Misandry VS Misogyny VS Misanthropy

[Five_Inch_Heels]

When I read The Untouchables, by Elliot Ness and Oscar Fraley, I learned that the Mafia and the lesser gangs would stuff a man's genitalia in their mouth, cut off either before or after they killed them. That was to show they'd disrespected a man above them, you know, by fucking their wives. I've been thinking it would be a nice signature for my killer to use.

Joeseph Wambaugh used that, either in The Choirboys or The Glitter Dome. I can't remember which now.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Holy, fucking, shit! I was born in Houston. But after his demise.

I honestly think he isn't more infamous just because the shit he did was so horrific no one wanted to talk about it.

 

[EmilyMiller]

When I read The Untouchables, by Elliot Ness and Oscar Fraley, I learned that the Mafia and the lesser gangs would stuff a man's genitalia in their mouth, cut off either before or after they killed them. That was to show they'd disrespected a man above them, you know, by fucking their wives. I've been thinking it would be a nice signature for my killer to use.

Sounds very homoerotic to me.

 

[SimonDoom]

If I were you (which I'm not), working on this story idea, I would put aside the labels and their definitions and focus on the specific motives of the characters-- how they feel, and why they feel that way. The concept you have is interesting, and likely to create dramatic fireworks, but I'd be asking myself WHY I want to write this story and what my purpose is in pairing two characters with somewhat parallel forms of hatred investigating a killer. What are you trying to say? Is there a purpose behind it or is it motivated more by the interesting effects you can achieve by having such negatively driven characters paired together?

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

but I'd be asking myself WHY I want to write this story and what my purpose is in pairing two characters with somewhat parallel forms of hatred investigating a killer. What are you trying to say? Is there a purpose behind it or is it motivated more by the interesting effects you can achieve by having such negatively driven characters paired together?

It isn't uncommon, given what they see every day, for investigators to literally hate everyone and everything around them.

The why is explained in their cases. How it affects them, their work and their interactions with their partners can be a story in itself.

 

[SimonDoom]

It isn't uncommon, given what they see every day, for investigators to literally hate everyone and everything around them.

The why is explained in their cases. How it affects them, their work and their interactions with their partners can be a story in itself.

That may be so, but in a story involving an investigator there's usually more to the investigator than just his or her hatred. Typically there's a backstory that makes us feel at least some sympathy for the character. I'm curious what Millie's intent is with this setup.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I thought misanthropes were people who are unable to feel pleasure in life, who are always negative no matter what the situation, rather than a dislike of people in general.

Understandable because the word's often used in situations where both would apply. But the "anthro" means "mankind", like in "anthropology".

 

[MillieDynamite]

I'm not sure about erotic!

Sounds very homoerotic to me.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I'm not sure about erotic!

Men are strange…

 

[MillieDynamite]

I've always been interested in the hate that drives some people. Also, I've had a fascination with serial killers for about as long as I can remember. Since I was on the streets for a year and a half in OKC, I was aware of the I-35 and I-40 murders that are attributed to unknown killers, and this has been a thing since the 1970s. The idea that they can't tell if it's a woman or a man doing the killing is also something I wanted to explore. Women serial killers are Unicorns, but they still exist, and not all of them are poisoners. The generic FBI profile is almost always a 25- to 40-year-old white male with poor social skills, performing menial work, possibly unable to keep a job. And yet, you have many that don't fit that profile.

If I were you (which I'm not), working on this story idea, I would put aside the labels and their definitions and focus on the specific motives of the characters-- how they feel, and why they feel that way. The concept you have is interesting, and likely to create dramatic fireworks, but I'd be asking myself WHY I want to write this story and what my purpose is in pairing two characters with somewhat parallel forms of hatred investigating a killer. What are you trying to say? Is there a purpose behind it or is it motivated more by the interesting effects you can achieve by having such negatively driven characters paired together?

 

[MillieDynamite]

There will be back stories. It'll probably cock in between 75 to 90 thousand words.

That may be so, but in a story involving an investigator there's usually more to the investigator than just his or her hatred. Typically there's a backstory that makes us feel at least some sympathy for the character. I'm curious what Millie's intent is with this setup.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Yeah, he and his friends sound fucked in the head for sure.

I honestly think he isn't more infamous just because the shit he did was so horrific no one wanted to talk about it.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I've always been interested in the hate that drives some people.

Hate is a very strong motivator. Combine that with other emotions, like insecurity, entitlement, and unresolved issues, and people will do all kinds of shit. Humans often suck sadly. We are not so very far from chimps throwing excrement.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Men are strange…

To build on this - some men (not my one) find violence erotic. I’m a big proponent of men and women not being so very different, but I think this view is less common in women (though not unheard of).

