This paper develops a notion of manipulative gaslighting, which is designed to capture something not captured by epistemic gaslighting, namely the intent to undermine women by denying their testimony about harms done to them by men. Manipulative gaslighting, I propose, consists in getting someone to doubt her testimony by challenging its credibility using two tactics: “sidestepping” and “displacing”. I explain how manipulative gaslighting is distinct from reasonable disagreement, with which it is sometimes confused. I also argue for three further claims: (...) that manipulative gaslighting is a method of enacting misogyny, that it is often a collective phenomenon, and, as collective, qualifies as a mode of psychological oppression. (shrink)

In Down Girl, Kate Manne sets out to reclaim the word ‘misogyny’. To do this, she takes on the naïve conception, according to which misogyny is the hatred of women – universally or at least generally speaking – simply because they are women. Manne argues that this conception has many drawbacks, chief among them its tendency to “deprive women of a suitable name for a potentially potent problem facing them”. Her aim, then, is to develop an alternate conception (...) of misogyny that names this problem, and in so doing, provides a more effective tool for understanding this aspect of gender-based oppression. In this commentary, I focus on two themes. First, I look in more detail at Manne’s critique of the naïve conception. I find that critique entirely persuasive. However, I argue that Manne’s preferred conception of misogyny ends up being very broad, in at least three respects. This breadth, I worry, is incompatible with generating predictions about the phenomenon. I’ll also consider some responses to this worry, but argue that these too have a cost. Some mis-classify clear cases, while others risk re-raising some difficulties for the naïve conception. Second, I consider Manne’s rejection of humanism. In this part, I argue that her substantive account of patriarchy, and the resulting conception of misogyny, is more closely related to humanism than she allows. I also emphasize differences between distinct versions of humanism, and argue that some may be able to counter some of Manne’s main criticisms of this family of views. This part of the discussion seeks to press Manne on precisely how much of humanism she ultimately wishes to reject. (shrink)

Misogyny is a particular kind of unjustified hatred or contempt for women in a man’s world. By “a man’s world,” I mean a society where men have more power and privileges than women. The United States is a man’s world, or “patriarchal society,” as it’s also called. A few pieces of evidence: In 2019, 127 women held seats in the United States Congress, comprising only 23.7 percent of the 535 members. We, the American people, have never elected a female (...) president. Although some women are legally entitled to equal treatment by their employer, statistics still show a wage gap between men and women. In 2018, a full-time employed woman earned about eighty cents for every dollar a full-time employed man earned in 2018, according to Census data. In academia, things don’t look much better. In the STEM disciplines and philosophy, women are outnumbered by men, and studies show attrition of women faculty as they move up the academic ranks. In all the STEM disciplines, women make up 42 percent of assistant professors, 34.2 percent of associate professors, and 23.4 percent of full professors. In philosophy, it is estimated that women hold 19 percent of the available tenure/tenure-track positions. Here too there is a pay gap. Across all disciplines in the U.S., male faculty make about $18,000 more annually than female faculty. The one-million dollar question is: why in the world would men hate women in a man’s world? (shrink)

From some of the great philosophers of the Western tradition: "The Devils gateway" --Tertullian "A misbegotten male" --Aquinas "Big children their whole life long" --Schopenhauer The roots of philosophical misogyny in the writings of thinkers from the ancient Greeks through the modern age are exposed and explored in this collection. Beverley Clack questions whether the wisdom of these philosophers can be separated from the misogyny, and whether feminists should seek an alternative to the Western philosophical canon. This collection (...) offers chronological evidence of how the great male thinkers debated the question of woman, provides and introduction of each thinker. The philosophers included are: Plato, Aristotle, Tertullian, Augustine, Aquinas, Kramer, Sprenger, Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Kant, Rousseau, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud, Weininger, Spengler and Lucas. (shrink)

This article examines the distinction between judicial reasoning flawed by errors on questions of law, properly addressed on appeal, and errors that constitute judicial misconduct and are grounds for removal from the bench. Examples analysed are from the transcripts and reasons for decision in R v George SKQB (2015), appealed to the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal (2016) and the Supreme Court of Canada (2017), and from the sentencing decision rendered by the same judge more than a decade earlier in R (...) v Edmondson SKQB (2003). Both were sexual assault cases. In George a thirty-five year old woman with five children was tried and ultimately acquitted of sexual assault and sexual interference after she was assaulted in her home by a fourteen year old male. Striking similarities between the reasoning and language in the trial decision in George and the sentencing decision in Edmondson demonstrate entrenched antipathy for sexual assault law and the fundamental principles of justice, equality, and impartiality. This is arguably judicial misconduct, persisting despite access in the interim to many years of judicial education programming, not merely legal error. The problem does not lie with the judge alone, however. A toxic mix of misogyny and blindly zealous enforcement of the law appears to have undermined the administration of justice in George from the outset at all levels. The problems are systemic. Were this not the case, it is likely that Barbara George would not have been charged. (shrink)

