What gives you internalized misogyny?

5 comments

1. Growing up in a patriarchal society, off the top of my head…

2. When my former friend pissed me off with her casual misogyny, I sometimes snapped (mostly innerly) and had sexist thoughts about her (as in “then enjoy xy patriarchial oppression and let them do this to you, you deserve it”), which I‘m not proud of.

   Then again … You‘d be fine with birthing babies for an abusive husband? And think such men deserve mercy? Then go have fun as an incubator …

   I‘ve worked through it though and now I just cut her from my life.

3. My mom and my sister have always been stereotypically feminine, and growing up, I definitely was…not. Through no fault of my own, mind you, I just never have been. They made me feel awful about it. I was always treated as less, not good enough, and weird. My worth as a person was measured against how well I presented as a woman. It really fucked up my perception of gender, and for a while there I was one of those “not like the other girls” types to cope, which honestly men I met just used it to further their discrimination, and no matter how masculine I presented, they never respected me as much because I still wasn’t a man.

   I’ve since come to terms with my gender identity, really leaned into the queerness and have never been happier about myself. But stereotypical women still make me a little paranoid.

4. Living in a patriarchal culture is what causes internalized misogyny.

5. I think oftentimes they’re so ingrained that we don’t realize we have those beliefs.

   When I was trying to decide whether or not I wanted kids, I found it really difficult to remove societal expectations from my decision making. Whether I was doing it to spite them or conforming to them.

   It’s often hard for me to make sense of my decisions and whether it’s something I actually want, or it’s something I’m doing to please someone else/cause the leash amount of issues or conflict.

   So when making huge, life altering decisions like having kids, it can be difficult to untangled myself from societal expectations based in misogyny