“Why are women so self-righteous and judgmental towards men?”

[2Fragile2TakeCriticism]

I stumbled across a question on Quora that asked “why are women so self-righteous and judgmental towards men?” and it was titled “men only”. I rolled my eyes at this and thought how ridiculous and stupid it was. Such a hive mind and echo chamber.

Don’t want to be seen as complaining. Just something on my mind.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

As you probably figured out, perhaps only "some" women are that way, the rest are not. "Some" people, men and women, with a sense of low self-esteem, the bullying type of mentality, find that running other people down, criticizing, being self-righteous and judgmental makes them feel better about themselves. It's a form of mental and emotional abuse, and as I suggested, men and women both do it.

 

[Judge]

I stumbled across a question on Quora that asked “why are women so self-righteous and judgmental towards men?” and it was titled “men only”.

Rather than take the subject matter head-on, perhaps it might be more illuminating to examine some of the more basic origins for such sentiments in the clinical sense:

12 Ways to Spot a Misogynist

Men who hate women may not consciously realize it. But their acts reveal them.

www.psychologytoday.com

 

[Hypnalis]

The question isn't misogynistic. That would only be true if women are rarely or never self-righteous and judgmental towards men. It is a "loaded" title, but clearly some women act that way sometimes.
Not just women of course, but using the name of the movement that developed the ideology is risky online.

Given that there is something to discuss, the next questionable criticism is that the discussion excludes women.

There are three posts before mine. Two of three assume without evidence that simply wanting such a discussion is evidence of misogyny. I'm not sure about @Neonatal RRT's position - it could be interpreted as suggesting you'd have to be weak-minded to discuss that topic.
It's not a lot of data, but it's a good indication that any discussion would need to exclude people who are already convinced that it should not be held at all - and while they're not all XX, it's a reasonable proxy.

I ask any reader (and the three posters in front of me), to assume that there could be a valid reason for a group of normal, psychologically stable men to hold such a discussion, and then read those three posts.

The look again at the title of the Quora discussion, and test that against my view of those posts.

George Orwell:

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

 

[Judge]

The question isn't misogynistic.

I disagree. That it depends entirely on who made such claims and why. In the meantime I'm just pointing out the possible origins of such sentiments- as a starting point for such a discussion.

Possible explanations for such a mindset of any number of men with such attitudes towards women. Otherwise in all fairness we'd need greater context which wasn't provided. I would normally take this subject into somewhat a different direction, however it likely skirts along the edges of what is considered prohibited issues to discuss.

 

[Hypnalis]

That depends entirely on who made such claims and why. I'm just pointing out the possible origins of such sentiments. The possible mindset of any number of men with such attitudes towards women.

I would normally go into much greater detail, but the mods would likely delete my response given the subject matter involved. (Politics/History)

Whether it is or isn't misogynistic isn't dependent on who said it or why.
They may be misogynistic anyway OFC, but those words are not.

Those words don't establish any negative attitude to women in general either.
The normal assumption is that, more precisely, the title is "... some women ... some men.", not "... all women ... all men."

I know people get it wrong online a lot, but the implication if "all" is unstated is that it's "some", and cannot be stronger than "many".

@mods
Do what you have to do OFC, but I quite enjoy discussions like this, and am comfortable with discussions running way "hotter" than AF norms.
Please don't limit the others in the interests of sparing my feelings, or helping me avoid intemperate in-thread behavior. The first isn't necessary, and the second won't happen in these forums

 

[thejuice]

I feel like it's righteous and mainstream to dehumanise, generalise and put down men but it's fringe and scorned upon to do the same to women. It even has a well known word for it. Do I have any proof? No its just my impression. Ideally both would be treated the same. You have to have a thick skin and a lot of resignation on the internet. I don't make the rules nor do I enforce them.

 

[Neri]

I do think that there is an awful lot of that sort of thing going on, but then again, the reverse is just as prevelent. The shoes fits the other foot, just as well, shall we say. In my family life, mostly women have been guilty of this, but there are men, my ex partner being one of them, that are spectacularly self righteous and judgemental. My second youngest son said to me a couple of days ago "Dad doesn't believe in pathologizing anyone but you mum". I laughed and told him "I know".

