rode_kater wrote: ↑Sat Dec 07, 2024 11:12 am
Note: these are not in conflict. You can hate a group while not having a problem with individuals.
I don't generally disagree with what you said. On the Muslim thing, I can give a similar example of an elderly and disabled family member who expressed some rather unpleasant views about Jewish people. She had never known a Jewish person before. I took a very dear Jewish friend who is a nurse to see her. My friend saw her age and disability and immediately went into nurse mode, holding her hand, helping her drink. My family member was blown away at her natural care and kindness and never said anything about Jewish people again. She had made a mistake and learned from it. We can all do that.
The same applies to Muslims. When I lived in Sweden, I was invited by a former student, a Pakistani Muslim, to a party at a hotel in the city where he was holding a celebration on being granted Swedish citizenship. In the dining room, there were two long tables and I realised that one was for his Pakistani and Muslim friends and family and the other for his Swedish friends, neighbours and work colleagues. The seats had guests' names on them and I saw he had placed me with the former group. He saw me looking slightly confused and explained that he knew that, being a Brit, I would probably have more in common with Pakistanis than Swedes as we could chat about things like cricket. Religion and ethnicity to him weren't a factor. To be honest, I didn't mind either way and eventually chatted with people on both sides.
I'm not so sure about the misogyny thing, though. First off, males often do say silly things about women when in male company that they don't mean - like Trump saying "you can grab them by the p...". It's a kind of silly talk used to impress other males but it doesn't usually mean that's how they think of women. Prof. Deborah Tannen specialises in gendered speech and she points out that boys, and immature adult men, often use such language to show off, but it's not meant to be believed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUxnBZxsfoU I think genuine misogyny - i.e. a hatred of all males, is vanishingly rare and those who do exhibit this are often incarcerated in institutions. Who hates all their female family members?