Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny

by Kate Manne

According to my account, misogynist hostility can be anything that is suitable to serve a punitive, deterrent, or warning function, which (depending on your theory of punishment) may be anything aversive to human beings in general, or the women being targeted in particular. Misogynist hostility encompasses myriad “down girl” moves—so many as to make the list seem likely to be indefinitely extensible. But, to generalize: adults are insultingly likened to children, people to animals or even to objects. As well as infantilizing and belittling, there’s ridiculing, humiliating, mocking, slurring, vilifying, demonizing, as well as sexualizing or, alternatively, desexualizing, silencing, shunning, shaming, blaming, patronizing, condescending, and other forms of treatment that are dismissive and disparaging in specific social contexts. Then there is violence and threatening behavior: including “punching down”—that is, deferred or displaced aggression. And since, on my account, one woman can often serve as a stand-in or representative for a whole host of others in the misogynist imagination, almost any woman will be vulnerable to some form of misogynist hostility from some source or other.