# data[].attributes.body
Misogyny not about male hostility or hatred towards women??

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
What is misogyny? How is it different from sexism? And why does the male-dominated status quo seem to persist?

A new book by Cornell philosophy professor Kate Manne has answers. She argues that misogyny is not about male hostility or hatred toward women - instead, it's about controlling and punishing women who challenge male dominance. Misogyny rewards women who reinforce the status quo and punishes those who don't.

In this interview, we explore how sexism and misogyny are different, how misogyny is embedded in our customs and institutions, and what Trump's election and our current moment reveal about our future.

Our conversation, lightly edited for clarity, follows.

Sean Illing

Can you sum up your argument in this book?

Kate Manne

There's a tendency to define misogyny as this deep hatred in the heart, harbored by men towards girls and women. I define misogyny as social systems or environments wherewomen face hostility and hatred because they're women in a man's world - a historical patriarchy.

Sean Illing

I always thought of misogyny as an ideology: a body of ideas that exists to justify social relations. But you argue that this is sexism, and that misogyny is better understood as a moral manifestation of sexist ideology.

Kate Manne

Yeah, that's really well put. One way of looking at it is we have these patriarchal social structures, bastions of male privilege where a dominant man might feel entitled to (and often receive) feminine care and attention from women.

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.

So, sexism is the ideology that supports patriarchal social relations, but misogyny enforces it when there's a threat of that system going away.

"It hurts to know that the most incompetent, morally bankrupt, and ignorant white man can be elected."

Sean Illing

Misogyny, the way you define it, is something we practice almost unconsciously. We're embedded in a culture and we internalize the customs and social mores that define that culture - and thus perpetuate it. We're all implicated, even if we're not aware of it.

Kate Manne

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.

I think most misogynistic behavior is about hostility towards women who violate patriarchal norms and expectations, who aren't serving male interests in the ways they're expected to. So there's this sense that women are doing something wrong: that they're morally objectionable or have a bad attitude or they're abrasive or shrill or too pushy. But women only appear that way because we expect them to be otherwise, to be passive.

Sean Illing

This book calls attention to the roles we all play in society, roles that we're assigned at birth and rarely question, and how we punish people - especially women - when they defy those roles.

Kate Manne

I'm less interested in assignments of blame or holding people accountable in direct ways for their perpetuation of misogyny, and I'm more interested in having us understand the ways in which most, if not all of us, tend to be complicit in misogynistic social systems.

I wanted to know how we police women, how we keep them in their place, in their designated lane. We can combat this, and it's not like we all have to purify ourselves or something. But we have to be aware of the unconscious biases and cultural norms that sustain all of this.

Sean Illing

So you want people to think of misogyny as a kind of enforcement strategy; it's not the patriarchy itself but the thing that preserves the patriarchy.

Kate Manne

Yes. Misogyny is the law enforcement branch of patriarchy. If you think about someone like Donald Trump claiming he's the law enforcement president, I think that's right. It's the law of patriarchy, among other things, that he's enforcing. It's the law that polices and punishes women who transgress or threaten dominant men.

"We have this image of these old, predatory, powerful monsters. They totally exist, but they didn't start out that way. They start in adolescence."

Sean Illing

Did the election of Donald Trump, an open misogynist, change your thinking in any way?

Kate Manne

No, it actually crystallized it. Since August 2015, my prediction was that Trump would be elected over Clinton, and the reason would be low voter turnout for Clinton, because that's just the way these things work: the lack of enthusiasm for a woman who's up against a male candidate who talks and acts like he's the last hurrah for patriarchy. I just saw it coming the whole way through.

On election night, I wasn't shocked, but it hurts to know that the most incompetent, morally bankrupt, and ignorant white man can be elected over a woman about whom reasonable people can disagree, but who was obviously more qualified than Trump.

Sean Illing

Every day, it seems, there is another scandal, another revelation about some asshole who used his power to exploit, assault, or harass women. We're having a cultural moment here. What's your read on what's happened since the Harvey Weinstein story broke?

Kate Manne

It seems to be mostly a good thing. It's certainly better than the alternative, which is these men getting away with it. But the thing that bothers me is their age. These are all men in their 50s, mostly 60s, sometimes 70s, who are being taken down well past the age of commercial viability, so they're not paying the price that they should.

The point is, we have this image of these old, predatory, powerful monsters. They totally exist, but they didn't start out that way. They started in adolescence. We are seeing this reluctance to face up to the fact that young men, even boys, can do the damage of their much older counterparts.

I wrote this book partly because I went to an all-boys school. I was one of the first three girls who attended the schoolthe year it integrated, and while my experiences weren't harrowing, they were, to put it mildly, unpleasant. And the institution just saw these boys as innocent, and didn't intervene in any meaningful way. That happens all too often.

"Misogyny is the law enforcement branch of patriarchy"

Sean Illing

What will it take to change things?

Kate Manne

I wish I knew. This time last year, I was in New York. I spent a week alone trying to write the conclusion of my book. My editor had asked me to write a prescriptive conclusion. What do we do about misogyny? I just couldn't, because I don't know. I just don't know.

I think one thing that will help is undoing the ties that bind people falsely, the false sense of moral obligation that keeps women with abusers and makes us reluctant to try to educate, to really morally educate young men not to participate in and enact rape culture.

