Yei Bin Andrews is a junior, and editor and writer for Midtown High School’s newspaper, The Southerner (she has written multiple articles, the most recent being “ Finding the American Dream: The path to citizenship presents challenges. Most importantly, it’s vital to recognize when women use these standards to bring other women down, because it can make you feel really inferior to others or insecure about yourself. These standards are extremely sexist, and yet a part of everyday life. Fleeting comments like, “that’s not very ladylike,” “you throw like a girl,” and “women are bad at math” all have an affect on how you perceive yourself. Internalized misogyny usually isn’t very obvious hatred. Especially at such a young age, when it’s preferable that every girl is fighting to be rid of sexist habits created by previous generations. While attention-seeking isn’t always horrible, it becomes risky when you are actively bad-talking another person. Through Urban Dictionary, a more modernized definition of the concept is described as “a girl who goes out of their way to impress boys and make them seem like they’re ‘not like other girls.’” “Pick-me girls,” are prime examples of teens who have lived under the influence of gender norms, and ended up putting down other girls in order to get the attention of others. And unfortunately, women end up unconsciously projecting those ideas onto other women, and even themselves.Ī way to easier understand this is through the term, “pick-me girl.” It’s a saying that has recently been extremely popular on TikTok and Instagram, usually found in comments or as the entire basis of a video. These standards normally show how we should behave and react, and often portray women as emotional, manipulative, weak or unintelligent. What actually causes the internalization of misogyny is that girls adapt to a vague and kind of abstract standard created by social expectations and men. If you didn’t know, misogyny is the term described as the “hatred of women.” So if female-identifying people internalize that, they begin to hate others of their own gender. “Internalized misogyny” is basically a fancy way of saying that women can be sexist against women too. If all women could learn to not buy into these expectations, I believe we would come away better from it. It’s possibly more problematic than regular misogyny, and has a lot of not-so-fun outcomes. Internalized misogyny sits within us all, whether we are conscious of it or not. But have you ever felt judged by another girl because you weren’t acting as the stereotypical girl does? Or maybe you’ve heard women dissing other women for being single or wearing provocative clothing. I found it’s easy to believe that women don’t play a role in the sexism of society. But after hearing this phrase, “internalized misogyny,” all over the media, I decided to really look into it. The prospect of gender equality would come easily to a person who suffers from the lack of it, right? A common misconception. If you identify as a female, you probably think there’s no way you can be sexist.
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