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4.22 AVERAGE
4.22 AVERAGE
This book opened my eyes in ways I will probably be unpacking for quite a while - particularly around the ways misogyny functions as the “how” of patriarchy. It’s the muscle, the force, that keeps a patriarchal order in its place.
Unfortunately there are all too many examples of this, but I’m grateful for this book in helping me recognize them in myself, my community, and the world to help build something better.
Unfortunately there are all too many examples of this, but I’m grateful for this book in helping me recognize them in myself, my community, and the world to help build something better.
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
This book is a really good resource for anyone having trouble getting through to casual misogynists in their life. Kate Manner really breaks down how small examples of actions from recent news and pop culture exemplify what roles women are expected to play - and the consequences for stepping outside of one's place.
Manne looks at the different situations where we choose between the words 'sexism' and 'misogyny'. She finds the common usage of 'misogyny' to be at odds with its usual definition: "Hatred of women." She also finds it tough that men who actually go on killing sprees over being rejected by women are often thought of as not really misogynists because of the disparity between the usage and the definition. Her primary example of this is the many instances of news outlets and others reporting that the perpetrator of the 2014 Isla Vista killings was not a misogynist because he didn't really hate women, or, at least not specific ones, or at least not all of them.
From there, she recommends that we shift the uses so that 'sexism' involves what one believes and feels but 'misogynistic' is defined as actions or systems which police the patriarchal order. This removes the abstract speculation about the beliefs from consideration. She has many examples of how this aligns with the times public figures and news outlets have chosen to say 'misogyny' rather than 'sexism'. She goes on to show how this manifests in politics and other places.
It's a fabulous read.
From there, she recommends that we shift the uses so that 'sexism' involves what one believes and feels but 'misogynistic' is defined as actions or systems which police the patriarchal order. This removes the abstract speculation about the beliefs from consideration. She has many examples of how this aligns with the times public figures and news outlets have chosen to say 'misogyny' rather than 'sexism'. She goes on to show how this manifests in politics and other places.
It's a fabulous read.
"When one's body is one's own effigy, one burns right along with it", Manne writes in discussing whether it matters for our moral judgement whether a man hates these women specifically and women in general symbolically or vice versa, in one of the best lines I've ever read in a theory text. The theory in this book is excellent, clear, concise, and revelatory - the best I've read since Barbara and Karen Fields' Racecraft - making the central argument that misogyny isn't the result of failing to see women as human, but in fact requires seeing them as human so they can be duty bound and deserving of moral judgement for meeting or failing in those duties. Some of the later chapters get a little repetitive in their examples, and the historian in me worries about how much weight is put on the dynamics of the 2016 election, although it is obviously an important and relevant example, but the root arguments are so strong and well made that these are very minor faults
challenging
emotional
informative
slow-paced
read for class!
Super informative and fascinating argument. For the most part, I totally agreed with Manne and her analysis although I think her ideas about the election and Bernie seemed a little lopsided. But, definitely worth the read, despite how dense it is.
Super informative and fascinating argument. For the most part, I totally agreed with Manne and her analysis although I think her ideas about the election and Bernie seemed a little lopsided. But, definitely worth the read, despite how dense it is.
This is an important book.
Quotes:
"Women may not be simply human beings but positioned as human givers when it comes to the dominant men who look to them for various kinds of moral support, admiration, attention, and so on. She is not allowed to be in the same way as he is. She will tend to be in trouble when she does not give enough, or to the right people, in the right way, or in the right spirit."
"I argue that misogyny ought to be understood as the system that operates within a patriarchal social order to police and enforce women's subordination and to uphold male dominance."
"For a man may be the master of his domain but subordinated, exploited, or marginalized in other contexts. A man hence need not, and typically will not, be positioned as dominant over any and every woman, or even women generally, to count as a fully functioning patriarch. He need only be dominant over some woman or women, often in the context of familial or intimate relationships."
"Misogynists can love their mothers - not to mention their sisters, daughters, wives, girlfriends and secretaries. They need not hate women universally, or even very generally. They tend to hate women who are outspoken, among other things."
