"Yes, women are the greatest evil Zeus has made, and men are bound to them hand and foot with impossible knots by God."—Semonides, seventh century B.C. Men put women on a pedestal to worship them from afar—and to take better aim at them for the purpose of derision. Why is this paradoxical response to women so widespread, so far-reaching, so all-pervasive? Misogyny, David D. Gilmore suggests, is best described as a male malady, as it has always been a characteristic shared by human societies throughout the world. Misogyny: The Male Malady is a comprehensive historical and anthropological survey of woman-hating that casts new light on this age-old bias. The turmoil of masculinity and the ugliness of misogyny have been well documented in different cultures, but Gilmore's synoptic approach identifies misogyny in a variety of human experiences outside of sex and marriage and makes a fresh and enlightening contribution toward understanding this phenomenon. Gilmore maintains that misogyny is so widespread and so pervasive among men that it must be at least partly psychogenic in origin, a result of identical experiences in the male developmental cycle, rather than caused by the environment alone. Presenting a wealth of compelling examples—from the jungles of New Guinea to the boardrooms of corporate America—Gilmore shows that misogynistic practices occur in hauntingly identical forms. He asserts that these deep and abiding male anxieties stem from unresolved conflicts between men's intense need for and dependence upon women and their equally intense fear of that dependence. However, misogyny, according to Gilmore, is also often supported and intensified by certain cultural realities, such as patrilineal social organization; kinship ideologies that favor fraternal solidarity over conjugal unity; chronic warfare, feuding, or other forms of intergroup violence; and religious orthodoxy or asceticism. Gilmore is in the end able to offer steps toward the discovery of antidotes to this irrational but global prejudice, providing an opportunity for a lasting cure to misogyny and its manifestations.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1989.

Until now the advent of Western romantic love has been seen as a liberation from—or antidote to—ten centuries of misogyny. In this major contribution to gender studies, R. Howard Bloch demonstrates how similar the ubiquitous antifeminism of medieval times and the romantic idealization of woman actually are. Through analyses of a broad range of patristic and medieval texts, Bloch explores the Christian construction of gender in which the flesh is feminized, the feminine is aestheticized, and aesthetics are condemned in theological terms. Tracing the underlying theme of virginity from the Church Fathers to the courtly poets, Bloch establishes the continuity between early Christian antifeminism and the idealization of woman that emerged in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In conclusion he explains the likely social, economic, and legal causes for the seeming inversion of the terms of misogyny into those of an idealizing tradition of love that exists alongside its earlier avatar until the current era. This startling study will be of great value to students of medieval literature as well as to historians of culture and gender.

An examination of two fifteenth-century misogynist Iberian works.

This set surveys American misogyny in all its cultural forms, from popular music, film, and education to healthcare, politics, and business. The work also assesses proposals to confront and reduce such expressions of hatred. The essays contained in this two-volume set explore misogyny within various areas of American culture to demonstrate its pervasiveness and identify common foundations of its many presentations. Beyond a basic definition of misogyny, which includes hatred of women and girls and the ways in which this hatred and distrust influences action, speech, discrimination, policy, and culture in the United States, this project also aims to expand and complicate definitions of misogyny in order to provide readers with a robust introduction to and understanding of the larger topic. Given the current political and cultural climate and the more frequent and widespread use of the term "misogyny" by various media outlets and voters during the 2016 presidential election, this book has the potential both to contribute to ongoing conversations on misogyny and, among its intended audience of advanced high school, beginning college students and the general public, to inform a shift currently unfolding in public conversation on the topic.

New aspects of the misogyny that impacts girls and women worldwide continue to emerge every day. However, recent movements (e.g., #MeToo, Time's Up, the Women's March) indicate a strong hunger for a meaningful resource for thoughtful activists. Impassioned but practical, this book discusses the social contexts of misogyny, such as toxic masculinity and rape culture. It traces the history of misogyny and considers its meaning today-what is new and what is old. The author also proposes strategies for effective feminist action. Written for advocates of gender equality who are already aware of misogyny, the book includes Action Steps as tools for activism on both the individual and political levels. Misogyny is a timely text that offers concrete guidance as we strive for the egalitarian society that, despite all setbacks, we are capable of achieving.

A rigorous analysis of systemic misogyny in the law and a thoughtful exploration of the tools needed to transcend it through constitutional change beyond litigation in the courts. Just as racism is embedded in the legal system, so is misogyny--even after the law proclaims gender equality and criminally punishes violence against women. In After Misogyny, Julie C. Suk shows that misogyny lies not in animus but in the overempowerment of men and the overentitlement of society to women's unpaid labor and undervalued contributions. This is a book about misogyny without misogynists. From antidiscrimination law to abortion bans, the law fails women by keeping society's dependence on women's sacrifices invisible. Via a tour of constitutional change around the world, After Misogyny shows how to remake constitutional democracy. Women across the globe are going beyond the antidiscrimination paradigm of American legal feminism and fundamentally resetting baseline norms and entitlements. That process, what Suk calls a "constitutionalism of care," builds the public infrastructure that women's reproductive work has long made possible for free.