On the internet, it is common to call a guy a misogynist, but what is the exact meaning of misogynist? Is it 1. A guy who hates women? Or 2. a guy who thinks men are superior. Or 3. A guy who believes in women should follow traditional norms like cooking.
All 3 of those are misogynistic view points.
All of the above.
Words very often have multiple definitions, or usages.
The word misogyny comes from Greek roots, miso (hatred), and gyne (woman). So misogynist literally means woman hater.
However, the form that the hate can take may not be the kind of rabid, foaming hatred you think of as hate. It can include anything from dislike or mistrust, up to the extreme of hatred.
It can also include prejudice against women, which isn’t necessarily hate in the usual sense, but has the same effect.
More, when using it as a bigoted person that the bigotry is focused on women, it can definitely include stereotyping and the propagation of stereotyping.
The term does get a little over used to include people that are just poorly informed rather than those that actively practice misogyny as a belief, but even that still applies in usage.
Or how about, rather than your narrow, specific 3 definitions, a fourth thing, such as how it’s phrased in the wiki:
Misogyny is hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women or girls. It is a form of sexism that can keep women at a lower social status than men.
The emphasis there is why you’re being called names on the internet. If you’re advocating systems or societal norms of gender oppression, you’re being misogynist. This remains true even if you’re not doing it intentionally.
The world we live in is deeply patriarchal, so it can be hard to see these problems, because the views and opinions you’ve got are just “normal”. Something being the norm doesn’t mean it isn’t oppressive, and having an opinion doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider the impacts of that opinion.
Generally, if someone calls you a misogynist, and you go “bUt I rEsPeCt wOmEn”, you might want to take a little time to figure out where it’s coming from. It can certainly be real without fitting in your 3 tidy little self-serving definitions.
I’ll also point out that you can replace nearly every instance of misogyny in this thread with racism, and replace women with black, and it would be the same discussion. Or you could swap misogyny/women with misandry/men. Oppression is oppression, no matter who holds the power.
This is such a great explanation, thanks for taking the time to write it all out.
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Yes.
If anyone is wondering why this person thinks it common to call a guy a misogynist, look at this guy’s post history.
Fuckin’ yikes
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If you don’t know what being a misogynist is how can you know nothing’s wrong?
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In your posts you make a lot of sweeping generalizations about all women being this or that without seeming to recognize that half of all the humans on earth are women. It’s not like we’re some subset or subclass or minority. There is basically no statement you could make that could actually apply to ALL women. So perhaps why you are running into people using this term with you is that you are ignoring a women’s personhood.
If some guy with blond hair was a jerk to you, would you go online and complain about how all blond people are jerks and they don’t like you and you don’t understand why they’re all so hostile? You would probably recognize that that one person was just a jerk. Then if you were a jerk to every blond person you met from then on, based on that experience, they would probably all respond to you poorly back and just feed a loop of nastiness and resentment.
If you don’t want to be a misogynist, then you must learn and remember that every woman is a person of their own, with their own personalities and histories and just as many idiosyncrasies, faculties, and basic rights as any man.
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No woman is going to want to date you, and it’s not because you are short and ugly, it’s because you hate yourself, you paint all women with an impossibly shallow brush, you have a shit personality, and you have an unwillingness to do even a modicum of work to learn, grow, and improve yourself, choosing instead to wallow in self-pity. Quit whining and become a better person.
There, just saved you $10,000 in therapy bills.
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Nothing you haven’t deleted. I saw your comments this morning. You definitely made sweeping assumptions about women in general. Lying about it and deleting evidence doesn’t change this fact.
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Here’s an opinion of somebody unwilling to reflect or learn.
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Real talk here bro, stop worrying about making yourself “perfect” for someone, or rather anyone, else. Stop trying to make yourself what you idolize, or what you perceive to be idolized.
You are you, you are a person. Take care of yourself first. You need to change your mentality and realize that you do have redeeming qualities. You need to focus on those.
Learn to love yourself first, trust me on this one.
It’s not about how you look. You’re just a bad person with a shit personality. That’s why no one likes you. You need to be a better person and get off the Internet, because it seems like it’s a big part of your problem, or you need to give up.
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See, that right there is why no women want you. It’s not your physical features. Your soul is ugly.
