Misogyny is defined as “hatred or contempt for women and girls” and is, and probably always was, widespread. In 1275 a tract was written by one Jean Le Fevre, all about the wickedness of women. And  it seems his belief  was widespread in societies from Europe to the Highlands of New Guinea, when they were first encountered by Europeans.  Women were not only inferior but also dangerous, and contact with them could cause death by “withering away”.  There is evidence that in the fifteenth century large proportions of the youths in Dijon had participated in gang rape of women at least once in their lives.  Belief in witchcraft was common, when women were always blamed and usually killed.  We may not be quite as violent these days but our culture too suffers from a big streak of misogyny.  

It is also evident in the Bible.  In the Genesis fable, Eve succumbed to the serpent’s temptation. She ate from the tree, and made sure that Adam did as well.  She was the main guilty party.  So all three Abrahamic religions began with misogyny.  In modern western society, most people do not think that they are misogynist.  But sexism is widespread and is undoubtedly used to keep women at a lower social status than men, thus maintaining the societal rules of patriarchy.  Misogyny has been widely practiced for thousands of years and is reflected in art, literature, philosophy and historical events.  The UN Development Program studied 75 countries representing 80 percent of the world’s population and found that nine in 10 people – including women – hold  prejudiced views that include: men are better politicians and business leaders than women; that going to university is more important for men than women; and that men should get preferential treatment in competitive job markets.  There was considerable variation among nations in measured misogynist views ranging from those in Andorra and Sweden to those in Pakistan and Nigeria.  Many of these societies are deeply patriarchal and hold dear the ideas of virility, power and the cult of fertility. Men in power in patriarchal societies see an increase in population as a source of power and a bulwark against  other countries’ encroachment.

As a girl, I was brought up with views that the ideal was one of equality between the sexes.  I was well aware that this was not entirely true in practice, and by the time I applied to medical school it was clearly not true.  In 1963 there was a quota of 1 girl being allowed in to London medical schools for every 9 boys, and Oxford and Cambridge had a ratio of 9 lads for every lass.  Outrageous as it now may seem, many local educational authorities set a higher pass rate for girls than for boys in the 11-plus exams – they wanted to reduce the proportion of girls reaching grammar school.

I thought victory had come when the equality law was passed in 1985 outlawing such practices, but there still isn’t true equality.  However, I never remember suffering from any extreme disadvantage, and certainly was not aware of the high level of sexual abuse that modern women and girls face, still less the idea of “incels” who believe that women are at fault for not giving them access to sex, and should therefore be punished.

Was it always thus? Perhaps not. Anthropologists have studied modern day hunter-gatherer societies, and found that generally, men and women have equal influence on who they live with and where they hunt, and this may well have been the case for prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies.  The reason for this may be that such societies could be more successful than those where men make all the decisions, because  the hunting way of life depended on division of day to day tasks, not a male provider and dependent women and children.  Many scientists believe that it was only with the development of farming, and  ability to store food and resources, that men could acquire power at the expense of women without detriment to the functioning of  the society as a whole.  Incidentally, we also  know also that the advent of farming let to the beginning of total exploitation of the planet’s resources for humankind, which has led directly to our current problems of global warming, instability of climate, and extinction of other species which could ultimately threaten human existence.

Modern African rural societies are not fair societies.  Women do most of the agricultural work, and child rearing, yet men and boys have more prestige and may even get the lion’s share of food.  Women bear the brunt of poverty and each additional child makes things worse.  Such societies are now very patriarchal, with men making most of the decisions.  Yet in traditional pre-colonial societies women often held important political positions, with some societies being matrilineal.  There were queens as well as kings.  Elder women had important voices on how to run communities.  Some scholars put the blame on colonialism for the diminishing power of women, because male chiefs negotiated with European colonisers, and the land tenure system that benefitted women was replaced by a European model which prioritised men. Education of boys was also favoured by European administrators.  The result is that Africa has some of the most gender unequal societies in the world, and despite money being spent to improve women’s lot, change comes very slowly. 

The countries with highest birthrate at the present time  are all in sub-Saharan Africa, where the fertility rate between 2015 to 2020 was 4.5.  In Africa as a whole it was 4.3. Yet Africa is not overpopulated.  It is huge, and historically late in increasing its population, due to disease, lack of industrialisation and the ravages of slavery.  The population even today makes very little contribution to global warming, with low CO2 production and low use of earth’s resource, apart from destruction of the rainforest.  But African countries are suffering from their high birth rates, rather than reaping a demographic dividend, as happened with Asian and European countries in the recent past.  While African countries have not caused global warming, they are suffering most  from its  effects such as drought, desertification, rising sea levels, storms, heat waves, and floods. As food supply is affected by failure of agricultural systems more land is put to use, and pressure on conservation areas is intense, threatening whole ecosystems and therefore the planet. Very many young people have no prospects and with drought, water shortages, soil erosion and all the other woes with a warming climate there is a huge risk of war, breakdown of societies, mass starvation and out-migration. 

