The presence of dynamics regarding misogyny are not new occurrences. Regardless of the definition one employs, misogynistic behaviour is an old phenomenon that probably dates to before people started writing about it. Some argue that misogyny and its conceptualisation began in Ancient Greece, signalling the work “Theogony” by Hesiod, between the 8th and the 7th century BC (Roberts and Roberts 1998). In other instances, such as in the Oxford English Dictionary, the first appearance of the word as a concept was 1656 (Holland 2012). Both these ideas are rejected by others, that point out that the first proper use of the term “misogyny” appeared attached to the Swetnam controversy (Holland 2012; Manne 2019, p. 49). In 1615, Joseph Swetnam (1615) published a piece attacking women, titled “The Anaigment of Lecude”, that was greeted with substantive push back figured by “English feminists” (Manne 2019, p. 49), who in turn dubbed him “misogynos” (Hutchins cited in McCabe 2009).
Wherever it started and whatever its conceptualisation, misogyny has constituted a considerable issue in societies worldwide (Gilmore 2010, pp. 9-10) and, in parallel, has incited plenty of academic curiosity. This paper will tackle the issue of misogyny through economic lenses, arguing that the development of the economic system has permitted the cohesion of in-built biases towards women, thus limiting their chances of success in the workplace (Boserup 2007; Duflo 2012, p. 1061). The idea is that the material and ideational forces at the core of how a capitalist economy functions are inherently excluding women and creating tough restraints on their success (Mies 2014). The fact that it is a predominantly male science has made typically male characteristics considered to be more valuable than female ones (Runyan and Peterson 1991, p. 94).
The dissection of the issue of misogyny will be here portrayed through the following structure. First, the concept of misogyny will be analysed, emphasizing two different realities: one concerning the way it is defined in the dictionaries, and another in respect of the academic deliberations about what misogyny is. With this discussion provided, secondly, this paper will further develop the argument that misogyny is not a mere psychological aspect, but much more than that. To show this, it will be suggested that, brought through agency and structure, the economic system already has in its foundations a sort of invisible prejudice and hostility towards women, functioning as one of several structural and endogenous forces that systematize and engrain misogyny in society.
Between the broad definition of misogyny and the academic one is a detrimental and quite generous gap, concerning how misogyny is perceived and what constitutes misogynistic behaviour. The definition presented on dictionaries, for example, “hatred of women” in Merriam-Webster (n.d.) online, or a “feeling of hate towards women that is felt by some people” in Oxford Learner’s (n.d.) online have some commonalities. Both take the concept and apply it as something resembling a psychological (dis)function, “rather than a systematic facet of social power relations” (Manne 2019, p. 49). The image painted by these definitions is what Manne (ibid, p. 32) calls “naïve conception”, for the fact that it takes misogyny as something clearly defined, over-the-top objective, and as a “property of individual misogynists”.
Other problems remain regarding this notion of misogyny. It tackles the issue as not only being unidimensional and rather parsimonious (Gilmore 2010, pp. 8-9), but transversal to all women in the same degree (Manne 2019, p. 44). Taking the ingrained social characteristics of misogyny into account allows for a better description of how it happens and to whom it happens (ibid). For example, if one considers misogyny as a function of “social systems” (ibid), and that systemic racism is a part of society, that would mean that, according to the context, black women could disproportionately be the object of misogynistic behaviour (Crenshaw 1993). Additionally, the focus on individual psychological features as determinants of the presence of misogyny, not only makes it harder to diagnose, but it also has consequences on legal processes (Manne 2019, p. 45). In parallel, the dictionary view of misogyny underestimates its effect as a systemic dynamic – it curtails the concept to few and specific people, ignoring the shared culture and menacing meanings attached to women’s roles in society (Bennett 1991, p. 183).
