--- title: Misandry: Feminists Pretend to Hate Men and It's Not Funny description: The humor is lost on most people, and it's terrible PR for feminism canonical: https://time.com/3101429/misandry-misandrist-feminist-womenagainstfeminism/ author: Sarah Begley article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-08-12T15:21:38.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:54:33.026Z og:title: Sorry, Feminists: Misandry Isn't Funny og:description: It may be ironic, but it's bad for the cause og:url: https://time.com/3101429/misandry-misandrist-feminist-womenagainstfeminism/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Sorry, Feminists: Misandry Isn't Funny twitter:description: It may be ironic, but it's bad for the cause twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Ironic Misandry: Why Feminists Pretending to Hate Men Isn't Funny > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Aug 12, 2014 3:21 PM UTC by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Aug 12, 2014 3:21 PM UTC If you’ve stumbled into certain feminist corners of the Internet lately, you may have noticed the word misandry cropping up. No, not by men’s rights activists whining that feminists hate men (or at least, not _just_ by them). By [feminists](http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx%5Ffactor/2014/08/08/ironic%5Fmisandry%5Fwhy%5Ffeminists%5Fjoke%5Fabout%5Fdrinking%5Fmale%5Ftears%5Fand%5Fbanning.html). Who [think](http://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/elaine-benes-mentioned-the-bisque) it’s [funny](http://www.buzzfeed.com/kmallikarjuna/mra-logic) to use it ironically. But let’s back up a little. What exactly IS misandry, you ask? It is literally the hatred of men (in ancient Greek, “mis” means hatred, and “andro“ means male or masculine). It is the inverse of misogyny. When feminists [joke that they are misandrists](http://www.buzzfeed.com/katienotopoulos/the-most-misandrist-things-that-ever-happened), they are riffing off the misguided popular notion that they are man-haters. They mean to satirize the women who say they are not feminists [because they love men](http://time.com/87967/shailene-woodley-feminism-fault-in-our-stars/). It’s an inside, inside joke. Granted, there is something amusing about a girlish [decorative sampler](http://www.buzzfeed.com/alannaokun/ban-men) with “misandry” embroidered in purple thread, in the way that gross contrast is often amusing. And there’s something droll about a [quiz](http://www.buzzfeed.com/hnigatu/how-misandrist-are-you) that measures your level of misandry by asking if you’ve “cut a man’s hair off while he’s sleeping thus destroying his power,” or a list of reimagined [misandrist lullabies](http://the-toast.net/2013/09/24/lullabies-misandrists/) like, “Hush little baby, don’t say a word / Ever; your sister is talking.” And the urge to fight these misconceptions about feminists with [humor](http://thehairpin.com/2014/07/headlines-youll-be-seeing-now-that-the-nation-is-run-by-a-witch-cabal/) is understandable. Obviously, very few feminists actually hate men as a whole, and none actually want to “kill all men” or drink “male tears” as some of these so-called ironists like to [joke](http://groupthink.jezebel.com/misandry-makeup-tutorial-514133910). But the irony is all too often lost, despite recent arguments that the right kind of guys are [in on the joke](https://medium.com/the-archipelago/men-get-on-board-with-misandry-4a3bc6c08e16) and [love it](http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx%5Ffactor/2014/08/08/ironic%5Fmisandry%5Fwhy%5Ffeminists%5Fjoke%5Fabout%5Fdrinking%5Fmale%5Ftears%5Fand%5Fbanning.html). But the anecdotal evidence of that is not convincing, and those friends of women who like to use the word misandry might are likely to be a self-selecting group. Last year, a 2013 [HuffPost/YouGov poll](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/16/feminism-poll%5Fn%5F3094917.html) found that only 23 percent of women and 16 percent of men consider themselves to be feminists. Of that 16 percent, surely even fewer would find jokes about misandry funny. Parodying the tropes of feminism’s enemies is not, in itself, unfunny or unhelpful. Consider Leandra Medine’s engaging site [Man Repeller](http://www.manrepeller.com/), which riffs off of and rejects the notion that women’s fashion is all about attracting men. And it’s empowering to reappropriate labels like “witch” and “bra-burner” that have been flung as criticism at women who dare to question the oppressive status quo. A new Twitter account, @WomanAgainstFeminism, takes on the popular hashtag used by women who disavow the movement with satirical rationales that humorously point out all the ways that women _do_ need feminism. > [](https://twitter.com/NoToFeminism/status/498091930887020544) But inherent in this word “misandry” is hatred. And inherent in phrases like “ban men” and “male tears” are cruelty and violence. If a man wore a tee shirt that said “misogynist,” even if he were a dyed-in-the-wool feminist, wearing it tongue-in-cheek, it would not be funny. It would be misguided. What feminists really hate is the patriarchy—the web of institutions that systemically oppress women. And to tear it down, we need as many allies as we can get. Telling half the population that we hate them, even in jest, is not the way to do that. Feminism is still very much engaged in the battle for hearts and minds; appealing to the sense of humor of a very small minority of the population can be a good way to alienate the rest. That’s not to say that feminists should water down their true demands and complaints to appeal to broader swaths of the population. Nevertheless, to get folks on your side, you need an an appealing message. Humor can help. 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