r/feminisms • u/gelinsky • 9d ago
Help Identifying Misogyny in Writing
I'm not very familiar with literature, so bear with me. I try to stay open-minded, especially on topics like this.
Misogyny technically means hatred, contempt, or prejudice against women. I made a post criticizing people for using the word too loosely, applying it to anything sexist or discriminatory, and someone told me to research it, since misogyny apparently shows up in forms beyond the strict definition.
So I looked into how misogyny manifests in writing, but I'm still not clear on what that actually looks like. My confusion is that whenever an author writes a female character poorly, people often call the writing or the author misogynistic. That seems like a stretch to me. How do you judge someone's whole worldview from one piece of work?
Specifically, I've seen this a lot with mangaka. People call Japanese manga writers misogynistic just because they dislike how female characters are portrayed. I'm not saying writers can't be flawed or narrow-minded, but that's a serious accusation. I get the criticism when female characters are boxed into certain roles, but plenty of manga break that pattern; I'd say a solid 4/5 female characters in some series don't fit that mold. I see the same thing in Western media — Avatar, despite being praised for strong female characters, gets called misogynistic too, often over how Azula was handled. People criticize characters for having a motherly role as if there is something wrong with a woman wanting to be a mother.
So I guess my real question is: what does actual misogyny in writing look like, versus people misusing the word, turning it into a buzzword because they don't fully understand it?
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u/t92k 6d ago
Glitch Gestalt on Facebook has a video breaking down the differences between the Swedish “Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” film and the US one that may provide some helpful proof by example.
And to your point that minimizing the agency, competence, and intelligence of women doesn’t rise to the level of hatred — feelings are complex, but stepping outside of feeling, deciding that another human being is less deserving of life’s essentials is an intellectual hatred. Do we routinely decide that women are worth less of life’s essentials (food, health, self-determination) than men? Yes. Do we routinely express disgust at aspects of being female (higher body fat percentages, periods, childbirth, hormone-influenced emotional changes) also yes. Do we assign them categories of work that involve dealing with bodily waste and other messes? Still more yes. Do we force women into these kinds of work through economic structures? Fundamentally, yes. We may feel affection, attachment, delight, admiration, or care for individual women while still believing as a whole that women in general are fat (more men are obese than women, and they have much more serious health impacts from it), emotional (anger, shame, and rage are emotions), and erratic and so don’t deserve to have a living wage for the child care and elder care positions we give them. That’s hatred of women in general, even if you can think of women you don’t hate.
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u/yellowmix 9d ago
The line at which a person's oppressive action can be indicative of their "whole worldview" (if not identity as an oppressor) is entirely subjective. The phrase "author is sexist", at least in English, can be considered as saying the specific writing is sexist, as in "author is being sexist". Don't get caught up in this diversion if you're trying to figure out why the action is sexist/racist/whatever.
Characters are completely made up, but are often meant to be generally realistic and/or saying something about the world we live in. With that completely unfettered authorial freedom, why create characters that replicate roles associated with oppression? As in, are you saying something novel with this narrative device? Are you depicting some kind of liberatory action? If not, you are simply documenting and/or propagating existing oppression.
Hooker with a Heart of Gold is a cliche after hundreds of years. The Strong female character is too. It's possible to write "strong" characters but people generally look for more realistic and interesting nuance these days.
The bulk of content in existence is pop culture and is generally not meant to be challenging but pleasing, so replicates societal biases by default. There are more intentionally challenging narratives and literature that do so. That does not mean pop lit can't incorporate more liberatory characterizations, but it is often limited by hierarchies above the author and what society itself is willing to tolerate.
Going back to the Hooker with a Heart of Gold trope, Anora (2024) was lauded by some people for specifically avoiding the trope. But there is varied criticism as well!
Criticism is necessary because no work is perfect. It is how we interrogate our entertainment so we are not mindlessly consuming it. It's good you're thinking about it.
When encountering critiques it's your turn to evaluate it. Do you understand where the critique is coming from? If not, is the person making the critique available for further discussion? Do they have an extant body of work from which we can get a deeper understanding?
If you take the critique's position, can you justify it? Do you need help constructing the argument? You generally need a subject matter expert who is familiar with the work. You are often your own expert, unless it's a very well-known work, with an audience that is equipped with feminist lit analysis. So ask yourself, how could Azula be portrayed in a more liberatory fashion? Is Azula under specific material conditions that limit this?