Ladies, it's All Your Fault!

[malthaussen]

Caveat: I don't expect this post to be taken entirely seriously. It's frankly blue-sky speculation that I would never in a million years try to back up. I like it because it is both elegant and freighted with irony, two of my favorite flavors: those who don't care for these will probably not care for it. Be advised.

It has become increasingly obvious to me over the past several months that a good number of Republican male legislators, possibly even the majority, hate their mothers. Their continuous, vicious assault on the rights of women, and their strident denials that such assault exists, are sufficient evidence to persuade me of this truth. But that being the case, I have been chewing the metaphorical cud trying to figure out why this should be the case. Could it be, I wonder, because the hyper-narcissistic psychopathic brats feel they never got enough attention from their own mothers, and so are taking it out on all mothers (potential or otherwise) as a consequence? And is it further possible, I ask, that perhaps they didn't get "enough" attention (however one may define "enough&quot , that their mothers through choice or unavoidable economic necessity spent more time on career than they spared attention to the needs of the petulant little snots who have grown up to infest our legislatures at every level? Could this attack on women be an unintended consequence of Women's Liberation? Considering that so much of this anti-woman legislation is concerned to force the female into what some are pleased to call the "traditional" role of mother and nurturer, it should be obvious that the males responsible for such bills are striving to fill a deep, empty pit of need in their own psyches. Hey, it's a model that is consistent with the evidence.

Ladies, it's all your fault. But then, you knew that already.

-- Mal

[BlueToTheBone]

1. Well, Mal

you are true that this is deep hatred of women (may I suggest that term in the future to avoid perpetrating the stereotype of mother/whore...women is the actual word for our genus of the species...but I digress) and it is much older than "Women's Lib." During the Witch Burnings (a 400 year period) appx 7 million women were murdered, which comes out to about one woman every 45 minutes for 400 years. In some villages no woman over the age of 15 was spared so that knowledge would die and we could all say God the Father.

Anyway, when you figure out why "they" hate us so much, please let me know.

[Starry Messenger]

2. They want to own the means of reproduction.

It isn't really that complicated. Until a certain sector can make babies itself without women, they are are going to try to own us directly.

[Little Star]

4. Holy crap! That was a scary thought....

What are they gonna do with us when we are no longer needed? Yikes!

(and I'm only half joking)

[malthaussen]

7. William Tenn wrote a sci-fi story years ago

In which dogs evolved to take over the world. They retained humans as pets, however -- to throw sticks for them.

-- Mal

[left coaster]

8. The Handmaid's Tale is like a, pardon the pun, wet dream to the right wing misogynist sector. nt

[BlueToTheBone]

21. especially since we can reproduce

without them?

[Starry Messenger]

26. Bingo.

[MadrasT]

36. I think

this scares the shit out of them.

Women daring to run around having babies on their own.

If a woman (or a gay couple for that matter) doesn't need a husband to have a baby... the Powerful Men™ lose control. Big time.

So unmarried mothers and gay couples being parents are painted by the Powerful Men™ as abominations because it is a slap in their faces.

[Little Star]

3. Sometimes just because you can't prove something...

doesn't necessarily make it un-true.

[Brigid]

5. We need the unrec feature back.

That's all I have to say.

[riderinthestorm]

6. I'll K&R this Mal. Great OP! Now let the free-for-all commence.... nt

[canoeist52]

9. One can always tell the worth of a nation by the treatment of it's women.

[MineralMan]

10. I can't agree with you on what you said, but I've never been able to understand

the animosity some men have towards women. All have mothers. Most have sisters and female children. For me, that says that the men who feel animosity toward women must also have similar animosities toward the women most closely related to them. But, is that actually true? In most cases, I think, it is not. So, there is a logical disconnect somewhere in the equation.

How does a man treat his mother like the Virgin Mary, his sisters as friends, and his daughters like princesses, and still hate women in general? I've never found an answer to that question that made any sense.

[Little Star]

11. The animosity of Republican males is breathtaking! They seem to want..

women to have no rights.

[MineralMan]

14. Yes. I hope that will be their ultimate downfall.

Women all across America should simply reject the GOP en masse. I'm hopeful that will begin with this year's elections.

[malthaussen]

12. Consider this thought, MM:

The male treats the women related to him in this (unrealistic) fashion because they are "his," and nothing that is "his" can be bad. All other women, however, are "other," and thus not subject to the same consideration. Again, it's a model that is supported by the facts. How do people excuse supporting their children, siblings, family, even when the individual they support may be a serial axe-murderer? It is a logical disconnect, to be sure, but when has logic played a role in the emotions?

-- Mal

[MineralMan]

15. Yes, that's one explanation that may be true.

Another is that many men see women as the real holders of power, since they give birth to and ensure the survival of every human for several years. That fact may trouble some men, who then seek to remove power from women. Like I said, I've never been able to fully understand the phenomenon.

[goclark]

13. This election is the Last Stand

IMO for the "MAN?" to remain in charge of everything.

That includes proving that women don't hold any power, they hold it all.

They are desperate and they will step on their mothers to win this election.

They are sick, sick, sick!

[MineralMan]

16. And women should simply vote NO to that nonsense.

It is in their power to do so, and I hope they do, beginning in 2012.

[CrispyQ]

18. You view these men from the context of your own life.

You can't imagine having animosity toward the women in your life, so you assume these men also do not & there must be a disconnect with them.

I think they do hold the women in their life in contempt, but many of these women are submissive, so the man's hatred is masked when dealing with them, because these women 'know their place.'