The good news is it's becoming really obvious that women are not inferior to men in masculine-coded pursuits like math and physics and philosophy. Women are funny. Women are writers. It takes an enormous amount of willful denialism not to see that women are free-minded and creative beings just as much as men are.

Sean Illing

Culture can change pretty quickly. We've seen it happen with same-sex marriage and drug laws. But what we're talking about here is power relations - and that seems to be a different kind of challenge altogether.

Kate Manne

When people are attached to positions they believe are their birthright, you get huge amounts of backlash. 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.

What would need to change is for men in positions of power to accept that women can surpass them without having wronged them.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What is misogyny? How is it different from sexism? And why does the male-dominated status quo seem to persist? A new book by Cornell philosophy professor Kate Manne has answers. She argues that misogyny is not about male hostility or hatred toward women - instead, it's about controlling and punishing women who challenge male dominance.

# data[].attributes.body
May even come across as
PRO-Women

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
They are notoriously hard to spot. They do not come with a label attached to them, and they may even come across as woman lovers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Misogyny definition is - a hatred of women. How to use misogyny in a sentence. The (Etymological) Roots of misogyny

# data[].attributes.body
Donald Trump considered "misogynist in chief."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What Does Misogyny Look Like? (Published 2019)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A brief history of the #MeToo moment’s touchstone term.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Misogyny () is the hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women or girls. Misogyny manifests in numerous ways, including social exclusion, sex discrimination, hostility, androcentrism, patriarchy, male privilege, belittling of women, disenfranchisement of women, violence against women, and sexual objectification. Misogyny can be found within sacred texts of religions, mythologies, and Western philosophy and Eastern philosophy.

# data[].attributes.body
Misogynist aims to control women

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Misogyny is a tough topic to talk about since it involves bias or prejudice against women. The article talks about the basics of it and the signs on people.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
How much time do you devote to completing your housework schedule? How much time should you devote?

If you've read much of this site you'll know that I am a big fan of making, and using, a cleaning schedule.

Following Schedules For Housework Keep Our Lives More Hassle Free

I'm afraid that sometimes these discussions of schedules for cleaning your home can make people feel like I'm advocating that you clean with all your free time, before I come with a white glove to your home and see how well you live up to some very high standards.

On the contrary, however, I only think a housework schedule is a good idea so we make sure we get important things done, and don't let them fall through the cracks which can make our lives less enjoyable.

For instance, slipping on doing laundry for your family can actually make life less fun, because eventually you run out of clean clothes, generally at a most inopportune moment.

Let's face it -- certain things just have to get done in your home, like laundry, basic cleaning, meal prep, cooking, bill paying, and a plethora of other tasks. This is especially true once you have kids, which seems to vastly increase the amount of housework needed.

Therefore, I think of schedules as a tool to make life more comfortable, not as a means unto themselves, and certainly not so we can suck up all our free time with mundane tasks like cleaning grout lines in the bathroom.

How Much Time Do We Spend, On Average, Doing Our Housework Schedule Each Week?

Obviously, we need to spend enough time doing housework to get the needed stuff done, but not more. But, how much time should that take?

I began thinking about this recently, since I'm about half way through reading 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think, by Laura Vanderkam. The book is about how everyone has 168 hours each week, and how to make the most of that time.

In the book Vanderkam cited several time use survey studies which I thought had interesting statistics, which I'll share here:

In 1965 married mothers spend 34.5 hours on household tasks

In 2008 mothers of minor children spend 16-17 hours weekly on housework (this is for both working and stay and home moms, combined)

Further, there is a difference these days between the amount of time mothers who work outside the home and those that do not spend on housework. Stay at home moms spend 26 hours/week on housework (not including grocery shopping, but including cooking) and mothers in the workforce spend a little over 14 hours on housework.

Vanderkam has some interesting (and controversial) ideas about what those statistics show us about how we can and should spend our time as it relates to housework. However, I'll save my critiques and thoughts about her book for another post.

Instead, however, these statistics got me thinking that the amount of hours various people spend on their housework schedule are vastly different, but what is ideal?

Results Matter More Than Time Spent On Your Housework Schedule

After trying to figure out an ideal amount of time to strive for, using these statistics as a guide, I realized something. The amount of time spent doesn't matter at all, but instead the results do.

As I said previously, your schedule is a means to an end -- a comfortable, relatively clean home that you can relax in, and enjoy. You don't need to have your home obssessively clean, and you don't need to spend more time doing it than is really necessary.

Therefore, you should relax your cleaning standards, but only to the point where things continue to work well in your home. For instance, you don't need to scrub your kitchen floor everyday on your hands and knees. On the other hand, if your floor is so full of crumbs that it is attracting bugs, clean it more often. You have common sense, and will know where that happy balance lies for each task in your home.

Further, when you do housework you should focus on doing it as efficiently as possible, to get it done and have more time for fun. On the other hand, don't rush through it to the point where you skip tasks that you know make your house run better.

Finding The Ideal Amount Of Time You Should Spend On Your Housework Schedule

Each person's circumstances are different, so each person's ideal is different. However, no matter what your circumstances are here is a great way for you to figure out the amount of time you should devote to your housework.

