I hate olives. I pick them off of my pizza. I don’t order dishes with olives in them. If I ordered a martini I would order it with a twist. The other day I had a pasta dish with olives on it, and it was nice. Will they find their way into my Sainsbury’s shopping? No. I maintain my benign dislike of them. To oversimplify, men are like olives. This was just one of the arguments I presented when my friend told me, “my boyfriend hates that I don’t like men.” We sat in front of our chai lattes for a solid hour, trying to puzzle out what the hell his problem was. How dare he be offended that his girlfriend hates men? What a ridiculous idea.
Somewhere in my late teens, my current opinion of men began to solidify. Who’s to say what experiences formed that opinion. Could it have been the boy at secondary school who said he would memorize my father’s license plate, buy an identical car and use it to lure me in as a rape victim? Or maybe it was the groups of dominos-playing philanders that shouted profane pick-up lines at every school girl that passed, regardless of her age. It could have been the boyfriend that smacked my ass in front of all his friends as they all chanted “Zeus, Zeus, Zeus” (because he brought the thunder). Or maybe it’s the fact that I was shocked and elated to receive a Xanax for an IUD insertion when most women are only offered a paracetamol. It might be the long conversations I have with my closest friends about how we’re abjectly terrified to carry children but know that our husbands will not see surrogacy as a reasonable expenditure. “Women give birth every day.” I think it is my fear of walking home at night, I think it is the rights over my body suddenly being in jeopardy, I think it is the red pill propaganda. I think maybe, just maybe, it’s the patriarchy. But god forbid I say I hate men. I don’t want to be viewed as ‘a feminazi’.
The term ‘feminazi’ was brought into existence in the 1990s, however, I encountered it somewhere around 2018 in the God Is a Woman-era of pop music. Some source I’ve long forgotten reported that Arianna Grande was a ‘feminazi’. I didn’t even have to look up what the term meant to see that it was meant to paint her as a vitriolic bitch with a hatred of men that bordered on the homicidal. If you allow Rush Limbaugh, the man who coined the term, to define it, a feminazi is: “a feminist to whom the important thing in life is ensuring that as many abortions as possible occur”. If you allow the Guardian to define it, a feminazi is a term used by the far-right to silence women. I would agree with the Guardian definition because ‘feminazi’ certainly shut me the hell up. I needed to like men, trust them, uphold them, because I didn’t want to be seen as a feminazi. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be seen as a feminist.
If I was being honest with myself, I became more forthright about my opinions when the portrait of the feminazi was in direct conflict with how I presented myself. I’m not bitter or masculine or lonely: I have a boyfriend! I have allowed a man to redefine how comfortable I am voicing my opinions (yes, I am disappointed in myself). A man thinks I am pretty and feminine and lovely, so I can’t possibly be a man-hating, baby-killing, evil feminist. Duh.
So when it came time to tackle the issue presented by my friend’s boyfriend, I was prepared to die on this hill. She has every right to say she doesn’t fuck with men, that dislikes men even that she hates men. The reasoning for her dislike seemed so obvious to me, but it wasn’t obvious to him. It offended him. When she said “I hate men” he heard “I hate you”, but that’s obviously not what she meant. I don’t think it’s what any of us mean. There’s a distinct difference between a man and ‘men’. It is the individual versus the collective. It is the singular olive in my pasta versus all olives ever. Hating men doesn’t mean I hate my boyfriend or I hate my father or men I’ve been friends with. I hate that my father is seen as an incredible parent just for doing school pick-ups. I hate that my boyfriend can have a relaxing night walk but I cannot fathom such a thing. I hate that I have lost male friends because they have slipped down the manosphere podcast pipeline. I hate what men are made into by the patriarchal systems that dictate our society. I want men to be good and kind and loving, but I hate the idea that I must make those men from scratch. I hate that their goodness is predicated on women’s labour. I hate that if we do that labour we may be called bitches and if we don’t we are bitches still. I hate that I am full of rage and am expected to swallow it. I hate that my friend started saying she hates “some men” to placate her boyfriend. I hate that we are only allowed to hate the men that have overtly laid hands on us but not the ones who have invisibly shaped our lives through the inequality, sexism and violence that is so normalised I am tempted to just call it ‘the world’. I hate that I see men’s control over me as a fact of life. I hate the White House, I hate despotism, I hate corruption, I hate global warming, I hate racism, I hate war, I hate famine, I hate biased healthcare, I hate women dying, I hate being a woman sometimes. But that’s an awfully long list, so I just say “I hate men”.
Words By Sabine Wilson-Patrick