Have you ever figured out why the right is so afraid

[leftyladyfrommo]

of women? It doesn't make sense. I don't think the women I know are one bit scary. Well, MTG and Boert whatever are pretty scary.

Seems like they are terrified of anybody not white male.

[sop]

1. A lot of white males terrify them, too.

[pwb]

2. They are all fake tough.

They are afraid of Women because most Women can beat the hell out of them.

[underpants]

3. It's a church based patriarchy thing

Men (often supposedly celibate) making rules for society and diminishing women. Women make life and are vital for food. Thy have to be kept down. This goes way back in Catholicism but also is in Protestantism.

[leftyladyfrommo]

7. I think it goes way back further than that.

Lookat the Essenes. They had nothing to do with women. They were celibate abd viewed that anything that had to do with intercourse was horrible. They were vegetarians because meat was the product of intercourse.

There's some really deep seated fear going on there.

[wnylib]

39. Wondering where you got the celibate vegetarian info.

Essenes had different levels of membership. Some were celibate, but not all. Same with eating meat. They were devout Jews who followed a kosher diet.

[grumpyduck]

4. I've never thought about it, but

now that you mention it, my guess is that "they" are afraid women will show them up for the dumbasses they are. That, and a lack of self-confidence so common in bullies.

[leftyladyfrommo]

5. There isn't anybody they can trust. Women are the enemy.

And they sure can't trust each other because they are all crooks.

[Demsrule86]

6. I don't think the right is afraid of women. They have complete contempt for women and think

they should be subservient to men. And I have visited Evangelical churches and I can tell you they preach that a man is the head of HIS HOUSE. They believe men are the ones who should make all decisions. With what I have seen in various states, I lived. I am almost afraid of mail-in voting as in some states the husbands will vote for their wives and make them sign the ballot.

[2naSalit]

20. Shit...

In Idaho, the husband goes right into the voting booth with his wife and tells her how to vote. Seen it a number of times when I lived there. And they wear political campaign materials while inside the poling site. The church owns and operates that state, more so than in Utah.

[SheltieLover]

31. ...

How the hell do they get women to buy into that bs?

[Demobrat]

46. Financial dependence

A woman without her own money has nowhere to go and no means of escape.

[SheltieLover]

53. True but wouldn't you think the women would resent the dntrapment?

I sure would!

[Demsrule86]

62. I don't know...my hubs likes modern Christian music...not hymns. So he wanted to got to one

of these evangelical churches when the kids were little... I showed up for a while then said no, I am not going there anymore after the pastor saw wine in my cart at Publix and preached a sermon on it! I was furious because I see nothing wrong with wine. We found a traditional church with guitar masses which hubs liked. After we left the pastor called me and wanted to have a private discussion about this...he was concerned for my soul he said.

I politely declined. And that was that. Now 20 years later I see his name on the list for sexually abusing female parishioners...I wonder what if I had gone? I'd like to say that the guy seemed creepy or I had some sort of feeling but I didn't. I admired his life story recounted in the book from the Poolroom to the Pulpit.

[Lonestarblue]

44. I agree. It's all about religious patriarchy that says men are in charge of everything.

If you look at their attitudes toward minorities, they describe them as uppity and not knowing their place. In their wee little warped minds, women also have a place, which is one of subservience to man, and if they refuse to stay in their place they must be punished. Forcing women to have babies they don’t want is simply one means of controlling them and keeping them out of the economic marketplace where they might gain financial independence and not have to rely on men.

I may be wrong here, but I also see the forced birthers as white supremacists who know that minority women tend to have much higher maternal death rates than white women. Therefore, if you force all women to have more babies, more black and brown women will die, along with their babies, thus increasing the white population, a primary goal of these people. Even saying that makes me feel rather ill, but I think the forced birthers are just that sick!

[Demsrule86]

60. No, I absolutely agree with you as long as women, POC ETC know are place...all is fine but

when we challenge them all hell breaks loose.

[Hortensis]

49. Right. A lot more on track. Men are dominant and meant to be

by natural and God’s law. They like, and love and admire, women just fine who understand that, and that’s always been virtually everyone. Until extremely recently.

We could say men had complete contempt for dogs also and it’d be true, but at least they found more positive and nuanced words to express these special attitudes.

Fwiw, I suspect that if some women didn’t still subscribe to subservience also, male believers would already mostly have died off or changed their religion.

[Demsrule86]

59. The youngins my daughters age do not subscribe to the patriarchy so...the guys are in for a

big surprise soon.

[mysteryowl]

8. I think it has to do with dominance and power

just like how bullies operate.

