What is the root cause of misogyny?

[Pattern-chaser]

Re these theories being bandied about, we'd need evidence of them. Otherwise it's just fictionalizing.

Sadly, there doesn't seem to be much evidence around. What I found was mainly unjustified opinion. But yes, I agree.

[Pattern-chaser]

...I think if we pursued this we'd be largely quibbling over semantics.

[AmericanKestrel]

I'm sticking to the quasi-Freudian theory that the main root cause is difficulty in reconciling, in his mind, the roles of mother and sex object. Hence, for example, inviting somebody to have sex with their own mother, or speculating that this has already happened, is a common insult among macho types.

The "macho types" use all kinds of insults including inviting sex performed on themselves. I don't believe it proves anything other than wild imagination.
The sex "object" is the key to misogyny.

[Sculptor1]

A disturbing modern phenomenon, which perhaps gives some insights into a cause of misogyny, is the "

[***********tp**/***dictionar*com/e/slang/incel/]incel*/***". They form online communities I hear.

** Censored
This is the outward expression of the root cause I expressed above. Although "incel" is a new formulation of this, the phenomenon has existed throughout history, expressed most clearly in the Abrahamic religions from day one. Woman is the bearer of the apple, the temptress

[Steve3007]

Woman is the bearer of the apple, the temptress.

Yes, every Christmas Eve, on Radio 4, at 3:30, they broadcast that "Nine lessons and carols from Kings College Cambridge" thing. I always like to listen to it, as the symbolic start to Christmas, as the sun is setting. But they always read that part from Genesis where Eve tempted Adam, and told him he was naked ("Who told you that you were naked?", "She did! It's all her fault!") and God punished her by making child birth painful. (Apparently it's nothing to do with the evolution of large brains and upright walking. It's all a punishment against women for leading men astray.)

Nowadays we can just laugh at the misogyny of it, but to past generations who took that stuff seriously (and some people in the world who apparently still do) it's not difficult to see how it helped to deeply embed a certain attitude towards women.

[AmericanKestrel]

Woman is the bearer of the apple, the temptress.

Yes, every Christmas Eve, on Radio 4, at 3:30, they broadcast that "Nine lessons and carols from Kings College Cambridge" thing. I always like to listen to it, as the symbolic start to Christmas, as the sun is setting. But they always read that part from Genesis where Eve tempted Adam, and told him he was naked ("Who told you that you were naked?", "She did! It's all her fault!") and God punished her by making child birth painful. (Apparently it's nothing to do with the evolution of large brains and upright walking. It's all a punishment against women for leading men astray.)

Nowadays we can just laugh at the misogyny of it, but to past generations who took that stuff seriously (and some people in the world who apparently still do) it's not difficult to see how it helped to deeply embed a certain attitude towards women.

What if you are atheist or dont believe the Bible? Misogyny persists. Religious texts are a big reason but in times when religiosity has declined misogyny has not.

[Steve3007]

What if you are atheist or dont believe the Bible? Misogyny persists. Religious texts are a big reason but in times when religiosity has declined misogyny has not.

Yes, I wouldn't claim that a religious text like that is a sole cause of misogyny. But religious texts are very powerful in shaping what are regarded as societal norms. And societal norms, for us humans who are such social animals and set such store by the respect of our tribe, are very powerful. No doubt the men who wrote that passage from Genesis were simply reflecting the attitudes of their culture, but those attitudes, from one particular culture, can be magnified and propagated very effectively if they can manage to get them followed as part of a mainstream religion.

Funnily enough, I was just discussing an example of my own personal experience of this societal norm thing with my other half last night. I was recalling an office/lab environment in which I worked in the late 1980's, when I was in my late teens. There was a young female physics graduate working there and she dared to object to all of the pictures of naked women plastered all over the walls. It's only afterwards that I can fully appreciate how daunting it was for her to do that, and how effective the resulting ostracization was in silencing any further protests, with the ultimate unspoken threat of being able to dismiss her from the job for some conveniently vague reason like "not fitting in with the culture". I can see from my own memories of my own behaviour as a teenager who wants to fit in (not standing up for her) how powerful a culture/norm/zeitgeist can be.

