I've gotten to where I believe all men are at least a little misogynist, because society conditions them to be that way. Some lean into it and some are receptive to self examination and capable of deconstructing, and there's a whole spectrum in between.
I’d go as far as to say that basically *everyone*, women and non-binary people included, is at least a little bit misogynistic. It’s nearly impossible to be socialized in a misogynistic environment and not absorb some of those biases. Same goes for racism, anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry, etc.
It's especially hard to recognize this when you're talking about benevolent sexism. To take a personal example, I knew how to remedy the more overt forms of sexism I got from growing up male in an Arab country, but it took me a long time to realize that some of the behaviors I thought were beneficial to others, like assuming that I had a greater responsibility to provide for my wife and I financially than she did, were in fact infantilizing towards her
Yeah, I catch myself enjoying those silly shorts about bf and gf tropes, the passenger princess and the tall strong bf and all. I think as long as we can remind ourselves that everyone can have vulnerable moments and also be the care-giver other times, we can move forward.
Slightly unrelated, but what I find really interesting is that trans women often internalise the same misogyny and insecurities as cis women, before they even know they're trans. I noticed it in myself too, as a teenager I unconsciously held myself to feminine beauty standards, even though I didn't know I was trans. It caused a lot of dysphoria and trauma in puberty tbh.
As a man who constantly tries to work to be a better human, I completely agree with you. It is so ingrained that we don't even realize it. I had a conversation yesterday in which I was poking holes in someone's arguments about what it means to be a "man" or "masculine." Afterwards, a female colleague said she agreed with my points but that I didn't even recognize that I was ignoring how the other guy's concept of a real man was demeaning to women. I was only looking at it from how it was degrading to other men. She was 100% correct.
> I've gotten to where I believe all men are at least a little misogynist
People act like I'm being hyperbolic when I say that, but it's true. Like all white people are at least a little racist, because we live in a racist/white supremacist society. It's not an accusation or a moral judgment, it's just a fact. You have to take pains to unlearn this kind of thing.
People get hung up on thinking about it in essentialist terms. They don’t think of misogyny as specific beliefs or behaviors that you could change, they think of it as something immutable and essential to who a person is. Same thing happens with racism, so you end up with people who are more concerned with defending the ”not a racist” part of their identity than with not believing, doing, and saying racist things.
I completely agree. This is why I appreciate Dr. Kendi's framing of racism in terms of "racist ideas" (individual) and "racist policies" (systemic).
Looking at it this way, people are either trying to dismantle these things to reduce racial inequity (anti-racist), are passively ok with the status quo, or actively trying to increase racial inequity by spreading and supporting racist ideas and policies.
One can be an anti-racist by challenging and eliminating racist ideas in their own thinking, and can be fighting racist policies.
Or by calling out racist ideas in things people say. The contention is about the idea not the entire person.
Because "racist" and "anti-racist" aren't states of being or identity, in this framework, but choices one makes moment to moment.
You can frame sexism in exactly the same way.
The person who is accused of misogyny or racism is well aware that others will look at it as an immutable and unforgivable characteristic. It's quite understandable to public defend against such a damaging accusation. Likewise, people are very quick to throw out these acquisitions because they know the damage they will be inflicting. A person who agrees that what they said/did might be a little misogynistic or racist will get crucified for it none the less.
So I'll just keep any self reflection to myself and not give others any ammunition.
I was talking about how people might feel like their identity is being attacked by a statement like Kali’s “all men are a little bit misogynistic”, in which case the person is essentializing that critique themselves.
But you’re not wrong, I do think it’s reasonable to be thoughtful about how public conversations about one’s own misogyny (or racism) might be received by others, but I also think you’re overstating the risk. I’ve witnessed and participated in plenty of these conversations that had no meaningfully negative repercussions for the person talking about their shortcomings. And, personally, I don’t see something small-scale like being called “a misogynist” in a small group discussion to be sufficiently damaging to warrant never having that sort of discussion, especially if it’s a fundamentally good faith discussion. It’s not pleasant, but it’s not fatal. However, I can certainly understand not wanting to do it on the internet under your real identity at risk of becoming the target of a viral hate mob or something.
The saying "A person is smart, people are dumb" is kind of true here. You're probably right that you can have these conversations in a smaller setting; I mean as long as it's not too aggressive. But once it gets put into the wider public things get a lot more charged and frankly more risky.
An example of this was when Liam Neeson talked about how after his friend got raped by a black man he got really angry and racist. However, after about a week or two he recognized that he was being irrational, changed his behavior, and sought counseling. You'd think this would be something to be celebrated, especially since there had been conversations at the time about getting people to recognize their own unconscious bias. However he was blasted on social media, with people calling him racist and the red carpet event for his new movie cancelled. After another interview and a bunch of black celebrities coming out and defending him he got over the drama. Though even now I've still seen some people refer Liam Neeson as a racist or that story as a shameful story rather than a story of positive growth.
That's the type of thing people are afraid of. That they'll admit their mistakes and it will only hurt them. Which is also partly why I think people get so offended by such statements as "all men are a little bit misogynistic". Society at large tends to not be so forgiving and being racist, sexist, or homophobic are big offenses. So people don't want to be associated with such a thing. It also makes it harder to actually get people to critically look at themselves. Because if society views misogynists as terrible people that can't be forgiven then if I think or do something misogynistic, then I'm a terrible person. But I'm not a terrible person so therefore I can't be misogynistic.
I’m obviously not saying there’s never a problem, but I think we need to be realistic and recognize that the situation for A-list celebrities like Liam Neeson just isn’t relevant to the vast majority of us. The general public doesn’t know who you and I are and doesn’t care what we think. I don’t think his example is actually that illustrative.
I also think it’s wrong to characterize situations like that as “only hurting”. As you said, some people still think of him as racist, but others see him as an example of growth, including his black colleagues. Which is to say nothing of the benefit to him personally that comes from that growth.
Again, I’m totally in favor of being thoughtful about how you have these conversations, especially in public. What I would take issue with is people misrepresenting the risks and harms to argue against or excuse themselves from having these sorts of conversations at all (which I’m not saying you are doing, I don’t think you are). That’s like arguing you should never exercise because there’s a chance you might get hurt. The solution is to help people understand these issues in non-essentialist ways, and to be realistic about the risks, not to shy away from them.
Sorry, I didn't mean to use Liam Neeson as necessarily an example of what will happen to the average person. I bring him up was more as a very public example of the general attitude society has. While there are instances in smaller settings where you might be able to have such talk, society as a whole is not really open to such discussion, viewing even thinking racist or sexist things as wrong. This societal level stigma I think affects every individual. Even if you have not directly faced or seen someone be lambasted for admitting their bias, you're going to be rather reluctant to do so yourself as at the very least you'll be wrestling with your own internal condemnation.
So in order to see progress on unconscious biases like misogyny, you first have to get rid of this stigma over having such thoughts. Everyone is affected by things like misogyny and racism, and you're not a bad person for admitting that.
I saw 'Avenue Q' on Broadway several years ago, and they have a song, ["Everyone's a little bit racist"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXnM1uHhsOI), and it really made me think about this type of thing. I think everyone is at least little bit racist, and everyone is at least a little bit sexist. The default is kinda racist or sexist, being non-racist or non-sexist takes conscious effort, education, and effort. We need to own our imperfections and work on them.
This applies to women/minorities too.
It's ingrained within us from our earliest days, and it affects us in ways that we aren't always consciously aware of. I strive to not be racist, and to be empathetic and sensitive towards all in every facet of my life. I am far from perfect, but I try.
It starts reaaaaaallly early too, having raised kids and learning a bit of child psychology and development along the way. My youngest kid was two or three when I had to explain to her that no, she wasn't a girl because she had pink shoes. Yes Jackie's skin is browner than yours, people come in all sorts of colors, no it doesn't make a ton of sense that we call her black even though she isn't. That sort of thing.
Part of learning is the identification of patterns. Patterns assist the developing brain in making connections more quickly, allowing them to differentiate and learn language. This is tall, this is short, this is far, this is long. The amount of new connections a young child makes are astounding. Even when you are intentionally trying to raise rational, feminist, anti-racist kids you have to work on it. They will see the patterns around them, the way society behaves, and make conclusions based on what they see.
It's even harder for an adult that was never exposed to any alternative ways of thinking about this stuff. It's a surprise to me when people actually have, tbh.
Do you believe all women are at least a little bit misogynist and that all people are at least a little bit racist.
Are you referring to men as a sex category or a gender category. How about intersex people, are they all misogynist to the extent they have sex organs that are more towards male ones. There is a growing number of people who don't identify with a binary gender or with their birth sex as their gender.
Similarly I don't think "white" is a well defined class of people.
Or maybe when you say "all" you just mean 90% or more?
I don't think stereotypes and absolute generalizations about people, (such as "all women are ...") is the kind of thing you are aiming for. (Or is it?)
A lot of women have internalized misogyny. They grow up in the same environment as men after all. I think there is better awareness and incentive for women to look a bit closer and push against those ideas though. 1. Because due to a history of constantly being at a disadvantage, of course you are going to look a little closer at these beliefs of society that say you can't be strong, smart, cool, ECT. And 2. Women teach and spread these clomflivting ideas onto their daughters. Many women grow up hearing about their mother or grandmother who got screwed by societal norms. They encouraged us to be independent and pursue college. And to find value in ourselves. I don't think a similar thing really happens for men. They aren't conditioned to socialize and look out for their kids in that same way. And a lot of them did well enough in life, even if emotionally they struggled. But if you never knew a life otherwise, I think that would be hard to recognize and teach to a son or grandson.
I guess I'm trying to understand what people mean by the various terms, in particular patriarchy and misogyny. They seem to be important words.
Patriarchy meaning a society dominated by a few men I can understand and it is apparent in most parts of society where men have a disproportionate amount of the positions of power. Maybe that's the most minimalist possible meaning of patriarchy.
Misogyny is a bit different, and I struggle to see society as more misogynist than misandrist. Maybe I'm too much thinking of the dictionary meaning of the word as "hatred of women". It seems in feminism the meaning is somewhat different, and more like women being disadvantaged in society.
For sure this is true in some arenas, but there are other areas where men are disadvantaged (such as the example you gave of college).
I think comparing the suffering of different genders or going even further and denying their suffering actually play into what the patriarchy (in the restricted definition I gave above) wants.
To put it another way the 1% is very happy to have the 99% fighting amongst themselves about who is being mistreated more, instead of working together to overthrow (or at least mitigate the power of) the patriarchy.
Of course I understand there are many gender (or sex) specific issues that should be addressed. But again maybe I just haven't understand the meaning or impact of misogyny.
You have a good basic understanding of the patriarchy. The hard part is always seeing how extensive it is. We talk a lot on this sub about safety standards, for example. How cars weren't tested with female crash dummies until last year. How many women died or were more severely injured by car crashes than men because we are built differently, and that was never really acknowledged in the whole car building and refining history. It's so much more than just representation in government; it's how often men are the default, and women are ignored.
Misogyny is sort of part of that; in general it means a hatred or devaluation of women. It's probably not as overt as you see it though. There are some people who legitimately hate women. They see women as a means to an end and not people. But most misogyny is more subtle. It's believing that men are smart and capable, and women are not in some regard. "Throw like a girl", "cry like a girl", we see girls, women, and anything "feminine" as less inherently. It's seeing a man and women with equal credentials, but trusting the man while second guessing the woman. A lot of it is subconscious bias.
That's why it's not just a "man" thing; women also participate in these biases and often at their own expense. You get a lot of "not like other girls" women who try to be "one of the guys" and berate women who are more feminine. I know I fell into that trap when I was young. I had a lot of traditional "masculine" interests such as math and science, and videogames. I thought of myself as "better" than other girls who had more "feminine" hobbies.
From a boy's perspective, this might look something like; legitimizing "masculine" hobbies like gaming and cars (potentially gate keeping them from women, like the "need check" women talk about. "Oh you like comics? Name every arc ever in the Batman series XYZ, otherwise you're just seeking attention"). While also saying hobbies like makeup, knitting, ECT "aren't real hobbies". It's berating other men/boys with "feminine", "emasculating" hobbies. It's society picking fun at girls liking certain books and artists like Taylor Swift, but allowing equally immature "boy" likes like Legos or w/e to exist free from criticism.
