Is misogyny a hate crime?

Why are you getting so emotional? Stop being a drama queen! C’mon now, can’t you take a joke? Calm down! Why are you getting so worked up? That time of the month, eh? When are you getting married? When are you going to have children? Your biological clock is ticking! What do you mean, you don’t want children? That’s unnatural. Do you know how pretty you’d be if you just used some makeup, wore dresses, lost those extra pounds and let your hair down? What you’re wearing is so provocative! You’re asking for it! Find yourself a man who’s older, taller and earns more money than you or else the marriage will never work.

“Surely you can you cook?” What a ridiculous question! Why would you ask a woman that? Just because she’s a woman?

Why won’t you ask a man?

A man can drink, smoke and be sexually active and that doesn’t make him any less of a man? Somehow that’s something a man would not apologise for. But if a woman succumbed to the very same, vitriol and profanities are hurled her way. Men areallowed to get angry and they are passionate and firm. Women get angry and they are emotional and hysterical.

Is it because of the culture’s insistence on subservience for every woman?

When some men support their wives and their daughters and perhaps in some communities those men are shunned by their peers and motives questioned, “what are you doing? You’re upsetting a norm that’s been comfortable for us.” Just because treating women that way has been customary and practiced for eons doesn’t necessarily mean it’s veracious.

Derived from the Greek, misogyny means “woman-hater.” It’s not a difficult term to explain, but, like sexism and feminism, a lot of people refuse to acknowledge that it exists and a lot of others don’t comprehend how women all over the globe have to pay a price for just being who they are. How to tell whether you’re a misogynist or dealing with one? The use of the word ‘female’ as a noun rather than an adjective objectifies women as things instead of beings. (“These females are always complaining...” or “stop acting like a female”) If a man rolls his eyes, laughs, scoffs or raises his eyebrows, all of which are derogatory and condescending, when you express important opinions, ideas or feelings, then he’s a misogynist.

Upon hearing that a woman or girl has been sexually abused or assaulted, if the first three questions are “What was she wearing?”, “What was she doing there?”, and “Well, what did she think would happen?” that person is a misogynist. Women are told they asked for it, or that it’s their fault. It’s because of this ostracism that it’s not easy for a woman to come out and say I was troubled or I was hurt. Women survive but why should they? It shouldn’t be a world where women survive. It should be one where women thrive.

It’s not that women can’t take a joke. It’s that misogyny is a hate crime and it isn’t funny.