In the academic circles, misogyny has a much different connotation. Feminist research looks at this concept as a deeper force that is built in society to the extent that it often is hidden. It can be “implicit” (Code 2002, p. 346), “invisible” (Banet-Weiser 2018, p. 12), and it is rooted in culture (Bennett 1991, p. 183). More than a mere psychological feature of individuals, misogyny is seen as “social function” (Manne 2019) and a “structural force” (Banet-Weiser 2018, p. 11). This is witnessed in areas such as the military, where Cohn (2002, p. 147) paints an enlightened picture through an in-depth analysis, where she shows that some male officers use discourses of fairness to assert male superiority or “reinforcing [reinforce] gender difference”. Tickner (1997, p. 627) joins her, suggesting that while in training, soldiers can be faced with misogynistic practices that appeal to their masculinity and impact their behaviour, for example, when committing violence against women. As a different repercussion, Hawkesworth (2006, p. 89) points out that the profound roots of a misogynistic culture can impact not only the attachment of “women’s psyche” to “concepts such as emotions”, but also act as a “blinder towards objectivity in research”.
As demonstrated, the literature on misogyny treats this concept as being a part of society, and not just an individual and psychological feature. It is manifested in all realms of life and defined by its hostile character (Manne 2019, p. 58). Indeed, misogynistic behaviour is so ingrained in society that it has been gradually permeating the digital sphere, materialising itself in new forms. For example, Mantilla (2015, p. 132) makes the case that attacks on women, observed through perpetual “patterns of misogyny”, have been shifting “from offline to online”. Coined as “gendertrolling”, this new concept is characterised by different degrees of harassment that reach “rape and death threats” and can be spread across months or years (ibid, p. 12). However, the online subculture of hate towards women does not stop there. Another way it takes shape is through so-called “men’s right rhetoric” – a new type of misogyny that is “consumed with hating and attacking women” (Futrelle cited in Mantilla 2015, p. 95). In these cases, it can be seen with clarity the way misogyny spreads and how it is shared among male circles in seemingly “ritualistic ways” (Gilmore 2010, p. 9).
As a complement, the feminist conceptualisation of misogyny reflects the whole historical background of repression and continuous alienation of women. Some authors such as Brown (1992) or Code (2002, p. 346) point out the philosophical tradition of hostility towards women, from Aristotle to Weber, justifying the view of misogyny as a deep structural force. Moreover, as previously seen, some authors try to describe misogyny as something that impacts women unevenly. Manne (2019, p. 57) makes this case arguing that, given the fact that there is a societal attempt at “enforcing and policing patriarchal norms and expectations”, women that challenge and resist them, “may subsequently garner suspicion and consternation” (ibid, p. 61). The claim she makes is that, although misogyny is wide in its range, it seems to target with some specificity “particular kinds of women” (ibid, p. 33), namely, those who refuse to subordinate to the patriarchy.
From this massive mismatch between the conception of misogyny in the dictionaries and what the feminist theorists argue for, there are, at least, two positive points to be extracted. First, this discrepancy meant that academics trying to change how misogyny is perceived had to engage more in its theorisation and have done so fruitfully (Manne 2019, p. 81). And second, the unified and combined effort to undermine the dictionary definition, or “naïve conception”, has brought the feminist literature closer together (ibid). The push back served its purpose and, as a complement, it helped in the densification of the term “misogyny” with firmer assertions and more complex theoretical reasonings (ibid).
With the dichotomies related to the different views on misogyny scrutinised, in parallel with a couple of ways as to how it is perpetuated in practical settings, this paper will now move on to paint an illustrative picture of the inherently misogynistic features of our economic system. However, before this scrutiny takes place, it is worthy to refer the ontological position that justifies how this argument is going to be here developed. This paper bases itself on the idea that the world is socially constructed by means of shared consensus. Following a post-positive tradition, this philosophical stance considers that the traits attached to the conceptualisation of gender binarism are inaccurate and that they are “socially and culturally constructed characteristics” (Tickner 1997, p. 614). Nonetheless, repeated interactions promulgated across time have managed to penetrate societal norms, becoming imbedded in socio-cultural relations, shaping peoples’ identities, and assigning determined features to the different genders (Manne 2019, p. 27). This logic is going to be detrimental in the construction of the following argument regarding the misogynistic characteristics of economic structures.