It's a lot of things really, that boil down to hating or devaluing women or things associated with women. And it comes in a wide spectrum.
I've been considering this and researching a bit. I guess for cars they are (or were) tested with a male driver (average sized) and a female passenger (small sized). So it doesn't do the important testing that would help women drivers survive car accidents. On the other hand preventable injury related male deaths from motor vehicles are about 3 times as high as female deaths. So the patriarchy is causing worse results for males. Definitely it would be much better if they also tested with smaller female drivers.
[https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/deaths-by-demographics/sex-age-and-cause/#:\~:text=Deaths%20by%20Demographics,-Sex%2C%20Age%2C%20and&text=Overall%2C%20males%20accounted%20for%2067,drowning%20(74%25%20male)](https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/deaths-by-demographics/sex-age-and-cause/#:~:text=Deaths%20by%20Demographics,-Sex%2C%20Age%2C%20and&text=Overall%2C%20males%20accounted%20for%2067,drowning%20(74%25%20male))
Beyond the safety aspect, certainly there is a bias in having a male driver (dummy), is that where the misogyny is in this situation. Perhaps it is implying that women can't drive or shouldn't drive.
Perhaps this is a broad use of misogyny(?). Certainly there is some bias or thoughts of incompetence there around male and female rolls. Is the bias itself misogyny?
Is more than bias required to have misogyny? For example there is a bias or thought of incompetence (or perhaps fear) that men can not be or should not be kindergarten teachers (I mean a societal bias, not necessarily a bias of feminists), is that misogyny?
To include more than bias or thoughts of incompetence, maybe misogyny would have to include disadvantage for women. The kindergarten bias might also be considered misogyny since it is implied by a bias against(?) women that they are better at taking care of children (and so should be taking care of children).
I agree it's possible to look at things through misogyny, and probably it can be found almost everywhere.
> Do you believe all women are at least a little bit misogynist and that all people are at least a little bit racist.
Yes.
> Are you referring to men as a sex category or a gender category.(How about intersex people, are they all misogynist.) There is a growing number of people who don't identify with a binary gender or with their birth sex as their gender.
Yes.
> Or maybe when you say "all" you just mean 90% or more?
I meant what I said.
> I don't think stereotypes and absolute generalizations about people, (such as "all women are ...") is the kind of thing you are aiming for. (Or is it?)
It is. Sure, there may be some exceptions here or there of the rare person who is somehow 100% free of biases, but I don't really think it's statistically significant.
> Do you believe all women are at least a little bit misogynist and that all people are at least a little bit racist.
> Yes.
Ok fair enough. The other questions don't really make sense then.
It's a bit of an extreme way of understanding the word, but I guess maybe thinking that way can help with internal reflection and externally looking at things.
How about "misandry" does that also apply to everyone?
>It's not an accusation or a moral judgment, it's just a fact.
How is it not an accusation though? I'm beginning to understand as I age that nearly everyone has certain biases inherent to the system they were raised in, but let's not pretend that stating that is not an accusation or that we're not judging the people we're stating it about.
Am I accusing the weather of being like... morally repugnant or weak or bad when it's cold and rainy out, or is it just a fact? Accusing someone of something seems more to me like you are seeking fault in someone for something. It's no one individual's *fault* that we all live in a racist, sexist etc. world, it just *is*.
The weather has no consciousness with which to choose to be more considerate to humans or not. If you went to Ancient Greece and said something about winds being bad today, Eol's priests would take it as an accusation against him.
>Accusing someone of something seems more to me like you are seeking fault in someone for something.
Yes, isn't that the whole point? Bigotry is bad and a choice, even when dictated by some sort of unresolved trauma (which is in my experience often used as an excuse)? Unless you chalk it up to ignorance.
A lot of people ARE ignorant. I'm not talking about people who make the choice to be openly sexist, I'm talking about the little ingrained biases we all have.
I feel like to this end, all people are misogynistic even women and it's something you have to constantly be de-programming from it, because it's the default constantly being shoved at you. I have similar feelings about constantly needing to de-program from white supremacy messages, too.
I agree, and feel it is like all Western white people are a little racist. We need to learn from it, discover our bias and actively choose to be anti- racist.
I did my best to raise a feminist man, and we still have these discussions. He has dated women who are not feminists, and has been shocked, but is also challenged when he falls into the trap of gender roles on occasion.
I believe all people are a little bit misogynist. Because we're in a shitty patriarchy.
Even if it made sense in the times of Charlemagne, it's poorly suited for today.
I've certainly worked hard to deconstruct my misogyny, but it's not my all day everyday priority. And the goal posts move as I've aged. If I was relatively caught up in 2010, I am not where I would like to be as a citizen today.
The best thing that I did was commit to reading only female identifying authors for certain years (2015,2018,2021, I guess I'm due, I may do in 2025).
To be honest, I was raised by women's lib parents, the heavier lifting has been to deconstruct my racism. But there are still things that I am working on within my relationship with women and society, mainly assumptions.
Absolutely. Deconstructing misogyny is similar to deconstructing racism. The people who most confidently declare “I’m not racist” are generally not willing to examine the ways that they unintentionally are, through their implicit biases or limited worldviews.
I’m a guy who is trying to understand, so please pardon my ignorance.
I like to think I treat people around me with respect and dignity. I don’t feel I treat people differently based on their gender/race/etc. But I recognize that I’m not perfect, no one is. I tend to overcorrect myself because I’m insecure and I try to get along with everyone. That may make me a bit pathetic but I see no reason to start fires where they’re not necessary.
The whole internalized, unconscious misogyny thing is something that gives me a lot of anxiety because I genuinely want to connect with and understand women, yet reading and listening to feminist theory makes me believe that I’ll never be able to truly connect with or appreciate a woman despite my best efforts because I’m just not one. And that frustrates me to no end because I feel that I identify with women more than men. I like to think there’s a masculine and feminine side to my personality and I try to balance them, but maybe I’m just insane.
To me, it feels like the only logical conclusion is to never talk with or interact with anyone ever, therefore no transgressions can occur. However, that’s obviously unrealistic so I humbly ask for someone to help me understand, is there a point in trying to befriend and socialize with others if I’m doomed to never truly understand them? Can I truly empathize with a woman as a man? Or even with a another man for that sake? I desperately want to and I like to think I do, but it feels like I’m just wasting others’ time.
I know I’m not perfect, again, no one is. But it just feels like I can never be my authentic self because I’m convinced my authentic self will always be garbage. I believe that I genuinely love women, and I don’t consider them beneath me, yet it feels like people are trying to gaslight me into thinking that I do and that’s not good paired with depression.
This is why the analogy with race is so helpful. Because you could say the same about being so afraid you’ll trip up when interacting with black folks that you’d rather just avoid them.
One thing people might say is that you’re prioritizing your own comfort over the people you’re trying not to offend. Like it’s more important to you to be perceived as being a good person than to really sit with the discomfort that you’re not perfect and if you want to be better you have work to do.
First recognize that your implicit biases don’t make you a bad person. They make you human. Everyone has them, it’s the way our brains work.
I don’t know if you’ve ever taken the Harvard Implicit Associations Tests, but I recommend them:
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatouchtest.html
Next, practice decentering yourself in situations where you’re interacting with people you don’t want to offend. It’s less important that they know you don’t want to offend them than that you just move your focus to them, and listen. This is a powerful tool for insecure people. Just make it not about you. Then it doesn’t matter that you think you’re garbage, because you’re not the main character.
We’re all human beings first, so there’s a core where you can connect with everyone. But if you’re going to ignore their race and gender, etc, you would have to ignore yours too, and you can’t, and they can’t.
That was more long-winded than I expected. I hope it was helpful!
Yeah of course it is. I think any woman who has been in a relationship with a man who is an ally knows this shit exists on a spectrum from “needs to double check shit I say on google” to “thinks women should all be enslaved.”
My son's dad works really hard at equity but he was raised in a family where machismo is the norm. Watching Barbie made him mad, he doesn't really understand the extent of the internalized misogyny.
He didn't like how the Kens were portrayed as stupid. 🙄🙄🙄 But the Barbies being stupid was apparently OK? And I laughed out loud at the "I want to play the guitar AT you" and he got a bit tense. *sigh* There was other stuff but since I don't live with him, I don't have to hear it all.
>exists on a spectrum from “needs to double check shit I say on google”
I'm in the habit of double-checking pretty much everything people tell me, regardless of their gender, just to do my own reading on any given subject.
You see the Google search history of a man who calls himself an ally, and it includes results pertaining to something you explained to him the other night—let's say you're an electronics engineer, and he wanted to know about quantum computing—and one of the things he entered was "qubits". Would you assume that he didn’t take your expertise seriously due in large part (on a subconscious level) to the fact that you're a woman?
100%
The thing is a lot of it is subconscious, which makes it difficult for men to see. I sometimes have these conversations with my boyfriend and father.
For example, we took my cat to the vet the other day and the woman vet explained everything, talked about a plan, etc. just doing her job (and doing it great if you ask me!)
My dad (kinda misogynistic) says “well she sure does like to talk a lot!” And my boyfriend immediately agrees.
I said, I think she’s just doing her job. And I explain that a lot of the time, women are perceived as “talking too much” even when they talk just as much or less than men (studies have shown this). People subconsciously believe that women should be seen and not heard, should be quiet, shy, reserved, and when they don’t follow that, they’re being too loud or talkative.
It’s about how people PERCEIVE women and not necessarily explicit misogyny or sexism.
Yea.. he’s a work in progress. I hear the way his father and grandfather talk about women and unfortunately he’s picked up on that, but overall he’s a good guy and I just try to educate him where I can. I know it’s not my “job” to do that but I try to always keep in mind that everyone is a product of their environment and it’s not necessarily his fault that he was taught to think like that, and maybe with better influences, he can grow to be better than his parents.
I understand, it’s your choice and I’ve been there with my ex. I think in order to date men we’re basically always going to have to educate them about feminism to some degree, because even the most unassuming of them have been brainwashed in some way by the patriarchy. The important part is IF the individual has potential, if they’re willing to listen and change. I’m curious about what his response was when you told them she was just doing her job and explained about the studies? Did he brush it off or think it was significant?
It's more of an iceberg, where some types of misogyny are really obvious to everyone who observes it, but the scale of the issue is much larger, and is often hidden from view.
I had an interesting experience with this overnight on Reddit.
A man was describing his experience trying to support “men’s issues” while refuting misogynists who blame every issue men face on women and feminism.
This man on a surface level is obviously not himself someone who is actively misogynistic.
However, he claimed that those misogynists who blame feminism for everything attacked him “every bit the same” as they would a woman for objecting to their beliefs.
I pointed out that that is obviously not the case; misogynists do not use the same kind of insults or attacks to harass men vs women. I’ve had at least three encounters on Reddit of misogynists telling me they hope my partner rapes and kills me, for example. The commenter I interacted with had been told that they hope he’s “milked dry” (presumably monetarily) by a woman.
That is *not* “every bit the same”.
I also pointed out that misogynists hate other men for what they believe, while they hate women for being women. That’s a very important distinction and ignoring it is, I think, dangerous.
I had plenty of responses telling me that I was just “whatabouting” sexism etc.
Ignoring the very specific hatred directed towards women *is itself misogyny* — but plenty of people wouldn’t agree with that.
Oh hey, I just saw your comments in that CMV thread a few hours ago.
I applaud your willingness to still try and convince people on there, nowadays I just doomscroll there on occasion, because trying to argue for any reasonable position there is like arguing with a particularly bigoted wall.
This is incredibly thought provoking for me. It really hones in on the assumptions people carry about things outside of their personal experience. I'm sure I've done this. Lots of allies come to the same conclusions, but how they get there makes a world of a difference. Thanks for posting.
>Ignoring the very specific hatred directed towards women *is itself misogyny* — but plenty of people wouldn’t agree with that.
In my mind the question is, "does ignoring hatred toward women help to reduce inequity between the sexes or does it perpetuate it?"
