Misogyny wears many masks. You’ve likely heard of race traitors – those who think themselves essentially different, or perhaps superior, to those of their own race. They may support positions that go against the best-interests of their own race, while enabling their individual social mobility; they may even possess a loathing that manifests in racism against their own people. “Sex traitors” are similar – those who don’t identify with or support their own sex, even to the point of sabotaging the efforts of their own kin in order to gain approval for themselves as individuals. This is a common act of oppression amongst the female sex, and the conscious or unconscious impetus is often found in the form of male validation. Who are these saboteurs of feminism and why would they betray their own sex? What are the primary driving forces behind female sex traitorship?

Grooming

Putting others first is something that we, as females, are taught to do from a very early age. We are generally raised to be in service to others. We are given dolls and taught how to diaper and feed them, preparing many of us to take care of younger siblings or cousins later on. We are gifted with Easy Bake Ovens and other miniature domestic “toys”; we eagerly help our mothers in the kitchen and with other housework, unaware that it won’t be long until such activities are no longer fun, but expected and demanded of us, often for the rest of our lives. Certainly, these are essential life skills, but what are our brothers doing while we are working in the kitchens? These traditions are passed on so that we may marry and raise families of our own one day, supporting the lives and careers of our husbands, fostering the education of our children, and placing the well-being of our family as our top priority. With what little free time we have left, we are expected to volunteer in service to our communities. (A woman’s labour is socialist whereas a man’s labour is capitalist). Our health and happiness matter only so much as it enables us to carry on our duties in service and self-sacrifice to others.

Although this sounds like a gender stereotype from the 1950s, we must remember that this traditional role has been around, in one form or another, for at least 5000 years. Our ultimate servitude is to continue the bloodline of our male counterparts not just through the act of giving birth, but through seeing to it that our children, his children, are happy, healthy and strong, so that they too might carry on the bloodline, as will their children, and so on. Rejection of motherhood is the ultimate act of rebellion as it denies both our biological instinct and our gender norms. Feminism shatters the status quo on expectations that confine women to such roles.

Altruism

There exist plenty of women who forgo having their own families and some who take on roles as great leaders. (I have the pleasure of knowing such women personally.) Politicians are historically seen as playing a benevolent parental role in their communities, and one of great responsibility. Since women not only have the right to vote, thanks to the Suffragettes, but also the right to run for public office, the benevolent father figure often now works alongside the benevolent mother figure. It is their duty to do what is best for their “family”, i.e. their constituents. So keen not to abuse her position of power, the female politician doesn’t dare prioritize the needs of those like herself – those of the female sex. She cannot appear to have favorites; she is the model of altruism. She therefore often lapses into a covert form of misogyny; her internalized obligation to servitude is double that of a man in her position as she has been groomed for it since birth.

Lateral Oppression

Having women in positions of power does little to advance our equality when they not only have to guard themselves from accusations of favoritism, but worse yet, when they embrace ideas tantamount to hostile misogyny. By modelling herself after Republican Judge Antonin Scalia, U.S. Supreme Court Judge Amy Coney Barret’s actions are akin to the women (like my grandmother) that continue to vote for their husband’s favorite political party even decades after they are deceased, therefore essentially ensuring that he still has a vote or voice well into the afterlife.

“Groups opposing abortion have championed Judge Barrett’s nomination.”^[1] So pro-life is Amy Coney Barrett that she supports a group that defends “the right to life from fertilization to natural death”.^[2] “By conferring full legal rights on fertilized embryos, personhood proposals would criminalize anything that puts a fertilized embryo at risk, including IVF treatment”^[3], thereby punishing infertile women who attempt pregnancy through advanced means. Seemingly oblivious to lateral oppression, Coney Barrett seems content as long as she herself is in a place of privilege. While her extremist views on denying bodily autonomy is an obvious attack on feminism, the political left is much subtler in their injury to it.

