Merriam Webster Dictionary defines Misogyny as, “hatred of, aversion to, or prejudice against women.” As a woman in the 21st century we would believe that such prejudices against us would have previously ceased to exist, but as most if not all of us know, this is unfortunately untrue.
As a 20 year old female college student I can definitely say that I have experienced misogyny, unfortunately more than I would like to admit. I think that most women are able to say the same. There were times when I was too young to even realize what was going on. The days when I would go to school with a fear that my principle would dress code me for my shoulders being on display. As a child, this works its way into our brains and creates a narrative about women, “we are distracting.” It isn’t the males fault that they happen to violate our space with words and behavior that is blatantly rude and disturbing, it is our fault, the girls, for putting ourselves on display. This idea is disturbing and it makes me uncomfortable to think that this is a narrative that I and many other women have lived. I remember girls being told they were “whores” or “sluts” for wearing makeup or dresses and skirts. How could society decide that shaming people was acceptable?
Recently I saw a male on my snapchat who posted a screenshot of an instagram post, this post showed a woman who said that her body was her choice and she should be able to sleep with whoever she wanted to, underneath this the caption read, “You certainly can sleep with whoever you want but women are like cars, the more they are used the less of a value they are.” Seeing this ruined my day—I immediately deleted the man child off of my snapchat, but this is clearly a problem that I can’t truly ignore just by deleting it out of my life like I did the post. I cannot fathom the idea that anyone would believe that I am anything like a car; cars don’t have feelings, cars are nothing like women or anyone for that matter. To compare me to an object is to devalue me as a human and to that I just have to say, F*ck You. I’ve sat by while many of my friends have been gaslighted and treated like objects, without respect. To the men who have told me that their experiences as a man were equal or harder than mine as a woman, I want to ask if they have ever felt like less than human? Because as a woman in today’s society I have certainly felt less than human in the eyes of men. It’s the statements about periods and how we are so irrational that truly send me over the edge, how can you say we are irrational when you sit by and never experience the same things we do. In our society women are meant to match mens emotional capacity if we surpass that we become “psycho” or “crazy.” I myself have been called both of those names for simple things like crying when someone, namely boys hurt my feelings, or telling someone how I feel. We shouldn’t measure emotion by one specific gender’s idea of how we should emote, we should be free to feel however we need to feel without being judged.
A personal experience that has unfortunately stuck with me was the time a man who I was seeing told me I would never be strong enough to be a cop and that he was glad that women like me weren’t trying to enter that field. This was said after I had told him that I had thought about joining the police force when I was younger and decided against it. I didn’t decide against it because I was a woman who “wasn’t strong enough,” I decided against it because I didn’t want to join a corrupt organization. A woman can do whatever she wants to do if she sets her mind to it, and to tell me to my face that I would never be able to do a job with the only reason being that I was a woman made me furious. For good reason I never saw that guy again, but still these thoughts are out there circulating.
I could go on and on about how I have seen my ex boyfriend’s friends being crude about other women, or how I have experienced being objectified to the extreme, but I have so many stories it may never end. Unfortunately I am not the only one who has stories on stories of men treating women like less than humans. Women aren’t objects and we aren’t put on this earth for the males pleasure, we are strong, fierce people who go through insane things only to come out even more amazing.