Misogyny: subtle or open?

My whole life, I’ve suffered from sexism and misogyny. Whether it’s subtle or said out loud, it’s hurtful and degrading. Many people can’t actually tell if something is misogyny or not, if they’re supposed to be offended or not, but in reality, all women suffer from it. From personal experience, it’s not pleasant, and it doesn’t make a man look “cool” or “manly.” It makes him look like a coward, someone who feels threatened when a woman is doing better than him, so he resorts to subtle misogyny.

Back when I was working a gig, a man who thought he was “cool” or whatever he imagined himself to be kept attempting to give me and my coworker orders, as if he were our boss. In reality, we had no boss. He kept mansplaining until he got drunk and was almost kicked out. That was subtle misogyny.

Whenever I’m out in town with my family and their friends, there are always men asking about boyfriends and marriage. When you tell them you’re focusing on yourself, they act worried and disguise sexism as care: “Oh, well, you should think about marriage, you know what they say about unmarried women… haha…” Enlighten us, what do they say? What are they trying to use to brainwash you? My old neighbors considered unmarried 17-year-olds as uneducated and incapable of doing anything without their husbands. My poor neighbor had to get married at 17. I know nothing about her now. That was sexism disguised as religion.

Many times, sexism is open, like when you’re at work and a man tells a woman she can’t do anything. Or when a man tries to argue about women’s health with a woman and claims that men work harder. This makes everyone question: has misogyny been normalized in our society? Is it subtle, open, or both?

In most workplaces, misogyny isn’t subtle. Men are paid more than women, and when asked why, the issue is dismissed with claims that men work harder. In reality, women often do most of the work, and do it better. Women are more likely to receive feedback focused on personality rather than performance. They’re labeled “too emotional,” “too aggressive,” or “not likable enough,” while men are more likely to receive feedback about skills and outcomes, such as “strong leadership” or “needs minor technical improvement.”

Subtle misogyny is often measurable through double standards. Women are judged by different criteria than men for the same behaviors. When men are emotional, they’re called “human,” but when women show emotion, they’re labeled “unstable.” When the same trait is evaluated differently depending on gender, that is bias.

Misogyny persists even when women outperform men. When a woman succeeds, her success is questioned. When a woman gets promoted instead of a man, people ask, “Did she sleep with her boss?”, never, “What work did she do to earn it?” Mistakes made by women are more likely to be blamed on their gender rather than their circumstances.

In the past, women were fired for being pregnant, but men were never fired for getting them pregnant, sometimes even within the same workplace. There is even a movie that shows a woman arguing why she is the only one being fired and not the man involved, and the bosses struggle to justify it, because there is no justification.

Consequently, open and subtle misogyny reinforce each other. Harmful attitudes are excused with phrases like “it was just a joke,” which dismiss the real issue and prevent accountability. Misogyny survives not because it is invisible, but because too many people benefit from pretending it is. This is not a “women’s issue,” but a societal failure disguised as tradition, humor, and concern. So the real question isn’t whether misogyny is subtle or open, but who benefits from keeping women small, quiet, and questioned when they dare to rise?