First, make a time log for yourself and see how you spend your time for the next week. Then, you'll know exactly how much time you spend doing housework now, along with all the other things you do with your time.

Once you have this data you can assess your housekeeping results compared to the amount of time you are spending.

You can ask yourself some of these questions: Do you think you are using your time wisely and efficiently? Are you devoting too much time to tasks that shouldn't take this long, or are your standards too high?

Conversely, are you unhappy with the state of your house and feel like you should devote more time to these tasks? Could you get more done in the time you devote to housework, if you were more efficient, or do you need to devote a bit more time to this area of your life so everything gets done?

No matter how you decide to tackle this issue after making and assessing your time log, a housework schedule can help you make a happier, cleaner, organized, and enjoyable home for you and your family. It provides a framework for what you've decided are your priorities, and a set amount of time in which to accomplish those priorities.

You can learn more about schedules, routines and habits for your home here to get you started in making your own schedule that works best for you, your priorities, and the amount of time you have available.

Related Pages You May Enjoy
Schedules, Routines And Habits For Your Home Weekly House Cleaning Schedules For Your Home Go From Housework Schedule: How Much Time Should I Devote To It? To Home Page

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Housework Schedule: How Much Time Should I Devote To It?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
How much time do you devote to completing your housework schedule? How much time should you devote? If you've read much of this site you'll know that I am a big fan of making, and using, a cleaning schedule.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
One of the central arguments of my book , is that, rather than conceptualizing misogyny from the point of view of the accused, it might be far more productive to think of misogyny instead from the point of view of its targets or victims. In other words, when it comes to misogyny, it is better to focus on the hostility women face in navigating the social world rather than the hostility men may or may not feel in their encounters with certain women as a matter of deep psychological explanation.

It seems to me that there are a number of clear advantages to this approach.

It avoids psychologism, without denying the hostile "flavour" of misogyny, or the fact that it may involve hostile attitudes on the part of individual agents (though it need not).

This approach helps to unify the many ways misogyny can be instantiated, and, importantly, avoids individualism by allowing that social practices, institutions, policies and so on can manifest hostility toward women - as with, for example, a "hostile work environment" or a differentially "chilly" social climate.

It also makes misogyny more epistemologically tractable by enabling us to invoke a "reasonable woman" standard - or, more precisely, we can ask whether a girl or woman who the environment is meant to accommodate might reasonably interpret some encounter, aspect, or practice therein as hostile. This is as opposed to doing psychology to glean an agent's ultimate intentions, or having to take their word for it.

This is to say that what matters is not deep down, but right there on the surface, in view of the proposed shift in focus from misogyny's agents to its subjects. For while I would defend the importance of "reactive attitudes" (to use P.F. Strawson's term) like resentment and disapproval to the nature of misogyny, I also advocate construing these attitudes less psychologistically than is common, by placing the emphasis more on the "reactive" part and less on the "attitude." These are the responses women face in navigating their social environments, as subject to whatever constraints may emerge from how they may reasonably be interpreted.

Hostility that is expressed, but not consciously experienced as such, can therefore count as real hostility. Agents do not have a monopoly on the social meaning of their actions. And their intentions will rarely settle, although they may bear on, this.

So, on the analysis of misogyny that I propose, a misogynist social environment may but need not be the product of individual agents' bigotry. It may rather be the result of some people's inchoate discomfort and hostility when more or less any well-entrenched system of social norms is being dismantled. Women who resist or flout gendered norms and expectations may subsequently garner suspicion and consternation, which has less to do with their challenging gendered norms per se, and more to do with their challenging entrenched norms simpliciter.

And for some people, feminism in particular has profoundly disrupted their sense of the social order. The hostility they display to women who disrupt or pose a threat to gendered social hierarchies, say, is compatible with their being egalitarians in the abstract. They may nevertheless perceive powerful women who do not wield their power in service of men's interests as abrasive and threatening.

For that reason, among others, a misogynist social environment may be partly the result of more or less well-intentioned people acting out of disavowed emotions, or exhibiting flashes of aggression that are not consciously experienced. And indeed, such aggression may be acted out partly as a substitute for feeling it.

Misogyny may also be the product of institutions and social practices that have an expressive value and say something to women who fail or refuse to toe the line in some way. Sometimes, the misogynistic elements of these institutions and social practices - including the law and public policies - will be largely vestigial at this point in time. And sometimes they will be pioneered or revived by the more powerful, who are playing on the insecurities and sense of disenfranchisement common among the less powerful in the wake of the achievements of progressive social movements.

Whether or not these powerful people are merely exploitative and cynical, or actually subscribe to the poison they peddle, is irrelevant from the perspective I am advancing. What matters are the contributions they make to a misogynist social environment - for example, the extent to which they tend to police and punish women in accordance with patriarchal law and order.

What constitutes misogyny?

I propose that, at the most general level of description, misogyny should be understood as the "law enforcement" branch of a patriarchal order, which has the overall function of policing and enforcing its governing ideology. This general thought can be made more precise in the following definition.

