Man hating: what is it?

[Caladan]

In general I would say that the women in my job on average (just a rough impression after working there for a year and a half) are as assertive as the guys and often more assertive, and also often promoted into managing positions based on their skills of efficiency. Skills which often mean putting loud mouthed contractors in their place and telling men when and where they can build what. In addition my last two excavation directors were women, the last one is perhaps one of the most respected archaeologist I've worked with not only on the scholarly level, but over a 150 Middle Eastern men and women who were working in her dig treated her like the Sultan. She commands both authority and genuine appreciation from them. I think that women in my company in general would not take crap, although there are definitely also problems on the inspection work level when Middle Eastern construction workers harass junior female workers while they would never think about doing the same to a male worker during routine inspection work.
This week for example was a very nice one for me, I had a routine inspection in a road expansion where me and the workers got along very good, joked around, and they had me making them tea and coffee every day sometimes on hourly basis. No issues at all, it was all a positive experience. Then a female colleague I dropped off in another site in the area mentioned some of the remarks the same workers made at her a week before while she was working with them for only one day. These were classical verbal sexual harassment comments. As she's a new worker I made sure to tell her that in such cases she should contact the province archaeologist straight away so she could raise hell.

I realize some don't like to hear it, because it's not politically correct. But that is absolutely true that on average sexual harassment is common among Middle Eastern men. Alceste's example is a classical one of luring a woman with niceness into a situation she is later going to regret finding herself in. Several of my female family members who live in Paris have been in the situation as Alceste also mentioned, and I've witnessed and heard the same in other places. I'm not even going to go into the experience in Mid Eastern countries my wife or other women I know had while trying to travel these countries. All one has to do is read the story of the young Egyptian girl Aliaa Magda Elmahdy to get some perspective about general mindset about what is expected of women and what they should look forward to if they protest it. In general it is a mild story compared to everyday occurrences which go unnoticed.

 

[Alceste]

In general I would say that the women in my job on average (just a rough impression after working there for a year and a half) are as assertive as the guys and often more assertive, and also often promoted into managing positions based on their skills of efficiency. Skills which often mean putting loud mouthed contractors in their place and telling men when and where they can build what. In addition my last two excavation directors were women, the last one is perhaps one of the most respected archaeologist I've worked with not only on the scholarly level, but over a 150 Middle Eastern men and women who were working in her dig treated her like the Sultan. She commands both authority and genuine appreciation from them. I think that women in my company in general would not take crap, although there are definitely also problems on the inspection work level when Middle Eastern construction workers harass junior female workers while they would never think about doing the same to a male worker during routine inspection work.
This week for example was a very nice one for me, I had a routine inspection in a road expansion where me and the workers got along very good, joked around, and they had me making them tea and coffee every day sometimes on hourly basis. No issues at all, it was all a positive experience. Then a female colleague I dropped off in another site in the area mentioned some of the remarks the same workers made at her a week before while she was working with them for only one day. These were classical verbal sexual harassment comments. As she's a new worker I made sure to tell her that in such cases she should contact the province archaeologist straight away so she could raise hell.

I realize some don't like to hear it, because it's not politically correct. But that is absolutely true that on average sexual harassment is common among Middle Eastern men. Alceste's example is a classical one of luring a woman with niceness into a situation she is later going to regret finding herself in. Several of my female family members who live in Paris have been in the situation as Alceste also mentioned, and I've witnessed and heard the same in other places. I'm not even going to go into the experience in Mid Eastern countries my wife or other women I know had while trying to travel these countries. All one has to do is read the story of the young Egyptian girl Aliaa Magda Elmahdy to get some perspective about general mindset about what is expected of women and what they should look forward to if they protest it. In general it is a mild story compared to everyday occurrences which go unnoticed.

Thanks for sharing that, Caladan. Yes, my own stories are blessedly mild, but they almost all involve middle eastern men. I don't think anybody else is daft enough to chance it. I'm not the meekest woman you could imagine. The first thing I did in Paris was learn a string of French insults and profanities (coincidentally, off a very nice north African French man who worked at the hostel) to dissuade them from targeting me. Worked a treat.