Misogyny is a significant but unspoken presence in organization studies, in terms of people’s experiences of work and as a theorised concept. In this essay we argue that our community should dare to name misogyny for its unique insight into the enduring patriarchal power relations that condition so many organizations and so much of our organization theory. We develop this argument in two ways: first, we suggest that misogyny provides a unique descriptive linguistic label for experiences of (...) gendered hatred, violence, and social policing; and second, a philosophical understanding of misogyny enables analysis, understanding, and challenges to the physical or symbolic violence that women experience in and around organizations as sites for the reproduction of patriarchy. Drawing on recent developments in feminist analytic philosophy, we follow the movement away from understanding misogyny-as-individual-emotions to misogyny-as-affective-practice. This allows us to frame two related concepts, organized and organizational misogyny, demonstrating the potential that misogyny brings to understanding individual experiences, collective affect, and influential social forces. Despite the discomfort produced by hate-based concepts such as misogyny, we conclude that their exclusion from organization studies has two effects: the continuing reproduction of violent hostility, and acceptance of a partial account of multiple forms of oppression and inequality. Our research agenda, founded on this need for naming such experiences, the significance of affect, and aggregated oppressions, demonstrates the potential contribution of misogyny to addressing these issues and finding some hope for change. (shrink)

Speech is a major vehicle for enacting and enforcing misogyny, so can counter-speech stop the harms of misogynist speech? This paper starts with a discussion of the nature of misogyny, from Dworkin, MacKinnon, and Frye, up to K. Manne’s new work, here emphasizing the ways that women are attacked or undermined through speech and images. Misogyny becomes toxic when it sharply and steadily limits the life prospects, including daily functioning, of the women it targets. To address the (...) questions of counter-speech, one first needs a robust account of language—it’s power, how it functions, whether it can actually be gainsaid. Once the speech act is issued, can its damage be un-done, or substantially mitigated? To answer this, one must understand the kinds of harms that language achieves, and the kinds of counter-speech available. That is, one needs an understanding of how the speech of misogyny functions, rooted in a theory of how language works. This article offers a brief account of language as a complex set of social practices, which includes the speech of law, and an account of the power and limits of counter-speech. I argue that it is unhelpful to think in terms of free speech vs. censorship. Speech is not completely free, and censorship is a blunt tool. Instead, we should look at the ways that discursive harms are enacted and what kinds of normative changes could minimize the frequency of assault, and which changes might minimize the power of misogyny. (shrink)

"What is it to claim that misogyny might be ironic? Why is it that, in the works of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer, the possibility of irony constantly interferes with a conclusive ethical judgment over the meaning of their misogyny? How do we hold our interpretations of such ambiguous texts ethically accountable? This book brings together the driving concerns of hermeneutics, feminist philosophy and the history of philosophy in dealing with the problem of irony. It develops a thematic account (...) of the concept of irony as a philosophical form of interpretation, and explores this through close readings of three key sites of controversy regarding the relationship between irony and misogyny: Schopenhauer's On Women, Kierkegaard's In Vino Veritas and Nietzsche's Woman and Child. Rather than aiming to rescue their misogynistic texts by appealing to irony, the book suggests that ironic ambiguity is a formative, rather than distractive, aspect of these texts' misogyny. Working from the productive intersection between hermeneutics and deconstruction, the book explores the substantial ways in which authority and value are constructed in terms of ironic possibility"--Publisher. (shrink)

Down Girl is a broad, original, and far ranging analysis of what misogyny really is, how it works, its purpose, and how to fight it. The philosopher Kate Manne argues that modern society's failure to recognize women's full humanity and autonomy is not actually the problem. She argues instead that it is women's manifestations of human capacities -- autonomy, agency, political engagement -- is what engenders misogynist hostility.

How are patriarchal regimes perpetuated and reproduced? Kate Manne’s recent work on misogyny aims to provide an answer to this central question. According to her, misogyny is a property of social environments where women perceived as violating patriarchal norms are ‘kept down’ through hostile reactions coming from men, other women and social structures. In this paper, I argue that Manne’s approach is problematically incomplete. I do so by examining a recent puzzling social phenomenon which I call (post-)feminist backlash: (...) the rise of women-led movements reinstating patriarchal practices in the name of feminism. I focus on the example of ‘raunch feminist’ CAKE parties and argue that their pro-patriarchal dimension cannot be adequately explained by misogyny. I propose instead a different story that emphasizes the continued centrality of gender distinctions in our social normative life, even as gendered social meanings become increasingly contested. This triggers meaning vertigo, a distinct form of social anxiety and the reactionary impulse at the heart of (post)-feminist backlash. Meaning vertigo both complicates the answer to Manne’s main question—“why is misogyny still a thing?”—and suggests the need and opportunity for a different kind of feminist political intervention. (shrink)

‘Misogyny Re-loaded’ is an explosive manifesto against the resurgent sexual fascism of the new world order. By exposing the casual acceptance of snuff pornography in ‘gore’ culture through to the framing of rape as slapstick, Abigail Bray links the celebration of sexual sadism to the rise of an authoritarian culture of militarised violence. Arguing that a meaningful collective resistance has been scattered by the mass destruction of genuine social and economic security for ordinary women, Misogyny Re-loaded presents a (...) scathing critique of the political drool of mainstream billionaire-friendly feminism. (shrink)

From a feminist perspective and using an ethnographic methodology, this article explores the gendered world of male rugby players in terms of how they socially and relationally propagate gender roles. Rugby players' social reproduction of gender, ultimately grounded in misogyny, allows these men at the individual level to psychologically and sometimes physically dominate women. At the societal level, rugby, like many sporting practices, both reflects and supports a hierarchical ideology of masculinity and the subordination of women.

