Gender Stereotypes contribute to Misogyny. What do you think of this?
Gender stereotypes are some beliefs that people build in their minds over time about male and female characteristics. They make one expect things from people based on their gender. On the other hand, misogyny is the feeling of dislike or hatred against women. It makes one consider females inferior to men. It is one very imminent feature of our society. In my opinion, gender stereotypes contribute to misogyny to a great extent and both these feature in the society like evil. They are both affecting us all humans. This is mainly because of the stereotypes present in our society, most of which reflect women to be inferior to men, weak, fragile, delicate, uncompetitive, made to carry out household work, burden to their families, etc. When the gender stereotypes make one believe that men are superior and women deserve to be inferior to men, of course the society will become misogynistic. Stereotypes like women are to be blamed for anything and everything that happens to them, even when they are raped, it’s probably because of the length of the skirt they wore, make us even more misogynistic if we believe in stereotypes.
These stereotypes do not even have any base or logic. They are just things we tend to believe in. To be honest, only those people will believe in it, which are already misogynistic at heart or at thought. Hence, I believe our society is misogynistic not only because of the gender stereotypes that make women have an inferior image, but also because more than half the individuals here have misogynistic mindsets themselves. And to top that up with gender stereotypes that discriminate against women, is an even worse thing for women in the society. These are what do not let women breathe in the society with their heads up. These are the reason to exactly why women cannot live life on their terms because the society is already here to lay down it’s own set of rules and laws for women that are nowhere mentioned even in the constitution. It’s probably tough to break these stereotypes all at once, but I believe we all can thrive and march towards a society free from gender stereotypes, which will then be a non pro-men and non misogynistic society. There is still time and there is still hope.
A woman myself,
Shubhangini Shaktawat