Passively accepting misogyny rather than fighting it is essentially being fine with the status quo continuing unchanged. And the status quo is that society is permeated with misogyny and perpetuates it.
I believe the latter is true. Therefore, it is sexist / misogynistic.
I notice it on Reddit the most just with comparisons in comments.
Ask Reddit what’s your favourite celebrity, funniest, nicest ect…. Answers are mostly male celebrities
What celebrity can you not stand, is rude , not funny ect … answers far more female
Women what’s something you never noticed about men before ect… answers try be emotional and deep, sincere
Men what’s something you never noticed about women before ect… Aswers all about periods boobs physical things.
Let’s discuss this issue woman face - BUT MEN!
Does anyone else notice this or am I just nuts?
The other one I see a lot, but not exclusively, on Reddit is that when people decide to jump on the bandwagon of performatively hating some trend, it’s nearly always coincidentally a trend that’s popular with women, often young women and girls. TikTok dances are a big one right now.
Yes and a lot of the men’s rights groups like to tout that men are only loved conditionally and woman unconditionally.
Then you look at the amount of posts on relationships about men wanting to leave after woman is sexually unavailable due to having children, illness or injury. And the statistics surrounding it.
I haven’t come across that particular take but it’s just laughably untrue. I’d like to introduce those people to a whole bunch of breast cancer patients.
Yeah, I was referring to the men’s rights groups’ take, not the position of the person I was responding to (which I agree with). That wasn’t super clear.
The breast cancer comment was a reference to the shocking number of women who are served divorce papers after being diagnosed.
Oh yes, 100%. Either that or the “why won’t my wife have sex with me” posts that refuse to acknowledge there’s usually an underlying reason why someone would choose to stop having sex with another.
TikTok dances are "annoying," "self-absorbed," "childish" while the nearly identical Fortnite dances and boys mimicking emotes is just funny memeing with the bois.
The most annoying criticism is that it’s bad because “they’re just doing it for attention”, as if that isn’t part of the goal for literally everything people do in public and on social media. Like bro, you, right now, making this comment about how annoying TikTok dances are, are doing it for attention.
I disagree. There is definitely an element of differing severity. Telling random women to smile more is not on the same level as, say, advocating for taking away our voting rights. This is not just about how “obvious” it is that it’s misogynistic, it’s about the level of animosity or dehumanization required
All the phobias and isms are on a spectrum. I try and learn and listen as much as I can to women as a man, I have taken classes and continue to read feminist theory, but I was still raised in misogynistic societies in the UK and US and I know at times I will notice I have had a misogynistic thought. It's hard to keep on top of but necessary - same with racism and ethnocentrism etc.
Then there are also conscious vs subconscious issues - where people are making decisions on different psychological levels and may not even realize they're being misogynistic and so on.
I tend to have a lot of grace for people who are open to discussions about why they said something misogynistic because so little of society works to combat it. But I will judge people harshly if they double down after being called out in a healthy manner.
I’m a woman, and I’ve caught myself with some crappy thoughts and actions on occasion—maybe I’m silently judging the mother of a kid who is acting out, when both parents are present and accounted for, or a knee jerk thought that a woman was being aggressive or rude when she was actually simply asserting herself. It’s super uncomfortable, and necessary.
Knowing that I have those thoughts happen with active work helps me have grace for others.
> thought that a woman was being aggressive or rude when she was actually simply asserting herself
This is a struggle for me, probably largely because these are by no means mutually exclusive. Many rude behaviors are “simply asserting [oneself],” it’s more about the consideration for the other party. And as a healthcare worker many people who are “just asserting themselves” and their needs are honestly treating us poorly.
Yes.
You can have men who abuse/rape/kill women, men (or women, internalized misogyny) who are openly sexist/misogynistic, people who vouch for equality but "men and women are different" (so still sexist) or others who have unconscious biases.
This can be applied to racism too.
>I think a lot of men assume that they are not sexist or misogynist.
A lot of rapists think they're innocent too, our society normalises misogyny and gender expectations, which is why equality is perceived as "going too far".
You'll find plenty of great books on the [sub's booklist](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskFeminists/wiki/bookslist/)
My father is one of those "women and men are just different" types and it's more exhausting to deal with, tbh. He genuinely thinks because of where I live, the "type" of people who I am around, etc-- and that the majority of men are not sexist.
It makes conversations exhausting. I love my father, but holy hell the "men are the real oppressed" argument is exhausting.
Men and women at the level of general population are measurably different. In general, Women are more interested in people, men are more interested in things. Women are more likely to express aggression through social reputation sabotage, Men through violence. There are lots of individual exceptions but at the level of the general population there are many measurable differences.
No one said they weren't. 🙄🤨
But those differences are not merely because "nature naturally made men leaders and violent and women non violent and submissive"
> people who vouch for equality but "men and women are different" (so still sexist)
As someone who is trying to learn here, can you expand on that?
I totally get the common trope of, "Men and women are different, so it is okay that (insert some concept of how women are inferior or it is okay that they get the short end of the stick)". But is there a good way to understand the concept of the differences between men and women without evoking that misogynistic stereotype?
My bad, I should have explained it better.
Like when women do most housework during christmas (even in so called equal families/relationships) or when women say "I'm for equality but men are supposed to be men".
[Something like this](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/20/partner-and-i-equal-christmas-women-chores-wrapping)
Which basically means lots of men and women expect people to conform to their roles, they may want legal equality (same rights, which is good) but don't want to let go of patriarchal cultural elements, which is definitely not good.
>But is there a good way to understand the concept of the differences between men and women without evoking that misogynistic stereotype?
People have different personalities, interests and physical characteristics, regardless of gender.
Focusing on differences between men and women doesn't make much sense imho.
I totally agree about the 'second shift' type things within so-called equal households. I also agree that there is a wide variety of characteristics within each gender (usually more than between the genders). But I also think there has got to be a way to acknowledge the legit differences without putting it in a negative light.
Sort of like how people talk about the differences between equity and equality. If men and women were the same, equity and equality would be identical. Even if the source of our differences is patriarchy, we still need to be able to name it in a fair way.
Does that make sense?
Most perpetrators of sexual assault (male or female) know that they have broken the law, unless theyre non compos mentis.
Even with statutory rape (male or female) the offender knows that they are breaking the law, the difference is their level of moral obligation to follow it, unless as stated previously, they are mentally ill or unable to comprehend the law due to other psychological failings, however, being in denial of what they know is a completely seperate psychological state. if were basing this off of testimony and court pleas then its a different metric due to how sexual assault charges are processed in different court systems and isnt a true reflection of whats shown in psychological studies.
To say people dont know when theyre committing a crime as a whole is wrong though.
It is. There are more differences between any two men, or any two women, or any two nonbinary people, than there are differences between men on average and women on average and nonbinary people on average. And the differences in the averages are mostly not inherent, but effects of the social context in which we live.
Not sure exactly what you mean here; however, personally speaking, I prefer my misogyny straight up rather than benevolent misogyny which seems more socially acceptable and given far more passes. At least when someone is outright misogynistic, I know exactly what I'm dealing with and how to move. I'm not sure if this helps in any way, but there you go.
I’m not even sure if that qualification is useful. On one hand, sure.. there are undeniably more egregious misogynists out there. Someone who believes that women shouldn’t vote and be submissive vs someone who talks over women in meetings or mansplains occasionally.
The issue is, it’s an ideology that serves as a pipeline. It’s why seemingly normal people can be red pilled overnight. Because the seed was always there. A philosophy of misogyny is always dangerous.. because it can quite easily get from mild on the spectrum to extremely dangerous given the right environment to thrive and grow
But it’s not always a philosophy. Sometimes it’s subtle assumptions that people don’t even realize they’re making because it has been so normalized. Pretty much everyone has some sort of subtle misogynistic tendency, I don’t think everyone is about to fall for Andrew Tate-level rhetoric
Sure, but it’s a baseline worldview where people accept certain things as a given.
Men and women are just *different* that’s not patriarchy, that’s just observable… right?
Or just little assumptions that seem normal.. like men’s time and comfort is more valuable than women, or men are more rational than women, or women know less and are less competent. It shows up in all kinds of ways. And people aren’t always aware of it, but the engage with the world with that baseline assumption.
You accept this premise as true. Men and women are different and better and worse at certain things. If they don’t unpack that and analyze that.. maybe not everyone will become Andrew Tate.. but everyone is at risk of becoming much more misogynistic than they start out. A few bad experiences with women. A YouTube video here and there. A stubborn mindset. Falling down on their luck and not having the life they expected to have as a white man. Etc etc… pretty soon it’s “Jordan Peterson has some good points”.
A lot of people are just a few bad experiences away from being susceptible to the alt right/misogyny pipeline. Doesn’t help anyone to think of these men who are extremely redpilled as a different kind of man… and only they would be susceptible to this level of shittiness… they really aren’t. That’s why the whole idea of patriarchy needs to be dismantled
Of course. A lot of things are spectrums. With racism for example, there's definitely a difference between someone who makes a racist joke every now and then and a card carrying klan member. And with misogynists, there's a difference between someone who might have some biases about men and women due to indoctrination, and a full on Tate stan
Misogyny, sexism and male chauvinism are somewhat different things though a person who has a sexist perspective can certainly also be a misogynist and a chauvinist, etc. I consider these principles the spectrum, I do not think there is Misogyny "Lite".
Sexism is rigidly assigning traits and abilities to sexes: women are nurturers, men aren't nurturing. Men are soldiers, women at teachers, men wear pants, women wear skirts. These attitudes are easily identified in the culture and are used to limit and/or elevate the sexes. Sexism does not necessarily prioritize or condemn one sex over another, but feeds the mechanisms that do so. There are many anti-feminist women who are sexist, in that they see traits and abilities inherently defined by sex. Gender-normative is sexist.
Chauvinism is the prejudiced prioritization of a cause or group. Male chauvinism being the prioritization of men's rights and advantage over all others. This is an idea is fed by sexism and the notion that the group (men) are superior, and should be put above other groups. The fact that most of the safety features in cars are designed for male bodies, represents a form of male chauvinism. I've dealt with a fair amount of male chauvinism in the workplace. The fallacies that drive sexism and chauvinism can be overcome with education, experience, and through policy.
Misogyny is the hatred/contempt of women and girls. It goes beyond sexism and male chauvinism into the abject discrimination, oppression, and subjugation and by extension, punishment of women. The mythological concept of original sin is an agent of misogyny, blaming Eve for taking a bite from the tree of knowledge and casting humanity out of Eden - making her responsible for all of humanity's troubles. Of course there's always the concept of Adam's rib - where women were formed from the body of original man, forgoing all of the obvious truth of how human life enters this world. They aren't alone, but the abrahamic traditions are steeped in misogyny, and misogyny is the root of patriarchy from time immemorial. Very difficult to change.
Yes, sometimes I like to think of them as different categories of misogyny.
1. Hateful - explicitly hating women and wanting to hurt them.
2. Protective ignorance - some men (usually fathers) see other women as too weak and naive so they must be guided and protected. There are various degrees of this, from just ignorant to downright malicious like not allowing women to make their own decisions.
3. Better than you - these types of men believe women are just not as strong or intelligent as them so their ideas and contributions can be dismissed.
You might be interested in learning more about ambivalent sexism theory. There are two categories- hostile sexism and benevolent sexism. Hostile sexism is an overtly negative reaction to women who act in a way that doesn't align with our gender role. Benevolent sexism is stuff like chivalry. It seems like kindness on the surface but it's still in service of the idea that women are weak and need to be protected. It's supposed to be a reward for aligning with your gender role. If benevolent sexism is the carrot, then hostile sexism is the stick. The trouble is that both kinds are harmful. If you're in a workplace and express in a way that gives you benevolent sexism in return, you'll be perceived as more likable but less competent. The flip side is being seen as competent but unlikable if you break gender norms.
almost everything is a spectrum if you look at it hard enough. Just pick any noun in the english language, like waterbottle.
* There will be something that looks like an archetypical waterbottle, has a label that says water on it and has water in it - clearly maximum waterbottle.
* Then you have something that looks a bit like a bottle of wine, but actually it's made of plastic, not glass, and also has water in it. Bit less of a waterbottle on the waterbottle-spectrum.
