Misogyny, Internalized Misogyny, and Patriarchy: What are they?

You might have noticed that in my blog description, there's a word that may not be familiar to you: patriarchy. In this entry, I'll be describing basic terms associated with feminism so you don't end up getting lost in subsequent posts. Misogyny is easy enough to understand, but those other two need some additional explanation.

To put it simply, misogyny is the hatred or dislike of women. It can manifest itself in a number of ways, mainly through sexual objectification and violence against women (which are still glorified in the media), along with discrimination of whatever kind against women.

Internalized misogyny is, using my own personal way of putting it, when women believe horrible things about themselves because of the values they're conditioned to accept, many of which are inherently misogynistic. For example, women calling other women sluts/whores/other sexually demeaning insults. If you believe that women are inferior in a given situation, despite being a woman yourself, you have some internalized misogyny! (I hope this isn't the case, though.)

Patriarchy took me a while to understand. It was a weird term that I was only able to fully grasp through looking at the context it was used in, until I looked it up and finally figured it out for sure. I'll just use Wikipedia's definition: 

"Patriarchy (rule by fathers) is a social system in which the male is the primary authority figure central to social organization and the central roles of political leadership, moral authority, and control of property, and where fathers hold authority over women and children. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination."

That is a very concise way of putting it, but it does the job (feel free to scan the article for more information). Hopefully you now have an idea of what I'm talking about when I use that term. Most of the problems that women have in today's society are a result of this social system.

So there you go! You now have an idea of what misogyny, internalized misogyny, and patriarchy are! Yay! It's useful to know because I'll be using those words a lot later on. Thank you and have a nice day.

- Carli_V