Constitutively speaking, misogyny in a social environment comprises the hostile social forces that:

will tend to be faced by a (wider or narrower) class of girls and women because they are girls and women in that (more or less fully specified) social position; and

serve to police and enforce a patriarchal order, instantiated in relation to other intersecting systems of domination and disadvantage that apply to the relevant class of girls and women (such as various forms of racism, xenophobia, classism, ageism, transphobia, homophobia, ableism and so on).

As a substantive matter of fact, these misogynistic social forces will:

often target girls and women (in the relevant class) for actual, perceived, or representative challenges to or violations of applicable patriarchal norms and expectations (again, operating in conjunction with applicable intersecting oppressive forces).

Where patriarchal norms and expectations may involve, for example:

distinctively gendered contents, which reflect and help to regulate or restore patriarchal order; or

particularly harsh enforcement mechanisms for girls and women (in the relevant class), as compared with boys and men (in this class - that is, male counterparts); or

particularly intense and/or invasive forms of policing (for example, surveillance, scrutiny and suspicion) for girls and women (in the relevant class), as compared with male counterparts.

So, compared with the naive (or psychologistic) conception, my account holds that misogyny primarily targets women because they are women in a man's world (that is, a historically patriarchal one, among other things), rather than because they are women in a man's mind, where that man is a misogynist.

There are some important qualifications to be made here. The definition that I propose leaves it open that non-binary people are even more vulnerable to the harms of policing and enforcing patriarchal ideology than are girls and women. My definition also allows that misogynist forces can be distinctive for girls and women located in different positions in social space, as well as operating on girls and women in ways that are more general.

Even in the latter case, however, general does not mean uniform in the way it is experienced, nor in its subsequent impact on girls and women. That doesn't follow, and would be false in many cases in ways that would obscure important ways in which vulnerabilities can augment one another, or alternatively be mitigated by privilege (among other possibilities).

But misogyny can also be distinctive to particularly situated girls and women. Consider, for example, the forms of erasure and subsequent invisibility that are endemic of, misogynoir - Moira Bailey's term for the kind of misogyny faced by Black women in America given their particular social location, and the operation of anti-Black racism in conjunction with heteronormative, patriarchal, and ableist social forces. Take the recent predicament of Rosetta Watson here, a Black disabled woman living in Maplewood, Missouri. She called the police four times over a short period, due to incidents of domestic violence - including "choking" or, as it is better termed, nonfatal manual strangulation by her then boyfriend. As someone who was renting an apartment, she was declared a "nuisance" by police after calling more than twice within a 180-day time frame. This is a common kind of local ordinance in many towns and cities throughout the United States. Watson hence lost the occupancy permit required to live in the city, and was essentially exiled for six months - all because she sought protection from a potentially lethal, terrifying, and frequently gendered, form of violence.

Eviction is a ubiquitous problem for Black women, one that sociologist Matthew Desmond takes to be the under-noticed analogue of mass incarceration for Black men, which constitutes a similarly deep source of systemic injustice and disadvantage: "Poor Black men are locked up while poor Black women are locked out," Desmond argues. This suggests misogynoir is bound up with, and makes poor Black women especially vulnerable to, housing insecurity, homelessness, legal difficulties, and incarceration too, among other adverse outcomes - and this against a backdrop of widespread social indifference on the part of affluent White liberals. Black women in such vulnerable positions may become yet more vulnerable to domestic violence and sexual assault due to the combination of these factors (being disproportionately vulnerable already). Misogynoir begets itself, and the cycle may continue.

Having defined misogyny as a property of social environments first and foremost, we can now say that:

derivatively, an individual agent's attitudes or behaviour counts as misogynistic within a social context insofar as it reflects, or perpetuates, misogyny therein.

We can give analogous definitions of misogyny as a property of practices, institutions, artworks, other artefacts and so on. But, when it comes to calling an agent a misogynist on the whole, there are reasons to be cautious about the risk of overplaying our hand and engaging in some of the very moralism that attending to misogyny teaches us to be wary of. And, of course, there are also relevant considerations of fairness. One generally does not want to attach a shaming label to someone in virtue of a near-universal trait of character, attitude, or behavioural disposition.

I hence suggest that the term "misogynist" is best treated as a threshold concept, and also a comparative one, functioning as a kind of "warning label" which should be sparingly applied to people whose attitudes and actions are particularly and consistently misogynistic across myriad social contexts. On this view, individual agents count as misogynists if and only if their misogynistic attitudes and/or actions are significantly more extreme and more consistent than most other people in the relevant comparison class (for instance, other people of the same gender, and perhaps race, class, age, in similar social environments, during the same era).

According to this analysis, misogyny is an inherently political phenomenon. Specifically, it makes misogyny in a social environment metaphysically dependent on there being norms and expectations of a patriarchal nature. This does not mean that misogyny can only obtain within a fully functioning patriarchy. But it does mean that there must be some historical connection with one - with "connection" construed liberally enough to include borrowing from another culture, incipient norms and expectations, as well as direct inheritance. Hostility toward women would simply be an individual quirk or something like a phobia absent a system of patriarchal oppression in the background - casting a shadow even while in the process of being dismantled.

Can misogyny exist without misogynists?

It should be apparent that misogynistic social mechanisms can operate without the dedicated efforts of individual bigots. But my account also explicitly affirms the possibility of individual agents who deserve to be called misogynists.