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What? It is NOT at all common to call a guy a misogynist on the internet. It is very rare, except when actual misogynist bubbles come in contact with normal people. Most guys on the web know women and have female relatives whom they respect and appreciate and would therefore usually not act in ways that would justify calling them misogynist.
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It’s only common if you are expressing misogynistic viewpoints and cruising around places where those viewpoints are welcome. I spent years on reddit and only saw it where it was appropriately calling out the behavior.
I never saw that on Reddit, but then I never did filter by controversial.
These aren’t different things. If you “hate” women, you think little of them. You think you’re better than them. You think they’re dumb baby machines that belong in the kitchen.
If you do #2 or #3, you also do #1 even if you don’t think you do.
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my father respects women he just thinks his wife should do all of the house work. [Paraphrased]
I would venture to say that if your father thinks his wife should do all the house work because she is a woman, then that is, in fact, misogyny (he is not actually respecting her in this case).
If he thinks she should do all the housework because they’ve talked and she really is happier in the role of homemaker and has chosen that as her life path while he has chosen to work a job that pays well enough to enable that, well then in that case it isn’t necessarily misogyny. But that is just about the only case in which it isn’t, including if she accepted being the homemaker but didn’t or wouldn’t have chosen it over a career if that seemed more feasible.
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Can you explain how to expect a wife to do housework is hate for women. I know both are wrong but still those are two different things
Because the only thing that makes a wife different from a husband is the fact that she’s a woman. There is nothing inherently “womanly” or “wifely” about housework, and expecting her to do it all must involve thinking there is: an unjustified prejudice exclusively reserved for women. I.e. misogyny.
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I think you are confusing gender roles with misogyny
When gender roles put an undue and unwanted burden on women, when they become a rule, that is misogyny. If they were putting an extra, unwanted burden on men it would be misandry, but that is a much less used term simply because it’s so much less prevalent.
All wives in all relationships ever? So does that mean your dad thinks all men live in filth? Do gay men all unanimously hire house cleaners? Are gay women the only people he thinks deserve equitable labor division in the home?
That’s a funny kind of “respect”. I think most people share a different definition of it.
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Daddy was wrong.
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But, for the record, he is wrong.
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I think any of those three could be called misogynist. It’s a pretty flexible term. It just means someone who is prejudiced against women.
Arguably, all three.
It’s not the easiest concept to define. Kate Mann defines it as “the law enforcement branch of the patriarchy”. It’s not the philosophical justification of sexist beliefs, it’s the (often violent) enforcement of them.
I think it can boil down to not recognizing the personhood of women. That the infinite complexity that can come from a rich tapestry woven of culture, personality, ability, interests and experiences can be shoved into a narrow and limited role. A misogynist will only see a sex doll, or a maid, or a baby making machine etc, and then judge a woman’s worth based on how well they fit in that role. If a woman doesn’t perform the roles that person expects or desires then they get angry and hateful that this other human being didn’t meet those unreasonable expectations of them.
Misogynists might not think they hate women, just that a woman doesn’t “belong” working in a machine shop. They might not consciously think men are superior, but they see certain tasks associated with women (cleaning, care work, teaching) as low value, undesirable or less worthy of respect. They might not actively choose how to divide domestic tasks, but will say that women are “naturally” better at them. And just to be clear, plenty of women are misogynists too.
Not being a misogynist involves seeing women as equally valid and worthy humans on the same bases you would judge any other person (IE, a man).
strongly prejudiced against women.
Points two and three are forms of point one… if you think you’re superior to a class of humans then you hate those humans. If you think some people should do something because of the color of their skin or gender then you hate them… you’re denying them the same freedom to act that you enjoy.
not to justify bad behavior, but your points are rather off base. Thinking you’re superior to something doesn’t mean you hate it…One might consider themselves superior to plants and not hate them. One might consider Ford superior to Chevy and not hate Chevy. A woman can be misogynistic and consider males superior without hating females. Just because the 2 other points often come along for the ride doesn’t mean they are part of the definition and shouldn’t be asked.
I think hate, as a word, can mean what the parent comment used it for, though I wouldn’t say that’s the sense I get when I hear it. It’s the meaning in the phrase “hate group” though, which seems pretty relevant.
