Just thought, you know, like Georgia is like, I don't know if you're aware of a one party state. So theoretically, I could record this interview and just like not tell you about it. Thank you. I appreciate it. But it is a little bit creepy if I were to do it, so I'm just letting you know. I'm using otter AI which is like, you know, I guess journalists like preferred, or at least that's what I've learned at Grady. So are you ready? Yes. Okay, awesome. Um, would you mind stating your full name, age and current occupation here at UGA?
My full name is Elise Robinson and my age is 52. And my occupation is I am the PR and program coordinator for the Institute for Women's Studies and I also teach Women's
Studies. Okay, fantastic. All right. So I believe I mentioned in my first email to you that kind of my current impression of misogyny as a term is that it seems to be thrown around a lot. So to the best of your ability How would you define misogyny in the context of modern culture? Yeah,
this was a great question, because I think it is one of those words that just gets kind of thrown around. And I think everybody assumes that everybody has the same definition. And I don't think that's actually true. So I'm going to start by contrasting it with how I don't define misogyny. Right so I think that the kind of common sort of basic way that people understand misogyny is that misogyny equals like hating women, right. So hatred towards women is kind of how we would typically define it. Yeah, for sure. And I think that they're like, that's not not true. Like I think that's definitely a component of misogyny. But from my perspective, it's not very useful to think about misogyny as sort of being located in individual people, right? I mean, certainly there are people we can point out and say that person hates women or that person has a problem with women. But if we think about misogyny just as an individual property, right, that doesn't really help us, like resist it or understand how it works or push back against it. So I tend to think of misogyny, the way that caveman describes it in her book down girl, which is that misogyny is sort of like the enforcement arm of the patriarchy, right. So if you have like patriarchy being the sort of ideological system that we all live in, patriarchy is like, bolstered by to sort of, I don't know children in a prosper Bay, which is sexism so and sexism, sexism, you can think of as the thing that justifies patriarchy that like lays out theories of gender and reinforces the gender binary and sort of like, you know, creates the ideology that makes patriarchy make sense and misogyny, I think is the the systemic force that that sort of polices and enforces patriarchy. So I think of misogyny is like the, the system that makes sure that women who don't behave the way that patriarchy says they're supposed to behave, get punished for it. So it's sort of a punishing system as high misogyny here that makes sense.
No, yeah, that's a super great way of defining it that really kind of thought about a tree with like branches and everything. I thought, that's a really good visual. So how has the perception and portrayal of misogyny kind of evolved over the years? And what are the key factors in your opinion kind of driving its persistence? Why
do you think that sort of traditionally so one of the kind of insidious ways that patriarchy works and reinforces and reproduces itself is by normalizing things that maybe we should be questioning? Right. And so I think that one of the ways that's worked with misogyny is that we have tended to sort of say, well, you know, it's not like everybody was like all men are misogynist, or like all women are victims of misogyny. It's just that there are certain people who are jerks who, you know, go back to this way but kind of the one bad apple kind of a theory. I've been how we've been sort of taught to look at misogyny. And I think that that is a problem because, you know, as with anywhere, like anytime or anyplace we use that kind of one bad apple theory, it's like if it's just an exception, right, if misogyny is to be accepted, then we don't have any reason to really change anything random. Well, that person's bad. Like that person, great. Somebody that it's not like we have a rape culture. It's just that rapists are bad people, right. So so I think that in my perception anyway, one thing that has been sort of slowly, very slowly, glacially gradually changing is that we are really coming to recognize the ways in which misogyny is like a systemic problem rather than an individual problem. Yeah, for sure. Um, and I think that, you know, a lot of that has happened because of things like the advent of women's studies and higher ed disciplines and, you know, different feminists kind of movements and revolutions and women being more represented in you know, higher echelons of business and culture and whatever education. So I think that all that has sort of had this effect and this sort of growing recognition that, you know, we have all these different systems of oppression that can be working at the same time so you have sexism and racism and classism and homophobia and transphobia. And that misogyny is sort of in that mix of things. And they're sure to look at it as being connected to all these other problems, systems, and they're all kind of mutually reinforcing each other, rather than just being like, yeah, misogyny is people who hate women, you know, so as long as there were any women you're
exactly. Now I think it's super interesting that you bring that up just because I've kind of had like personal experience and that's why I do kind of like prefer to write about topics like this. I did a piece about a year ago. I was going through the Athens court system to try and get a restraining order ironically, from an ex boyfriend and it was on the basis of an assault. Which I that's a good idea for real good. I know that's probably way too like TMI, but I feel like being open about it. I mean, realistically, it happens to like one in five women I can count on both hands the amount of friends that I've had it happen to to varying degrees of success with the justice system, obviously. And mine was unsuccessful because I reported it late and because he was a boyfriend so they were like why exactly. i That's exactly my
I mean, I think it really speaks to the ways in which like, yeah, it isn't just looking at individuals because, you know, I have I have a student I have a former student who I think actually even had a restraining order against a former friend, and the guy or stopped me was a stalker on their surface with my friend or a soccer video with somebody who was definitely a threat to her at some level was told by the police that you need to like hunker down for this one week of class because the guy was kind of in the area and was gonna threaten her to believes that she needed to like not leave her apartment, and that if she did that they would be escorting her to classes and yet when she tried to inform her profs about this issue I think she maybe had one or two that were like yeah cool stay at home and then the rest of them were like well that's gonna be an excused absence
Oh my god.
