{"id":6805,"date":"2023-03-08T13:40:45","date_gmt":"2023-03-08T13:40:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lynn.global\/?p=6805"},"modified":"2023-03-09T16:08:39","modified_gmt":"2023-03-09T16:08:39","slug":"misogyny-millennia-of-misinformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lynn.global\/misogyny-millennia-of-misinformation\/","title":{"rendered":"Misogyny: Millennia of Misinformation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In 2022, 85% of sports broadcasts were of male athletes<\/a>, 96% of CEOs of British companies were men<\/a>, and 83.5% of engineers were men<\/a>. Meanwhile in 2021, 91% of women with children (compared to 30% of men with children) do a minimum of 1 hour of housework per day<\/a>, 88.6% of NHS nurses were women<\/a> (yet only 47.2% of registered doctors in the UK are women<\/a>), and there are currently 225 female MPs in the House of Commons (at 35%<\/a>, this is an all-time high). How, might you ask, have these statistical discrepancies occurred? By many millennia of misogyny. By many millennia of misinformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the term \u2018misinformation\u2019 might have only been coined in 1816, it has been around for as long as humanity has been able to speak. And misinformation, when left unchallenged, becomes knowledge. Knowledge which shapes our cultural truths; knowledge which creates expectations and norms. And norms are difficult to disrupt. When these norms are perpetuated for centuries or \u2013 in the case of misogyny \u2013 millennia, they become ingrained in systems, in education, in policy. They become an identity, one which, when challenged, results in massive pushback. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, if identity perpetuates misogyny, then the world as it is must be undergoing an identity crisis. As scientists and social scholars put the pillars which have upheld the patriarchy under intense scrutiny, the myths surrounding female physicality, motherhood, intelligence and political standing start to sway. This all leads to the question: where did misogyny come from in the first place?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The \u2018fragile\u2019 female body and the currency of physical strength<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 1967, Boston, an event took place which would shake the world: a woman ran a marathon. Or, rather, a woman officially <\/em>ran a marathon. While other women \u2013 the renegades, the rebels \u2013 had run marathons by jumping into them illegally, Katherine Switzer entered under the gender-neutral abbreviation \u2018K.V. Switzer\u2019 and, despite the race manager attempting to drag her off the road mid-way, finished the race \u2018against all odds\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet why was Switzer\u2019s marathon completion \u2018against all odds\u2019? Switzer was a good runner, yes, but she was in no way an outlier. Nowadays, a third<\/a> of marathon finishers a year are women \u2013 that means that roughly over 400,000<\/a> women complete a marathon each year<\/em>. Clearly, we’ve hugely underestimated women. And clearly, the norm-shaping wealth of misinformation surrounding women\u2019s physical capabilities is in abundance. However, where did the source, the dis<\/em>information, come from?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can find the breadcrumbs of \u2018scientific\u2019 statements littered throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries. Regardless of any specific evidence, the general consensus among the medical community was that physical activity was damaging<\/a> for women\u2019s reproductive organs. For example, an article in US women\u2019s magazine Harper\u2019s Bazaar<\/em><\/a> <\/em>was titled \u2018Are Athletics a Menace to Motherhood?\u2019. Bold observations indeed. However, it is not until we trace scientific figures back to Charles Darwin that the real disinformation begins to come to light.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Darwin and Disinformation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Darwin\u2019s theory of evolution has had a profound impact on the West and, somewhat imperialistically, therefore the world. And Darwin\u2019s views were far from idyllic. Women, Darwin wrote<\/a>, \u2018are characteristic of the lower races, and anti therefore of a past and lower state of civilization\u2019. According to Darwin, men \u2013 or white men, specifically \u2013 are the most evolutionary advanced of all the races. Put simply, Darwin was inherently racist and sexist, to the extent that it affected his work. Of course, blaming Darwin for the source of the patriarchy would not only be too easy, but incorrect. The patriarchal imperial system within which Darwin existed blinded him; and he perpetuated it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evolutionary theory \u2013 and with it the idea of women\u2019s biology being \u2018lesser\u2019 than man\u2019s \u2013 eventually met with the hunter-gatherer theory growing in popularity in the 1960s. Man the Hunter<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>a symposium organised by Richard Lee and Irven DeVore, led the charge on the idea that men were responsible for hunting, while the weaker women were responsible for gathering. And our biological differences reflect this. Not only that, but the structure of society reflects it, too. It makes sense; it justifies gender difference and inequality. There\u2019s only one issue with the theory: it\u2019s wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Equal Ancients<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Recently, archaeologists uncovered the interesting truth behind the living arrangements of ancient humans: both males and females shared hunting equally<\/a>, with children being looked after by other members of the group. There was little to no gendered labour. Both sexes hunted, and both gathered dependent on ability. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors, it would appear, were more egalitarian than we are even today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what has this got to do with body composition? Well, while male bodies are generally larger and \u2013 ergo \u2013 stronger than women\u2019s, the new understanding of prehistoric human civilisations takes away the onus of physical strength equating to societal power. Just because women had less absolute strength than men, did not mean they were incapable of physical labour and, thus, equal contribution to tasks within the society. Prehistory disrupts the \u2018cultural truth\u2019 surrounding the \u2018weak and feeble\u2019 female body. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if that fact doesn\u2019t disrupt the misinformation narrative, then perhaps Paula Radcliffe will; she continued marathon training, pregnant, well into her third trimester. Or, better, Jasmin Paris might: she won the 268 mile Montane Spine Race, breaking the men\u2019s record by 12 hours and stopping along the way to pump breast milk for her toddler. Then again, do these feats of endurance and motherhood only serve to hold-up yet another widespread piece of cultural truth: motherly instinct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The misinformation surrounding \u2018motherly instinct\u2019 <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This pervasive belief that women are best suited to caring has insidiously seeped into many cultural attitudes. Look at the gender divide in professions deemed as \u2018men\u2019s work\u2019 opposed to women\u2019s. In the UK, for instance, women woefully underrepresent the contingent of electricians at 1%<\/a>. The same goes for plumbers and joiners. In the caring sector, however, these figures reverse, with 97%<\/a> of pre-primary practitioners reporting as female and around 82%<\/a> of support workers as female. The underlying implications are clear: a woman\u2019s job is to care. For children, for men, for elders; for all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, the idea of the female as carer has been perpetuated for centuries, from myth to philosophy to science. Religion often laid the groundwork for this belief, connecting deities to birth and growth, affirming women\u2019s most admirable attributes to that of nurturer. Take Ancient Egypt\u2019s goddess Isis (aka the \u2018Divine Mother\u2019), for instance, whose fame came primarily for having her son, Horus (God of Kingship). Or take Ancient Greek goddess Demetar, Queen of the Harvest, whose grief over the loss of her dear daughter, Persephone, brought about an unending winter, only broken when her daughter returns to her for six months of each year (thus, giving us the changing seasons). Of course, there\u2019s no forgetting the virgin mother, Mary, and her journey to Bethlehem. The success of these women is in their motherliness. <\/em>Their ability to put their child\u2019s needs above all else. Their motherly instinct.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The woman as mother<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Even when religion was being questioned, the role of the woman as mother was not. Ancient Greek philosophy \u2013 the first science \u2013 and its practitioners further elaborated a mother\u2019s role. Where mothers in Israel were giving their children to a nursemaid, over in Greece Plutarch<\/a> advised against this, saying, \u201cIt is necessary that mothers breast feed their own children, because they will indulge them with love and kindness.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it was in the 19th Century when misinformation truly welded women\u2019s identity with motherhood<\/a>. Again with figures like Darwin marking women as inferior, women\u2019s worth and, more importantly, place in society was placated by celebrating the one thing only they can do: give birth. Household names such as Robert Browning<\/a> jumped onto this, too, stating: \u2018Motherhood: all love begins and ends there\u2019. Where this celebration of motherhood may sound sweet, it still discreetly pushes the agenda<\/a> of \u2018feminity to be synonymous with motherhood\u2019. In other words: if you are not a mother, you are not a real woman. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Science soon followed. Biological maternal instincts were attributed to women\u2019s wombs \u2013 taking away the potential for men to harbour such feelings in one fell swoop<\/a>. It all served the cultural truths surrounding motherhood; that women are biologically designed to be better nurturers of children. Their ability to do this is instinctual, innate, spelled out in their very genomes; it might also be a lie.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Motherly vs parental… instinct?