These problems link with misogyny in that in these areas it affects girls’ access to education; time after time it is found that just one thing  educating girls up to and beyond the level of boys’ education, produces an immediate  benefit.  But misogyny denies them this. Allowing access to contraception  will allow women to choose fewer children, and with that, they can make the most of their education to lift themselves out of poverty and give the next generation of children a much better chance to contribute to their country’s development.  And a fall in their birthrate will lead eventually to a falling world population, which should eventually  reduce, and eventually halt the world’s rapid descent into planetary destabilisation and decline not only for humanity but the whole of the plants and animals that we share it with. 

But organisations which promote contraception and availability of abortion face extreme hatred and opposition from right wing groups in America and religious groups all over the world, especially Catholicism and Islam.  At the moment such groups are trying to prevent girls and women having these rights and so far are succeeding.

It seems very perverse for countries, organisations and religions to oppose contraception  and other benefits to women and families as they do.  I’m interested in why exactly these right wing groups hold such strong positions on things that affect women so much.  Economically it makes no sense. Societies that treat women badly are poorer and less stable. Just look at Afghanistan now. Gender equality has been conclusively shown to stimulate economic growth, which is important, especially in countries with higher unemployment rates and less economic opportunity.  If a country only uses half its workforce, it will not produce as much.  Simple.  But it seems the answer is that even small advances in women’s rights to education threaten men’s ability to have as many children as they want, and prevent them keeping power, both in the family and in politics.  So there is a battle of the sexes with women wanting more autonomy in order to be freed from the tyranny of more and more children, as against men who want more power, and are less likely to do much to help in the arduous task of rearing these children. 

A few years ago, John Magufuli, the late former president of Tanzania, exhorted women to “throw their contraceptives away” and “keep reproducing” to make their country strong.  Magufuli, a Covid denier, is now dead – of Covid.  But his views live on.  The idea of limiting population growth in Africa is controversial, often for good reason.  It is hard to disentangle telling people not to have babies from a tawdry history of forced sterilisation, racism and eugenics.  Many African leaders – 53 out of 54 of whom are men – believe it is none of other people’s business how many children their people choose to have, although in fact “choice” may not be the word for the womenfolk.  So it is difficult for organisations which work to promote contraception to make progress, especially since the Republican party in America  continues to oppose charitable funds which do this worldwide. 

All this is seen in the present struggle, Roe v. Wade in America, where Republican states are trying  to make abortion impossible for any woman. They aren’t pro-life – they show no interest at all in helping women bring up children once they are born.  Republicans weren’t even anti-abortion at all until the 80’s when it was adopted as a political ploy.  It isn’t even directly about religion. There are widely different rules on contraception within Christianity.  The Qur’an does not make any explicit statements about the morality of contraception, but contains statements encouraging procreation. Until Saudi Arabia  started using its oil wealth to spread its extreme kind of wahhabism,  Islamic  communities could be very tolerant.  Since then the expression of misogyny has been rising very rapidly in the last 20 or so  years. This may also be a direct result of the push for better treatment of women and the feminist movement, that threatens a small subsection of men. 

Also, amongst  the right wingers in America  who are most against contraception and abortion, there  is also a huge racist component.  The underlying belief of many evangelicals is that Europeans are the most developed human beings in the world but they are being swamped by other races and are in danger of losing their power.  The picture of a (white) man at the head of the family, the breadwinner, with subservient wife and many children is the picture that such groups want to perpetuate, and see in the rise in populations of non-white groups as an existential threat.  Mind you, these twin beliefs of anti-abortion and anti-contraception and extreme racism are very illogical, as the biggest losers from easily available contraception and abortion are poor women of colour, so their activities could advance the day in which the whites in America become the minority. Although they might think that, as lack of contraception and abortion also keeps them poor, it may not threaten their power too much.  

We should  try to work out the causes of misogyny amongst men in order to see how it could be tackled from this perspective. One author,  David D. Gilmore, has written a book “Misogyny: The Male Malady” which tries to show that from a social anthropological view misogygny arises from “the shared psychic course of the male of the species” – an inner conflict of the fact that men both need women desperately, but try to deny  this as they think women are dangerous to their life prospects.  This certainly comes some way to explain the thinking of Incels, who “try to relieve their inner turmoil by demolishing its source”.  He also states that though psychogenic in origin, under special conditions misogyny can become a full blown epidemic.  Examples arise where there is a feeling of victimhood, in patrilineal societies, war or religious puritanism.  It is clear that women cannot change this – it must be something that men should recognise and boys should be taught.  Misogyny should be tackled at a scientific, psychological, and societal levels, and governments should legislate to prevent these ideas feeding on themselves with amplification in  the present interconnected world. 

So it is clear that the world is at a crossroads.  If misogyny in America, Islamic countries and elsewhere results in a refusal of contraception to women, it risks humanity itself.  The planet will be degraded and there will be less room on it for both men and women. I think it is very important to recognise misopgyny in our midst, and for both men and women to fight it at every opportunity.