First, I would like to explain the difference between the two words as they are often misused. Sexism is the discrimination or prejudice of someone on the basis of their sex while misogyny is ingrained contempt and prejudice against women. In essence, someone can be sexist without being misogynistic, but a misogynist is always a sexist.
The 2008 Presidential election was the first one that I paid attention to. I was 17 and a senior in high school and just shy of being able to vote myself. In the primary, the Democratic party had two highly qualified candidates who ran: Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Both were lawyers junior US Senators from progressive states whose nomination would be unprecedented in politics. Clinton won the popular vote then as well, but lost both the pledged delegates and got slaughtered in the super delegate vote. On paper, even then, Clinton had more experience (this coming from a huge Obama fan). She had spent 2.5 times as long as a Senator, spent 2 terms in the White House serving as the nation's first lady, and had more experience in law than Barack Obama. The problem is even most democrats don't attribute Obama's win in 2008 to sexism. Sexism in many cases is subtle in America, but it affects women in every facet of their lives.
Misogyny and sexism is something that often goes unnoticed in our society, because it runs deep. It's universal across gender, religious, and racial lines as well. Misogyny happens in all sectors of society: conservative, white, black, Hispanic, Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and even liberal people perpetuate it.
Sometimes misogyny is glaring as evidenced by these pictures that my future sister in law shared after the march. Both of these were shared by conservative lawmakers, by the way:
Then, there are times that it is more subtle. If we want to pull back into the realm of politics, in our most recent national election, we saw it deeply seeded in America. I spoke to friends about why they disliked Clinton and the first answer was never anything about her views or policies. It seemed that every answer pertained to either her demeanor, her husband's transgressions, or would call her dishonest without any additional reasoning. This on its own would be examples of subtle misogyny, but when compared to her opponent she was clearly held to a much higher standard. The man she ran against was estimated by political estimates to having said something "mostly false" or worse nearly 70% of the time on his campaign compared to her only 25% of the time. Additionally, her opponent was also accused of sexual assault and bragged of perpetrating it as well as reached a settlement in a fraud case while on the campaign and was still viewed with more favorable ratings.
In our country, many are willfully ignorant to misogyny and sexism every day. As children, women are taught to not dress to scandalously so that they don't attract perverse attention from males. If they are sexually assaulted, the first question out of most mouths is, "What were they wearing?" It is evident in the fact that the futures of rapists are considered as having a higher precedence over the futures of rape victims. It is evident in the average $0.78 that women make to a man's $1.00 for doing the exact same work. It occurs when doctor's will not tie a woman's tubes when she decides that she does not want children without having a psych evaluation performed, but will complete a vasectomy without the same vetting. Misogyny in this country are catcalls that women have to endure from men on an ongoing basis (my first experience with this happened before I even hit puberty).
I implore you to go to a store and attempt to find a modest amount of gender neutral clothing, sexism starts in the womb. We start teaching our youth that there are such things as "boy" toys and "girl" toys as toddlers. Sexism is occurring every time your razors are an additional 25% more money just because they're pink. Sexism is that moment that someone asks a woman if they are sick just because they didn't have time to apply makeup that morning. Prior to the implementation of the ACA, sexism was when women could be charged more for health insurance exclusively due to their gender. Sexism happens every time that a woman points out inequality they are met with people calling her whiny or ungrateful.
It's easy to see why racism and religious discrimination enrages people. People understand why the Black Lives Matter movement is important. They can see that building a wall along our border is reminiscent of one that was torn down in 1989. They understand that registering a whole religion based on the actions of a few is a terrifying proposition and is contrary to our first amendment. Sexism has become so ingrained that it is normal to some people and its only the blatant instances of misogyny that go noticed.
Every instance articulated above is a reason for every woman to march. It is not just polarizing issues that torment this country, but also the everyday ones that we have become so complacent to that they go unnoticed. The protests and political involvement must go on for our future generations, because the root of feminism is that women hold an equal place in society to men. We as women need to push for women with our own views to represent us in equal number to the number of men in our legislatures (hint: we need 30% more of them). We also need to support our male allies, because it is the unfortunate truth that until our representation is equal, in many cases, only other men will be able to convince their peers that there is an issue.
In summary, if you have 2 X chromosomes, there is absolutely no reason to not support this movement. You deserve to have access to the same opportunities as every other human being on this planet.
