The Existence Of Misogyny

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the existence of misogyny in our society by understanding how it is impacting women, and why society should make a change to eliminate this issue that has been affecting women physically, emotionally, and psychologically. Women’s movement was a big controversial topic throughout time for it was the fight for women’s right to have equality, and although women today do have equal rights as men, women still feel oppressed. Social media has a huge impact on how society chooses to view social issues, but there are questions yet to be answered on why women are still feeling oppressed.

The big question that people seek is “what are feminist fighting for now if they already have equal rights as men”? I argue that one of these reasons is because of the existence of contemporary issues that exist today which affect women in many impacting ways; domestic violence, harassment, oppression and sexism.

Given this argument I will first begin to discuss women’s position in misogyny by examining feminist Kate Manne’s perspective of this view in her book “Down Girl” which will explain why society should not encourage misogyny but make an effort to stop it.

Kate Manne’s book, Down Girl, Manne defines misogyny as “primarily a property of individual misogynists who are prone to hate women”. In her analysis I come to agree with Manne on the concept of misogyny to be naïve given the fact that society is focusing more on the attitude’s men have over women instead of what women are experiencing.

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I will now analyze one of the cases Manne discusses in her book between Steve Bannon and Mary Louise Piccard, which will show a woman’s actual experiences in misogyny through domestic violence and smothering. Bannon and Piccard appear to have a heated argument after Bannon remarked over his money being his, for he is the breadwinner, this rises Piccard’s attitude on how she is belittled in her role as a woman.

The argument went from verbal to physical as Piccard began spitting on Bannon’s face resulting in Piccard being chocked by her husband leaving all kinds of physical evidence of domestic abuse. Piccard chooses to press charges against her husband with having all evidence needed to win a case, which intimidated Bannon causing to threatened Piccard in every way to silence her. One of Manne’s quotes is “silence is golden for the men who smother and intimidate women into not talking” meaning that in this case, silencing Piccard (victim) it enabled misogyny to protect his manhood. Another example that will illustrate misogyny is through the presidential election of 2016 with the candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. It was evident to many people that Donald Trump would win the election because of patriarchy and misogyny. To understand this case, we must first comprehend what patriarchy is and how it enabled misogyny.

Patriarchy is a system where men hold the upper power in society. Our world has gender socialized us to believe that males are the dominant species as they are more aggressive than females. This is where misogyny tags along to make sure that we keep wiring this view of men superiority. Going back to the election, Hillary Clinton being a woman, was a drastic shock to everyone to see that a woman was running to become leader of the nation. For many it was motivation to see that a woman can finally take a role in what has been a man’s role for a long time, while for many others it was like how Clinton stated in an interview “The moment a woman steps forward and says, ‘I’m running for office’, it begins”. To the views of many people, Clinton was obviously stepping on man’s turf. Meaning that if a woman steps up to becoming a leader, then the whole patriarchy order system would be a complete mess, resulting in gender roles being more balanced given a win to feminists and misogynist being completely offended.

One understands more the experience a woman must go through when it to comes misogyny when they personally seen an experience. On a personal experience from somebody I knew, she was a divorced mother of three whom she brought a man into her home to live. I would constantly hear the discussions they would have whenever I would visit. On one night, when nobody was home but just her and the man, they had a very ugly heated argument with her yelling at him and the man responding back by choking her. She called the cops they took him away. In this case comparing the Piccard and Bannon case, it contains a same pattern with the woman being domestically abused. I can conclude that a man’s reaction to choke their partner is simply to make her vulnerable, weak and make her subordinate to him which is morally wrong.

The issues that misogyny brings can not just be simply solved in an instance and expect gender roles to dramatically change, but as a society for the better good we should as Manne states “stop it, not encourage it”. We have been socialized for centuries that men will always be the dominant species, but we should start socializing ourselves to view mutuality where one can freely act accord to how they want. We can start with our children, teaching them both the same skills so that they grow to a new culture where women and men can treat each other with respect. Decreasing domestic violence by not obligating their partner to fulfill what they believe they are entitled to; nor create hostile situations for not completing a request. The man should ask in a polite socialized manner what they wish to receive.