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Yeah, he and his friends sound fucked in the head for sure.

One of my Dad's friends is like 2 degrees of separation from one of the victims. That's as close to that type of insanity as I ever want to get.

 

[Britva415]

what's everyone's view? Not in the sense of what is or isn't in the real world

Heh, good luck with that

::

 

[big_cane_sugar]

These kinds of discussions interest me because I think a lot of the fun of being a writer is trying to get into the minds of characters (and therefore real people) who are very different from me. Like of course I know what the world looks like from the POV of a handsome, charming, successful man who has no real flaws, but what's it like to be everyone else?

One aspect that I think about a lot is people who crave the feeling of power. I guess we all want to feel respected and safe, but it seems like some people, both men and women, want more than that. One form of this is a grown-up form of bullying, taking pleasure in humiliating other people. When there's a gender element to it, that would be one kind (not the only kinds) of misandry or misogyny.

I wonder to what extent these things are driven by projection. To create an extreme example, say a man has a deeply ingrained sense of his own weakness (perhaps due to an experience of abuse rather than any unusual physical or intellectual vulnerability), and maybe it's too overwhelming for him to think about honestly, so he projects it onto other men, seeing them as weak, hating them for it, hurting them for it, and if he has few enough inhibitions (or compounding psychological issues) even torturing and killing them for it. He could feel temporary relief in his own sense of power. Even if he were disposed to heterosexuality, he might enjoy sexually humiliating his victims.

At a pop culture level we like to dismiss a lot of criminals as "monsters" rather than think through how the world created those monsters. Even though I am, to repeat myself for the convenience of the reader, a handsome, charming, successful man who has no real flaws, perhaps I too can understand that there but for the grace of God go I.

I hope this post helps the OP somehow but even if it doesn't everyone can take solace from the fact that I have enjoyed writing it.

 

[Britva415]

It isn't uncommon, given what they see every day, for investigators to literally hate everyone and everything around them.

Yet they remain motivated to "protect and serve."

Until they aren't, I guess.

Happens

 

[iwatchus]

A few decades ago, there was a one day mass murderer. He killed a Hispanic man, an Asian man, an African-American man and a Jewish man all in a few hours (in that order). The Asian victim was the chef in a fast food chinese restaurant. An acquaintance of mine, who was African-American, was eating in the restaurant when he shot the cook. Fortunately for him, the killer had already planned where he was killing an African American, because my acquaintance would have been an easy target.

That was spooky.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I wonder to what extent these things are driven by projection. To create an extreme example, say a man has a deeply ingrained sense of his own weakness (perhaps due to an experience of abuse rather than any unusual physical or intellectual vulnerability), and maybe it's too overwhelming for him to think about honestly, so he projects it onto other men, seeing them as weak, hating them for it, hurting them for it, and if he has few enough inhibitions (or compounding psychological issues) even torturing and killing them for it. He could feel temporary relief in his own sense of power. Even if he were disposed to heterosexuality, he might enjoy sexually humiliating his victims.

It’s so very, very common to accuse others of failings that a person is incapable of acknowledging in themselves. At some level they loathe some aspect of themselves, but cannot cope with the reality of this, let alone seek help to address their shortcoming. Instead they accuse others of being what they are, and transfer the ‘punishment’ they believe, deep down, that they deserve to some avatar who it is ‘safe’ for them to demonize.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

These kinds of discussions interest me because I think a lot of the fun of being a writer is trying to get into the minds of characters (and therefore real people) who are very different from me. Like of course I know what the world looks like from the POV of a handsome, charming, successful man who has no real flaws, but what's it like to be everyone else?

One aspect that I think about a lot is people who crave the feeling of power. I guess we all want to feel respected and safe, but it seems like some people, both men and women, want more than that. One form of this is a grown-up form of bullying, taking pleasure in humiliating other people. When there's a gender element to it, that would be one kind (not the only kinds) of misandry or misogyny.

I wonder to what extent these things are driven by projection. To create an extreme example, say a man has a deeply ingrained sense of his own weakness (perhaps due to an experience of abuse rather than any unusual physical or intellectual vulnerability), and maybe it's too overwhelming for him to think about honestly, so he projects it onto other men, seeing them as weak, hating them for it, hurting them for it, and if he has few enough inhibitions (or compounding psychological issues) even torturing and killing them for it. He could feel temporary relief in his own sense of power. Even if he were disposed to heterosexuality, he might enjoy sexually humiliating his victims.