There is such a history of men pathologizing us women, unfairly and harmfully, and still, there is so much "medical gaslighting" that happens, and it can be very biased toward pathologizing certain types of women, or doing it when women have been criminally damaged and instead of holding the men responsible accountable, women are pathologized. It's still happening because I met someone yesterday that's been treated like this recently, by police and the local "Mental Health" system, after her partner became violent and police were called. She was involuntarily admitted to the local psychiatric facility and actually gaslit instead of them addressing the partner violence she was subject to that brought the first responders to her door.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

The question isn't misogynistic. That would only be true if women are rarely or never self-righteous and judgmental towards men. Clearly some are sometimes.
Not just women of course, but using the name of the movement that developed the ideology is risky online.

Given that there is something to discuss, the next questionable criticism is that the discussion excludes women.

There are three posts before mine. Two of three assume without evidence that simply wanting such a discussion is evidence of misogyny. I'm not sure about @Neonatal RRT's position - it could be interpreted as suggesting you'd have to be weak-minded to discuss that topic.
It's not a lot of data, but it's a good indication that any discussion would need to exclude people who are already convinced that it should not be held at all - and while they're not all XX, it's a reasonable proxy.

I ask any reader ( and the three posters in front of me), to assume that there could be a valid reason for a group of normal, psychologically stable men to have such a discussion, and then read those three posts.

The look again at the title of the Quora discussion, and test that against my view of those posts.

George Orwell:

The primary point I was trying to get across was the error. When someone says something to the effect that "Why are women so self-righteous and judgmental towards men?" the verbiage suggests all women, which in my mind, suggests an error in thinking (a cognitive bias) or perhaps an error in the verbiage.

With that, I suggested that the words "women" and "men" could have been swapped in that statement, suggesting that some men have been known to be self-righteous and judgmental towards some women. For example, perhaps an overweight woman walking into a gym for the first time and a group of young, fit men making self-righteous and judgmental comments to each other about her. Poor character, no doubt, but witnessed it more than once.

Certainly, some women can be self-righteous and judgmental towards men. Some women can be every bit as harsh, if not more so. For example, there have been plenty of Podcasts and YouTube videos of young women demonstrating a rather disturbing dysphoria thinking they would not even consider a man under 6ft tall, making under $200,000/yr, 30-40yrs old, etc. not having any idea of the fact that this makes up less than 0.01% of males. In other words, the vast majority of males not only being "unworthy" but being totally invisible to them. So, if you're a typical male, they are going to look down upon you even if they are less attractive than you are. Certainly, this isn't every woman, but seems to be a "thing" with some groups of young women.

 

[Magna]

Rather than take the subject matter head-on, perhaps it might be more illuminating to examine some of the more basic origins for such sentiments in the clinical sense:

12 Ways to Spot a Misogynist

Men who hate women may not consciously realize it. But their acts reveal them.

www.psychologytoday.com

Is there also a link to 12 ways to spot a misandrist?

 

[Judge]

Is there also a link to 12 ways to spot a misandrist?

I don't understand your question.

That is the link I posted. Having trouble accessing it? (PT is normally a simple domain to access.)

 

[Neri]

I don't understand your question.

That is the link I posted. Having trouble accessing it? (PT is normally a simple domain to access.)

I think Magna is referring to the opposite, when women talk about men in a hateful way and are every bit as sexist.

 

[Judge]

Whether it is or isn't misogynistic isn't dependent on who said it or why.
They may be misogynistic anyway OFC, but those words are not.

Those words don't establish any negative attitude to women in general either.
The normal assumption is that, more precisely, the title is "... some women ... some men.", not "... all women ... all men."

I know people get it wrong online a lot, but the implication if "all" is unstated is that it's "some", and cannot be stronger than "many".

In your opinion.

But then I'm not here to split hairs over semantics either. Simply offering a starting point to consider other aspects of this issue of such sentiments without infringing on subjects the mods don't like. As to where that discussion goes is not up to you- or me.

That sometimes establishing motive can be much more beneficial. Whether by individuals, groups or whatever.

Otherwise I just see the thread quickly coming to an end over the usual bickering defined by a gender divide.

 

[thejuice]

Is there also a link to 12 ways to spot a misandrist?

I think there are lots.of feminist writers out there looking for gainful employment in legacy journalism whereas 'meninists' (?!) are fringe lunatics who have to use new media to get their divisive message across

 

[Magna]

I don't understand your question.

That is the link I posted. Having trouble accessing it? (PT is normally a simple domain to access.)

The title of this thread appears to be a rhetorical question that takes the position that at least some women have negative feelings about men. Your 12 signs link is talking about men who would have negative feelings toward women.

 

[Judge]

The title of this thread appears to be a rhetorical question that takes the position that at least some women have negative feelings about men. Your 12 signs link is talking about men who would have negative feelings toward women.