[Demsrule86]

61. They are bullies alright.

[Historic NY]

9. They aren't reproducing fast enough

[Republicans are] not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.” Lindsay Graham
2012 GOP convention.





[link:https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2019/07/04/abortion-ban-fear-white-extinction-babies|]

Of course other environmental and physical causes are also in the mix, including lower sperm counts. The need for big families to work the farm or the family business is from the past.

[Tetrachloride]

10. Among the RW that I met, the worst 3 were

women. Maybe my spidey sense kept me away from the men.

[leftyladyfrommo]

12. I've seen that too. I stay away from women like that.

Well. Not all women are nice. It's a dangerous assumption to make.

[Tetrachloride]

14. I am in a distant land now.

spidey sense is quite different here.

[leftyladyfrommo]

11. Do boys learn to treat women badly at home. Is it

learned. Or is there some generic thing going on.

Just seems like it's a trait that is worldwide and encompasses all races.

[Tetrachloride]

16. Lack of role models

and lack of affirmation from role models. Both in my case.

in my distant land, i have taken on a few kids that i see in my neighborhood. they play in the dirt streets if they are allowed out.

[meadowlander]

28. It isn't worldwide and doesn't encompass all races.

There are matriarchal societies and historic societies where what was defined as women's roles were given more respect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matriarchy

Being an asshole isn't genetic. It's learned.

The problem in most Western cultures is fundamentalism followed by generally bad parenting.

Almost all kids go through a phase in their teens when they pull away from their parents to establish their own identity. At the same time, they establish their identity by defining it against what they are not (e.g. "girls are gross" ).

If they aren't given any guidance through that process, many boys get stuck there with peer relationships formed around excluding the opposite gender and objectifying them. And then tribalism and hierarchicalism kick in ("boys are better than girls" ). And then their early failed attempts at hitting on girls, who mature earlier than them, fail and the seeds of bitterness and resentment are sown.

A healthy society will reintegrate teens by teaching them how to have healthy family relationships. An unhealthy society exploits this awkward time to recruit them into either the military or churches.

[Sky Jewels]

29. A big part of the problem (not the entire problem, of course) is the Abrahamic monotheisms.

They were made up by very patriarchal societies and all the major characters in their stupid, nonsensical, convoluted mythologies are men -- Yahweh/God/Allah, Jesus, Mohammad, Moses, Abraham, etc. The only major female characters are women like Eve -- blamed for the fall of humanity and Mary -- raped and impregnated by the cruel asshole sky deity. They were an easy way for men to oppress women and control populations to enrich a few poohbahs at the top. Look at the RCC for a perfect example of a women-haters grifting ring.

And these moronic, twisted belief systems have poisoned the minds of billions of people the world over.

[SheltieLover]

32. This!👆

[wnylib]

42. See my #41.

[SheltieLover]

51. Looking

[wnylib]

41. Polytheistic India has a very serious problem

with misogyny. In many cases, men get away with rape, murder, and honor killings without charges ever being brought. Even when they are, the men often don't get convicted.

[SheltieLover]

52. Sickening!

[meadowlander]

56. Even in Buddhism women are not complete entities and cannot attain enlightenment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Buddhism#Limitations_on_women's_spiritual_attainment_in_Buddhism

[ananda]

13. I'm terrified of white males and their enablers.

Sheesh

[leftyladyfrommo]

17. You should be terrified. They are dangerous as hell. nt

[Wicked Blue]

50. Ever heard the legend of

Teensy Dick, the Not-so-Great White Male?

"Call me Incel ..."

[Scrivener7]

15. Because if women and POC get power, it reduces the amount of power that white men have.

Note that most republiQans tend to fall into two groups: 1)very mediocre people whose power comes from their daddies or family wealth and connections. Or 2)people who don't have ANY power but want to associate themselves with those who do.

All of them, both groups, are rightfully fearful that they are imposters to their own status and thus they have to hold onto power, or their image of the power innate in their whiteness and maleness, more tightly.

And power, in their book, has to be power OVER someone. They can only feel better than others if they feel they have vanquished them. Hence the need to believe they are causing "liberal tears." Also the need to be vicious to the downtrodden among us.

It is important that they believe they are better than men of color (see LBJ's famous quote.) But it's EVEN MORE important to them that they believe they are better than women. This is why granting rights to women always lags behind granting the same rights to men of color.

It is because women DO have a certain power over these men. In the sexual arena, where masculinity is forged, women can - and probably do - make them aware of their inadequacies. And these men hate and fear women for that. So they have created a whole culture that hates and reviles women. Want to REALLY insult one of these men? Call him a bitch. Call him a "cuck." Compare him unfavorably to a woman. Suggest that a woman has power over him.

