On misogyny: We want to build an egalitarian society, but not by men

Jul 7, 2022

On the misogyny trap, the solution of misogyny, and the allies of women…

Thanks to the popularity of the book "Misogyny" by Ms. Chizuru Ueno, the topic of "misogyny" has also been brought up more on social media. The cases in the book and the reality corroborate each other, making the jerky theory become Easy to understand. In this podcast, the three anchors refer to the structure of "Missing Women" and will analyze the current social situation in China together with their listeners and friends.

01｜What is misogyny? How does it affect us?

🍐 Li Si:

In this book, misogyny refers to a patriarchal system with misogyny at its core , a male-dominated system that exposes women to discrimination and violence, characterized by male contempt for women and female self-deprecation.

When I was five or six years old, I imagined my future marriage partner, and the standard at that time was to choose someone who was kind to my brother. From the examples I saw in my life, from the concepts of "guardian sand" and chastity archway that I came into contact with in film and television works, I gradually developed a conservative view of marriage. After going to college, the standard of marriage has become to find a person who will not be domestic violence. Now that I think about it, these thoughts are poisonous. It wasn't until I became a feminist that I began to realize my misogyny.

❇️ Wang Fang:

The book does not give a clear or rigid definition of misogyny. As we grow up, we have been internalizing our depreciation of ourselves. In gender relations, everyone thinks that women are dependents. Many people, especially men, think that the most vicious attack on women is "you can't marry". Although misogyny acts on people of different genders, it is inherently demeaning to women.

🧂Small words:

One of the comments I was most impressed with was that misogyny is a system, while misogyny is an emotion .

When I was young, my grandfather would praise me for being brave and decisive, and my grandmother would say that I was quiet and not like a girl. These voices imply to me that those qualities that belong to women are devalued and not rewarded. I'm so disgusted with femininity, and even the good parts, like tenderness and tolerance.

02｜Misogyny in changing times

❇️ Wang Fang:

For nearly a hundred years, women have been breaking through the constraints of patriarchy, and public participation has increased. Women are improving, but men are not.

The film "Made in Dagenham" tells the history of women's fight for equal pay for equal work. There is a scene in the movie where the husband, who works in the same factory, was originally supporting his wife on strike. As the factory shut down, the husband began to complain to the wife: "I didn't abuse you, why did you do this?"

Many men are unaware of their gender dividend, cannot truly accept that women are independent individuals, that women have independent ideas, and do not understand that women are fighting for their own rights. This is also one of the reasons why online patriarchs are anti-feminist.

🧂Small words:

Chapter 9 of Misogyny examines the mother-daughter relationship and misogyny. With the changing times, daughters have the opportunity to pursue a career. Mothers want their daughters to have a career, marriage and childbirth at the same time, but they don't want their daughters to deny her life as a housewife.

In the eyes of a mother, a barren daughter is never an adult. Because she has not experienced her mother's suffering, she can't lift her head in front of her mother. It is futile for a daughter to get her mother's affirmation, because the mother is never satisfied. The reason for her dissatisfaction is that her life value cannot be fully realized, and she has been tied to the family .

❇️ Wang Fang:

Today's women have to bear double expectations, to be successful in their careers like sons, and like daughters, to obey traditional gender roles to marry and have children .

03｜Equal pay for equal work is a long way to go, law VS reality

🍐 Li Si:

It is always said that Chinese men and women are already very equal, but the reality is not the case. From the perspective of employment, the "2021 China Workplace Gender Salary Gap Report" released by the Boss Zhipin Research Institute in March 2022 shows that the average salary of Chinese female workers is 77% of that of male workers .

The "2021 China Workplace Gender Pay Gap Report" shows that position is the main reason why women are paid less than men

🧂Small words:

Misogyny describes how the rules set by a patriarchal society have affected the employment of an entire generation of Japanese women. In 1985, Japan passed the Law on Equal Employment Opportunities for Men and Women. Only since then have the first women entered management positions in Japan. Before that, what women did in the workplace was cleaning, serving tea and pouring water.

Women of that era realized that women did not have an advantage in areas that required collective collaboration. The field of collective collaboration is often dominated by men, and women need to cater to their way of thinking in order to integrate into the male collective, and sometimes suffer from sexual harassment and gender-based violence. Unable to bear it, many women quit after a while. So, they educate their daughters: learn a technology that they can do alone, accounting, fashion design, one person and one computer can support themselves.