Liberal Feminism

Mere months ago, feminists like myself admired and celebrated political leaders like Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris, Alexandria Ocazio Cortez and Elizabeth Warren. As they confidently rose up from the patriarchal shadows of the U.S. government, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led the charge of women in the House of Representatives who wore all-white to President Trump’s State of the Union Address, thereby demarcating the 100th anniversary of women’s right to vote while making a silent statement against the Trump administration; Democratic Congresswoman AOC publicly eviscerated Republican Congressman Ted Yoho after being the target of his sexist remarks; Senator Elizabeth Warren posted selfies taken with little girls as they made pinky promises that “running for president is what girls do”. However, one by one, these seemingly feminist leaders have filled us with disappointment as they have championed moves towards, so called, gender equality. Much to the dismay of gender critical feminists, they have all turned out to be supporting bills that carry laws with them that decimate the legal rights of women and girls’ ability to retain their distinct, sex-based identity, rights to privacy, dignity, and autonomy as a sex-based social class. We must be watchful as to the legal definitions of such words as “gender” and “equality”. They seem oblivious to the notion that the gender binary, for some, has changed from that of man/woman to cis/trans. Therefore, when they support the Gender Equality Act, they are supporting the rights of trans women to be “equated” to women, thereby harming the opportunities of girls and women in sports and removing safeguards for those in vulnerable places, such as women’s hospitals, shelters and prisons. Tulsi Gabbard stands out as a notable exception who challenges the “progressiveness” of this wave of change, which she and other gender critical feminists recognize as a Trojan Horse for misogyny. Any act, bill or executive order that diminishes opportunities for girls and women, or worse, increases their vulnerability, is NOT a feminist bill.

Furthermore, criminalizing our ability to accurately name our oppressors, through seemingly innocuous bills censoring against so called “hate speech” and “discrimination”, acts as a stranglehold that will leave vast unhealed scars on generations of women and girls to come. Not unlike Coney Barrett, these Democratic leaders are limiting a woman’s right to say “no” to having legislation over-ride our bodily autonomy, such as the right to decline an examination from a male gynaecologist (regardless of how he identifies). Is it any wonder that thousands of feminists are finding ourselves to be politically homeless?!

Indifference

I would be remiss if I did not mention U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, for she is not only the first woman to attain this highly distinguished position, but she is also the first woman with black heritage to serve as a U.S. Vice President. We were overjoyed, at first, but then the details began to surface and her lustre quickly wore off. While she has demonstrated exceptionally strong support in response to the “epidemic of violence” that trans women face, there has been notable silence on the overwhelming prevalence of femicides committed against biologically-female women. For example, in 2018, there were 26 trans women, trans men, and GNC (Gender Non-Conforming) people murdered in the U.S.^[4] That same year, 1946 female-born women were murdered too.^[5] And while we applaud VP Harris’s attention to the matter that it has been primarily black trans women that have been murdered, there is again, little to no concern placed on the disturbing number of black female-born women murdered in the U.S. each year. With 2020 being a particularly bad year for domestic violence, because of the pandemic, by the end of 2020 there were 1163 black female-born women murdered (in the U.S.)^[6] compared to only 21 murders of black trans women. No stats on the overall murders of women have been published so far. Nonetheless, Harris and Biden were preparing Executive Orders^[7] on trans rights long before the White House was even theirs. Where is the outrage for our black (female) sisters?! Where are the executive orders that will protect black women, and all women for that matter, from persistent, unmitigated male violence?

“Women have been the majority of voters in every national election since 1964. We are a supermajority, and we should have the undivided attention of every elected official in this country. But we don’t, and that’s because deliberate efforts to undermine our democracy have created a system that’s less and less responsive to the needs of the people, especially women.”^[8]

Internalized Misogyny

Examining politicians and other external figures for sources of sex traitorship is less demanding than examining our own roles. “Internalized misogyny is when women subconsciously project sexist ideas onto other women and even onto themselves.”^[9] It is impossible not to assimilate some of the misogyny that is so prolific in the media and our everyday lives. We unconsciously internalize the sexist notion that females are inferior to males and participate in it through slut-shaming, fat-shaming, making statements such as “I’m not like other girls”, making excuses for men who degrade women, engaging in toxic behaviour like gossip, having lower expectations of ourselves and other women, emulating masculine behaviours, or by saying that we don’t need feminism – a contentious statement that comes from either a state of privilege or apathetic complacency.

Femophobia – Anything but Female!

Witnessing the degradation of women and girls on a daily basis is enough to make many of us consider “fleeing from womanhood like a house on fire”.^[10] It is entirely understandable that fear of being mistreated because of our female-sexed bodies can cause body dysmorphia and gender dysphoria, especially in highly suggestable populations like teenager girls. Avoidance is a common coping mechanism. But, when rejection and erasure of femininity in ourselves, femophobia, bleeds over onto other girls and women too, it becomes a social harm, which is why this is a feminist issue and not simply one of individual concern.

