misogyny
English
WOTD – 28 May 2008
Etymology
From Ancient Greek μισογυνία (misogunía) and μισογύνης (misogúnēs, “woman hater”), from μισέω (miséō, “I hate”) + γυνή (gunḗ, “woman”); synchronically, miso- + -gyny.
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /mɪˈsɒd͡ʒ.ɪ.ni/
- (US) IPA(key): /mɪˈsɑd͡ʒ.ɪ.ni/
Audio (US) (file) Audio (AU) (file)
Noun
misogyny (usually uncountable, plural misogynies)
- Hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women.
- 1999, Joanne Marie Greer; David O. Moberg, Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion, →ISBN, page 29:
- Although she argues against a simplistic conflation of types of prejudice, she suggests that misogyny is typically present in both narcissistic and obsessive forms of anti-Semitic prejudice.
- 1999, Ethel Spector Person, The Sexual Century, →ISBN, page 84:
- His misogyny, like that of his predecessors, is more than prejudice; […]
- 2001, Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections
- […] a lonely straight male had no equivalently forgiving Theory of Masculinism to help him out of this bind, this key to all misogynies: […]
- 2005, Jeff Johnson, William Inge And The Subversion Of Gender, →ISBN, page 122:
- This ontological symbiosis also explains his misogyny. By envying Sue, as the man he cannot become, he projects his self-loathing onto her, trying to diminish what he actually admires.
- 2006, Jack Holland, Misogyny: the world's oldest prejudice →ISBN
- 2014 April 12, Simon Russell Beale, “Why Shakespeare always says something new: As the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth approaches, the great Shakespearean actor Simon Russell Beale explains his secrets [print version: The king and I]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review), London, page R7:
- […] I have always found it hard that Hamlet, a character that I love and admire, is guilty of a puerile misogyny and, perhaps, more worryingly, of the unnecessary deaths of his old friends from university, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. When I played him, I could find reasons for the misogyny but half-ignored the murders.
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Usage notes
- A related concept is gynophobia, the fear of women, but not necessarily hatred of them.
Synonyms
- misogynism
Antonyms
- philogyny (love of, or fondness for, women)
Coordinate terms
- misandry (hatred of men)
Derived terms
- misogynic
- misogynist
- misogynistic
- misogynistically
- misogynoir
- transmisogyny
Translations
hatred or contempt for women
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