# Why Men Fear Women

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** Academy of Ideas
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OzGilusxtA
- **Дата:** 01.05.2026
- **Длительность:** 21:44
- **Просмотры:** 45,315
- **Источник:** https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/49893

## Описание

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## Транскрипт

### Segment 1 (00:00 - 05:00) []

Given that man is the physically stronger sex, it  may seem preposterous to claim that many men fear   women more than women fear men. Yet across  cultures and throughout history, women have   often been portrayed as the greatest threat  to man. In Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things,   the American linguist and philosopher George  Lakoff shows how in many languages there is a   deep metaphorical connection between  the words “woman” and “danger. ”   In this video, drawing from the anthropologist  David Gilmore’s book Misogyny: The Male Malady,   we examine the anthropological and cultural  evidence showing that man’s fear of woman   is a cross-cultural phenomenon and we  explore how the early developmental   process of boys contributes to this fear. Misogyny is commonly defined as contempt,   hatred, or prejudice towards women. But a more  complete definition of this phenomenon should   include fear as well. For much of the hate of the  misogynist is a mask for his fear of the female   sex. In Antony and Cleopatra, William Shakespeare  famously wrote: “In time we hate that which we   often fear. ” And as David Gilmore writes: “…by “misogyny” I mean an unreasonable fear or   hatred of women that takes on some palpable  form in any given society. …Some men are not   misogynists. These men have successfully resolved  their inner conflicts over women…But most men   have not been so successful…misogyny is not a  Western invention, nor is it confined to modern   capitalist societies, as many feminists and  Marxists have argued for many years…misogyny   shows no correlation with any particular form  of society; it occurs everywhere… misogyny is   indeed close to being universal, as  our data will amply demonstrate. ”   David Gilmore, Misogyny: The Male Malady It is not an exaggeration to state that   man’s preoccupation with woman’s body is  the greatest obsession in history. Yet this   obsession is shadowed by an equally powerful  fear. For man not only desires the female body,   he also experiences it as something foreign,  mysterious, and potentially dangerous. Among   hunter-gatherer cultures, this fear of the female  body takes the form of a full-blown phobia.   The aboriginal tribes of the  highlands of Melanesia, or New Guinea,   remained undiscovered and untouched by outside  influence until the mid-to-late 20th century.    When anthropologists first encountered these  tribes, they observed that the aboriginal men   harbored a deep and intense fear of the female  body. In summarizing these anthropological   studies, David Gilmore writes: “…literally all publications start off   by noting a curious degree of sex antagonism as  a salient feature, if not the standout feature,   of most highland societies. There is probably no  place on earth where men have such a pervasive   fear and loathing of women…Nowhere else in  the world does fear of the female body reach   such a terrible, staggering pitch. ” David Gilmore, Misogyny: The Male Malady   According to the aboriginal men of New Guinea,  prolonged contact with a woman’s body can cause   serious illness that causes the skin to wither and  the organs to waste away. The anthropologist John   Langness observed the male elders of one tribe  warn the adolescent boys that if they spend too   much time in close physical proximity with women,  “their skins will be ‘no good,’ their work will   ‘go wrong’ and they will die young”. The aboriginal fear of the female body   reaches its most intense expression in anxieties  surrounding her reproductive functions and sexual   organ. Menstrual blood is regarded as one of the  most dangerous substances a man can encounter;   contact with a mere drip of it is thought  to be able to kill a young and strong man.    While the female genitalia are not only considered  potentially poisonous but also the conduit through   which malevolent forces enter the world.   The very biology that gave birth to man,   paradoxically, is seen as antithetical  to man’s well-being and existence.   “So through her sexual organs a woman, even  if unintentionally, is believed to act as a   constant magnet to the evil powers that populate  the world’s subterranean realm…” explains Gilmore.    “Women attract these evil powers without  even being aware of it, and thus seriously   endanger both nature and society…Mother,  wife, sister... no matter; woman’s body   is the harbinger of all human evil. ” David Gilmore, Misogyny: The Male Malady   Like all men, aboriginal men desire sex, but  they also believe that too much of it weakens   them and can even kill them. The anthropologist  Raymond Kelly noted that among the Etoro tribe,   the men ritually abstain from sexual contact with  women for around two-thirds of the year. For the   New Guinea aboriginal man, sex drains him of his  vital essence, while at the same time enhancing   the strength and vitality of women. “Throughout the entire highland region,   men conclude that women pursue sex  precisely in order to capture semen,   to enhance well-being, to deplete the male victim,  and to strengthen themselves in the process. ”   David Gilmore, Misogyny: The Male Malady These fears of the female body are not only found   in the male-dominated aboriginal tribes of New  Guinea. Among the matrilineal Crow, where women   control significant property and hold relatively  high status, as well as the Semai of the Malay

