He might be the ex-boyfriend who loves everything Bret Easton Ellis has ever written, idolises Patrick Bateman and genuinely doesn’t understand why you think American Psycho is just a little a bit ‘problematic’. He might be the friend’s friend who is distracted during a Sunday pub group hang, persistently objectifying women at the bar while you sit quietly wrestling with your desire to have a relaxing afternoon as it bashes up against your sense of right and wrong, giving you a migraine. He might also be your boyfriend’s friend, the one who cheats on his girlfriend and describes every woman he’s ever encountered as ‘crazy’ in an attempt to silence their (very legitimate) criticisms of him.
We’ve all been in a situation where we’re forced to ask ourselves whether we can be friends with/date a man who’s at best ‘a bit sexist’, at worst downright misogynistic.
The answer, in the end, is always: no. You either end up serially ducking out of social engagements that involve him or, drunkenly, taking him down and saying exactly what you think, resulting in you being NFI from there on in.
A somewhat less familiar, and potentially more problematic, situation is witnessing on of your female friends saying sexist things about another woman. How are you supposed to respond to that?
Taylor Swift is everyone’s favourite topic right now. From Hiddleswift to Calvin, that Kanye and Kim thing, to how her media machine actually works, people are currently obsessed with unpicking all things Swiftian. In group WhatsApps everywhere Taylor is a go-to topic for mindless, celebrity chatter.
However, one friend of mine recently took things a bit too far. ‘Taylor Swift is just such a slut’ she said, before berating her for her list of ex-partners and entering into an acerbic analysis of everything that’s wrong with the singer’s wardrobe.
Reading these messages in our, usually harmless, group chat, made my baulk. Such a cruel take down of another woman, particularly focusing on the number of people she may or may not have had sex with felt out of place, inappropriate and unsisterly. It was slut shaming.It was the sort of language I wouldn’t tolerate from a male friend, I not only didn’t expect from a female friend but felt betrayed by it.
The word ‘slut’ in particular, has the power to wound us all. It’s long been a derogatory catch-all term, used by men, to put women down, it undermines and demeans. To read it in a message from a female friend was particularly unsettling. I’m no a particular Taylor Swift fan, nor do I feel particularly vitriolic towards her. I certainly don’t care how many people she’s had sex with, as long as she’s happy she can do what she wants. It’s 2016, a woman’s sexual choices are nobody’s business but their own. In slut shaming a celebrity, all we achieve is an undoing of all that we've accomplished so far in terms of equality.
Before discussing my friend’s behaviour with her, I wanted to understand what causes misogyny in the first place and, more than this, why women can be misogynistic about other women.
Dr Victoria Tischler, a chartered psychologist and academic, explained to me that in men misogynistic behaviour – a fear, dislike or even hatred of women – ‘stems from childhood experiences of neglect or abuse or dysfunctional relationships with females, typically involving the maternal figure.’ Often, she says, such behaviour is rooted in a male’s ‘resentment’ of their ‘infant dependence on a female figure which transforms later into erotic interest and sexual dependence’. Women become ‘dangerous seductresses’ to be ‘controlled and dominated’ as a result.
Misogyny is often unconscious, ingrained and unthinking. Dr Tischler explains that ‘people may not be aware that they have such attitudes or behave in a misogynistic way. Critically, these views are reinforced in society via high rates of violence towards women e.g. domestic violence, media sexism e.g. page 3, daily mail, any tabloid front page, pay inequality, women being primary child carers, men dominating positions of power and status and so on and so on.’
How does this translate into the women behave towards and regard one another? If a woman is being sexist or misogynistic towards another woman how can we explain it? ‘Woman can be misogynistic too’, Dr Tischler tells me. In particular ‘the struggle for power and equality makes many women compete with each other whilst feeling equally frustrated by systemic barriers to progression’, she says. As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie puts it in We Should All Be Feminists: ‘we raise girls to see each other as competitors’.
Because it is everywhere around us, Dr Tischler says, ‘women can internalise misogyny through their childhood socialisation’. It’s an entrenched sort of sexism which is exacerbated by ‘the bombardment we all face of images of perfection we cannot attain. Women feel shame if they cannot live up to these ideals.’
‘The media also promote the objectified and ancient Madonna/whore stereotype- women are either portrayed as wonderful, pure mothers or sexy, evil seducers. anything else is not good enough so women feel disempowered and retaliate via attack rather than supporting other women. This manipulation can be seen in the context of wider male power – it’s all about keeping women submissive to keep them out of powerful positions where they are likely to take competitive roles which challenge male dominance.’ Women are pitted against one another from such a young age that it becomes almost second nature.
This, Dr Tischler explains, ‘can cause women to attack other women.’ She also notes that ‘it has become more socially acceptable for women to take on more aggressive 'male' traits’, encouraged by their peers.’
After speaking with Dr Tischler I decided to speak to my friend and explain to her that her sexist criticisms of Taylor Swift, someone we’ve never even met, had made me uncomfortable. I felt that we shouldn’t be falling back on such language to put other women down. You don’t like Taylor Swift’s music? That’s fine. You have a conspiracy theory about her and Kanye secretly being BFFs and doing it all for the clicks? I’m interested.
But if you are going to criticise another woman, please only do so for a legitimate reason. If we get caught up in the sexist vicious circle of condemning women for their successes based on their sexual choices and behaviours than we’re no better than the drunk misogynistic pub bore nobody wants to sit next to. We shouldn’t refer to one another as sluts or whores, to quote the teacher, played by Tina Fey in Mean Girls:
‘You all have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it okay for guys to call you sluts and whores.’
Socially conditioning might explain sexism and misogyny, but it doesn’t excuse them. Prejudices are born out of and nurtured by experience. If we see prejudices in ourselves it’s our duty to examine it and stamp it out.
To return to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,
‘Culture does not make people. People make culture. If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture.’
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Follow Vicky on Twitter @Victoria_Spratt
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.