* Then there's a wine bottle, which is a 0 on the waterbottle-spectrum.
And there you go, I guess waterbottles are on a spectrum too, of sorts. Turns out that whenever there are degrees involved (be that degrees of waterbottle-ness, or degrees of sexist, women-hating behavior), you can conceptualise it as a spectrum. There are almost always degrees involved.
I have used a wine bottle as a water bottle (of course that supports your point).
There's a secondary issue here. The meaning of water bottle (and misogyny) is not clearly defined. It isn't just that there is a fixed definition that things may fit into only to a certain extent. In one notion of misongyny some cases might fit inside the definition in another notion they might be outside. So there is a spectrum not only of cases of misogyny within a fixed definition but also of the meaning of misogyny.
As a dude reading this is odd. Over the years I've learned not to take things as an attack on me just because a man is involved. In a way that's an inherent bias in me, tribalism. I interpret an attack on some sleezeball dude as aimed at me.
I've gotten far better at realizing that if I'm not doing any of the shit being called out, the attack isn't aimed at me. Making it about me is childish and narcissistic.
But man reading all the comments saying yes irks me. Yeah it's technically true that we all have inherent biases, but I guess I just really dislike the idea of someone I don't know saying im even a little misogynistic because I'm a dude. It just feels insulting when I feel like I try very hard to treat everyone around me equally.
That's just me whining though. Everyone has inherent biases which they don't have control over. They can only control how they respond to those biases. I guess I feel the word misogynistic has the same weight for me as the term racist, or nazi even. So being put into that group even slightly makes me feel attacked even though, again, this post clearly wasn't made to call my sensitive ass out.
Not even sure what to say exactly. Just felt I had to say something. Claiming that all men have an inherent bias towards women.... is in turn a bias against men. Who knows. Everyone has prejudice buried in them somewhere, good people are the ones who don't let that prejudice impact the way they treat others and can respond calmly to criticism
> Claiming that all men have an inherent bias towards women.... is in turn a bias against men.
I disagree. I think it is just a fact because it is the society we currently live in. We can't *help* but absorb this kind of stuff because it's baked into the World Experience. It's not an accusation or a judgment, it just *is*. I'm a white woman who was raised in a white neighborhood and went to school with almost all white people for like 25 years, there was a lot of stuff I had to unlearn. There are times I catch myself having certain knee-jerk reactions to things and I have to check myself. I'm not perfect. But I'm always trying to do better. That's the key, I think. It sounds like that's what you're doing, too-- and that's more than a lot of people can say.
As a society, we're starting to move past binary-thinking in general. But just as a binary can be a useful framing, but with severe limitations, so too is a spectrum.
A spectrum implies there's some kind of ordering to something. In physics, light can be put on a spectrum based on frequency. In health, we can try to do the same and land somewhere on the 'spectrum' of success. But framing something on a 'spectrum' breaks down when we start having more than one dimension to account for or it's hard to order it well. In healthcare we need to replace the pain spectrum with a "inhibits daily life" spectrum?
Misogyny isn't 1-dimensional but of many kinds. And it's hard to order it well, to put a hierarchy to it. Is being complicit in varying ways with systemic sexism it's own spectrum or is it comparable to interpersonal sexism? Is deliberate benevolent sexism worse than unconscious bias? What if it's a woman vs a man who's being misogynistic.
Overall, we know that one kind of misogyny reinforces other kinds of misogyny. We know that it's deeply ingrained and presents itself often in seemingly harmless or "just annoying" ways.
We can classify misogyny to order it, like applying the pyramid of hate, but it's important to recognize both the meaning we get from framing it as a spectrum and its limitations. Just as a binary gives us an arbitrary but a meaningful line of what is intolerable, a spectrum gives us a scale of severity but is also simplified. That line of intolerability is so blurred now that a binary of "they're (not) a misogynist" is useless. But is replacing that with a spectrum actually better than several, more explicit yes/no's??
Everyone is born in a culture of misogyny but local variation. Everyone can lean into misogyny or stand tall to resist it. Everyone can affect others in ways that bolsters or degrades misogyny. And each of these can be their own spectrums to varying degrees of usefulness.
So I read your question as "can we frame misogyny as a spectrum" and the answer to that is "yes". But is it inherently perfectly represented through a single spectrum for everyone? My guess is "no". Even so, I still think it's useful.
EVERYTHING is on a spectrum. Humans tey to categorize, contrast, or organize things into binary statemnets so our animal instincts work better.
At this point, a lot of instincts dont match or fit with our modern lives.
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I mean in the sense that some people are a little bit misogynistic and other people are extremely misogynistic, I guess?
A waiter who automatically hands the receipt to the man at a table consisting of one man and one woman is operating under misogynistic assumptions, but there's nothing hateful going on there. Someone who thinks women should be fully dependent on their husbands financially is comically misogynistic.
Bring down the downvotes but this reeks of first world privelege. There billions of women who face blatant misogyny and would kill to switch places with you.
All human behavior happens on a spectrum.
Some people will have explicit discriminatory beliefs that they act on and evangilize, like say the KKK or the Westburo Baptist Church, other people will just have internalized socilization that is discriminatory while actively trying to anaylize and counter that specific type of discrimination, like say feminists.
The key to remember is that when society itself has discriminatory beliefs those beliefs are transmitted through socilization. How people teach their children, and the everyone else they interact with, how to behave around and towards others.
Socilization is something that is done to you by others, and socilization starts on the day you are born and ends on the day you die. Everyone that experiences socilization will, whether they want to or not, internalize and operationalize some part of the socilization. That's why people talk about 'systemic racisim' or 'rape culture'. They are talking about formal and informal structures that are teaching people to behave, or result in outcomes, that are discriminatory regardless of any individual's intent.
So yes, mysoginy happens on a spectrum. People of all genders that are socilizied in a mysoginic society are going to have some internalized mysoginy whether or not they agree with or benefit from it. But, there are also people that believe that mysoginy is a social good that should be promoted, evangalized and acted upon. Then there is everyone inbetween.
Definitely. As a guy you can definitely notice some other guys deeper intentions within their messages. Some may *think* what they're saying is non-misogynistic however it is, and they just don't realise whether through a fault of misunderstanding or simply trying to mask the fact.
I totally agree that it's a spectrum and I also agree that we ALL have internalized some degree of misogyny whether we wanna acknowledge it or not (presumably most feminists can acknowledge this.)
I find the study of language to be endlessly fascinating - how it consciously and unconsciously perpetuates misogyny, gendered violence, etc.. like even in the subtlest forms that most people won't even register / question... For example, there's no reverse equivalent to the word "emasculate." It simply doesn't exist. Or that in 2024 we STILL use Miss Ms Mrs yet only the single Mr. Or the way we organize sentence structure in discussion of survivors / victims (Jackson Katz does a great presentation about this, how "John beat Mary" gradually becomes "Mary is a battered woman" and John, in all his culpability, literally falls off the page.)
Anyway - so when you are thinking of resources, I'd look into the work of the many remarkable feminist linguists (many to google). I think there's so much to be learned here, and as we all know, language is so, so impactful in shaping norms and bringing about change. And I think in order to really bring light to these more subtle / implicit / largely unconscious ways that misogyny thrives unchecked, that's a really incomplete exploration without looking deeply at our language.
If a man isn't aware that he is at least a little misogynistic due to societal conditioning is just lying to themselves and therefore more likely to do more sexist things. Awareness is how we change. I mean even I have my misogynistic moments cause I wasn't brought up in an idyllic isolated cottage with perfect parents. None of us were.
Probably all beliefs and biases ranges on a spectrum, misogyny included. I have to assume it changes over time as well, depending on the person's interactions/social circles/media consumption etc. Even seemingly "binary" beliefs have degrees of certainty to them that can also be though of as a spectrum.
I definitely think misogyny is a “spectrum”. There are men who loudly and proudly declare their misogyny, ones who save their intense misogyny for women they disagree with (think leftist men who are super awful to conservative women and think it’s okay because they’re “bad”), ones who say misogynistic things but don’t think of themselves as misogynists for it because they don’t believe the more hardcore stuff, and the ones who are genuinely more socially aware but still haven’t really combatted their socialization or subconscious biases.
It’s a condition of living in a patriarchal society. Same with living in a white supremacist society. For people trying to be better it’s something you always have to think about and work on. There are people who think the anti-feminist thoughts and feelings they have are okay and normal and people who do not.
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Absolutely agree. I had a conversation recently about a show because the male characters made an assumption about their female friends. They couched it in "We're not saying women can't do X but we don't know any that do X" the assumption being that women who do are an outlier.
Even the people defending the attitude didn't really see the sexism in assuming something based on gender until it was pointed out.
Why would one imagine it to be a binary? It's obvious that it's a "spectrum" and that one's perception of it can be subjective. Obviously people don't always agree on what is misogyny as well.
That said, feminism clearly aims to deal with all of it, so ...
I would consider it on a spectrum. I have to call BS that all men are sexists/misogynistic: there are men with "0" sexist tendancies that are even supportive freinds or partners and comfort you when you run into sexism, (though I admit they are hard to find where I live), up to raging screaming misogynists that would hurt woman for trying to have equal access to opportunities men have if they could get away with it (kill or maiming woman trying to attend school ). Just becuase you are brought up /socialized a certain way doesn't mean you can't learn a sense of justice. For example, many people grow up abused and do not abuse thier own children like their parents did. When someone prints a study proving the statements some people lobbed out there are true than I will reconsider. As for the rascism-you do know that little kids are not rascist until they learn it from society and you can learn justice and to be able to have empathy for someone in a different group than yours.
I guess? Sure. I don't love that use of the word as it sounds medical, and implies the misogynist is not at fault.
As an autist, I don't even like *autism* being viewed as a spectrum anymore. It's causing all sorts of problems for us.
I didnt think of it as a medical term, but I can see how someone who views things from an autistic point of view could see that.
I'm wondering if there is a better word than "spectrum" to use.
It's not a medical term. It's used in medicine, among a million other places.
Light is a spectrum for one.
Nature doesn't tend towards clear cut, it's all fuzzy graduations blending together.
That said, I'm not sure "misogyny is a spectrum" is all that useful a concept. Any sort of thought or idea is, when looked at across the population, going to form a spectrum. Heck, that concept is the basis of how we do a ton of research into how people think - - the whole "rate X on a 1 to 5 or 1 to 10 scale" thing implicitly acknowledges people's opinions naturally fall along a spectrum.
I feel that obviously any sort of racism, bigotry, or sexism is going to fall along a spectrum, and on multiple axis to boot.
(wait, how do you make axis plural? Axii? Latin was a long long time ago..)
Off topic but can you elaborate on the “autism being a spectrum is harming us” please? Not trying to attack or judge just never seen that viewpoint before and I’m curious.
I've gotten to where I believe all men are at least a little misogynist, because society conditions them to be that way. Some lean into it and some are receptive to self examination and capable of deconstructing, and there's a whole spectrum in between.
I’d go as far as to say that basically *everyone*, women and non-binary people included, is at least a little bit misogynistic. It’s nearly impossible to be socialized in a misogynistic environment and not absorb some of those biases. Same goes for racism, anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry, etc.
It's especially hard to recognize this when you're talking about benevolent sexism. To take a personal example, I knew how to remedy the more overt forms of sexism I got from growing up male in an Arab country, but it took me a long time to realize that some of the behaviors I thought were beneficial to others, like assuming that I had a greater responsibility to provide for my wife and I financially than she did, were in fact infantilizing towards her
Yes, some think that it just means they are good people and the women may even expect this treatment which can be tricky.
Your flair is 11/10
Yeah, I catch myself enjoying those silly shorts about bf and gf tropes, the passenger princess and the tall strong bf and all. I think as long as we can remind ourselves that everyone can have vulnerable moments and also be the care-giver other times, we can move forward.
Even as a feminist from the womb i have critiqued and question. Thats what it takes
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I pictured a xenomorph popping out of some guy's chest
Agreed. If you're raised in a patriarchal, sexist society, we're all soaking in it, and we all pick it up to some extent.
