The Logic of Misogyny

“Whereas old-school misogynists condemn and punish women for their sexual powers and transgressions, this new kind of misogynist competes with other men for heterosexual dominance—and for the ladies.”

“Trump’s misogyny is not the historical moralistic misogyny. Traditional misogyny blames women for the lustful, licentious and powerful urges that men sometimes feel in their presence. In this misogyny, women are the powerful, disgusting corrupters—the vixens, sirens and monsters.”

“Trump’s blunt kind of misogyny is a good place to start in understanding the general phenomenon. It is so crude, shameless, and unapologetic that we run little risk of getting lost in its nuances. But we must ask the natural next question: What happens to misogyny when it acquires a little subtlety or goes underground and manages more by way of plausible deniability?”

“The answer, all too often, is that it is transformed into moralistic forms—which are not, as Brooks seems to imply, historical artifacts. What unites these varieties of misogyny, past and present, and moralistic and non-moralistic alike, is that they enforce the patriarchal order by lifting men up and taking down women.”

“Such hateful and hostile reactions are frequently directed either at women who challenge men’s power and authority, or at women who decline to serve men, flatter them, or hold their gaze admiringly.”

“patriarchies are not formless gender hierarchies. Specific social roles give women’s subordination its content and character. These roles typically require women to support men in dominant social positions—giving them love and affection, care and loyalty, along with sex and children. Within a patriarchal order, women are in effect born into an unofficial service industry.”

“Because of women’s service position, their subordination often has a masked quality about it: it is supposed to look amicable and seamless, rather than coerced. Service with a smile, not a grimace, is the watchword.”

“Misogyny is what happens when women break ranks or roles and disrupt the patriarchal order: they tend to be perceived as uppity, unruly, out of line, or insubordinate.”

“Misogyny isn’t simply hateful; it imposes social costs on noncompliant women, who are liable to be labeled witches, bitches, sluts, and “feminazis,” among other things.”

“Think of misogyny, then, as the law enforcement branch of a patriarchal order.”

“his makes for a useful if rough contrast between misogyny and sexism. Whereas misogyny upholds the social norms of patriarchies by patrolling and policing them, sexism serves to justify these norms, largely via an ideology of supposedly natural differences between men and women with respect to their talents, interests, proclivities, and appetites.”

“Sexism is bookish; misogyny is combative. Sexism is complacent; misogyny is anxious. Sexism has a theory; misogyny wields a cudgel.”

“Sexists subscribe to sexist ideology (albeit often unconsciously). Misogynists engage in misogynist behavior (again, often unwittingly).”

“Misogyny is what misogyny does to women.”

“Misogyny is the hostility women are prone to face in navigating a social environment because they are women in a man’s world—a more or less entrenched patriarchy.”

“misogyny is not best understood in psychological terms.”

“women may also be prone to police other women’s bodies and behavior, elevating themselves in the terms of patriarchal values or signaling their loyalty to patriarchal figures.”

“moralism takes at least two distinct forms: one that is ostensibly impartial, high-minded, and punitive, and a second that is aggrieved, wounded, and downcast”

“The high-minded and punitive tenor of much of the misogyny in the United States today is exemplified by the rhetoric of the anti-abortion movement.”

“Racialized bodies are often more vulnerable to misogynistic attacks and erasure than the bodies of white women, who are somewhat insulated by white privilege, as has been illuminated by the work of Kimberlé Crenshaw, Kristie Dotson, and Marita Gilbert, among others.”

“Attention to the intersections between gender and race, as well as other forms of oppression, is crucial here. Patriarchy and hence misogyny in the United States cannot be understood apart from white supremacy.”

“Women are being punished. But what are they being punished for, exactly? There is a common assumption on the left that social conservatives seek to punish women for having sex outside of marriage and that the fight against abortion is, therefore, largely intended to police women’s bodies and control their sexuality.”

“What are women held to be guilty of doing or being?

Selfish, I think; cold, callous, and heartless, neglecting their obligations and refusing to nurture. Rush Limbaugh described Hillary Clinton as “totally controlling, not soft and cuddly. Not sympathetic. Not patient. Not understanding.” The complaint alleges that women who abort withhold care and feminine safe haven—ostensibly from the fetus but also, one suspects, from some of the men projecting their own sense of abandonment onto it.”

“Limbaugh is an expert at channeling a sense of confusion, loss, and sadness common in his target audience—primarily white men—and transforming it into anger, partly by furnishing them with suitable moral narratives in which they are cast as victims.”

“This case illustrates the tendency to portray women’s independence as a personal affront to men. And, in a way, it is. Patriarchy promises goods and services in increasingly short supply: women’s love, loyalty, emotional labor, and deference.”

“When the promise is broken, some men experience a sense of humiliation, even betrayal, not simply loss. But it is hard to be outraged about a sin of omission committed by no one in particular.”

“Misogyny of this kind stems from a position of perceived weakness among those who see themselves as the little guy, who have chips on their shoulders.”

“This perception is often inaccurate, at least in relation to the women they bully, blame, and victimize. But it illustrates how easily even a mild loss of privilege can be experienced as disadvantage relative to—or even oppression by—historically subordinated people.”

“The right is not the only place to find self-perceived little guys liable to channel and give vent to misogynist anxieties and hostilities. They can be found on the left as well. Some of the people who currently fit this description support not Donald Trump but, rather, Bernie Sanders. I am referring here to the controversial “Bernie bros” phenomenon.”

“Misogyny of this kind is clearly moralistic, but it has nothing to do with policing sexual behavior. And it is arguably fixated less on women who break specific gendered norms and expectations than on those who are held to be rule-breakers generally. Hence the fixation on a woman’s perceived lack of fairness and violation of her obligations. And, at least in this and similar cases, this kind of misogyny is a tightly packed powder keg of aggression waiting to be ignited.”

“It alights on women held to be corrupt or unprincipled, untrustworthy or liars, and burns them as scapegoats, witches, and effigies. It is often directed toward a crude composite image pasted over the face of its target. But when your effigy is your body, you go up in flames along with it.”

“In social and moral reality, such behavior is indefensible. But indefensibility is not the same thing as unintelligibility. It is not difficult to see why misogynistic aggression might coexist with progressive commitments.”

“Many white men, including those who espouse egalitarian and progressive values—even those who pride themselves on being good feminists—have recently experienced a loss of power and status relative to nonwhites and white women. Some are in denial. And some are angry. Some are lashing out in grief cloaked in outrage.”

“insofar as there is a distinctively modern strain of misogyny, it is this: the backlash to women’s social progress and to feminism.”