This article proposes a third way of reading Nietzsche's remarks on women, one that goes beyond misogyny and metaphor. Taking the depiction of women in the works of the middle period at face value shows that these works neither entirely demean women nor exclude them from the higher life. Nietzsche's middle period comprises HAH (1879-80, which includes "Assorted Opinions and Maxims" and "The Wanderer and His Shadow"), D (1881) and GS (1882). The works of this period do not disqualify (...) women from free spirithood, for some of their passages can be read as befitting some women of the future for this honour. (shrink)

Misogyny is a weighty term. Its affective power invokes spectres of rape, sexual assault, hate-fuelled insults and gas-lighting. Its presence in nearly every culture on the planet haunts our pasts and frames our presents. Aiming to build an understanding of misogyny for our future social justice efforts, I look to Kate Manne’s Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, where she dusts off an old definition of misogyny as the hatred of women to describe it as the (...) enforcement branch of a patriarchal society, a renewed engagement for feminists and activists alike. In particular, this framing provides opportunities to examine misogyny from an intersectional lens, including its intersections with race, gender and sexuality. For example, through stories such as that of Pamela George, an Indigenous woman from Regina, Saskatchewan who was murdered in 1995, I argue that it is crucial that we recognise the collusion between settler colonialism and misogyny. Or in the case of transphobic comedian Dave Chapelle, we must understand the interplay of heteronormativity and cisnormativity in propping up transmisogyny. Consequently, I argue that an intersectional logic of misogyny provides not only a shift but a tipping point for feminist and queer movements to come. (shrink)

This paper has arisen from a concern that much recent policy-related research on markets displays misogynistic tendencies. In both the media and academic accounts it would appear as though the blame for social and educational inequalities can now be laid at the door of women - particularly middle-class mothers. Through examining competing perspectives on how we might understand this attribution of blame, this paper argues that their guilt is best explained not through changes in behaviour but through the conjuncture of (...) shifts in education policy and related research. These shifts have turned the attention of research away from the public domain of the state and the organisational and cultural attributes of schools to focus on the private domain of domestic decision-making. But the representations of these public and private domains are underpinned by unexamined gendered and ideological subtexts which have limited our powers of description and explanation. The paper concludes by suggesting strategies through which we might both address the tacit misogyny in research on markets and develop more sophisticated accounts of contemporary changes. (shrink)

This study examines the discursive structures and strategies used by Nigerian female blog users to legitimise gender inequality. Through a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of 253 comments from five Nigerian-authored blogs, the study complicates celebratory approaches that conceptualise digital spaces as places for marginalised women to fight against sexism since they unravel ideological conceptions within female ‘counter-publics’ that rationalise un-equal gender relations. This refutes the belief that the struggle against gender discrimination only involves binary categories such as ‘men versus women’ (...) or ‘women versus patriarchy’, spotlighting the self-limiting role of women in gender activism. The study demonstrates that understudying intra-group discrimination helps to understand and define inequality within specific contexts. Specifically, othering, classifying and categorising are inherent meaning-making traits that define intra-group dynamics and must be embraced and studied as contextual peculiarities that aid the understanding of given socio-cultural practices. This research underscores the usefulness of CDA in unpacking the intersections of culture, ideology, identity and language within multi-layered counter-public discourse, highlighting implications in social justice campaigns and the attainment of gender parity. (shrink)

Through the lens of feminist speech act theory, this paper argues that artificial intelligence romance systems objectify and subordinate nonvirtual women. AI romance systems treat their users as consumers, offering them relational invulnerability and control over their (usually feminized) digital romantic partner. This paper argues that, though the output of AI chatbots may not generally constitute speech, the framework offered by an AI romance system communicates an unjust perspective on intimate relationships. Through normalizing controlling one’s intimate partner, these systems operate (...) as speakers that rank women as non-player characters and license their oppression, which is unjust even in the absence of empirical harms. Understanding AI romance systems as speakers has implications for policymakers. First, this account helps close the so-called responsibility gap in the operation of an AI system. Second, it places these systems under the purview of institutions’ policies regarding hate speech, suggesting one avenue for arguing that these systems may violate extant policies. Finally, it provides support for the pursuit of empirical research into AI romance systems’ effects on users. (shrink)