Nowadays, looking back to that slightly older culture from the slightly different one of today, the idea of cutting pictures of naked women from newspapers and sticking them to the office wall seems very alien. Doing it now would be as inconceivable as lighting up a cigarette in the office (which we also did back then). But at the time it was the norm. Remembering myself accepting something as the norm then, which seems alien to me now, gives me just the slightest insight into how much bigger differences can result in things like the general acceptance that slavery is the norm or that certain human tribes are inherently and objectively superior in various ways to others.

[Sculptor1]

Woman is the bearer of the apple, the temptress.

Yes, every Christmas Eve, on Radio 4, at 3:30, they broadcast that "Nine lessons and carols from Kings College Cambridge" thing. I always like to listen to it, as the symbolic start to Christmas, as the sun is setting. But they always read that part from Genesis where Eve tempted Adam, and told him he was naked ("Who told you that you were naked?", "She did! It's all her fault!") and God punished her by making child birth painful. (Apparently it's nothing to do with the evolution of large brains and upright walking. It's all a punishment against women for leading men astray.)

Nowadays we can just laugh at the misogyny of it, but to past generations who took that stuff seriously (and some people in the world who apparently still do) it's not difficult to see how it helped to deeply embed a certain attitude towards women.

Misogyny is a feature of the three big Abrahamic religions, and this being the earliest texts, would suggest where it started for them.
That would not be to exclude other cultures their misogyny.
My guess that at the heart of it is the simple evolved sexual tension between the sexes. Males are ready each morning to deliver seed whilst women tend to have days in the month where they are simply not interested; times in their adult life where they are neither interested of capable, and generally born to be more choosey. Males, given the chance would deposit pretty much anywhere, but there is kudos in picking the most attractive mate.
The benobo has the problem pretty much sorted, but for humans a little thing called culture intervenes and tends to ritualise, normalise and regulate specific interactions by prescribing and procribing activities are more or less acceptible. In other world society says who you can and cannot ****.
The needs of relgions and cultural prescriptions rarely accomodate the basal needs given by nature and so this is where the tension is most likely to emerge.
It can be hard to be a man. You wake up at age 12/13 with a perpetual moring hard on, but soceity says no way mate you are too young. Girls love to be seen as attractive. Subjectively from a boys POV they like to tease. Subjectively from the girls's POV they want to be adored.
Whilst society says no, and fails to tell the truth about the biological necessities, chosing to cloud the act in mystic ******** about love and marraige to justify its cultural logic, problems are going to beset us.

[AmericanKestrel]

What if you are atheist or dont believe the Bible? Misogyny persists. Religious texts are a big reason but in times when religiosity has declined misogyny has not.

Yes, I wouldn't claim that a religious text like that is a sole cause of misogyny. But religious texts are very powerful in shaping what are regarded as societal norms. And societal norms, for us humans who are such social animals and set such store by the respect of our tribe, are very powerful. No doubt the men who wrote that passage from Genesis were simply reflecting the attitudes of their culture, but those attitudes, from one particular culture, can be magnified and propagated very effectively if they can manage to get them followed as part of a mainstream religion.

Funnily enough, I was just discussing an example of my own personal experience of this societal norm thing with my other half last night. I was recalling an office/lab environment in which I worked in the late 1980's, when I was in my late teens. There was a young female physics graduate working there and she dared to object to all of the pictures of naked women plastered all over the walls. It's only afterwards that I can fully appreciate how daunting it was for her to do that, and how effective the resulting ostracization was in silencing any further protests, with the ultimate unspoken threat of being able to dismiss her from the job for some conveniently vague reason like "not fitting in with the culture". I can see from my own memories of my own behaviour as a teenager who wants to fit in (not standing up for her) how powerful a culture/norm/zeitgeist can be.

