In the fifteen or so years that I've been actively feministing, I've never tired of being asked whether or not I hate men. When I say I've never tired of it, I am of course lying. If I could summarise my experience of the anti-feminist backlash into one tedious, repetitive interaction, it would be thus: "Do you hate men? Wait, let me rephrase that. Why do you hate men?"
Although my care factor for whether or not men think I hate them hovers somewhere just below zero – and I will teach you how to adjust your scale similarly – the blatant lack of self-awareness on display when this question is asked (and asked and asked and asked, repeatedly, on and on into infinity) still manages to astonish me.
More Life Videos
Clementine Ford goes through her 'Dicktionary'
Clementine Ford, author of Fight Like a Girl lays out her top 5 misogynistic terms.
Here's a sample of some of the things that have been said to me by men distressed by the thought that feminism might not be a political movement that advocates for gender equality, but just a club for ugly chicks to hate on blokes:
Misandrist. Man-hater. Feminazi boner killer. Joyless harpy, jealous of the prettier girls. Dumb fat cow. Sour-faced wrinkled bitch who's only angry about rape because no one would ever rape her. Wants to kill all men, but only because no man would ever touch her. You're a c---. I hope you get raped by someone with AIDS. I hope you get raped by a pack of Muslims. F--- you, you f---ing man-hating dyke.
![Clementine Ford](/web/20170112210802im_/http://www.watoday.com.au/content/dam/images/1/0/l/q/g/z/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.grpm1g.png/1475027405604.jpg)
Do feminists hate men? When you consider the level of hostility women are subjected to just for standing up for ourselves, surely the better query is why do so many men seem to hate women so fiercely, so aggressively, so violently and so passionately?
As pertinent as this question might be, it's rarely asked in response to the knee-jerk paranoia around feminism and what it supposedly means. Instead, feminists and non-feminists (or, as I call them, dickwads) alike funnel endless reams of energy into debating the utterly pointless question of whether or not feminists are required by law to hate all men, as if answering this will reveal the secret key to unlocking real gender equality.
In actual fact, this boring, trivial fixation is nothing more than an effective means of constantly diverting any attention away from feminism's success (potential or actual) and directing it towards feeding society's obsession with placating men at all times.
You know what? Some women do hate men. They have good reason to. They might have been raped and beaten and down-trodden and abused, and they have reached their breaking point. They might have lived a nightmare you can't even conceive of.
!['Fight Like A Girl' by Clementine Ford is out now through Allen & Unwin.](/web/20170112210802im_/http://www.watoday.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/q/5/t/z/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.grpm1g.png/1475043505865.jpg)
To these women, men might represent the enemy because the role they have played in these women's lives – a role that might involve sexual abuse, exploitation, emotional manipulation, and perhaps even attempts to kill them – has consistently shown themselves to be exactly that. If these women hate men, who is anyone to blame them?
Others may not hate or despise men at all. They might love men. And they might be able to do this while recognising the extraordinary advantages that men in general (particularly the white, middle-class, cis-het ones) enjoy over everyone else, often in tandem with the denial that these advantages exist at all.
These women who love men – the women who enjoy the presence of their husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, cousins, friends, colleagues, the man who serves them coffee at their local, the Uber driver they spoke to last night – might also express frustration and anger over the times men do not treat them with the same level of respect.
They might rant when a man tells them to "lighten up" when they complain about sexist commentary. They might fume when a man tells them that instead of complaining about street harassment and "tarring all men with the same brush", they should be flattered by it because "it's a compliment". These women who love and adore the men in their lives and recognise the potential for goodness that exists in all men might still feel like crying sometimes, because for all the love they offer the world's men, the hate those men are capable of offering back can be heartbreaking and soul-destroying.
Instead of berating feminists for being misandrists, perhaps these men should start taking responsibility for the abominable, destructive and dehumanising treatment of women throughout all of history up to and including the present day.
Because here's the thing: at a broad sweep, men have given us countless reasons to hate them. They have certainly provided ample evidence of their hatred for us, and the violence they inflict has more physical, cultural and economic power behind it than women subjugated by a patriarchal system could ever hope to replicate.
Despite all this, most of us don't hate men. Most of us still engage with men on a substantial level, choosing to befriend them, marry them, create families with them, become mothers to them. We choose to love them. But we are allowed to love ourselves as well.
Yet when we engage in this radical act of self-love, unashamedly, openly and fearlessly, we are asked, "Why do you hate men?"
Why do we hate men?
Again, the better question to ask is: why do men hate us, and why do they hate us so much?
This is an edited extract from Clementine Ford's new book, Fight Like A Girl, out now through Allen & Unwin.