필자는 본 논문에서 미소지니의 어원학적 정의방식과 이 개념의 철학적, 형이상학적 함의를 고찰할 것이다. 나아가 이것의 사회, 문화적 개념화 작업을 현 사회의 맥락 안에서 재정의해 나가며 이것이 여성멸시와 여성비하로 번역되는 것이 왜 부적합한가를 논증할 것이다.BR 두 번째로 여성들이 어떠한 감각판 위에서 고질화된 폭력의 지반으로서의 일상을 경험하고 있는가를 살펴보기 위해 폭력의 현상학을 도입해 볼 것이다. 이를 통해 남성혐오가 아닌 남성공포를 기반으로 작동하는 여성의 일상 재편방식을 폭로함과 동시에 사회적 죽음과 생물학적 죽음의 두 죽음 사이에 가로놓인 여성의 경험을 통감의 윤리학을 통해 조망해 낼 것이다. (...) 여기서 필자는 공감(empathy)과는 다른 “통감”에 대한 개념화 작업을 심화하며 이 개념이 어떻게 통찰과 저항, 연대의 경로가 될 수 있는가를 분석해 낼 것이다.BR 세 번째로 혐오라는 감정의 광활한 스펙트럼을 횡단하며 이것이 의식적, 무의식적 억압기제이자 비대칭적 힘의 구조로부터 기인된 권력 감정임을 논증하고자 혐오와 분노라는 두 가지 감정역학의 차이를 세밀하게 개념화할 것이다. 나아가 여성혐오살해의 메커니즘의 작동방식에 대한 분석과 더불어 남성혐오의 불가능성을 철저히 논증할 것이다. (shrink)

Misogyny online is not simply offensive speech at scale—it is a coordinated, systemic practice of silencing. Drawing on feminist analyses of misogyny as the “law enforcement branch” of patriarchy Manne (Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny. Oxford: Oxford University, 2018), and extending work in speech act theory (Langton 22 (4): 293–330, 1993; McGowan 29 (2): 458–473, 2014; Caponetto 40 (1): 191–202, 2021), this paper argues that the sheer volume of online misogyny silences women. Platform affordances, especially (...) algorithmic amplification and the rapid formation of ad hoc hostile groups (Barnes 25 (2): 251–281, 2023), transform misogynistic hostility into an environment where women’s speech is not merely contested but actively erased. We identify three systematic modes of silencing: locutionary silencing (women are deterred from speaking at all), illocutionary silencing (women’s speech is not recognised as what it is), and sincerity silencing (women’s speech is recognised but discredited as inauthentic). We argue that far from being side-effects of individual prejudice, these forms of silencing are built into the architecture of digital discourse. We proceed by showing how online hostility is made frictionless and rewarding for misogynists, producing predictable patterns of silencing. This phenomenon raises urgent normative concerns: when half the population is structurally constrained from full participation, public discourse itself becomes an echo chamber for patriarchal norms. We conclude that counter-speech, though important, is insufficient without structural reforms to platform design. (shrink)

This article identifies five genres of anti-queer hate speech found in The Australian’s Facebook comments sections, exposing and analyzing the ways in which such comments are used to derogate cisgender and (often) heterosexual women. One may be tempted to think of cis-het women as third-party victims of queerphobia; however, this article argues that these genres of anti-queer speech are, in fact, misogynistic. Specifically, it argues that these are instances of cis-hetero-misogynistic hate speech. Cis-hetero-misogyny functions as the “law enforcement branch” (...) of a cis-hetero-patriarchal gender order. Given the existence of such an order, it is clear that cis-het women’s liberation is inextricable from queer liberation (and vice versa). This article argues that to facilitate allyship and challenge this gender order—the order that elicits such hate speech acts—we need an epistemological revolution in the way we recognize and re-cognize human difference. (shrink)

In this article, we investigate the relationship between loneliness and misogyny amongst the online movement of “involuntary celibates” (incels) that has become widely known through several violent attacks. While loneliness plays a prominent role in the incels’ self-descriptions, we lack a comprehensive analysis of their experience of loneliness and its role in their radicalization. Our article offers such an analysis. We analyze how loneliness is felt, described, and implicitly understood by incels, investigate the normative presumptions underlying their experiences, and (...) critically reflect on the political function of their discourse of loneliness. We claim that it is the affective mechanism of ressentiment that transforms loneliness into antagonistic emotions and show how loneliness is exacerbated rather than alleviated through the incel community. Finally, we point to the relevance of our analysis for contemporary philosophical and feminist loneliness studies. (shrink)

Kate Manne’s Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny combines traditional conceptual analysis and feminist conceptual engineering with critical exploration of cases drawn from popular culture and current events in order to produce an ameliorative account of misogyny, i.e., one that will help address the problems of misogyny in the actual world. A feminist account of misogyny that is both intersectional and ameliorative must provide theoretical tools for recognizing misogyny in its many-dimensional forms, as it interacts (...) and overlaps with other oppressions. While Manne thinks subtly about many of the material conditions that create misogyny as a set of normative social practices, she does not fully extend this care to the other intersectional forms of oppression she discusses. After touching on the book’s strengths, I track variations of its main problem, namely, its failure to fully conceive of oppressions besides sexism and misogyny as systemic patterns of social practices, as inherently structural rather than mere collections of individual beliefs and behaviors. (shrink)

