Women-haters

On May 30th, a commenter ("Steven") wrote, after the Adam Lanza II post:

A female friend of mine who lives in Croatia wrote to me yesterday "you're really a nice guy, Steve and I can see why it's hard for you to wrap your brain around men despising women. but trust me that I see it all the time."

She's talking about low level put downs and degrading of women because they speak their mind or don't meet sexist expectations, stuff like that, which I wasn't sure is really misogyny. I don't see it in this country and I'm pretty sure my sister doesn't experience it. Again, am I missing something?

I replied:

I think a lot of what gets called "misogyny" by feminists is actually just men pointing out that women are not suited for military combat roles, or are less logical, stuff like that which is true but which they don't want to believe. And there is the "disparate impact" kind of "misogyny," where women don't achieve as much and it's considered "discrimination."

But there is a subset of men who are remarkably ugly toward women. They will use any opportunity to put them down for their looks, or their sexuality, or anything they can think of. I've known some of these guys. The thing is, most of these guys are just as ugly toward other guys, but men don't complain about it as much and don't see it as being directed at them because of their gender. My last boss on Wall Street, who was unquestionably a sociopath, would remark on various women's looks with great bitterness, as if their lack of attractiveness was some sort of personal affront to him (I'm not exaggerating). And sometimes he would say these things so that the woman could hear him. I can see why they would get the impression that he hated women. But he also constantly cut men down for their perceived lack of masculinity (when they didn't do what he wanted them to), or their stupidity, etc.

So, yes, your Croatian friend has undoubtedly seen guys who act insultingly to women; but my guess is that practically all of those guys have a similarly brutal attitude toward other men.

I want to expand on this a little.

I referred in my comment to my last boss on Wall Street (I'll call him "Jack"). Among the comments I heard from him:

"I've never known a woman who wasn't a pain in the ass. Not one."

"That whore, you put your fist up like this she'd probably jump on it."

[To a slightly overweight woman who pointed out that vertical stripes on a dress made one appear thinner]: "Hey Kathy, can't expect a miracle, know what I mean?"

A lot of times, he would just look at a woman across the room and give a big stage shudder, as if her appearance was downright scary.

I can't remember all the things Jack said along these lines, but he was constantly putting women down for any reason he could think of. And I'm sure every woman who overheard these comments ended up thinking of him as a woman-hater.

And they'd be right.

The thing is, they'd only be half-right. Because Jack, as a sociopath, basically hated everybody. Men were not somehow magically exempt from his contempt. He would put them down for being ugly, or fat, or stupid, or effeminate. (One of his favorite epithets was "mosquito balls.") If the men he was putting down were above him in the organization, he would do it behind their backs; if they were below him, he felt no qualms about doing it to their faces.

One of the guys who worked for him, who had worked there for a long time, was gay. Word got out that his partner had died of AIDS. Jack knew about this, but never said a word of condolence to him. ("I'm not talking to that faggot!")

But no one ever accused Jack of being a man-hater.

Jack had stopped attending NBA games because, in his words, "Why would I want to watch a bunch of baboons run up and down the court?"

I once heard him say, "You know why black people walks slow? 'Cause they have a hard time remembering, 'left foot, right foot, left foot'….."

In reference to an unpopular Jewish employee, he once said, "Hey, don't blame me, I'm German. We did our part in World War Two."

Early on, after I had gotten a sense of his personality but before I realized he was a sociopath, I tried to think of someone he would actually like. It occurred to me that I knew a guy who was one class ahead of him at Princeton. This guy was also of German descent, extremely masculine, a top athlete (better than Jack), conservative, and he also worked in the financial industry. I figured, Jack couldn't have any objections to him. But when I asked Jack if he'd known him, he replied, "That guy? What an asshole! I tell you, no one at Princeton liked him. Hey, you know, I fucked his girlfriend."

Jack simply hated everybody, and found something to bitterly criticize them all about, and had absolutely no compunctions about how he did it. And every guy I've ever known who's been like this (even if they were less extreme than Jack) didn't draw the line with women. They were brutal to every one.

No one is brutal to one set of people, then kindhearted and considerate to another. It would simply be out of character.

Other people, who caught smaller snapshots of Jack than I did, might have ended up thinking that he was really racist, or anti-Semitic, or hated homosexuals. And they'd all be right. But for all the hatred Jack expressed toward blacks and Jews, he in fact hated every white person he knew with the same, seemingly never-ending supply of bitterness.

Which, in a weird sort of way, actually made him less racist and anti-Semitic than he appeared.

There are people -- like me -- who are accused of being haters because they are fed up with the dishonesty and hypocrisy of politically correctness and point those out. I certainly don't hate anybody because of their race or gender or sexuality. And I hope that nobody hates me because of mine. I only hate liars and hypocrites.

Then there are people like Jack, who actually do hate blacks, and Jews, and women, and gays. But the key to understanding a guy like Jack is knowing that he hates individual whites, and men, and heterosexuals just as much (even if he had to find different justifications for his hatreds).

Back to the subject of misogyny: every serial killer (of women) who's ever lived, has undoubtedly had the same utter lack of sympathy and regard for every man he's ever met; the only difference is that these killers didn't want to have sex with men. These killers were simply sociopaths, which meant they had no concern or regard for anyone other than themselves.

(Homosexual serial killers are never accused of being "man-haters." And nobody ever pedantically explains, well, you see, what they really want to do, deep down inside, is kill their fathers.)

There's no such thing as a misogynist; only misanthropes (meaning, sociopaths).

And, if there's such a thing as a person who truly hates all blacks, but has an open, trusting, and friendly attitude towards whites, I have yet to meet him.