❇️ Wang Fang:

Laws are one factor in measuring gender equality, but the key is that laws are enforced. It is very difficult for women to gain development opportunities in the public sphere.

"Missing Women" mentions the female employee of Dongdian. With a college degree, she succeeded her deceased father and entered the management of the company. Most of the first women to enter the management team in Japan are still serving tea and pouring water. They will feel a huge gap. You have a job that looks good, but how much respect do you get at work?

04｜The Misogyny Trap: Victim Guilty

🧂Small words:

In China, there were sexual harassment-related lawsuits in the 1990s, but few women won . I remember a popular narrative as a child: the boss's secretary is the boss's lover. If a woman says she has been sexually harassed or assaulted, others will think that she has failed to negotiate the price, which is a false accusation.

❇️ Wang Fang:

Women are victims of sexual assault/harassment - a notion that has become mainstream in the last few years . Women are the main victims of domestic violence, a view that only started to emerge in the country in the 1990s. The idea of blaming the victim is deeply ingrained . After I became a feminist, I told my mom why she didn't get a divorce or something.

This society has created a "good woman" myth , the truth is that no one can live up to the "good woman" standard. If a victim of sexual violence speaks out, she will be questioned a lot, and every word and deed will be magnified.

🧂Small words:

I think of strings. She is close to a perfect victim in all aspects, calling the police and collecting evidence in a timely manner, actively speaking on the Internet, and helping her ta victims. But some people still turned up her Weibo in college, implying that she likes to take pictures with celebrities, and malicious speculation 🤮. There are also many Weibo private messages scolding her.

❇️ Wang Fang:

After women speak out, they are particularly attacked by appearance and morality. Even in incidents of gender-based violence, the public and the media always "judgment" the victim's words and deeds, and they are very tolerant of male perpetrators, not even mentioning it.

05｜Intimacy under misogyny

🍐 Li Si:

Misogyny mentions that women are looking for relationships, but men are looking for comrades. In a relationship between men and women in the name of love, there is a deep-rooted gender inequality, and it is obviously easier for men to leave the relationship.

🧂Small words:

I've heard more than one girl say that their boyfriends don't think she should always go out and that there should be no male friends on WeChat. Some even take their phones and delete all men.

❇️ Wang Fang:

We just talked about social punishment. For the mainstream of society, a person who has not married at a certain age is an abnormal person . In a patriarchal society, many intimate relationships are unequal and unhealthy. Some people will ask, why don't women leave? The reason is that although you have a bad relationship, you have at least one relationship; if you don't, you may lose a lot, the pressure of elders, the strange vision of others, the loss of social benefits that favor the family, and so on. We embrace singleness, but also understand women's other options .

Women's social relationships are deficient. Many women view intimacy as their most important, or even only, relationship. We encourage everyone to build diverse relationships, build relationships with like-minded people, a partnership, and build your own social support network.

06｜Is the Women's Alliance reliable? How to get out of misogyny mode?

🍐 Li Si:

We still expect a female community, what do we imagine it to be? How do we interact with other women in our lives?

🧂Small words:

Women in my mother's era seemed to have a very close female friend who shared parenting, housework, career, and more. And I prefer to have a female community, not a one-to-one relationship. This community can support me and enrich my life. For example, we were stuck in different cities during the epidemic, and it was also possible to chat via video.

❇️ Wang Fang:

In a broad sense, it is very difficult to establish a women's alliance, although everyone is making new attempts. Because the patriarchal society divides women, making women blame and hate each other, but when we identify it, it is beneficial for us to re-establish alliances .

🧂Small words:

Misogyny mentions that everyone has misogyny. This tells us that we don't have to worry about being misogynistic anymore because we all live in a misogynistic environment. When we start to reflect and criticize, that makes us feminists .

❇️ Wang Fang:

The first point is that learning, understanding and identifying misogyny will help us to expose some of the words and conspiracies of the patriarchal society . For example, embracing stigma is a tactic feminists have been using. When you attack me as a bitch, then I'm a bitch. The attack itself is meaningless. We can learn how to deal with these slurs and attacks.

The second point is to establish a feminist discourse. We as feminists, what kind of people do we want to be, what kind of society do we want this society to be.

Third, as individuals, we can explore new ways of living instead of following the patriarchal society's custom-made life for women . We are not based on men. Men often use violence to express or fight for rights, which is definitely not what we want. We want to fight for a more egalitarian society, but to explore feminist ways. This is not necessarily a clear standard, but a process .