필자는 이 논문에서 우선 신자유주의적 경쟁이 극단화되고 위계적 젠더 이분법이 허물어지는 지금 여기의 도시적인 삶에서 가장 자주 표출되는 감정 중 하나가 여성혐오임을 밝히고, 여성을 혐오하는 자들은 여성을 남성주체의 경계를 위협하는 비체로 전제하기에 여성들을 배제하게 되며 이로 인해 젠더관계에 대한 공정한 인식 또한 할 수 없게 됨을 보여주었다. 나아가 필자는 정의로운 젠더 관계를 구축하기 위해 어떤 도덕적 감정이 요구되는가를 논의하는 가운데 수치심, 동정심, 동감과 같은 도덕 감정 역시 비판에서 자유로울 수 없음을 논증하였다. 수치심은 통제할 수 없는 대상에 대한 파괴의 욕망을 내재하고 (...) 있으며, 동정심은 대상에 대한 자신의 우월성에 기반하며, 동감은 자아와 타자 간의 동일성에 기반하기에 타자의 차이를 제대로 볼 수 없게 만드는 위험을 가진다는 것이다. 따라서 필자는 정의로운 젠더관계의 토대를 구축하기 위해서는 캐롤 길리건이 말하는 공감의 감정구조에 주목할 필요가 있음을 주장하였다. 공감은 자아와 타자의 상호의존성과 참여 그리고 상호감응성에서 출발하기 때문에 타자의 경험을 함께 체험함으로써 타자의 상황을 이해하고 나아가 자신의 지평을 넓히는 데까지 나아갈 수 있으며, 무엇보다도 이 과정에서 타자를 관계에서 배제하지 않는 정의의 토대를 구축할 수 있게 해 주기 때문이다. 마지막으로 필자는 공감이 도시적인 것 안에서 가능한가를 묻는 과정에서 “도시적인 것”을 신자유주의적 경쟁뿐 아니라 이 경쟁으로부터의 벗어날 수 있는 정치적 마주침 역시 가능한 공간으로 개념화함으로써 도시적 젠더정의를 위한 단초를 마련하였다. (shrink)

In response to powerful criticisms of older arguments, contemporary defenders of the Church’s traditional stance on homosexuality have fashioned a new kind of argument based upon the special relationship God created between the sexes. In this paper we examine two recent incarnations of this kind of argument and show that both fail to demonstrate the inherent immorality of homosexual relationships, and at most demonstrate that homosexual relationships are inferior to heterosexual relationships in certain respects. At the end of the paper (...) we argue that a good God would have reason to make a certain proportion of humanity homosexual in order to unmask sexist myths. In this way homosexuality could itself strengthen, rather than weaken, the special relationship God created between the sexes. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that interpersonal cruelty can often be explained in ordinary moral terms in conjunction with facts about social hierarchies. Specifically, I argue that misogynistic cruelty often stems from the sense that certain women are wrongdoers; it often stems from the sense that certain, privileged men are entitled to violate women; and it often stems from the sense that, at least when they threaten such men, women simply do not matter. Misogynistic cruelty is thus more a product (...) of moral vilification, entitlement, and devaluation than dehumanization proper. I explore the implications for the need to posit dehumanization as a mechanism to explain cruelty elsewhere. (shrink)

Flint and obsidian blades, bronze and steel ones later, like projectiles from throwing weapons and bow-shot arrows to musket balls and high speed bullets, have been a starkly mixed blessing to Homo...

While it represents a common form of gender-based violence, misogyny is an often-overlooked concept within academia and the queer community. Drawing on queer and feminist scholarship on gay male misogyny, this article presents a theoretical challenge to the myth that the oppressed cannot oppress, arguing that specific forms of gay male subjectivities can be proponents of misogyny in ways that are unrecognised because of their sexually marginalised status. The authors’ interest in the doing of misogyny, and (...) its effects on specific bodies and subjectivities, leads them to discuss the extent to which white gay male misogyny can function to reinforce a particular gender and racial hierarchy that continually confines queer femininities to the status of the abject other, for failing to exhibit their feminine credentials and for making gender trouble. The study also addresses how specific markers of femininity are depoliticised through the workings of this misogyny, exploring what femininity does when it is conceptualised outside a heteronormative framework. To address these ideas, the authors firstly propose a theoretical account of misogyny in order to understand its analytical status as a cultural mechanism within the psychic economy of patriarchy. Secondly, they use queer approaches to effeminacy and subject formation for making the case for gay male misogyny and its connections to femininity within white gay cultures, asking how misogyny might become an essential component of the performance of hegemonic masculinity. The article concludes with a discussion of the ways in which gay male misogyny reinforces white male dominance over women and queer femininities specifically, advocating for resistance to the reproduction of such patriarchal arrangements. (shrink)

Rawls saw need for non-ideal theory also within society but never developed that project. In this chapter, Card suggests that the non-ideal part of Rawls’ Law of Peoples can be a resource for thinking about responding to evils when the subject is not state-centered. It is plausible that defense against great evils other than those of aggressive states should be governed by analogues of scruples that Rawlsian well-ordered societies observe in defending themselves against outlaw states. This essay explores those hypotheses (...) in relation to women’s self-defense and mutual defense against evils of misogyny, the term feminists apply to the most deeply hostile environments of and attitudes toward women and girls and to the cruelest wrongs to them/us, regardless whether perpetrators harbor feelings of hatred. It extrapolates and adapts to this case values, concepts, and methods from Rawls’s life’s work, especially his writing on war. (shrink)