I think the "bad apple" picture of misogyny is clearly false and unhelpful, and I am intent on moving beyond it. But we shouldn't be in too much of a hurry to exonerate everyone either. 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.

My approach thus tries to avoid two extremes that I take to be mistaken here: the first being to think about misogyny as a blight spread by individual "bad apples," and the second being to think about it in terms that are purely structural and social, to the exclusion of the distinctively agentic and interpersonal. As Sally Haslanger has argued, we need to try to do justice in our theorizing to both agents and social structures, and also to the complex ways in which they are intimately related, within material reality.

"Down girl"

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.

Misogynist hostility encompasses myriad of what I call "down girl" moves - for example: adults are insultingly likened to children, people to animals or even to objects. As well as infantilizing and belittling, there's ridiculing, humiliating, mocking, slurring, vilifying, demonizing, as well as sexualizing or, alternatively, desexualizing, silencing, shunning, shaming, blaming, patronizing, condescending and other forms of treatment that are dismissive and disparaging in specific social contexts. Then there is violence and threatening behaviour, including "punching down" - that is, deferred or displaced aggression. 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.

These various "down girl" moves may not reflect how women are literally viewed much of the time, except perhaps as the result of wishful thinking and wilful denial. They're dynamic, active and forceful manoeuvrings. They put women in their place when they seem to have "ideas beyond their station." So I think of the misogyny of individual agents as less a matter of beliefs than desires - desires and other similar states of mind that ask the world be kept or brought in line with a patriarchal order.

Misogyny as systemic, and part of a larger system

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).

For, while misogyny's primary manifestations may be in punishing bad women, and policing women's behaviour, a system of punishment and reward - and conviction and exoneration - almost invariably works holistically. So, by reflecting just on the structural features of the account, we would predict that misogyny as I've defined it is likely to be continuous with a whole host of ways of enforcing gender conformity.

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. We should also be concerned with the rewarding and valorising of women who conform to gendered norms and expectations, in being, for example, loving mothers, attentive wives, loyal secretaries, "cool" girlfriends, or good waitresses.

Another locus of concern should be the punishment and policing of men who flout the norms of masculinity - a point that is fairly well-recognized and, within certain limits, well-taken. Perhaps less well-recognized, however, are the positive and exonerating attitudes and manifestations thereof of which men who dominate women tend to be the beneficiaries.

I am particularly concerned to identify the tendency to show undue or excessive sympathy toward privileged boys and men over their female victims and/or counterparts. I call this bias himpathy, and regard it as a grave moral ill and social danger.
Kate Manne Adapted from Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny by Kate Manne. Copyright November 2017 by Oxford University Press and published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Cornell University, and the author of Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
One of the central arguments of my book , is that, rather than conceptualizing misogyny from the point of view of the accused, it might be far more productive to think of misogyny instead from the point of view of its targets or victims. In other words, when it comes to misogyny, it is better to focus on the hostility women face in navigating the social world rather than the hostility men may or may not feel in their encounters with certain women as a matter of deep psychological explanation.

# data[].attributes.body
Concept started from a greek mythology

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The term "misogyny" is derived from the Ancient Greek word "mīsoguníā" which means hatred towards women. Misogyny has taken shape in multiple forms such as male privilege, patriarchy, gender discrimination, sexual harassment, belittling of women, violence against women, and sexual objectification.[ 1, 2] The roots of misogyny can be traced back to ancient Greek mythology. According to Hesiod before women came into existence, men were coexisting peacefully as companions to Gods until Prometheus decided to steal the secret of fire from the God which angered Zeus. Zeus punished mankind with an evil thing for their delight called Pandora, the first woman who carried a box which unleashed all evils such as labor, sickness, old age, and death.[ 3]

As mythology spilled its vices about women, every religion had their own viewpoint. Hinduism presents diverse view about the position of women and some text place women as the highest goddess and some restrict them to the role of a mother, daughter and wife, as described in Manusmriti.[ 4] Tertullian, the father of Latin Christianity, said that being a female is a curse given by God and they are the Devil's Gateway.[ 3] In Islam, the holy book Quran has a 4 th chapter called An-Nisa meaning Women. The 34 th verse is a key verse in feminist criticism of Islam which reads: Men are in charge of women by [right of] what Allah has given one over the other and what they spend [for maintenance] from their wealth. So righteous women are devoutly obedient... But those [wives] from whom you fear arrogance-[ first] advise them; [then if they persist], forsake them in bed; and [finally], strike them. But if they obey you [once more], seek no means against them.[ 5]

Misogyny over years has evolved as an ideology which has engulfed the society as a smog which diminishes their site to aurora. Great philosophers, socialist, and thinkers of golden era were subdued by roars of male dominant society which narrowed their vision and made them a supporter of patriarchal society. Aristotle who was an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist was also a misogynist. He thought of women as a deformity, an incomplete male. He preached that men should always command and women should follow as they are the inferior being created by God.[ 6] Misogyny at its front had male supporters, but over years, few females also supported the ideology as stated by Sociologist Michael Flood.[ 7]

Over centuries, women have been suppressed, their rights were neglected as a human being, they were treated as an lower part of the society, and their roles were restricted to household chores and birthing. Prolonged oppression raised many voices and collectively led to a concept of feminism which started the longest movement in history which still continues.

