A brief introduction to work on misandry

 We have already written two volumes of a trilogy on misandry. The sexist counterpart of misogyny, misandry refers to the hatred of men in secular forms – cinematic stereotypes, journalistic excesses, legal manoeuvres, and so on. Still in the works is the third volume of that trilogy. Meanwhile, however, we have found it necessary to write this fourth and more specialized book on misandry in the specific context of religion. Before introducing this book, here is a brief introduction to our earlier work on misandry.

In the trilogy’s first volume, Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture, 1 we showed how the entertainment, advertising, and even news industries have come to depict men. During the 1980s and 1990s, misandric stereotypes of men became pervasive in American popular culture. The male characters of popular movies and television shows, for instance, are usually either inadequate or evil – or both. (Exempted from ridicule or attack, sometimes, are characters who represent minority men or male feminists; they are, in effect, honorary women.) This was not the only gender pattern, but it was – and still is – a very common one. It is true that misogyny coexisted with misandry to some extent, but the two phenomena were different in one important way. Women monitored popular culture very carefully for signs of misogyny, which made it increasingly unlikely to surface in the first place. Hardly anyone watched for signs of misandry, which therefore remained “politically correct.” Negative stereotypes of men (along with positive stereotypes of women), we concluded, are symptoms of a much deeper and more pervasive problem. And we  identified the source of that problem as ideology in general and the ideological version of feminism 2 in particular.

We explained in our first volume that both forms of sexism, misogyny and misandry, refer to culturally propagated worldviews, not merely to transient personal emotions such as anger. Both forms of hatred have moral implications, therefore, not merely psychological ones. And both forms of hatred find expression not only in secular terms but also in religious terms. In the present volume we discuss the relation between secular and religious expressions of misandry. More specifically, we discuss the intimate relation between hostility toward “patriarchal” culture in general and hostility toward “patriarchal” religions in particular – that is, in the West, toward Christianity and Judaism.

Slightly more familiar than the word “misandry” is the word “ideology.” We explained that word, too, in our first volume. For non-academics, the latter means nothing more than a system of ideas (probably because “idea” sounds like “ideology”). Any philosophy or worldview, therefore, could be an ideology. We use this word in a much more disciplined way, though not that of most academics. Modern political and philosophical movements on both the political left (deriving from the Enlightenment through Marxism) and the political right (deriving from Romanticism) share characteristic features that differentiate them from other political and philosophical movements. Characteristic features of ideology 3 in this sense include the following: essentialism (proclaiming that “we” are innately good); dualism (proclaiming that “they” are innately evil); hierarchy (drawing the conclusion that “we” are innately better than “they” are); collectivism (succumbing to “identity politics”); utopianism (creating an ideal society now instead of waiting for divine intervention); revolutionism (advocating radical change, not incremental reform); selective cynicism (attributing evil motives to “them”); consequentialism (arguing that even an evil means can justify a good end); and quasi-religiosity (adopting religious means such as rituals, special texts, special times, and special places for primarily secular ends). With this in mind, in that first volume, we identified ideological feminism as very problematic.

The trilogy’s second volume, Legalizing Misandry: From Public Shame to Systemic Discrimination against Men, 4 discussed the ways in which society has used law to institutionalize misandry – often in the very name of “gender equality” (which is probably why  feminists often refer instead to “women’s equality,” even though there can be no such thing as either that or “men’s equality”). Before heading into the various legal minefields – divorce, custody, domestic violence, sexual harassment, and so on – we examined the journalistic aspect of popular culture. And we found that journalists, no less than filmmakers and advertising firms, have presented men as a truly sinister class – one that presumably deserves public denunciation on a routine basis and even legalizes hostility on an institutional basis. Whether public acceptance of their negative stereotypes came before or after the legalization of misandry is another matter. The two phenomena are so closely linked that it makes no difference for practical purposes.

Transcending Misandry: From Ideological Feminism to Intersexual Dialogue begins with a cross-cultural and historical – but not feminist – study of men. It concludes with a discussion of dialogue between men and women. Our notion of intersexual dialogue originated in that of interreligious dialogue, but it differs in at least two ways. First, it is more formal (and more disciplined) than the casual conversations that usually go on in church or synagogue basements. Second, it is less formal (and less bureaucratic) than the ecumenical projects of ecclesiastical institutions. We hope that other conflicting groups will find our method helpful.

Our premise in this new book is that the religious wing of ideological feminism has tried to rewrite the biblical story of redemption. It begins in the paradisal Garden of Eden, continuing with the sin of our primeval parents, exile from paradise, history as we know it but with the promise of redemption, and an eventual return to paradise. Christians refer to the part about sin as the “Fall of Man.” And they understand the word “man” in its generic sense as a reference to all men and all women. Some feminists now, though, refer to “man” in its literal sense as a reference to men. In other words, the suffering that we have experienced throughout history is due to an “original sin” of our primeval maleancestors.

Who are these feminists, these religious counterparts of ideological feminists? We call them “goddess ideologues” (partly to distinguish them from those who advocate gender-inclusive forms of goddess religion). Rejecting the supposedly male god of Christianity or Judaism, they invoke a great goddess. She is now returning to save the world, they say, after being banished by the gods of men approximately ten thousand years ago.