In this bold rereading of Freud's cultural texts, Diane Jonte-Pace uncovers an undeveloped "counterthesis," one that repeatedly interrupts or subverts his well-known Oedipal masterplot. The counterthesis is evident in three clusters of themes within Freud's work: maternity, mortality, and immortality; Judaism and anti-Semitism; and mourning and melancholia. Each of these clusters is associated with "the uncanny" and with death and loss. Appearing most frequently in Freud's images, metaphors, and illustrations, the counterthesis is no less present for being unspoken--it is, indeed, (...) "unspeakable." The "uncanny mother" is a primary theme found in Freud's texts involving fantasies of immortality and mothers as instructors in death. In other texts, Jonte-Pace finds a story of Jews for whom the dangers of assimilation to a dominant Gentile culture are associated unconsciously with death and the uncanny mother. The counterthesis appears in the story of anti-Semites for whom the "uncanny impression of circumcision" gives rise not only to castration anxiety but also to matriphobia. It also surfaces in Freud's ability to mourn the social and religious losses accompanying modernity, and his inability to mourn the loss of his own mother. The unfolding of Freud's counterthesis points toward a theory of the cultural and unconscious sources of misogyny and anti-Semitism in "the unspeakable." Jonte-Pace's work opens exciting new vistas for the feminist analysis of Freud's intellectual legacy. (shrink)

Feminist theory, broadly construed, lacks a comprehensive theory of misogyny. While there has been a great deal of feminist work dedicated to analysing the social, cultural, political, and institutional effects of misogyny, the ancillary theories of misogyny these analyses produce are only ever partial, fragmented, vague or conceptually inconsistent. This article engages and critiques these theories by focusing on three separate but related issues within existing feminist scholarship on misogyny: the conflation of misogyny with sexism, (...) the elision of misogyny's affective elements and the supplanting of misogyny with gendered violence. Through my identification and critique of these issues, I argue that misogyny should be understood as a profoundly complicated and emotional social dynamic. Moreover, I argue that to attempt to cleanse misogyny of its affective/emotional complexity or conflate misogyny with sexism and/or violence is to rob theorists of possible loci of apprehension and intervention. My hope is that this article will stimulate feminist theorists to work collectively towards a more comprehensive feminist understanding of misogyny – one that grapples with the interpersonal and affective complexities of how misogyny emerges, circulates and self-perpetuates. (shrink)

Given that, for the past thirty years or so, there has appeared a seemingly limitless range of approaches to the “problem of woman” in Nietzsche’s writing, it is somewhat surprising that his oft-cited philosophical mentor, Arthur Schopenhauer, has largely escaped the same scrupulous attention. Indeed, the idea that Schopenhauer despised women has gone relatively unchallenged in general philosophical literature from around the 1930’s onwards. Schopenhauer’s role as an “arch-misogynist” serves as an unproblematic background figure or frame of reference to the (...) more unsavoury elements of texts by the likes of Nietzsche, Freud and so on. For example, in Francis Nesbitt Oppel’s recent work on Nietzsche, Schopenhauer’s texts are cited as a means to interpreting Nietzsche’s “misogyny” as ironic: in order to analyse Nietzsche’s writing on women as an ironic play on misogyny, there is aneed for an “original” misogyny to supply the object of such an irony. Schopenhauer, in brief citation, serves as a ready example of such “original” misogyny, without the need for direct interpretative engagement. (shrink)

