Recently, I attended a lecture at the Ohio State University about misogyny. Now, misogyny is a basic hatred for all females. Normally I wouldn’t begin a paper with such a cliché, as to open with a definition of a word. However, here I felt it was deemed appropriate, as I was shocked to find that I—like everyone else—is a misogynist. (Especially being raised by my mother and two sisters). This is something I learned from the lecture last Tuesday, which I felt was the most interesting of all the lectures I attended. Perhaps it was due to the informality of the speaker. Although the other lectures were interesting, of the ones I attended, this was the only speaker I felt spoke casually, and knew how to connect to their audience, (most of whom being college students from what I gathered).
I didn’t understand though, how a girl saying “hey slut,” on the phone jokingly to her friend was misogynistic. I am however, only twenty-years-old, and admittedly to some extent naïve. Perhaps this is a demonstration of misogyny, or maybe I’ve misinterpreted the definition of the word. As I found it to mean in an applicable sense, similar to racism. For example, I would perceive a misogynist to walk down the street, and look at the women going in the opposite direction and think to himself, “she’s a slut; she’s a bitch; I hate all women.” In the same respect, I would deem anyone who used the “N” word on any occasion, a racist; even if they didn’t think it every time they passed an African American, so I guess my comparison really isn’t all that fair. However, my confusion on misogyny, and my theory of “a demonstration of misogyny,” is somewhat confusing if you compare it to my feelings on racism. As I wouldn’t deem someone who used the “N” word as demonstrating racism, but instead simply racist. My confusion however, is a perfect example of how good this lecture really was.
To elucidate, the speaker talked about misogyny in the media, and how even though not every song-lyric used these words as misogynistic, it is nonetheless internalized, and moreover, we don’t realize it when they are being used in terms of hatred towards women. I guess if I lived two-hundred-years-ago, I might not have labeled someone who used the “N” word as being racist, because it was so common, that I would have it internalized, and it would be a part of my everyday life. (Although I like to think otherwise). So even my own confusion is a good example of someone internalizing what’s happening in the media and dismissing it, or not even noticing it.
However, what I was most disgusted with, was how this internalization affects the youth of society. One video-clip among many presented in the lecture depicted two young females acting in very sexually suggestive ways. This clip of two fourteen or fifteen-year-old girls made me sick to my stomach. The speaker once asked her audience to imagine, if these two children are acting like this at such a young age, how are their kids going to behave? With this statement, I began to understand growing cynicism in people who are growing older, as younger generations willingly degrade themselves.
So I guess I understand how everyone is a misogynist, and it’s definitely something that people need to be aware of, and how misogyny is internalized through the media, such as advertisements and song-lyrics. Though what’s more disturbing, is children acting in sexually explicit ways. Not only are these kids degrading themselves, but they are also making themselves a target for predators, and abusive relationships, and I find it unacceptable for children to be allowed or exposed to this type of material that could make them targets. Some of the content of lyrics is nearly pornographic, and it’s sad, because when I go to a skating rink, I mostly see kids of twelve-years requested songs like the aforementioned. Maybe I am becoming cynical, and I just don’t know it; though maybe that’s an easy way out, because I’m just a misogynist—like everyone else.
I find it somewhat pathetic that this is what our idea of “entertainment” has evolved into. Is it necissary to entertaintain ourselves at the expess of another group? What’s even sadder, is this group–namely women–have been exposed to so much of this content, that they don’t even really realize that they’re being oppressed by it.
