To think that women being unpleasant to other women is not automatically internalised misogyny?

[Carla786]

I see this a lot on FWR and in other places.
It certainly can be, but it seems a cop-out to say it is always the cause. It's not anti-feminist to say that women can be cruel to each other for other reasons, just as men can : intrasexual competition, insecurity, narcissism etc

AIBU?

I've rarely seen this as a comment on women simply being nasty to or about each other. If it is, someone will pick up on it.

Internalised misogyny is a factor in things like vilifying the other woman (especially when calling her a slag, whore, etc) and focusing on a woman's appearance instead of her actions.

Some people are just arseholes 🤷‍♀️

Yeah, this is the most parsimonious explanation.

if it makes some people feel better to find some convoluted explanation to blame men for intrasexual competition, then they also fall into this category.

Women in general can be very nasty - much more nasty than men. Sorry. It just is, the reality.

I agree. Look what girls can be like at school etc with each other

And people say internalised misogyny is not a “thing”. 😂😂

An excellent way to gather examples of internalised misogyny, OP. Great work.

Women use “nasty” ways of expressing negative emotions in conflict because of gendered expectations. They get even more criticism if they use behaviours coded masculine, because in a misogynist society women are in the wrong no matter what they do.

Hmm...I'll agree with that when women commit rape and murder at the same rates.
Emotional & mental cruelty can be excruciatingly painful. But physical and sexual assault are much harder to avoid the effects of if you're alone with an evil man.

I agree with this but I think men enjoy inflicting emotional and mental pain on others at the same rate as women or more. I know a woman who is divorcing her abusive partner- separated for ywars but he has pretty much dedicated his pathetic existence to making her life difficult to the nth petty degree instead of leaving her the fuck alone. The stereotype of the crazy ex is female but actually the stalky ones who won't let it go are more likely to be men, even after they get a new partner.
Look at Donald Trump, as an extreme example. Still trying to discredit and dismantle anything good Obama did, to the detriment of the country and trying to get one over on all his imagined enemies and he'll turn on people in an instant. You rarely get that dedication to arseholery from women. He's petty, spiteful, fickle and just wrong in the head which are feminine coded stereotypes from "Frailty, thy name is woman" to "Bitches be crazy" but just as or more likely to be traits exhibited by men.

Girls were far nastier to me than any boys ever were. The teenagers who belittled me, ostracized me and made sure I had no friends, mocked my weight, mocked my acne, destroyed my self esteem, pretended a boy fancied me to try to get me to make a fool out of myself, all girls. The boys either just ignored me or were my friends. As an adult, men are perfectly pleasant to me, women are really fucking nasty in ways a man has never been to me if they perceive me as not wanting to participate in the social ranks and hierarchies. I make a point of staying away from large groups of women because in my experience they act like a pack and will go for someone for stupid little reasons. I much prefer a group of male friends, it's just surface level banter and having a laugh and no sneering. You only have to look at the way women talk to eachother on here to know what I mean they love to cut eachother down and sneer.

Of course there are good women, my two best friends are women and I adore them and the female solidarity I have with them and could never have with men, but they are a special minority in my experience. And of course there are awful men who are awful to women and I have experienced domestic violence but even he seemed less determined to destroy my self worth than the packs of girls at school though and obviously I just left him and moved on with my life, you can't leave school. I'm really worried about my daughter starting school because of how vile little girls can be to eachother, I really don't want her to experience it.

And none of my negative attitudes about other women/girls were foisted upon me by a misogynistic society determined to hate women, they thoroughly earned my disdain by treating me the way they did and behaving the way they did throughout my life. They truly earned it.

I agree, OP.

I consider myself a strong feminist - but I'm an older feminist, so not necessarily up to speed on the very latest thinking. And some of that thinking seems to me a bit dodgy.

I don't like the buzz words and phrases trotted out so often on here which are used to shut down discussion. 'Internalised misogyny' is one of those.

I think of people as individuals above all - I always have. Whatever your gender, I don't think of that as the most characteristic aspect of you. Of course I get the narrative about the patriarchy and try to do my bit every day to push back, but I don't like the very silly idea that, as a woman, I shouldn't criticise other women. I've been accused of this on here many times!

