Flex and Frooms, Flex and Frooms.
This is the Flex and Froomes catch up podcast.
Flex and Frooms on Cada. I hate to be bringing the conversation here, but I'm so happy we've arrived. We're talking about misogyny versus massandry.
I will say I never I'll never forget. When I was in year eleven, I called my mom a Messandras because she she showed some slight feminist qualities.
WHOA like Mom? No Messandras.
So Google defines misogyny as the dislike of, or contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women, and then defines massandry as a person who dislikes, despises, or is strongly prejudiced against men. There's this TikTok creator who's made a name for herself by making this kind of reactionary content on the app, so she's basically like a comedic Messandress. Gives her audience tips and tricks, some ingest, some completely serious on how
to essentially undermine men by punching down right. And so I guess, like the reason why her content feels so salacious is I can imagine when it comes to calling out men, a lot of women have been told to take the highroad, right, like, don't stoop, but she's like,
when they go low, I go lower. Here are the tips and tricks, and it's quite funny, right, And so I was thinking about how like when I read the comments of these posts, there are people there who are of the belief that it's the same, like misogyny is
the same as massandry. And as a woman, if you are making fun of men in any way or using the same tools and references that they use against them, that you are succumbing to them, or you're what's the word I'm looking for, like you're perpetuating, perpetuating them, or you'll make your normalizing it. And it's counterintuitive. And if you want misogyny to go away, then you need to, you know, fight fire with kindness, et cetera, et cetera,
et cetera. Now I have a lot of thoughts on that, but I think the main one is I don't know if people will be able to understand the humor in massandry if they don't understand the real life impacts of misogyny. I feel like a lot of people regard misogyny as a thing that only the most extreme of terrible people do like only that really outright in cell woman hater would ever be misogynists. And I hate to be the one to tell you, but if you were raised in
a patriarchy, you currently there's no doubt. I put money on it. But we don't connoe gambling. We do not that you are battling some kind of misogyny, internalized or otherwise. And I feel that's why sometimes we don't really know how to position, if, how and where massandry fits. Like, is massandry a fair response for misogyny? Is it taking it too far? Is exactly what we need to balance
the scales. I feel as though the reason why people are so shocked when people are publicly massandrist is because they've found a way to play misogyny so far so that suddenly you're seeing it for what it is. Sometimes it can be brutal, unfair, uninformed, or like hit you like whiplash, But you don't feel that when it comes
to misogyny, because it's become this very neutral thing. It's very neutral for people to see women as being uninformed or inferior, or not as powerful or not as capable of wielding violence in the same way I think we'll have this conversation off air, you and I three me. I think people should be way more scared of women.
I know a lot of women who make a conscious effort to tamp down their violent nature, Like who suppress it because it's not appropriate, right, or a lot of women who have to talk themselves out of being as crazy as they want to or as reactive as they want to for the benefit of the greater vibe. And if women worldwide weren't doing that, if every woman had permission to be crazy like their male counterparts, what I would be sad because you don't.
Know and you don't see you were saying that. This morning,
I watched a clip by Clementine Ford. She had stitched with a guy, one of those like motivational self help kind of like guys, and he's like, when she's angry, let your woman be in her feminine anger, right thing, And like Clementine, as she always does, fantastically kind of like pulled the argument apart and was like, if men like this think that women getting angry is part of like their feminine need, then it like totally discredits their anger.
I do wonder though this TikTok credit that you're talking about.
I know where. I like her. I think she's really funny.
Do we think though, maybe pointing out like the things that men do that are really shit and like doing it in a joke way, like we've all heard the certain same things that are.
Like like, what's an example, put.
Your hand on a smaller woman's back, call his interests stupid.
Yeah yeah, yeah, stuff like that.
Tell him he needs to smile more, or ask him if the reason why he didn't get a promotion at work was due to the way that like he dresses or something.
See that's amazing, but thank you, that was off the dome.
I will say, there's a different type that's like pointing out the bad stuff that like.
His receding hairline exactly.
And that makes me think, like, is pointing out this finally I've used like scribbling on my notepad for something I actually have a thought, Yeah, note to that is pointing out bad stuff that men do, or like negligent things that men do, just reinforcing the idea that that's in their nature. Do you think, like I wonder, like I wonder if some men would then watch that and be like, oh, yeah, all men are like that's why I can just continue to be like that, Yeah, it's not good.
