A lot of things get lost in the widespread definition of misogyny as ‘someone who hates women.’ I disagree with that definition since I prefer the one that says, ‘someone who discriminates against women.’
You see, you don’t have to hate someone to discriminate against them. You could love your mother, adore your sisters, worship the feet of your grandmother, and regard your girlfriend’s words as holy declarations but still believe ‘women are unreasonable creatures.’ It’s just as a racial group considers itself superior to another group, or how a person would claim to ‘like’ black people while still quoting statistics to say they are responsible for all the crimes in the world.
See, I’m not a woman. I know nothing about the peculiar challenges that women face, no matter how hard I’ve tried to understand. But I’ve seen something in my wondering. Black men who are misogynists are the most hypocritical set of people in the world – which is high praise because have you seen the world?
The misogyny of privileged people can be understood in a way – it’s awful, of course – since they’re not often discriminated against, they’ve never had to apply their whole lives to proving themselves competent in a way other groups are made to do, and they’ve never experienced the look when someone sees you in a position of power and squeezes their face in disbelief. Black men, on the other hand, have experienced all these. So, why are we not conscious enough to recognise it when we do it to women?
I imagine your answer may lead to the fact that privilege is blinding and whatever small castle black men have built for ourselves has prevented us from seeing the mountain outside. So, let’s play a little game. It’s called “WHO SAID THAT – RACIST OR MISOGYNIST?”
Ready? Let’s go.
“Yes, things used to be bad for them, but it’s all good these days. What are they still croaking about?”
“Oh please. These people just lack accountability when someone like them does something wrong.”
“The way these people reason, they shouldn’t have been allowed to vote.”
“I have friends like them so I can’t be discriminatory against them.”
“Don’t be mad at me for quoting clearly discriminatory statistics that support my claim!”
“Heard what happened in the so-and-so country last week? I told you these people are like that. They just can’t beat the allegations.”
“God made us masters over them. What’s my fault for upholding His natural classification?”
“Our groups of people are talented in different ways. They should do what they are naturally built to do and leave the rest to us. What’s with this nonsense competition that complicates matters?”
“These days they have been empowered so much that we are now the ones being discriminated against.”
“The discrimination against our group is just as bad as the discrimination against them!” (Spoiler alert, it’s not.)
“They are lesser to us in intellect. It’s science!”
“The books and movies exaggerate. It wasn’t that bad in those days.”
“If they overtake us, they will do worse to us than we used to do to them.”
“Privilege? What privilege? Do you have any idea how hard I worked to get that opportunity you said was denied to them? If they are not lazy and expecting handouts, they will get the same opportunities too.”
“The mere fact that very few of them are in decision-making roles tells you all about how inferior they are. No, it’s not a systematic thing that keeps them down.”
“Why has this person from that group performed in such a mediocre way? I thought they were supposed to be as good as us? Then they should have done the work better than us.” (Yes, that line of thought also confuses me).
“Look at such and such. They’re a member of that group and they behave ‘sanely’. If they all behaved like that, we wouldn’t discriminate against them.”
Yeahhh, I’ve made my point. Byeee.
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