1. The Changing Language of Gender: From Endearment to Contempt
I don’t know about you, but I’ve increasingly noticed a kind of microaggression directed at women. Of course, in the past, we had terms like “broad,” “doll,” “darling” and such, and sure, when those terms were used, they were perfectly normal and acceptable. No harm done, right? Of course, context matters. Being called “darling” by someone close is quite different from being called it by someone who assumes you’re incapable of making a decision without his guidance. It wasn’t necessarily the words themselves that were the problem, but what they sometimes communicated about our place in the world. And so we rejected what men might have considered endearing terms, as well as archaic ways to live.
Yes, as time did what it does, and went on, the developing culture did something. A lot of women began to resent being condescended to, or even infantilised. Women demanded respect as equals to men rather than being viewed and treated as children who need to be done for, as if we were incapable of thinking and choosing what we considered best. Women entering the labour force, and gaining greater financial independence, materially changed our dependence on men. And now there are other words for us, overtly incendiary ones that men use to refer to us, especially within what’s become known as the manosphere. This being a collection of online communities concerned with masculinity, relationships, and gender, with some having developed a rather contemptuous vocabulary for talking about women. It’s an insidious tongue, and an easy language to learn. In fact, some men don’t even know they’re speaking it — women too, but we’ll get to that.
Before that, I want to give you an example of what I mean. I sometimes watch a channel called the Hodge Twins, featuring said twins. I do this because I find them amusing. But, I also find some of their commentary quite demeaning towards women. They use manosphere-adjacent terms which I really don’t like. So, I’m not branding everyone who watches these kinds of people misogynistic – I’m not, that’s for sure. But, think about how easily certain rhetorical tropes become insidiously normalised just because we keep hearing them, especially when they’re packaged in humour, entertainment, or “harmless” banter. Then we have to consider how easily people with such platforms might, intentionally or otherwise, help draft young men and women into the gender wars. Over time I have noticed how both men and women speak in increasingly disparaging ways about the other sex, and think it perfectly acceptable. Both are desensitised and recruited. Maybe that’s where the problem begins: when contempt becomes so familiar that we stop recognising it for what it is.
2. When Women Turn Against Women
So back to the part I mentioned before. Some women seem to have been unknowingly recruited into the war against their own kind. This is not to suggest that women don’t have minds and can’t choose, but we have been socialised, or rather indoctrinated to conform in certain ways. That’s precisely what makes this so complicated. We can make our own choices while still being influenced by the expectations we’ve grown up with. After all, how many of our beliefs are entirely our own, and how many have we inherited without ever really questioning them?
Take the controversial internet personality (I use this term loosely), Andrew Wilson. His wife is one of these aforementioned women in my view. She takes women back years. In some of the couple’s public interactions, I find the way he talks down to her similar to how one might tell a dog to heel – and she does! She also sits quietly and obediently beside him as he aggressively disrespects much younger women. She’s representative of far-right Republican-type women who use traditional religious interpretations of gender roles as their bible for life. Such that a man’s authority and a woman’s submission are considered natural, and even desirable.
She is of course entitled to her choice, but when this kind of rhetoric is pushed publicly, it affects us all. Not because choosing a traditional marriage is inherently wrong, but because her preferences are promoted as the proper way for women to live, Then they become more than personal preference – they become a judgement against the rest of us. Then you have the other extreme of the spectrum – the sex industry. This industry, like traditional values, is designed by men for men. Certainly, both have been heavily shaped by male authority and interests, even though women have participated in, influenced, and sometimes challenged them.
Sorry to be controversial folks but these are two sides of the same coin – who can forget the tropes of the Madonna or “virgin” and the “whore”? And where do you recall these coming from? Yep, they’re in scripture aren’t they. Religious traditions have certainly helped perpetuate these ideas, although the division between the sexually virtuous and sexually available woman has existed across cultures and time. Isn’t it interesting that these apparently opposing ideals can have something in common? On one side, a woman is valued for her chastity, obedience, and devotion. On the other, she may be rewarded for her sexual desirability, and availability. Different expectations, and yet both reduce a woman’s worth to how she is judged by men for what she provides to them.
Now you may argue that many women in the sex industry are reclaiming their agency and feel empowered. But that sits rather awkwardly against the research which found sexual abuse and childhood trauma to be prevalent among certain populations of women in the sex industry. In an Australian study of 72 street-based sex workers, a staggering 75% reported experiencing sexual abuse before they were 16 years old. Sure, we can’t generalise this to all women in the industry but it’s worth paying attention to. Indeed, even though some women may be taking their power back, enjoy the work and its financial payoff, I still question the narrative of empowerment. Is something necessarily empowering just because we’ve chosen it? Can we genuinely reclaim our power through an industry that so often profits from presenting women as objects of male desire? I mean I’m sure he loves your sense of empowerment in this context, you go girl.
