My favourite film is Godfather 2, and most listened to musical genre, hip hop and rap. But how can a feminist ignore the blatant misogyny in both? Is it hypocritical, contradictory, or neither? Coming soon…
Personally, I feel that I have to turn the critical part of my brain off sometimes or I’d cut myself off from the majority of human culture. For example, I love Kurt Vonnegut’s and Haruki Murakami’s novels despite their awful depictions of women, because the things that are good about those novels really doesn’t have anything to do with gender. The misogyny is incidental, a product of the authors’ worldview but not a deliberate point the author is trying to make. I draw the line at classic stories that ARE trying to say something awful about gender though (Taming of the Shrew and the Magic Flute comes to mind). In that case, I can’t overlook my discomfort with the message to enjoy the prose or music. But when the misogyny comes down to two-dimensional, absent or stereotypical female charaters, or mistreatment of said characters in service to the story, I sort of split my consciousness and try to experience the story as if I wasn’t a woman, because otherwise I’ll miss out on everything else it has to offer. It’s not ideal and probably not healthy in the long run, but cutting myself off from 95% of human culture wouldn’t be healthy either.
Every day I have to remind myself that we're descended from apes (and we still have a lot of the reptilian brain too). It's certainly not all we are but everything starts there -- the longing for the stars, the flight from the body, the reach for something beyond ourselves. But we're always bodies and as someone once said, our modern skulls house stone-age brains. We're constantly fighting so many things, gravity, death, life itself often: and misogyny is another.
I wish I knew the answer, Julie. I'm sure you'll know the horrific opening pages of Carole Hooven's 'Testosterone' (I read the 'quartet' that came out around the same time -- your own Feminism for Women, Doc Stock's Material Girls, Helen Joyce's Trans) and what Hooven witnessed beats, for the sheer terror of it, anything reported by primatologist Frans de Waal in his books. There's a book by Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson which they titled Demonic Males because they came to the conclusion that there was something demonic about male sexuality. But even if I thought misogyny was natural, I would know it was wrong. We're animals, sure, but we like to think we're moral animals, at least at our best. Myself, I think I might have fallen victim to some sort of geriatric pessimism (I'm 85 and used to be a psychiatrist). Some things take so long to change, it's a constant fight against cynicism and despair. But one *has* to keep hope alive if only to avoid being the miserable old git chuntering in the corner.
I think there is a strong argument to be made that misogyny occurs naturally. So do hierarchies. And defecation. But we don't shit in public or at the dinner table or at our seat on the bus. Men might be naturally violent in some respects, but I notice that they are able to curb their violent impulses if those impulses will likely have negative consequences - like picking a fight with someone larger, stronger or more socially powerful than oneself.
It's easy to be unhelpfully sidelined by the nature argument. We have made a lot of progress in reforming the culture against the tendencies to devalue and exploit women. Hopefully we can continue to fight back and to build a culture that values females at least as much as it does males.
This is the way I view misogyny, too. It is part of our species (as is tribalism, xenophobia, racism) and the only way to fight these isms is to acknowledge that we are prone to it. I expect misogyny to be out there, in all fields of thought, including the arts. When people start feeling a certain glee at observing misogyny in the media or art, for example, if I notice people getting a little too excited that a certain women they don't like is treated as this mythological bitch creature who should be slayed and burned, I think we should stop and reflect on our impulse to do this to women, an impulse that feels more gleeful, fervant, public stoning in mentality, as compared to similar men.
But the earliest cultures on earth were matriarchal. Women had elevated positions above men. It was only with the invention of organised religion that deities were deemed ‘male’ and men deemed first with women second.
We do have to FIGHT it, though. I mean, if we were to follow our bodies' natural instincts, we'd drop our pants and take a dump right where we're standing. Instead, we will inconvenience the hell out of ourselves to satisfy that far more pressing instinct in a socially acceptable way. If I can expect humans to manage that much more immediate instinct in a way that doesn't offend and endanger, I have no intention of lowering my standards on how they manage any instinct for misogyny.
