There are ways in which I think most or all women act, and some of those ways aren’t very flattering. Much of these behaviors and characteristics have evolutionary and biological explanations. The same is true for unflattering behaviors and characteristics of men, but admittedly that won’t be talked about as much on this blog. The reason for that is because you can find unflattering truths (and plenty of falsehoods too) about men everywhere. For a lot of guys who are living in the dark, like I was for much of my life, there isn’t much knowledge about unflattering female characteristics. And the seldom talk that does exist is being called misogyny. Because of this environment, I didn’t know many of the unflattering characteristics of women and girls. (For an example of these characteristics that I am talking about, check out the results of this study on automatic in-group bias: study)
The anecdotal experiences I had with unflattering female characteristics needed to be quickly repressed otherwise I’d risk ostracism. Most notably by girls. The same girls I was biologically attracted to and environmentally conditioned to seek as much approval from as possible. So this led to a great deal of ignorance and repression and fear of ostracism. And arguably the most important part: An inability to learn and grow based on these truths about women and girls. Instead of coming to terms with the obvious unflattering characteristics of women and girls, my brain said that these characteristics didn’t exist much or at all. In fact, I was basically told that women and girls were the same as men and boys. Imagine what that can do to a kids mind when all of his experiences are the complete opposite of what he’s being told.
And so how would I deal with things when I came across massive amounts of unflattering female characteristics? I’d lash out. I would become pissed off in large part because I felt I was being lied to but couldn’t actually voice it. I couldn’t put it into words. It led to a lot of resentment, and admittedly; some actual misogyny. Let’s imagine a different scenario where I and the rest of society know that some unflattering female characteristics like self-interest are true; and this isn’t a societal taboo where you risk ostracism for pointing it out. There’s a few things that this would have done for me:
1) I would likely know how to protect myself from it better and thus lessening my chances of enduring the sharp end of it. It would have also lessened my chances of becoming resentful of the female sex based on a few bad experiences that I didn’t know how to protect myself from. Less resentment would have led to less misogyny.
2) I would have been able to get over the unflattering characteristics of women. I wouldn’t be stuck in a position where my experiences were telling me one thing was true while society’s narrative as a whole was constantly contradicting my experiences and damning all of my possible conclusions based on those experiences. Less repression, less resentment, less misogyny.
I would have learned about women and girls, and I would have grown from my experiences. Instead I was an incredibly insecure and confused young man. I can’t help but think that my opinions of women at that age would have been much better had society allowed for more criticism of women and girls and more revealing truths of women and girls.
Think about how this kind of stuff could be affecting men and boys. Maybe you can gain some perspective about why it seems like men and boys are much more misogynistic nowadays.