Like we you know, all these systems like the way that educational systems is that the way the justice system is that uh, it's all set up to require that you have to, like, you know, go through human efforts to justify being safe in your own body. Like that's crazy. Exactly. Yeah. That's it's built in right like it's built on the system.
No, and I sat down with the judge because you know, you have to file paperwork in order to get and it was me and the morning prior, my dad had, like, came up to Athens to, you know, kind of be there and support me through the process, because it was scary. You know, I went to the UGA Law Clinic, and they literally sat me down and they said, We're gonna be completely honest with you. The Athens Circuit Court has three judges on it. The to that or men are more likely to like turn down requests, and they're like, that sounds really bad. But like, that's just how it is. They're like, you're just gonna have to hope that you female judge. And of course, my luck. You know, two out of three, I end up with a guy and he's reading my paperwork and I had a lot of like supplemental police reports filed to because after we had broken up he had just started like following me around like kind of stalker vibe to which was, if I saw him like downtown, he followed me from bar to bar and like, tried to start stuff totally violent. That's totally I'm like That's so creepy. Like, leave me alone. And he just like, wasn't leaving me alone. So, you know, people had filed police reports and he said, I'm just not gonna look at these. I'm like, Don't you have to do that like as part of your job? And he's like, No, he's like, honestly, no, he's like, I know you think these things are happening to you? But like, I just don't think they are so like I can't give you this.
Another way. So Kim, in this book also talks about this thing that she calls testimonial injustice, which is kind of a fancy term, but she talks about one of the ways that misogyny operates is that is that by it sort of invalidating different people's like ability to be believed about their experience? Oh, yeah, for sure. So like, this is why like, you know, if if it had been, like your boyfriend coming and talking to the judge, I bet they would have been willing and able to believe what they said, where it's, you know, because you're you and because you're a woman, and because the judge has certain preconceptions about how women's brains work, certain super inaccurate preconceptions. Like there's this tendency to go well, I'm sure he didn't mean it to come across this way. And you know, know exactly, that's likely I know, you think this is true, but that doesn't, you know, which is honestly like, not only is probably super insulting, and it's super sexist, right? Like, oh, yeah, for sure. You know, and the same thing happens to like black black women who tried to talk about their experiences or, you know, you tried to like your, you know, a black room and be like, No, I totally got followed in the store because they think I'm gonna shoplift something. And if you are a white guy who has never had that experience, you'd be like, I don't think that's what was going on. But like, again, let me like invalidate, it's like, who would know better than you how this is affecting you. Right? Oh, exactly. The situation now. That's, I'm so sorry. That's, that's sucks. Yeah. And also, like, it also just super sucks even that, like, I feel it's like, why are we not marching in the streets? Because if there's three judges or Athens and two of them are men, and they're less likely to do it, you only get two thirds odds that you're gonna get somebody Exactly. And I was like, There's a story there. So
that's why I wrote about it. So glad you're
reading about it, because it's, it's pernicious. And I think, again, we're looking to kind of like be like, well, that's how it is. And I don't know what we can do. And it's so irritating. We know from the data that like people who exhibit that kind of stalking behavior, that kind of violence often will go like it will escalate, right? Oh, yeah, for sure. And maybe it will be to you, but maybe it'll be the next 30 days or whatever. And, well,
no, and that's the like, I mean, though, it didn't go anywhere. I was like, if it ever happens again, this is going to be on record. So at least we'll be able to see it's like a repeat of something. Yeah. So you know, potentially for that someone in the future could have you know, a better
I mean, I think it's like I love that your dad came up to support you because I think that makes such a huge difference to
Oh, my parents are have been so incredibly supportive as they
should about it, but like it's surprising to me always sometimes when even people family members are like on you might be over playing it with your friends. No, I
have a girlfriend. And hers was actually like my like it was completely random person, which is less likely and I find that a lot more interesting too. But she did things like she got a rape kit done the day after and, you know, things that I wish I would have done but didn't do so they actually you know, rested the guy and he's in prison now but her parents are completely unsupportive. They're like they're super, you know, a very right wing. I don't want to be offensive, you know, to like that would have been me very very conservative very like Bible oriented and just they're like, go read your Bible more. I was like, so bad. Why are you saying that? World anyway, but like we gotta read, you know? Exactly, especially from family members. It's the worst feeling for sure. So yeah, kind of like in your opinion. I know you already touched on it, but what role do institutions like education, law enforcement, and even the media kind of play in either perpetrating or challenging like?