"The fact that the people who are liable to channel misogynist social forces have various anxieties and other psychological and social adjustment problems is hardly surprising. How is this supposed to mitigate the problem facing women thought? When one's effigy is one's body, one burns right along with it."
"...my account holds that misogyny primarily targets women because they are women in a man's world (i.e., a historically patriarchal one, among other things), rather than because they are women in a man's mind, where that man is misogynist."
"sexism should be understood primarily as the 'justificatory' branch of a patriarchal order, which consists in ideology that has the overall function of rationalizing and justifying patriarchal social relations."
"...she is positioned as a human, all too human, giver. And her humanity is something he, as a privileged human being, may hence feel entitled to use, exploit, or even destroy with impunity."
"For a fellow human being is not just an intelligible spouse, parent, child, sibling, friend, colleague, etc., in relation to you and yours. They are also an intelligible rival, enemy, usurper, insubordinate, betrayer, etc. Moreover, in being capable of rationality, agency, autonomy, and judgement they are also someone who could coerce, manipulate, humiliate, or shame you. In being capable of abstract relational thought and congruent moral emotions, they are capable of thinking ill of you and regarding you contemptuously. In being capable of forming complex desires and intentions, they are capable of harboring malice and plotting against you. In being capable of valuing, they may value what you abhor and abhor what you value. They may hence be a threat to all that you cherish. And you may be a threat to all that they cherish in turn - as you may realize. (...) So, when it comes to recognizing someone as a fellow human being, the characteristic human capacities that you share don't just make her relatable; they make her potentially dangerous and threatening in ways only a human being can be..."
"...the position of the agent is not depicted as firmly situated in the human world, embroiled in complex social practices, roles, institutions, and (in this context, crucially) oppressive hierarchical relations. The agent is instead depicted merely as trying to assess other people and evaluate their merits, rather as a god might..."
"It is important for my purposes that people can be unjustly dismissed as less credible than they are without any explicit thought, let alone mention, of the relevant social category. Rather, the fact that they are interpreted as a woman or nonwhite man predicts and explains how they are viewed and treated, even though their social identity does not loom large in the consciousness of the listener - who may unwittingly come up with post-hoc rationalizations, or have no conscious reason at all, for finding their testimony suspect or their arguments unpersuasive."
"What is the line for, though? My suspicion is, among other things: women's emotional and social labor, which is now in increasingly short supply."
"But one left-wing woman's perfect victim - or, rather, moral priority among victims, in being particularly vulnerable - will be some right-wing men's worst nightmare. The latter may miss their default prior claim to being ministered to as victims, which was bequeathed to them by patriarchy. And they defend it fiercely, if not always by name, but partly by denying victim status to others - while simultaneously playing the victim, in some cases."
"...women who aspire to be 'good' have social incentives to distance themselves from a woman deemed 'bad'..."
"When she doesn't seem as if she quite belongs up there on the podium, or behind the desk of the oval office, she may seem untrustworthy, dishonest, and impostor, and even viscerally and then morally disgusting. We tend to be much too quick to trust our feelings of being unsettled as probative evidence of bad character."
"Listening and offering sympathy to those who are prone to shame-based misogynistic as well as racist outbursts is feeding the very need and sense of entitlement that drives them in the first place, when they go unmet."
"...we can distinguish between a (self-)recognized human being - e.g., white men who are otherwise privileged in most if not all major respects - versus a human giver, a woman who is held to owe many if not most of her distinctively human capacities to a suitable boy or man, ideally, and his children, as applicable."
Quotes:
"Women may not be simply human beings but positioned as human givers when it comes to the dominant men who look to them for various kinds of moral support, admiration, attention, and so on. She is not allowed to be in the same way as he is. She will tend to be in trouble when she does not give enough, or to the right people, in the right way, or in the right spirit."
"I argue that misogyny ought to be understood as the system that operates within a patriarchal social order to police and enforce women's subordination and to uphold male dominance."