But do you feel the same way, like when you see rhetoric on the internet being like women are inherently feminine and empathetic and like all women just want to find someone to fix and like caretake and you know every woman I know wants to be looked after by a strong man or whatever. Do you find yourself of being like yeah, like I guess that is me, or do you say like, oh, I can see that, but like, nah, that's not for me.
I think I can do that.
But the difference is they're mostly they're not like harmful things that women do.
M I see what you're saying, Like I think in some instances, but I often think a lot of these arguments become obsolete when we assume that the adult hearing them is without agency for sure, And like I keep going back, like men made patriarchy and capitalism and sexism and racism, and these systems like work well like unfortunately, well do you know what I mean, to the point where you don't even know that you're participating, and you're like.
Your front lines, you're recruiting.
So I just refuse to believe that we're like, well, if we point out when so and so does so and so, are we just normalizing. It's like no, I think that the system like telling us so like to point it out is just it's it's a futile But what I will say is that I feel like, make the content do whatever, because I feel as though what stops people from changing or evolving is they're getting shielded
from the message they need to receive the most. So, you know, like when you're let's say, when you're in high school whatever, and people like you don't talk about periods in front of like people don't have periods, like it's just inappropriate. It's like, well, now we're adults and they don't have the information. You're kind of like, well,
when are they going to seek it out right? Or let's not talk about sexism in front of the person who's oppressing us, let's not talk about race with white people. It's like, okay, so we can stop doing that. But then we get to a point where these conversations to reach boiling point and we have to start.
From scratch scratch sh.
And then what But while those conversations are happening, I definitely think that like, not everyone can do this widespread work, Like whether or not you think misogyny content massndry content has a.
Place to live.
The way that it's reaching a ton of people at once and starting these like bubbling conversations all at once need to happen only if we as individuals are finishing the work. I know of a lot of people who would be the first to make masondurie content and misogyny content, but wouldn't say anything in their own circles. And I'm like, wow, what are we doing? What are we doing?
I both relate to and see this happen in the wild.
In the wild, it is the feeline high value woman tried to fertile.
After all the trade wife jokes.
I don't know if I spoke about this last week, but I actually went and did some googling on what a trade wife means, and it's simply no laughing matter. I'm just like the idea of like chilling at home, like I'm working from home guys thru me.
Actually did some research and you wouldn't believe what I found.
Okay, I'm being serious.
But I'm with you.
Yeah, I think it is so funny how it's literally so hard to do these things in practice. A because it's bothersome, b because it's uncomfortable.
Do you know when it stops getting hard, though, like when you're actually impacted by it in a way that you're like, oh, I wish I didn't have to go through that. When I was finishing high school, I met a lot of women who were like, I'm not a feminist, I could never be one. And it's like you just wait, like you wait, your time will calm, Your time will calm because while we all formed touchrap of being like it doesn't impact me, so I'm not gonna be bothered by it, and that everybody's prerogative.
Like I'm down with that.
There's a lot of things to not care about in life or to care a lot about. But and I've been thinking about misogyny a lot because the older I get, and I look at the lack of community, especially in womanhood, like I look at brotherhood a lot, I'm like, what do you people have to be so loyal about? Like when I look at the connections between men and men, I'm like, you didn't.
Even work for that.
You need to work for that, And the rest of us are putting in hard yards with our little sisterhoods and being like, what is where's the friction coming from?
Where's friction coming from? It's like, oh, because the friction is on the.
Path to like this like amazing utopia. But also there's so much to learn about the way that we are so neutral towards misogyny, or the way that it's laughable, the way that people don't laugh at missandry. So like, let's talk, get out, giggles up, let's start giggling, gigle, giggle. So when I say he's got a receding hairline, don't start defending this imaginary man who's got a receding hairline because it's coming Like I don't like that I talk about some imaginary man receding hairline.
People are up in arms, like, I don't know, it's mean, it's mean. I'm in a mean camp.
He doesn't exist, No, he does, though I don't know. That's where I draw one but you.
But someone's like calls a woman like an empty head bimbo, and everyone's like, what I mean?
Is she?
So? Now we're now we're inquisitive. Does he have a receding hairline? Potentially? Like I want people to go for bat for women like they do for men.
I do feel like the sisterhood comes easier than the brotherhood.
We have sisterhoods. I don't know if I can trust her, trust her?
Can you trust him?
The becas going for inside that trust him and I love him whoever he is.
You've been listening to the Flex and Rooms Daily podcast.
For more, tune Indicator on DAB or stream it on iHeartRadio.