Nowadays, looking back to that slightly older culture from the slightly different one of today, the idea of cutting pictures of naked women from newspapers and sticking them to the office wall seems very alien. Doing it now would be as inconceivable as lighting up a cigarette in the office (which we also did back then). But at the time it was the norm. Remembering myself accepting something as the norm then, which seems alien to me now, gives me just the slightest insight into how much bigger differences can result in things like the general acceptance that slavery is the norm or that certain human tribes are inherently and objectively superior in various ways to others.

What newspapers had pictures of naked women in the 80’s ? Playboy was never a newspaper.
In any case Feminism was marching for equal rights in the 80’s. At least some it must have filtered through the “norm”. But no.
It is something more enduring.

[Steve3007]

What newspapers had pictures of naked women in the 80’s ?

In the UK, several (if you use the term "newspaper" loosely). Or at least semi-naked. Tabloids like The Sun and The Star. "Page 3 of The Sun" was a long-running and very well known phenomenon. Probably the most infamous, though, was the Sunday Sport. It was that one that my colleagues used as their main source of wallpaper.

[mystery]

Woman is the bearer of the apple, the temptress.

Yes, every Christmas Eve, on Radio 4, at 3:30, they broadcast that "Nine lessons and carols from Kings College Cambridge" thing. I always like to listen to it, as the symbolic start to Christmas, as the sun is setting. But they always read that part from Genesis where Eve tempted Adam, and told him he was naked ("Who told you that you were naked?", "She did! It's all her fault!") and God punished her by making child birth painful. (Apparently it's nothing to do with the evolution of large brains and upright walking. It's all a punishment against women for leading men astray.)

Nowadays we can just laugh at the misogyny of it, but to past generations who took that stuff seriously (and some people in the world who apparently still do) it's not difficult to see how it helped to deeply embed a certain attitude towards women.

Misogyny is a feature of the three big Abrahamic religions, and this being the earliest texts, would suggest where it started for them.
That would not be to exclude other cultures their misogyny.
My guess that at the heart of it is the simple evolved sexual tension between the sexes. Males are ready each morning to deliver seed whilst women tend to have days in the month where they are simply not interested; times in their adult life where they are neither interested of capable, and generally born to be more choosey. Males, given the chance would deposit pretty much anywhere, but there is kudos in picking the most attractive mate.
The benobo has the problem pretty much sorted, but for humans a little thing called culture intervenes and tends to ritualise, normalise and regulate specific interactions by prescribing and procribing activities are more or less acceptible. In other world society says who you can and cannot ****.
The needs of relgions and cultural prescriptions rarely accomodate the basal needs given by nature and so this is where the tension is most likely to emerge.
It can be hard to be a man. You wake up at age 12/13 with a perpetual moring hard on, but soceity says no way mate you are too young. Girls love to be seen as attractive. Subjectively from a boys POV they like to tease. Subjectively from the girls's POV they want to be adored.
Whilst society says no, and fails to tell the truth about the biological necessities, chosing to cloud the act in mystic ******** about love and marraige to justify its cultural logic, problems are going to beset us.

this is for sure the basis of it all and told in plain words for all. other reasons are only to confuse and hide. biology and evolution are the core.

[Sculptor1]

Woman is the bearer of the apple, the temptress.

Yes, every Christmas Eve, on Radio 4, at 3:30, they broadcast that "Nine lessons and carols from Kings College Cambridge" thing. I always like to listen to it, as the symbolic start to Christmas, as the sun is setting. But they always read that part from Genesis where Eve tempted Adam, and told him he was naked ("Who told you that you were naked?", "She did! It's all her fault!") and God punished her by making child birth painful. (Apparently it's nothing to do with the evolution of large brains and upright walking. It's all a punishment against women for leading men astray.)

Nowadays we can just laugh at the misogyny of it, but to past generations who took that stuff seriously (and some people in the world who apparently still do) it's not difficult to see how it helped to deeply embed a certain attitude towards women.

