Misogyny has always existed. This is a fact. There has always been this hatred of femininity and the bodies that encompass femininity. As time has gone on one could make the argument that misogyny has subsided, even if it’s just a little bit. There’s a better representation of women in film! There’s more diversity! Intersectional feminism has finally peeked its head through the postmodern feminist movement!

While all of this is true and small victories are still victories, there is still an extreme amount of covert misogyny, both internalized and not, in society. This is something that I don’t believe anyone will argue while there are still trans-exclusionary laws and non-binary is not recognized as a valid gender. It’s a common feeling that the world, specifically America, has not progressed as far as we think.

As a result of all of this, on the micro scale has come a weird backlash of first, second, and third wave feminism. We still hate femininity. There are still movies like The Devil Wears Prada, which is an incredible movie, but it villainizes femininity. Miranda and Emily are seen as evil and Andy ultimately denounces femininity because for whatever reason femininity has been coded as bad.

Even further and real, in the gender spectrum, non-binary has become synonymous with slight masculinity. Androgyny has been characterized by pants and short hair. For society, androgyny is best understood as a person wearing masc clothing. Which would be fine if the flip-side did not receive backlash.

For whatever reason, if a person wears makeup or decides to wear a dress they are seen as weak and not powerful and instead of femme-presenting, they are seen as just female. This line of thinking is dangerous because through that becomes this internalized misogyny that femininity cannot have the power or even androgyny that masculinity has. This isn’t a groundbreaking idea by any means, but it’s important.

Femininity does not have to be evil. Femininity does not have to push femme presenting people away from each other. Most importantly, femininity does not have to be denounced to achieve power or proper identity.