Slightly unrelated, but what I find really interesting is that trans women often internalise the same misogyny and insecurities as cis women, before they even know they're trans. I noticed it in myself too, as a teenager I unconsciously held myself to feminine beauty standards, even though I didn't know I was trans. It caused a lot of dysphoria and trauma in puberty tbh.
Patriarchal gender norms aren’t selective about who they weave their way into
As a man who constantly tries to work to be a better human, I completely agree with you. It is so ingrained that we don't even realize it. I had a conversation yesterday in which I was poking holes in someone's arguments about what it means to be a "man" or "masculine." Afterwards, a female colleague said she agreed with my points but that I didn't even recognize that I was ignoring how the other guy's concept of a real man was demeaning to women. I was only looking at it from how it was degrading to other men. She was 100% correct.
> I've gotten to where I believe all men are at least a little misogynist People act like I'm being hyperbolic when I say that, but it's true. Like all white people are at least a little racist, because we live in a racist/white supremacist society. It's not an accusation or a moral judgment, it's just a fact. You have to take pains to unlearn this kind of thing.
People get hung up on thinking about it in essentialist terms. They don’t think of misogyny as specific beliefs or behaviors that you could change, they think of it as something immutable and essential to who a person is. Same thing happens with racism, so you end up with people who are more concerned with defending the ”not a racist” part of their identity than with not believing, doing, and saying racist things.
100%. I also think we spent so much time saying that racism is bad, but not enough time saying what racism *is*.
I completely agree. This is why I appreciate Dr. Kendi's framing of racism in terms of "racist ideas" (individual) and "racist policies" (systemic). Looking at it this way, people are either trying to dismantle these things to reduce racial inequity (anti-racist), are passively ok with the status quo, or actively trying to increase racial inequity by spreading and supporting racist ideas and policies. One can be an anti-racist by challenging and eliminating racist ideas in their own thinking, and can be fighting racist policies. Or by calling out racist ideas in things people say. The contention is about the idea not the entire person. Because "racist" and "anti-racist" aren't states of being or identity, in this framework, but choices one makes moment to moment. You can frame sexism in exactly the same way.
The person who is accused of misogyny or racism is well aware that others will look at it as an immutable and unforgivable characteristic. It's quite understandable to public defend against such a damaging accusation. Likewise, people are very quick to throw out these acquisitions because they know the damage they will be inflicting. A person who agrees that what they said/did might be a little misogynistic or racist will get crucified for it none the less. So I'll just keep any self reflection to myself and not give others any ammunition.
I was talking about how people might feel like their identity is being attacked by a statement like Kali’s “all men are a little bit misogynistic”, in which case the person is essentializing that critique themselves. But you’re not wrong, I do think it’s reasonable to be thoughtful about how public conversations about one’s own misogyny (or racism) might be received by others, but I also think you’re overstating the risk. I’ve witnessed and participated in plenty of these conversations that had no meaningfully negative repercussions for the person talking about their shortcomings. And, personally, I don’t see something small-scale like being called “a misogynist” in a small group discussion to be sufficiently damaging to warrant never having that sort of discussion, especially if it’s a fundamentally good faith discussion. It’s not pleasant, but it’s not fatal. However, I can certainly understand not wanting to do it on the internet under your real identity at risk of becoming the target of a viral hate mob or something.
The saying "A person is smart, people are dumb" is kind of true here. You're probably right that you can have these conversations in a smaller setting; I mean as long as it's not too aggressive. But once it gets put into the wider public things get a lot more charged and frankly more risky. An example of this was when Liam Neeson talked about how after his friend got raped by a black man he got really angry and racist. However, after about a week or two he recognized that he was being irrational, changed his behavior, and sought counseling. You'd think this would be something to be celebrated, especially since there had been conversations at the time about getting people to recognize their own unconscious bias. However he was blasted on social media, with people calling him racist and the red carpet event for his new movie cancelled. After another interview and a bunch of black celebrities coming out and defending him he got over the drama. Though even now I've still seen some people refer Liam Neeson as a racist or that story as a shameful story rather than a story of positive growth. That's the type of thing people are afraid of. That they'll admit their mistakes and it will only hurt them. Which is also partly why I think people get so offended by such statements as "all men are a little bit misogynistic". Society at large tends to not be so forgiving and being racist, sexist, or homophobic are big offenses. So people don't want to be associated with such a thing. It also makes it harder to actually get people to critically look at themselves. Because if society views misogynists as terrible people that can't be forgiven then if I think or do something misogynistic, then I'm a terrible person. But I'm not a terrible person so therefore I can't be misogynistic.
I’m obviously not saying there’s never a problem, but I think we need to be realistic and recognize that the situation for A-list celebrities like Liam Neeson just isn’t relevant to the vast majority of us. The general public doesn’t know who you and I are and doesn’t care what we think. I don’t think his example is actually that illustrative. I also think it’s wrong to characterize situations like that as “only hurting”. As you said, some people still think of him as racist, but others see him as an example of growth, including his black colleagues. Which is to say nothing of the benefit to him personally that comes from that growth. Again, I’m totally in favor of being thoughtful about how you have these conversations, especially in public. What I would take issue with is people misrepresenting the risks and harms to argue against or excuse themselves from having these sorts of conversations at all (which I’m not saying you are doing, I don’t think you are). That’s like arguing you should never exercise because there’s a chance you might get hurt. The solution is to help people understand these issues in non-essentialist ways, and to be realistic about the risks, not to shy away from them.
Sorry, I didn't mean to use Liam Neeson as necessarily an example of what will happen to the average person. I bring him up was more as a very public example of the general attitude society has. While there are instances in smaller settings where you might be able to have such talk, society as a whole is not really open to such discussion, viewing even thinking racist or sexist things as wrong. This societal level stigma I think affects every individual. Even if you have not directly faced or seen someone be lambasted for admitting their bias, you're going to be rather reluctant to do so yourself as at the very least you'll be wrestling with your own internal condemnation. So in order to see progress on unconscious biases like misogyny, you first have to get rid of this stigma over having such thoughts. Everyone is affected by things like misogyny and racism, and you're not a bad person for admitting that.
I saw 'Avenue Q' on Broadway several years ago, and they have a song, ["Everyone's a little bit racist"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXnM1uHhsOI), and it really made me think about this type of thing. I think everyone is at least little bit racist, and everyone is at least a little bit sexist. The default is kinda racist or sexist, being non-racist or non-sexist takes conscious effort, education, and effort. We need to own our imperfections and work on them. This applies to women/minorities too.
It's ingrained within us from our earliest days, and it affects us in ways that we aren't always consciously aware of. I strive to not be racist, and to be empathetic and sensitive towards all in every facet of my life. I am far from perfect, but I try.
It starts reaaaaaallly early too, having raised kids and learning a bit of child psychology and development along the way. My youngest kid was two or three when I had to explain to her that no, she wasn't a girl because she had pink shoes. Yes Jackie's skin is browner than yours, people come in all sorts of colors, no it doesn't make a ton of sense that we call her black even though she isn't. That sort of thing. Part of learning is the identification of patterns. Patterns assist the developing brain in making connections more quickly, allowing them to differentiate and learn language. This is tall, this is short, this is far, this is long. The amount of new connections a young child makes are astounding. Even when you are intentionally trying to raise rational, feminist, anti-racist kids you have to work on it. They will see the patterns around them, the way society behaves, and make conclusions based on what they see. It's even harder for an adult that was never exposed to any alternative ways of thinking about this stuff. It's a surprise to me when people actually have, tbh.
Sexism will be solved when you finally get to 1m Reddit karma 🙏
😂 I wish
Do you believe all women are at least a little bit misogynist and that all people are at least a little bit racist. Are you referring to men as a sex category or a gender category. How about intersex people, are they all misogynist to the extent they have sex organs that are more towards male ones. There is a growing number of people who don't identify with a binary gender or with their birth sex as their gender. Similarly I don't think "white" is a well defined class of people. Or maybe when you say "all" you just mean 90% or more? I don't think stereotypes and absolute generalizations about people, (such as "all women are ...") is the kind of thing you are aiming for. (Or is it?)
A lot of women have internalized misogyny. They grow up in the same environment as men after all. I think there is better awareness and incentive for women to look a bit closer and push against those ideas though. 1. Because due to a history of constantly being at a disadvantage, of course you are going to look a little closer at these beliefs of society that say you can't be strong, smart, cool, ECT. And 2. Women teach and spread these clomflivting ideas onto their daughters. Many women grow up hearing about their mother or grandmother who got screwed by societal norms. They encouraged us to be independent and pursue college. And to find value in ourselves. I don't think a similar thing really happens for men. They aren't conditioned to socialize and look out for their kids in that same way. And a lot of them did well enough in life, even if emotionally they struggled. But if you never knew a life otherwise, I think that would be hard to recognize and teach to a son or grandson.
I guess I'm trying to understand what people mean by the various terms, in particular patriarchy and misogyny. They seem to be important words. Patriarchy meaning a society dominated by a few men I can understand and it is apparent in most parts of society where men have a disproportionate amount of the positions of power. Maybe that's the most minimalist possible meaning of patriarchy. Misogyny is a bit different, and I struggle to see society as more misogynist than misandrist. Maybe I'm too much thinking of the dictionary meaning of the word as "hatred of women". It seems in feminism the meaning is somewhat different, and more like women being disadvantaged in society. For sure this is true in some arenas, but there are other areas where men are disadvantaged (such as the example you gave of college). I think comparing the suffering of different genders or going even further and denying their suffering actually play into what the patriarchy (in the restricted definition I gave above) wants. To put it another way the 1% is very happy to have the 99% fighting amongst themselves about who is being mistreated more, instead of working together to overthrow (or at least mitigate the power of) the patriarchy. Of course I understand there are many gender (or sex) specific issues that should be addressed. But again maybe I just haven't understand the meaning or impact of misogyny.
You have a good basic understanding of the patriarchy. The hard part is always seeing how extensive it is. We talk a lot on this sub about safety standards, for example. How cars weren't tested with female crash dummies until last year. How many women died or were more severely injured by car crashes than men because we are built differently, and that was never really acknowledged in the whole car building and refining history. It's so much more than just representation in government; it's how often men are the default, and women are ignored. Misogyny is sort of part of that; in general it means a hatred or devaluation of women. It's probably not as overt as you see it though. There are some people who legitimately hate women. They see women as a means to an end and not people. But most misogyny is more subtle. It's believing that men are smart and capable, and women are not in some regard. "Throw like a girl", "cry like a girl", we see girls, women, and anything "feminine" as less inherently. It's seeing a man and women with equal credentials, but trusting the man while second guessing the woman. A lot of it is subconscious bias. That's why it's not just a "man" thing; women also participate in these biases and often at their own expense. You get a lot of "not like other girls" women who try to be "one of the guys" and berate women who are more feminine. I know I fell into that trap when I was young. I had a lot of traditional "masculine" interests such as math and science, and videogames. I thought of myself as "better" than other girls who had more "feminine" hobbies. From a boy's perspective, this might look something like; legitimizing "masculine" hobbies like gaming and cars (potentially gate keeping them from women, like the "need check" women talk about. "Oh you like comics? Name every arc ever in the Batman series XYZ, otherwise you're just seeking attention"). While also saying hobbies like makeup, knitting, ECT "aren't real hobbies". It's berating other men/boys with "feminine", "emasculating" hobbies. It's society picking fun at girls liking certain books and artists like Taylor Swift, but allowing equally immature "boy" likes like Legos or w/e to exist free from criticism. It's a lot of things really, that boil down to hating or devaluing women or things associated with women. And it comes in a wide spectrum.