I think some women USE misogyny. I've often compared modern feminism to Bugs, Daffy, and Elmer Fudd. Elmer is most men: he's just an idiot with a shotgun who doesn't care what he shoots and who "just hunts for the sport of it huh huh huh."
Bugs and Daffy could band together and run him out of the forest, but instead they choose to use him to prosecute their internecine warfare. It's unbelievably depressing. In order to do that, you need to really, truly believe that Elmer will always be around, that he will always be armed and in charge, and the best you can do is make sure he shoots the other one and not you.
That's what I call enjoying misogyny -- relishing the master's tools to cut out the competition because those tools are so damned effective.
That's not the same as being sort of forced to look past it because it's in the very air we breathe and we'd eat a Glock if we couldn't make ourselves look past it from time to time. That said, it's always made me cringe and the older I get, the less willing I am to look past it. There's a lot of good entertainment and music out there that isn't hateful to me -- why waste my time on crap operas that have the heroine killing herself over some *sshole (my father's default description for "Madama Butterfly") when I can listen to "Rodelinda" instead? Why listen to some creep musician who gets drunk and slags off on women when I can listen to Rachel Barton Pine or Zoe Keating? Why waste time with Picasso and Dali when there's Hilma af Klint, who reached even greater heights of abstract art 30 years before they got anywhere near?
We may THINK that we're stuck with woman-hating garbage if we want to enjoy "genius," but we aren't. We have no idea how rich a garden of women's art (and art by men who aren't *ssholes) surrounds us.
When I read the biography of Josephine Butler, Hallie Rubenhold's The Five, and watched a recent adaptation of 'Les Miserables' on the TV, I learnt a good deal more about the virulent misogyny regarded as normal in Britain and France in the late 19th century. That resulted in my seeing paintings I loved differently. I already new Toulouse Lautrec and Degas were weapons grade misogynists - Degas, especially, was incredibly public about it. None of this has stopped me marvelling at the fluency, ease and artistry of their paintings though.
There's this thing in the visual arts, 'separate the artist from the art.' I do, up to a point. I have to. But once you know Eric Gill was a prolific rapist, not least of young children, it's impossible not to see 'Prospero and Ariel' outside the BBC differently.
In the visual arts, as in most art forms, men and their social norms dominate the history for obvious reasons. Women simply did not have time, space, money, independence, or training to excel in the same way - or only VERY rarely. So we/I grew up with and learnt from looking at art by men - some of which I love and will always love.
Balthus stinks though. And always will. I thought so from the moment I first saw one of his paintings. Mind you I thought Gill was dodgy as hell too. Just didn't know quite how dodgy.
tough one, i think some "feminists" are misogynists. there is a "not like the other" women attitude that sometimes happens in these circles. i don't think it's from ingesting popular culture, but niche micro identities and their trappings via the net. it's not a huge segment, but there are so called radical feminists with strong anti natalist viewpoints and look down on women for wearing makeup. but i don't think these women are real "feminists" anyway, because they wouldn't find an excuse to "other" themselves from the majority of women. SOME use the radfem label to bash other women they don't agree with and i see that as misogyny.
does popular culture have a lot of misogyny in it? of course it does, but consuming popular culture while having a critical eye can be fun and enlightening. in fact, i think that's the only way to approach most popular culture, which is mostly propaganda anyway.
Godfather 2 is a great film and one of my favourites too. Good art can be seen or heard on many levels and provokes thought and discussion as we are doing here. The misogyny in Godfather is blatant, cruel and violent. Given the narrative of the story it wouldn’t ring true if misogyny was not present. It’s not comfortable but neither is real life.
I am more forgiving when the fiction is beyond its cultural context. Common examples I use are Doyle's initial batch of Sherlock Holmes stories and the OG Star Trek. Nowdays they both look stodgy and sometimes misogynist, but they were both far ahead of their times. If a piece of fiction is future-facing, that's what matters to me -- and for some old entertainment, their future is our past.