Exactly. But as a starting point for such a discussion. Especially given minimal context of the original post.

Not intended as a concise answer to a less-than-concise question.

Love it, hate it, I don't care. I'm just suggesting the origins of such sentiments in the absence of context that may or may not shed more light on such sentiments. That's all.

Not intended as a claim to any and all reasons as to what may motivate some men to be so hostile to women in general. IMO that requires much more context than what a rhetorical question can provide.

 

[Neri]

I think there are lots.of feminist writers out there looking for gainful employment in legacy journalism whereas 'meninists' (?!) are fringe lunatics who have to use new media to get their divisive message across

But why legitimize the feminists and demonize the men? I don't understand the bias. It seems condescending to me, to tolerate female bigotry and to marginalize men like that. After all we are just talking about what people say, not actual criminal behavior. I don't like this gender pandering any more than any other kinds of identity politics pandering and excusing any bigotry from any group, regardless of victim status points accrued. If woman are being judgemental and succumbing to talking in gendered generalist terms (I might add that thinking in broad sweeping generalizations is considered a cognitive distortion within recovery- model psychological terms) why is that condoned? While men who do that are shunned and demonized? Hateful talk is hateful talk, in my opinion, I don't prescribe to any "soft bigotry of low expectations" type of condescending allowances.
If I want insecure projecting people to respect me, I sure as heck don't want to legitimize their projecting narcissism, no matter what arbitrary physical attributes and identity group they identify with, I'm better off calling hateful political powerplays out as I see them, regardless.

But if we are talking about women who are modeling genuine female empowerment, I've no issue with that, and if we are talking men who resent women and refuse to try to understand and are peddling plain old fashioned mysogany, ok, I'm with you. I just don't condone the sexism and female chauvinism any more than I do the male chauvinism. They both demonstrate a lack of self and other aware awareness, in a way that promotes demonization and narcissism and is utterly counterproductive toward healthy and respectful ways of relating and viewing self and others, in my opinion.

 

[Hypnalis]

@Judge

The thread, starting with the OP, has been shaped by semantics, and arguably is about semantics.

The assumption that the proposed discussion was inherently misogynistic is entirely dependent on adding in those "all" classifiers. Doing that to a statement like <Category> has <Property> is normal in Logic and Math.

But not in human matters - it can't be, because hardly anything is 100% true in the human domain. If people are involved, the "all" has to be prefixed, because "All X are Y" is an unusual case, and "Some X are Y" (or Many, or Most) is the norm.

So in normal speech, interpretations like this have to be considered among the options:

>> An XY human has found one or more XX-humans close to them to be self-righteous and judgmental on occasion, and they are finding it hard to have a neutral discussion with those people so they can resolve this communication issue.

They like to talk with others with more understanding and experience to get a better understanding of what they could do, and perhaps what they should do.

That is, they seek either to (a) refine their understanding (perhaps they are misinterpreting what they hear), or (b) resolve the issues that cause the style of speech (perhaps they are are unknowingly the cause of a genuine problem), or (c) perhaps the XX speakers are simply being rude, and the XY wants help to negotiate a change in the XXs' mode of communication.

Spun that way, it's the kind of thing that happens frequently here in AF, due to the inherent complications of ND/NT communication. And we don't attack our own, even if they could be the likely source of the issues.

I'm in favor of assuming the best, not the worst, interpretation given what's actually written.
:
:
Something I couldn't fit in above: I'm not in favor of everyone trying to do second-level analysis to somehow extract more information.

For example "why did they use "self-righteous" rather than "sanctimonious" or "smugly moralistic". Or the reverse - does the selection of the more secular "self-righteous" mitigate the general tone a little?
With a large enough vocabulary (or my method: some time and access to wikipedia you can make anything seem unacceptable.

It doesn't lead to a good place.

 

[Judge]

For example "why did they use "self-righteous" rather than "sanctimonious" or "smugly moralistic".

I already covered that. That we don't know what motivated such statements to begin with. That "lack of context" I spoke of in earlier posts. You must have missed it. I'd love to speculate on such motives and terminology, but it involves subjects and interpretations the staff forbids us to post about.

Which is why I'd rather begin with a starting point of misogyny rather than wallow in speculation over an OP that was too ambiguous to make objective claims over. To understand at least some of the possible motives for why such terms were applied in the first place. Argue for or against...that IMO it's just a starting point in the absence of what really needs to be discussed but can't be.

 

[thejuice]

@Neri Thank you for saying that.

For me I just want equal standard applied everywhere.