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Suzanna Danuta Walters says that while she does not “hate men in some generic way,” it makes sense for women to have “legitimate rage” against a group that has “systematically abused them.”
This month in The Washington Post, Suzanna Danuta Walters published an op-ed called "Why Can’t We Hate Men?" Walters is a professor of sociology and director of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at Northeastern University, and also editor of the gender-studies journal Signs. Her op-ed has generated thousands of comments; drawn dismay, outrage, or ridicule in other publications and blogs; and spurred homophobic death and rape threats.
In her op-ed, Walters writes that even before Schneiderman, Trump, Weinstein, mansplaining, INCELs, "red pill" men’s groups, live-streamed sex assaults, and wartime rape camps, she’d been pushed "over the edge." She understands and sympathizes with the idea that critiques should focus on male power in patriarchal structures, "not narrowly personal or individual or biologically based in male bodies." But she also insists on remembering "some universal facts" about sexual violence, inequality, access to education, property ownership, and so on.
"So men," she writes, "if you really are #WithUs and would like us to not hate you for all the millennia of woe you have produced and benefited from, start with this: Lean out so we can actually just stand up without being beaten down. Pledge to vote for feminist women only. Don’t run for office. Don’t be in charge of anything. Step away from the power. We got this. And please know that your crocodile tears won’t be wiped away by us anymore. We have every right to hate you."
I have edited essays Walters wrote for The Chronicle about gay marriage, "the tolerance trap," "Academe’s Poisonous Call-Out Culture," and misplaced feminist ire. We spoke about her op-ed and the furor it has caused.
Aside from the web reaction, you’ve had death threats and rape threats. How are you holding up?
This kind of vitriol, really ugly misogyny and homophobia, has been so legitimized during these Trump times. For better or worse, I think we’re all becoming a little inured. And it’s very familiar to women writers who are in the public sphere.
To ask the obvious question that you’ve probably heard a thousand...