Kate Manne, _Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny_

THIS BOOK MADE a deep impression on me. I do not read enough feminist theory to judge how original or groundbreaking it is, but a lot of it was certainly new to me.

Manne describes the book as born of a frustration arising from debates about misogyny. Discussion of even what seemed like clear-cut cases--Elliott Rodger (responsible for the Isla Vista killings), Donald Trump on the Access Hollywood tape, certain campus rape cases--all too often bogged down in quarrels over definitions, as in "he isn't a misogynist if X" or "You can't call it 'misogyny' if Y."

Manne describes herself as an "analytical feminist"--that is (I think) a philosopher more in the analytical than in what Anglo-Americans call the "continental" vein. Analytical philosophers deal more with questions of definition and logic than social or gender justice, usually, and most feminists that I know and/or have read draw a bit more from continental methods. The problem Manne addresses is a good fit for analytical methods, though, clearly. What are we going to say "misogyny" is?

One of her crucial moves is to move well away from seeing it as a matter of individual agents and actions. She is interested less in "Who shall we say is a misogynist?" than in "what does misogyny do? What end does it accomplish?" As she puts it, "misogyny's essence lies in its social function, not its psychological nature" (20). We should spend less time dissecting the individual actions that pop up above ground and more time pondering the vast underground root system that is sending up these shoots. Accordingly, Manne's argues that misogyny is whatever "functions to enforce and police women's subordination and to uphold male dominance" (19).

That won't please everyone, especially if we prefer to imagine misogyny as some personal fucked-up-ness that erupts in people we are not friends with. But it cuts to the chase, doesn't it?

Manne distinguishes misogyny from sexism: "I propose taking sexism to be the branch of patriarchal ideology that justifies and rationalizes a patriarchal social order, and misogyny as the system that polices and enforces its governing roles and expectations" (20). That is--if I understand this point--if I argue that we can't have women players in the NFL because of upper body strength, speed, or tradition, etc., I am being sexist. If I start to bully people out of even talking about the question, or get indignant or abusive or angry or violent about it, I am being a misogynist. The same person could, in different contexts, play both roles.

This makes sense, I think. There are sexist defenses of the prerogatives of patriarchy that try to stay within the bounds of rational discourse and logic. These have been losing ground since Wollstonecraft, though, and are basically intellectually bankrupt. The misogynist defenses of patriarchy, though--intimidation, insult, accusation, lies, threats, violence--remain all too available, as near to hand as one's Twitter account.

My takeaway from Down Girl: As long as large numbers of men consider themselves "tacitly deemed entitled to rely [on women] for nurturing, comfort, care, and sexual, emotional, and reproductive labor" (xv), patriarchy is alive, and as long as they are willing  to use any means available to enforce that imagined entitlement, we will have misogyny. It's not just a few bad apples, in other words. It's a set of assumptions that will probably outlive most of us. But we might as well get busy digging up that underground root system now.