What's "misogynology"?

I’m a misogynologist--i.e., one who studies misogyny. For 30+ years, I’ve studied misogyny in the field of hard sciences, but mostly in social sciences, including feminist theory (yes, even feminist theories are infected with misogyny). “Misogynology” isn’t listed in a standard English dictionary, not yet, but I’m not discouraged; “ufology”--the study of UFOs--wasn’t a twinkle in a lexicographer’s eyes before 1956.

The word “misogyny” comprises the Greek “miso-” (hatred) and “gyne” (woman), first appearing in English in the mid-1600s. It derives from the Greek noun “misogynia,” meaning “hatred of women.” Its meaning today is pretty-much unchanged: “hatred of, contempt for, or distrust of women,” with “ingrained prejudice against women” lately added to this list in most English dictionaries as the #1 definition.

The term “Unidentified Flying Object” (UFO) was coined in 1953 by Cpt. Edward J. Ruppelt of the U.S. Air Force to replace the misleading term “flying saucer.”

But J. Allen Hynek (1910-1986) was the American astronomer, Professor of Physics and Astronomy (Ohio State) and self-defined ufologist who’s best remembered for his UFO research. He acted as scientific advisor to UFO studies undertaken by the U.S. Air force under three projects: Project Sign (1947-49), Project Grudge (1949-1951) and Project Blue Book (1952-1969). Hynek developed the “Close Encounter” classification system (you may remember hearing about or seeing Spielberg’s 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind?) while conducting his own/independent UFO research, and was among the first people to conduct scientific analysis of UFO reports, as well as trace evidence left by UFOs.

When I think of the origins of misogynology, I think of Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) who’s been called in both lay and academic circles the “First Feminist.” She was an English philosopher and writer who became a pioneer in the fight for women’s rights. Her 1792 work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (still a treasured “bible” I cherish) challenged cultural norms by arguing for women’s education, empowerment, and independence in all ways: economically, legally, politically, socially. She believed women should be treated as full human beings. She wrote, “I do not wish women to have power over men, but over ourselves.” She was considered ahead of her time in 18th century England, when “free”/non-enslaved/non-indentured women led much, much more restricted lives than they do today in England--and America. (Though both self-defined democracies operate within different legal frameworks--with England having a lower bar than America for proving sexual harassment--both countries still experience mass, unchecked male-on-female rape.) Wollstonecraft wrote in favor not only of women’s rights but for equal rights for women and men of all other identities--i.e., for feminism.

She married William Godwin, a feminist who shared her values; he too was a writer and scholar. Wollstonecraft died at the age of 38, 11 days after she gave birth to her second daughter Mary Shelley (yes--that Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein).

I often wonder what English writer Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) might have fashioned had she written not “Shakespeare’s Sister”--the Americanized title of Woolf’s third chapter of her 1929 classic, A Room of One’s Own, which, in part, fantasizes about a hypothetical female counterpart to William Shakespeare who’s denied financial, legal, political and social opportunities due solely to her gender)--but “Wollstonecraft’s Great-Great-Great-Great Grandchild.”

Such a chapter might have described a Kamala Harris or a Sarah McBride or a Jackson Katz or millions of other Americans who advocate living in a nation that sees gender (absolutely!), but values people not based on their gender but on the content of their character as expressed in a feminist democracy--i.e., one that favors no gender. A democracy that doesn’t disadvantage half its population economically, legally, politically and especially socially due solely to gender.

And that can’t happen until we eliminate rape.

At the very least, we must punish it, not celebrate it--or worse, avoid talking about it.

Keep having those conversations.~R.