### Segment 2 (05:00 - 10:00) [5:00]

Peninsula, a non-violent people described by  David Gilmore as “the least sexist group of   people on the face of the earth,” the same fear of  the feminine body exists. As Gilmore notes: “These   beliefs are not confined to what are referred to  as male-dominated cultures, nor to patrilineal   societies where women’s position is low”  (David Gilmore, Misogyny: The Male Malady).   Nor are such beliefs confined to aboriginal  societies, as parallel fears of the feminine can   be found throughout Western history. But whereas  many aboriginal tribes located the danger of woman   in her physicality, Western man has more often  portrayed her as a moral and spiritual threat.   As far back as the 7th century BC, the ancient  Greek poet Semonides wrote: “Yes, women are the   greatest evil Zeus has made, and men are bound to  them hand and foot, with impossible knots by god. ”   Subsequent Greek and Roman poets echoed this idea  by claiming that women are the original source of   “kaki”, or evil, in this world, and that they  were created by the gods to torment men.   “Roman poets like Ovid, Hesiod, and Juvenal  wrote long treatises heaping scorn and abuse   upon women and everything pertaining  to them and urging men to avoid sex   and marriage completely (Coole 1988). ” David Gilmore, Misogyny: The Male Malady   Western mythology is also rife with fears of  the female. In a myth that echoes the aboriginal   belief that the female genitalia are a gateway for  malevolent forces, it is Pandora who opens a box   that releases evil into the world. Ancient Greek  mythology is filled with female figures – sirens,   nymphs, lamias, and Furies – who lure,  ensnare, and ultimately destroy men.    Many of these mythological females live in water  and attract men with their beauty only to drag   them underwater. This motif persists throughout  Western history. In Icelandic myths, for example,   women are portrayed as “rivers of poison,” into  which men, like flies drawn to honey, taste   sweetness for a brief moment, and then drown. “The philosopher Dorothy Dinnerstein (1976) finds   the image of the siren or mermaid, the female  sea creature who rises from the dark sea depths   to drag men down, to be virtually universal in  folklore. In his book on monsters and demons,   David Williams (1996:187) calls this siren  figure the most widely represented monster   throughout history, putting a female face on the  horrific and the grotesque for all times. ”   David Gilmore, Misogyny: The Male Malady The siren is a mythological representation   of the femme fatale – the seductive yet deadly  woman – which is a common symbol across the   centuries. In the 18th century, the English poet  John Gay wrote: “The fly that sips treacle is   lost in the sweets, So he that tastes woman,  ruin meets. ” In the operas of Richard Wagner,   the goddess Venus ensnares men in realms  of sensual pleasure, thus diverting them   from their higher, heroic pursuits. In capturing  the widespread belief that every woman embodies   something of the femme fatale, Gilmore writes: “Women are evil because of their sexual allure,   which, by disguising all this teeming  malevolence with a pretty exterior,   puts men in physical and moral danger of  immorality. This physical attractiveness is,   in fact, the strategy for their treachery and  duplicity, for it is their appeal to men’s senses   that cheats, betrays, deceives. And so women are  among the most dangerous things on earth. ”   David Gilmore, Misogyny: The Male Malady Western philosophy and literature are likewise   filled with men expressing the view that women  are inherently dangerous. The German philosopher   Arthur Schopenhauer argued that because  women are constitutionally weaker than men,   they have become master deceivers in order to  survive and achieve their reproductive ends.    “They are driven to rely not on force but on  cunning; hence their instinctive subtlety and   their tendency to tell lies” (Arthur Schopenhauer,  On Women). Friedrich Nietzsche echoed this idea by   arguing that women are constitutionally incapable  of telling the truth: “What is truth to a woman?    From the beginning, nothing has been more alien,  repugnant and hostile to women than truth—her   great art is her lie” (Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond  Good and Evil). While the writer DH Lawrence did   not hold back in expressing what he thought  to be the “colossal evil of the united spirit   of Woman that is sending out waves of destructive  malevolence which eat out the inner life of a man,   like a cancer” (DH Lawrence, Studies  in Classic American Literature)   The foundational texts and teachings of all  the world’s major religions likewise provide   evidence for man’s fear of the feminine. “In most of the world’s messianic religions…sin   is brought into the world by women. It  is always First Woman, never First Man,   who, because of innate character flaws,  capitulates to the devil’s blandishments. ”   David Gilmore, Misogyny: The Male Malady In the Book of Genesis, it is Eve who   succumbs to the serpent’s deceptions, eats the  forbidden fruit, and convinces Adam to disobey   God which results in their expulsion from  paradise and the fallen state of humanity.    As the 4th century theologian Saint Ambrose  of Milan wrote: “The woman was first deceived,   and it was she who deceived the man…Adam was  not deceived, but the woman was deceived and   was in sin. ” In the biblical apocryphal texts,  one finds warnings about “the ruinous power,   which women can exercise over men,” as well as  the claim that “All wickedness is but little   compared to the wickedness of a woman. ” While the  medieval bishop Marbod of Rennes went as far to