That's an excellent question. And I think I mean, the answer is complicated because I think you know, in sort of abroad, we can look at typically sort of big institutions like government, you know, law enforcement, education, religion, you know, media are going to tend to reinforce whatever the cultural sort of biases are, wherever the dominant culture is so prominently patriarchal culture, then all those things are going to tend to reinforce that. And I think that you can see that in all those institutions. But one thing that I'm always interested in, I think, especially as somebody in Women's and Gender Studies, is the places where there are kind of gaps where that doesn't work. And I think that I think that in both education and in, in media and social media, maybe in particular, it's like, there are lots of ways in which these institutions reinforce problematic notions and problematic sort of sexism and misogyny, but they're also interesting ways in which you know, within education within certain classrooms within certain disciplines. There is sort of creating space to talk about these things and to try to like find ways that we can, if nothing else, acknowledging that they're happening, maybe as a first step to pushing back and making them happen less. And so I feel like it's just today in my in my internal Mercedes class we were talking about incidental warrants or cultural right and social media and Instagram and Tiktok and, and how with regard to like, women's body and that's right, and now there's there can be so many problematic issues with that. And some influencers like some influencers aren't super honest about how much they're getting sponsored or what they're getting told to say and oh, yeah, for sure. They really kind of damaging or detrimental body images or practices, or whatever. Yeah, but how also, it's possible to curate your social media feed to like seek out better people to follow up people that are doing more interesting things. And if you kind of recognize how pernicious social media can be you can also deflect that by choosing to curate your feed more strongly, right and choosing follow to seek out and follow people who maybe are troubling those images or providing healthier images. And so I think that, you know, both with education and meet with governments and like law enforcement, I think those moves slower. So I think that you know, one of the I think real tensions that we're seeing right now, in this election year is that, you know, both the candidates are so old and so lucky like that, that even the candidate who is I think, you know, to me, it's like there's there's a big difference between the candidates. I mean, some people think there's not but there's instruments, but I think that the difference can sometimes get sort of erased a little bit because of the fact that they're both these like super old white dudes, right? And so even people who normally would be like, Well, I'm not going to, you know, I don't want to vote for Trump. I want to vote for somebody else. And they'd be like, Biden, you know, same old black guy doesn't get it, you know, doesn't understand like, whatever and so I think that we see this sort of like detachment, because Because government and law enforcement tends to be more conservative, more traditional, the wheels tend to turn much more slowly. Yeah, for sure. Representation tends to be much more slowly that there doesn't, I mean, I think like electing women is good, you know, like voting is good, like, make sure that people when people get into office that are going to represent you more accurately. All that is important, but I feel like there's less, it can be frustrating to see sort of less movement or shift in those organizations than we do and like educational or media organizations just because they tend to move a little bit faster. So I think, you know, the answer that question is Yeah, but all those things can be enforcement, but also there's room to like, kind of push back and kind of Yeah,
for sure, for sure. Um, so do you have you identified like any recent trends or developments that you find particularly concerning or even encouraging and like kind of the fight against misogyny?
Yeah, there's always always both right. Because always, yeah. Yes, I mean, I think, you know, for me, the overturning of dogs, the overturning of Roe v Wade, not dogs, which would overturn Roe v Wade, and which I think set into motion a lot of a lot of activity at the state level with regard to women's reproductive rights. Yeah, that was a big setback.
