If you opened this article because you were startled by the title, good. That only makes my thesis all the more relevant.
You may agree with my title. You might wonder where exactly I’m coming from, or what angle I’m about to take. Or maybe it made you angry, because obviously not everything is misogyny. Regardless of your opinion, everyone can probably agree that the title is direct.
This article isn’t arguing that every criticism of women is misogyny, but that misogyny quietly shapes the language, standards, and emotional expectations placed on women in ways we rarely question.
Being direct isn’t something the world is used to nowadays, especially when it comes to women. I’ve experienced that firsthand.
Recently, I went through an extremely emotionally turbulent time, prompted by how I was treated by a boy, which caused me to have some pretty intense emotional reactions. When I expressed how I felt or took agency for myself, I was often met with downplaying or judgment. It hurt. When I thought back on every other time I’ve been involved with a boy, I realized there were patterns. They spanned my own experiences and echoed stories my female peers have shared as well.
Misogyny today isn’t loud or obvious the way many people imagine it; it’s implicit. It hides in our actions and words toward one another, deciding who gets grace, who gets judged, and who is allowed anger, ambition, desire, or even a voice.
Have you ever noticed how women are often scrutinized for reacting, while men are protected for acting?
When a man causes a woman grief of any kind, the people around him often make excuses: “He’s always like that,” or “I’m sure he didn’t mean it that way.” Boys will be boys, right? But when a woman reacts to what a man does, the conversation suddenly shifts to how emotional she’s being, or worse, how “crazy” she is. Why can’t girls be girls, too?
This mindset dates back hundreds of years, to a time when misogyny was more overt, and women who showed even an ounce of emotion were institutionalized in madhouses. That’s where the term “female hysteria” originated, and where emotion itself became something shameful and dangerous. Men were taught to suppress their emotions to avoid seeming feminine, while women were punished for expressing theirs at all.
Femininity has inherently been framed as weak, and the legacy lingers today. When women have emotional reactions, they are framed as irrational or unstable, even though it is entirely unfair to expect women to suppress their emotions while men are granted endless excuses. Men are granted intent, while women are judged on impact.
All of this connects to another point that shifts the focus to society as a whole: we are all actively being conditioned to suppress vulnerability, as well as accountability. Have you noticed how conflict-averse people are nowadays in general? When someone has grievances with a friend, the first instinct is to push them down to keep the peace. Silence is now framed as “maturity,” even though staying quiet has never solved a problem. If anything, it allows issues to fester.
Emotional honesty is often treated as a disruption. When someone tries to take agency for their feelings or name a problem, it becomes easy to frame them as being too emotional or as “causing issues.” This idea is directly rooted in misogyny and traces back to the historical patterns I described. When women speak up, they often become the problem.
Sometimes, women can’t even get to the point of having a conversation about their feelings because emotion itself is treated as something inherently wrong.
People will often find reasons to tear a woman down simply for having feelings. Over time, even the most neutral action can be perceived as emotional, excessive, or threatening, especially when she has already been scrutinized for expressing emotion before.
Thinking about all of this led me to other areas where women are scrutinized for essentially existing. At the top of my mind was the entertainment industry — a place where exploitation and scrutiny are almost treated as a rite of passage. To keep the conversation contained, I’m going to center on the music industry.
I recently had a conversation with someone where they made a random comment about how they didn’t like Miley Cyrus. Because I’d been thinking about misogyny so much, I asked why. The response was, “It’s just something about her. Also, her family is kind of crazy.” Doesn’t that seem like a really odd reason to not like someone?
“It’s just something about her” is a phrase that has been used while discussing literally every female music artist, usually for lack of concrete negative things to say. The biggest example that probably comes to mind for most people is Taylor Swift, especially during her very vocal feminist activism era between 2018 and 2020, when she called attention to the language society uses when discussing female celebrities.
In a 2019 CBS interview, she famously said: “There’s a different vocabulary for men and women in the music industry, right?” … “A man does something, it’s strategic. A woman does the same thing; it’s calculated. A man is allowed to react. A woman can only overreact.”
This is not to say that everyone who dislikes Taylor Swift, or any female music artist for that matter, is a misogynist. The language still matters, though.
There are legitimate reasons to dislike Taylor Swift. For instance, many people view her activism as performative and limited to the experiences of white women. But when someone can’t articulate a clear reason for disliking a female celebrity and defaults to something vague or superficial, it is often rooted in misogyny.
Going back to my Miley Cyrus conversation, I did a quick Google search on Miley Cyrus controversies afterward. All I could find was criticism of her “provocative” image, especially in reference to her “Wrecking Ball” music video from 2013. I couldn’t legitimately understand why this was such a problem for so many people, especially when the video has a deeper message beyond her showing skin. How many times have male music artists produced overtly sexual music videos that nobody seemed to bat an eye at?
Let’s look at some recently popular female music artists—Sabrina Carpenter, Tate McRae, Olivia Rodrigo, and even Zara Larsson. They have all been criticized for their images and for showing too much skin while performing. Comment sections across social media call their outfits “too revealing,” criticize them for not dressing more modestly, and even body shame them, even though they look completely healthy and normal. When men perform shirtless, it’s “sexy.” Nobody bats an eye.