### Segment 3 (10:00 - 15:00) [10:00]

link woman with the devil. As he wrote: “Countless are the traps which the scheming   enemy [the devil] has set throughout the  world’s paths and plains: but among them   the greatest—and the one scarcely anybody can  evade—is woman. Woman, the unhappy source,   evil root, and corrupt offshoot, who brings  to birth every sort of outrage throughout the   world... Woman subverts the world; woman the  sweet evil, compound of honeycomb and poison. ”   Marbod of Rennes In the religion of Islam,   the same fears can be found. Upon his ascension to  heaven, the prophet Muhammad is reported to have   said that “hell was populated above all by women”.   While on his deathbed he is said to have stated:   “After my disappearance, there will be no  other greater source of chaos and disorder   for my nation than women. ” In her study  of Islam, the Moroccan sociologist Fatima   Mernissi goes so far as to argue that “The  entire Muslim social structure can be seen   as an attack on, and a defense against, the  disruptive power of female sexuality. ”   Even in Buddhism, a spiritual tradition associated  with peace and kindliness to all living creatures,   women are depicted as morally degraded  enchantresses who, through deceptions and lies,   lure men away from the righteous spiritual path.   As one Buddhist traditional verse puts it:   “’Tis nature’s law that rivers wind; Trees  grow of wood and kind; And, given opportunity,   All women work iniquity. A sex composed of  wickedness and guile, Unknowable, uncertain   as the path Of fishes in the water—womankind Hold  truth for falsehood, falsehood for the truth! ”   Andabhuta Jātaka Because man’s fear   of woman appears in similar forms across  cultures and religions throughout history,   it cannot be adequately explained by social  structures, institutions, or belief systems.    Its roots must lie in the psyche of man. “…it is because misogyny is so widespread and   so pervasive among men everywhere that it  must be psychogenic in origin, a result of   identical experiences in the male developmental  cycle, rather than caused by the environment. ”   David Gilmore, Misogyny: The Male Malady The developmental roots of man’s fear of women can   be traced back to the earliest stage of life, when  the mother stands as the omnipresent figure in the   child’s world. As the source of nourishment,  comfort, and that indispensable motherly love,   she is the central figure of early experience.   Embedded in this maternal environment, both boys   and girls unconsciously mirror the mother’s gender  identity and develop what the psychiatrist Robert   Stoller called a “proto-feminine identity”. “…a boy’s earliest experience of gender is really   not neuter but female, a mirroring  of the gender of his mother. ”   Eugene Monick, Castration and Male Rage Or as Stoller writes:   “If, as is suggested, there is a stage at the  beginning of life in both males and females   when one feels as if a part of mother, this  will establish a feminine quality in one’s   identity. While helpful for the girl who  is to become feminine, it can threaten the   boy’s capacity for masculinity. ” Robert Stoller, Symbiosis Anxiety   and the Development of Masculinity Because an infant boy initially forms   a feminine-oriented identity, in order to  later develop a masculine identity he must   psychologically distance himself from the mother  and reject the proto-feminine identity that was   unconsciously formed in the earliest stages  of life. As the Indian proverb puts it: “men   are born of women, nurtured and loved by women,  protected and dominated by women, yet they must   become men”. Or as David Gilmore continues: “…all boys feel this irreducible core feminine   identity as a threat to their masculine self,  an inner softness or weakness, a deficiency   lurking within. It must be repudiated so that  the boy can later develop a manly identification   consonant with cultural expectations; that is,  the boy at some point must “dis-identify with   the mother” to become a true male as defined  by convention (Greenson 1978). The process   of disidentifying with mother…includes an often  violent rejection of everything feminine, so that   masculinity becomes defined as the opposite  of, and a distancing from, femininity. ”   David Gilmore, Misogyny: The Male Malady But this process of disidentifying with the mother   and repudiating the feminine within, is no easy  task; in fact, it is the one of the most difficult   a boy must face. For the mother is the source of  comfort, security, and unconditional love. The   earliest years of life, before self-consciousness  fully emerges, are marked by a state of ease and   contentment in which the child is cared  for without effort or responsibility.   “Mother is warmth, mother is food, mother is the  euphoric state of satisfaction and security. ”   Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving A boy does not relinquish his   bond with the mother willingly. Historically,  harsh rites of passage, designed to forcibly   separate the boy from the maternal world and  initiate him into manhood, were practiced by   almost all cultures. Underlying these rites of  passage was the recognition that within the male   psyche there exists a regressive longing to  remain in, or return to, that paradisal and   infantile state of dependence on the feminine. “Regressive wishes seem to be felt as a return to   a primordial premasculine state, to infancy—that  is, to a condition associated with femininity. ”

