Thank you for sharing those thoughts about the fine article on micro-misogyny written by Maggie Haukka. And yes I agree: major not micro.
You reminded me of something I recently witnessed on the train during regular commute hours. A late 20’s ( maybe early 30's)aged couple boarded. The guy: looking cocky, self assured, he moved with a swagger. Dressed casually but…um…dusty. The gal: in similar attire with meek and fright written all over her face and her posture. Her long, stringy hair hung over her eyes and nose making it tough to clearly see her. But the vibe of negativity in the air. Oh woman…
He snapped a finger and pointed out a seat and then gestured how he wanted her to arrange herself. He nattered at her in a growly but not too loud voice until they disembarked 3 short stops later. She constantly hung her head, nodded and murmured faint responses of “yes” or “yeah”. It was clear that she was very afraid of him. Very controlled by him.
It was also obvious that he was feeling mighty proud of himself. He would regularly glance around the crowded train, smirking with a glint in his eyes. It was as though he was saying “Look at how strong and powerful I am”.
Many of us, fellow passengers, made sad eye contact with one another when they left. We did nothing. But then, what could we do? Tell her to quickly run away, like you wanted to do, Sheila, in your observed situation? Yet we couldn’t. I couldn’t. Wouldn’t. We did not: see any tears, hear any yelling, witness any physical violence…
OMG. Look at what I just wrote above and how awful it has to be before we act. What do we do about this? I certainly don’t have the answer.
I will point this out, though. There are so many of these instances that happen daily and are similar to the ones pointed out by Maggie, by you, Sheila, by me, by so many… We could start a blog and just publish one account after another. The occurrences are micro-misogyny, macro disguised as micro and macro. Usually only the macro are called out and or reported.
Yet all of these behaviours blatant and not, add up to a big glacier of mistreatment and disrespect toward women. To half of the human population. We cannot fix the big stuff without erasing the little stuff. We need lots of help to do it. From women and from men.
We need more men and women comfortable enough in their own skins to admit that micro and macro misogyny exists. We need more people calling it out as it deserves, not worrying that peers will ostracize them. We need more women to say it like it is, because face it, we all do have some kind of story (buried or not) sexually related or not. We need more women to feel strong as they band together to believe other women and work diligently to fix this. Weakness is when a woman fears that she will be exculded (from the Club) by other males (or females)if she admits that misogyny on some level is rampant.We women cannot fear that we will be marginalized or placed lower in the pecking order because we are vocal about making our gender FULLY equal to all humans.
Hey! Accept current reality or deny it girls, but on some level or another we already are treated as being lower in the pecking order. What more is there to lose? There is so much to gain. A better world. Stronger economies. Happiness. Peace. Safety. And I only name a few biggies.
The predominately strong and positive comments from all genders to Maggie’s post gives me hope. Lots of it. That does not diminish, though, the enormous size of the workload we face.
P.S. Hey Jack Herlocker and Linda Caroll and Kat Kou and Gillian Sisley. If you have not already, thought you might like to see some of these threads to Maggie’s excellent article.
