If misogyny is hatred of women, why isn't there an equivalent word for hatred of men? Misanthropy doesn't really work because that is hatred of humankind.
When I was in grad school, a classmate and I spent hours and hours trying to find such a word and couldn't. I can think of all sorts of interesting implications of this....what do you think?
ETA: Thanks to random thinker, I have a new word misandry. I've posed this word question at other times and no one has ever come up with this word before. Apparently this word came into usage between 1945 and 1950, while misogyny came into usage in the 1600s. Still interesting...
ETA2: Although I found this word in a couple of on-line dictionaries, it's not in my Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary (10th ed. 1998).
6 comments:
misandry?
Hmmn....I've always wondered too. I also wonder whether there's something for child haters...I'd love to tell my church in my final sermon that the reason they have so few young families in the congregation is because too often they come across as "paedophobic" or whatevr the word might be...
Oh! random thinker got to it before I did. Polygyny, polyandry, misogyny, misoandry?
Very interesting, indeed.
Rev. Dr.--
I had to check . . . Misandry is in the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate, Eleventh Edition. The date or origin given is ca. 1909.
-snickollet
I saw the 1909 date another place, too, but I saw 1945-50 two places as well.
Guess it's time for a new dictionary :)
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