Misogyny as Social Management
I used to think misogyny meant “women-hating” in a loud, obvious way.
Ueno makes a sharper point: misogyny is a social management system.
It rewards women who serve the existing order and punishes those who don’t.
You see it in small, daily negotiations:
smile more, speak less; be competent, but never threatening.
When a woman uses her time and body for others, she’s “good.”
When she allocates them to herself, she’s “difficult.”
Ueno shows how this isn’t just about individual bad actors;
it’s a network of expectations that women themselves are pushed to enforce—
mothers teaching daughters to be “pleasant,” coworkers calling a colleague “too intense,”
the quiet sorting of who gets invited, who gets believed.
Reading her, I recognized how often I’ve pre-edited myself.
Not because I agreed, but because I understood the price of refusal.
That price is the point.
#Entertainment #Books #Feminism #ChizukoUeno #Misogyny #GenderStudies
