, females of the ‘west’ have a substantially better opportunity outlook for equality afforded by a strong degree of emancipation which is increasingly no longer resisted by male oppression however there remains an undercurrent of misogyny in some constricted minds that shows through in disparaging dialogues of crude sexual intentions and unwarranted inappropriate physical intrusions.    

     

Fortunately Misogynist attitudes are in retreat in modern secular cultures and males, in time, may lose the general accepted position of being in the forefront of the actual perpetrators of the prevailing view held by females, that many men are all engaged as misogyny in one form or another. From a sociologic (and essentially biologically) point of view males are the prime instigator of pursuing female attention, as in the mating game. It may be fair to state that possibly all relationships and encounters between two sexes that culminate in long term (not necessarily) commitment are for the continuance of the species which relies on the sex drive, a pursuit that males generate. From the result of which, one participant is eventually placed at a disadvantage. Disregarding all the sociological, emotional and moral conditions that overlay modern cultural structures it comes down to a crude analysis of species propagation; males are ‘designed’ to pursue for unconditional sex and opportunistically move on, whereas females are generally left with the result. It is just as well that the ability to avoid unwanted reproduction re the ‘sexual revolution’ has come about and it is this that has opened up the developed drive to aid greater emancipation and equality albeit that it has to come with a created degree of bias (positive discrimination) to assist equality assimilation.

None of the above excuses behaviour that is decried as abhorrent or abusive, forcing one of the species into an intolerable intractable position and the more that high profile abuses are made public the better are the chances that methods of appropriate defence will be available and all species will gain respected equal standing. However as females gain their rightful place as equal in all obtainable respects; there is one move in attitudes that can be detected. It is not an openly serious attitude but it is increasing. One may think that it would be unreasonable to hold the view but just as is it has to be taken that all human species are to be assessed as fundamentally equal and gain significance equality within a system, it must follow that they will, at some stage, occasionally display all the same attributes. Some of those attributes will useful but some will be similar to the unwelcome charges levelled at the disproportionate use of power differentials. It is difficult to see how this cannot already be in a limited way a factor now, saved only by the under-representation of one of the species (females) in prominent roles. It has to be a possibility that eventually and as more influence is gained by women, that there will be more open expressions of misandry. 

One may suppose that one could see this as being highly unlikely for all the reasons that match the archetype description of the ‘fairer sex’ and with a measure of equanimity assume that if there is a rise of misandry, it may not become a behaviour trait as prominent as misogyny or abusive. It may in some minds be seen, unreasonably, as a time of fair retribution, that the ingrained biased superiority of the species is reversed. Will the hazards of misandry be acknowledged as unwillingly as misogyny and power abuse has been, seriously, will it make any difference?

© Renot

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