User:Alastair Haines/Misogyny
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Misogynist redirects to this article.
Misogyny (/mɪˈsɒʤɪni/) is hatred (or contempt)[1] of women.[2][3] It is a form of sexism, parallel to misandry — the hatred of men. Misogyny is also comparable with misanthropy,[4] which is the hatred of humanity generally. The antonym of misogyny is philogyny, love towards women. Marcus Tullius Cicero reports that Greek philosophers considered misogyny to be caused by gynophobia, a fear of women.[5]
Misogyny is sometimes confused with the similar looking word, misogamy which means a hatred of marriage, hence the following error.[6]
- Any doubt he may have ever cherished in his misogamic breast concerning a woman's creative capacity. — Pall Mall Gazette, 7 January 1889
An example of correct use, from the same period is:
- He ... walked the banks apart, a thing of misogyny, in a suit of flannel. — Herman Charles Merivale, Faucit of Balliol, 1882
A clearer example of the sense, also from the same era but using the related word misogynist, is provided by Thackeray.
- Confound all women, I say, muttered the young misogynist. — William Makepeace Thackeray, The Virginians, 1878
Occasionally writers play on the similarity of sound between misogyny and miscegeny (mixed-race marriage).
- This psychosocial analysis of the murder of a white civil rights activist by her mulatto lover (Joe Christmas) is replete with themes of fate, free will, sociopathy, family violence, misogyny, miscegeny, and isolation versus community.
- — Karl Kirkland, 'On the Value of William Faulkner to Graduate Medical Education', Family Medicine 33 (2001): 664.
Many feminists have proposed that misogyny both generates, and is propagated by, patriarchal social structures.
Misogyny in Greek Literature
[edit]
Misogyny comes into English from the ancient Greek word, misogunia (μισογῦνια), which survives in two passages.[7] The earlier, longer and more complete passage comes from a stoic philosopher called Antipater of Tarsus in a moral tract known as On Marriage (c. 150 BC).[8][9] Antipater argues that marriage is the foundation of the state, and considers it to be based on divine (polytheistic) decree.[9] Antipater uses misogunia to describe Euripides' usual writing — tēn en to graphein misogunian (the misogyny in the writing).[9] However, he mentions this by way of contrast. He goes on to quote Euripides at some length, writing in praise of wives.[9] Antipater doesn't tell us what it is about Euripides' writing that he believes is misogynistic,[9] he simply expresses his belief that even a man thought to hate women (namely Euripedes) praises wives, so concluding his argument for the importance of marriage. He says, "This thing is truly heroic."[9]
Euripedes reputation as a misogynist is known from another source. Athenaeus, in Deipnosophistae or Banquet of the Learned, has one of the diners quoting Hieronymus of Cardia who confirms the view was widespread, while offering Sophocles' comment on the matter.
| “ | Euripides the poet, also, was much addicted to women: at all events Hieronymus in his Historical Commentaries speaks as follows,—"When some one told Sophocles that Euripides was a woman-hater, 'He may be,' said he, 'in his tragedies, but in his bed he is very fond of women.' " — Athenaeus, Deipnosophists, 2nd/3rd century.[10] | ” |
The other surviving use of the original Greek word is by Chrysippus, in a fragment from On affections, quoted by Galen in Hippocrates on Affections.[11] Here, misogyny is the first in a short list of three "disaffections" — women, wine and humanity (misogunian, misoinian, misanthrōpian). Chrysippus' point is more abstract than Antipaters', and Galen quotes the passage as an example of an opinion contrary to his own. What is clear, however, is that he groups hatred of women with hatred of humanity generally, and even hatred of wine. "It was the prevailing medical opinion of his day that wine strengthens body and soul alike."[12] So, as with his fellow stoic, Antipater, misogyny is viewed negatively, a disease, a dislike of something that is good. It is this issue of conflicted or alternating emotions that was philosophically contentious to the ancient writers. Ricardo Salles suggests the general stoic view was that, "A man may not only alternate between philogyny and misogyny, philanthropy and misanthropy, but be prompted to each by the other."[13]
Misogynist is also found in the Greek — misogunēs (μισογυνῆς) — in Deipnosophistae (above) and in Plutarch's Parallel Lives, where it is used as the title of Heracles in the history of Phocion. It was also the title of a play by Menander, which we know of from book seven (concerning Alexandria) of Strabo's 17 volume Geography,[14][7] and quotations of Menander by Clement of Alexandria and Stobaeus that relate to marriage.[15] Menander also wrote a play called Misoumenos or The Man She Hated. Another Greek play with a similar name, Misogunos or Woman-hater, is reported by Cicero (in Latin) and attributed to Atilius.[16] The context is worth quoting in full, because it deals directly with matters already discussed in this article.