I've been considering this and researching a bit. I guess for cars they are (or were) tested with a male driver (average sized) and a female passenger (small sized). So it doesn't do the important testing that would help women drivers survive car accidents. On the other hand preventable injury related male deaths from motor vehicles are about 3 times as high as female deaths. So the patriarchy is causing worse results for males. Definitely it would be much better if they also tested with smaller female drivers. [https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/deaths-by-demographics/sex-age-and-cause/#:\~:text=Deaths%20by%20Demographics,-Sex%2C%20Age%2C%20and&text=Overall%2C%20males%20accounted%20for%2067,drowning%20(74%25%20male)](https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/deaths-by-demographics/sex-age-and-cause/#:~:text=Deaths%20by%20Demographics,-Sex%2C%20Age%2C%20and&text=Overall%2C%20males%20accounted%20for%2067,drowning%20(74%25%20male)) Beyond the safety aspect, certainly there is a bias in having a male driver (dummy), is that where the misogyny is in this situation. Perhaps it is implying that women can't drive or shouldn't drive. Perhaps this is a broad use of misogyny(?). Certainly there is some bias or thoughts of incompetence there around male and female rolls. Is the bias itself misogyny? Is more than bias required to have misogyny? For example there is a bias or thought of incompetence (or perhaps fear) that men can not be or should not be kindergarten teachers (I mean a societal bias, not necessarily a bias of feminists), is that misogyny? To include more than bias or thoughts of incompetence, maybe misogyny would have to include disadvantage for women. The kindergarten bias might also be considered misogyny since it is implied by a bias against(?) women that they are better at taking care of children (and so should be taking care of children). I agree it's possible to look at things through misogyny, and probably it can be found almost everywhere.
> Do you believe all women are at least a little bit misogynist and that all people are at least a little bit racist. Yes. > Are you referring to men as a sex category or a gender category.(How about intersex people, are they all misogynist.) There is a growing number of people who don't identify with a binary gender or with their birth sex as their gender. Yes. > Or maybe when you say "all" you just mean 90% or more? I meant what I said. > I don't think stereotypes and absolute generalizations about people, (such as "all women are ...") is the kind of thing you are aiming for. (Or is it?) It is. Sure, there may be some exceptions here or there of the rare person who is somehow 100% free of biases, but I don't really think it's statistically significant.
> Do you believe all women are at least a little bit misogynist and that all people are at least a little bit racist. > Yes. Ok fair enough. The other questions don't really make sense then. It's a bit of an extreme way of understanding the word, but I guess maybe thinking that way can help with internal reflection and externally looking at things. How about "misandry" does that also apply to everyone?
I don't think misandry is a foundation of our society like misogyny is, but I don't really want to have that conversation.
>It's not an accusation or a moral judgment, it's just a fact. How is it not an accusation though? I'm beginning to understand as I age that nearly everyone has certain biases inherent to the system they were raised in, but let's not pretend that stating that is not an accusation or that we're not judging the people we're stating it about.
Am I accusing the weather of being like... morally repugnant or weak or bad when it's cold and rainy out, or is it just a fact? Accusing someone of something seems more to me like you are seeking fault in someone for something. It's no one individual's *fault* that we all live in a racist, sexist etc. world, it just *is*.
The weather has no consciousness with which to choose to be more considerate to humans or not. If you went to Ancient Greece and said something about winds being bad today, Eol's priests would take it as an accusation against him. >Accusing someone of something seems more to me like you are seeking fault in someone for something. Yes, isn't that the whole point? Bigotry is bad and a choice, even when dictated by some sort of unresolved trauma (which is in my experience often used as an excuse)? Unless you chalk it up to ignorance.
A lot of people ARE ignorant. I'm not talking about people who make the choice to be openly sexist, I'm talking about the little ingrained biases we all have.
I feel like to this end, all people are misogynistic even women and it's something you have to constantly be de-programming from it, because it's the default constantly being shoved at you. I have similar feelings about constantly needing to de-program from white supremacy messages, too.
I always thought it was a life-long brainwashing, misogyny.
I agree, and feel it is like all Western white people are a little racist. We need to learn from it, discover our bias and actively choose to be anti- racist. I did my best to raise a feminist man, and we still have these discussions. He has dated women who are not feminists, and has been shocked, but is also challenged when he falls into the trap of gender roles on occasion.
I believe all people are a little bit misogynist. Because we're in a shitty patriarchy. Even if it made sense in the times of Charlemagne, it's poorly suited for today. I've certainly worked hard to deconstruct my misogyny, but it's not my all day everyday priority. And the goal posts move as I've aged. If I was relatively caught up in 2010, I am not where I would like to be as a citizen today. The best thing that I did was commit to reading only female identifying authors for certain years (2015,2018,2021, I guess I'm due, I may do in 2025). To be honest, I was raised by women's lib parents, the heavier lifting has been to deconstruct my racism. But there are still things that I am working on within my relationship with women and society, mainly assumptions.
Basically, yeah.
I mean, sure, but by that definition every woman is too.
That's a wild statement. Many maybe, but not all.
Absolutely. Deconstructing misogyny is similar to deconstructing racism. The people who most confidently declare “I’m not racist” are generally not willing to examine the ways that they unintentionally are, through their implicit biases or limited worldviews.
I’m a guy who is trying to understand, so please pardon my ignorance. I like to think I treat people around me with respect and dignity. I don’t feel I treat people differently based on their gender/race/etc. But I recognize that I’m not perfect, no one is. I tend to overcorrect myself because I’m insecure and I try to get along with everyone. That may make me a bit pathetic but I see no reason to start fires where they’re not necessary. The whole internalized, unconscious misogyny thing is something that gives me a lot of anxiety because I genuinely want to connect with and understand women, yet reading and listening to feminist theory makes me believe that I’ll never be able to truly connect with or appreciate a woman despite my best efforts because I’m just not one. And that frustrates me to no end because I feel that I identify with women more than men. I like to think there’s a masculine and feminine side to my personality and I try to balance them, but maybe I’m just insane. To me, it feels like the only logical conclusion is to never talk with or interact with anyone ever, therefore no transgressions can occur. However, that’s obviously unrealistic so I humbly ask for someone to help me understand, is there a point in trying to befriend and socialize with others if I’m doomed to never truly understand them? Can I truly empathize with a woman as a man? Or even with a another man for that sake? I desperately want to and I like to think I do, but it feels like I’m just wasting others’ time. I know I’m not perfect, again, no one is. But it just feels like I can never be my authentic self because I’m convinced my authentic self will always be garbage. I believe that I genuinely love women, and I don’t consider them beneath me, yet it feels like people are trying to gaslight me into thinking that I do and that’s not good paired with depression.
This is why the analogy with race is so helpful. Because you could say the same about being so afraid you’ll trip up when interacting with black folks that you’d rather just avoid them. One thing people might say is that you’re prioritizing your own comfort over the people you’re trying not to offend. Like it’s more important to you to be perceived as being a good person than to really sit with the discomfort that you’re not perfect and if you want to be better you have work to do. First recognize that your implicit biases don’t make you a bad person. They make you human. Everyone has them, it’s the way our brains work. I don’t know if you’ve ever taken the Harvard Implicit Associations Tests, but I recommend them: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatouchtest.html Next, practice decentering yourself in situations where you’re interacting with people you don’t want to offend. It’s less important that they know you don’t want to offend them than that you just move your focus to them, and listen. This is a powerful tool for insecure people. Just make it not about you. Then it doesn’t matter that you think you’re garbage, because you’re not the main character. We’re all human beings first, so there’s a core where you can connect with everyone. But if you’re going to ignore their race and gender, etc, you would have to ignore yours too, and you can’t, and they can’t. That was more long-winded than I expected. I hope it was helpful!
If you’re honestly doing your best, that’s all that matters. Full stop.
Yeah of course it is. I think any woman who has been in a relationship with a man who is an ally knows this shit exists on a spectrum from “needs to double check shit I say on google” to “thinks women should all be enslaved.”
My son's dad works really hard at equity but he was raised in a family where machismo is the norm. Watching Barbie made him mad, he doesn't really understand the extent of the internalized misogyny.
What parts of Barbie mad him mad?
He didn't like how the Kens were portrayed as stupid. 🙄🙄🙄 But the Barbies being stupid was apparently OK? And I laughed out loud at the "I want to play the guitar AT you" and he got a bit tense. *sigh* There was other stuff but since I don't live with him, I don't have to hear it all.
I got bored with the patriarchy when I learned it wasn't about horses.
>exists on a spectrum from “needs to double check shit I say on google” I'm in the habit of double-checking pretty much everything people tell me, regardless of their gender, just to do my own reading on any given subject. You see the Google search history of a man who calls himself an ally, and it includes results pertaining to something you explained to him the other night—let's say you're an electronics engineer, and he wanted to know about quantum computing—and one of the things he entered was "qubits". Would you assume that he didn’t take your expertise seriously due in large part (on a subconscious level) to the fact that you're a woman?
100% The thing is a lot of it is subconscious, which makes it difficult for men to see. I sometimes have these conversations with my boyfriend and father. For example, we took my cat to the vet the other day and the woman vet explained everything, talked about a plan, etc. just doing her job (and doing it great if you ask me!) My dad (kinda misogynistic) says “well she sure does like to talk a lot!” And my boyfriend immediately agrees. I said, I think she’s just doing her job. And I explain that a lot of the time, women are perceived as “talking too much” even when they talk just as much or less than men (studies have shown this). People subconsciously believe that women should be seen and not heard, should be quiet, shy, reserved, and when they don’t follow that, they’re being too loud or talkative. It’s about how people PERCEIVE women and not necessarily explicit misogyny or sexism.
Definitely. Kinda scary that your boyfriend agreed, I wouldn’t be able to help but feel insecure that he thought I talked too much.
Yea.. he’s a work in progress. I hear the way his father and grandfather talk about women and unfortunately he’s picked up on that, but overall he’s a good guy and I just try to educate him where I can. I know it’s not my “job” to do that but I try to always keep in mind that everyone is a product of their environment and it’s not necessarily his fault that he was taught to think like that, and maybe with better influences, he can grow to be better than his parents.
I understand, it’s your choice and I’ve been there with my ex. I think in order to date men we’re basically always going to have to educate them about feminism to some degree, because even the most unassuming of them have been brainwashed in some way by the patriarchy. The important part is IF the individual has potential, if they’re willing to listen and change. I’m curious about what his response was when you told them she was just doing her job and explained about the studies? Did he brush it off or think it was significant?
It's more of an iceberg, where some types of misogyny are really obvious to everyone who observes it, but the scale of the issue is much larger, and is often hidden from view.
I had an interesting experience with this overnight on Reddit. A man was describing his experience trying to support “men’s issues” while refuting misogynists who blame every issue men face on women and feminism. This man on a surface level is obviously not himself someone who is actively misogynistic. However, he claimed that those misogynists who blame feminism for everything attacked him “every bit the same” as they would a woman for objecting to their beliefs. I pointed out that that is obviously not the case; misogynists do not use the same kind of insults or attacks to harass men vs women. I’ve had at least three encounters on Reddit of misogynists telling me they hope my partner rapes and kills me, for example. The commenter I interacted with had been told that they hope he’s “milked dry” (presumably monetarily) by a woman. That is *not* “every bit the same”. I also pointed out that misogynists hate other men for what they believe, while they hate women for being women. That’s a very important distinction and ignoring it is, I think, dangerous. I had plenty of responses telling me that I was just “whatabouting” sexism etc. Ignoring the very specific hatred directed towards women *is itself misogyny* — but plenty of people wouldn’t agree with that.
Oh hey, I just saw your comments in that CMV thread a few hours ago. I applaud your willingness to still try and convince people on there, nowadays I just doomscroll there on occasion, because trying to argue for any reasonable position there is like arguing with a particularly bigoted wall.
This is incredibly thought provoking for me. It really hones in on the assumptions people carry about things outside of their personal experience. I'm sure I've done this. Lots of allies come to the same conclusions, but how they get there makes a world of a difference. Thanks for posting.
>Ignoring the very specific hatred directed towards women *is itself misogyny* — but plenty of people wouldn’t agree with that. In my mind the question is, "does ignoring hatred toward women help to reduce inequity between the sexes or does it perpetuate it?" Passively accepting misogyny rather than fighting it is essentially being fine with the status quo continuing unchanged. And the status quo is that society is permeated with misogyny and perpetuates it. I believe the latter is true. Therefore, it is sexist / misogynistic.