Misogyny is a feature of the three big Abrahamic religions, and this being the earliest texts, would suggest where it started for them.
That would not be to exclude other cultures their misogyny.
My guess that at the heart of it is the simple evolved sexual tension between the sexes. Males are ready each morning to deliver seed whilst women tend to have days in the month where they are simply not interested; times in their adult life where they are neither interested of capable, and generally born to be more choosey. Males, given the chance would deposit pretty much anywhere, but there is kudos in picking the most attractive mate.
The benobo has the problem pretty much sorted, but for humans a little thing called culture intervenes and tends to ritualise, normalise and regulate specific interactions by prescribing and procribing activities are more or less acceptible. In other world society says who you can and cannot ****.
The needs of relgions and cultural prescriptions rarely accomodate the basal needs given by nature and so this is where the tension is most likely to emerge.
It can be hard to be a man. You wake up at age 12/13 with a perpetual moring hard on, but soceity says no way mate you are too young. Girls love to be seen as attractive. Subjectively from a boys POV they like to tease. Subjectively from the girls's POV they want to be adored.
Whilst society says no, and fails to tell the truth about the biological necessities, chosing to cloud the act in mystic ******** about love and marraige to justify its cultural logic, problems are going to beset us.

this is for sure the basis of it all and told in plain words for all. other reasons are only to confuse and hide. biology and evolution are the core.

Sure biology is at the heart of the understanding but not the direct cause of misogyny. Were humans willing to follow the dictates of their biology like the benobo, then there would be no problems.
It's when you try to supress the biology with culture and religion that the problems start.
Cultural systems have been designed for economistic reasons, for one. 10Kbp in the Levant, land had to be protected, and the work load increased to mill the grain. This meant specialisation; women to make flour and men to strut about with their spears pretending to be important whilst the priests looked at the stars to predict the seasons. All that requires specialist forms of hierarchy, and restrictions on chattle. Women become comodified since commodification is the new things, every thing has a value in grain.

The benobo bond through sex, the only taboo seems to be mother/son. But everything else goes; including what we would call pedophilia, homsexuality. But since these acts are not sought through the lens of abstinence, frustration, and supression there is no abuse. There is much "rubbing of parts" as the sage would say, but no abuse.

I only mention the Benobo since they are the closest to us genetically and are rare in not having seasonal sex. All mammals seem to have restricted periods of sexual activity EXCEPT humans and Benobo.
It is not likley that humans could ever adopt that level of contact and understanding. I suppose we are stuck with misogyny, paedophilia and other types of abuse, as artefacts of our civilisation.

[mystery]

Yes, every Christmas Eve, on Radio 4, at 3:30, they broadcast that "Nine lessons and carols from Kings College Cambridge" thing. I always like to listen to it, as the symbolic start to Christmas, as the sun is setting. But they always read that part from Genesis where Eve tempted Adam, and told him he was naked ("Who told you that you were naked?", "She did! It's all her fault!") and God punished her by making child birth painful. (Apparently it's nothing to do with the evolution of large brains and upright walking. It's all a punishment against women for leading men astray.)

Nowadays we can just laugh at the misogyny of it, but to past generations who took that stuff seriously (and some people in the world who apparently still do) it's not difficult to see how it helped to deeply embed a certain attitude towards women.

Misogyny is a feature of the three big Abrahamic religions, and this being the earliest texts, would suggest where it started for them.
That would not be to exclude other cultures their misogyny.
My guess that at the heart of it is the simple evolved sexual tension between the sexes. Males are ready each morning to deliver seed whilst women tend to have days in the month where they are simply not interested; times in their adult life where they are neither interested of capable, and generally born to be more choosey. Males, given the chance would deposit pretty much anywhere, but there is kudos in picking the most attractive mate.
The benobo has the problem pretty much sorted, but for humans a little thing called culture intervenes and tends to ritualise, normalise and regulate specific interactions by prescribing and procribing activities are more or less acceptible. In other world society says who you can and cannot ****.
The needs of relgions and cultural prescriptions rarely accomodate the basal needs given by nature and so this is where the tension is most likely to emerge.
It can be hard to be a man. You wake up at age 12/13 with a perpetual moring hard on, but soceity says no way mate you are too young. Girls love to be seen as attractive. Subjectively from a boys POV they like to tease. Subjectively from the girls's POV they want to be adored.
Whilst society says no, and fails to tell the truth about the biological necessities, chosing to cloud the act in mystic ******** about love and marraige to justify its cultural logic, problems are going to beset us.

