I apologise in advance if this may be derailing the point of the thread... I am just thinking out loud here, but I am honestly just so damn sick of this stupid question.
I've often found that I can't make an ironic joke about it either, especially around other men, and especially online.
The question of man-hating is old and tired; people have been saying it since the very beginnings of women's lib. You know, back when women wanted to do misandric things like work and vote.
So my favourite go to line with this is "who says you need to be a feminist to hate men?"... Obviously ironically switching the two to make it seem like hating men is actually way less objectionable than feminism because I know as a man, and a feminist ally, that this is such an irrelevant question, and one that I no longer engage in.
If I happen to find some aspect of feminism which advocates for something that could be called "misandry" or truly unfair on men and an undeniable violation of rights in some way, then I simply stop engaging with that aspect of feminism. Because that is as far those claims get, even within the feminist movement itself. There are bigger fish to fry, and fighting for any social justice on any front is draining and I aint got energy for all of it.
But a lot of the people who ask this question don't seem to get why I wouldn't give a shit about all of the "man hating" feminists apparently do. I mean- I am a man! Why would I not care about- no, why would I betray my own gender like that?! As if we were in some kind of constant battle with women on a day to day basis, and I am a soldier who switched sides.
They think sexism begins and ends with interpersonal conflict, that sexism is a euphemism for when someone is mean to someone of the opposite sex; they prefer to not think about benevolent or institutional sexism or even entertain the concept, and never want to speak of our cultural legacy and inheritance, and even if they do, it's only so they can say that they don't think it really matters that much these days.
... That's just me though, just wanted to get it off my chest. :)
Peace and love!
