I know this topic has been talked about in different ways a few times before, but since there's been no discussion or progress in over two years I thought it would be acceptable to bring it up again:
Could the title of this trope be renamed into something slightly more in keeping with the content of page?
Right now a considerable majority of the examples don't really relate to 'straw misogynists' but to characters that are given the characteristic of being misogynistic to cement them as a villain/antagonist. In other words it seems to be much closer to a Kick the Dog feature - an authorial element that's included just to emphasise how terrible this person is.
I've seen Straw Misogynist defined as a character who's misogyny is included so it can be shown to be wrong. Again, I would argue this doesn't really match the page's actual content. For example, the most recent change at the time of writing is an alien race that are normally asexual being given a contempt of women for one episode. Most of these don't seem to have (or at least don't mention) the misogynistic characters being demonstrated to be wrong or being overcome by women. It's simply a part of their role as designated antagonist. Plus, even without that I think the idea that misogyny = bad is too generic to merit a trope about it specifically. Most villains in media are presented as in the wrong, but you wouldn't expect to see a page about why villains who own slaves demonstrate that slavery is wrong, or villains who are racist being included to show that racism is wrong.
I also know the page was originally meant to be a spear counterpart to Straw Feminist, but that doesn't seem to really work. Not just because they're based on different topics (as has been pointed out, feminism is not the opposite of misogyny, misandry is) but because they are actually doing different things. To put the difference concisely, the point of Straw Feminists is to make feminism look bad because of the character's actions, while the point of most of the examples on this page seems to be to make a specific *character* look bad by making them misogynistic.
Plus, a 'straw' character is so named for the Strawman argument, where the character is a false representation of a certain group of ideology. Straw Feminists are characters that falsely present feminism as misandry. A straw misogynist doesn't really make sense because it presents misogynists as misogynists and not as something else. The characters described on the page do fit the bill of being misogynistic. You could argue some examples might represent exaggerated misogynists, but equally many examples are realistic.
I do not have a specific name change suggestion, but at the moment I would probably advocate for something closer to the '(All) X are Y' type tropes, along the lines of 'Antagonists are Misogynists'.
I realise this changes the initial focus of the page to some extent, but as I've already said I think the content of the page has already gotten pretty far from that original intention.
If not, I think the page needs some pretty heavy editing because right now it seems rather directionless.
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Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
As it stands now, the parallel between this and Straw Feminist doesn't work at all for the reasons already stated.
A) Feminism and Misogyny are not opposites B) Misogynist characters aren't portrayed to take misogynists down a peg, but to cement them as a bad guy C) The article name just confuses the idea that this should run as a parallel to straw feminist.
I would suggest that this article becomes tailored instead to showing examples of straw anti-feminists. It would make this article a more direct parallel to straw feminists, and it would give it a reason to exist rather than just being a repeat of He-Man Woman Hater.
A great example of a straw anti-feminist that I can come up with off the top of my head would be the Absorbing Man in one of the Thor(2014) comics, who goes off on a tirade about how feminism is ruining everything and how much he disapproves of the new female Thor.
This will achieve the exact intended result I believe was meant to be had with this trope: Mirroring the way Straw Feminist showcases characters made to be the absolute worst parts of the feminist argument by showcasing characters made to be the absolute worst parts of counterarguments against feminism.
It won't let me edit my reply so I'll amend it here:
However, instead of taking your route of completely abandoning the original intent since I do genuinely believe that would lead to us missing out on a real trope that isn't currently represented, I would suggest that this article becomes tailored instead to showing examples of straw anti-feminists.
Imperial Court Mage
While Man-Boy is definetly an example (and ignoring how they kept the default caption), is anyone sure if he's a good trope illustration? He's just kind of standing there in the picture. Sure you can argue that his design invokes this ,but I'm not entirely sure if that's enough qualification
"Life's like a movie, write your own ending. Keep believing, keep pretending."-Jim Henson
Can I suggest that this trope be reworked into something along the lines of Male Supremacist? That would leave He-Man Woman Hater as the main trope that covers men who hate women, both serious and comical examples, while this one would cover men (and some women) who think that men are better than women and/or should have power over them. Obviously in many cases there's a considerable overlap, but it could also cover 'patriarch' supremacists who don't hate women, who may even think that they love women, but thinks that women should be treated like children and need to be looked after. 'Patriachy' means 'rule of the father', after all.
