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Holding up Half the Sky
Why do men feel the need to denigrate women?
The older I get, the more I appreciate women. This really came home to me after I was diagnosed with cancer for the third time. The first two times, I was married and my husband helped me out. Now I’m divorced, and I was scared. Luckily I have a good boyfriend who has helped, as has my mother. But the people that most rallied around me — women.
Whether close personal friends who are like sisters or compassionate doctors and nurses, or even Facebook acquaintances who barely know me — I have been astonished by the kindness of women.
This experience had increased my appreciation of women enough that the continued misogyny I see directed at them, often in casual and assumed, even approved of, ways hurts my heart.
First, there is the denigration of women’s intellect.
Now, there is a scientific basis for gender differences when it comes to IQ. According to credible research, men tend to do better when it comes to spatial skills, while women do better when it comes to remembering where objects were located. The problem with this type of research is that when misogynists spin it, they interpret it in ways that the researchers never implied.