Mysogyny is the belief that women and the passtimes associated with cultural womanhood are less valuable, capable, worthy of resources and/or should have culturally different expectations or additional restrictions than men. Anything that places phenotypic female bodies or cultural “woman related stuff” on a heirachy beneath what is afforded to men is basic misogyny.
In practice a lot of mysogyny doesn’t look like active hatred. It can be internalized by women themselves who don’t on their face hate being female but still see womanly passtimes as being lesser. If are a woman who hates the women who wear pink, wear makeup and enjoy flirting with boys because you think their choice of expression of femininity is silly and purile… You are buying in to a heirachy based on cultural gendered lines that places the more feminine centric expressions as being lesser.
The targets aren’t always women. Misogyny for instance can be seen when a gay or non-gender conforming person is riddiculed for being lesser for wanting to express the feminine as the underlying assumption is that the trappings of femininity is not a choice between two equally vaild options but choosing an option which is lower than what they should want. Meanwhile women emulating the masculine is not usually commented on because when the masculine is aspirational and the feminine is silly, trite garbage for inferior people it makes logical sense to ditch it.
Misogyny exists in our use of language. Examine for instance the word “pussy” which equates the female genetalia with cowardly behavior and “unmannly” inferiority. You are acting as a woman which is supposed to be insulting because women are not just categorically different but equal… They are implied to be an inferior state of being.
Furthermore some misogyny can be “benevolent” - CRITICALLY this does not mean it is good. Benevolent misogyny is harmful - but it means that the misogyny comes from a place of misplaced pity and assumption of inferiority. Treating a person as weaker, more delicate, in need of help and unable to make their own decisions or utilize their own capacity for handling things is also misogyny. Being treated as though you are a child who will never grow up will drive people to bite through solid steel levels of frustration and madness or worse injure their self worth, sense of independence and empower learned helplessness.
The companion peice to misogyny is misandry. The idea that men are all to some degree inherently violent, sex motivated and unsafe for women and children to be around and the idea that any choice of a man to express the feminine is abhorant limiting the options of men to participate in society in ways not outlined by traditional masculine expectations.
Unlearning misogyny is not an easy thing. It is a process of dismantling behavior based out of something you may not have given much consideration. Our society is generally kind of misogynist by default so reaching in and recognizing misogyny and choosing to leave it behind takes a lot of effort and willingness to honestly self critique.
Thank you, that was a wonderful write up
Let’s break this down.
- Not all misogynists are guys.
- “Misogyny” is like “homophobia” - the literal definition applies, so it includes people who actively hate women, but it’s much broader in scope than that. 2A. All three of your examples are examples of misogyny.
Since he decided to delete a bunch of his comments and this comment thread can’t be seen…
I’m a little confused. I see you accusing OP of saying things against women and then you go on to call him a slur that is specifically offensive to women, but none of those comments in the picture are the ones you’re accusing OP of saying.
Either I’m missing something, or there is quite the irony here.
Edit: Just read OP’s comment history, and yeah, seems to be a jerk and a misogynist. I still think your choice to call him a c*nt was a bit ironic in context though.
The United States is the only country I know of in which that insult is considered misogynistic, and even then only when it is directed toward a woman. OP is not a woman, and, even though I reside in the United States, I do not consider myself an American. Regarding its offensiveness to women, yes, some women do consider it offensive. If any of them are reading this, then they can go ahead and be offended if they wish, that is their right. But the C-word is not misogynistic. Misogyny involves tools of gendered oppression, the way the N-word has long been a tool of racist oppression. The C-word has never had that sort of power.
If I had called him a “pussy”, then that is something different because it implies cowardice, as though people who own one are cowards. If I had accused him of having a small penis, then that would have been body-shaming and uncool. But cunt? Dick? Asshole? They are just words indicating someone is a jerk, which OP most certainly is.
I have done a lot…like, a lot of work on the vocabulary I employ. I have nothing but feminist men, women, and enbies in my circle, and we all hold each other accountable for the language we use. We shun ableist terms (“lame”, “crazy”), sex-shaming (“slut”), poverty-shaming (“white-trash”, “ghetto”), and a whole host of other very common terms in modern parlance. And, while a couple women I’ve known have had a distaste for the word “cunt”, they just didn’t like the way it sounded.
All this being said, thank you for what you do by trying to hold me accountable for the language I use.
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