misogyny?

The distinguished scholar, Alfred Thomas, thinks that the prisoners in Kundera's "The Joke" who indulge in exaggerated descriptions of female anatomy, and crude references to the sexual act,
are thereby instances of "misogyny".


I'm not so sure.  There is a powerful emotion there, and it is connected (essentially) to women and
sexuality.  There is frustration and anger at their imprisonment and their inability to run their own lives, and there is a desire to be in the company of a woman, as well as a desire for sexual contact.


But, is all of that, at its core, accurately described as "hatred" of women?  I suppose the bundle of emotions I describe might well result in violence against women, and, really does, all too often.


Yet, I still doubt whether what's indicated by Kundera's book or the movie version is, in essence, a form of hatred.


I think that the emotion is not understood if we simply call it hatred.  Rather, at its core, it seems to me to be anger and frustration at the absence of women, along with the other components of happiness the men have lost.....


Do I myself objectify women if I say that the company of women was a lost "component of happiness" for these men?  In a purely grammatical or linguistic sense, perhaps.  But the core thought is that a life worth living (a.k.a. a happy life) is one in which one has satisfying relationships with other human beings, including sexual relationships.  And, I accept the Socratic thought that an unjust relationship can't finally be a satisfying one.


Reference
Alfred Thomas, The Bohemian Body, University of Wisconsin Press, 2007.