[MineralMan]

19. You could be right. I only have the context of my own life

against which to measure this. For me, it's unimaginable, frankly.

[BlueToTheBone]

22. All the rest are whores?

[MineralMan]

24. I don't think it's that simple.

If I did, I wouldn't have wondered about it for so long.

[BlueToTheBone]

38. I don't think it's that simple either,

But having read Herman Hesse, I came to believe this hypothesis. I know that these books engendered great "spiritual awakening" for men, but it was at the expense of women.

In you wondering, have you come up with answers?

[MineralMan]

39. No firm answers.

I'm still puzzled, and still thinking.

[BlueToTheBone]

43. A friend of mine suggested

that when societies were first forming, the worst punishment was banishment and the most unruly would be teenaged boys. Those that survived formed societies that were the Kurgen hordes across the Steppes.

Others speculate that the ritual of the killing of the king to fertilize the fields may have been a factor....This was a re enactment of the Inanna and Dumuzi and her descent into Hell and return only to find him drinking her wine, wearing her crown and in general having a great time and never thinking of her much less mourning her loss.

But others say when the Pill came along and women were "free"

[MicaelS]

32. If a boy was abused by his mother....

Verbally, emotionally, physically, sexually, especially during adolescence, do you really find it hard to understand WHY that boy grown into a man might have animosity toward women?

It's no coincidence many serial killers were abused in some fashion by their mothers.

As your second question, I remember a plaque I saw in a superior's office 40 years ago:

"There are two types of women, Mother and Others."

In other words the old Madonna / Whore syndrome. If the female belongings to said male, she is obviously a Madonna. If she is not controllable by him, AKA his property, then she's either a whore, or potential whore. Or else she's just "Too fucking independent"

[MineralMan]

34. Of course abuse could affect someone's viewpoint.

That would not explain, however, the widespread phenomenon. Neither, I think, does the Madonna/whore thing. That is more likely a result than a cause, it seems to me.

[malthaussen]

35. Yeah, Madonna/Whore has been with us for a long time

But the virulence of the current attacks on women is new -- at least, in this social cycle.

A while back, I mooted the thought that because of the current labor surplus, male legislators were trying to drive women back out of the labor force. That suggestion fell dead-born from the Press, however.

-- Mal

[BlueToTheBone]

40. A woman's greatest fear from a man

is that he will rape and/or kill her. The greatest fear of men is that a woman will laugh at him.

[MineralMan]

42. The two are not in any way equivalent.

Truly they are not. Being laughed at is embarrassing, but not traumatic or life-changing. If it is, then something's wrong with the person being laughed at.

As my very wise father said to me, over 70 years ago, "It's good to laugh at yourself. If you don't, others will do it for you."

[BlueToTheBone]

44. And I think that there is something terribly wrong with

most of the men in the world today. I think the infection of the hatred of LIFE has escalated to full scale destruction of the planet.

[malthaussen]

20. Nope, not a scintilla

Self-identified in the second sentence as "blue-sky speculation."

-- Mal

[malthaussen]

29. Did you not grow up in America?

Everything that happens here is some woman's fault.

-- Mal

[BlueToTheBone]

41. Blame is placed on those you

dislike or hate, or those that displease you or as a mirror show you your own stuff which is then transferred to the "mirror"

[BlueToTheBone]

23. I think the real question is

Why do men hate women so much?

[malthaussen]

25. Mmmm, you have a bell-curve problem there, Blue

Some men don't hate women. We should do some intensive study on the non-hating end of the bell-curve to see why those men don't fit in with the norm. Then develop a pill to fix it.

-- Mal

[BlueToTheBone]

37. For a non hate, that was pretty dismissive. n/t

[malthaussen]

45. I didn't think you were serious

Since "why do men hate women so much" is painting with rather a broad brush. Reading your other posts in this thread, it's clear the question does perplex you. I do think we would need to do some work on the non-hating end of the bell-curve to find out why some men don't hate women, but I think the current hatred outbreak may have reasons that differ from the generalized woman-hate that has been shared by so many men for so long a period.

Most anthropology I have read suggests that the reasons offered upthread are most likely: hatred of women, segregation of women, discrimination against women seems to be tied up with the reproductive issue, which would account for why the Republicans are hitting it so hard now (and would tend to refute my suspicion that there may be other contributing factors for today's outbreak of witch-hunting). I've always had trouble, personally, with that explanation, because personally the reason doesn't trouble me.

One problem, though, with finding the reasons lying deep in racial memory is that it not only assumes we have not progressed at all since we were just coming in from the hunter/gatherer days, but would tend to cast a pessimistic light on the concept that we could evolve at all. If we are still atavistically responding as we did a few thousand years ago, what's going to happen this weekend to change all that? This is, probably, why I seek for a more recent explanation: in the perhaps vain hope that the recent outbreak is an aberration, and not a reversion to form.

-- Mal

[meaculpa2011]

27. I have met many men...

that hold all the correct political views and treat the women in their own lives horrendously.

[goclark]

30. Yes, most of the men friends that I have

happen to be Democrats .

However, my Republican male friends have a more narrow view of life and appear to have no "care gene" for those in need.

They just think about their needs.

Ms. goclark has lots and lots of male friends and relatives.
Just my experience, can't speak for others.

[Fumesucker]

31. Welcome to DU..

Where are you meeting all these politically correct creeps?

[GObamaGO]

33. I think a lot of the GOP elected officials suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Even if their mothers were home full time and doted on them 24/7, there is no way to fill that endless void of need within the narcissist, therefore they hold their mothers, and by extension ALL women in the utmost contempt.