So if a woman irises higher than them on the ladder of achievement, it is that much more threatening. It cannot be allowed. If it is, then those men will have to face their own inadequacy. They are lower, even, than the women they revile.

Right now lots of women are becoming successful. This makes them crazy. So they have to stop it.

[Gaugamela]

18. This kind of misogyny can be found in most cultures, though I agree that fundamentalist religion

definitely encourages it.

My take on it is that it is a product of hyper-masculinity. Men in these cultures are raised and socialized to repress any weakness, which they associate with femininity, and so they learn to think of themselves as superior to women and to disparage them. But it creates a kind of uneasy anxiety around sexuality, because it makes them feel vulnerable and weak. So they become conflicted and ashamed at some level about their sexuality, and compensate by becoming controlling and domineering. This can express itself in a puritanical morality, such as we see in the Taliban or Alito, in cavalier womanizing, or in the outright hostility towards women that is evident among incel groups, or in mass killers and rapists. All such behavior is basically a projection of their own self-hate, IMHO.

[usonian]

19. People of undeserved "privilege" are always afraid that their scam will be exposed.

Every Accusation is a Confession.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216777247

My post on DU is the fourth result at duckduckgo.com!

[lindysalsagal]

21. My grandmother voted w the 1st women: born 1902.

It hasn't been all that long, 100 years, since women were quite literally lower class citizens. These Neanderthals miss the good old days when they were automatically in the more powerful half of society. They feel robbed of that status. Idiots.

[leftyladyfrommo]

22. I wonder if my grandmother ever marched or even voted.

She was born 1886. I kind of doubt it.

[Genki Hikari]

65. Mine (born 1903) got expelled from junior high

For getting arrested at a suffragette to-do. Never allowed back at school because the school deemed her a "bad influence."

Voted for the first time in 1924, for Robert La Follette. I think she wrote in a candidate in 1928, because she said she couldn't vote for Hoover or Al Smith. Don't remember who it was she said she voted for. The name was completely bland and unfamiliar to me.

She later volunteered on FDR's campaigns--even while she was pregnant. That was something our small Southern village considered "shocking."

Voted Dem ever after, despite how she hated the Dixiecrats running in our state. Her attitude was that she would have to vote for a "racist clown" no matter which party she went for, but at least the Democrat wouldn't totally screw over poor people.

Yeah, she was a character until her dying day.

[Metaphorical]

23. It's Complicated

In red states the culture is much more extroverted: hierarchical social structures with the men in protecting roles and the women in nurturing roles. Social conformity expectations are also higher. This is very typical of agrarian societies, and it often expressed itself as abuse of the weak by the strong.whi were supposed to protect their family.

Women are also raised in these societies to put the interests of others over themselves, and even in female society there are hierarchies, with those at the top reinforcing the status quo. Women at the too do have some power, but it is usually borrowed from the power of their mate. Finally in agrarian societies the likelihood of women dying in labor was high, especially among poorer women, which meant that fewer women could reach an age where they could gain political power.

Better nutrition, improved birth control (Especially the pill) and access to abortion changed all that. Women now outlive men. More women are choosing not to have children or are waiting later in their lives. This means women are now in far more control of their lives than they have ever been.

Being a protector in a society confers power as well as the perquisites of that power. For men, as women move out from the supposed protection that being male strength and size confer, this is seen as an erosion not only of their own power but a breakdown of the status quo. Uppity women are seen as threats.

This is why the right is going after not only abortion but all forms of birth control, and to a certain extent social health care. These are all intended to reduce female political power, to reestablish agrarian social patterns, and to make women far more dependent upon men. For both men and women, independent power can also be frightening, and they would rather have the surety of known social patterns than the responsibility inherent in being independent.

[packman]

24. I was afraid of my mother after I spilled beer on her hand-crafted quilt

And still have nightmares about Sister Mary in that 8th grade biology class. And Mary Lou Jerbosky who broke my heart at the senior prom when she danced with Ricky instead of me.

[tiredtoo]

25. Just a thought

Methinks many of the republicans fear women because they had mean mothers or mothers who neglected them. Just a thought.

[Warpy]

26. it's because of their crackpot religion

Wome and children should be silent and obedient to men.

Women who aren't submissive little doormats terrify these men.

That's really the bottom line for them.

[SheltieLover]

33. Absolutely!

[KS Toronado]

27. They're afraid of women voting

male Rs want women to get pregnant, stay home and shut up.