"That's right, blame a woman for xyz".

If you take that to its logical conclusion you would have to say 'Don't blame Mrs Thatcher for anything" (well, she was PM!) and don't blame Katie Price for the train-wreck of an existence she has because she's a woman.

It's different if you're blaming someone's partner or wife for their shortcomings - that's ridiculous - such as blaming Melania for Trump, or Ms Average for not reminding her male partner about his mother's birthday. But if a woman is in a specific role, then I will criticise her as I would a man in that role - not more, and not less.

I think humans can be very cruel. For men this often includes physical violence, although for woman it can too.

women can sadly be very cruel to other women, judgemental, jealous, resentful, bitchy, competitive, and it’s abhorrent when they blame men for their behaviour.

often it’s to make themselves feel better about themselves. It’s seldom about the victim.

I dont think we are saying don't criticise any woman ever. It's more don't make comments about the numder of sexual partners she has, what she wears, what she looks like, saying any achievements she may have achieved are due to her looks, confidence is aggression and so on.

Women being unkind to other women isn’t necessarily internalised misogyny. Assuming the reason for unkind behaviour is that it was perpetrated by women is.

Women can indeed be utter cunts. But its because the individual woman or women are cunts. Not because they are women.

Men kill women. Every single day.
That's the reality.

I agree that not all poor behaviour from women towards women is internalised misogyny. But internalised misogyny is undoubtedly insidious. I was horrified recently when I was out with some mum friends. Our kids grew up together and are now older teenagers. We were talking about their peer group, and another mum said in a gossipy way that apparently, according to her son, one of the girls is well known for being ‘easy’ and going with lots of boys. I was pretty sickened at what seemed evidently to be misogyny on the part of this grown woman towards a young girl.

Mean girls at school too often grow into mean women. Some people are just not nice - nothing to do with what sex they are, misogyny or anything else. Why is that so hard to understand?

And shows that young men are still judging women for that, like nothing has changed since I was young. Like several decades ago!

But some ‘mean’ness is clearly driven by misogynistic tropes: judging girls and women for sexual behaviour, size, characterising an assertive woman as ‘bossy’ etc. These ideas are gendered and exist as part of our patriarchal society; ‘mean girls’ have internalised these misogynistic ideas. They’re still being twats (or dicks, if we are going to be fair 😉), but the values are internalised misogyny.

Depends what you define as 'unpleasant'.
Some women say nasty things to other women for fun or spite or because they're not very nice. Some women say things that are recieved as 'unpleasant' because the person hearing them disagrees.
Some women say things that aren't very nice to hear because they think they need saying.
Some women criticise other women because the woman's actions deserve it.
None of this is necessarily IM. The things that make it so are targeting women instead of men for spite, criticism and judgement. Applying different, harsher standards to women than to men and actively looking to find fault with wonen in situations that also involve men.
Basically, if you want to identify IM, you need to seek the comparator. So if there's a man in there being overlooked or excused or defended while a woman is atracked, you've probably found it.

See it a lot on here. A female disagreeing gets told she’s showing internalised misogyny 🙄. No love, just don’t agree with you or despise men. I also don’t have women on a pedestal.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78v36g4pnno
When this story was in the news a few weeks ago. Someone on MN said she didn't believe any woman was inherently wicked. A man must have made her behave wickedly. The posters who agreed with her ignored this story.
She is a wicked woman.

Agree. Being verbally mean or nasty is a general human trait that both men and women display, and isn't necessarily misogynistic simply because it's aimed at a woman.

The content of the verbal meanness and the beliefs they betray, and the wider context of the situation, is what makes it (internalised) misogyny or not.

Great post, I agree with every word.

I'm really sorry you went through this. 💐

I do think this kind of bullying doesn't necessarily happen at school: some schools are also much better at dealing with it than others. Please don't think it will automatically happen to your DD.

Re leaving: yes, you can't leave school until the end. But I wouldn't automatically say that school bullying is more trapping than an abusive relationship. A lot of women can't leave for various reasons.

If I can ask, did your parents not want to let your change school? I understand if you don't want to give more detail.