– a feeling of hate or dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women.
The word is formed from the Greek roots misos (“hatred”) and gunē (“woman”). The first known use of the word “misogyny” was circa 1656, although it is believed that misogynistic thoughts can be dated back to ancient times. The term was popularized in the 1970-s by second-wave feminists.
Misogyny is acknowledged to be a result of and means of sustaining patriarchy (a male-dominated society) and can refer to specific individuals as well as larger institutions, communities, or cultures.
Societies in which misogyny is prevalent have high rates of violence against women, such as rape, harassment, domestic abuse, and objectivation of women’s bodies.
Victim-blaming is one of the consequences of misogyny in which a woman who is a victim of sexual assault on the individual level, might be mistreated by police and a judge on the institutional level. She might be told she was responsible for the crime because of the way she behaved or the way she was dressed.
See more resources
Kendall, E. (2022, October 14). misogyny. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/misogyny
Srivastava, K., Chaudhury, S., Bhat, P. S., & Sahu, S. (2017). Misogyny, feminism, and sexual harassment. Industrial psychiatry journal, 26(2), 111–113. https://doi.org/10.4103/ipj.ipj_32_18