### Segment 4 (15:00 - 20:00) [15:00]

David Gilmore, Misogyny: The Male Malady Especially as a boy matures into adolescence   and then adulthood, these regressive wishes become  increasingly unacceptable – for to give into them   means the extinction of masculinity. Within most  men, therefore, there exists an innate conflict:   on the one hand they are drawn toward what the  anthropologist Thomas Gregor called “the path   back to fusion with the mother and the pleasures  of infancy,” while at the same time they fear,   resist, and despise these regressive  impulses that arise from within.   “…the boy, more than the girl, has a powerfully  ambivalent response to this universal regressive   wish. On the one hand he feels it as a pleasurable  symbiosis with the mother—a recapturing of the   carefree, prelapsarian world of infancy—but on the  other hand he senses it as dangerous backsliding   that is as terrifying as it is pleasurable,  for it means extinction of masculinity. ”   David Gilmore, Misogyny: The Male Malady In an attempt to deal with the anxiety this inner   conflict evokes, many men project it onto women  so that what is, in reality, an internal struggle   comes to be experienced as an external threat.   The result is a paranoid fear or phobia of women,   that in many men takes the form of hatred or  contempt. And in some cases – such as the Salem   witch hunts – this fear of woman expands into  full-blown psychoses. Or as Gilmore writes:   “…phobias are projections, attributions to others  of one’s own repressed wishes…phobias are either   projections of the repressed wishes or they  are displacements by which inner conflicts   find objectification in scapegoats. Phobia  formation is what psychoanalysts call “the   defense mechanism of externalization”…misogyny  has all the earmarks of a typical phobia,   with fears focusing on woman, who is demonized  as the implacable, omnipotent foe. ”   David Gilmore, Misogyny: The Male Malady The fact that many men project their desire for,   and fear of, their own regressive impulses onto  women helps explain why their feelings towards   women are marked by such intense ambivalence.   For on the one hand men fear women, but they also   admire, desire, and idolize them. This ambivalence  has been expressed throughout history in religion,   literature, and myth. Hesiod described  woman as a “beautiful evil,” while Catullus,   writing of his mistress, confessed: “I love and  I hate. ” Mythological figures such as the sphinx,   half alluring woman, half monstrous beast,  embody this union of attraction and dread.   “…it seems abundantly clear that many, if  not most, of men’s feelings about women are   a hodgepodge of strongly contrasting impulses,  starkly contradictory affects and fantasies…It   seems that wherever we find misogyny, we also  find its diametric opposite in equal measure:   and this is the key to misogyny. ” David Gilmore, Misogyny: The Male Malady   If this explanation is valid, then it follows  that the more a man fears or hates women,   the more he simultaneously longs for and needs  them. In other words, men who appear most overtly   misogynistic may, in fact, be the ones most deeply  driven by a powerful yet unacknowledged yearning   for the very women they denounce. “Ambivalence occurs when one experiences   diametrically opposed emotions at the same  time: the affected person is drawn in opposite   directions, torn by incompatible emotions. He  feels anxiety because he cannot reconcile the   clashing feelings…this tension-ridden state,  not simple hatred or a wish to dominate,   accounts for men’s denigration of women…It is  not surprising that the men who most deplore   and distrust women are the same ones who  most admire, want, and need them. ”   David Gilmore, Misogyny: The Male Malady Although the regressive impulses that underlie   man’s fear of women originate in his early  dependence on the mother, David Gilmore notes that   the father–son relationship plays a crucial role  in shaping a boy’s later attitudes toward women.    He draws on a comparative synthesis study by the  anthropologist James Taggart, who discovered that   fathers who are more involved in a boy’s life  “help their sons separate from the mother with   less anger toward women”. This is a promising  finding, but given that absent fathers are now   the norm, with about half of all boys growing  up without a present father in the household,   many are deprived of the masculine guidance needed  to develop a healthy relationship to women.   Like many deep-rooted social problems, the  responsibility ultimately rests with individual   men to recognize that conflicting feelings  toward women are, in reality, conflicts within   themselves. This requires bringing regressive  impulses into consciousness, and rather than   indulging in them acknowledging, accepting,  integrating, and mastering them. It requires the

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awareness that when one hates or fears woman, one  is really hating and fearing parts of oneself.   “…men who hate women hate themselves  even more. What they really hate (and   fear) is the “femaleness” within. ” David Gilmore, Misogyny: The Male Malady   Only if more men undergo this evolution of  consciousness can the deep division that exists   at the heart of our species – a millennia  old war between men and women – give way   to a more harmonious relationship between the  sexes and an elevated form of human life. “A   species divided itself cannot stand”, writes  Robert Meagher. Or as Gilmore concludes:   “Only self-knowledge can free men from fear  of women, and self-knowledge in this case   means the acceptance of the divided self  within…And only through such an acceptance   can men appreciate the loveliness, gentleness,  and beauty of women…Men and women thus united,   misogyny will wither away of its own accord.   And on that ambiguous note, we end. ”   David Gilmore, Misogyny: The Male Malady Further Readings