Sexism vs. Misogyny: They are not the same and the difference matters.
In her ground-breaking book Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, philosopher and author Kate Manne explains what we get wrong about misogyny.
BY DEFY STAFF
As the political landscape becomes more polarized and the conversation about women’s rights becomes more heated, a renewed feminist movement has gained momentum. This means that the words ‘sexism’ and ‘misogyny’ have officially entered mainstream vocabulary through social media and pop culture.
These feminist concepts have been thrown around so much, it has come to the point where they have become oversimplified and conflated. They have become interchangeable in our minds, when in fact, they are quite different in their meaning. Understanding their differences is key in helping us to truly recognize what we’re really up against.
Kate Manne is an associate professor at the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell University. Her focus is on moral, feminist and social philosophy.
Her book Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, is an exploration of misogyny in public life and politics. It argues that misogyny should not be understood primarily in terms of the hatred or hostility some men feel toward women.
Rather, it should be recognised as the controlling, policing, punishing, and exiling of women who challenge male dominance. In many cases, it is compatible with the behaviour of rewarding ‘the good’ women and singling out ‘the bad’ women, which serves as a warning to those who dare to defy their male counterparts.
“There’s a tendency to define misogyny as this deep hatred in the heart, harbored by men toward girls and women. I define misogyny as social systems or environments where women face hostility and hatred because they’re women in a man’s world — a historical patriarchy.” Down Girl examines recent and current events such as the Isla Vista killings by Elliot Rodger, Rush Limbaugh’s diatribe against Sandra Fluke, and the case of the convicted serial rapist Daniel Holtzclaw – who preyed on African-American women as a police officer in Oklahoma City. It also talks about the “misogyny speech” of Julia Gillard, who was once Prime Minister of Australia.
The book highlights how these events, among others, set the stage for the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The misogyny leveled against Hillary Clinton was predictable in quantity and quality. Likewise, it was predictable that many people were prepared to forgive and forget Donald Trump’s history of sexual assault and harassment. For this is misogyny’s often overlooked and equally pernicious underbelly: exonerating or showing ‘himpathy’ for the comparatively privileged men who dominate, threaten, and silence women.
She explains that one way of looking at it is to see our society and workplaces as patriarchal social structures – bastions of male privilege – where dominant men might feel entitled to (and often receive) attention from women and other forms of feminine care.
“I think of misogyny and sexism as working hand-in-hand to uphold those social relations. Sexism is an ideology that says, ‘These arrangements just make sense. Women are just more caring, or nurturing, or empathetic,’ which is only true if you prime people by getting them to identify with their gender.”
Sexism is the ideology that supports patriarchal social relations. Misogyny, on the other hand, enforces it when there’s a threat of that system going away. It is something we practice almost unconsciously, and is embedded into our cultural customs and norms. This means that we can be implicated in the scheme without even being aware.
Manne explains that most misogynistic behavior is about hostility towards women who violate patriarchal norms and expectations, and who aren’t serving male interests in the ways they are expected to. There is this sense that women are doing something wrong: that they are morally objectionable, have a bad attitude, or they are abrasive, shrill, and too pushy.
“There are relatively few misogynists as brazen or as unapologetic as Donald Trump, partly because misogynists often think they’re taking the moral high ground by preserving a status quo that feels right to them. They want to be socially and morally superior to the women they target”.
By this definition, it’s easy to understand why misogyny is so prevalent in the workplace. When people are attached to positions they believe are their birthright, retaliation is undeniable if or when these positions are threatened or taken away.
“When men think women are taking opportunities and privileges away from them, when they think women are challenging male dominance, you get backlash. But we have to deal with that. Women cannot — and should not — internalize patriarchal values and give and give and give until we’re nothing”.
So, how will we know when things are getting better?
“What would need to change is for men in positions of power to accept that women can surpass them without having wronged them.” DEFY