Misogyny begins as an irrational fear of women that generates a coldness, discomfort, and even hate. It results in the differential treatment of women and girls and incorporates a spectrum of negative behaviours such as control, subjugation, and brutality. It reduces human beings to something far less than their intrinsic ability, humanity, and worth.
The Women, Peace and Security agenda recognises the disproportionate impact of conflict on women and girls. It aims to ensure their participation in all aspects of peace and security, including prevention, resolution, and peacebuilding.
To move the agenda forward, we need to push back against the forces working against it. Understanding and confronting misogyny is vital to this work.
It is not a new problem; misogyny is often called the oldest prejudice in the world. It has proved to be the most stubborn and irrational of ideologies. But today it is being reinvented and enjoying a resurgence. Technology is changing the way these narratives spread. Discourses on gender-based hatred circulate widely on social media and other online platforms. Degrading images of women and girls are freely available and fuel a globalised culture of misogyny.
Today’s polycrisis – global conflict, social change, and even state collapse - is producing waves of anger, insecurity, and feelings of exclusion. This is fuelling tensions between groups, inside communities, and within families. These tensions are being played out, and even blamed, on vulnerable groups, including women and girls.
Understanding the way this hatred forms and spreads is vital to protecting and promoting the Women, Peace and Security agenda.
The Centre for Women, Peace and Security at LSE aims to bring different perspectives together; to get experts from different sectors in dialogue and debate; and to share and shape a new, holistic and multi sectored approach to reduce violence against women and girls around the world.