Himpathy, Misogynistic Harm & Violent Indifference:

“Kate Manne is the Simone de Beauvoir of the 21st century.” ~ Amanda Marcotte

I can’t begin to imagine articulating the reality of living in these volatile times without philosopher Kate Manne‘s theoretical contributions which have given us simple phrases to describe complex feelings we have long been mulling over for years.

The truth is, Manne had to invent new, feminist theoretical words to properly convey evolving feminist epistemology to keep up with a hostile and aggressively evolving patriarchy—falling asleep?

Yes, I know this sounds scholastic AF but we need it! What I’m saying is, we must stop focusing on make-up tutorials and movies about zombies and sharpen our focus on the violent, incel apocalypse that is completely upon us now. Manne is our Incel Safari Guide. She has invented helpful bird calls and phrases like Himpathy, Care-Mongering, Human-Giver (as opposed to Human Being) and Violent Indifference to counter-attack him in his natural habit: the real streets and the Twitter streets (I left X right after the Musk invasion and am now on Threads—well actually, I didn’t leave, X suspended me for giving Musk’s portrait of the revolver on his nightstand the artful title of: “Aggrieved Entitlement” circa 2022. I guess Musk was not impressed?)

Kate Manne is also credited with a more accurate and nuanced definition of misogyny and that misogynists fit a certain psychological profile. But the 2024 election was more than misogynists running to the polls. It’s all so much bigger than that. It was also regular Americans being indifferent, “violently indifferent,” as Manne called it in my email inbox.

If you’re not into scholastic reading, maybe it’s time to be? Because the world gets more edgy and relevant with each new book Manne drops.

She has given us three genius, philosophical works in the last seven years. Three razor-sharp takes on the United States’ biggest obsessions (that also happen to make women’s lives miserable and difficult): 1. Misogyny, 2. Male Entitlement, and 3. Fat Shaming.

She’s on fire.

I’m here for it.

Delighting in her jargon, like who says “Care Orbit?” Kate Manne does. In her first book, Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, Manne states that a woman’s care orbit and a female politician’s care orbit like Kamala’s or Hillary’s have to be massive—but what about Trump’s care orbit? He can brag about shooting someone on 5th Avenue and still get elected. Zero Care Orbit.

Maybe it has something to do with Himpathy, another stellar phrase Manne has gifted us with in Down Girl to illustrate the undue sympathy we improperly assign to perpetrators.

Himpathy has the power to alchemize a rapist into a victim. Trump continually rubs his man-ufactured entitlement and malicious lies in our American faces. Half of us have had enough of it, while the other half still thinks he is our savior. And then, there is Kate Manne, giving us the language to counter-attack the stubbornly delusional portion of this country. The 2024 U.S. election map looks like it is hemorrhaging, because it is on so many levels.

Here are ten quotes from Kate Manne explaining the nuances of why America is bleeding with so very little regard:

On Indifference:

“Many moral philosophers hold that moral considerations should be overriding. Which means, roughly, that if you have a moral reason to refrain from doing A, and a prudential (e.g., financial) reason to do A, then you ought to refrain from doing A. You ought to be prepared to make the sacrifice for the sake of morality. Instead, Trump voters were prepared to sacrifice women for the sake of their bank balance.”

“The young men. You are breaking my heart in your willingness to shrug about the well-being of your female counterparts in voting for Trump in droves. Even those who are not incels, or otherwise actively harming others, are showing yet again that there is violence in standing back and shrugging. Those of us who are shown to be uncared for may hence now be experiencing what Jill Stauffer calls ‘Ethical Loneliness’: the loneliness of being abandoned by humanity while subject to wrongdoing and injustice.”

On Himpathy:

“The often overlooked mirror image of misogyny: himpathy, as I’ll call it. The excessive sympathy that flows to perpetrators. In the case of male dominance, we sympathize with him first, effectively making him into the victim of his own crimes.”

On Misogyny:

“In my previous book, Down Girl, I argued that misogyny should not be understood as a monolithic, deep-seated psychological hatred of girls and women. Instead, it’s best conceptualized as the ‘law enforcement’ branch of patriarchy—a system that functions to police and enforce gendered norms and expectations, and involves girls and women facing disproportionately or distinctively hostile treatment because of their gender, among other factors.”

“Sexism is hence to bad science as misogyny is to moralism. Sexism wears a lab coat; misogyny goes on witch hunts.”

“Misogyny isn’t about hating or discriminating against women because they are women and thus attract suspicion and consternation. Misogyny is about exposing women to harm because our gender makes us beneath full consideration. Misogyny is primarily something we face, not something people feel in their hearts.”

On Human-Givers: 

“Women may not be simply human beings but positioned as human givers when it comes to the dominant men who look to them for various kinds of moral support, admiration, attention, and so on.”

“Some people don’t truly value either party (Mother or Daughter), and just want girls like her to be groomed to give, love, breed, and serve men in perpetuity.”

On Incels: 

“The sad truth is that, like many oppressors, incels perceive themselves as being the vulnerable ones. They feel like the true victims, even as they lash out violently against others. And they feel they are in the right, even as they commit the most deplorable acts of wrongdoing.”

“When demand for her attention exceeds supply on a grand scale, it isn’t surprising to find practices of men trying to turn the heads of women previously unknown to them—via catcalling and various forms of online trolling.”

Bonus Closing Quote: “Women live longer than men, but they do so at great cost.”
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