From the ancient times, to Xenophon’s (n.d.) “Oeconomicus”, economic relations in respect of trade, production, and consumption of goods have been features present wherever there was human interaction (Finley 1999, pp. 17-19). Economy began imposing itself as a preliminary field of study through two very influential works, namely, Adam Smith’s (1776) “The Wealth of Nations”, and Francis Quesnay’s (1758) “Tableu Economique” (ibid, p. 20). Many other followed, introducing new concepts and developing complex economic modules that shaped the way we see economics today (see also Marshall 1890). From different nations, with varied backgrounds, the common thread is that almost all of them are men. Thus, male concepts about how economy should work are at the core of the discipline and have shaped the way it functions.
Taking the case of the “laissez-faire” market capitalism, initially theorised by Adam Smith (1776), one of its founding concepts is that of self-interest (Smith 1776, pp. 174-175). The idea is that by promoting your own individual well-being, you end up benefiting the common good (ibid). With this established, let us hypothesize the following. The world is a social construct where typically male and female values have been inherently assigned through societal interactions. “Female values” are characterised by a sense of dependence, weakness, emotion, and community (Runyan and Peterson 1991, p. 78; Tickner 1997, p. 614). “Male values” are more related to “power, autonomy, rationality”, competition and son on (Tickner 1997, p. 614). Looking at this hypothetical scene, in a capitalist landscape where self-interest is seen as one of the core concepts and the propeller of the economy, a woman would, categorically, find it harder to thrive in such situation. The economic structure would, from the start, be hostile to a woman who was raised in a social construct where her features are less desirable, or unimportant, in order to function in the workplace (Runyan and Peterson 1991, pp. 78-79). Without changing the whole economic structure and its core conceptualisation, a process which not only takes time but a congregated effort, in such a situation, one of the only options left for woman would seem to be changing her (socially constructed) identity to emulate that of a man.
The argument made here is that the economic structure that we have today has in-built hostile characteristics that devalue women’s socially constructed features and their subsequent roles (Runyan and Peterson 1991, p. 88). This situation is built through the intertwinement between individual agency and structural forces. The actors’ agency manifests through the application of their ideational concepts in economic theory (which could be seen as socially constructing economic forces) (Barker 2003, pp. 280-282). Then, the economic structure that is built impacts the chances of economic success in males and females (ibid). There is a mutually binding relation between structure and agency, material and ideational forces (Sewell Jr. 1992).
Described through the relation between agency and structure, this economic scene is analogous to what Runyan and Peterson (1991) contend in relation to realism’s “patriarchal construction of “woman””. They argue how one of International Relation’s most influential theories has portrayed woman as displaced outsiders in need of domestication (ibid). In this case, so too have men developed economic dictates that coerce women into “hierarchies of labour” (Segal cited in Runyan and Peterson 1991, p. 78) within the private sphere, where they are subordinated to underpaid and underinsured positions (Hall 1990, p. 5; Runyan and Peterson 1991, p. 88).
What has been detailed so far is an explanation to part of what was discussed in Jordan Peterson’s (2018) interview with Cathy Newman. In their conversation, they approach the notion that characteristics typically assigned to females are not proper indicators of accomplishment in the workplace. What has been articulated here shows, not only that these characteristics are not inherent, but that the reason why they are not good indicators of success in the workplace is because of the constraining elements of capitalist economy. The system is seen here as rigged into “coercing and restricting women’s labor in the workplace” (Mies cited in Runyan and Peterson 1991, p. 79), emphasizing male supremacy in economic standards. In opposition to what is seen as the “the persistence of sexism” (Runyan and Peterson 1991, p. 79) in capitalism, this essay argues that the characteristics here portrayed are those of hostility. The way cultural and social interactions have gradually shaped our economic system checks every box on the definition list that details what misogyny is.
