KATE MANNE

This is why it’s so hard for women to publicly accuse men of predatory actions. The victims are perceived as dramatizing and self-important. They risk not being believed. Or getting blamed. Or having crimes investigated improperly. Or being called selfish, mendacious. Women suffer automatic credibility deficits when leveling such accusations, while men enjoy “himpathy,” -- the “excessive sympathy sometimes shown toward male perpetrators of sexual violence.

Misogyny should be understood as the ‘law enforcement’ branch of a patriarchal order, which has the overall function of policing and enforcing its governing ideology. Sexism wears a lab coat, misogyny goes on witch hunts.... Sexism is bookish; misogyny is combative. Sexism has a theory; misogyny wields a cudgel.

Women’s power will be better tolerated when it’s wielded in service of patriarchal interests.

Trying to fight misogyny using juridical moral notions is a bit like trying to fight fire with oxygen. It might work on a small scale — we do manage to blow out matches and candles, after all. But when we try to scale up the strategy, it is liable to backfire. We would be trying to put out a fire while feeding right into it.

Trying to fight misogyny using juridical moral notions is a bit like trying to fight fire with oxygen. It might work on a small scale — we do manage to blow out matches and candles, after all. But when we try to scale up the strategy, it is liable to backfire. We would be trying to put out a fire while feeding right into it.

Misogyny should be understood as the ‘law enforcement’ branch of a patriarchal order, which has the overall function of policing and enforcing its governing ideology. Sexism wears a lab coat, misogyny goes on witch hunts.... Sexism is bookish; misogyny is combative. Sexism has a theory; misogyny wields a cudgel.

This is why it’s so hard for women to publicly accuse men of predatory actions. The victims are perceived as dramatizing and self-important. They risk not being believed. Or getting blamed. Or having crimes investigated improperly. Or being called selfish, mendacious. Women suffer automatic credibility deficits when leveling such accusations, while men enjoy “himpathy,” -- the “excessive sympathy sometimes shown toward male perpetrators of sexual violence.

Women’s power will be better tolerated when it’s wielded in service of patriarchal interests.