It would act as a decent counterpart to Straw Feminism in the sense that Straw Feminists are usually depicted as advocating female superiority or supremacy. And while Male Supremacist itself is a character type or trait, not a strawman, it is essentially a strawman version of a Men's Rights Movement activist (MRA) as frequently depicted in media due to being strongly anti-feminist in nature.
How is this trope different from He-Man Woman Hater?
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It's the same as the difference between Straw Feminist and Does Not Like Men, pretty much. It' just less obvious because Does Not Like Men character types tend to be shy rather than aggressive.
See you in the discussion pages.
I agree, should be collapsed into He-Man Woman Hater as maybe a Type 1 vs. Type 2 thing, where Type 1 is like Rorschach who is portrayed, if not sympathetically, then not as just a Politically Incorrect Villain who only exists to get smacked down by the Action Girl because, well, you know. And Type 2 could be "strawman who is also a misogynist so everyone knows he's the bad guy."
Edited by Funkasaurus
We don't do types at all anymore.
Also, He-Man Woman Hater is usually played not seriously. Straw Misogynist which requires the character to be a strawman is usually serious.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
I'm Batman.
So what's the difference between Straw Misogynist and a regular old misogynist? This trope seems to imply that misogyny isn't actually a thing.
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"A character drawn as having hateful views of women so that he can be proven wrong. "
"Misogyny" can be portrayed as a good thing in certain works. Don't ask me why?
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
So like....every misogynist ever? Is there a right way to misogyny?
Like at least straw feminist makes sense as it usually exist because the writer has a complete misunderstanding of what feminism actually is (thinking it means KILL ALL MEN, WOMEN REIGN SUPREME)or the writer intentionally creates a Straw Feminism to directly contrast with a real feminism such as the Powerpuff Girls episode "Equal Fights" where the villain is Straw Feminist Femme Fatal to directly parallel actual feminist the Powerpuff Girls who explain to her the story of Susan B. Anthony and give a better understanding of equality and women's rights.
Last I checked "straw misogynist" aren't the writers misunderstanding misogyny or creating a strawman to show what a real misogynist is.
There are works out there that engage in misogyny apologia, I am sure. Or at least portray it as a neutral thing. These would count as misogyny but not as Straw Misogynist.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
This trope isn't saying misogyny isn't a thing, or that there is a "right way" to misogyny.
Someone who actually holds the beliefs of a Straw Man would really be wrong! But the problem isn't that the beliefs of the Straw Man aren't wrong, the problem is that nobody actually has those beliefs. A Straw Misogynist is ascribing beliefs to a character that are too preposterous for people to actually hold, in order to dismiss them as evil and worthy of punishment, or to lie about what people in real life actually believe.
A Straw Misogynist isn't "distorting misogyny". It's distorting something else into misogyny.
Well, actually a lot of "straw beliefs" do have some people believing in them. The key aspect of a strawman (in the context of this trope) is that the belief is set up so that it can be proven wrong.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
I think it's worth considering that the trope we're talking about here is easier to fall into than Straw Feminist.
A male character suggesting males are better at anything than females is itself such a heel indicator that it generally sets up an audience expectation for a competition where the girls win, and casts said character as a straw man.
A female character suggesting females are better at something usually sets up the same "girls win" expectation unless the character saying it is set up as a heel which will usually take more than the mere suggestion of female supremacy. Disagreeing with such a sentiment is usually enough to set up a straw opponent.
Or in short, a Straw Feminist needs to be extreme, while even alluding to males being better at something seems justification enough for the plot to revolve around proving them wrong.
Edited by 207.98.247.127
This trope has the reverse problem of Straw Feminist: while that page actually includes all misandrists in general, not just identified as feminists, this one, as was pointed out below a) is basically 'He-Man Woman Hater but WORSE' b) has a rather wierd name and concept seemingly implying that there are 'normal' misogynists whose hateful views of women are okay. I suggest to rework this trope into 'Straw Masculist' or 'Straw Traditionalist', a character whose traditionalist views on male-female roles in society (men work, women take care of home and kids etc) are drawn solely to prove them wrong or ridicule them. It would a) make it different from He-Man Woman Hater, since the difference between such views and simple misogyny is the same as between feminism and misandry b) make the trope actually qualify as Spear Counterpart to Straw Feminist.