Feminism is a gamut of socio political movements and ideologies that share a common goal to delineate, establish, and achieve political, economic, personal, and social equality of sexes.[ 8] Feminist movements over decades have campaigned for rights of women, including the right to vote, to hold public office, to work, to earn fair wages or equal pay, to own property, to receive education, to enter contracts, to have equal rights within marriage, and to have maternity leave. Feminists have also worked to promote bodily autonomy and integrity and to protect women and girls from brutal crimes such as rape, sexual harassment, and domestic violence.[ 9, 10]

The modern feminist movement could be divided into four waves.[ 11, 12] Each wave dealt with different aspects of the same feminist issues. The first wave of feminism started with the "Women's suffrage movement" in 1848 in New York under the leadership of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The movement aimed at promoting women's right to vote.[ 13] The second wave which started somewhere in 1960s campaigned for the legal and social equality for women, it included issues about their reproductive rights, legal inequalities, domestic violence, marital rape and divorce law.[ 14, 15] The third wave which began in the 1990s[ 16] dealt with issues such as sex positive feminism, intersectionality, transfeminism, vegetarian ecofeminism, and postmodern feminism. Sex-positive feminism or sexually liberal feminism, propagates the idea of sexual freedom being an essential component of women's freedom.

The term intersectionality was coined by civil rights advocate Kimberle Williams Crenshaw. This theory considers that various aspects of humanity such as class, race, sexual orientation, and gender are not separate, but are interwoven and their relationships are essential to an understanding of human conditions. It focused on abolishing gender role stereotypes and expanding feminism to include women of various culture.[ 17, 18] Transfeminism as defined by scholar and activist Emi Koyama[ 19] constituted a movement for liberation of transwomen. Vegetarian ecofeminism postulates that all types of oppression, like castism, racism and sexism, are associated with each other. It is a kind of inter human oppression. A major belief of ecofeminism is that there is a strong connection between the domination of women and the domination of nature, and that both must be eradicated in order to end oppression.

Postmodern feminism[ 20] has two components, i.e., liberal feminism[ 18] and radical feminism,[ 21] the former being an individualistic form of feminist theory which focuses on women's ability to maintain their equality by uplifting themselves in the field of academics, and other domains by which they can make better decisions and attain equal political and legal rights. Radical feminism on the other hand demands drastic reordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts.

The fourth-wave feminism refers to a kind of feminism that began around 2012 which targets sexual harassment, campus sexual harassment, rape culture, workplace discrimination, body shaming, sexist imagery in the media, online misogyny, assault on public transport, and other type of harassment that is associated with the use of social media.[ 22, 23, 24] The recent issues which were shocking and horrid like Nirbhaya Delhi Gang Rape, Harvey Weinstein allegations, and Bill Cosby allegations gave birth to campaigns like Everyday Sexism Project, No More Page 3, and the recent #MeToo.[ 23]

These issues had drawn significant focus and brought legal reforms in issues such as sexual harassment at workplace as many women are employed in private, government, or unorganized sectors. Sexual harassment constitutes a gross violation of human right and women's right to equality and dignity. It is illegal to harass a person because of their gender and sexual harassment includes unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature. Workplace sexual harassment, like other forms of violence, is not harmless. It involves serious health, human, and economic and social costs, which manifest themselves in the overall development indices of a nation. Its prevalence and the constant uproar brought legal actions like sexual harassment act 2012 to cease the silent menace.

It is commendable to note the progress made by the women over centuries and the fight will continue until the roots of misogyny is removed from the world. With the wave of liberalization as a part of globalization, it was expected that religious and conservative societies would become more gender sensitive and provide equal access to education and employment. However, in some places, these hopes have been belied, due to rise of religious fundamentalism. It is important to note that even "liberal" Christian societies are yet to attain complete gender equality, so one should not despair at tardy progress in our country. Without equal access to education, equal opportunity, and economic emancipation, gender equality will remain a chimera.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Misogyny, feminism, and sexual harassment

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The term "misogyny" is derived from the Ancient Greek word "mīsoguníā" which means hatred towards women. Misogyny has taken shape in multiple forms such as male privilege, patriarchy, gender discrimination, sexual harassment, belittling of women, violence against women, and sexual objectification.[ 1, 2] The roots of misogyny can be traced back to ancient Greek mythology.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Even though a lot of progress has been made on the gender wage gap, there is still work to be done.

The median full-time female worker makes just 80.7 cents for every dollar her male counterpart makes.

That gap in pay varies widely based on location, race, and several other factors.

Over half a century after the US passed the Equal Pay Act, American women still face a substantial gender wage gap across the spectrum.

Today, on average, a woman working full time earns 80.7 cents for every dollar a man working full time earns. Additionally, women's median annual earnings are $9,909 less than men's, according to data from the US Census Bureau.

While progress has been made toward pay parity between the sexes, the Institute for Women's Policy Research estimates that it will not be reached until 2059.

The six charts below illustrate the significant pay discrepancies between men and women based on race, age, geographical location, and more.