I cried the day that came out. I remember I cried so
hard. Yeah. Unfortunately was with a lot of other women. We could kind of support each other but yeah, it was a big. That was a big setback. I think the flip side of that is that it's also become really clear how politically unpopular that was. Yeah. And I think it's been a real galvanizing force for getting women and and people who love women or love people with ovaries or you know, reproductive systems to kind of get out and be a little bit more like vocal about that. I think that I mean, personally, I will say I'm a little terrified about the upcoming collections election and what's going to happen and what that might mean. I am
to think a lot of us are just like choosing not to think about that's like in a few months, it's fine. Yeah, I'm not gonna stress about
it. That is negative, but I will say that at a sort of odd level. And I do think that like, I mean, you know, I think that Women's Studies students some in some ways self select to the awesome so I might have a biased sample teaching, really, genuinely gives me hope for the future because and I also have kids I have kids who are in high school. And so in interacting with my kids and their friends and the students that I teach, you know, I really see so much more recognition of systems of oppression and privilege and how that works and so much more willingness to be inclusive of all different kinds of bodies. And genders and sexualities and political positions. I just think that, to me, there's clear movement forward generationally speak. Oh, yeah. And, you know, my kids and my students are much more progressive and sort of able to talk about stuff and articulate about these systems and eager to sort of change things for the better. And so I I sort of tend to take the position that if we can just not like explode the world before like Yellowstone a recent charge of stuff. Yeah, we'll be okay. Yeah. Um, so that's, so I think that there, you know, it's like, it's like anytime you can see these sort of forces that are I think looming and threats that are on the horizon and that are currently existing against, but it's not totally, I don't despair, because I think there are lots and lots of people. And I think, you know, as people kind of die out as the old ones kind of die out or as things become clearer, like, yeah, you know, there is I think there's hope. I just think, you know, it's always a precarious time to be alive and right now, in some ways, feels particularly precarious with global warming and sort of fascism on the rise and, you know, women's rights being sort of stuck down and I you know, there's that stuff but yeah, also, there's there's so yeah,
and I do feel like generally, generationally, I have kind of seen like, there's certain social issues I feel like people my age just like aren't like don't put, it's like not even like tear about it's just like it doesn't even faze them, like I feel like you know, being queer about it. Like being a part of the LGBTQ plus community isn't like as big of a deal. As I mean, even my friends that are more conservative and they, they just like, they don't they don't know exactly, I
mean, I'm like when I was in high school in college, I mean, I definitely you know, I have my degrees in theater or like I have to study so I mean, I've always been pretty chill with, you know, everybody. Yeah, but like, I think sort of, generally socially, like, you know, people weren't comfortable coming out there was much more punishment now. Exactly. For some of the patriarchy like you got punished for being queer and not conforming to gender norms. Yeah, now with like, my kids, I see like, with my kids, I see like, you like they have friends who use their pronouns, you know, every month or like, you know, are still just like, are they queer? Are they gender? Are
they non binary? Yeah, exactly. And like, it's just like an everyday Yeah, it's
just like, oh, you know, they're exploring their identity not and I feel like what's even
I mean, my sister is an eighth grade. Um, so she's like, kind of on the cusp of like, Gen Alpha. Like she was born like a year before like Gen Alpha technically started. So I consider her more that than like, Gen Z. Right. But I feel like kind of her generation are even more Yeah, like they just like they don't see like certain things that I feel like older. No, exactly. And
what's interesting to me though, is that I do hear from from both my kids like social circles and for my students that there are some ways in which, you know, like, kids are being able to come up to their grandparents and their grandparents like, cool want some candy, where their parents are the ones that are like, ah, like, even it's like, if you go forward a couple generations or even back a couple of different generations, people are like, it's all good. And yeah,
exactly. So that my grandparents arguably have become like more liberal aging, which is so bizarre because yeah, like Old Post old people. pretty conservative. Yeah, exactly.
The more like conservative you get, but I feel like that's too for workers maybe yeah, and and maybe for some of the older Gen Xers although as an ultra Max, right, like, most of the people I know are definitely getting more radical the older they get.
Yeah, and work and stuff. No, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Um, so kind of in your research or observations, have you noticed any generally racial differences in attitudes toward misogyny? If so, how do you think these differences impact our efforts to address it?