I heard complaints in the Double Standard page that Straw Misogynist are treated more unfairly than their Straw Feminist counterpart, especially regarding real life examples. I edited to make it more "fairer", and included a Double Standard part of text. I'd also advise a Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgement for all writers as well.
Edited by Gundamforce Hide / Show Replies
Oh by the way, I'm moving the Real Life examples to a new Troper Tales page because of the Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgement. It has become a problem in the Straw Feminist page, and I don't want it to become a problem here, especially with Double Standards and all.
This has been pointed out several times above, but it still seems as though some tropers are having trouble understanding this point, so I will repeat it. A misogynist is by definition someone who hates women. A feminist is a someone interested in women's rights and equality. A feminist does not by definition hate men. A feminist is NOT a female misogynist. A misandrist would be comparable to a misogynist, not a feminist. This is an important point, so I hope people understand this.
There are some basic definitions below:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/misogynist
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Feminist?s=t
As noted above why is it called Straw Misogynist when really it should be called Exaggerated Misogynist?
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More or less due to the desire to have a Spear Counterpart to Straw Feminist. I originally came up with this trope, and don't want to see it go, but Exaggerated Misogynist could work as a rename.
Well, this shouldn't be a Spear Counterpart to the Straw Feminist, for the reasons people pointed out above. A strawman is a more extreme version designed to discredit a typically more reasonable viewpoint. Feminism is a reasonable viewpoint in most of its forms. Whereas, misogyny is not reasonable even in a milder form, since it's prejudice.
And as a result, that difference between the two is why the tropes work in different ways. Straw Feminist characters are often used to discredit feminism as a whole, by showing the most extreme, man-hating, even violent versions and calling it "feminism." Whereas, this trope isn't about discrediting misogyny; one doesn't need an extreme version to do that. It's usually more about making the particular character out to be a massive douche.
It's not even about the Unfortunate Implications of (I'm assuming unintentionally) equating feminism and misogyny. It's the fact that these tropes really don't work the same way, precisely because of the difference between a political philosophy and a form of prejudice.
Edited by EmmaWoodhouse18
Cut this example:
- * A Song Of Ice And Fire: Randyll Tarly is this on top of being an abusive bastard to his son, Sam, because A Real Man Is a Killer.
Go back under your bridge sweetie.
I cut up one dozen new men and you will die somewhat, again and again.
I'm not sure what makes this kind of character a "straw" misogynist. That's like saying a character is a "straw racist." You don't really have to misrepresent them to make them look bad.
Edited by 64.251.40.254 Hide / Show Replies
This is a character whose attitude toward women is there solely to be proven wrong.
Edited by Peteman
The strawman political page defines a strawman as "a deliberately crippled version of an opposing viewpoint that the author uses to try and support their own position."
By this definition accurately portraying a repugnant viewpoint and then rejecting it is not constructing a strawman.
That's why there aren't "strawman Nazis" or "strawman racists." It's not like you have to misrepresent these people or cripple their arguments to make them look bad.
Edited by 208.120.233.119
But people can can have negative attitudes portrayed without it being over the top, which strawman representations of bigoted attitudes can and often are portrayed in the media.
You can portray a Fuhrer supporting exterminator of human lives as a charming individual who kisses his wife in the morning and plays with his children on his days off, simply by invoking the whole "Banality Of Evil" idea. A strawman nazi on the other hand would have him be a baby eating psychopath who bathes himself in the ashes of the dead and rapes the women before sending them to the gas chambers, cackling evilly all the while.
Yeah, that doesn't quite sell me on it. Being a misogynist is a flaw. It's something that makes the audience hate you. Being a strawman doesn't mean you're not a good person in spite of your flaws (although that's part of it typically), but that your way of thinking is wrong. A Straw Republican is wrong because he's a Republican. In real life, there are both Republicans and Democrats who are intelligent and reasonable in their viewpoints, while these Strawmen think that these viewpoints are naturally wrong and the point of the character is to prove it.
