Male and Misogyny

I've posted before on issues related to my borderline disorder. This is sort of related, but more of a general relationship problem. Growing up in a home of abusive women has led to issues with dating later in life. Step mother and her husband were mostly abusive to me; physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. I am confident I am a misogynist and hate most women 85% of the time. Maybe it stems from not having nurturing mother and being repeatedly neglected by other women in family or maybe I am just fed up with rejection by women in terms of dates or sex and that's made me bitter towards women. Or combination of the two. Maybe my upbringing affects how the rejections occur in first place. Not sure.

I'm here to ask if misogyny can be cured with brain plasticity training? Like CBT, DBT, or some other therapy? So far I've done DBT for 6 months and that has not decreased my hatred towards women at all. I bring up this issue with therapist often and his advice has been to concentrate on my own well being and improve my borderline condition, which I've attempted. But I get the obsessive thoughts on my misogyny and it disturbs my wellbeing.

If I see women, especially ones I find attractive looking, say on campus or walking down street, I get boiling rage in me. Hard to manage, but usually I just end up not speaking to these women and avoiding them. Sometimes I approach attractive women at Meetups or other social events. Have to be in really good mood, such as previously accomplishing something to boost my confidence. We become slight acquaintances and I can sort of hide my hatred towards them in beginning, but eventually I show the subtle signs of hatred later on and the relationship (not romantic one) ends. So I can't even make female friends.

Perhaps this is a permanent condition? What then? It's a frightening thought!

Not looking for replies by women. Just men. Please no replies from women. Maybe men who have dealt with hatred of women and somehow overcame it with hard work on changing thought behaviors. I don't need advice that is vague and non specific like "you just have to stop hating them." That isn't helpful, although that's the obvious objective of this post. I mean specific advice such as actual mindfulness techniques, specific DBT skills, or maybe exposure therapy techniques that eventually lead to the thought process of me not having hatred towards them. I looked for advice on this online and often find nothing out there except articles that demonize men who have misogyny. Understandable, but also not helpful. Rarely do I find articles to help men stop or decrease their misogynistic behaviors. I've used some mindfulness techniques on my other issues with borderline such as low self-esteem, but I really have no idea on how to apply it with misogynistic thoughts. I can't shake the belief that women are BAD.

For moment I can't get dates or relationships cause of this core belief on women. I see them as a nightmare in life. Every night I have nightmares of rejection by women, mostly ones I've seen before in real life. Not a fun way to live life. Been single for 5 years and only had a few flings, and those flings ended abruptly and in bad ways. Any help appreciated.

Hey rhoadesd,

A 90 degree thought for you to ponder -

Personally, I think whether someone is struggling with Misogyny, or Misandry (yes, exists too), so long as you are aware, and the goal is to grow out of it (as it is for you), then I think it can work to just see it through, go with how you feel, until burned out feeling that way. But that's my thinking more generally with whatever feelings one is struggling with, and of course I am not saying behave in ways you will regret, or that are harmful, but here is an example -

If a woman was exiting a toxic/abusive relationship, and for now, feeling pretty hateful towards men in general, what is the harm in letting her feel that way? Is she going to heal faster by feeling that way for a while, or by being told 'you shouldn't feel that way'? Perhaps it takes a year, or 5 years, but what is the rush to 'just get over it'?

Funny thing about our own demons... they become larger than life when we make them so, but if we own them, accept that is how I feel now/today, they might also become deflated.

The only really concerning cases are when someone is oblivious to their own misogyny, or misandry; when they really do believe the other sex is evil/worthless/etc., and never think of it in terms of 'this is my issue, I want to get over it when I am ready'.

TL;DR version - To get over fear of swimming, there is a lot to be said for diving into the deeper end of the pool.

xdude wrote:
Personally, I think whether someone is struggling with Misogyny, or Misandry (yes, exists too), so long as you are aware, and the goal is to grow out of it (as it is for you), then I think it can work to just see it through, go with how you feel, until burned out feeling that way.