And there’s the uncomfortable question: are we liberating ourselves from traditional expectations, or simply exchanging one set of expectations for another? Of course, women who are a part of the sex industry are not responsible for every degrading attitude a man might hold. Men are responsible for how they view and treat women, regardless. But equally, I don’t think freedom of choice should place our choices beyond examination. We can respect a woman’s right to present herself sexually while questioning the wider cultural messages that are promoted, normalised, and rewarded through the commercialisation of women’s bodies.
None of this is to suggest that a woman who chooses a traditional marriage, or one who works in the sex industry, has nothing else to offer. Quite the opposite. Women are far more than the roles we occupy or the bodies we inhabit. Perhaps that’s the real issue. It’s not that women should all make the same choices. It’s that no woman’s choices should become the measure of what the rest of us should be. So there’s a spectrum where even women work against women. Sometimes knowingly, sometimes without recognising the wider implications of the ideas they’re peddling.
Also, let’s not forget that women can be equally guilty of perpetuating contempt towards men. We’ve all heard sweeping statements about men being inherently dangerous, emotionally stunted, incapable of fidelity, or just not worth the trouble. Yes, women have very real grievances and experiences that inform these views which shouldn’t be dismissed. But an experience with one man, or even several, doesn’t tell us everything about the rest. When we turn personal experience into a judgement about an entire sex, aren’t we doing precisely what we object to when it’s done to us?
3. The Other Side: Men, Masculinity, and the Trap of the Manosphere
Now to the other side. My brother sometimes talks about women in ways that I don’t like. At the same time, I can understand the frustration of men who feel displaced. There have been a lot of changes going on between men and women, and for women individually – all of which affect men too. Traditional expectations of masculinity have been shaken, and while this has opened up possibilities for both sexes, it has also left some men questioning their place in a world where the old rules no longer need apply. As a woman who has felt imposed upon by the patriarchy, I could easily be unsympathetic. But, as a therapist I have to acknowledge the reality for men. Because, when someone’s sense of identity is tied to pre-existing expectations, progress can feel like a personal threat.
So men defend by increasingly thinking of women in ways that are disrespectful and even harmful. Particularly within certain corners of the manosphere, where men’s frustrations are being redirected towards women, rather than the changing times they’re struggling to acclimate to. So what are their options? Fighting against women’s empowerment by using manosphere language, misogynistic terms, and actually thinking of women in those ways. Or, they must conform but this comes with rejection because in manosphere terms, they are now deemed a “beta”, “simp”, or even a “cuck”. Of course, these aren’t the only options available to men, but that’s rather the point. When masculinity is presented as something that must be defended through dominance, resistance, or contempt, anything outside of that starts to look like weakness.
So, sympathetically I have to concede, there aren’t many ego-aligned options available. In fact, the most appealing seems to be the one that protects their position as a “man”. So there’s something rather clever, if deeply unpleasant, about this arrangement. Men are told they must assert their independence and refuse to submit to women’s expectations, while simultaneously being pressured to conform to another set of expectations imposed by Dave on the internet; in trying not to be controlled, they end up being controlled anyway. They fall into a nicely laid trap, but there’s no honey here.
4. Stepping Out of the Matrix
And so we have dichotomies on both sides. It then becomes a question of how we get out of the shit show and clean the shit from our eyes to see things for what they actually are. And what might that be, you ask? Well gender, or rather, sex, is a protected characteristic. Under the Equality Act 2010, this means that discrimination based on sex is unlawful in certain contexts, including workplaces, education, and the provision of services. But the law doesn’t cover every interaction between individuals, nor every expression of prejudice. And that’s where we find misogyny and misandry thriving quite comfortably, even when no law is necessarily being broken.
But, as we know, this is happening under the guise of the mano and femospheres – aren’t we lucky to be a part of such enlightened communities? Both contain very different voices of course, but in their more hostile corners, we’re encouraged to see the opposite sex not as individuals, but as representatives of everything we resent about them. And because this is on the internet rather than workspaces, it grows like a virus. There’s no shortage of people willing to spread these ideas, and online platforms can make it very easy to find others who reinforce them. Before long, what might have started as a personal frustration becomes a shared worldview, and the individual disappears behind the category of man or woman. So how do we get through this together, rather than apart? How can we be aligned rather than adversarial?
