Yesterday, I went out for dinner. Sitting on the table next to me were two men, I would guess in their early fifties. They were all low-slung jeans and bomber jackets and the obligatory paunch. They, well, one of them, talked really loudly about a lot of shit: cars and nice restaurants he'd eaten in. Whenever the young waitress came to the table he made lots of funny, suggestive, flirtatious jokes. I say funny but I suppose I mean gross and revolting, more accurately. During one hilarious interaction he told her that he and his fat friend were going to be waiting for her after her shift to take her out and show her a good time. And the young girl smiles and tries to pretend that she's enjoying the sad banter from the ageing dullard. Why does she? I guess it's her job to some extent but I also guess she knows that if she is sullen, if she fails to laugh at his 'jokes', perhaps even, if she tells him to shut his leering face, at that moment he will turn. "Can't you take a joke?" "Takes herself a bit seriously, doesn't she?" "Must be on her period" Some examples that might be fired at her. She will unlikely have the upper hand in this situation, she will unlikely silence him. And it was at this moment, as at many moments, when I would have liked to have handed her 'I Hate Men' by Pauline Harmange. This small, mighty book, more of an essay, in fact, should be handed out to all girls around the age of fifteen. This is an age when they are mature enough to engage but young enough that the patriarchy has not solidified their way of thinking into a defeated acceptance of misogyny; into a mindset of, how do I avoid misogyny? Be pretty, be slim, take up no space, be quiet, smile, care, breed, don't breed, be sexy, be chaste etc etc etc. Rather, suggests Harmange, turn your world on its head and take a totally different approach.
Harmange's argument is that misandry is not just a legitimate response to misogyny, 'a principle of precaution', as she puts it but a way of fostering a new-found sisterhood. Misandry would pose no threat to men, not in the way that misogyny poses to women. The playing field is not level. We will not, through our hatred of men, become rapists, murderers, stalkers, domestic abusers as men are but rather we will come together as a necessary means of action. The book is, perhaps contrary to the impression created by the title, incredibly optimistic. Harmange ends with, 'Soon the patriarchy will topple and we shall dance among the ruins of the old order.' It certainly made me want to dance. My favourite chapter was 'Mediocre as a white dude' which, as well as being insightful, was very funny; there is nothing dry about this little book. Harmange gives excellent advice when she writes, 'Whenever I'm beset by doubt, I think about all the mediocre men who've managed to make their mediocrity pass for competence.' She puts a little Asterix here *You know exactly who I'm talking about. Hahaha, which nation's leader would you pick?
Few things are more powerful than a writer who takes your defeat and pity and shame, seems to recognise it accurately and invites you to turn all of it into anger. Unapologetically this is what Harmange does and it is liberating and poignant to read the angry words and the call to arms; 'Our anger insists that men take responsibility for their behaviour and spurs on our revolution.' I wish that I had had this book when I was younger. Harmange, it will be no surprise to learn, is French. When the book was first released in France there was a media frenzy after somebody (a man, obvs) tried to get it banned. It garnered some lucrative notoriety through this, although I don't believe that it ever was banned so you are able to go out and buy many copies and hand them out to your nieces and daughters and maybe, even, the odd man.
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