Really? Just let myself feel the hatred for women even when I know it's a cognitive distortion and let it dissipate over time? That sounds like it would take too long. 5 years of hatred and no dates is not something I would tolerate for myself. Too painful to do in long run. Maybe at most a year I could try and let it flow through me, but beyond that it becomes hard to endure.

xdude wrote: If a woman was exiting a toxic/abusive relationship, and for now, feeling pretty hateful towards men in general, what is the harm in letting her feel that way? Is she going to heal faster by feeling that way for a while, or by being told 'you shouldn't feel that way'? Perhaps it takes a year, or 5 years, but what is the rush to 'just get over it'?

I see what you are saying. I guess a man or woman would feel resentful if the opposite sex treated them badly. Well, I think one shouldn't always feel that way. Half the people on the planet are of opposite sex and life would be very debilitating if one (me) hates half of those people. Rushing anything can be bad, but what if someone was racist? I feel like society would NOT just say "no need to rush not hating {insert ethnic group}. If anything, they'd tell you to immediately change your way of thinking cause that's bad. Racism and sexism are both bad.

xdude wrote: Funny thing about our own demons... they become larger than life when we make them so, but if we own them, accept that is how I feel now/today, they might also become deflated.

The only really concerning cases are when someone is oblivious to their own misogyny, or misandry; when they really do believe the other sex is evil/worthless/etc., and never think of it in terms of 'this is my issue, I want to get over it when I am ready'.

Yeah, that's true. I am trying to own up to my misogyny and certainly not oblivious. Your overall advice seems to be radical acceptance from DBT. Okay, decent advice and I'm going to read up on my DBT manual on acceptance and see where that goes. Maybe I'll update you later if improvements are ever made.

rhoadesd wrote:I know it's a cognitive distortion

Yea, damn cognitive distortion. We all have it, and we are mostly blind to it. You at least are aware, that is a big step up from not being aware, but also...

As you work on this, you may well run into females that have misandry too, and are oblivious to it, AND to bring it full circle... you also don't need anymore of that in your life. You've already been on the receiving end, and don't need to continue to be a punching bag.

rhoadesd wrote:Growing up in a home of abusive women has led to issues with dating later in life. Step mother and her husband were mostly abusive to me; physical, sexual, and emotional abuse.

And it won't be the last abusive female you meet either, you should protect yourself too.

Figuring out this all out is no doubt very difficult. Be kind to you.

xdude wrote:
As you work on this, you may well run into females that have misandry too, and are oblivious to it, AND to bring it full circle... you also don't need anymore of that in your life. You've already been on the receiving end, and don't need to continue to be a punching bag.

How to know if women are misandrist? What subtle signs when interacting with them? I feel many don't like me even before I began to not like them. Maybe cause I'm guy or something.

Probably will never stop hating women. Hard to explain, but my brain is hardwired a certain way. I can repeat to myself hundreds of times that women are good, but the brain already knows this is me lying to it. It's sort of unfair cause it prevents friendships with women or dates. My only way to get satisfying sex are escorts, high paid stripper/prostitutes, or a mail order bride from Eastern Europe.

Love is a fairytale for a majority of men who hate and/or are unconfident around women. Those men's best bet is superficial sex from whore-like women who don't have any self respect for their bodies and willing to be degraded.

Hey rhoadesd,

I personally don't have any answers either. Misogyny and Misandry are just words. Neither alone expresses the degrees of, extreme on one end of a scale, to the more common 'battle of the sexes' versions, or the blinded by cultural norm versions. Unfortunately too, the extremes often won't tell you upfront, but rather take it out in private on and around those closest to them.

Again, I think you have very good self-awareness. Yea, we can have the intellectual awareness down, but those core feelings about self/others learned in childhood are still there in the background. You know a lot of people can't or won't reach that point of knowing 'this is what I am struggling with, my own mind divided'. Then again there are many people wandering around with deep seated misogyny/misandry, whose emotions and intellect align. Not sure if that means they are better or worse off.

Are there any women whose company you did/do enjoy (even partially), who don't just trigger those reminders of your abuse?

xdude wrote:
Yea, we can have the intellectual awareness down, but those core feelings about self/others learned in childhood are still there in the background. You know a lot of people can't or won't reach that point of knowing 'this is what I am struggling with, my own mind divided'. Then again there are many people wandering around with deep seated misogyny/misandry, whose emotions and intellect align. Not sure if that means they are better or worse off.

