As an intersectional feminist, I am used to being called a man-hater, and I think it speaks much more to how people perceive what I represent than what my actual work is or who I am. This book fell out of me, and it was important for me not to shy away from the word hate in this project because I really, really believe hate is a critical emotion to explore when it comes to inequality, even though we’re uncomfortable doing it.

Women are not encouraged to be angry or hateful, and all the while misogyny and misogynoir is normalised and quietly accepted in society, and men’s anger is accepted. I genuinely believe women feeling hate towards men individually or as a community is a valid response to harm or inequality, and because the hate they feel does not feed into a larger system of power and oppression, it simply isn’t a direct comparison to men’s hate towards women or systemic misogyny.

Not all hate is the same. A woman’s righteous anger can bubble into hatred of what men have done to her or her community, and it can cause harm or hurt feelings, but it isn’t systemic; women and marginalised people don’t hold the social, economic and political power to subjugate men as men have done to them. Perhaps the men who challenge my work or the title of my book just can’t understand women’s hatred being righteous, because theirs isn’t. Perhaps they can’t imagine that we could hate and love at the same time, that we can’t hold nuance and duality because they were taught simple hatred: misogyny. This book is just a small glimpse into that duality and that internal reality – hopefully an affirming one for women and a window for the men who decide to read it, too.

Gina Martin: “Misogyny made me feel hatred towards men. But I love them too”