MISOGYNY AND MISOGYNOIR

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Sexist hatred for women is both interpersonal and institutional. One misogynist belief is that women are unfit for governance due to their biology and their demarcation as sexual beings more than human beings. Misogyny in political paraphernalia takes form in slurs, epithets, dehumanization, fixation on looks, sexual objectification and suggestions that any success women candidates have had is because they “slept their way to the top,” a gendered sexual double standard. Misogynist slurs label women as inherently “nasty” or disgusting. Sexists demand women to stay in their assigned place and characterize strong and ambitious women as “cunts,” “witches,” and “castrating bitches” or “nutcrackers,” promoting the lie that when women are powerful, men necessarily become impotent. In 2016, haters denounced Hillary Clinton as a (castrating) “bitch,” “man eater” and “Vagenda of Manocide.” Misogynoir, a word coined by Moya Bailey, names how racism and anti-Blackness intertwine with misogyny. Slurs aimed at Kamala Harris upon the announcement of her candidacy called her “Aunt Jemima,” a “Mammy” stereotype from slavery promoting the lie that Black woman were “happy slaves” who loved taking care of White people. Another slur condemned her as a “hoe,” “nasty,” and someone who “slept her way to the top.” These slurs invoke the stereotype of the sexually promiscuous “Jezebel,” another enslavement-era stereotype that justified White men’s routine and legal rape of enslaved Black women. Some Clinton and Harris supporters reclaim the epithet “nasty” to signify that when a misogynist calls a woman “nasty,” it is because she is a strong, confident, autonomous and competent woman.