More: International Women's Day gender wage gap gender inequality wage gap

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
6 charts that show the glaring gap between men and women's salaries

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Even though a lot of progress has been made on the gender wage gap, there is still work to be done. The median full-time female worker makes just 80.7 cents for every dollar her male counterpart makes. That gap in pay varies widely based on location, race, and several other factors.

# data[].attributes.body
Misogyny Poem

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The one, two, three, four waves of feminism are often considered "new," "progressive," or "deviant from history."

But when you look at history, women have been ruling from the start.

Before male-dominated leadership, women held coveted positions in the Old World. In her book Iron Butterflies: Women Transforming Themselves in the World, Birute Regine draws attention to these ancient, feminine powers. Pre-Roman era, the Egyptian goddess Isis gained a massive cult following. A figure of motherhood and fertility, Isis was hailed as an incredibly powerful figure. Her followers knew she possessed magical powers strong enough to resurrect her husband, Osiris. The devotion to Isis carried throughout centuries. It reached its peak in 83 BCE but eventually fizzled out with of the rise of Christianity in 6 CE.

In general, Ancient Egypt held some of history's greatest female monarchs. Along with Isis, the ruler Hatsheput obtained huge power. She adapted the grand title and rights as a pharaoh, a king believed to mediate between the humans and the gods. Additionally, historians regard Cleopatra VII as "one of the most powerful rulers Egypt had ever known." In a time of chaos, the queen was highly respected for managing her country while the Roman Empire attempted to take over.

Other respected females took form in Greek mythology. Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty, and Athena, the goddess of wisdom, shared level thrones with Gods on Mount Olympus. Both goddesses were born unconventionally. Aphrodite sprung from the ocean, while Athena burst from Zeus' head in battle gear. Their unbelievable yet noteworthy appearances implied the strength of both goddesses, causing both of them to gain esteemed positions in Ancient Greek religion.

Between Isis, Athena, and Aphrodite, there's no doubt women possessed great power in ancient society. The real question is, what happened between ancient times and the present? When did men take over? When were women pushed back?

The answer goes back thousands of years.

When it comes to pinpointing, there isn't one, specific event that boosted the power of men and degraded the power of women. Instead, misogyny's emergence in multiple cultures worked together to create the uneven roles of today.

There's no doubt about it: misogyny pervades classical Greek writings. Aristotle regarded women not as equals, but as incomplete, deformed males. In dialogues such as Timaeus and Laws, Plato creates inferior women characters against superior male characters. However, despite the attitudes of famous philosophers, traces of equality remained within the power structure. Marriages between husband and wife were seen as a partnership, and women were granted civil rights such as suffrage and property ownership.

Then there's the issue of agricultural societies. Before, hunter-gatherer societies split equal roles amongst men and women. This shared responsibility diminished as land became more valuable. In America, this change arrived with European influence. Before, Native Americans lived in the communal, hunter-gatherer society. However, cultural exchange altered the equal-gender lifestyle. The times then turned to agricultural societies, where expectations dictated that husbands work while wives stay home. These differently defined parts forever changed the value and status of women.

Moreover, the tale of Adam and Eve is rampant with sexism. The biblical story victimizes Adam. It portrays him as innocent, unfairly punished by Eve's ignorance, even though he ate the apple out of his own free will. This biased viewpoint undoubtedly led to generalizations between men and women; it suggests that men are "slaves" to women's requests and women are inherently evil and manipulative. The Genesis section is just a preview of sexism within the Bible. Other passages call for the submission of a women, such as when St. Paul says, "I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man; she must be silent" in Timothy 2:12. Even the holy Moses endorses violence against women with his order "Do not allow a sorceress to live." From the most popular religion in the Western World, the Bible's encouragement to silence women most certainly created a culture of hatred towards females.

Misogyny is evident not only in Christianity, but also in Islam. Chapter 4, Line 34 of the Quran instructs a husband to beat his rebellious wife until she obeys his commands. Explicit directions of brutality implies the desire to keep women contained, like objects, and thus encourages hatred towards the gender.

Misogyny, therefore, has various roots. From our examination, you can see one truth: there is no single, accurate origin of the societal hatred of women. However, hindsight is 20/20 and makes another fact clear: in 2015, misogyny should be history. Women have proved themselves throughout history. They are trustworthy citizens, leaders, and members of society. They are strong, hard-working, and caring. It's time to remember when women dominated and step into those roots.

Now is the time for equality.

Misogyny is history.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Origins of Misogyny: How History Held Women Back - FEM Newsmagazine

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The one, two, three, four waves of feminism are often considered "new," "progressive," or "deviant from history." But when you look at history, women have been ruling from the start. Before male-dominated leadership, women held coveted positions in the Old World.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Brace yourself, because what I am about to say is #depressing.

According to a new study presented at the American Sociological Association's annual meeting, most Americans still believe that women should be responsible for the majority of the cleaning, cooking, grocery shopping, and child-rearing-even if the woman has a full-time job or makes more money than her partner.

Yes, for real.

Researchers from Indiana University and The University of Maryland looked into the effects of income and gender on the division of labor between married couples. They wanted to see which partner was expected to do more in the chore department, and what role gender stereotypes played in that decision.