Image also directly correlates with the content of female music artists’ lyrics, which can never seem to catch a break. Sabrina Carpenter, for example, faced major discourse surrounding her most recent album, Man’s Best Friend, for containing sexual innuendos in nearly every song. Taylor Swift was picked apart for her song “Wood” in The Life of a Showgirl. Meanwhile, nearly every male artist has released at least quite a few songs about sex, Drake being an obvious example.
Women are also scrutinized for writing “too many” songs about romance, of all things. Romance is one of the most popular genres across nearly every form of media. Artists commonly write about their life experiences, and many of those experiences happen to be romantic. Nobody makes this same criticism about Justin Bieber, Charlie Puth, or Morgan Wallen.
Another major issue is how much women are shamed in the industry for their physical appearances. A clear example is Billie Eilish, who wore baggy clothes for years to avoid being sexualized or judged. Many people didn’t understand her choice until paparazzi photos were released in October 2020, showing her wearing more revealing clothing. The internet immediately flooded with unsolicited opinions, including one Twitter user who commented, “In 10 months Billie Eilish has developed a mid-30’s wine mom body.”
Included in her 2024 album HIT ME HARD AND SOFT is her song “SKINNY,” where she sings: “People say I look happy / Just because I got skinny / But the old me is still me and maybe the real me / And I think she’s pretty.”
Women are criticized for losing weight as well. Meghan Trainor, whose brand was built around body positivity after releasing “All About That Bass” in 2014, has noticeably lost weight in recent years. The internet has been anything but supportive, with people saying they don’t recognize her, questioning how she lost the weight, or claiming her weight loss ruined her brand.
In response to that scrutiny, Trainor released her song “Still Don’t Care,” singing: “Said I was too thick, then I got way too thin,” and “You’re a little too loud, stretch marks on your skin,” referencing the backlash she’s received regardless of her size.
Women’s bodies in the music industry are constantly under the watchful eye of the public and the media. They can’t be “too skinny,” “too fat,” or even exist comfortably in between. There will almost always be something to nitpick.
All of these arguments extend far beyond the music industry, whether in modeling, acting, or nearly any other field. The language used to judge women is rarely applied to men in the same way, and the standards are not equal. When male celebrities are widely disliked, there is far more often a concrete reason, usually tied to serious wrongdoing. When it comes to women, however, scrutiny stems from superficial judgments rather than substance.
In everyday life, misogyny is hidden in the way women are spoken to and treated, and it shows up everywhere. It might look like tone-policing when women are told to watch how they speak to people when they’re really just being firm. Women are often labeled as “too much” in friendships, classrooms, and even the workplace. We try hard to prove ourselves, but it’s somehow never enough and way too much all at once. We’re expected to carry the emotional labor of our relationships, but never to struggle with it. And when we put boundaries in place, we’re punished socially.
It would be a huge mistake to limit misogyny to the words and actions of men. Misogyny can come from women as well, though rarely in a malicious way. I am not trying to say that “girls are mean” or that “women tear each other down all the time.” What I am saying is that misogyny can be passed from woman to woman in ways that feel normalized and, quite frankly, automatic.
As women, we grow up surrounded by anti-feminist language that often isn’t outwardly misogynistic. Nonetheless, it becomes familiar. It becomes the baseline. And it’s internalized.
Because of that, it’s incredibly common for women to internally judge other women for the very things they themselves are judged for: being too provocative, too emotional, too ambitious, or for changing their appearance. The standards we hold other women to are the same ones that have been imposed on us.
I would even go so far as to say that, for some women, enforcing those standards becomes a survival strategy. When the rules punish women for emotion, ambition, or sexuality, some women uphold those rules to protect themselves. It isn’t us; it’s the system.
The unfortunate reality is that these patterns have existed for so long that real change often feels out of reach. Progress in feminist movements seems to take one step forward and three steps back. While there will surely be big steps for women, the system has literally been ingrained in our world, and creeps up on us quietly.
Misogyny isn’t going to disappear overnight, so this article isn’t a call for sweeping reform. It’s a call for awareness, if you weren’t already aware, and a call for affirmation if you are a woman who has felt these things before. If you read this and it brought you back to your own experiences, I want you to know that none of it was in your head. You aren’t dramatic for expressing how you feel, and being yourself isn’t “extra” or “too much.” You are you, and that is both beautiful and good enough.
So, be emotionally vulnerable. Tell people how you feel. Be honest with yourself. Be direct and assertive with other people. Do it all in the face of adversity. If everything is misogyny, then existing loudly, honestly, and unapologetically is an act of resistance.
What we can continue to do, even in the face of anti-feminism, is judge ourselves by our own standards rather than anyone else’s. We can continue to uplift one another as women, question the language we’ve been taught to accept, and refuse to dilute ourselves for other people’s comfort. Even these small acts have the power to make the world a little brighter for every woman.