Unpacking Mysogyny, Personal Responsibility, and Systemic Forces
- Brainz Magazine
- Jan 13
- 13 min read
Written by Sam Mishra, The Medical Massage Lady
Sam Mishra (The Medical Massage Lady) is a multi-award winning massage therapist, aromatherapist, accredited course tutor, oncology and lymphatic practitioner, trauma practitioner, breathwork facilitator, reiki and intuitive energy healer, transformational and spiritual coach, and hypnotherapist.
Misogyny, a pervasive disdain, mistrust, or devaluation of women, has shaped human societies for millennia. Its expressions range from institutional exclusion to subtle internalized beliefs about what it means to be a “good” woman. In common discourse, misogyny is often attributed exclusively to men, those who outwardly exhibit sexist behaviour or perpetuate patriarchal structures. Yet a more complex reality underlies this dynamic: many women, consciously or unconsciously, also engage in judgment and disempowerment of other women. This dimension of inwardly directed misogyny, what feminist scholars term internalized misogyny, complicates the idea of blame and invites us to reconsider how deeply patriarchy is embedded in collective consciousness.
Feminist thinkers such as Simone de Beauvoir (1949) and Kate Manne (2018) have shown that misogyny is not just a matter of individual hatred but a societal system that enforces gender hierarchies.[1,2] De Beauvoir’s notion of woman as “the Other” illuminates how femininity has been defined in relation to men’s subjectivity, a relational positioning that renders women both object and standard-bearer of patriarchal ideals. Manne (2018) expands this by arguing that misogyny functions as a disciplinary system that punishes women who deviate from gendered moral expectations.[2] This structural, rather than purely personal, understanding of misogyny reframes the question: if misogyny is systemic, then those within the system, men and women alike, can consciously or unconsciously reproduce its logic.
This reflection, therefore, argues that while men historically constructed and maintain patriarchal power, misogyny persists because all members of society participate in gendered conditioning. Women, through processes of socialization, media influence, and trauma, often internalize sexist values and perpetuate them through judgment of other women, particularly around sexuality and moral behaviour. Exploring this interplay between patriarchy, internalization, and trauma can illuminate not just who is “to blame,” but how collective change might begin.
Patriarchy and the origins of misogyny
Misogyny cannot be understood without patriarchy, the organizing principle of male dominance institutionalized across cultures. Patriarchy pervades political, economic, and cultural life, shaping expectations of gender roles and enforcing hierarchies of value. As sociologist Sylvia Walby (1990) argues, patriarchy is both a structural and ideological system that positions men as the primary holders of authority in both public and private realms.[3] It manifests through wage inequality, sexual objectification, and cultural narratives that privilege male rationality over female emotion.
Historically, patriarchal systems emerged in tandem with the rise of private property, inheritance, and the regulation of women’s reproductive power.[4] Women’s labour, sexuality, and even bodies became territory for male control, legitimized through religion, law, and social custom. The patriarchal family served as a microcosm of that control, a space in which authority, moral purity, and gendered respectability were enforced. Over centuries, these norms crystallized into cultural common sense: femininity became synonymous with modesty, domesticity, and self-sacrifice.
At its core, misogyny functions as the “law enforcement” arm of patriarchy.[2] It corrects and punishes women who step outside prescribed bounds, the outspoken woman, the sexually liberated woman, or the ambitious professional who threatens male centrality. Yet misogyny is not only external punishment, it is also internal resonance. Through socialization, both men and women absorb messages about what constitutes “acceptable” femininity and the dangers of deviating from it. From childhood, girls learn that empathy, beauty, and compliance are rewarded, while assertiveness or sexual confidence may attract scorn.
The mechanisms of cultural transmission, family narratives, education, religious scripts, and media, reinforce these dynamics. The way society represents women, from the self-sacrificing mother to the femme fatale, sustains binaries of purity and shame. Over time, women may come to view other women not as allies but as rivals in moral comparison. Patriarchal scripts thus reconfigure women’s relationships to themselves and to one another.
The patriarchal order’s endurance lies in its adaptability. While modern societies formally embrace gender equality, new forms of misogyny persist in digital spaces, workplace cultures, and even feminist movements themselves. For instance, the appropriation of feminist language in media often emphasizes “choice” while leaving underlying power relations intact, a phenomenon.[5] calls “postfeminist sensibility.” Under this guise, women who fail to conform to neoliberal ideals of success and desirability may still be subtly shamed, not by men alone but by the social gaze internalized within the female community.
Thus, although men historically constructed patriarchal systems, the machinery runs partly through women’s own participation, negotiated through self-perception, internal conformity, and peer judgment. This complicity is not culpability in a moral sense but evidence of how deeply social conditioning can penetrate psychic and interpersonal life.