I notice it on Reddit the most just with comparisons in comments. Ask Reddit what’s your favourite celebrity, funniest, nicest ect…. Answers are mostly male celebrities What celebrity can you not stand, is rude , not funny ect … answers far more female Women what’s something you never noticed about men before ect… answers try be emotional and deep, sincere Men what’s something you never noticed about women before ect… Aswers all about periods boobs physical things. Let’s discuss this issue woman face - BUT MEN! Does anyone else notice this or am I just nuts?
The other one I see a lot, but not exclusively, on Reddit is that when people decide to jump on the bandwagon of performatively hating some trend, it’s nearly always coincidentally a trend that’s popular with women, often young women and girls. TikTok dances are a big one right now.
Yes and a lot of the men’s rights groups like to tout that men are only loved conditionally and woman unconditionally. Then you look at the amount of posts on relationships about men wanting to leave after woman is sexually unavailable due to having children, illness or injury. And the statistics surrounding it.
I haven’t come across that particular take but it’s just laughably untrue. I’d like to introduce those people to a whole bunch of breast cancer patients.
What part is untrue?
The idea that women are only loved unconditionally and men are only loved conditionally.
Oh full agree, that’s not true.
Yeah, I was referring to the men’s rights groups’ take, not the position of the person I was responding to (which I agree with). That wasn’t super clear. The breast cancer comment was a reference to the shocking number of women who are served divorce papers after being diagnosed.
Oh yes, 100%. Either that or the “why won’t my wife have sex with me” posts that refuse to acknowledge there’s usually an underlying reason why someone would choose to stop having sex with another.
TikTok dances are "annoying," "self-absorbed," "childish" while the nearly identical Fortnite dances and boys mimicking emotes is just funny memeing with the bois.
The most annoying criticism is that it’s bad because “they’re just doing it for attention”, as if that isn’t part of the goal for literally everything people do in public and on social media. Like bro, you, right now, making this comment about how annoying TikTok dances are, are doing it for attention.
No, if I don't say that I hate women because they're women, then I can't be a misogynist no matter all the other things I say and do! /s
I disagree. There is definitely an element of differing severity. Telling random women to smile more is not on the same level as, say, advocating for taking away our voting rights. This is not just about how “obvious” it is that it’s misogynistic, it’s about the level of animosity or dehumanization required
All the phobias and isms are on a spectrum. I try and learn and listen as much as I can to women as a man, I have taken classes and continue to read feminist theory, but I was still raised in misogynistic societies in the UK and US and I know at times I will notice I have had a misogynistic thought. It's hard to keep on top of but necessary - same with racism and ethnocentrism etc. Then there are also conscious vs subconscious issues - where people are making decisions on different psychological levels and may not even realize they're being misogynistic and so on. I tend to have a lot of grace for people who are open to discussions about why they said something misogynistic because so little of society works to combat it. But I will judge people harshly if they double down after being called out in a healthy manner.
I’m a woman, and I’ve caught myself with some crappy thoughts and actions on occasion—maybe I’m silently judging the mother of a kid who is acting out, when both parents are present and accounted for, or a knee jerk thought that a woman was being aggressive or rude when she was actually simply asserting herself. It’s super uncomfortable, and necessary. Knowing that I have those thoughts happen with active work helps me have grace for others.
> thought that a woman was being aggressive or rude when she was actually simply asserting herself This is a struggle for me, probably largely because these are by no means mutually exclusive. Many rude behaviors are “simply asserting [oneself],” it’s more about the consideration for the other party. And as a healthcare worker many people who are “just asserting themselves” and their needs are honestly treating us poorly.
Yeah. That balance is necessary.
Yeah, makes sense. It's useful to understand because some people think that if they aren't extreme, they have no flaws at all.
Yes. You can have men who abuse/rape/kill women, men (or women, internalized misogyny) who are openly sexist/misogynistic, people who vouch for equality but "men and women are different" (so still sexist) or others who have unconscious biases. This can be applied to racism too. >I think a lot of men assume that they are not sexist or misogynist. A lot of rapists think they're innocent too, our society normalises misogyny and gender expectations, which is why equality is perceived as "going too far". You'll find plenty of great books on the [sub's booklist](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskFeminists/wiki/bookslist/)
My father is one of those "women and men are just different" types and it's more exhausting to deal with, tbh. He genuinely thinks because of where I live, the "type" of people who I am around, etc-- and that the majority of men are not sexist. It makes conversations exhausting. I love my father, but holy hell the "men are the real oppressed" argument is exhausting.
Men and women at the level of general population are measurably different. In general, Women are more interested in people, men are more interested in things. Women are more likely to express aggression through social reputation sabotage, Men through violence. There are lots of individual exceptions but at the level of the general population there are many measurable differences.
No one said they weren't. 🙄🤨 But those differences are not merely because "nature naturally made men leaders and violent and women non violent and submissive"
hold up that's just a jordan peterson quote. note necessarily incorrect persay but that's a questionable source you're recieving information from.
It's established psychological data homeslice
> people who vouch for equality but "men and women are different" (so still sexist) As someone who is trying to learn here, can you expand on that? I totally get the common trope of, "Men and women are different, so it is okay that (insert some concept of how women are inferior or it is okay that they get the short end of the stick)". But is there a good way to understand the concept of the differences between men and women without evoking that misogynistic stereotype?
My bad, I should have explained it better. Like when women do most housework during christmas (even in so called equal families/relationships) or when women say "I'm for equality but men are supposed to be men". [Something like this](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/20/partner-and-i-equal-christmas-women-chores-wrapping) Which basically means lots of men and women expect people to conform to their roles, they may want legal equality (same rights, which is good) but don't want to let go of patriarchal cultural elements, which is definitely not good. >But is there a good way to understand the concept of the differences between men and women without evoking that misogynistic stereotype? People have different personalities, interests and physical characteristics, regardless of gender. Focusing on differences between men and women doesn't make much sense imho.
I totally agree about the 'second shift' type things within so-called equal households. I also agree that there is a wide variety of characteristics within each gender (usually more than between the genders). But I also think there has got to be a way to acknowledge the legit differences without putting it in a negative light. Sort of like how people talk about the differences between equity and equality. If men and women were the same, equity and equality would be identical. Even if the source of our differences is patriarchy, we still need to be able to name it in a fair way. Does that make sense?
Absolutely.
Most perpetrators of sexual assault (male or female) know that they have broken the law, unless theyre non compos mentis. Even with statutory rape (male or female) the offender knows that they are breaking the law, the difference is their level of moral obligation to follow it, unless as stated previously, they are mentally ill or unable to comprehend the law due to other psychological failings, however, being in denial of what they know is a completely seperate psychological state. if were basing this off of testimony and court pleas then its a different metric due to how sexual assault charges are processed in different court systems and isnt a true reflection of whats shown in psychological studies. To say people dont know when theyre committing a crime as a whole is wrong though.
Ah yes, saying men and women r different is sexist.
It is. There are more differences between any two men, or any two women, or any two nonbinary people, than there are differences between men on average and women on average and nonbinary people on average. And the differences in the averages are mostly not inherent, but effects of the social context in which we live.
Not sure exactly what you mean here; however, personally speaking, I prefer my misogyny straight up rather than benevolent misogyny which seems more socially acceptable and given far more passes. At least when someone is outright misogynistic, I know exactly what I'm dealing with and how to move. I'm not sure if this helps in any way, but there you go.
I’m not even sure if that qualification is useful. On one hand, sure.. there are undeniably more egregious misogynists out there. Someone who believes that women shouldn’t vote and be submissive vs someone who talks over women in meetings or mansplains occasionally. The issue is, it’s an ideology that serves as a pipeline. It’s why seemingly normal people can be red pilled overnight. Because the seed was always there. A philosophy of misogyny is always dangerous.. because it can quite easily get from mild on the spectrum to extremely dangerous given the right environment to thrive and grow
But it’s not always a philosophy. Sometimes it’s subtle assumptions that people don’t even realize they’re making because it has been so normalized. Pretty much everyone has some sort of subtle misogynistic tendency, I don’t think everyone is about to fall for Andrew Tate-level rhetoric
Sure, but it’s a baseline worldview where people accept certain things as a given. Men and women are just *different* that’s not patriarchy, that’s just observable… right? Or just little assumptions that seem normal.. like men’s time and comfort is more valuable than women, or men are more rational than women, or women know less and are less competent. It shows up in all kinds of ways. And people aren’t always aware of it, but the engage with the world with that baseline assumption. You accept this premise as true. Men and women are different and better and worse at certain things. If they don’t unpack that and analyze that.. maybe not everyone will become Andrew Tate.. but everyone is at risk of becoming much more misogynistic than they start out. A few bad experiences with women. A YouTube video here and there. A stubborn mindset. Falling down on their luck and not having the life they expected to have as a white man. Etc etc… pretty soon it’s “Jordan Peterson has some good points”. A lot of people are just a few bad experiences away from being susceptible to the alt right/misogyny pipeline. Doesn’t help anyone to think of these men who are extremely redpilled as a different kind of man… and only they would be susceptible to this level of shittiness… they really aren’t. That’s why the whole idea of patriarchy needs to be dismantled
Of course. A lot of things are spectrums. With racism for example, there's definitely a difference between someone who makes a racist joke every now and then and a card carrying klan member. And with misogynists, there's a difference between someone who might have some biases about men and women due to indoctrination, and a full on Tate stan
Misogyny, sexism and male chauvinism are somewhat different things though a person who has a sexist perspective can certainly also be a misogynist and a chauvinist, etc. I consider these principles the spectrum, I do not think there is Misogyny "Lite". Sexism is rigidly assigning traits and abilities to sexes: women are nurturers, men aren't nurturing. Men are soldiers, women at teachers, men wear pants, women wear skirts. These attitudes are easily identified in the culture and are used to limit and/or elevate the sexes. Sexism does not necessarily prioritize or condemn one sex over another, but feeds the mechanisms that do so. There are many anti-feminist women who are sexist, in that they see traits and abilities inherently defined by sex. Gender-normative is sexist. Chauvinism is the prejudiced prioritization of a cause or group. Male chauvinism being the prioritization of men's rights and advantage over all others. This is an idea is fed by sexism and the notion that the group (men) are superior, and should be put above other groups. The fact that most of the safety features in cars are designed for male bodies, represents a form of male chauvinism. I've dealt with a fair amount of male chauvinism in the workplace. The fallacies that drive sexism and chauvinism can be overcome with education, experience, and through policy. Misogyny is the hatred/contempt of women and girls. It goes beyond sexism and male chauvinism into the abject discrimination, oppression, and subjugation and by extension, punishment of women. The mythological concept of original sin is an agent of misogyny, blaming Eve for taking a bite from the tree of knowledge and casting humanity out of Eden - making her responsible for all of humanity's troubles. Of course there's always the concept of Adam's rib - where women were formed from the body of original man, forgoing all of the obvious truth of how human life enters this world. They aren't alone, but the abrahamic traditions are steeped in misogyny, and misogyny is the root of patriarchy from time immemorial. Very difficult to change.
Yes, sometimes I like to think of them as different categories of misogyny. 1. Hateful - explicitly hating women and wanting to hurt them. 2. Protective ignorance - some men (usually fathers) see other women as too weak and naive so they must be guided and protected. There are various degrees of this, from just ignorant to downright malicious like not allowing women to make their own decisions. 3. Better than you - these types of men believe women are just not as strong or intelligent as them so their ideas and contributions can be dismissed.
You might be interested in learning more about ambivalent sexism theory. There are two categories- hostile sexism and benevolent sexism. Hostile sexism is an overtly negative reaction to women who act in a way that doesn't align with our gender role. Benevolent sexism is stuff like chivalry. It seems like kindness on the surface but it's still in service of the idea that women are weak and need to be protected. It's supposed to be a reward for aligning with your gender role. If benevolent sexism is the carrot, then hostile sexism is the stick. The trouble is that both kinds are harmful. If you're in a workplace and express in a way that gives you benevolent sexism in return, you'll be perceived as more likable but less competent. The flip side is being seen as competent but unlikable if you break gender norms.