At a pop culture level we like to dismiss a lot of criminals as "monsters" rather than think through how the world created those monsters. Even though I am, to repeat myself for the convenience of the reader, a handsome, charming, successful man who has no real flaws, perhaps I too can understand that there but for the grace of God go I.

I hope this post helps the OP somehow but even if it doesn't everyone can take solace from the fact that I have enjoyed writing it.

I've always thought that the tropes of "hate" and "monsters" don't really convey the situation. I disagree with the idea that the world must have "created" them somehow. There are plenty of cases of serial killers and other monsters who grew up in normal, well adjusted homes.

To paraphrase Terry Pratchett, some people just don't see people as people, they see them as things. Hurting people is no different than breaking a toy. If it's fun to rip the arm off of a Barbie doll, then why not rip the arm off of Barbie, the waitress at Steak and Shake...

 

[big_cane_sugar]

These kinds of discussions interest me because I think a lot of the fun of being a writer is trying to get into the minds of characters (and therefore real people) who are very different from me. Like of course I know what the world looks like from the POV of a handsome, charming, successful man who has no real flaws, but what's it like to be everyone else?

One aspect that I think about a lot is people who crave the feeling of power. I guess we all want to feel respected and safe, but it seems like some people, both men and women, want more than that. One form of this is a grown-up form of bullying, taking pleasure in humiliating other people. When there's a gender element to it, that would be one kind (not the only kinds) of misandry or misogyny.

I wonder to what extent these things are driven by projection. To create an extreme example, say a man has a deeply ingrained sense of his own weakness (perhaps due to an experience of abuse rather than any unusual physical or intellectual vulnerability), and maybe it's too overwhelming for him to think about honestly, so he projects it onto other men, seeing them as weak, hating them for it, hurting them for it, and if he has few enough inhibitions (or compounding psychological issues) even torturing and killing them for it. He could feel temporary relief in his own sense of power. Even if he were disposed to heterosexuality, he might enjoy sexually humiliating his victims.

At a pop culture level we like to dismiss a lot of criminals as "monsters" rather than think through how the world created those monsters. Even though I am, to repeat myself for the convenience of the reader, a handsome, charming, successful man who has no real flaws, perhaps I too can understand that there but for the grace of God go I.

I hope this post helps the OP somehow but even if it doesn't everyone can take solace from the fact that I have enjoyed writing it.

After writing this post I realized that a much more compelling and probably common example would be a man who hates the fact that he feels emotionally vulnerable around women. Easy to imagine that having to do with something in his early childhood. So he hurts women (to what degree and in what ways would depend on the details) to try to make himself feel better. That would definitely be a misogyny.

The world would be relatively boring if more of us dealt with our emotional issues constructively, but boring would be so much better.

 

[SmilingLez]

Misandrist: A woman or man who hates or is prejudiced against men.
Misogynist: A woman or man who hates or is prejudiced against women. This is a different term, as it describes hating women, not men.
Misanthrope: A person who dislikes or hates all people in general.

First, my views on Misandry. Misandry is the hatred of or prejudice against men or boys; technically, it can be directed at a man or a woman. Men's rights activists (MRAs) and other masculinist groups have characterized modern laws concerning divorce, domestic violence, conscription, and circumcision (known as male genital mutilation by opponents). In addition, they consider the treatment of male rape victims as an example of institutional misandry. However, in virtually all societies, misandry lacks institutional and systemic support comparable to misogyny, the hatred of women.

Okay, so what's everyone's view? Not in the sense of what is or isn't in the real world, but how you'd use these in a story?

I'm tinkering around with the idea of a serial killer who hates men and boys and kills them. More specifically, a salt-and-pepper detective team is investigating the serial killer. They are also a man-and-woman team. Both have ideas about the sex and reason behind the murders, divided on the sex and race of the killer. The black woman agent believes it's a white man because the victims are white. The white man thinks the killer is a black woman. The black woman is a Misandrist and the white man is a Misanthrope, hating everyone on Earth.

Add two more detectives to your story, a non-binary CIS female and a non-binary CIS male.

 

[EmilyMiller]

After writing this post I realized that a much more compelling and probably common example would be a man who hates the fact that he feels emotionally vulnerable around women. Easy to imagine that having to do with something in his early childhood. So he hurts women (to what degree and in what ways would depend on the details) to try to make himself feel better. That would definitely be a misogyny.

This

 

[MillieDynamite]

Some have gone the other way, to rape and abuse, in the case of one OKC cop.

Yet they remain motivated to "protect and serve."

Until they aren't, I guess.

Happens