Apparently Hating On Women is Okay: The Culture Behind Misogyny

So Being Hateful is Wrong Unless It Is Anti-Women?

Written by Jacobb Stever (9/26/2016)

Popular Misowhat?
Popular Misogyny is essentially the popular hating of women, and is typically related to feminists. This has become more of an issue as people direct their frustrations towards the feminist movement. They justify this hate simply because feminism is against men, and is fighting for women supremacy. Sadly for those people, and honestly for the rest of us, that interpretation is simply not true.

Don't hate people unless it is popular.

Now before we begin, the twitter account that is used in this post is a parody account. I am fully aware of the satire involved and address the issues of said satire in this post. Now that we are on the same page, lets begin. We are moving into a new time where a lot of youth, and even older generations are preaching ideas of acceptance. The concept of hate is being viewed negatively by more people as time progresses. Strangely enough, it seems to be pretty popular to hate women,especially those who consider themselves feminists.

We can see accounts, blogs, and pages becoming more popular by the day. The one thing drawing people to their goals on the internet is hate. Specifically on the social media site of Twitter we can see accounts targeting feminism, attacking the movement's thoughts and ideas. This account in particular, there are over 167,000 accounts that choose to follow. Quotes from this page include: 

I don’t need femimsim because if we got rid of all the men who would kill the spiders??? and women??

I don’t need fimem we NEED men to do things!I tried fixing my own computer once & accidentally filled the hard drive with menstrual blood

I don’t need fimem because women NEED men! Once I tried to open a jar by myself and accidentally opened a portal to a hells cape instead

If this doesn't anger you enough, there is plenty more: https://twitter.com/NoToFeminism?lang=en

But It Is All Fun and Games Right?
Yes, reading the posts from this page, and even seeing the train wreck of the spelling of the word feminism shows evidence of satire. Whether or not this page is someone poking fun at those who are anti-feminists, or truly attempting to be offensive as they can be, this shit just is not okay. When you reach the level that your words impact thousands of people's media involvement, promoting hate is something to surely avoid. This is a culture that has quickly risen and is often referred to as popular misogyny. In other words, the idea of it being cool for us all to hate women.

Most of the hate that is coming from social media seems to stem from confusions of the intentions of the feminist culture. Many people may have feminist ideas, but have developed a twisted definition of feminism, that often includes women supremacy, anti-men concepts, or other things that they associate with that awful f word we call feminism. Another contributor is the fact that so many people now have access to the worldwide web. Therefore whether you are an adult who has studied gender for most of your life, or you are a twelve year old boy, both have the ability to create a large impact on what others see on the internet.

This creates a broad range of those expressing their opinions in a polite and respectful manner, to blunt comments being plastered all over the internet for wandering minds to see. As people go about their routine and scroll through their news feeds and see these messages, their opinions can easily be affected if they do not have prior knowledge on the topic. Thus causing said person to develop negative opinions on women or feminism based on false information that could have easily been posted by a small child.

Well where do these negative idea's come from?
A good question to ask is why do people have this false definition of feminism engraved into their thoughts? There are many answers to that question, a few being the basic structure of the word (people seeing "fem" and atomically assuming it is only focused on women), young people having conversations with those who are antifeminist (therefore gaining only one-sided information), and even misinterpretations of feminist actions and their meanings.

This is a post from the previously mentioned twitter account that is a perfect example for some people's confusion about different information. Again while the satire can be seen fairly easily, this may lead others to see feminism as a joke, or something not to be taken seriously. Many people who have prior knowledge relating to gender and the feminist movement can digest these kinds of posts and understand what is going on. Others who lack this prior knowledge are vulnerable to this sort of media, because it paints a negative first impression.


What can be done to stop this?
It is easy for people to see the negativity and either promote it in a sarcastic manner, or even retaliate with rage and aggressively typed, paragraph long comments. Yet that is something that is only going to feed this type of media. The twitter account referred to in this blog was easily found simply because it has been given so much attention. Most online accounts that attempt to be bluntly offensive are searching for likes, follows, or comments. Feeding them that kind of attention whether it be positive or negative will only fuel the flames.
What do scholars have to say?
Author Sarah Banet has written on the topic of popular misogyny, claiming that it is expected. She describes the idea of when something becomes popular, there is going to be a counter (Banet 2015). In her writings she also touches on why the counter exists, claiming it is due to the threat of how society works. A rush of feminism will affect the political world, social norms, the work environment and many other areas of life. Due to this, people become fearful, thus countering the positive movement of change with a negative attack of hate.
So what is next?
Feminism is feminism, not what other people interpret as feminism. This meaning that those who consider themselves feminists will fight for gender equality, and continue to fight for the cause. While people will always find a way to stay on the opposing side, knowledge can only be denied for so long, and eventually the majority will be educated on the issues upon us. Feminists will never hold back, and neither will their counterparts. The movement will continue to educate people, and hopefully move forward to a state of gender equality, not gender dominance.