Introduction
The most common definition of “misogyny” as it is understood today is contempt for or prejudice against women. In her book Down Girl, Kate Manne attempts to transform that definition into one that more fully encapsulates misogyny as it occurs in our everyday lives. In so doing, Manne argues that misogyny “functions to enforce and police women’s subordination and to uphold male dominance” where sexism “justifies” patriarchal gender norms and misogyny “enforces” those norms (Manne, 19). Such active policing, as Manne calls it, is accomplished through a series of punishments that enforcers impose on women who step out of their traditional gender roles. But Manne’s definition of misogyny also suggests that there is a form of passive policing, which occurs when people implicitly uphold or strengthen traditional gender roles by acting in line with such roles. When this happens, women are threatened in advance of their possible norm violations and inhibited from stepping out of line.
While Manne’s definition successfully redefines misogyny for the purposes of society’s gender awareness, her view implies that misogyny–the enforcement of patriarchal gender roles–is significantly more prevalent than we may have thought: its interpretations of active and (implied) passive policing, while different from each other, suggest that any time a man or woman performs an action that upholds traditional gender norms is therefore performing a misogynistic action. If this is correct, Manne’s definition of misogyny is subject to an objection: it is overly demanding with regard to what constitutes policing and, therefore, condemns willing actions taken by individuals within their gender roles. In addition, Manne also disregards those gender-aligned actions made by individuals that are ethically intended to protest patriarchy.
Misogyny’s Enforcement Mechanisms: Active and Passive
In Down Girl, Manne explains that the purpose of an ameliorative proposal is to define misogyny “how we ought to understand [it], at least for many purposes” (63). With that goal, she argues that we must look at how misogyny and sexism work in conjunction to uphold patriarchal order. Manne says that misogyny:
Takes a girl or a woman… then threatens consequences if she violates or challenges the relevant norms or expectations as a member of this gendered class of persons… sexism [is] the branch of patriarchal ideology that justifies and rationalizes a patriarchal social order, and misogyny as the system that polices and enforces its governing norms and expectations. (20)
Manne’s proposed definition of misogyny therefore functions to uphold patriarchal norms by “threatening” women out of “challenging” the expectations of the female gender norm through a system of actions Manne refers to as “policing” and “enforcing.” To shed light on such patriarchal gender norms, Manne outlines that there are several normative “roles” that women are policed into performing: those of the “loving wives, devoted moms, ‘cool’ girlfriends, loyal secretaries, or good waitresses” (47). If women do not subscribe to such roles, they will be punished in a variety of ways. Manne says:
Norm-enforcement mechanisms will be standing at the ready, or operating in the background… [they] will range widely in the consequences they visit on women, from life-threatening violence to subtle social signals of disapproval (e.g., when people are unconsciously slightly “taken aback” when women are as interpersonally direct or unapologetic as male counterparts). (47)
While these enforcements can range from outright “life-threatening violence”–such as the hot oil thrown on a girl in Texas by her angry parents as a result of her refusal to marry an older man–to “subtle social signals of disapproval,” they are all similar in the regard that they are forms of active policing. Manne defines active policing as “particularly harsh” or “particularly intense” forms of punishment extended toward women who step out of line and violate their gender norms. But Manne’s concept of active policing should be understood always to involve what P. F. Strawson calls the reactive attitudes–such as resentment, distrust, and disappointment–when an expectation has been let down. Thus, active policing will always make a woman the object of a reactive attitude when she violates a gender norm, and that attitude will constitute a negative backlash or punishment.
However, while all of the real-life examples Manne uses to exhibit misogyny’s enforcement mechanisms in Down Girl are instances of active policing–where a reactive attitude is extended toward the woman stepping out of line–Manne highlights a feature of enforcement that I believe constitutes a second type of policing altogether: passive policing, rather than active. Manne says a possible feature of “misogynistic social forces” is “distinctively gendered contents, which reflect and help to regulate or restore patriarchal order” (63). This type of enforcement does not involve reactive attitudes at all because there is no woman requiring punishment for a violation of her gender role. Instead, passive policing, as she hints at here, is the enforcement which preemptively threatens women out of violating their gender norm because the enforcer contributes to drawing the line that divides the norms.
For example, one type of “distinctively gendered content” is when women wear makeup on a daily basis. When that is the case, a woman who may not want to wear makeup to work will be preemptively threatened out of that course of conduct in reaction to those women who do wear makeup daily and, as a result, these women will effectively contribute to upholding or “regulating” the patriarchal norm. The makeup-wearing women in this case are, therefore, the passive policers of the woman who wants to violate the norm without makeup: because they enforce patriarchal norms not with reactive attitudes but, instead, with implicit gender-normative action.
Thus, according to Manne’s description of “distinctively gendered contents, which reflect and help to regulate or restore patriarchal order,” the women in this situation are not active enforcers of misogyny but, rather, passive in their enforcement of “distinctively gendered content.” This passive policing is another type of enforcement mechanism implied by Manne’s definition of misogyny in which individuals act in line with traditional gender norms preemptively threaten other individuals and deter them from violating such norms that, in turn, contributes to upholding patriarchal order.