For gender non-conforming individuals, whether butch lesbians, non-binaries, or trans-men, internalized misogyny may take the form of femophobia – the rejection of all things feminine including your own bodies. In her ground-breaking essay “I Am Not A Waste of a Woman” Max Robinson vividly recounted her journey into the “trans cult” through her experience from female to male, and back to female again. “I didn’t realize that my horror at my body could be caused by the horror of living in a world that hates and wants to control all women. (…) I didn’t want to be seen as a woman or as a lesbian and I didn’t want to know why. Or maybe I just didn’t know who to ask. I did try. I asked my gender therapist, a trans man, about internalized misogyny. The question was dismissed. I didn’t even really know what it was. I wanted to understand. Instead, I was assured that it probably wasn’t that.”^[11] By convincing vulnerable and gender dysphoric lesbians that they are or should become men, butch lesbians are now a dying breed, many having been turned against both themselves and the agency of women.

Robinson’s experience as a trans man enabled her the insight to recognize the insidious need for male validation and the hierarchy/patriarchy that exists within the trans community. “I subscribed to an incredibly misogynistic, male-centric set of beliefs for years. (…) ‘DFAB privilege’ was a common phrase in our trans community [that] I was part of – meaning ‘designated female at birth’. It was accepted fact that being born female gave you lifelong advantage over a male who transitioned. This included men who used transition to mean [nothing more than] using different pronouns on Tumblr and having an anime girl as their icon. We believed that as ‘DFABs, we needed to shut up about our petty problems. [‘Sounds familiar] (…) Everyone believed that it was our responsibility to uplift ‘DMAB’ [designated male at birth] voices. (…) Growing up under patriarchy is a grooming process that leaves girls and women extremely vulnerable to male manipulation.” Robinson witnessed her friends being both raped and beaten by their trans-women partners. Yet, they were taught to be quiet about these things because they “were constantly being reminded that transwomen are harmed by the horrible stereotype that they’re all rapists or perverts, and we were taught that we needed to be constantly vigilant ourselves to avoid perpetuating this idea.”^[12]

Pressure to conceal sexual and bodily harm caused by males is nothing new – just look to the many university campuses that enforce such injustices as policy. It is delusional and naïve to assume that the same standards of sheltering abusive males would be any different in a queer community. This assumption is instituted as youth become convinced through gaslighting that the gender binary is “cis” vs. trans, rather than female vs. male, thereby successfully dividing and conquering us.

Social dominance orientation (SDO; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999) asserts that group-based inequalities are systematically reinforced by the disadvantaged group’s adoption of the dominant group’s ideology and social stratification. Empirical research has consistently supported the validity of Social Dominance Theory, and the SDO model of structural oppression may be particularly apt to describe how patriarchy is perpetuated.^[13]

Allyship and Betrayal

How many thousands of women have been banished from so-called “feminist” groups or “women’s support” groups found on various social media platforms? Those expelled are typically well-intentioned women who raised perfectly valid concerns over the well-being of women and children; they are critical thinkers, not extremist bigots. Consequently, other women censor themselves, full-well knowing that they will be cast off, too, if they do not conform to the strict code of silence that prohibits us from asking questions about the dominant transgender narrative and how it affects us – this is not open for debate. The admins watchfully and mercilessly guard the sanctity of the dominant transgender narrative as social media law. And what they overlook, is censored by the social media platform giants themselves. Often the reigns of such groups are handed over by a woman wishing to put her liberal feminism and allyship into practice; she is virtue signalling to all as to just how progressive she is by essentially putting a male in charge of overseeing a feminist group; she has failed to see how she, too, has been groomed in service of males. Entryism, the infiltration of a political party by members of another group with the intention of subverting its policies or objectives, is a common tactic used to gain dominance. The result – we have men in charge of what we can and cannot say to other women, in feminist groups and women’s health and support groups, no less – consider that carefully. Our autonomy is lost! Even more concerning is that global organizations such as United Nations Women are doing the same thing. They have exchanged the word “sex” with “gender”. Therefore, women are rarely recognized as a sex-based class anymore and what is in our best interests, that of females, is no longer the de facto law of feminism nor even allowed to be discussed in the public sphere.

A perfect feminist is non-existent. Every single one of us retains some manifestation of internalized misogyny. It is an inconvenient and very unfortunate and difficult truth that women’s rights and trans rights are in direct conflict with one another. Once we accept this fact, we should realize that a choice must be made by each one of us – will I stand with my sisters, other females who share the same DNA and lifetime of female sex-based oppression as myself, or, will I stand with the latest subset of males, posing as women, misogyny embodied in a different mask, but otherwise no different than the same male sex that has oppressed females for thousands of years? Feminism was created by females for females to spread awareness of and to organize against male oppression. We must stop giving away our power and instead break the chains that groomed us into a lifetime of servitude that continues even when we are unaware of it. Be aware of it! In the immortal words of Maya Angelou, “I’m a feminist. I’ve been female for a long time now. I’d be stupid not to be on my own side.”