"For a man may be the master of his domain but subordinated, exploited, or marginalized in other contexts. A man hence need not, and typically will not, be positioned as dominant over any and every woman, or even women generally, to count as a fully functioning patriarch. He need only be dominant over some woman or women, often in the context of familial or intimate relationships."
"Misogynists can love their mothers - not to mention their sisters, daughters, wives, girlfriends and secretaries. They need not hate women universally, or even very generally. They tend to hate women who are outspoken, among other things."
"The fact that the people who are liable to channel misogynist social forces have various anxieties and other psychological and social adjustment problems is hardly surprising. How is this supposed to mitigate the problem facing women thought? When one's effigy is one's body, one burns right along with it."
"...my account holds that misogyny primarily targets women because they are women in a man's world (i.e., a historically patriarchal one, among other things), rather than because they are women in a man's mind, where that man is misogynist."
"sexism should be understood primarily as the 'justificatory' branch of a patriarchal order, which consists in ideology that has the overall function of rationalizing and justifying patriarchal social relations."
"...she is positioned as a human, all too human, giver. And her humanity is something he, as a privileged human being, may hence feel entitled to use, exploit, or even destroy with impunity."
"For a fellow human being is not just an intelligible spouse, parent, child, sibling, friend, colleague, etc., in relation to you and yours. They are also an intelligible rival, enemy, usurper, insubordinate, betrayer, etc. Moreover, in being capable of rationality, agency, autonomy, and judgement they are also someone who could coerce, manipulate, humiliate, or shame you. In being capable of abstract relational thought and congruent moral emotions, they are capable of thinking ill of you and regarding you contemptuously. In being capable of forming complex desires and intentions, they are capable of harboring malice and plotting against you. In being capable of valuing, they may value what you abhor and abhor what you value. They may hence be a threat to all that you cherish. And you may be a threat to all that they cherish in turn - as you may realize. (...) So, when it comes to recognizing someone as a fellow human being, the characteristic human capacities that you share don't just make her relatable; they make her potentially dangerous and threatening in ways only a human being can be..."
"...the position of the agent is not depicted as firmly situated in the human world, embroiled in complex social practices, roles, institutions, and (in this context, crucially) oppressive hierarchical relations. The agent is instead depicted merely as trying to assess other people and evaluate their merits, rather as a god might..."
"It is important for my purposes that people can be unjustly dismissed as less credible than they are without any explicit thought, let alone mention, of the relevant social category. Rather, the fact that they are interpreted as a woman or nonwhite man predicts and explains how they are viewed and treated, even though their social identity does not loom large in the consciousness of the listener - who may unwittingly come up with post-hoc rationalizations, or have no conscious reason at all, for finding their testimony suspect or their arguments unpersuasive."
"What is the line for, though? My suspicion is, among other things: women's emotional and social labor, which is now in increasingly short supply."
"But one left-wing woman's perfect victim - or, rather, moral priority among victims, in being particularly vulnerable - will be some right-wing men's worst nightmare. The latter may miss their default prior claim to being ministered to as victims, which was bequeathed to them by patriarchy. And they defend it fiercely, if not always by name, but partly by denying victim status to others - while simultaneously playing the victim, in some cases."
"...women who aspire to be 'good' have social incentives to distance themselves from a woman deemed 'bad'..."
"When she doesn't seem as if she quite belongs up there on the podium, or behind the desk of the oval office, she may seem untrustworthy, dishonest, and impostor, and even viscerally and then morally disgusting. We tend to be much too quick to trust our feelings of being unsettled as probative evidence of bad character."
"Listening and offering sympathy to those who are prone to shame-based misogynistic as well as racist outbursts is feeding the very need and sense of entitlement that drives them in the first place, when they go unmet."
"...we can distinguish between a (self-)recognized human being - e.g., white men who are otherwise privileged in most if not all major respects - versus a human giver, a woman who is held to owe many if not most of her distinctively human capacities to a suitable boy or man, ideally, and his children, as applicable."
challenging
informative
slow-paced
The writing style is somewhat hard to follow but the insights into misogyny as a structural force in our society are invaluable.
This book is a slap in the face to all the feminist theorists who have done any work in understanding how misogyny actually functions in our society.