Objection
If this analysis of patriarchal enforcement mechanisms as described by Manne’s ameliorative definition of misogyny is correct, Manne’s view is subject to one objection: Manne’s ameliorative definition of misogyny is overly demanding in terms of what constitutes “policing.” Manne’s definition considers any action made by individuals that falls in line with their traditional gender roles a “misogynistic force.” For example, under this definition, any time a man or woman acts, speaks, dresses, or emotes in ways that uphold traditional gender roles, they contribute to “regulating” and “restoring” patriarchal gender norms. Individuals who wish to violate gender norms will be preemptively threatened as a result of those who actively uphold those norms. In this way, passive policers contribute to Manne’s misogyny by strengthening gender normativity.
Therefore, to oppose misogyny under this implication we must commit to what I would describe as the normative-free world. In the normative-free world, we would contribute to acting, speaking, emoting, dressing, etc., in every possible way that may violate traditional gender norms. In so doing, we would contribute to eliminating the enforcement of misogyny in its passive form.
For example, we would all commit to gender neutral dressing and hairstyles, women would stop wearing makeup and nailpolish, and men would stop wearing suits and ties to work. There is, however, an important element of individualism that would be lost in the normative-free world. For instance, as humans, we all have our opinions and preferences. Therefore, while some individuals who identify as women may hate makeup, others may love it. Additionally, while there are men who never want to wear a tie, there are also those who enjoy wearing ties on a daily basis. There are also individuals in the middle of those extremes where they may choose to dress a certain way at some points and another way at others.
A normative-free world is unrealistic for the purposes of eliminating passive enforcement of misogyny because it would not only violate the individual’s freedom of choice and self-expression, but it would also disregard the choices those individuals who experience what I will label aligned enjoyments as misogynistic. For our purposes, aligned enjoyment is the enjoyment of actions that fall in line with traditional gender norms according to one’s sexual gender assignment. It is, therefore, not feasible to commit to an entirely normative-free world on the basis of our own actions–as Manne’s implication would suggest–because it would violate the freedom and individualism of those who have aligned enjoyments. Thus, the implication of passive policing as offered to us by Manne’s ameliorative definition of misogyny is overly demanding for the purposes of our existence and, especially, those with aligned enjoyments.
However, passive policing also disregards those actions taken by individuals within their traditional gender roles that are intended as a means to protest the patriarchy altogether. Such actions can include institutional gender quotas, gendered fashion statements, and gender-equalizing statutes, all of which embrace gender variability as an equalizing force. For example, Title IX was enacted as a part of the Education Amendments in 1972 stating that “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” This amendment contributed to equalizing the funding between gendered sports teams. Initially, by choosing to play on a gendered sports team, such individuals would be considered “misogynistic” under the implications of passive policing because they embrace gender normativity through such a gender-divided activity. On that same basis, Title IX (as a statute) would also be considered misogynistic in its acknowledgement of traditional gender norms when it says “on the basis of sex,” despite its moral intentions to eradicate the patriarchy.
In that same vein, gender quotas followed by governmental, professional, or educational institutions are also caught in the middle of this dilemma: they are meant to be an equaliting force between genders in a similar fashion to Title IX, yet their acknowledgement of traditional gender identity differences makes them misogynistic in the eyes of Manne’s ameliorative definition. For these reasons, it is evident that Manne’s ameliorative definition has implications that are too quick to label all actions of gender normativity as “misogyny.” From these implications, we learn that not all gender-normative actions are unethical but, rather, have ethical intentions that require gender acknowledgement. It is therefore crucial that Manne’s definition of misogyny be altered so as to not cast aside normative actions before understanding their ethical intentions and possibilities for the future of our society.
Manne’s Response
In response to this objection, Manne would most likely understand the implication of her definition of enforcement, and accept the definition of passive policing alongside her definition of active policing. That said, while she would understand the ambitious demands set by passive policing–which require a sacrifice of personal choice on behalf of many individuals to prevent misogyny–she would argue that misogyny is, nevertheless, an unfortunate part of conforming to gender norms. Manne would, however, see the vast difference between calling gender-normative individuals misogynistic, when compared to calling gender-equalizing efforts that must acknowledge gender for the sake of their work–such as Title IX–misogynistic as well. In response, as a committed anti-patriarchist, Manne would most-likely alter her definition of “policing” to better address these implications.
In so doing, I propose that she should make two alterations: first, she should define passive policing, in addition to her other form of active policing, when she describes the enforcement mechanisms of misogyny. Second, she should add a clarification which exempts gender differentiation by equalizing movements (on the basis of patriarchal elimination) from her definition of passive policing as well. Through this alteration, Manne would clarify that not all forms of gender-normativity are forms of misogynistic backlash but, instead, can sometimes be used in an effort to ethically equalize gender. Ultimately, she would argue that while it is better to refrain from gender normativity at all costs, it can be beneficial on the rare occasion that it is used ethically, to eradicate patriarchal standards and establish equality among the sexes.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Manne’s proposed definition of misogyny is too broad in its conception of misogynistic enforcement, especially with regard to its implications of passive policing. Its implication that all gender normative actions are misogynistic can, however, be altered when taken into account with the practicalities of today’s society. For example, we learn that acknowledging gender norms is not always bad if those norms contribute to eradicating gender patriarchy. That said, Manne’s ameliorative definition of misogyny also makes us more aware of our independent decisions when considering whether the gendered actions we take are necessary actions or, rather, unnecessary actions we take to conform to traditional gender roles. Ultimately, Manne’s work teaches us to be aware of norms that uphold the patriarchy, and work to break down that patriarchy where we see such opportunities exist.
Shared by: Tiny Dancer
Image Credit: https://nypost.com/2017/06/22/british-boys-protest-school-uniforms-by-wearing-skirts/