Call it misogyny

Abstract

Misogyny is a weighty term. Its affective power invokes spectres of rape, sexual assault, hate-fuelled insults and gas-lighting. Its presence in nearly every culture on the planet haunts our pasts and frames our presents. Aiming to build an understanding of misogyny for our future social justice efforts, I look to Kate Manne’s Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, where she dusts off an old definition of misogyny as the hatred of women to describe it as the enforcement branch of a patriarchal society, a renewed engagement for feminists and activists alike. In particular, this framing provides opportunities to examine misogyny from an intersectional lens, including its intersections with race, gender and sexuality. For example, through stories such as that of Pamela George, an Indigenous woman from Regina, Saskatchewan who was murdered in 1995, I argue that it is crucial that we recognise the collusion between settler colonialism and misogyny. Or in the case of transphobic comedian Dave Chapelle, we must understand the interplay of heteronormativity and cisnormativity in propping up transmisogyny. Consequently, I argue that an intersectional logic of misogyny provides not only a shift but a tipping point for feminist and queer movements to come.

Misogyny and Organization Studies

“…Manne's work fits into a resurgence of academic debate exploring misogyny in disciplines as diverse as classics (Zuckerberg, 2018), mass media (Banet-Weiser, 2018), technology (Vickery & Everbach, 2018), criminology (Zempi & Smith, 2021), social work (Ukockis, 2019) and philosophy (Clack, 2016). Loewen Walker (2022) argues that much of this still draws on a traditional definition of misogyny rooted in emotion, such that academic usage of the term focuses overwhelmingly on men, often individual men, as perpetrators of hate. Perhaps ironically then, some discussions of misogyny have been accused of being misogynistic in their framing and effects, as they centre men's agency and silence women's experience (Hart, 2006on Gilmore, 2001.…”

“…Black feminist scholars have explored 'misogynoir' (Bailey, 2010(Bailey, , 2021 within academia (Bailey & Trudy, 2018), politics (Palmer, 2020) and the media. Drawing on this and developing Manne's definitions, Loewen Walker (2022) explains how misogyny 'works with' other forms of oppression. She argues convincingly that in positioning misogyny as a collective, social phenomenon, rather than linked to individual emotions, we can better understand why certain kinds of women and certain kinds of behaviours or activities are so heavily targeted and policed.…”

“…In a theoretical sense, misogyny brings clarity as a philosophically developed label to analyse what goes in within and across organizations every day around the world. It's a name, as Loewen Walker (2022) argues, that still packs a punch, as it should, given its empirical referent. Organizations are sites of sexism, yes, but it almost sounds quaint to say that now.…”

“…This is summarized effectively by Loewen Walker (2022, p. 3, our emphasis):Misogyny operates to police particular people who engage in particular activities , that is the Indigenous sex worker, the trans woman, even the gay man . .…”

“…Loewen Walker’s (2022) emphasis on intersectionality is something to return to, but it’s worth reiterating here that thinking about misogyny as an ‘entrenched, networked system of control’ (p. 12) rather than individually rooted hatred, enables understanding of why certain kinds of people more than others, often women but not all women, are belittled, policed or violated, usually by men but not all men. As Loewen Walker (2022) further notes, ‘[t]hrough such a shift, we are better able to see misogyny’s widespread collusion with colonialism, racism, transphobia and homophobia’ (p. 12).…”