Do you know any misogynistic women?

[ovaryhill]

I've been reading a bit about this and wondered how common it is.
Has anyone had any experience of this?
I know at least one woman who behaves as if she hates other women and is very derogatory about women in general, agrees that wearing short skirts means you're asking for trouble kind of thing, sees other women as a threat and would prefer to work for men
Any opinions or experience?

"But then, by thinking that, I am probably not very bright as has been suggested upthread."

Or that.

I think that sometimes people who have very little control and power in their lives impose what power they have wherever they can.
I certainly agree with this.

" To explain it away as societal is to basically give a free pass for people."

Or, indeed, that.

Okay I apologise - you may see things clearer

I may see some things from a feminist perspective a little more clearly than some other people because I have thought and read and talked about it a lot over many years.

No that was my comment - what does explaining stuff as societal conditioning achieve? Genuine question, I'm not always great at nuance.

And no you didn't say I wasn't very bright but I was referring to a poster at the beginning of the thread who said that mysogynist women aren't very clever.

Lass I would spend my afternoon repeating that analysing the cause of negative behaviour is not the same as excusing it but it is starting to feel like Groundhog Day

The issue I have with all the analysing is that it it is presented as excusing. There is never any follow up that perhaps as grown up adults and mothers they could get over it and start behaving like grown up adults?

So , yes , it feels very Groundhog day as well for me too.

I genuinely don't get it. I'm not unintelligent but perhaps I'm out of my depth. This thread has made very interesting reading and I appreciate the discussion Bertrand but I can't get past the idea of people behaving badly because of the way they have been conditioned. I understand you aren't excusing the behaviour but the reasoning is terrifying.

So why do you think people behave badly? Original sin?

No - I think they behave badly because they choose to make those decisions - presumably because they hope to gain by doing so.

I would say that was why I have behaved badly in the past and I assume that's why other people do it.

So people are completely insulated from any outside influences? Their behaviour is never determined by the lives they lead, the people they meet and the experiences they've had?

Why do some people choose to behave badly and some don't?

Why do some people choose to behave badly and some don't?

At its most simplistic the feminist take seems to be -women don't choose to, the poor things are so conditioned by society.

Men on the other hand are accorded the respect of being blamed for their own poor choices.

But I ask again, what good does ascribing reasons for bad behaviour do? It doesn't change it. People are responsible for how they behave.

Going back to the rape issue, is society responsible for him thinking he could do that?

And of course people aren't isolated from society's influences. We all live by the 'rules' to a greater or lesser extent.

But as I keep asking, what is the point of analysing the reasons for behaviour if it doesn't change it? You do a bad thing, then you are responsible for that.

Am happy for someone to explain this to me!

In answer to the OP - of course women can be misogynistic. I work for one.

Lass - precisely.

"Going back to the rape issue, is society responsible for him thinking he could do that?"

Up to a point, yes. Society tells men-and women- that rape is about sex, that women say no when they mean yes and that women are often contributors to their own rape.

If we do not analyse and understand this sort of thing we can't do anything to change it.

"But as I keep asking, what is the point of analysing the reasons for behaviour if it doesn't change it? You do a bad thing, then you are responsible for that"

Yes, of course you are on an individual level. But don't we want to think about how we can, for example, educate our children to behave differently in the future?

Society's attitude rape is a good example of this. In my lifetime, the way people think about rape and the victims of rape has changed significantly- although it obviously needs to change more. That only happens because we thought about it and analyzed it and educated people.

But surely you only change things if people want to change? And I'm guessing that the reward that people get is worth not changing. Like addiction, you have to want to stop doing something.

As for educating our children, that is nothing that I can influence as I don't have them and thankfully never will.

The idea that society is responsible for me being raped is incredibly upsetting. Does that mean that as I didn't do enough to prevent it, he thought he was entitled to do that to me?

"The idea that society is responsible for me being raped is incredibly upsetting. Does that mean that as I didn't do enough to prevent it, he thought he was entitled to do that to me?"

Absolutely not. (something else I didn't think say, by the way).

While we have a society which tells men that they have power and are entitled to control women some men will rape. They think they are entitled to. They are, of course wrong.

Maybe it's not possible to change people now. But if we want the sort of society where we are all equal and safe and happy, we need to work for it. Those of us who have children, those of us who don't. If only by the way we interact with each other.

What is this society that tells men they have power and that they are entitled to control women?

It just feels like a way of excusing appalling behaviour.

I'm going to bow out now because this has upset me.

I hate the "bitchy" tag

Could the people bandying it around on here define it please

Cos i will bet the same behaviour is observed in men

I have only ever been insulted about my physical attributes ( or lack ) by men...i think thats fairly bitchy

I'm sorry you feel upset, Abby. There is no need for you to. As you will realize if you reread what people have actually said.

"It just feels like a way of excusing appalling behaviour"

I don't know how many times people have addressed this point.

rufus what's hard to understand about 'bitchy'?
Talking behind peoples backs, starting and spreading gossip, often false, excluding people from the group, making insinuations, etc, etc. If you have never come across this then you are lucky.
Have a look on a showbiz forum and see how celebrities (especially female) are continually criticised and put down, usually by other women. Read a womans magazine of the Chat or Heat variety and then reflect that the people who enjoy this sort of thing are probably doing it about the people they know in their own lives as well. Only of course they've got to be more careful in case they get caught out.
That doesn't mean that men don't do it, of course. My own personal opinion is that they're more direct and quicker to resort to physical aggression, which is never a good thing.