To get to the bottom of these important queries, researchers surveyed 1,025 participants using GfK, a research company that maintains a nationally representative panel of respondents. The participants were each asked to read different vignettes describing a married household. Several characteristics about each partner were listed-income, occupation, and hobbies. Here's an example:

Brian and Jennifer met five years ago and have been married for just over a year. Brian is a physical therapist at a hospital, bringing home about $57,500 a year, and Jennifer is a reporter for a local newspaper, bringing home about $25,250 a year. They are both very busy, each working 40 hours per week. Despite their busy schedules, they try to do things together regularly. In fact, one of the only reoccurring arguments they have is what to do on the weekend together. Brian usually wants to play basketball if they are going out, or watch an action movie if they are staying in. Instead, Jennifer would rather go shopping or watch a romantic comedy

In this case, the husband makes more money than the wife. In other vignettes, these traits were manipulated so that the wife made more than the husband. Since the researchers also included gay and lesbian couples, the listed characteristics were manipulated so that one partner was seen as more "masculine" and one was seen as "more feminine" in order to judge how gender stereotypes affected same-sex couples.

After participants read the vignettes, they were asked about who should be responsible for eight different household chores: cooking, washing dishes, cleaning, grocery shopping, doing laundry, outdoor chores, making auto repairs, and managing household finances. They were also asked who should be responsible for different child-rearing responsibilities, including emotional needs, physical needs, discipline, and stay-at-home parenting.

Now, one might assume that whoever makes less money or spends less time at work would be tasked with taking on more household and child-rearing responsibilities. But what the researchers found was that gender was a bigger predictor of household expectations than income. In fact, income made basically no difference.

Nearly 75% of respondents thought that the female partners in heterosexual couples should be responsible for cooking, doing laundry, cleaning the house, and buying groceries. Women were also expected to be responsible for household finances. On the other side, 90% of respondents felt men should be responsible for outdoor work and car maintenance.

I don't know about your household, but the cooking and laundry in my house usually has to be done a lot more than fixing the car, which puts a much bigger burden on women than men.

As for child-rearing, 82% of respondents said the female partner should be responsible for the children's physical needs, 72% said she should take care of the children's emotional needs, and 62% believed the woman should be the stay-at-home parent. Meanwhile, men were only expected to handle one task: discipline (and even that was only expected by 55% of the participants).

"Female partners are expected to do more female-typed chores than male partners, and male partners are expected to do more male-typed chores than female partners, holding relative income constant," explained the authors in the paper.

They added: "Relative income has virtually no effect on the amount or types of tasks assigned to heterosexual males, aside from stay-at-home parenting." In other words, even when men made less money, the expectations of housework placed on them didn't change. And naturally, this creates a double-standard. As the authors explain: "When women are either lower-earning or feminine, they are penalized in the sense that they are expected do more chores and childcare tasks than they otherwise would. But Americans generally do not penalize [heterosexual] men [with additional chores] when they are lower-earning or feminine."

Put plainly, the results indicate that if a woman makes less money than her husband, she is absolutely expected to take care of the chores and child-rearing. This holds true even if she herself has a job, and it's thought of almost as a way of compensating for her lower income. However, when a woman makes more money, she is still expected to take on the brunt of housework, but no extra expectation is placed on the lower-earning male, aside from the fact that he might be expected to become a stay-at-home parent. This presents an unfortunate reality: Housework is still considered women's work, no matter what.

I warned you this would be depressing!

As mentioned earlier, the study also used gay and lesbian couples in the marriage vignettes. The researchers found that overall, the more "masculine" partner was given more classically masculine chores and the more "feminine" partner was given more typically feminine chores. But according to the authors, this was rather unexpected.

"Sex was by far the strongest determinant of which tasks people assigned to each spouse in heterosexual couples," Natasha Quadlin, a co-author on the study, said in a press release. "But, surprisingly, that theme extended to same-sex couples. When there wasn't a sex difference between partners, people relied on information about gender to guide their beliefs about what people should be doing. So, in other words, they took the heterosexual norm, where there are certain chores that men are expected to do and certain chores that women are expected to do, and used that same rationalization to determine household responsibilities for same-sex couples."

At the end of the day, these gender norms tend to have a bigger impact on couples than advancements we've made in gender equality on a policy level, according to the researchers, and they inevitably hurt women. "We have public policies aimed at ensuring that women and men have equal earnings, but those policies will not necessarily advance gender equality in the home if people maintain such gendered attitudes," they write.

The burden of the "second shift" isn't just about equality-it's also about health. Previous research has shown that women who work full time are at a greater risk of heart disease, cancer, arthritis, and diabetes than men who work full time. Women essentially pull two jobs-their paying job and their household job-whereas men simply aren't expected to do the same.

Seriously (in the words of John Oliver): How is this still a thing?
Taryn Hillin is Fusion's love and sex writer, with a large focus on the science of relationships. She also loves dogs, Bourbon barrel-aged beers and popcorn - not necessarily in that order.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Women are literally expected to do all the chores, depressing study finds

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Brace yourself, because what I am about to say is #depressing. According to a new study presented at the American Sociological Association's annual meeting, most Americans still believe that women should be responsible for the majority of the cleaning, cooking, grocery shopping, and child-rearing-even if the woman has a full-time job or makes more money than her partner.