The list of ways how the present economic system prevents women for achieving success is endless. Starting with a focus on deregulation that prevents state intervention (Peterson 2008, p. 8), passing through a constant need for supply and profit, and reaching the attempt to assign women to the “informal sphere” (Runyan and Peterson 1991, p. 79), neoliberal policies have managed to forcefully mitigate women’s role. Deregulation serves the purpose of thwarting governmental policies that could help balancing gender inequalities. The constant need for supply and profit makes, for example, motherhood a problem as women become unavailable for a substantial period. Placing women in the “informal sphere” helps maintaining “male dominance” and privatising them to the household or maintaining them in low-level occupancies (ibid). All of these are further contributes to a system that is hostile to the presence of women and attempts to make them subservient and dependent (ibid).
In the context of the need for profit and its ultimate valorisation in a capitalist system, there are yet some other consternations that unevenly impact women worth of mentioning. The reality is that, first, women in neoliberal capitalist economies are more associated with “emotional labor” (Arlie Hochschild cited in Banet-Weiser), “caring for others” and motherhood (Runyan and Peterson 1991, pp. 96-97; Runyan 2018, p. 48). Second, in this economic context, there is a lack of public provisions able to “analyse and materially value the work done outside production for profit” (Runyan and Peterson 1991, pp. 96-97; Runyan 2018, p. 48). These features create a scenario where women become even more economically disenfranchised and exacerbates their subordination to male dominance (Runyan and Peterson 1991, pp. 96-97).
The paper here presented tackled the issue of misogyny twofold. In one manner, with a broader analysis of its conceptualisation and the dichotomies between the way it is perceived in dictionary definitions, in contrast as to how it is observed in the academic world. The conclusion taken from here was, first, that the definitions provided in the dictionaries are too unidimensional, parsimonious and focus on a specific psychological aspect of individual actors. Second, that the way misogyny is seen in the literature is gapingly different: it is considered to be a structural force and a dynamic present in social environments that can be invisible to a superficial observation and is entrenched in cultural and societal interactions. Mainly propelled by feminist scholarship, misogyny is seen as being systemic and a product of repeated social interactions across time that take shape in every realm of life. This depiction of misogyny as being ingrained in culture provides a better framework to understand how this concept impacts the life of women and how it is shared in male circles.
The other way this essay contributed a useful analysis of misogyny was through its implications on the economic system. Dissecting the roots of how capitalist economy was shaped and identifying that men were the biggest providers of theoretical inputs, managed to produce a description of a rigged economic system towards women. A system that is riddled with hostility and disincentives for women to thrive, that acts as a supporter of the status quo of gender binarism and that exacerbates male dominance. The economic system developed has proved to be resistant and a coercer of women into “hierarchies of labour” (Segal cited in Runyan and Peterson 1991, p. 78), to a place of subordination. This illustration functioned as an empirical example that showed with clarity how misogyny is grounded, how it can be invisible, and how it is propagated across time.
This paper has provided a valuable analysis of the concept of misogyny, further densifying the term with more theoretical reasonings that support its academic conceptualisation. The originality of the argument here detailed came from the parallel regarding the symbiosis between agency and structure, the comprehensive depiction of how misogyny permeated the economic sphere, and its consequences for women. The challenges laying ahead reside in new conceptualisations of our economic system that erase its misogynistic character and begin not only valuing women but treating them in equal standards. Nonetheless, Foucault’s (1991) concept of “governamentality” has to be kept in mind, for the patriarchal order and the neoliberal system are very resilient and can use rhetorical manoeuvres to “gaslight” women in matters of equality, while holding on to their hegemonic statuses (Runyan 2018, pp. 131-132).
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By Mahmoud Refaat: The European Institute for International Law and International Relations.
Contribution Bernardo Nascimento, The European Institute for International Law and International Relations.
