Internalized Misogyny

The paradox of internalized misogyny is that women that perceive less sexism, women that don’t think sexism exists, have a higher level of internalized misogyny. Women that voice sexism-denying opinions do so based on their own perceived experience. The key here is understanding that perception does not necessarily reflect the reality of the environment. Some women claim “I am not oppressed” to make a statement of empowerment, refusing the label of victim. When reviewing the data, this view may reflect a denial of reality rather than a truly grounded and embodied sense of empowerment.

A study published in the journal Counseling Psychologist reported that internalized misogyny is an inversely related moderator of the perception of sexist microaggressions. This means that women reporting more sexist microaggressions have less internalized misogyny and women reporting less sexism have more internalized misogyny. The study offers that one possible explanation is that the perceptibility of sexist microaggressions may be masked by internalized misogyny.

This new finding is consistent with the original Feminist Identity Development Model (FID) by Downing & Roush, developed in 1985, and later research published in the Counseling Psychologist titled Perceived Sexist Events and Feminist Identity Development Attitudes: Links to Women’s Psychological Distress. This study found that women that are more progressed in their feminist identity have lower internalized misogyny and have higher awareness of sexist microaggressions.

There are a wide range of nuanced opinions on the status of sexism, misogyny and gender-based discrimination in our world. Some believe these things exist in other countries, but that women in the United States have it pretty good. Some think that these are things of the past, a history to be understood. Others think it is getting better. In the most extreme cases, women assert claims that they do not think sexism and misogyny exist. None of these beliefs are not in line with the current research on the state of sexism within our society.

While these beliefs may reflect a lack of current knowledge on the subject, they can also be understood to be a reflection of how the dynamics around sexism, misogyny and gender-based oppression have evolved and changed. Laws, human resources departments, Title IX coordinators and modern social standards of behavior have taken overt sexism underground into a more subtle, and maybe even more dangerous form. Women continue to be oppressed, causing physical and mental health damage.

Another study supporting a link between sexist beliefs, beliefs that would be found in someone with internalized misogyny, and lack of awareness was published in the Psychology of Women Quarterly, Seeing the Unseen: Attention to Daily Encounters With Sexism as Way to Reduce Sexist Beliefs. It suggests that women who endorse sexist beliefs lack awareness of the more subtle forms of sexism. They just don’t notice and when they do notice, they discount the incidents.

Internalized misogyny harms a woman’s mental health, relationships and our society. The lack of mindfulness in relation to sexism and the resulting levels of internalized misogyny in women is an important issue that needs to be addressed at multiple levels, including at an individual psychology, within our mental healthcare system, and the related issues of social justice.

The concept of patriarchy is generally understood as a set of political, social, and economic systems that privilege all men over all women. The beliefs and values of patriarchal systems undervalue the “feminine” and overvalue the “masculine.” In patriarchal systems, power, resources, and authority are distributed unevenly to ensure that men dominate.

In conversations about patriarchy, people tend to conceptualize patriarchy as an external force that resides outside an individual’s self-concept. The truth is, part of patriarchy does live externally. With awareness, we come to realize that there is also a part of it that resides within us, even if we identify as a woman. This we name as internalized patriarchy, a close relative of internalized misogyny, that may be conceptualized more broadly than misogyny and specifically as the internalization of patriarchal order. All people may experience internalized patriarchy in relation to both their feminine aspects and gender identity including cis-gendered women, trans women, non-binary people and men.

As with all aspects of the human shadow side, it is not comfortable to recognize and own personal participation in patriarchy related to internalized and unexamined oppressive norms. We are raised in a patriarchal society and few people put much thought into how this has formed our personality, values, beliefs, and behavior patterns.

For women-identified people, examining the shadow of internalized patriarchy and internalized misogyny may be especially difficult as it calls women to examine what they believe to be proper, true, right, just and moral. For many women, it is the only way they know how to be relational, even though adhering to patriarchal norms damages the ability for authentic and intimate relationships.

When a woman experiences internalized misogyny, she internalizes, assimilates, or buys into, the expectations, self-concepts, roles, and expected elements of her core identity and gender identity based on misogyny, sexism, harmful gender norms, cultural double standards, gender symbolism and societal stereotypes, consciously or not. It may seem that this order of things requires no examination as it is the way life works. However, internalized misogyny harms women’s mental health. Women may go along in life taking depression medication as a way of life. She may not question this need as 17.7% of her women friends, and if over 60, more that 24.3% of her women friends in the United States also take antidepressants. From 2009-2010 to 2017-2018 the percentage of U.S. adult women that use antidepressants increased, while use by men did not. That is just the way things are.

It is a well understood phenomenon that after long periods of oppression, targeted groups begin to internalize harmful cultural stereotypes. As oppression becomes embedded in our society, it becomes embedded in the target group’s sense of identity. This has been identified and studied in relationship to racism and is shown to have negative mental health consequences. It is considered by some as the most harmful psychological effect of oppression.

When internalized oppression becomes embedded in a woman’s sense of self, she then serves as a supporter of the self-perpetuating system of patriarchy. It is in this way that internalized oppression strengthens the oppressor and the oppressed become participants in their own subordination and the subordination of other women. Internalized oppression subjugates the mind of the oppressed. This subjugation is most often below conscious awareness.

It is important to remember that the tendency to blame women for internalized misogyny is victim blaming. Internalized misogyny is the result of domination. Once in place, it uses the oppressed to reinforce sexist cultural and relational factors, including structural systems that maintain a patriarchal order. The social order works to maintain women in this subordinate position. In this way, internalized oppression is a reinforcing factor, not the root of the oppression from which it stems.

The thinking that women are somehow responsible for their own oppression because women as a group exhibit signs of internalized misogyny has been debunked by research. A study, How Does The Internalization Of Misogyny Operate: A Thoretical Approach With European Examples, found that internalized misogyny parallels the state of gender inequality within a given society. Internalized misogyny is informed by the degree of gender domination, it does not inform it. This study concluded that the degree of women’s internalized misogyny found in a society’s women always lags behind the average level of sexist attitudes within that country.

Increasing self-awareness of internalized patriarchy and internalized misogyny, and questioning our related values, beliefs, roles, choices and behaviors is one way that all people, especially women-identified people, can resist the harmful impact of patriarchy on our relationships, physical health, mental health, and the well-being of our society and world.