This study examines the psychometric characteristics of the Internalized Misogyny Scale (IMS), developed by Piggot in 2004, following its translation into the Macedonian language. The sample consisted of 441 women aged 18 to 56 (M = 31.2;SD = 11.7). The data were collected online, with participants taking part voluntarily and anonymously. Confirmatory factor analysis identified a moderate model fit. The original three-component structure was retained with minor deviations, comprising three factors: Distrust of women, Devaluation of women, and Valuing men (...) over women. The scale exhibited high internal consistency (α =.89), and item-total correlations ranged from r =.40 to.72. Convergent validity was supported through correlations with modern sexism (r(399) =.22,p <.01), self-silencing (r (399) =.23,p <.01), and feminist identification (r (399) = –.18,p <.01), while discriminant validity was supported by the absence of a correlation with general self-esteem, contrasted by a negative association with gender-related self-esteem (r (399) = –.15, p <.01). These findings offer support for the use of the Macedonian IMS in research and practice. However, it warrants refinement of the identified critical items to ensure cross-cultural validity and sensitivity to the evolving social meanings of misogyny. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Sexism and Misogyny in the Christian Tradition:Liberating AlternativesRosemary Radford RuetherThe oppressive patterns in Christianity toward women and other subjugated people do not come from specific doctrines, but from a patriarchal and hierarchical reading of the system of Christian symbols as a whole. These same symbols can be read from a prophetic and liberating perspective. So what I will do in this essay is to show how Christian symbols (...) have been read as a system of domination, on the one hand, and then how they can be read as a system of liberation, on the other hand.1 The framework for reading Christian symbols as a system of domination derives from patriarchal slaveocracies, the social system in which Christianity was born. Yet Christianity also began as critique of this system that proposed prophetic-liberating alternatives to it that were then partially repressed.The New Testament is shaped in the context of this struggle. It contains testimonies to a subversive vision which has been partly repressed by reimposed patriarchal patterns. Thus the New Testament itself is the main source both for canonizing a sexist and slave social system and also for reconstructing an alternative egalitarian vision. In this essay I will first summarize the patriarchal reading of Christianity as it became the dominant interpretation between the second and sixth centuries, with further elaboration in medieval scholasticism. I will address this reading of Christianity under the five symbols of anthropology, sin and grace, God, Christ, and the Church. This will show that the patriarchal reading of these symbols is not a problem of the prejudices of particular theologians, but a comprehensive worldview. I will then analyze these same symbols and show how they can (and, in my view, should) be read from a prophetic-liberating perspective.I begin with the issue of anthropology. How is gender, male and female, related to humanness? Early Christianity saw a close relation between the human soul, understood as mind or reason, and the divine logos, which was seen as the divine nature of Jesus as the Christ. They interpreted the text of Genesis 1:27, “God created the human in the image of God,” to refer to the mind or soul in each human person. The human soul as mind or reason mirrors on a created level the divine logos or reason manifest in Christ. The human soul thus partakes in a created fashion in God’s nature and so is immortal and capable of eternal life. [End Page 83]But do women possess reason? Are they made in the image of God, or only male humans? The Greek philosophical tradition, particularly in Aristotle, which shaped early Christian views on this, believed that women lacked autonomous reason and were therefore inherently inferior and dependent on the male. For Aristotle, slaves and Asians (i.e., barbarians) were also dependent on ruling-class Greek males, who alone were fully rational.2 Thus Greek philosophy gave Christianity both a strongly gendered and also a classist and racist reading of anthropology.The Jewish tradition was ambivalent about whether women were equally made in the image of God. Some rabbinic teachers defended the belief that women were equally made in God’s image, while others argued that Adam alone was God’s image.3 This ambivalence is reflected in Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians, chapter 11. Here Paul says, “But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the husband is the head of his wife and God is the head of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:3, NRS). Paul lays out a cosmic hierarchical order of headship of God over Christ, Christ over the male human, and the male human over the female human as the basis for his argument that the woman should cover her head, but the male should not cover his head. “For a man ought not to have his head veiled, since he is the image and reflection of God; but the woman is the reflection of man” (1 Cor. 11:7).Paul goes on to insist that “man was not made from woman but woman from man. Neither was man created for the sake of woman, but... (shrink)

One of Alberti’s less well-known works is his vernacular translation of the famous medieval misogynistic text, Walter Map’s Dissuasio Valerii, one of the most widely diffused parts of Map’s De nugis curialium (c. 1190). Cecil Grayson proved, back in 1955, that the short vernacular invective was not an original work by Alberti but in fact a translation of this section of Map’s treatise, dating the version to 1436–37. This chapter, which reflects Letizia’s interests in Renaissance misogyny and in Quattrocento (...) humanism, illustrates Alberti’s translation technique as he makes typical and also atypical humanist changes and substitutions, both in the anti-feminist discourse and in its style. In terms of content, Alberti eliminates almost all the Christian, religious echoes and allusions in Map’s text, while in stylistic terms the Welsh writer’s ‘baroque’, allusive and alliterative Latin is systematically reworked into a much briefer, clearer, more streamlined Tuscan version. As for the text’s anti-feminist values, Alberti’s translation is still deeply misogynistic but it belongs to the humanist misogynistic tradition not Map’s medieval one. Because of a number of surprising misunderstandings of Map’s Latin, illustrated in the chapter, it is suggested that this volgarizzamento was a youthful work, written earlier than Grayson’s date of 1436–37, possibly one of Alberti’s first works in the language and thus one of the first steps in his trail-blazing campaign in favour of the vernacular. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungSeit Jahren steigt in Indien die Anzahl der spezifisch gegenüber Frauen, hierarchisch tieferstehenden Geburts- (varṇa) und Berufsgruppen (jāti) sowie Kastenlosen (dalits;scheduled castes) und indigenen Gemeinschaften (ādivāsī;scheduled tribes) angezeigten Gewalttaten kontinuierlich an. Diese Gewaltakte und Tötungsdelikte sind aufgrund ihrer Qualität und vor allem aufgrund ihrer quantitativen Größenordnung als systemisch anzusehen. Dass sie in dieser Form noch immer ein akutes Gegenwartsproblem von allerhöchster sozialer und politischer Brisanz im vordergründig säkularisierten Indien darstellen, legt einen gesamtgesellschaftlichen Konsens über deren grundsätzliche Rechtmäßigkeit nahe, der sich (...) anhand tradierter Normen- und Wertvorstellungen sowie prämoderner Denk- und Handlungsmuster legitimiert, die auf traditionell hinduistischen Ideen basieren. Dabei kann der politische Aufstieg der nationalreligiös argumentierenden und agitierenden „Indischen Volkspartei“ (BJP:Bhāratīya Janatā Pārṭī) sowie ihr politisch forcierter Rückgriff auf den Hinduismus als einzelner, aber dennoch entscheidender Einflussfaktor gesehen werden, der die anhaltende Verschärfung innergesellschaftlicher Gegensätze und die kontinuierliche Intensivierung der Gewaltdynamiken ursächlich zu erklären vermag. Um diese Zusammenhänge zu beleuchten, vollzieht der Beitrag die ideengeschichtlichen Grundlagen religiös legitimierter Entmenschlichung und Gewalt sowie latenter wie offener Misogynie im Hinduismus von seinen vedischen Ursprüngen im 2. vorchristlichen Jahrtausend bis zur Gegenwart nach. (shrink)

