Of late, I binge watched the Netflix series, Emily in Paris, which is basically a women centric show, showing the professional journey of a girl in late 20s and who is working for a marketing firm.
There were multiple things shown in the series like travel, fashion, feminism, romance, friendship and comedy but the eye catcher for me was her relationship with her female boss, Sylvie.
When I talk about this, I am going to talk here, a really important but most neglected issue which many of us have seen and observed in our professional and personal lives, female misogyny.
First, let me explain, what is misogyny, very commonly used in today’s era, mostly among the feminists or activists working for women rights and interests.
Misogyny refers specifically to a hatred of women. The word is formed from the Greek roots, misein (“to hate”) and gynē (“woman”). It looks somewhat similar to the word Sexism, which signifies discrimination based on sex, where both sections of the society can be victims of stereotyping. But misogyny actually, refers to discriminations and stereotyping in behavior, conditions, attitudes and social roles, where victims are the women section.
In the series, Emily in Paris, Emily kept on making sincere efforts to impress her boss, Sylvie at each and every step, by every means. She was good at her work and was successful most of the times, but her female boss, was never ready to acknowledge and admit her good deeds.
So what was it, which used to refrain Sylvie from lauding the Emily's efforts and achievements and why she was so uncomfortable, when Emily's work was being praised by other colleagues.
If we start super analyzing and decoding the things, there could be multiple reasons and one reason would be definitely, the female misogyny: the attitude of hatred for women by a woman.
Many of us would have, sometimes come across, with female bosses/colleagues like Sylvie, in our working life, who can be referred as the misogynistic She-Devil.
These above mentioned female-fellows always see themselves as superior to other women and at least on a level with, if not above, the top alpha males, she encounters.
These women find a very hard time in acknowledging any other women's success, intelligence or competence. They are always ready to trade their female team-mates with any male teammates. They contemplate to put their female colleagues, down and by doing this, they get pleasure of mind and feeling of superiority.
In their view, other women are manipulative, dishonest, irrational, incompetent or unintelligent, and subconsciously believe that, somehow she has been exempted and that's why, she had been able to rise the career ladder and competing with the males.
Now talking to our personal life too, we spot such women in our day-to day lives among friends and relatives, who claim to be very close to us but get severe complexes if, so called near ones achieve something in their life. Instead of appreciating and feeling happy about it, they lose their peace of mind and show their dark traits in one form or the other.
We have heard that dialogue, from the movie, "3 idiots": Dost fail ho jaye toh dukh hota hai … Lekin dost first aa jaye toh zyaada dukh hota hai (It hurts if your friend fails… but it hurts more when friend comes first.)"
The above is actually true, very much natural and relevant for everybody, but more in women. Since, this kind of feeling is natural, it comes and withers away after, a while. Some of us ignore this feeling after sometime and some of us gets inspired, with it and progress further. But misogynistic women, they are not able to overcome, this feeling, consequences, the ill treatment of their friends and families.
As it is, we, the women, are struggling to counteract that male section of the society who are taking the lead in far-reaching misogynistic movements, can we work together to overcome these toxic complexes, which is sabotaging the women section of society, from inside?
Can we try to remove that feeling of insecurity with each other, and focus on working together to empower each other, as things which are done for women upliftment, is just the tip of iceberg and yet there is complete iceberg to be broken ?
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