 

[Poeticus]

All one has to do is read the story of the young Egyptian girl Aliaa Magda Elmahdy to get some perspective about general mindset about what is expected of women and what they should look forward to if they protest it.

Caladan,

Do you know whether Ms. Aliaa was granted asylum in Sweden or not?

EDIT: Yes, Ms. Aliaa was granted asylum in Sweden! Phew! I was so concerned!!

In 2011, Elmahdy gained notoriety as the “nude poser” when she posted a picture of herself on her blog wearing nothing but red kitten heels and thigh-high stockings. The unprecedented image—which she said was a protest against Islamic rule and oppression of women in Egypt—provoked intense debate across the region. She received death threats and was briefly kidnapped before being granted political asylum in Sweden.
2013 Source

 

[Simurgh]

I think "man hating" is almost always used as a facile way for people to dismiss feminist ideas without actually considering them. Like "conspiracy theory" for the idea that banking and government operate on a shared agenda, or "anti-American" for criticism of the wars in the middle east.

I've never met any woman, feminist or otherwise, who "hates men" wholesale. Nor have I met one that doesn't exercise a little bit of extra caution when alone with a stranger who is a heterosexual man. That's just pure pragmatism and personal security. I don't know a woman who has never been sexually assaulted at some point - or at least been made to feel very unsafe - by a heterosexual man. For my own part, I was chased all over an empty mall by a very creepy middle aged middle eastern man when I was 14. I got away, but not without a lingering mistrust of over-friendly middle eastern men. Just like people who have been attacked by dogs are cautious around dogs. There's no "hate", just a keen awareness that sometimes dogs aren't just about cuddles and shaking paws.

Feminism is simply a dirty word, much the way that communism used to be here in the US—again the fear of communism was pervasive among Americans who did not know the difference between it and socialism and could not define either term correctly to start with. The only group feared/hated more than feminists are atheists in this country. So yes, you are right the word inspires revulsion and therefore many people never bother with educating themselves about what different feminist groups actually stand for, if they even acknowledge that feminism is not a monolithic concept.

I remember living in the ME and being fondled by some young male in the street. I turned around and slapped him hard, yelled at him in every language I knew---amazing how many cuss words you can learn in various languages when you travel—and promptly got attacked by some women who thought it outrageous that I had defended myself against that creep.

I was angry enough to snarl back at them and they were just completely taken aback when I did that. I think I was supposed to have been apologetic or something like it. Eventually police came and yanked me out of there—before I got seriously hurt.

That does not mean that the ME is any worse than any other place where men see no need to exercise self-control and instead control women.

Most likely, I think, it's more subtle than that, although I grant that learned behavior can have a lot to do with it -- especially in some cultures. Yet, cliche as it might be, don't entirely discount the effect that having at least 20 fold the chemically free testosterone of even a high testosterone female has on the tendency of males to make elaborate displays of manliness. In fact, the way I see it, the problem isn't so much that males are taught to make such displays as it is that they are not always taught to restrain behaviors that to some significant extent come natural to them.

I agree with the testosterone issue and the fact that we don’t teach boys to restrain their hormonal excesses. Yet, we make sure that girls are raised to exercise self-control, make sure they don’t say anything or do not act in a way that hurts other people’s feelings, often also to be self-effacing and to demure to authority—inevitably authority is conceived of as male.

Granted, I am past 50 and things have changed a bit since I was a teenager, but when I look at girls today, I still see them as being raised to defer to men. I see girls act dumb so that boys like them, and I see them raised by mothers who often think that “catching a man” is the most important thing in a female’s life. A stereotype furthered by clothing manufactures and the cosmetic industry that markets sexiness as a necessity for female toddlers.

As infuriating as this is to me, I am even angrier about the attitude that “boys will be boys”. Sure they will, but how are they supposed to become men when they are allowed to behave like hormonally challenged teenagers all their lives?