 Neopagan movements were flourishing during the 1980s and 1990s. Some tried to reform traditional religions, but others rebelled against them. Some were egalitarian, but others were not. Some welcomed both men and women, but others welcomed only women. Some celebrated both gods and goddesses, but others celebrated only a great goddess. Our goal here is to show that some expressions of the latter have tried not merely to spread, condone, and legalize misandry but to sanctify it – give it a metaphysical or even divine mandate – in connection with goddess religion. 5 The result has been goddess ideology, 6 a religious expression of ideological feminism.

Finally, a few words about us. Katherine Young is James McGill Professor in the Faculty of Religious Studies at McGill University. Paul Nathanson is a senior researcher there. We have worked together at McGill for many years on research projects. Young specializes in Eastern religions and gender; Nathanson specializes in Western religions, secularity, and gender. Underlying all of our collaborative work is an interest in several problems that afflict modern democracies: extreme individualism (which focuses exclusively on personal rights); extreme collectivism (which focuses exclusively on the group rights of ethnic, linguistic, religious, sexual, or other minorities); the relation of both to society as a whole; the rhetoric of rights and its relation to the culture of entitlement; the moral implications of political ideologies; the shift from political ideologies as personal worldviews of the few to political ideologies as civil religions of the state; and, ultimately, the possibility of “dialogue” between conflicting groups.

The difference between religious studies and theology will be obvious to many readers but not to all. We discuss only the observable features of religion. It could be that the existence of Christianity is due ultimately to divine will. Not being theologians, we refrain from speculation on that topic. Being academics, our job is to explain historical events and to discern historical patterns. In this case, doing so would mean discussing the various forms of Christianity as they emerged and developed in specific historical contexts – that is, in connection with social, economic, political, intellectual, artistic, and other cultural forces.

We use words accordingly. Like scholars in both religious studies and anthropology, we use the words that apply broadly to many religious traditions. We use “myth,” for instance, to describe a very  ancient and very widespread oral or literary genre. More specifically, we use it to describe one form (among several) of the narrative genre. From our point of view, myths are stories about the human condition. More specifically, they are stories about collective identity (which might involve collective origin, destiny, purpose, meaning, belonging, and so forth). Communities transmit these stories from one generation to another, often in the context of ritual. Most myths use symbolic language, because they are about profound truths, ordinary language being inadequate to express truths that emerge in connection with universal paradoxes or existential mysteries.

In both theological and common parlance, however, the word “myth” has a highly pejorative connotation. In this sense, a “myth” refers to a proposition. More specifically, it refers to one form of proposition: a false one. From this point of view, a myth is some primitive or childish explanation for a natural phenomenon, an explanation that modern science has superseded. Sometimes, in fact, the word takes on distinctly sinister connotations. Cultural commentators, for instance, often use “myth” as a euphemism for “lie” – that is, a false claim that advertisers or politicians foster in order to mislead the public.

Why is there such a gulf between the popular and scholarly usages of “myth”? Why does it refer to ignorance or deception in one case but not the other? Consider the etymology. The ancient Greeks used mythos when referring to stories of their gods and goddesses. The early Christians, however, believed that these myths were false. Not only did they have other stories about the divinehuman encounter but they also had other words for them: first the Greek word evangelion (good news), later the Germanic word godspel (gospel), and so on. During the Enlightenment, philosophers and scientists went one step further. They believed that both the Greek myths and the Christian gospels were false. As a result, the word “myth” is now synonymous for many people with “illusion” or even “lie” – that is, the very opposite of truth.

Why, then, would scholars insist on using “myth” in something like its original sense? No one today believes that the Greek “myths” reveal ultimate or absolute truth in any metaphysical sense (although many people acknowledge their psychological insight). In fact, not everyone did so even during the later phases of ancient Greek civilization. Many people today, on the other hand, believe  that the Christian “gospels” do indeed reveal ultimate or absolute truth in the metaphysical sense.

The word “myth” is more likely to be useful for our purpose in this book, at any rate, than prescriptive ones such as “scripture” (or very general ones such as “story”). Unlike theologians, scholars need words that describe but do not prescribe. By describing all stories that have a similar cultural function as “myths,” in other words, they leave the theological evaluation of those stories to religious believers. Christians can acknowledge that the gospels are myths (as examples of a literary genre), for instance, but also believe that they are scriptural (as uniquely revealed repositories of ultimate truth); the two words are not mutually exclusive. In this book, we make no truth claims about Christian or Jewish theology. We make claims only about the ways in which goddess ideology uses Christian or Jewish theology.

The word “god” poses a similar problem. Religious people would prefer us to write “God,” not “god.” And we do, when the context makes it clear that we are referring to a name or the functional equivalent of a name – that is, what Christians or members of other religious communities call the object of their devotion. For generic references, however, we use the word without a capital letter. Otherwise, we would be adding piety to scholarship. Those two things do not mix.

 From: Sanctifying MisandryGoddess Ideology and the Fall of Man

KATHERINE K. YOUNG and PAUL NATHANSON