If a
man has a high IQ, he is smart and intelligent. His brain is a gift to society.
He might discover a cure for cancer, or cold fusion, or rockets to Mars.
If a
woman has a high IQ, she is a bitch.
If a
man is quiet, he is deep. He is respected. He is assumed to be thinking
profound things.
If
woman is quiet, she is invisible. Ignore her. Forget her name.
If a
man is strong, his strength is our strength. He can be our soldier to defend
us. Our champion debater who articulates our values.
If a
woman is strong, she is a castrating bitch.
If a
man is creative, give him a grant. Hang his art on the walls of museums. Give
his novel a Pulitzer. Give him a best director Academy Award.
If a
woman is creative, why doesn't she have children? Selfish. Bitch.
If a
man is ethical we put him on a pedestal and make him a judge and ask him to
help us decide complex, weighty issues.
If a
woman is ethical we mock her as self-righteous and focus on every chink in her
armor. Mother Teresa went to a hospital when she had heart trouble!!! What
about those vows of poverty, hey? Christopher Hitchens built his career on
mocking Mother Teresa as a phony.
If a
woman is chaste she is a prude.
If a
woman enjoys life she is a whore.
If a
woman has women friends she is a lesbian.
If
woman has no women friends she is a bitch.
If
woman has men friends she is promiscuous.
If a
woman has a PhD or a JD or has an executive job she is unwomanly.
If a
woman has no degree and is a stay-at-home mom she is "barefoot and
pregnant." An airhead.
Look
at the headlines on women's magazines, from Seventeen
to O.
Every
magazine, no matter the age of the demographic, has headlines focusing on one
theme:
Women
and girls, you are doing it wrong. Stop doing it. Start doing it right. Change
your life now. Lose weight. Gain bust. Cook chocolate cake. Jog. Shut up. Speak
up. Bathe. Get dirty. Stop stop stop. Do this do this do this.
No
matter what a woman is doing, she is doing it wrong, and she'd better stop, and
start doing it right.
This
is a no-exit maze. There is only one solution.
Women
and girls: shut up the internalized misogynists, and respect your intelligence,
or your disinterest in intellectual pursuits. Respect your quiet or your noise.
Respect your beauty or your ugliness.
Turn
off the voice of misogyny.
One
of the themes of election 2016 is misogynist caricatures of Hillary Clinton.
I
check in to Facebook daily. Ever since polls reflected Trump's lack of
viability in a general, as opposed to a primary, election, Trump boosters and
those who self-identify as hating Hillary Clinton began to post memes depicting
Hillary Clinton as
a
toothed vagina
a
witch
a
blood sucking vampire
a
crazed, serial killer ax murderer
a
fat, wrinkled, naked old woman.
Etc.
These
images were
more
frequent
and
more
extreme
Than
any images I saw during the same period depicting any male figure, including
Donald Trump.
In
fact I saw vanishingly few malicious caricatures of Donald Trump.
If
you are a woman, if you have a wife, mother, sister or daughter, if you are a
teacher or other leader who cares about women's fate, it behooves you to take
note of this.
The
world is (still) hateful towards women in a way it is not hateful towards men.
All
other factors accounted for: who the woman is, what she does for a living, what
she has done with her life.
The
world saves a portion of its hatred to spend on women alone.
"The
world" includes other women. Women perform FGM on little girls in Muslim
countries. Women slice women's faces with razor blades if hijab is inadequate.
Women participate in honor killings. Women abort female fetuses.
Women
were the driving engines of the witch craze that mass murdered women in Europe
for two hundred years.
Criticisms
of Donald Trump that I have seen focus on actual things he has said, done, or
proposed. These criticisms use transcripts and video and charts and graphs to
make their points.
Criticisms
of Hillary Clinton I have seen focus on making her face and body look as ugly
as possible.
Yes,
it's different for women than it is for men. Yes, we should pay attention.
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