Internalized misogyny and women’s participation
If patriarchy defines the rules of gender hierarchy, internalized misogyny describes how those rules live within women themselves. It manifests not simply as self-hatred, but as the habitual, often unconscious, evaluation of other women through patriarchal standards, appearance, sexuality, moral behaviour, and compliance with societal expectations. In this process, women may become both enforcers and victims of misogyny, turning the external gaze inward.
The feminist psychologist Naomi Wolf (1991) argued in The Beauty Myth that post-industrial societies maintained gender control not through overt repression but through subtle forms of self-policing.[6] The ideal woman, beautiful, thin, sexually appealing yet morally contained, serves as an internalized authority that women measure themselves and each other against. In social terms, this dynamic becomes visible in “slut-shaming,” competitive body comparisons, and the moral ranking of women based on sexual expression. What may appear as individual judgment is often the echo of centuries-old patriarchal control refracted through personal insecurity and social conditioning.
Importantly, women’s participation in misogynistic dynamics does not negate the structural nature of patriarchy. Rather, it demonstrates the system’s success in naturalizing its own values. As cultural theorist Judith Butler (1990) notes, gender is not a fixed truth but a “reiterated performance” sustained through daily acts of conformity.[7] When girls learn that attention, love, or safety are associated with certain performances of femininity, modesty, politeness, selflessness, they internalize these behaviours as markers of worth. Deviations, such as assertiveness or sexual agency, are often met with subtle social sanctions from both men and women. The mechanism ensures self-regulation, women become “caretakers of patriarchy,” as Bell Hooks (1984) observes, because they are rewarded for preserving social order.[8]
Social media provides a contemporary case study for how internalized misogyny circulates. While digital platforms have facilitated feminist activism, they also magnify social comparison and moral judgment among women. Research by Manago et al. (2008) and Fardouly et al. (2015) suggests that women’s self-presentation online often reproduces traditional beauty norms, driven by both external validation and peer reinforcement.[9,10] When other women deviate from those norms, by displaying sexual autonomy, body diversity, or nonconformity, backlash frequently comes from female audiences themselves. As Butler suggests, surveillance is not always imposed from above, it is often a lateral function maintained within marginalized groups.
Furthermore, language reveals internalized misogyny’s cultural depth. Casual terms such as “too much,” “try-hard,” or “attention-seeking” are frequently wielded to discipline women who fail to strike the impossible balance between visibility and restraint. This unspoken code suggests that a woman’s power must always be tempered and her desires moderated. In feminist terms, the “good woman” becomes the repository of patriarchal virtue, while the “bad woman” absorbs collective shame.
From a psychological viewpoint, Fredrickson and Roberts’ (1997) objectification theory offers insight into this process.[11] When women internalize an observer’s perspective on their own bodies, they experience chronic self-monitoring that can lead to anxiety, shame, and reduced agency. Extending this to inter-female dynamics, one might argue that objectification does not stop at self-surveillance but transforms into interpersonal policing: women judge others for mirroring their own internal conflicts. Thus, the act of blaming or shaming other women often functions as a projection of the discomfort caused by living under constant evaluation.
Still, viewing women’s participation in misogyny through a solely moral lens risks oversimplification. To understand why some women reproduce patriarchal ideas, we must examine how survival and trauma shape behaviour in constrained social realities.
Trauma, gender conditioning, and the cycle of judgment
Internalized misogyny often intersects with personal and collective trauma. Patriarchal societies do not merely prescribe gender roles, they inflict emotional and psychological wounds through systems of shame, violence, and silencing. These wounds manifest in how women perceive themselves and relate to one another. The repetition of judgment, hostility, or distrust among women can be seen as an inherited survival strategy, an attempt to navigate a system that punishes vulnerability and autonomy simultaneously.
Feminist psychoanalytic theorist Nancy Chodorow (1978) observed that women are often socialized to define their identities in relation to others, particularly through caregiving and emotional attunement.[12] Yet under patriarchy, relationality itself becomes a source of burden. Women are taught that love must coexist with self-denial, and that safety often depends on maintaining male approval. When such conditioning is accompanied by experiences of objectification, harassment, or abuse, internalized fear and shame can transform into defensive moral superiority. In this way, judgment of other women can emerge not from malice, but from trauma’s protective logic, “If I distance myself from the punished woman, I might stay safe.”
Psychiatrist Judith Herman (1992) describes trauma as not only an event but a disruption of meaning and selfhood.[13] Survivors often internalize the values of their abusers as a means of gaining control or coherence. Applied to gender, women’s alignment with patriarchal morality may represent a strategy to restore order after victimization. Victims of sexual violence, for instance, sometimes adopt more conservative views toward sexuality, not because they reject liberation per se, but because self-protection demands predictable moral boundaries. This internal negotiation can perpetuate stigmas against sexually autonomous women, creating a chain of re-enactment where pain becomes policing.