Unlike Democrats and Republicans though, misogynism IS wrong. Is it a sign that the character is a bad person? Yes. But are there any "reasonable and intelligent" misogynists? People who have good reason to think, and produce well-thought out, hard to conflict arguments about why women shouldn't be allowed to have jobs?
The whole thing kinda makes me think of more Politically Incorrect Villain, to be honest.
Not all Straw Misogynists are villainous. They're just as likely to be random people.
I have to agree here - "Straw Misogynist" is sort of a weird term, apparently born of the assumption that misogyny is the male counterpart to feminism, which it isn't (the last bit of the page description is, or was, just a cut-and-paste of the last bit of the Straw Feminist page, with "misogynist" substituted for "feminist"). There are egalitarian feminists. Feminism can be misrepresented by portraying all feminists as shrill, man-hating harpies rather than women who want equal rights. Misogyny is not an equivalent term. A misogynist hates women in the same way that a misanthrope hates people. It's just what the word means. By definition, there cannot be an egalitarian misogynist, nor can misogyny be misrepresented to make it seem bad when it really isn't - because it pretty much is. It's not a social movement or a complex philosophy, there's no argument for it - it's just a flaw, as stated above. The idea that one can portray misogyny in a bad light, as opposed to the nuanced and carefully thought out reality of hating half the human race on principle, is kinda silly.
I don't think this page needs to exist. It's short enough that it could be absorbed into He-Man Woman Hater and no one would notice. Unless we're going the change Straw Feminist to Straw Misandrist, which would be just as stupid a term as Straw Misogynist and wouldn't be accurate anyway.
I think Peterman is basically right here. The point of a straw man isn't, that he's wrong. If so, then every character that holds a view you disagree with would be a straw man.
The point of a straw man is, that the author makes a character that holds a certain view as negative as possible, so that no one can have a doubt that that character is wrong. It's, as Peterman said, "Baby-eating" vs "having a family".
It's not like you have to misrepresent these people or cripple their arguments to make them look bad. The authors fear that if they portray a certain view accurately, people might think that the mysoginist/nazi/feminist whatever might get sympathy or even a little agreement. So they purge any trace of anything that might make people think that the character is not a complete asshole - a straw man.
Edited by Uchuujinsan Pour y voir clair, il suffit souvent de changer la direction de son regard www.xkcd.com/386/
That's not portraying a view accurately, though. That's just showing that a person is more than a single viewpoint, not fishing for sympathy or agreement for the viewpoint itself. (And can we please put to rest once and for all this notion that feminism is the Distaff Counterpart to misogyny?)
Maybe the example wasn't the best one, take "Women should stay in the kitchen" vs "Women are worthless and they should all be enslaved, chained and gagged", moderate view vs extreme view. The former is the real (de facto not "real", as it's a simplification, but I think you get my point) one, the latter the straw version.
Compare it to the SCUM manifesto vs feminism.
Except that that's not a valid comparison, given that the primary bent of feminism is towards ensuring female equality.
The Distaff Counterpart of misogyny is not feminism, but misandry.
Perhaps a more accurate way of putting it is that a Straw Misogynist is some sort of inhuman, woman-hating monster, whilst a regular misogynist is just an ordinary person who happens to harbour rather stupid views. The Straw Misogynist, as a character, fails to acknowledge the banality of prejudice.
What's precedent ever done for us?
I think there are two problems here. One is what several people, including myself, have been saying all along — misandry is the female counterpart to misogyny, and Straw Feminist is only called Straw Feminist because of the tendency of some writers to portray all feminists (as opposed to their lunatic fringe, who certainly do fit the trope description) as misandrists in order to misrepresent feminism on the whole. Straw Misogynist may have been created "due to the desire to have a Spear Counterpart to Straw Feminist," as stated below, but the comparison is inaccurate, regardless of whether we rename this page or not.
And the second problem is this. Here's the first bit of He-Man Woman Hater:
"Fuck, everyone knows girls can't do shit other than suck dick." —Chad Warden
The (partial) Spear Counterpart to Does Not Like Men, except portrayed much less sympathetically. When one of a character's major defining traits is his hatred of women. Usually portrayed not just as mere sexism, but unreasoning hate of women.
