Misogynists or Misandrists? Neither.

A member of a women-only network and group (an admirable network) said, when asked on TV* why no men belonged to the group, "We're not misogynists, but we want to do our own thing".

I wondered whether there was a more accurate word than misogynist for use in this context. I had forgotten the word "misandrist".

As always, the Oxford English Dictionary had the answer:

"A misogynist is a person who hates women. A person who hates men can be described as a misandrist, and the corresponding noun is misandry. But however prevalent the attitudes described by these words may be, the words themselves aren't common. There are currently only 29 examples of misandrist in the Oxford English Corpus, while misogynist appears more than 1,500 times; 68 uses of misandry are overshadowed by over 2,000 examples of misogyny".


*Holding Back the Years-Series 1: 4. Arlene Phillips, BBC 1, iPlayer