5. Beyond Masculine and Feminine: Allowing People to Be Themselves and Rejecting the Double Standard
Understanding. This is needed from both sides. We must understand that we each have our strengths, and that they’re not category based fixed traits, it’s way more nuanced than that. When we become absolute and binaried about how we expect men and women to be, we contract rather than open. And in that contraction, we leave less room for the individual. We begin relating to an idea of what a man or woman should be, rather than the person standing in front of us.
For instance, it’s not about men being hard and women being soft. That’s an outdated premise and false – it is okay for some men to be soft and some women to be hard. Indeed, Jung talked about masculine and feminine energy and how it varies between person to person. His concepts of the anima and animus explored psychological qualities traditionally associated with femininity and masculinity, although these were rooted in the gender assumptions of his time. And perhaps that’s worth questioning in itself: why should softness or assertiveness belong to either sex in the first place?
A woman shouldn’t have to be agreeable just because you expect this of women. A woman can be more like what we might expect of a man – she can be assertive rather than a bitch, disagreeable, or difficult. It’s about reframing it. Of course, assertiveness and disagreeableness aren’t the same thing. A woman can genuinely be difficult, just as a man can. But when we judge identical behaviour differently depending on someone’s sex, perhaps it’s our expectations that need examining rather than their character.
And women aren’t exempt from this either. We might insist that men should be emotionally available, vulnerable, and willing to express their feelings, only to recoil when they actually do. Suddenly he’s needy, weak, or not masculine enough. So which is it? Do we want men to be emotionally honest, or do we only want them to express emotions in ways that are attractive and convenient to us? And when he doesn’t, that shouldn’t make him less of a man, it just makes him less like a particular kind of man, maybe the kind we prefer – that shouldn’t become his problem though. We shouldn’t judge and punish men when they’re sensitive or not assertive, nor should we do that to women when they don’t conform to expected ideals.
So what if instead of fixed expectations we were allowed to be who and how we are, and did the same for others? And no, this does not have to cause panic – because people are how they are, the difference is, we stop judging them for not being what we are told they should be. You can see this in same-sex couples, in which people that are very different to each other but of the same sex show variation. They complement one another because of their difference, not despite them. You can also have a hetero relationship in which both are very similar, and this should be allowed too. Compatibility isn’t necessarily about fitting into opposing gender roles. Some people thrive because of their differences, others because of their similarities, and many because of a combination of both.
And just to be clear, you can prefer a certain ‘type’ – for example you may want a “soft woman” or a “manly man” – fine. But don’t judge and condemn the whole category because of your preferences. Just find what appeals to you and leave the contempt at the door. Stop imposing your values and ideals upon a protected characteristic – and the person behind it.
6. Deserting the Gender War: Choosing Differently
It’s about asking why we accept discrimination against this protected characteristic when we wouldn’t if it was based on, say, ethnicity? Or, more precisely, why we sometimes tolerate gender-based prejudice in conversations and everyday interactions that we might be quicker to challenge if they concerned someone’s ethnicity. Neither form of prejudice has disappeared, of course, but perhaps we should question why certain sweeping judgements about men and women are so readily accepted, even celebrated.
This essay isn’t about us taking up arms against each other, there’s plenty of that going on in the world. It’s about trying to get us to see what is happening around, to, and between us. And that includes examining our own contribution. It’s easy to recognise prejudice when we’re on the receiving end of it. Rather less comfortable to recognise it when we’re the ones perpetuating it.
As a category, we each make up half the world’s population, and we’re stronger united. So let’s desert the gender war, because while some have consciously enlisted, many of us have simply inherited the battle lines through the times and cultures that have shaped us. So I guess what I’m asking of you is to be more conscious about what you observe, rather than letting it creep in. Be deliberate in the ways you think, and act as relates to individual human beings. Don’t be complicit in the lazy arguments. Give each other space.
We don’t have to agree with someone’s choices, find them appealing, or even understand them entirely. But disagreeing with another person’s way of being isn’t the same as having the right to tell them how they should live. People – because that’s what men and women are – should be allowed to be who they are, as long as they aren’t harming anyone else. Because, when we encroach on that right, we become the harmful.
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- Bareket, O., Kahalon, R., Shnabel, N., & Glick, P. (2018). The Madonna-whore dichotomy: Men who perceive women's nurturance and sexuality as mutually exclusive endorse patriarchy and show lower relationship satisfaction. Sex Roles, 79, 519–532. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-018-0895-7
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