What's in a misandry?

"What power do misogynists have that misandrists don't?"

This seems to be a question that many people unfamiliar with the history of feminism find themselves asking when confronted by the possibility that something they aren't personally aware of (misogyny) exists. (For context, the above quote is a nearly verbatim quote from some lovely person I encountered on a mutual friend's wall on the popular social media platform Facebook.)

On the surface, this question seems pretty straightforward and innocent. It doesn't seem unreasonable to wonder why feminists are so upset about misogynists (or, more accurately, about misogynistic actions and behaviors), but seem to completely ignore the equally frightening proposition of man-hating (known popularly today as "misandry"). Isn't sexism against both sexes equally bad?

Ignoring the implication (for now) that there are only two sexes (spoiler alert: there aren't), there is a pretty darn good reason that feminists focus primarily on issues of sexism faced by women. There are a myriad of issues that women face. Not all women face the same issues, and not all issues that women face are exclusive to women. For instance: issues of bodily autonomy, abortion, and access to health care in the form of birth control and care during pregnancy are issues important to women, some non-binary/genderqueer people, and some trans men. No one of those groups of people have a special claim on how impacted they are by conservative efforts to curb access to these basic services.

Aside from the current battles being waged for access to basic health services, in order to understand why a feminist might be less than sympathetic to the idea that sexism against men is just as bad, one needs a basic lesson in history; and an understanding of systems of power get established and tend to favor the status quo. You also need to understand what misogyny is rooted in. History, systems of power, and the roots of misogyny are intertwined in pretty complex ways, so I can only offer a short(ish) overview (as I currently understand things).

Misogyny is based in the idea of the inferiority of the feminine; there are thousands of years of tradition and social teachings which convince many people to treat anything coded as 'feminine' as weak and inferior. Women have traditionally been denied political power because of the supposed innate weakness of their gender. Women, as a social group, in most parts of the world have historically held little to no power; this is especially true if you hail from a country with a history of strong patriarchal religious tradition (such as Christianity).

There has been no such historical repression of people who are coded masculine. Masculinity is held to be the opposite, opposing force of femininity. Masculinity is strong where femininity is weak. Masculinity is superior where femininity is inferior. Men, as a social group, have held political and social power for quite some time.

The last few decades of feminism have hardly put a dent into how women and femininity is viewed, given that women and others who can bear children (who are thrust into the role of 'the feminine', usually against their will) are denied bodily autonomy specifically when it comes to making decisions about pregnancy and sexuality (when, how, and with whom they can have sex).

"Misandrists", those man-haters of yesteryear who have come back to haunt us, simply don't have the power, in any sense of the word, to actually and literally oppress men and masculine-coded people the same way that misogyny has served the purpose of oppressing women and feminine-coded people.