It’s Giving SDE: Five Indications That You’re Dealing With A Misogynist
And women are probably better off just walking away
It’s Giving SDE: Five Indications That You’re Dealing With A Misogynist
And women are probably better off just walking away
Photo by Giuseppe Patriarchi on Unsplash. Author’s note: to me, this photo gives SDE. The big, gas-guzzling, expensive car. The man standing atop it, suggesting conquest.
If you are following Big List Energy, I’m going to gather that you know the meaning of SDE — if not, go Google it right now and come back.
Let’s be clear: SDE doesn’t necessarily reflect on the size of a person’s actual anatomy (though the records we have of famous misogynists would suggest that there may, indeed, be a correlation between inadequate penile capabilities and unrelenting hatred of women — see Hitler, Epstein, Trump, and recent rumors about Sean Combs).
The “E” in SDE is the point. Energy that is insecure but desperately seeks to obscure that fact behind boastfulness and overcompensation. Energy that is filled with the excessive need to dominate, to extract, to conquer. Energy that reveals a deep and insatiable need to win…at a game no one else is even playing besides other misogynists.
The “manosphere” is built on SDE, and uses the SDE of its minions to recruit them. But SDE, and the misogyny that undergirds it and makes it attractive to the people who aren’t able or willing to shed it through self-reflection, therapy, and actually developing something of value to offer the world (and the potential mates they chronically drive away), is old as time.
Still, sometimes we miss it. Sometimes — silly us — we forget that these people run rampant through the world and we make the mistake of giving the benefit of the doubt to each new human we meet.
That’s become dangerous.
Violence against women in the US is on the rise, and violent policies toward women are being advanced relentlessly.
This article isn’t unique to the men in the US, but they sure do lead, and it’s what I know best. (Sidenote: I do not see nearly as many obvious displays of SDE here in Mexico by Mexicans, though it does happen).
That being the case, I put together this list of signs that stink of SDE. I encourage women readers to use it as a sort of filter when you are interacting with men. I also encourage men who do not want to be associated with SDE to read and ask yourself, honestly, whether you do these things (men with BDE self-reflect, put forward effort to improve themselves, and grow. Pun intended).
Without further ado, here are five common behaviors of men that reek of SDE and belie a misogynistic orientation to the world.
1. Bragging about money and material possessions.
This is the first red flag for me. A man who, within the first few conversations, manages to interject (without being asked) that he owns a BMW or Porsche, “summers” in a second home somewhere, or otherwise sends not-so-subtle signals about his above-average net worth probably has SDE.
I have observed a direct correlation between SDE and material boastfulness — often, men who intentionally offer up information about their possessions link their own worth and value to to the material things they have managed to accumulate. Why does this reflect SDE? Because possessions can disappear. Wealth can be stolen. Things only have the value we as a society bestow on them. If they disappear, and the previous owner has no independent sense of human self-worth, they will be completely lost and feel broken. Having no sense of one’s own inherent value is actually a core trait of those with SDE.
This tendency is, of course, also linked to the extremely shallow and rapacious value system of capitalism, which itself is bound up in patriarchal notions of power hinging on a foundation of misogynistic ideology. That’s a big topic for another day.
For now, just trust when I say that a man who intentionally advertises his wealth is most likely suffering from SDE, and will most likely discard women like last year’s iPhone if they don’t boost his ego the way he needs them to.
Photo by Norbert Buduczki on Unsplash. Author’s note: I haven’t met one man who has a BMW and was not an asshole. Facts.
2. Taking up physical space/body language
We know this already, but it’s worth repeating.
It’s evident in the manspreader who sees a space built for three and takes all of it for himself.
SDE wafts like a breeze from the man who parks his monster truck sideways in the grocery store parking lot for no apparent reason.
The spatial invaders who deliberately block someone else’s view, crowd people who were there before them, and otherwise utilize their bodies and possessions to encroach on others embody SDE.
People like these specimens.
When a man takes up far more space than he needs to, he is asserting superiority, inflated importance, grandiosity, ownership.
Are there instances where this is not the case, and something else is going on? (Maybe he has itchy balls and is trying to get air, for example). Sure.
As stated above and throughout, these are signals, not individual damning criterion.
But chances are…
The stereotypical manspread. Dude, we all know it’s not all that. You look ridiculous. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-31/manspreading-debate-study-shows-stance-attractive/7285024
3. Interrupting/ignoring/silencing/mansplaining to women
Most women will be able to quickly identify situations where this has happened, because it’s happened to most of us.
