Disparaging terms to both men and women here...

[athena]

21. But it's all part of the same problem.

For example, in societies where sexism is even stronger than it is in the U.S., women, when they're among themselves, will say things that are extremely disparaging of men. Women will believe, for example, that a man is stronger, and that one absolutely needs a man as head of household to deal with certain problems, but they will also believe that women are wiser than men, and that men are almost childlike in their lack of common sense. You can call that misandry, but it's really a coping mechanism. Humans seem to resist the idea that they are intrinsically inferior to others. If they accept that they are inferior in some way, they will believe they are superior in another way. Remove the misogyny, and the misandry will disappear. Trying to fight misandry directly won't work because you're fighting a symptom and ignoring the cause. And going on about misandry only annoys women who have to deal with misogyny on a daily basis.

By the way, I find it a bit simplistic to say that some people are misogynists and others are not. We all live in a sexist and racist society. It would be inhuman to be totally uninfluenced by our environment. Regardless of our gender and race, we all have sexist and racist tendencies. (I don't mean that women are misandrists and men are misogynists, and that whites are biased against blacks and blacks against whites. Take a look at this.) Accepting this is the only way to fight it.

P.S. Someone once told me something very valuable: that when people talk, they usually talk about themselves. So the person who said your wife was "strong and independent" for leaving you might be in an unhappy relationship that she's having trouble ending. So perhaps you shouldn't take it personally.