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Teaching the Next Generation to Reject Misogyny

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Children learn how to value women by watching how adults speak about and treat other women.

Comparison fuels competition, but collaboration creates stronger families, communities, and futures.

Another woman's success is not your loss—there is room for every person to thrive.

Misogyny is often imagined as obvious hostility toward women: harassment, violence, discrimination, or openly declaring that women are less capable than men. But misogyny does not always announce itself so clearly.

Sometimes it appears in the belief that a confident woman is arrogant, while a confident man is a leader. It appears when mothers are expected to manage nearly every detail of family life yet are criticized regardless of their choices. It appears when women’s accomplishments are explained away, their appearance becomes available for public judgement, or their mistakes are judged more harshly than those of men.

Misogyny can also become internalized. Women may absorb negative cultural beliefs about their own gender and unknowingly repeat them.

Statements such as “Women are too dramatic,” “I prefer working with men,” or “She probably only succeeded because of her appearance” may seem like personal observations. However, they can reflect something women have been taught for generations: Other women are competitors, and only a limited number can succeed.

Misogyny Has Been Written Into the Law

These messages did not develop in a vacuum. Throughout American history, women were legally treated as less independent, less capable, and less entitled to power than men.

For most of the nation’s history, women could not vote. The 19th Amendment, ratified in 1920........

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