Personally, I feel that I have to turn the critical part of my brain off sometimes or I’d cut myself off from the majority of human culture. For example, I love Kurt Vonnegut’s and Haruki Murakami’s novels despite their awful depictions of women, because the things that are good about those novels really doesn’t have anything to do with gender. The misogyny is incidental, a product of the authors’ worldview but not a deliberate point the author is trying to make. I draw the line at classic stories that ARE trying to say something awful about gender though (Taming of the Shrew and the Magic Flute comes to mind). In that case, I can’t overlook my discomfort with the message to enjoy the prose or music. But when the misogyny comes down to two-dimensional, absent or stereotypical female charaters, or mistreatment of said characters in service to the story, I sort of split my consciousness and try to experience the story as if I wasn’t a woman, because otherwise I’ll miss out on everything else it has to offer. It’s not ideal and probably not healthy in the long run, but cutting myself off from 95% of human culture wouldn’t be healthy either.
I know exactly what you mean, Ida
Every day I have to remind myself that we're descended from apes (and we still have a lot of the reptilian brain too). It's certainly not all we are but everything starts there -- the longing for the stars, the flight from the body, the reach for something beyond ourselves. But we're always bodies and as someone once said, our modern skulls house stone-age brains. We're constantly fighting so many things, gravity, death, life itself often: and misogyny is another.
Interesting, Brian, but is misogyny 'natural' would you say?
I wish I knew the answer, Julie. I'm sure you'll know the horrific opening pages of Carole Hooven's 'Testosterone' (I read the 'quartet' that came out around the same time -- your own Feminism for Women, Doc Stock's Material Girls, Helen Joyce's Trans) and what Hooven witnessed beats, for the sheer terror of it, anything reported by primatologist Frans de Waal in his books. There's a book by Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson which they titled Demonic Males because they came to the conclusion that there was something demonic about male sexuality. But even if I thought misogyny was natural, I would know it was wrong. We're animals, sure, but we like to think we're moral animals, at least at our best. Myself, I think I might have fallen victim to some sort of geriatric pessimism (I'm 85 and used to be a psychiatrist). Some things take so long to change, it's a constant fight against cynicism and despair. But one *has* to keep hope alive if only to avoid being the miserable old git chuntering in the corner.
I think there is a strong argument to be made that misogyny occurs naturally. So do hierarchies. And defecation. But we don't shit in public or at the dinner table or at our seat on the bus. Men might be naturally violent in some respects, but I notice that they are able to curb their violent impulses if those impulses will likely have negative consequences - like picking a fight with someone larger, stronger or more socially powerful than oneself.
It's easy to be unhelpfully sidelined by the nature argument. We have made a lot of progress in reforming the culture against the tendencies to devalue and exploit women. Hopefully we can continue to fight back and to build a culture that values females at least as much as it does males.
This is the way I view misogyny, too. It is part of our species (as is tribalism, xenophobia, racism) and the only way to fight these isms is to acknowledge that we are prone to it. I expect misogyny to be out there, in all fields of thought, including the arts. When people start feeling a certain glee at observing misogyny in the media or art, for example, if I notice people getting a little too excited that a certain women they don't like is treated as this mythological bitch creature who should be slayed and burned, I think we should stop and reflect on our impulse to do this to women, an impulse that feels more gleeful, fervant, public stoning in mentality, as compared to similar men.
Agree, Betty
But the earliest cultures on earth were matriarchal. Women had elevated positions above men. It was only with the invention of organised religion that deities were deemed ‘male’ and men deemed first with women second.
We do have to FIGHT it, though. I mean, if we were to follow our bodies' natural instincts, we'd drop our pants and take a dump right where we're standing. Instead, we will inconvenience the hell out of ourselves to satisfy that far more pressing instinct in a socially acceptable way. If I can expect humans to manage that much more immediate instinct in a way that doesn't offend and endanger, I have no intention of lowering my standards on how they manage any instinct for misogyny.
