If there is anything in this world that irks the daylights out of me, it is the persistent nature of patriarchy that wins on a daily basis. ‘She’s such a gold digger, look at her boyfriend!’, ‘She’s definitely sleeping with her boss, I mean why else would she get a promotion!?’. Let’s face it, if you are a womxn, you have probably come across these familiar lines directed at yourself or have overheard a conversation that was aimed for another womxn. This brings me back to my point; misogyny is the monster in our real-life dystopian society of imaginary ‘gender equality’.
A few days back, while I was walking down from campus, I heard two girls behind laugh about their experiences at an interview at a corporate company. They had joked about how lucky they were that they were not chosen for the job, otherwise life would have been a hell for them given that their prospective boss was the enigmatic but sexist charmer they had been warned of. And then it hit me: womxn in any spacial and relational dynamics are always vulnerable because the societal influence has always leaned towards ousting us yet cradling on to our volatility to exploit our weakness. Misogyny does this EXACT thing, except to such brilliant extremes that collectively as a society, we are rendered helpless to defy the blemish it really is. Misogyny is way more than the dictionary’s definition of ‘dislike, contempt of ingrained prejudice of women’, it is the invisible, cancerous stem of patriarchy’s branches. It is creeping on to the soils of our society, belittling every little thing womxnhood personifies.
And the manifestations play out in various formats; domestically, in the workplace, at educational institutions and even in informal settings. It is the the invisibility of misogyny that makes it so dangerous. Misogyny is when you are the only womxn in a space, predominantly powered by men, and although you are present, you are made to feel insignificant. They weren’t so many womxn in the first place because misogyny thrives so successfully. Misogyny is when you are teased on the side of the road, ogled, and whistled to because you are made to not feel human. You are an object of satiable quality. Misogyny is when you are questioned about your choices, your lifestyle, your desires, and your dreams, simply because your autonomy as a womxn is so unreliable for the world to nebulize. Misogyny, sexism, and patriarchy are all fueled by the overpowering analogy of male supremacy; but we, as womxn, have some sort of provided agency to do what we can to not pull our own down. This agency is obstructed by patriarchy, in more ways than we know it.
Misogyny is severely perpetuated by us womxn as well. We are compelled to be veiled under the impression that we ought to be complacent about the implicit violence that explicitly affects us in all ways. Misogyny not only targets womxn, but patriarchy itself is a toxic manifestation that hurts men. We may not realize it but the certain social engineering that dichotomizes men from womxn, pushes them apart, isolating every opportunity to humanize a pandemic we continuously face.
So the next time, someone tries to degrade a womxn, humiliate her or derail her choices because they are unsure of her story; stop and let them know that they should not be the antagonists of a story that will flourish in due time.