It sounds pretty much the same. There aren't many examples on this page, and they would all fit in on He-Man Woman Hater, which has its share of extreme examples as it is. Feminism and misandry are two different things, while misogyny and "exaggerated misogyny" are varying degrees of a viewpoint that's loathsome without the need for misrepresentation. We don't need two separate trope pages for "a thing" and "the same thing but worse."
Not all double standards have a counterpart for the opposite sex. That's part of why they're double standards.
Edited by gfrequency
The way it's used in this wiki, distaff/spear counterpart does not mean "exactly the same, but male/female" - we wouldn't need a seperate trope for many things otherwise. The point of having a seperate trope is, that it is played out differently.
The connection here is the role it plays in the story. The straw feminist tries to attack feminism, the straw mysoginist tries to attack opponents of feminism, or people who don't follow it. A name like "straw not-feminist" is a little bit unwieldy.
In the discussion about the subject, and the way the terms are used it is, de facto, not "mysoginism vs misandrism", it's "mysoginism vs feminism".
Note that originally, I mainly protested the claim that there cannot be a straw version of a "mysognist". Given your responses, I think I have showed that this, by itself is not true.
So we are currently at the question if it could be considered a spear counterpart or not. I have stated my reasons why I think "yes", but I could very well live with the fact that the spear/distaff counterpart thing doesn't get mentioned on the respective pages anymore.
I also don't know, not knowing any of the examples, if the trope is relevant in fiction. I haven't formed an oppinion on wether the difference to He-Man Woman Hater is big enough to justify its own page as well.
So if you want to change it with those arguments, go ahead, even though I fear (because of the shifting aruments used) that the reason you want to get rid of the page is, that you don't like the implication that some feminists see the need to use straw men for their position.
Ah well, do what you like.
Pour y voir clair, il suffit souvent de changer la direction de son regard www.xkcd.com/386/
Hell, I'm not going to do anything to this page, and I doubt anything ever will be done to it, as no one ever changed anyone else's opinion through posting on the internet and it's pointless to just get rid of the page when the central opinion around which it's based hasn't changed.
I think my problem and the problem the other people here who question the name and intent of the page have with it is that misogyny and feminism are being presented as equal yet opposing viewpoints that should be given equal credence.
Feminism, by definition, constitutes "the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men."
Misogyny, by definition, is "hatred, dislike, or mistrust of women."
When the argument comes down to equal rights versus hatred on principle, I would think, or at least hope, that it's sort self-evident which one is kind of...wrong. It just seems like the sort of trait one doesn't need to use a strawman, however we're going to define that term, to make it look bad.
But we're going in circles here. I'm done.
Also, there is a very fine line between supporting equality and hating men. If 'supporting equality' entails demonizing any given man for 'not doing enough' i.e. the whole 'male privelige' argument, then it becomes misandry, because it essentially blames men simply for being born. To truly support equality, one must not have even the least bit of bitterness or contempt for the other side.
Except that the male privilege argument holds that men have privileges which are conferred to them due to being born in a male-controlled and dominated society. Nothing about the concept necessitates that all men are to blame for this privilege or that they personally hold any direct responsibility for having been born into this society, merely that these things exist and are a problem because they advantage one group and disadvantage another, no different than arguing that being white in the 1950s meant you were better off than a black person due to a racist society. Pointing out that a discrepancy exists=/=blaming men for being born. Your post could even be considered an example of a Straw Feminist because it misrepresents the concept and its implications completely.
"Except that the male privilege argument holds that men have privileges which are conferred to them due to being born in a male-controlled and dominated society. "
Who gave them this privilege? Other men. Eventually it's the choices of men that uphold the patriarchy, right? Therefore men are to blame. Putting it another way, only men have the power and responsibility to end patriarchy.
So... at what point does a boy go from being a child to an agent of the patriarchy?
Edited by MercuryInRetrograde
"Who gave them this privilege? Other men. Eventually it's the choices of men that uphold the patriarchy, right? Therefore men are to blame. Putting it another way, only men have the power and responsibility to end patriarchy."
No. More or less everyone - men and women - upholds the patriarchy by holding attitudes that privilege men (even as a feminist it's hard to unlearn all of these attitudes). It's everyone's responsibility.
Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Misused
, started by PepsiTwist on Jun 30th 2016 at 3:00:05 AM
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman