A Novel Approach in Characterising Misogyny

Abstract Misogyny is traditionally understood as hatred against women. Contra this view, Kate Manne (2018) argued that “misogyny” should be defined as a sanction-distributing mechanism that punishes women who violate gender norms and rewards women who comply with them. Here, I argue for a novel approach in characterising “misogyny.” The paper consists of two main parts. In the negative one, I acknowledge the deficiencies of both accounts. Specifically, I focus on the limitations of Manne’s definition. First, I argue that Manne’s reactive reading of misogyny downplays her account’s predictive capacity and aspired extensional scope. Second, I propose that the affective dimension should be given more prominence. Then, I outline the desiderata for an adequate account of “misogyny.” The suggested approach is to integrate the psychological and structural perspectives by (i) incorporating the structural explanation of the phenomenon by definition, and (ii) treating the affective dimension as a core part of misogyny.