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Just like \u2018common sense\u2019, recent studies have found that \u2018motherly instinct\u2019 is more learned, rather than inborn. According to a 2018 study<\/a> conducted by Dr. Catherine Monk of Columbia University, \u2018a person, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation, is able to gain early and sustain throughout the development of a keen sense of their child.\u2019 Somewhat controversially for traditionalist thinkers, this theory does not only disrupt the norms of femininity, but also those of the heteronormative family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past decade, other researchers have reached similar conclusions, and the results generally say the same thing: it\u2019s complex. The female\u2019s brain does <\/em>change through pregnancy, they do <\/em>release hormones, but do these hormones make them better carers? Where some papers observing that the production of oxytocin \u2013 basically, the love hormone \u2013 in different parental roles (mothers, fathers, gay parents, foster parents, etc) doesn\u2019t differ<\/a>, other studies came to the conclusion that the \u2018parental brain\u2019<\/a> \u2018is something which sprouts from the intense focus and energy parents devote to their helpless child.\u2019 As Gary L. Brase and Sandra L. Brase state in their 2012 research paper<\/a>, \u201cFeelings about babies and decisions about fertility could be based on the extent to which people have (or have not) internalised general gender norms of their ambient society.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The \u2018inferior\u2019 female brain<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The accumulation of these entrenched gender norms would always turn to the brain. Women\u2019s intelligence has been undermined for centuries, resulting in a wealth of misinformation revolving around the concept of a \u2018female brain\u2019 and a \u2018male brain\u2019. This concept has driven marriage inequality, fueled educational disparity, and justified women being largely exempt from leadership and political positions. And what\u2019s funny? The argument didn\u2019t evolve from science; it came from 18th Century philosophy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her book, The Gendered Brain<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Gina Rippon explores where the idea of brain difference evolved. Where previous to this time women were seen to be purely inferior to men, the 18th Century saw a turn in theology. Here, women were deemed to be not inferior, but fundamentally different to men. They were, it was seen, men\u2019s \u2018other halves\u2019: soft, homely, irrational, laughable. As Rippon says, \u2018The \u201ccomplementary roles\u201d set aside for women ensured their inferior position in (if not, indeed, their absence from) most spheres of influence.\u2019 Women were, once again, firmly put in their place. And that place was unequivocally under. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In more recent studies, the jury is out on the difference between male and female brains. Women\u2019s brains \u2013 as with the rest of their bodies \u2013 are proportionally around 10% smaller than men\u2019s. However, some new studies find that the differences in male and female brains are virtually non-existent<\/a>. There is a difference in size, but that\u2019s due to the differing sizes of people. In terms of gender\/sex difference, there is essentially nothing. Others, on the other hand, purport that each has their strong points and their weak points. Many, though, have been influenced by the very misinformation they seek to combat or reinforce. They are \u2018neuro-sexist\u2019<\/a>, as it were. Brains, it would seem, are hard to think about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The female brain in action<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

But what of test scores? When looking at GCSE results in the UK, on average, females have scored better<\/a> than their male classmates. This is consistent across the years, with the rough average being 9% more girls receiving a C or higher. Similarly on the higher end of the scale, there still remains a 6-7% difference in those achieving A grades at GCSE. The same can be said for their American peers<\/a>. Girls outperform boys at every level of every age group<\/a> \u2013  a raised eyebrow to the 18th Century misogynists who barred them from education, perhaps? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Test scores, of course, do not necessarily denote a difference in aptitude across the genders. The likelihood is that there is little to no cognitive differences across the two, but more adherence to social expectation and conforming to norms. Faced with school, girls \u2013 after centuries of being told they are stupid \u2013 might feel like they have something to learn. Boys \u2013 after millennia of privilege \u2013 might think they know it all. Sadly for some, mansplaining won\u2019t earn you passing grades.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Now, how do we disrupt misogynist misinformation?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Is this it? Of course not. This is merely the tip of the iceberg. The current state of gender inequality is an accumulation of all of the labels and stereotypes which misinformation has endorsed. Now, how can we fix it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, let\u2019s look at where the world stands in terms of gender equality today. Here\u2019s a microcosm of the gender divide:<\/p>\n\n\n\n