| “ | It is the same with other diseases; as the desire of glory, a passion for women, to which the Greeks give the name of philogyneia: and thus all other diseases and sicknesses are generated. But those feelings which are the contrary of these are supposed to have fear for their foundation, as a hatred of women, such as is displayed in the Woman-hater of Atilius; or the hatred of the whole human species, as Timon is reported to have done, whom they call the Misanthrope. Of the same kind is inhospitality. And all these diseases proceed from a certain dread of such things as they hate and avoid. — Cicero, Tusculanae Quaestiones, 1st century BC.[5] | ” |
The more common form of this general term is, misogunaios (μισογῦναιος, woman hating).[7]
- Allied with Venus in honourable positions Saturn makes his subjects haters of women, lovers of antiquity, solitary, unpleasant to meet, unambitious, hating the beautiful, ... — Ptolomy, 'Of the Quality of the Soul', 2nd century.[17]
- I will prove to you that this wonderful teacher, this woman-hater, is not satisfied with ordinary enjoyments during the night. — Alciphron, 'Thais to Euthyedmus', 2nd century.[18]
This general term is also found in Philo,[19] Vettius Valens' Anthology,[20] and Damascius' Principles.[21] In summary, Greek literature considered misogyny to be a disease, an anti-social condition in that it ran contrary to the perceptions of the value of women as wives and of the family as the foundation of society. These points are widely noted in the secondary literature.<ref name=Deming>
See also
[edit]- Philo 2:312
- Vettius Valens, Anthology 17:11
- Damascius, Difficulties and Solutions of First Principles 388
Notes
[edit]- ^ Thomas Blount, Glossographia, 1656.
- ^ OED1
- ^ An entry for misogyny also exists in Edward Phillips, A New World in Words, or a General Dictionary, 1658.
- ^ See Chrysippus below.
- ^ a b Marcus Tullius Cicero,Tusculanae Quaestiones, Book 3, Chapter 11. [LSJ typo has Book 4]
- ^ Listed under both misogyny and misogamy by OED1, but cited in full only in the latter.
- ^ a b c Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon (LSJ), revised and augmented by Henry Stuart Jones and Roderick McKenzie, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940). ISBN 0198642261
- ^ The editio princeps is on page 255 of volume three of Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta (SVF, Old Stoic Fragments), see External links.
- ^ a b c d e f A recent critical text with translation is in Appendix A to Will Deming, Paul on Marriage and Celibacy: The Hellenistic Background of 1 Corinthians 7, pp. 221–226. Misogunia appears in the accusative case on page 224 of Deming, as the fifth word in line 33 of his Greek text. It is split over lines 25–26 in von Arnim.
- ^ Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, Book 13 §5.
- ^ SVF 3:103. Mysogyny is the first word on the page.
- ^ Teun L. Tieleman, Chrysippus' on Affections: Reconstruction and Interpretations, (Leiden: Brill, 2003), p. 162. ISBN 9004129987
- ^ Ricardo Salles, Metaphysics, Soul, and Ethics in Ancient Thought: Themes from the from the Work of Richard Sorabji, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005), 485.
- ^ Strabo,Geography, Book 7 [Alexandria] Chapter 3.
- ^ Menander, The Plays and Fragments, translated by Maurice Balme, contributor Peter Brown, Oxford University Press, 2002. ISBN 0192839837
- ^ He is supported (or followed) by Theognostus the Grammarian's 9th century Canones, edited by John Antony Cramer, Anecdota Graeca e codd. manuscriptis bibliothecarum Oxoniensium, vol. 2, (Oxford University Press, 1835), p. 88.
- ^ Ptolomy, 'Of the Quality of the Soul', in Four Books, edited by Joachim Camerarius (Nuremberg, 1535), Latin translation by Philipp Melanchthon, reprinted (Basel, 1553): p. 159. Book 3 § 13. English translation.
- ^ τὸν διδάσκαλον τουτονὶ τὸν μισογύναιον. Alciphron, 'Thais to Euthyedmus', in Letters, (in Greek) edited by MA Schepers, (Leipzig, 1905): as book 4, letter 7, page 115, line 15. ISBN 3598710232.Translated by the Athenian Society (1896): as book 1, letter 34.
- ^ Editio maior: Leopold Cohn, Johann Theodor Wendland and S. Reiter, Philonis Alexandrini opera quæ supersunt, 6 vols, (Berlin, 1896–1915), 2:312.
- ^ Wilhelm Kroll (1908): p. 17, line 11.
- ^ CA Ruelle (Paris, 1889): p. 388.