Russ on misandry
Just happened across a Joanna Russ essay from 1972, “The New Misandry,” which focuses on praising misandry but is also about feminism and change and differentials of privilege (though she doesn’t use that word) and incrementalism vs radical change.
Content warning (both in the article and in my quotes below) for descriptions of behavior patterns that relate to misogyny, abuse, domestic violence, and gaslighting.
A couple of excerpts:
[…] hurting people makes them angry, anger turns to hate when the anger is chronic and accompanied by helplessness, and although you can bully or shame people into not showing their anger, the only way to stop the anger is to stop the hurt. The cure for hate is power — not power to hurt the hurter, but power to make the hurter stop.
And:
[…] it’s also time to scotch that perennial silliness about avoiding Change because Change will provoke a Backlash. Change always provokes a backlash. If you meet with no resistance, you’re not doing your political job. As Philip Slater says in “The Pursuit of Loneliness,” “backlash” is what happens when people find out that change means change.