Collective trauma also plays a role. Generations of women have lived under systems that link worth to purity, caregiving, and obedience. These ideals, transmitted through motherhood and community norms, bind women emotionally to the very models that limit them. The respected “matriarch” or “moral guardian” within traditional contexts often enforces harsh judgment on younger women, policing clothing, sexuality, or ambition, believing it preserves dignity. While such behaviours seem conservative, they are often acts of love distorted by patriarchy’s logic, rooted in the fear that deviation invites harm.
The sociologist Carol Gilligan (1982) expanded this understanding by highlighting how women’s moral reasoning tends to emphasize care and connection.[14] Under patriarchy, however, this orientation is weaponized, care becomes control when fear dictates its direction. Misogynistic judgment among women often arises from this tension, the desire to protect through conformity. Thus, trauma and morality intertwine: allowing oneself to desire freely, express anger, or occupy space may feel dangerous because it recalls generations of suppression and punishment.
Media discourse around women’s sexuality illustrates this cycle vividly. High-profile female figures who reclaim sensuality or power often attract vitriol, not only from men espousing overt sexism, but from other women projecting ambivalence about their own sexual agency. The outcry against women perceived as “too provocative” or “attention-seeking” can be read as an expression of collective trauma: a discomfort with the visibility of desires historically deemed shameful. In this sense, misogyny among women is not simply betrayal, but a survival inheritance born from centuries of fear and adaptation.
Moving forward requires acknowledging that internalized misogyny is not an inherent trait but a symptom of prolonged cultural injury. Feminism’s challenge, then, is not to shame women for their participation in patriarchal norms but to cultivate awareness and compassion that allow for healing. As Bell Hooks (2000) writes, “Women need to love ourselves and one another in a patriarchal culture of domination if we are to challenge it.”[15] Only through empathy can the cycle of trauma-based judgment begin to unravel.
Men, power, and the shared responsibility
If misogyny is to be dismantled, we must confront both its architects and its inheritors. Men historically designed and maintained patriarchal structures that privilege male power, yet both men and women now sustain these norms through everyday practices, beliefs, and silences. Recognizing this shared participation is essential to transforming not just gender relations, but the cultural logic that underpins them.
Patriarchy, by definition, centres the authority of men, in law, spirituality, culture, and intimate relationships. Early feminist critiques, such as those of Gerda Lerner (1986), show that the system’s endurance depends on ideological conditioning as much as coercion.[4] Men are taught to associate masculinity with dominance, control, and emotional restraint, while perceiving femininity as weakness or dependence. This binary harms both genders: it grants men social power but denies them emotional freedom, it grants women moral virtue but denies them autonomy.
The sociocultural theorist Bell Hooks (2004) provides one of the most insightful analyses of this paradox.[16] In The Will to Change, hooks argues that patriarchy dehumanizes men by suppressing their capacity for love and empathy, enforcing an emotional numbness that perpetuates domination. Boys, socialized to “be strong” and repress vulnerability, learn to translate emotional pain into anger or apathy. Consequently, misogyny becomes not only a means of maintaining dominance but also a channel for displaced emotional distress. The man who scorns or fears femininity often does so because his own capacity for tenderness has been shamed into exile.
This dynamic is crucial because it reveals that misogyny is sustained by a feedback loop of fear, performance, and validation. For men, rejecting softness becomes proof of manhood, for women, adhering to patriarchal femininity becomes a survival strategy. In this interplay, both genders remain trapped in a system that equates dominance with value. To break that cycle, dismantling misogyny must involve freeing men from the emotional poverty that patriarchy imposes.
Feminist scholars have long insisted on this point. Raewyn Connell’s (2005) concept of “hegemonic masculinity” describes how certain masculinities achieve cultural dominance not by representing all men, but by subordinating both women and nonconforming men.[17] This hierarchy reproduces itself through media heroes, workplace politics, and relational expectations. Recognizing that men are socialized into these roles does not absolve them of responsibility, rather, it encourages accountability through awareness.
Simultaneously, women’s empowerment requires addressing how they, too, internalize scripts of competition and moral surveillance. The feminist movement itself has often grappled with exclusionary patterns, from class-based to racialized forms of judgment, that echo patriarchal logic. As Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989) demonstrates through the concept of intersectionality, systems of oppression overlap, gendered experiences are inseparable from race, class, and sexuality.[18] Therefore, holding men “solely” to blame for misogyny overlooks other dimensions of power that perpetuate inequality, including those enacted within marginalized groups themselves.
