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As women in Mzansi, we are going through a lot. Kuningi bathong (there is a lot happening) and we don’t have the energy to deal with women misogynists.
As it is, we are battling the scourge of violence against women and girls, and other crimes. And now we have to deal with women who hate other women.
Danish philosopher Berit Brogaard’s blog titled 12 Ways to Spot a Female Misogynist caught my attention recently. She reveals that “many women are misogynists too”.
Brogaard, who specialises in the philosophy of mind and language, says, like men, women misogynists are mainly driven by either unjustified hate or contempt for women.
She writes:
She describes the puritan as a woman who takes the ideal woman to be domestic, subservient, nurturing, kind, mild-tempered, alluring, youthful and sexually pure before marriage. “She has adopted this feminine ideal from her misogynistic husband, family or acquaintances.”
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Brogaard says the self-critic is disdainful towards women who are not very feminine, whether they choose not to be or because they are just bad at acting traditionally. This includes women who are “too fat, too big, too masculine, too angry, too loud, too competitive, too hardcore or too alpha”.
The she-devil sees herself as superior to other women and at least on a level with, if not above, the top alpha males she encounters, says Brogaard.
And as we battle the patriarchy entrenched in society, do we have the strength to put on our boxing gloves, step into the ring and fight these female misogynists?
Will these fights ever end? When will the so-called pull-her-down syndrome end? As much as I feel that women are not safe around men, women are also not safe around other women.
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“We shine the light on whatever is worst. Perfection is a disease of a nation. Pretty hurts, pretty hurts,” sings Beyoncé in Pretty Hurts. To my gorgeous sisters I have to ask:
As a group that has experienced marginalisation and blatant discrimination for simply having a vagina, surely we, as a collective, should know the pain of being put down. So, why are some of us now the perpetrators of misogyny?
