We need feminism now more than ever for many reasons, but rampant internalized misogyny — which often goes unnoticed and, in some situations, is even understood as social norms – is as good a reason as any.
Culturally, we seem to have just accepted that “sex sells.” But the media, advertising and other cultural institutions “sell sex” largely by demeaning women and causing them to feel ashamed about their bodies. For example, American Apparel is known for its sexually exploitive advertising and marketing. Take the sock and stocking section of their website. The female stocking model is portrayed doing an uncomfortable-looking acrobatic move with her thigh highs, while the male model merely wears socks on his feet. Images like these allow viewers to internalize ideas about women as passive sexual objects while men are always active and independent.
And speaking of clothes, we have major issues with dress codes in schools. Schools routinely send girls home for something as innocuous as a visible bra strap, concerned it might distract boys. Instead of telling boys to stop staring at girls, we jeopardize girls’ education in the name of distracted, apparently sex-obsessed boys’. Furthermore, it’s this type of attitude that leads young men and women to associate clothing choice with sex and sexual violence. We ask what women were wearing when they are sexually assaulted because we’re taught that there is a direct correlation between what women wear and being perceived by men as sexually available. This double standard is further enforced by the fact that men can wear anything (and I mean anything) they want. When male students at my school wear shirts featuring half-naked woman – which is both distracting and offensive — it goes unnoticed. If we must have a dress code, can we please enforce it for all genders? Can we stop enforcing a double standard based on an understanding of sex (of purity for women and sex-obsession for boys) that insults us all?
Though it’s an extreme example, it’s these types of internalized, commonly accepted misogynistic acts and beliefs that lead to greater phenomena of violence against women. The acts of men like Elliot Rodger, who made a manifesto and a YouTube video explaining why women were the bane of his existence before going on a shooting rampage, are often attributed to mental illness and inadequate gun control. But we fail to also question the role hatred and violence towards women normalized in our society plays in such incidents. A lack of awareness about and treatment for mental health and ridiculously lax gun control policies certainly play a role, but we need to acknowledge that they are also born from blatant misogyny and are hate crimes, too.
In order to stop these greater acts of misogyny and violence against women, in order to really change the sexist world we live in, we need to be vigilant about the daily acts of sexism that create an overall misogynistic culture.
