Misogyny

I tried to come up with a 'clever' title for this post, but the truth is that there is nothing clever about it.

Misogyny - its what we and generations of women have been brought up with, and it is as ingrained in us and the way we respond to it, as it is in the men who dish it out without a second thought to its consequences.

We know that we experience it, but I think for a lot of our lives, we don't think it affects us - at least not in its raw, unfiltered, in your face way.

But when we actually sit with it, really sit with it, then you find it is everywhere. Dripped into most, if not all, interactions you have with men.

Little slights, small offhand comments made by men to women. That they find normal retorts, humourous even. We just laugh them off, and then walk away with festering thoughts about what they meant.

Case in point. The delivery driver this morning delivering some shopping for me. Commented 'you're not a local'. No I replied, 'originally from Essex, but I've lived in a lot of places'. His response to that with a chuckle was 'I won't respond to that!!!'

WTF. How does what I've said get translated to that? A slur that I am what, promiscuous? Because make no mistake, that is what he meant. I know that how? because I can read his body language, know exactly what the thought was behind the chuckle. I know because I, like ALL women have been receiving slurs like this my entire life. Derogatory remarks and actions made against me because I'm a woman. Something less than and therefore 'fair game'.

Whether we consciously recognises them or or not they worm there way in. To be buried in our subconscious mind that then dictates how we respond. We don't question them, don't make noise. Its just how it is.

Except of course its not, nor should be how it is.

I should have pulled him up, asked him what he meant. Put the onus on him to explain something which I'm sure if he actually had to stop and think, he would have felt some shame about. But my default is to be the good girl. To be quiet. To put up with being less. Make myself small and not say anything lest it escalate.

He didn't know any better, because its how he has been brought up in a society that doesn't value women in the same way as it does men.

It's not an excuse though. He should know better, he should do better.

And so should we. We should do better at standing up against misogyny. Just because it has been this way for centuries, no longer than that, doesn't mean its right. Doesn't mean it is how it should always be, or how it once was.

The feminine was once revered, she had her place at the table squarely and equally alongside man.

But man became fearful of her differences, of her powers that he didn't possess. Didn't matter to him that those powers complimented his. Didn't matter to him that his powers were unique to men.

All that mattered was that women needed to be held down. To be cast aside and made to be less than. Nothing to see here, just a woman who needs to know her place. In doing that, he could stand tall, he could be the 'leader', the more important one, the one to be revered for his might, not hers.

Look where that has lead us. Down dark roads in 'her/history'. We are 'lead' by corruption and power gone wrong. Greed, dishonesty, unethical behaviour, that rewards the few but holds back the many.

A few men at the top of the tree holding all the cards over everyone that is beneath them. Women at the bottom, and the rest, the 'ordinary man' in the middle. No power left except holding some sort of 'rule' over the women he encounters. As long as there is always someone beneath you then you are never truly at rock bottom right!?

What a world we have created, that men have created. A world of egotistical idiots who have led us all down a path that it is getting increasing difficult to come back from.

But we have to. We have to come back from this, lest we lose our humanity forever.

So I'm standing up and saying that I am no longer prepared to put up with it. I am no longer prepared to sit on the sidelines, in the corners where they want us, and continually be told I'm less than. To have jokes made against me simply because I'm a woman. To have less opportunities, less seats at the table, less ears listening to what we have to say. To be told time and again in voice or in action that we are inferior. To be patronised for being too 'emotional'. That we should know our place, and that place is to serve men.

Because from where I'm sitting I, and all women, are certainly not less, and very definitely the more that the world needs right now.