In the sixth episode of the podcast, I talk about misogyny, the normalization of biased attitudes toward women through jokes, and respond to a comment about the fair distribution of household responsibilities.
Misogyny — from the Greek, literally means “hatred of women”. Taken at face value, most people would say, “No, I’m not a misogynist — I don’t hate women, that’s too extreme”. But I suggest we don’t focus on the literal translation, because misogyny isn’t just about hatred. It includes dislike, prejudice, mockery, dismissal, and condescension toward women.
In 1782, Judge Francis Buller ruled that a husband had the right — supposedly for “educational purposes” — to beat his wife with a stick, as long as the stick was no thicker than his finger. Under English common law, this established a precedent, meaning that from then on, any husband who beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his own finger could be acquitted.
In Belarusian tradition, there was also a “wife-beating stick” used for preventive purposes — but with a different rule: women could be beaten preventively once a week, on Thursdays, rather than any day. However, the stick itself was much more substantial.
Let me give you an example of how misogyny is so normalized and deeply embedded in our daily lives that some women don’t even notice it.
Once, during a training session, a young woman said she had a great career and had never encountered discrimination along the way. I asked her, “Has anyone ever told you that, for a woman, you have a good salary?”
Of course, she said “yes” — but she had never considered that a misogynistic remark. Because people say things like that all the time, everywhere.
In the 2nd and 3rd episodes of the podcast, I talked a lot about this topic and urged you never to use the word “help” when referring to household responsibilities. Let me respond to a comment that came in after the 3rd episode. The main idea of the comment was that evaluating labor solely by the amount of time spent is unfair, because there’s also the concept of qualification — and work requiring different levels of qualification is valued differently. According to the commenter’s logic, if he worked 8 hours at a rate of €35/hour, while at the same time his wife was cleaning the house, sweeping the floors, and doing other “unskilled” labor valued at €7/hour, then — taking the difference in labor value into account — the wife worked 5 times less.
My response: I believe that household labor should be assessed solely and exclusively by the amount of time spent — and that this is the fair approach. Most domestic work doesn’t require high qualifications (with the exception of management), and it doesn’t matter who is sweeping — a stay-at-home wife without a degree or a “white-collar” husband — sweeping is still sweeping. And frankly, the wife might do it better simply because of years of practice.
Let’s look at an office where people with different qualifications and salaries work. Our husband from the comment earns €35/hour, while his secretary, let’s say, earns €15/hour. But both have an 8-hour workday and both feel tired by the end of it. There’s no such thing as the one who earns €35/hour working only 5 hours, while the secretary works 11.5 hours to equal the salary — and then we say they’re equally tired because the pay is the same? Of course not. Regardless of the hourly rate, labor laws across countries set standard work and rest hours. For example, in Belarus it’s illegal to work more than 12 hours a day — which is the equivalent of one and a half full-time jobs. Because a person physically can’t work more than that effectively without harming their health. And it doesn’t matter how much their labor is worth per hour.
Mocking women is considered a matter of good manners in a patriarchal society — this is the behavior the system teaches us.
The more jokes there are about women, the more deeply rooted and normalized the stereotypes become — and the worse the position of women. For example, you can reference traffic accident statistics as much as you like — which show that men are responsible for the majority of accidents due to risky driving, playing road “instructor”, or driving under the influence. Reckless driving? That’s mostly about men. The most careful drivers? Women. You can bring up those statistics endlessly, but still, everyone knows the joke: “A woman behind the wheel is like a monkey with a grenade”, or “You park like a woman”, or “You drive like a woman”. No one is surprised by these remarks — and that’s exactly how it works.
As your awareness grows, you’ll start to notice expressions that previously flew under the radar — maybe even ones you’ve said yourself: “I’m like every girl, I love shopping”, “Oh, that’s so feminine”, “Women just understand emotions better than men”, “These are our girly things”, “We’ve got our little female secrets”. All of these phrases might seem to describe harmless, minor quirks. But in reality, they reinforce the idea that women are inherently limited to trivial female interests. And if that’s all they care about — clothes and makeup — how could they possibly understand important, serious matters?
If you want to contact us but are afraid to use comments, you can send us an e-mail. After that it will be enough to delete your letter from the “Sent” folder.
Our e-mail address is: help@belarus.fm
