Why misogyny is bad

By the lights of my account, misogynists may simply be people who are consistent overachievers in contributing to misogynist social environments. Alternatively, misogynists may be people who have been heavily influenced in their beliefs, desires, actions, values, allegiances, expectations, rhetoric and so on, by a misogynist social atmosphere.

As Sally Haslanger has argued, we need to try to do justice in our theorising to both agents and social structures, and also to the complex ways in which they are intimately related, within material reality. According to my account , misogynist hostility can be anything that is suitable to serve a punitive, deterrent or warning function, which depending on your theory of punishment may be anything aversive to human beings in general, or the women being targeted in particular.

And since, on my account, one woman can often serve as a stand-in or representative for a whole host of others in the misogynist imagination, almost any woman will be vulnerable to some form of misogynist hostility from some source or other.

At this point, it is natural to wonder: will there be any way of knowing that a social environment is misogynistic if the relevant social mechanisms have done their job too well?

That is, if women are subject to very little by way of misogynist hostility or aggression at the moment, but only because they have been relegated to certain subordinate social roles so successfully, how could we determine this? Although I believe it makes sense to focus initially on hostile attitudes directed toward women, as well as their characteristic manifestations — given both their salience and their capacity to do irrevocable damage — it is also important to remember the flipside of the coin s.

A cursory look at the social world around us serves as preliminary confirmation of this: hostility toward women is really only the tip of a large and troubling iceberg. Another locus of concern should be the punishment and policing of men who flout the norms of masculinity — a point that is fairly well-recognised and, within certain limits, well-taken.

Perhaps less well-recognised, however, are the positive and exonerating attitudes and manifestations thereof of which men who dominate women tend to be the beneficiaries. I call this bias himpathy , and regard it as a grave moral ill and social danger. All rights reserved. Blocking does not "fight words with words" in the usual way: it does not refute bad speech or provide counter-evidence against it.

Rather, blocking "undoes" bad speech by retroactively depriving it of certain presuppositions. Hate speech can work to alter perception itself, so that we come to see our fellow humans as dehumanised or animal-like, so that we hear them as shifty, contemptible or dangerous. The kinds of breakdowns that take place in intimate relationships typically, and rightly, involve profound grief, and grief needs to be dealt with. But grief, and the helplessness it typically brings with it, are usually not well addressed by allowing anger to take centre stage.

Anger often is an alluring substitute for grieving, promising agency and control when the real situation affords little. A wave of fear-driven male rage is sweeping across the United States. The Trump presidency may be just the nadir we needed, but it can only give rise to genuinely new possibilities if we insist on what Trump insists on: that he and the party of Reagan are one.

The simultaneous mainstreaming and individualising of feminism has resulted in a hollowing out of critical feminist concepts and forms of activism.

The experiences of culturally and linguistically diverse women — intersected as they are by sexism, racism, social marginalisation as well as systemic issues relating to the protection of temporary migrants — are vital to this urgent task.

Posted Wed 19 Feb , pm. Many men who do drink in beer gardens dislike all the denigrating comments of women they hear from usually older men.

And women who are in the beer gardens either dislike the misogyny and have various forms of resistance, or have internalized misogyny so deeply they passively accept the sexism. And so, because the Philippines has been turned into hostile territory for any woman who has a modicum of self respect, I decided to review psychological studies on misogyny.

The studies clearly define misogyny and there is abundant proof that it is a problem. The negative impact of the devaluation of something as central as gender is perpetuated not only by men but also by women who reinforce the central male culture of devaluing women through acts of horizontal oppression and omission resulting from internalized misogyny Piggot ; Saakvitne and Pearlman And when women themselves reinforce this culture by downplaying, excusing, or applauding it, they participate in their own oppression.

I now present the 5 reasons in the literature that show why all these statements are bad for women and Filipinos in general.

Reasons why we should not tolerate, minimize, or encourage misogyny. These are not to be seen as jokes, eccentricities, or signs of sincerity — unless we mean sincerely hateful and abusive. They have serious psychological effects. That is why these types of remarks are against the law. It has also been shown that men who are inclined to sexual harassment are more likely to harass women when social norms condone or permit these.

Such men are likely to engage in similar behaviors when they see their peers doing it. Some of these people even understood the necessity of democracy to a free and prosperous society. Ensure the availability of complaint mechanisms. Teach gender equality issues as well as sexuality education including consent and personal boundaries. Train education professionals on unconscious bias. Sportswomen depicted in the media according to their family role and not their skills and strengths.

Scarcity of meaningful roles for women in cinema and the virtual absence of roles for older actresses. Scarcity of funding for film production in which women have a leadership role. Both culture and sport are shapers of attitudes. If women and men are depicted in stereotyped ways, this will feed into gender stereotyping.

When mostly men are visible in these areas, this influences the way women are seen as potential artists or athletes and narrows the range of role models for children and young people. In both areas, sexism leads to lower salaries and fewer opportunities for those confronted with it.

Adopt codes of conduct to prevent sexist behaviour, including provision for disciplinary action in sports federations. Encourage leading sport and cultural figures to speak up against sexism and implement campaigns to denounce violence in sport and sexist hate speech. Women performing more unpaid care and household work than men, for example only women helping to wash dishes at a dinner party.

Sexist jokes between friends. Boys being encouraged to run and take risks and girls to be docile and compliant. Toys e. Sexist jokes can intimidate and silence people and they trivialise sexist behaviour. Awareness-raising measures and research on the impact and the sharing of unpaid work between women and men. Measures for reconciling private and working life for all. Promotion of non-gendered toys.

Encouraging boys as well as girls to participate in household tasks. Giving girls , too, the space and freedom to play, explore and be themselves. Share on Facebook Share on Twitter. Sexism is any expression act, word, image, gesture based on the idea that some persons, most often women, are inferior because of their sex.

Sexism is present in all areas of life. Violence sometimes starts with a joke. Individual acts of sexism may seem benign, but they create a climate of intimidation, fear and insecurity. This leads to the acceptance of violence , mostly against women and girls. See it. Name it. Stop it. Why should it be addressed? How to prevent it? Media, Internet and social media Examples of sexism in the media: A sexualised depiction of women in the media. Workplace Examples of sexism at the workplace: The practice of unofficially excluding women who have children from career opportunities.

Public sector Examples of sexism in the public sector: Sexualised comments or comments about the appearance or family situation of politicians, most often women, including within parliaments. Culture and sport Examples of sexism in culture and sport: Sportswomen depicted in the media according to their family role and not their skills and strengths.