At the request of a friend I am writing about this topic. Actually I had no clue what this word even meant. I assumed it was a medical term. Oops, wrong planet. Wiki: “Misogyny is the hatred or dislike of women or girls”. My first thought was about the first Stieg Larsson novel in the Millennium series: “Men who hate women”. Later this title was changed into “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”.
My second thought was: Does it apply to me too? I dismissed that thought immediately. There can hardly be any doubt on whether you feel hatred – or not – as hatred is a very strong emotion. Also see my 7 October 2015 blog on Hatred.
Nevertheless, I do feel that dismissing that thought right away, was too easy. I do think and feel that misogyny is a genuine hidden emotion. It’s not only men that experience this feeling. A former girlfriend frequently said to me that she hates women. I never doubted her sincerity on that. Wiki: “Sociologist Michael Flood, at the University of Wollongong, defines misogyny as the hatred of women, and notes: Though most common in men, misogyny also exists in and is practiced by women against other women or even themselves”.
He added this interesting statement: “Misogyny functions as an ideology or belief system that has accompanied patriarchal, or male-dominated societies for thousands of years and continues to place women in subordinate positions with limited access to power and decision making”. (Wiki)
In my view, the earliest form of misogyny is the story about Adam and Eve in the Bible. Wiki: Eve is created from one of Adam’s ribs to be Adam’s companion. Adam is told that he can eat freely of all the trees in the garden, except for a tree of the knowledge of good and evil, of which he is prohibited from eating. However, a serpent tricks Eve into eating fruit from the forbidden tree, and she gives some of the fruit to Adam. God prophetically tells the woman and the man what will be the consequences of their sin of disobeying God. Then he banishes ‘the man’ from the Garden of Eden.
Firstly, Eve is a derivative from Adam. Secondly, Adam gets punished for Eve’s wrongdoing by being banned from the Garden of Eden (ie, Paradise). Seems enough reason for eternal misogyny.
I think and feel that there is another essential reason for male – and female – misogyny and that is the mother-child relationship – the earliest human contact. To some extent, misogyny (Hate) may be the reciprocal – or supplement – of the Oedipus complex (Love). In my 7 October 2015 blog I stated: “For years, I have been saying that you can only hate someone if you also love(d) that person”.
There may be an interesting third – male – reason for misogyny. We can’t live without women. This eternal male dependency on women may be another cause for anger towards women. I think and feel that the opposite is not equally true – women can live without men.
The ambiguity (love < > hate) in any male/female relationship is well phrased in this quote from Dick Van Dyke: “Women will never be as successful as men because they have no wives to advise them”.
U2 – With Or Without You (1987) – artists, lyrics, Wiki-1, Wiki-2
John Lennon – Woman is the Nigger of the World (1972) – lyrics, Wiki-1, Wiki-2
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