This essay engages the issue of misogyny through the narrative of the concubine of Judges 19. By utilizing a literary feminist re-reading of this text, the gender violence of both the ancient Near East and today, as well as the intersection between the two, is revealed. By journeying with this unnamed woman who was abused and murdered, the reader is invited to mourn the violence perpetrated against her in the name of patriarchy and in doing so to remember the (...) women of today – named and unnamed, dead and alive – who have suffered at the hands of a similar misogyny. (shrink)

According to the positive “ameliorative” analysis of misogyny developed in this chapter, misogyny is primarily a property of social environments in which girls and women are prone to face hostility because of the enforcement and policing of patriarchal norms and expectations—e.g., insofar as they are deemed guilty of violating patriarchal law and order. Alternatively, women may be singled out and treated as representative targets, as Rush Limbaugh’s attacks on Sandra Fluke indicate. Because misogyny functions to uphold or (...) reinstate male dominance, we would hence expect misogyny’s _primary_ targets to be certain kinds of women: those who challenge or disrupt existing gender hierarchies. But virtually any woman is _potentially_ the target of misogynist aggression. Since any woman can typically stand in imaginatively for a whole host of others, they may serve as an outlet for many different grudges. Expressions of frustration, protest, lashing out, and “punching down” behavior are further possibilities. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore how taboos act as drivers for reproducing countercultures. We define taboo utterances as those that either constitute socially prohibited acts (e.g., slurs), express elements of a prohibited ideology (e.g., claims advocating the subjugation of women), or promote socially prohibited actions (e.g., violence against women). We show how in certain communities, taboo utterances are not only tolerated but become highly rewarded in that they function as mechanisms of resistance and identity formation. We examine this dynamic in (...) incel communities (involuntary celibates) as a case-study. We show how by embracing taboos, incels not only signal their rejection of mainstream norms and values, but primarily seek to forge a shared ideology and a group identity. This requires an explanation of how and why taboos can be repurposed to gain value within incel counterculture. We propose that one such explanation is the driver for social status. We argue that exploiting taboos becomes a currency of status for incels: they gain acceptance and approval within the community, and this in turn creates an arms race to become more and more transgressive and extreme. We explain this via the creation of ideological roles that serve to justify and rationalise overt extreme misogyny. We conclude with brief ethical considerations about normalizing misogyny in incel communities and spilling over into mainstream culture. (shrink)

Hate speech is one of the most important conceptual categories in anti‐oppression politics today; a great deal of energy and political will is devoted to identifying, characterizing, contesting, and penalizing hate speech. However, despite the increasing inclusion of gender identity as a socially salient trait, antipatriarchal politics has largely been absent within this body of scholarship. Figuring out how to properly situate patriarchy‐enforcing speech within the category of hate speech is therefore an important politico‐philosophical project. My aim in this article (...) is twofold: first, I argue that sexist speech, though oppressive, is not hate speech. Second, I argue that misogynistic speech is hate speech, even when it is intradivisional. This is important because recognizing that the concepthate speechapplies to certain forms of patriarchy‐enforcing speech is another step in clarifying what is wrong with the practice, and how bad it is in relation to other abuses. Consequently, this article provides a more nuanced account of the kinds of expressions that can and should count as instances of hate speech. (shrink)

The Cynics were radically anti-conventional Greek philosophers who held egalitarian views about gender. They are also associated with extremely misogynistic anecdotes. How can one square this tension? I argue we must look to their ethical naturalism, on the basis of which they opposed convention, culture, and all that smacks of superficiality. This, combined with a longstanding stereotype about ‘feminine artifice’, explains (but does not justify) Cynic hostility toward the feminine.

Women, particularly those in public positions (e.g. journalists, politicians, celebrities, activists) are subject to disproportionate amounts of abuse on social media platforms like Twitter. This abuse occurs in a landscape that those platforms designed, and maintain. Focusing in particular on Twitter, as typical of the kind of platform we’re interested in, we argue that it is the platform not (usually) the individuals who use it, that bears collective responsibility as a corporate agent for misogyny. Social media platforms, however, should (...) not overstep the prevention of misogyny into interference in open political debates. (shrink)