Misandry

About

"Misandry" is a term referring to hatred and prejudice against men. On the web, the word has been adopted by men’s rights activists^[11] (MRAs) and is often mocked by feminists on Reddit and Tumblr.

Origin

According to the blog “Unknown History of Misandry,”^[1] the earliest known use of the term can be found in a review for the anonymously written novel Blanche Seymour in an 1871 issue The Spectator magazine:

"We cannot, indeed, term her an absolute misandrist, as she fully admits the possibility, in most cases at least, of the reclamation of men from their naturally vicious and selfish state, though at the cost of so much trouble and vexation of spirit to women, that it is not quite clear whether she does not regard their existence as at best a mitigated evil."

According to Google cache, the Tripod-hosted website Misandry Today^[3] was launched as early as February 1996, which featured lists of notable quotes by feminists and general social conventions that may be perceived as being discriminatory against men.

Spread

On June 3rd, 1998, American book publisher Random House^[4] posted a blog article on the word misandry. On October 16th, 2001, the book Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture^[5] by Paul Nathanson and Katherine K. Young was published, which chronicles the negative portrayal of men in popular culture. On August 1st, 2006, the website AntiMisandry^[9] was launched, featuring feminist-skeptic articles, blog posts and a discussion forum. On October 13th, an entry for misandry was created in the Psychology Wiki.^[6] On January 27th, 2007, YouTuber proudguy uploaded a video titled "Misandry – It's a Sin" (shown below), which featured a a slideshow of anti-male statements.

On August 30th, 2009, the feminist blog Femonade^[8] published an article disputing the actuality of misandry, arguing that it is merely a misogynistic attack on feminism. YouTuber StudioBrule uploaded a video of feminist activists demonstrating outside of a lecture by Dr. Young and Dr. Nathanson titled “From Misogyny to Misandry to Intersexual Dialogue” (shown below)

On May 11th, 2011, several duplicate Urban Dictionary^[2] entries for the term "misandry" were submitted by user "a censored, inconvenient truth," attempting to discredit the term with several quotes by sociologist Allan Johnson. On September 6th, the feminist blogger Rebecca Watson published an article on her Skepchic^[7] blog titled "Misandry: A How-To," which criticized the harassment of feminist atheists on the Internet. On November 29th, 2012, YouTuber StudioBrule uploaded a video featuring feminist activists demonstrating outside of a lecture by Dr. Young and Dr. Nathanson titled "From Misogyny to Misandry to Intersexual Dialogue" (shown below). On December 3rd, the video was submitted to the /r/videos^[10] subreddit, where it gained more than 2,400 up votes and 2,800 comments prior to being archived. Within the first seven months, the video received over 300,000 views and 6,900 comments.

On December 29th, the “Our Lady of Misandry” Tumblr^[13] blog was launched, which describes itself as a "blog intended to provide support to all in harms way of the Patriarchy and defense from MRAs." The blog often highlights image macros based on the 1767 painting “The Immaculate Conception” by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo with captions joking about violence against men (shown below).

Notable Examples

On Tumblr, image macros and animated GIFs of men being attacked or dominated are often captioned with the word "misandry."

"Misandry Don't Real"

On February 14th, 2012, Redditor ArchangelleGabrielle submitted a post criticizing the men’s rights movement to the /r/ShitRedditSays^[12] (SRS) subreddit, which included the gramatically incorrect phrase “misandry don’t [sic] real.” The expression subsequently became a popular catchphrase among SRS members who dispute the existence of institutional misandry.

Search Interest

External References