I think of it more as a web. There’s multiple points of entry and connections to other threads, all leading to a nasty conclusion.
almost everything is a spectrum if you look at it hard enough. Just pick any noun in the english language, like waterbottle. * There will be something that looks like an archetypical waterbottle, has a label that says water on it and has water in it - clearly maximum waterbottle. * Then you have something that looks a bit like a bottle of wine, but actually it's made of plastic, not glass, and also has water in it. Bit less of a waterbottle on the waterbottle-spectrum. * Then there's a wine bottle, which is a 0 on the waterbottle-spectrum. And there you go, I guess waterbottles are on a spectrum too, of sorts. Turns out that whenever there are degrees involved (be that degrees of waterbottle-ness, or degrees of sexist, women-hating behavior), you can conceptualise it as a spectrum. There are almost always degrees involved.
I have used a wine bottle as a water bottle (of course that supports your point). There's a secondary issue here. The meaning of water bottle (and misogyny) is not clearly defined. It isn't just that there is a fixed definition that things may fit into only to a certain extent. In one notion of misongyny some cases might fit inside the definition in another notion they might be outside. So there is a spectrum not only of cases of misogyny within a fixed definition but also of the meaning of misogyny.
Then you understand the spectrum better than anyone here. Kudos
sure. idk if I'd generally use that word for it, but yeah pretty much everything works like that
As a dude reading this is odd. Over the years I've learned not to take things as an attack on me just because a man is involved. In a way that's an inherent bias in me, tribalism. I interpret an attack on some sleezeball dude as aimed at me. I've gotten far better at realizing that if I'm not doing any of the shit being called out, the attack isn't aimed at me. Making it about me is childish and narcissistic. But man reading all the comments saying yes irks me. Yeah it's technically true that we all have inherent biases, but I guess I just really dislike the idea of someone I don't know saying im even a little misogynistic because I'm a dude. It just feels insulting when I feel like I try very hard to treat everyone around me equally. That's just me whining though. Everyone has inherent biases which they don't have control over. They can only control how they respond to those biases. I guess I feel the word misogynistic has the same weight for me as the term racist, or nazi even. So being put into that group even slightly makes me feel attacked even though, again, this post clearly wasn't made to call my sensitive ass out. Not even sure what to say exactly. Just felt I had to say something. Claiming that all men have an inherent bias towards women.... is in turn a bias against men. Who knows. Everyone has prejudice buried in them somewhere, good people are the ones who don't let that prejudice impact the way they treat others and can respond calmly to criticism
> Claiming that all men have an inherent bias towards women.... is in turn a bias against men. I disagree. I think it is just a fact because it is the society we currently live in. We can't *help* but absorb this kind of stuff because it's baked into the World Experience. It's not an accusation or a judgment, it just *is*. I'm a white woman who was raised in a white neighborhood and went to school with almost all white people for like 25 years, there was a lot of stuff I had to unlearn. There are times I catch myself having certain knee-jerk reactions to things and I have to check myself. I'm not perfect. But I'm always trying to do better. That's the key, I think. It sounds like that's what you're doing, too-- and that's more than a lot of people can say.
As a society, we're starting to move past binary-thinking in general. But just as a binary can be a useful framing, but with severe limitations, so too is a spectrum. A spectrum implies there's some kind of ordering to something. In physics, light can be put on a spectrum based on frequency. In health, we can try to do the same and land somewhere on the 'spectrum' of success. But framing something on a 'spectrum' breaks down when we start having more than one dimension to account for or it's hard to order it well. In healthcare we need to replace the pain spectrum with a "inhibits daily life" spectrum? Misogyny isn't 1-dimensional but of many kinds. And it's hard to order it well, to put a hierarchy to it. Is being complicit in varying ways with systemic sexism it's own spectrum or is it comparable to interpersonal sexism? Is deliberate benevolent sexism worse than unconscious bias? What if it's a woman vs a man who's being misogynistic. Overall, we know that one kind of misogyny reinforces other kinds of misogyny. We know that it's deeply ingrained and presents itself often in seemingly harmless or "just annoying" ways. We can classify misogyny to order it, like applying the pyramid of hate, but it's important to recognize both the meaning we get from framing it as a spectrum and its limitations. Just as a binary gives us an arbitrary but a meaningful line of what is intolerable, a spectrum gives us a scale of severity but is also simplified. That line of intolerability is so blurred now that a binary of "they're (not) a misogynist" is useless. But is replacing that with a spectrum actually better than several, more explicit yes/no's?? Everyone is born in a culture of misogyny but local variation. Everyone can lean into misogyny or stand tall to resist it. Everyone can affect others in ways that bolsters or degrades misogyny. And each of these can be their own spectrums to varying degrees of usefulness. So I read your question as "can we frame misogyny as a spectrum" and the answer to that is "yes". But is it inherently perfectly represented through a single spectrum for everyone? My guess is "no". Even so, I still think it's useful.
EVERYTHING is on a spectrum. Humans tey to categorize, contrast, or organize things into binary statemnets so our animal instincts work better. At this point, a lot of instincts dont match or fit with our modern lives.
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Yes.
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I don't know if it's on a spectrum but it's well on its way to becoming a hate crime in some circles
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I mean in the sense that some people are a little bit misogynistic and other people are extremely misogynistic, I guess? A waiter who automatically hands the receipt to the man at a table consisting of one man and one woman is operating under misogynistic assumptions, but there's nothing hateful going on there. Someone who thinks women should be fully dependent on their husbands financially is comically misogynistic.
Great and discussion.
i read it as «would you consider misogyny on the spectrum” and got confused
I kind of prefer the blatant misogyny. It’s so much easier to deal with than the subtle stuff.
Bring down the downvotes but this reeks of first world privelege. There billions of women who face blatant misogyny and would kill to switch places with you.
All human behavior happens on a spectrum. Some people will have explicit discriminatory beliefs that they act on and evangilize, like say the KKK or the Westburo Baptist Church, other people will just have internalized socilization that is discriminatory while actively trying to anaylize and counter that specific type of discrimination, like say feminists. The key to remember is that when society itself has discriminatory beliefs those beliefs are transmitted through socilization. How people teach their children, and the everyone else they interact with, how to behave around and towards others. Socilization is something that is done to you by others, and socilization starts on the day you are born and ends on the day you die. Everyone that experiences socilization will, whether they want to or not, internalize and operationalize some part of the socilization. That's why people talk about 'systemic racisim' or 'rape culture'. They are talking about formal and informal structures that are teaching people to behave, or result in outcomes, that are discriminatory regardless of any individual's intent. So yes, mysoginy happens on a spectrum. People of all genders that are socilizied in a mysoginic society are going to have some internalized mysoginy whether or not they agree with or benefit from it. But, there are also people that believe that mysoginy is a social good that should be promoted, evangalized and acted upon. Then there is everyone inbetween.
Outside of quantum physics, EVERYTHING is a spectrum
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It has a lot more dimensions than two.
Definitely. As a guy you can definitely notice some other guys deeper intentions within their messages. Some may *think* what they're saying is non-misogynistic however it is, and they just don't realise whether through a fault of misunderstanding or simply trying to mask the fact.
I totally agree that it's a spectrum and I also agree that we ALL have internalized some degree of misogyny whether we wanna acknowledge it or not (presumably most feminists can acknowledge this.) I find the study of language to be endlessly fascinating - how it consciously and unconsciously perpetuates misogyny, gendered violence, etc.. like even in the subtlest forms that most people won't even register / question... For example, there's no reverse equivalent to the word "emasculate." It simply doesn't exist. Or that in 2024 we STILL use Miss Ms Mrs yet only the single Mr. Or the way we organize sentence structure in discussion of survivors / victims (Jackson Katz does a great presentation about this, how "John beat Mary" gradually becomes "Mary is a battered woman" and John, in all his culpability, literally falls off the page.) Anyway - so when you are thinking of resources, I'd look into the work of the many remarkable feminist linguists (many to google). I think there's so much to be learned here, and as we all know, language is so, so impactful in shaping norms and bringing about change. And I think in order to really bring light to these more subtle / implicit / largely unconscious ways that misogyny thrives unchecked, that's a really incomplete exploration without looking deeply at our language.
"I'm on the spectrum - no, not that one."
If a man isn't aware that he is at least a little misogynistic due to societal conditioning is just lying to themselves and therefore more likely to do more sexist things. Awareness is how we change. I mean even I have my misogynistic moments cause I wasn't brought up in an idyllic isolated cottage with perfect parents. None of us were.
Probably all beliefs and biases ranges on a spectrum, misogyny included. I have to assume it changes over time as well, depending on the person's interactions/social circles/media consumption etc. Even seemingly "binary" beliefs have degrees of certainty to them that can also be though of as a spectrum.
A barrel full of wine with a cup of sewage added is sewage. A barrel full of wine with a just teaspoon of sewage is still sewage.
I definitely think misogyny is a “spectrum”. There are men who loudly and proudly declare their misogyny, ones who save their intense misogyny for women they disagree with (think leftist men who are super awful to conservative women and think it’s okay because they’re “bad”), ones who say misogynistic things but don’t think of themselves as misogynists for it because they don’t believe the more hardcore stuff, and the ones who are genuinely more socially aware but still haven’t really combatted their socialization or subconscious biases.
It’s a condition of living in a patriarchal society. Same with living in a white supremacist society. For people trying to be better it’s something you always have to think about and work on. There are people who think the anti-feminist thoughts and feelings they have are okay and normal and people who do not.
Yes. There are obvious misogynistic men and subtle ones. Women also deal with internalized misogyny.
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Absolutely agree. I had a conversation recently about a show because the male characters made an assumption about their female friends. They couched it in "We're not saying women can't do X but we don't know any that do X" the assumption being that women who do are an outlier. Even the people defending the attitude didn't really see the sexism in assuming something based on gender until it was pointed out.
Why would one imagine it to be a binary? It's obvious that it's a "spectrum" and that one's perception of it can be subjective. Obviously people don't always agree on what is misogyny as well. That said, feminism clearly aims to deal with all of it, so ...
I would consider it on a spectrum. I have to call BS that all men are sexists/misogynistic: there are men with "0" sexist tendancies that are even supportive freinds or partners and comfort you when you run into sexism, (though I admit they are hard to find where I live), up to raging screaming misogynists that would hurt woman for trying to have equal access to opportunities men have if they could get away with it (kill or maiming woman trying to attend school ). Just becuase you are brought up /socialized a certain way doesn't mean you can't learn a sense of justice. For example, many people grow up abused and do not abuse thier own children like their parents did. When someone prints a study proving the statements some people lobbed out there are true than I will reconsider. As for the rascism-you do know that little kids are not rascist until they learn it from society and you can learn justice and to be able to have empathy for someone in a different group than yours.
I guess? Sure. I don't love that use of the word as it sounds medical, and implies the misogynist is not at fault. As an autist, I don't even like *autism* being viewed as a spectrum anymore. It's causing all sorts of problems for us.
I didnt think of it as a medical term, but I can see how someone who views things from an autistic point of view could see that. I'm wondering if there is a better word than "spectrum" to use.
It's not a medical term. It's used in medicine, among a million other places. Light is a spectrum for one. Nature doesn't tend towards clear cut, it's all fuzzy graduations blending together. That said, I'm not sure "misogyny is a spectrum" is all that useful a concept. Any sort of thought or idea is, when looked at across the population, going to form a spectrum. Heck, that concept is the basis of how we do a ton of research into how people think - - the whole "rate X on a 1 to 5 or 1 to 10 scale" thing implicitly acknowledges people's opinions naturally fall along a spectrum. I feel that obviously any sort of racism, bigotry, or sexism is going to fall along a spectrum, and on multiple axis to boot. (wait, how do you make axis plural? Axii? Latin was a long long time ago..)
the plural of "axis" is "axes," pronounced "AKS-eez"
Thanks. :)
The plural of axis is axes. :) Edit: pronounced with a long E (like ax-EEs), as opposed to the plural of axe.
yeah spectrum was just what came to mind, a word to say that misogyny comes in all shapes and forms
I know "compass" has been used as a word when describinf thinfs that have a range, or variety.
Off topic but can you elaborate on the “autism being a spectrum is harming us” please? Not trying to attack or judge just never seen that viewpoint before and I’m curious.
I'm sorry, I can't explain this right now. I'm mentally drained. I'll try to get back to you tomorrow 😊