So I think this is exactly what we're just talking about where I think that yeah, I think that as we get you know, as the younger generations kind of rise up and are taking more more power and more authority, that we are seeing better recognition of vixen both misogyny, better understanding of rape culture and the ways in which that works. More efforts to like believe women, right, so even with the like, me two movements and then the hashtag not all men and the hashtag Yes, all women and all the kinds of things. Yeah, I mean, I think like that couldn't have happened 2010 20 years ago, yeah, wouldn't have been space for it. And so as toxic as sort of online spaces can be for that stuff. And it can be super, super toxic. It's also like that's given us a way to sort of connect with other people because I think that one of the ways that patriarchy and misogyny really end up end up reinforcing is because they make you feel isolated, right, like they make you feel like you're the only one that says you're not normal. It's your fault, right? You should be embarrassed about and not talk to anybody about it. Yeah, where when you get it something like the hashtag me too. It's like oh, shit, like, like you were saying your time on on here, like, literally don't know, a single person who identifies as female who's over the age of like, 18 that hasn't had some fun at the door. Yeah, whether it's, you know, somebody punching her abs or somebody like, you know, cat calling or I mean you know like, maybe it's a little thing in common. And I think. One thing that meets you did was make even dudes be like, Oh, I didn't. Oh, you too. Oh, wait, everybody all want to know literally all the women I know. So I think that that's, that's that's a generational shift and I think that there is, I mean there's always a backlash, right? Like you'd kind of go one step forward two steps back and so we're seeing that happen with dogs and stuff like that but I do think that you know, with each successive generation, there are signs that we make, right. And so, you know, if we think of the arc of our spending towards justice, Martin Luther King Junior's raise. I mean, I do feel like that is happening, although not assassinating you and obviously there are so, you know, I think that we're in a period right now of backlash where it sort of is like the people that have been in power and that had been benefiting from this system of patriarchy are freaking out because they're starting to not so much yeah. And that they're lashing out because of that, and that is happening, because a lot of them are still in positions of power that's having this big effect. But it's like, in some ways, I feel like that almost is symptomatic of changes come in, right. Like they're getting freaked out because they see it on the rise and yeah, they're not always going to be in you know, in positions of power that they're now Yeah, for sure. Okay, so
last question. With the rise of social media, how has misogyny manifested in digital spaces? And what do you think can be done to create a safer and more inclusive online environment for women?
This is such such a good question. I think it's really, really important. I mean, I think you'll find examples of misogyny or social spaces we can think of GamerGate right? This this whole thing for women in the gaming community that is still holding the gaming community. And then we can think of things like like me too, and the backlash against me too. And also just what we were talking about earlier with you know, influencer culture and the promotion of harmful body and physical and visual standards for women, you know, bodies and for the ways that we treat women. And then you know, media spaces in general can be sort of toxic. But I think where again, where I find hope in this is that if we talk about it right, like if we share Hey, what are you seeing on or did you see this like super weird thing on Tik Tok? Or, what did you think about this and also share like, Hey, I just follow this person who's amazing because they blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like, we need to get smart about algorithms basically, is what it is and we need to start sort of recognize that we're not getting fed neutral material, right? We're getting fed. We're getting fed material, a specific agenda, but the algorithm algorithm is privileged. In some ways, like, you know, social media algorithms are similar to patriarchy, they kind of invisible. You don't know exactly how they're working, but they're definitely having an agenda and pushing stuff to you, right. So once you kind of recognize that and get even just a really kind of baseline, understanding that if you like are up, you know, grading certain stuff and downgrading other stuff or seeking out certain people to follow and like blocking certain other people. That does educate the algorithm into what you want and it is possible to make your feed more of a sort of wholesome, you know, supportive space. And I think some of it is you know, I try to talk about that in all the classes that I teach like, hey, what you know, who are just selling social media, what is how do you feel that you're on it? What are you trying to avoid or, you know, whatever and, and just talking about it as possibility because I think that that has a ripple effect, right? Because it makes those those kinds of healthy like wholesome people that you're following, more popular, which means more people are like to see like it's, you know, you can really have an effect not just on your own feed, but on also what gets promoted out to other beats. So, getting more savvy about that stuff, because certainly the people that are creating the content are super savvy about it. And then some of it, I think, is also just, you know, again, we have now that social media has been around for a minute, we are getting more data about like, what's harmful about it, how it can be useful. And so I think education has a lot, you know, educational spaces really have the duty to be like, you know, here's what we know. And here's what we don't know and we should be talking about this and thinking about it and, and maybe rewarding people for spending less time on social media and, you know, maybe disincentivizing them from, you know, there's all kinds of ways you can do that. And I think I think that's one of the biggest that we're in right now.
Okay, for sure. So do you have any final thoughts, opinions, questions, because let's face
it, I think we've covered you know, I think I'm really excited that you're doing this work. I think it's so important for this to be talked about and I think I think getting a more sophisticated understanding of misogyny and how it works sort of in everyday spaces. And even in little micro versions of itself is powering through not even just for women, but really for everybody who is affected by misogyny and sexism, which is because we're also getting it so. So yeah, just kudos to you and I'm really glad that we could have this conversation. Thank you. Great. Okay.