this is for sure the basis of it all and told in plain words for all. other reasons are only to confuse and hide. biology and evolution are the core.

Sure biology is at the heart of the understanding but not the direct cause of misogyny. Were humans willing to follow the dictates of their biology like the benobo, then there would be no problems.
It's when you try to supress the biology with culture and religion that the problems start.
Cultural systems have been designed for economistic reasons, for one. 10Kbp in the Levant, land had to be protected, and the work load increased to mill the grain. This meant specialisation; women to make flour and men to strut about with their spears pretending to be important whilst the priests looked at the stars to predict the seasons. All that requires specialist forms of hierarchy, and restrictions on chattle. Women become comodified since commodification is the new things, every thing has a value in grain.

The benobo bond through sex, the only taboo seems to be mother/son. But everything else goes; including what we would call pedophilia, homsexuality. But since these acts are not sought through the lens of abstinence, frustration, and supression there is no abuse. There is much "rubbing of parts" as the sage would say, but no abuse.

I only mention the Benobo since they are the closest to us genetically and are rare in not having seasonal sex. All mammals seem to have restricted periods of sexual activity EXCEPT humans and Benobo.
It is not likley that humans could ever adopt that level of contact and understanding. I suppose we are stuck with misogyny, paedophilia and other types of abuse, as artefacts of our civilisation.

yes; again. Learning about bonobo after your comment, it is interesting how close the behavior is with a human if no constraint is in place. With humans, great efforts are applied to attempt to hide these things. Entire generations and cultures have risen with the knowledge missing and being taught to deny all.

I still think that rejection is the direct cause. The cause of rejection is then next in line for exam.

I don't think we know if the Bonobo develops misogyny as we can not translate that level of detail from them. We do know they continue to try for sex and plenty of misogynist humans will do so also.

Understanding the biology of it allows us to better understand cause/effect. Not many 6 foot four inches, tall dark, and handsome men that are masculine become misogynists. They may not settle down peacefully and may not have super high respect for women but they usually don't hate women. Some biological & behavioral attributes synchronize with this issue. For example, men that are considered not attractive by most women and also do not know how to have a conversation have a much higher chance of being rejected and moving to hate especially if it occurs many times or in a case that was previousely accepted. Men that are always accepted by women do not often move to hate women.

[Pattern-chaser]

I still think that rejection is the direct cause.

And I still think that you are avoiding the obvious shortcoming of your hypothesis: most men have been rejected, but most of them do not become misogynists. How does your hypothesis deal with the fact that your proposed cause does not cause misogyny - the corresponding effect - in the vast majority of subjects?

[Steve3007]

And I still think that you are avoiding the obvious shortcoming of your hypothesis: most men have been rejected, but most of them do not become misogynists. How does your hypothesis deal with the fact that your proposed cause does not cause misogyny - the corresponding effect - in the vast majority of subjects?

This could be seen as part of a wider question of whether the concept of causality is ever applicable to human actions. Some say that it isn't and that human actions, by definition, do not have prior causes. If we don't use that definition, then, when we do infer causality, we have to acknowledge that human actions are never 100% guaranteed to follow from any given cause. We can say that event X is a causal factor in human action Y even though Y doesn't always follow X. The question then is: How low does that percentage have to go in order to conclude that there is no causal link? Obviously it would be silly for someone to say "rejection is the cause of misogyny" as if it's the sole and necessary cause. But would evidence of any statistical correlation between the two allow cause to be inferred?