For me, having the emotions and intellect align (aware and feeling of misogyny and unable to overcome it) is heartbreaking and makes life feel hopeless. It's like being a terminal cancer patient who knows what he/she has, but will never survive. I probably learned my core values on women during my teen years. Step father was abusive alcoholic who spoke badly of my mom and women in general for many years while living under him. He once said "only 1 out of ever 10 women will be good, rest are bad." That stuck with me when I was 16-18 and even now it sort of sticks. Unfortunately, when typing in my issues with women on internet I found my way to the manosphere blogs, where misogynistic men who claim to be PUAs and have endless sex with models, started to indoctrinate me with more misogynistic dogma. I don't really believe a lot of the content from those sites, but the beliefs they mentioned are in back of my head and still haunt me. Like some part of me is saying "maybe those guys were right about women being selfish and hedonistic."

xdude wrote: Are there any women whose company you did/do enjoy (even partially), who don't just trigger those reminders of your abuse?

My ex girlfriend from 5 years ago was sort of enjoyable as she was overly nice and giving, but immature and naive. I once had a study partner in same major and we had flings and studied in my bedroom alone a lot. For some reason she didn't want to have sex most of time, but she loved cuddling and napping in bed for an hour or two after we finished studying. Then she'd go home. She was also immature, insecure and naive. I hurt her feelings on purpose and by accident on many occasions, but she forgave me a few times before finally avoiding me and blocking me on all social media. Just those two that come to mind. All other encounters with women were painful mostly with little to no enjoyment.

At my current campus there are almost no women that I enjoy the company of or even the sight of. I go to [***mod edit - location removed***] and many female students appear snobbish, entitled, and I've heard from another woman on some forum who attended [***mod edit - location removed***] and knew many students here that these same women are also on the slooty side and have low-self esteem.

For instance, I go into a student lounge and when trying to start conversations with women their expressions show annoyance and maybe contempt. I could be imagining it, but it seems to be case. Yet, I see many other male students laughing with women and studying in groups. I guess women can detect my misogyny no matter what I do. Or I'm just ugly or scary in appearance. Not sure? And I can't change misogyny for now so that leaves me with no options in female relationships. Just paid sex is closest thing.

You are a male right? So you had issues with misogyny too or not?

Interesting question.

Despite having an abusive mother, I went to the other extreme for many years of idealizing women, seeing them in a positive, but unrealistic light. I'd say I'm more balanced now, see them as people, some of which I absolutely do not like (but then there are many males I do not like either), while some I do.

It's probably normal enough that if someone grows up with abuse as you have, that to cope with it we go to some form of extreme. Some shut off emotions to cope. Some idealize (we just don't want to face that our abuser didn't know how to care for us). Some do as you have done. The coping path we end up going down is what it is, and yea, can't just be changed by thinking about it.

For whatever it's worth though, I think my relationship with females is better now that I'm not living in that extreme idealization world either. I had learned to become aware to a good degree of highly manipulative, self-interested, abusive males as well as shallow males. Of course there are some decent men too, lots of empathy, thoughtful of others, etc. Turns out females are the same, in that they are all over the map in their personalities.

I realize these are just words, but perhaps that is something you can work on, perceiving a broader range of personalities among females than just the worst cases?

p.s. I did remove your school location from your post, per forum rules that require everyone remain anonymous.

That aside...

Yea, well if you were a female who had been abused by a male (psychologically or physically) I think most would understand having those feelings triggered around other males too.

What may be harder for you though is that where it's considered socially acceptable to reach out to a female who is struggling, sometimes people shutdown around males who are struggling. That good old be tough, be strong, be a man thing. Even when going to therapy, some therapist convey that message, let's just solve your problem, and discourage expression (maybe done subconsciously, but it can reinforce that message, 'just get over it').

Sorry man. Wish I had some simple answer other than you may just need to talk it out and cry it out on a regular basis, but our tendency as males is try to think our way through it (and as you wrote, that doesn't really work). Male support, and support groups can be hard to find, and then there is that stigma that can get in the way too.

You are of course welcome to write as you need here if that helps.