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Original poster

The Intersection Between Homophobia and Misogyny

36 replies

TheUnforgiven · 12/03/2014 12:42

Last night I was in a restaurant with my (female) fiancee, when a man approached me and said 'I saw you from over there, and just wanted to let you know that you are beautiful.' I cooly thanked him, and turned back to my partner. I wasn't rude at this point- it wasn't necessarily clear to him that my partner and I were 'together,' but from my body language it was clear that I wasn't interested.

After I had turned away, he carried on- 'So I want to get to know you.' I told him I wasn't interested. He insisted 'I want to see if I like your personality.' I repeated that I wasn't interested, and that I was having dinner with my fiancee.

At this point his demeanour completely changed, and he bent to shout in my face 'you guys are a couple? You make me sick. You people are disgusting.' The fury was unbelievable. My partner told him to leave, and thankfully he did. We continued our meal, slightly humiliated while other diners threw sympathetic glances our way.

I was talking about it with my partner after he left, trying to rationalise what had just happened. We experience homophobia almost every time we go out together (we live in London), but it usually manifests as dismissiveness toward our relationship, and attacks on our legitimacy as a couple, ie. comments like 'lesbians! That's hot!', 'Don't worry girls, you're both beautiful, some man will want you,' and generally being approached by men in situations where it is clear that we are a couple. But it is the first time I have encountered such fury and hatred before, just through sitting there.

As we discussed it, it seemed as though the interchange was just as sexist as it was homophibic. The attitude was 'you are a woman, I have decided I like you, you should be grateful, and in being gay you have rejected the natural order of things that you should be available for me. Unless, of course, you are 'taken' by another man.' I just can't see any reason why there would have been so much ire toward complete strangers and their private lives unless it had been taken as a personal insult and rejection.

Is this a common part of homophobia- anger at women who are not attracted to men, and I have just been blind to it before? Or is my usual experience more common- that most homophobic people just don't 'get' it, especially when they can't categorise us into boxes they have decided they are comfortable with ie. a butch/femme relationship where they can write one of the women off as 'basically a man'? (Ugh).

I guess I'm just looking for reassurance that this is not a normal reaction- maybe because if people don't understand it because they don't have much experience of it they can learn or change or be accepting if someone they love is gay, but genuine hatred is so much harder to tackle. I'm just struggling to come to terms with the fact that my private life can cause so much bile in a person, when it has no impact on them whatsoever.

OP posts:
BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 12/03/2014 14:49

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Original poster
TheUnforgiven · 12/03/2014 14:36

I know, and I hate that my experiences have revealed so much sexism to me, on top of the homophobia.

A friend of mine looks much more like what ignorant people would assume a lesbian looks like, if that makes sense. Interestingly, her experiences of being harassed are so different. The implication is almost that her gayness is acceptable to men, because she is not a 'real' woman and they don't want her attention anyway, but because I am hetero-passing, my gayness is a choice and can be fixed by the right man.

It doesn't help that there aren't enough examples in the media to combat the steretype that all lesbians are either straight women trying to get male attention, or angry sexless women who hate men and sleep in twin beds. Either way, the woman's sexual expression is in some way a reaction to men. It just blows some men's minds when confronted with a couple for whom their relationship is not for male approval or to make a point to men; in fact it has nothing to do with men whatsoever.

I honestly never thought I would be saying or experiencing this when I came out. I stupidly had no idea things were still this bad.

The worst part is that we experience this as women with a reasonably high degree of privilege, both in terms of where we live and the outlook of those we are close to. It pains me that for gay women this is pretty much as good as it gets, and that for a lot of women things are so much worse.

OP posts:
BriarRainbowshimmer · 12/03/2014 14:25

Yes it makes me angry on your and your partner's behalf too OP. Angry

Other than the ownership mentality that still lives on, people still have this tragic idea - even if it’s not conscious and even if they don’t want too (in this case however you met a blatant sexist &%”€ ):

That men are the important humans, and women aren’t important humans. That women gain importance by being associated with a man. A relationship between two humans who don’t really count doesn’t really count does it.

BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 12/03/2014 14:14

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Original poster
TheUnforgiven · 12/03/2014 13:58

WoTmania that's interesting- we were in a club recently, sitting on a sofa and just talking/ interacting in a way that made it very clear that we were together. A man came up to my partner, grabbed her hand, told her to dance and have more fun as she was in a club, then started to dance pressed up close to her before she could get away.

I was furious at the time because I assumed that if I had been a man, another man would never have done that and would have left us alone. But perhaps I'm being naiive, and some men feel entitled to do that whoever a woman happens to be with, regardless of whether she appears to want the attention, on the assumption that she will fall to her knees in gratitude at his decision to grace her with his presence.

OP posts:
WoTmania · 12/03/2014 13:48

yep - there was a thread a while back about how men will approach women, even when they are clearly in conversation etc with someone else, encroaching on their space because they feel entitled to.

FairPhyllis · 12/03/2014 13:45

Yep. Sounds like the primary thing here is that he has a massive sense of entitlement to women's bodies/attention/time, and resulting anger that a woman dares to set a boundary of not having male partners.

I do think that homophobia against lesbian women and against gay men do come from slightly different places, because when it is against women it is all wrapped up with this misogynistic entitlement thing, whereas that's not usually the case I think when gay men experience it.

BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 12/03/2014 13:27

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sonlypuppyfat · 12/03/2014 13:20

I think you just met a weirdo.

Original poster
TheUnforgiven · 12/03/2014 13:16

Thanks, Buffy. I've certainly seen that before with friends who are out with male partners; the apology to the partner for 'infringing on their property.' I could just take incident this as a one-off, and assume that most would apologise and move on. But I have a suspicion that the sort of misogynistic man who would apologise to the male partner would not react in the same way to a female partner and either be dismissive, rude or angry at being usurped by another woman. Not that I want them to apologise to my partner for hitting on me of course, it just shows how differently the misogynist would view the legitimacy of the relationship. Argh.

OP posts:
BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 12/03/2014 12:51

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