To move forward, both men and women must reimagine gender relations beyond domination and resentment. This involves cultivating what philosopher bell hooks calls “love ethic”, an ethos grounded in care, mutuality, and accountability rather than control. For men, this means confronting the emotional wounds of masculinity and learning vulnerability without shame. For women, it involves recognizing internalized patterns of judgment and replacing them with empathy born of shared struggle.
True liberation requires that misogyny be seen not as a battle between sexes but as a shared human problem rooted in centuries of distorted socialization. Systems fail when empathy returns, they survive when competition replaces connection.
Conclusion: Beyond blame, toward collective healing
So, are men really to blame for misogyny toward women? The answer is both yes and not only. Yes, because patriarchy and misogyny originated as tools of male dominance that codified gender inequality for centuries. But not only, because patriarchal values have since seeped into the collective psyche, shaping how society at large defines worth, morality, and power. Women, too, learn these values, they carry them, struggle against them, and sometimes reproduce them in the hope of safety or belonging.
Understanding women’s participation in misogyny is not about shifting blame but about expanding understanding. Internalized misogyny reflects the profound success of patriarchal conditioning, how effectively it teaches women to fear or scorn their own freedom. It also reveals the psychological toll of trauma, where self-protection and control masquerade as moral superiority. Without addressing these internalized dynamics, even feminist progress risks replicating old hierarchies under new names.
The path forward demands collective self-reflection. Men must unlearn the power models that equate control with identity. Women must release the perfectionism and rivalry that patriarchy instilled as survival tools. Both must commit to building relationships rooted in empathy, not hierarchy.
Cultural transformation begins at the level of consciousness: how we teach our children to see gender, how we respond to difference, how we interpret confidence, anger, sexuality, and tenderness. Feminism cannot succeed if it remains a struggle against men rather than a reimagining for humanity. As Simone de Beauvoir (1949) wrote, “It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reason for acting.” To confront misogyny, we must first confront how deeply it has lived within us all.
By reframing misogyny as a shared human inheritance rather than a gendered accusation, we open the door to compassion, not as sentimentality, but as radical social repair. Healing misogyny means healing ourselves: our fears, our desires, our histories. Only when empathy replaces fear can we begin to dismantle the architecture of patriarchy that has shaped emotional life for millennia.
Read more from Sam Mishra
Sam Mishra, The Medical Massage Lady
Sam Mishra (The Medical Massage Lady), is a multi-award winning massage therapist, aromatherapist, accredited course tutor, oncology and lymphatic practitioner, trauma practitioner, breathwork facilitator, reiki and intuitive energy healer, transformational and spiritual coach and hypnotherapist. Her medical background as a nurse and a midwife, combined with her own experiences of childhood disability and abuse, have resulted in a diverse and specialised service, but she is mostly known for her trauma work. She is motivated by the adversity she has faced, using it as a driving force in her charity work and in offering the vulnerable a means of support. Her aim is to educate about medical conditions using easily understood language, to avoid inappropriate treatments being carried out, and for health promotion purposes in the general public. She is also becoming known for challenging the stigmas in our society and pushing through the boundaries that have been set by such stigmas within the massage industry.
References:
[1] Beauvoir, S. de. (1949). The second sex. Vintage Books. [2] Manne, K. (2018). Down girl: The logic of misogyny. Oxford University Press. [3] Walby, S. (1990). Theorizing patriarchy. Basil Blackwell. [4] Lerner, G. (1986). The creation of patriarchy. Oxford University Press.
[5] Gill, R. (2007). Postfeminist media culture: Elements of a sensibility. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 10(2), 147-166. [6] Wolf, N. (1991). The beauty myth: How images of beauty are used against women. HarperCollins.
[7] Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. Routledge.
[8] Hooks, B. (1984). Feminist theory: From margin to center. South End Press.
[9] Manago, A. M., Graham, M. B., Greenfield, P. M., & Salimkhan, G. (2008). Self-presentation and gender on MySpace. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 29(6), 446-458.
[10] Fardouly, J., Diedrichs, P. C., Vartanian, L. R., & Halliwell, E. (2015). Social comparisons on social media: The impact of Facebook on young women’s body image concerns and mood. Body Image, 13, 38-45.
[11] Fredrickson, B. L., & Roberts, T. (1997). Objectification theory: Toward understanding women’s lived experiences and mental health risks. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 21(2), 173-206.
[12] Chodorow, N. (1978). The reproduction of mothering: Psychoanalysis and the sociology of gender. University of California Press.
[13] Herman, J. L. (1992). Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence – From domestic abuse to political terror. Basic Books.
[14] Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women’s development. Harvard University Press.
[15] Hooks, B. (2000). All about love: New visions. William Morrow.
[16] Hooks, B. (2004). The will to change: Men, masculinity, and love. Atria Books.
[17] Connell, R. W. (2005). Masculinities (2nd ed.). University of California Press.
[18] Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory, and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989(1), 139-167.