You’re in a group of people — maybe of mixed genders, maybe all men.
You notice that whenever you (or another woman) in the group speaks, to the man or men with SDE, it’s as if no one even heard the women. Irrespective of their volume, their presence, and the content of what they said, it’s as if they don’t exist. They will simply carry on conversing with the other men, not acknowledging that anything was said at all.
Worse, they will sometimes immediately cut a woman off, especially if it appears that other people in the group were listening to her.
They will talk over a woman, and even go so far as to get physical — a hand on her arm, or even a hand in front of her face, to get her to shut up.
I actually witnessed this at a job I had once. A new VP was being introduced to us at a meeting — an older white man — and he actually physically restrained with his hands the woman who had hired him when she moved to stop him from speaking, incessantly. What was supposed to be his introduction turned into him taking over the floor and physically subordinating her. It was a sign of things to come, and come they did.
A man who chronically blocks a woman from communicating, especially in a group setting, almost definitely has SDE.
He is threatened by the prospect of a woman captivating his audience, offering insights that he isn’t intelligent enough to muster, or otherwise being viewed as more of an authority or more worthy of attention than him.
Under and intertwined with that fear is misogyny.
Mansplaining is part and parcel of this — rather than just telling a woman to “shut up,” the man assumes an authoritative stance on the woman’s expertise. His analysis is often shockingly off-base; if it’s accurate, it’s often only because he stole it from a woman.
It’s also lazy — intellectual laziness is another underlying reason for SDE. When you don’t know shit but you’re too lazy to figure it out, you probably have low self-esteem. As you should.
4. Deploying gender-related vulgarity and shock value and calling it humor.
Not all misogynists do this, but most people who do this are indeed misogynists.
“Dirty” jokes are not always misogynistic, but when they are, women can feel it.
Making women, or gender nonconforming people, the butt of one’s jokes definitely reeks of SDE. The world is absolutely full of hilarious phenomena to joke about. Those who can only find humor in punching down at women and those who don’t conform to patriarchal gender norms are creatively limited, at best; dangerous, at worst.
“It’s just a joke,” is literally THE most weak-sauce defense. If a man who says this didn’t have SDE before, consider him anointed with a big old dose of it after he utters these pathetic words.
The fact is, if you find jokes that objectify and humiliate women and people with minoritized gender identities funny, SDE is sweating out of your pores. The only people laughing with you also have SDE, or are just trying to avoid your petulant, peer-pressurey wrath because they can’t escape you at the moment.
Two famous misogynists (Howard Stern and Trump) who love misogynistic humor. Major SDE. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/howard-stern-worries-trump-s-sensitive-ego-won-t-survive-n716381
5. Crying victim.
I’m sure we all know this one — indeed, the USA’s misogynist-in-chief makes this his theme song.
Men with SDE hate nothing more than accountability. Nothing is ever their fault.
Remember, at the root of SDE is insecurity — people who are deeply insecure cannot admit when they are wrong. Even acknowledging to themselves that they made a mistake would shred them, because they are that fragile.
They simply cannot say “I messed up” (unless they are doing it dishonestly, strategically, and manipulatively).
No matter what happens, they find someone else to blame. It may or may not be a woman they blame, but you can bet they frequently blame women for anything that transpires between a man and a woman.
Think Brett Kavanaugh.
Brett Kavanaugh leaking his SDE all over his hearing, https://www.scarymommy.com/brett-kavanaugh-crying
In case it isn’t clear, YES I am linking misogyny to SDE.
Put more clearly, if you are a man and hate women, you probably have a small or dysfunctional penis. If miraculously, you don’t, you’re still out there projecting such little-man energy that your big, fully functioning penis is irrelevant. SDE is more powerful than an erection. It wafts off of you and subverts any otherwise attractive or virile qualities you might have.
Also, there are exceptions — these are not rules.
Don’t come around saying “Elizabeth said you’re a misogynist because you do this one thing.” No, no I did not. These are signals. Taken together, they paint a picture with the same pallet of proverbial museums worth of misogynist portraits.
One thing I know for sure: men who will be offended by this article most definitely have SDE, and see themselves reflected. Don’t be mad at me — I am just an observer who can see through the pitifully small and weak Big Man costume.
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For more on misogyny, incels, and the rampant SDE on display in various contexts, see just some of my work below.
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