In a most intriguing episode of ESPN’s show, “Highly Questionable” in which Dan Le Batard and Bomani Jones sit on either side of Le Batard’s father and respond to the questions sent in by viewers, there recently occurred a discussion of numerous tweets that have been sent by avid (rabid?) male sports fans to female reporters and journalists who are audacious enough to report on male sports. The tweets were disgusting and very disturbing — so much so that several of them couldn’t be read on air. The question before the group was what would drive those men to say those terrible things to those women? After a number of suggestions by both Batard and Jones the latter finally said: it’s simple, in this society we hate women [his emphasis]. I paraphrase here because I don’t have the episode near at hand, but this was the final point the Jones made and it is worth pondering.

Bomani’s comment would certainly explain why those men would say such awful things to those women. But that is a small sample (we would hope) and certainly doesn’t make a case for the truth of Jones’ comment. However, Jones’ claim would also help to explain such things as pornography and prostitution not to mention the singular lack of popularity of women’s sports and the disappointing  popularity of such men as Donald Trump. Further, when we reflect on the nearly 5 million known cases of of domestic abuse each year in the U.S. alone, taken together with the undeniable fact that women have had to struggle throughout history against  male dominance to assert their minimal claims to human rights, the case begins to take on a semblance of credibility.

It is even possible to explain the sudden burst of radical feminism not so many years ago on the grounds that those women themselves were filled with hatred not only of the males who dominate over them but, possibly, of themselves — perhaps as a result of a need to play a male role in order to succeed in a culture where women are chronically marginalized. This might well result in hatred not only of the role women are forced to play in a male-dominated culture, but even of the women themselves for being forced to appear to be what they are not. Clearly, it is impossible for someone who is not a trained psychologist to draw any hard and fast conclusions about what might be explained otherwise, but it doesn’t seem unreasonable to suggest that a great many women in this culture mimic the men who dominate over them and may well hate themselves for it.

While it might be a stretch to insist that many women hate themselves, it is fairly clear that Bomani Jones might be correct in saying that men hate women in this culture, generally speaking. That is, those men who wrote those horrible things about those women were symptomatic of a deeper hatred among men generally toward the women who throughout their lives have assumed the role of authority figures — namely, mothers and teachers who, in the lower grades, are almost always women. These women have been telling men for years what they should and shouldn’t do and this may well explain why a certain amount of resentment would build up which might then result in hatred of women generally who stand between so many men and what they think they want.

Needless to say, I am engaged in borderline speculation here, but that’s what this blog is about: to raise interesting questions and generate thought. Bomani Jones is a bright and articulate man who makes many a good point in what is otherwise a silly TV show. In this case, what he had to say is well worth pondering, since it does explain a great many things that are hard to explain otherwise — including ugly tweets that twisted men direct toward women who have the audacity to report on male sports.