[GoCubsGo]

30. Yes, it has to do with how people are wired.

About a third of the population has a heightened tendency toward threats, and are generally more fearful. They strongly tend to be conservatives. Bill Moyers has a decent explanation here: https://billmoyers.com/story/how-authoritarianism-short-circuits-the-lizard-brain/

[SheltieLover]

35. Here is an article at NIH that substantiates the fear mechanism in rwnjs

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3092984/

[Higherarky]

34. Men are afraid women will laugh at them. And women do.

Women are afraid men will kill them. And men do.

[malthaussen]

36. eh, it's not just a GOP thing, nor is it anything new.

From an anthropological standpoint, male fear of the female is almost, though not completely, universal. There are all sorts of speculations about why, often having to do with the mystery of birth, over which the female would seem to have complete control unless social constructs are put in place to deny them that control. Arguably, this fear of women and their birth power is prior to authoritarianism and patriarchy, and not the other way 'round.

Seems like an ego thing to me, one ultimately grounded in the biological desire to perpetuate one's own genes and not somebody else's. 'tis a wise child who knows his father, one is usually not in much doubt of his mother. That seems incredibly reductionist, but I certainly can't come up with anything better.

-- Mal

[SheltieLover]

37. Ever hear the saying women run for office to accomplish objectives & men run to have power

Women, for instance MADD members, who gather together to form a coalition against wrongs are terfifying to the grifters.



Ps - certainly not all women or all men by any means. Generally speaking. Women are more social creatures & have the capability to expose their grifting.

[Sucha NastyWoman]

38. Lack of control

They do not fear women they can control, but the rest of us . . .

Just about all men are one of two types. Men who love and respect women and men who fear them.

[dchill]

40. They are afraid of sane people with principles...

...many of whom are women.

[Ferrets are Cool]

43. IMO, it's about control, not fear.

[Scrivener7]

58. Need to control is a manifestation of fear.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

45. The right wants to go back to an earlier time where white men had all of the power

Make America great again plays on the concept that we need to turn back the clock and go back to an era where women and minorities did not have any power

[peppertree]

47. But only white men who agree

The rest, they'd gladly 'disappear' if they could.

Having grown up in the South, it reminds me of the hatred Southern Repugs feel for (white) Southern Democrats: they consider not toeing the RW line the ultimate betrayal.

As Bill Clinton, Don Siegelman - and to a lesser extent Jimmy Carter - know so well.

[Hamlette]

48. same reason whites are afraid of being the minority

they know how they treated blacks and don't want the same. If women get power they might be condescending and patronizing to men and make them second class citizens

Go back to the cave: Men went out and risked their lives to hunt game. To procreate they needed someone to stay in the cave and tend the fire and the kids. The roles were probably decided by body strength which also gave the men veto power. In case of a disagreement. If everyone stuck to their respective role, no divorce. Women get power, can live on their own, they could leave and let the fire die out.

Fits the old adage, women are afraid of men killing them, men are afraid of women laughing at them.

[OMGWTF]

54. These misogynic, racist, bigots are fully aware of how badly they treat women and minorities

and they are afraid that that if those groups have any power, they will treat these white male bullies the same way they have treated others. IOW, they know payback can be a bitch.

[COL Mustard]

55. You guys don't have the same parts that we do.

And I think they're afraid of that! Or they have Mommy issues.

[Pepsidog]

57. There is a lot that the right is afraid of, bunch of scarry cats.

[vercetti2021]

63. Not just women

But LGBTQ, minorities and such having any power of the white patriarch. I'm trans and these fuckers are terrified of me for being me and happy. My dad or sperm donor is a key example of this shit. Reason we no longer speak because of his rejection towards me. My girlfriend and I scare these men because we are strong willed and have careers we love without their help.

Fuck these assholes. I'm glad I terrify them

[applegrove]

64. Women vote out of compassion more often then men. That is why they

are a threat.

[Genki Hikari]

66. I think male fear of women starts in childhood

With the all-powerful Mom figure who's so dominant in their lives during their formative years. What makes her scary is that she sees all, knows all, and puts up with F all out of her kids.

They never get over that, and resent the power she had over them, for the rest of their miserable lives.

[treestar]

67. they are afraid they won't be able to control them,

like they think they should. And that they will look unmanly due to not having control of "their" women.

[imavoter]

68. Women don't need men for the modern version of survival anymore

Women expect more, and it upsets the paradigm.

Men are great, but I don't "need" a man.
And and as much as I miss my husband,
we WANTED each other, didn't need.

I have to say, I don't respect men that don't
see women as people.