Decentering men is very often misunderstood. Radical feminists will tell you that to decenter men means to never be in the presence of a man, to essentially eradicate men from everything. Another group, the third and fourth wave, seeks egalitarianism, and their version is tapping into what they call the divine feminine and choosing spiritual celibacy over relationships and marriages with men. Both are still about men. My version is simple. You focus on yourself and your actual desires, and you accept men for exactly what they are. That is functional misandry, and it is the only way to truly decenter men.
What decentering men means to radical feminists and the divine feminine crowd
The first is the radical feminist version, and it is the impossibility. Never be in the presence of a man. Essentially eradicate men from everything. We know this cannot be done.
The second is the quiet life. These are the women who ultimately seek egalitarianism, and their decentering deals a lot with the divine feminine, focusing on yourself, and, quite frankly, choosing spiritual celibacy over being in relationships and marriages with men.
The thing that connects both groups is that their decentering means you are, in a way, more focused on your relation to men themselves than on your relation to who you really are and what your wants and desires and dreams are. Expelling men from your spaces is still centering them. So is living a quiet life of celibacy to avoid them.
Functional misandry: decentering men without spiritual celibacy
This is where functional misandry comes into play. This is where a new version of decentering men comes into play. Our solution is not to keep centering men by expelling them from our spaces, and it is not to attempt to decenter men by living quiet lives of celibacy. Our solution is simple and brilliant. It is focusing on yourself and your actual desires. If you want a man, you can have a man.
But it is also accepting that men will never be women. Feminists have this idea that men and women are equal. The question I have always had is how I, as a natural-born woman, am supposed to think that someone I can quite literally birth is equal to me. Even my religion tells me to be wary of men. My own spiritual teachers, prophets and guides say that men have a nature unlike women. Women are the only one of the divine’s creatures with the ability to birth human beings. A person who is not biologically equipped to do that, who is not intellectually, mentally or emotionally equipped to bring life into this world and nurture it, could never be equal to a woman who can.
Functional misogyny vs. functional misandry: what each one looks like
Functional misandry is a lot like functional misogyny. Men do not have to go out into the streets and shout at every woman that they hate her and that she is a stupid, dumb, idiot bitch. They do not have to, because the assumption is already there.
A man does not have to walk into a boardroom where a female colleague is about to present and alert the entire room that he believes she is inferior. There is an assumption that she is inferior. He walks in, sees a male colleague, and all they have to do is give each other a glance. The entire time she is presenting her ideas they may not say a word to each other. But when they get up and get out of that boardroom, they give each other the look that says, geesh, what an idiot. They never verbalized it. It is an assumption. It is something they know.
That is what functional misogyny looks like, and it is what functional misandry looks like. I do not need to be emotionally up in arms about men. I do not need to yell, or raise any emotional feeling that relates to men. I do not have to tell men that I believe women are in many ways superior to them. It is an assumption I make.
Misandry is not about fixing men’s bad behavior
What the feminists want you to believe about decentering men is that you should talk about your trauma and find a solution to the bad behavior of men. But misandry is not about finding a solution. Misandry, especially functional misandry, is about allowing men to be exactly who they are. It is about allowing them to show their true colors, so that you now have the information, so that you can make a better decision when dealing with them.
So you do not have to have such high hopes. The fairy tale. The benevolent patriarch who is going to save you one day. You can deal with the man in front of you, and you can trust that whatever is coming your way, you will be able to handle it.
We are not saying that we emotionally hate men. No. We are saying that we functionally hate them. It is a function of our survival that we are wary of men. It is a function of our survival that we accept that negative male behaviors will arise, and that we do not have to hope they will not, because we understand that they will. And we accept that we will have the wherewithal and the strength not to victimize ourselves through overt emotional contact with them.
Why “not all men” keeps women centering men
When women try to decenter men, feminists or not, the thing they always get stuck on is the benevolent patriarch. It’s not all men. But that is not the way misogyny works. Misogyny says, no, it is all women, because all women are placed in the box of domestication. All women are to be domesticated in a very specific way. So it is all women. And you cannot fight fire with hope. The patriarchy is firepower, and there is no amount of tears, and no amount of telling men that you love them so much and wish they would be your knight in shining armor, that will get rid of the majority.
This does not mean your specific husband is a bad person. There are always outliers. In fact, part of my process of decentering men was finding an outlier, because I am a straight woman. I enjoy having a male partner. But if it comes down to it, if the question is whether you would trust your husband over all of the evidence, the answer will almost always be absolutely not.
This is where so many women go wrong. They believe it would never happen to them, and that is how they get hurt. They believe their husband would never cheat. That is how they get hurt. They believe he would never put his hands on her.
Decentering men means living in the real world
Women need to live in the real world. Listen, if my husband never beats me, I do not have to defend myself. If my husband never cheats on me, it just means I do not have to divorce him. But in the event that it does happen, women should not be surprised. They should be prepared. They should live in the real world and not put anything past men. They should not put the true nature of men past themselves.
Put more trust in your own experiences as a woman than in anybody else in the world, including other women. The connection you have with your own self-loyalty and self-trust is something that has to be deliberately built. Until you choose that path of sovereignty, you will never truly be able to decenter men.
Where to begin decentering men
The whole process, in your own hands, is the Guide To Decentering Men, a ten-module course with a bonus guided meditation, on Wild Woman Archetypes.