I think some women USE misogyny. I've often compared modern feminism to Bugs, Daffy, and Elmer Fudd. Elmer is most men: he's just an idiot with a shotgun who doesn't care what he shoots and who "just hunts for the sport of it huh huh huh."
Bugs and Daffy could band together and run him out of the forest, but instead they choose to use him to prosecute their internecine warfare. It's unbelievably depressing. In order to do that, you need to really, truly believe that Elmer will always be around, that he will always be armed and in charge, and the best you can do is make sure he shoots the other one and not you.
That's what I call enjoying misogyny -- relishing the master's tools to cut out the competition because those tools are so damned effective.
That's not the same as being sort of forced to look past it because it's in the very air we breathe and we'd eat a Glock if we couldn't make ourselves look past it from time to time. That said, it's always made me cringe and the older I get, the less willing I am to look past it. There's a lot of good entertainment and music out there that isn't hateful to me -- why waste my time on crap operas that have the heroine killing herself over some *sshole (my father's default description for "Madama Butterfly") when I can listen to "Rodelinda" instead? Why listen to some creep musician who gets drunk and slags off on women when I can listen to Rachel Barton Pine or Zoe Keating? Why waste time with Picasso and Dali when there's Hilma af Klint, who reached even greater heights of abstract art 30 years before they got anywhere near?
We may THINK that we're stuck with woman-hating garbage if we want to enjoy "genius," but we aren't. We have no idea how rich a garden of women's art (and art by men who aren't *ssholes) surrounds us.
When I read the biography of Josephine Butler, Hallie Rubenhold's The Five, and watched a recent adaptation of 'Les Miserables' on the TV, I learnt a good deal more about the virulent misogyny regarded as normal in Britain and France in the late 19th century. That resulted in my seeing paintings I loved differently. I already new Toulouse Lautrec and Degas were weapons grade misogynists - Degas, especially, was incredibly public about it. None of this has stopped me marvelling at the fluency, ease and artistry of their paintings though.
There's this thing in the visual arts, 'separate the artist from the art.' I do, up to a point. I have to. But once you know Eric Gill was a prolific rapist, not least of young children, it's impossible not to see 'Prospero and Ariel' outside the BBC differently.
In the visual arts, as in most art forms, men and their social norms dominate the history for obvious reasons. Women simply did not have time, space, money, independence, or training to excel in the same way - or only VERY rarely. So we/I grew up with and learnt from looking at art by men - some of which I love and will always love.
Balthus stinks though. And always will. I thought so from the moment I first saw one of his paintings. Mind you I thought Gill was dodgy as hell too. Just didn't know quite how dodgy.
tough one, i think some "feminists" are misogynists. there is a "not like the other" women attitude that sometimes happens in these circles. i don't think it's from ingesting popular culture, but niche micro identities and their trappings via the net. it's not a huge segment, but there are so called radical feminists with strong anti natalist viewpoints and look down on women for wearing makeup. but i don't think these women are real "feminists" anyway, because they wouldn't find an excuse to "other" themselves from the majority of women. SOME use the radfem label to bash other women they don't agree with and i see that as misogyny.
does popular culture have a lot of misogyny in it? of course it does, but consuming popular culture while having a critical eye can be fun and enlightening. in fact, i think that's the only way to approach most popular culture, which is mostly propaganda anyway.
personally can't stand Scorsese though LOL.
Godfather 2 is a great film and one of my favourites too. Good art can be seen or heard on many levels and provokes thought and discussion as we are doing here. The misogyny in Godfather is blatant, cruel and violent. Given the narrative of the story it wouldn’t ring true if misogyny was not present. It’s not comfortable but neither is real life.
I am more forgiving when the fiction is beyond its cultural context. Common examples I use are Doyle's initial batch of Sherlock Holmes stories and the OG Star Trek. Nowdays they both look stodgy and sometimes misogynist, but they were both far ahead of their times. If a piece of fiction is future-facing, that's what matters to me -- and for some old entertainment, their future is our past.