Follow TV Tropes

Following

Female Misogynist

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tsahm_tp.png
Enforcing 1950s gender stereotypes, one mind control satellite at a time.

"I am most anxious to enlist everyone who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of 'Women's Rights,' with all its attendant horrors... Were women to 'unsex' themselves by claiming equality with men, they would become the most hateful, heathen, and disgusting of beings and would surely perish without male protection."

A female character who hates women and views them as inferior, either to men or to herself. Typically comes in a few variations:

  • The "Honorary" Dude — A Ladette who is One Of The Guys and a firm believer of Real Women Don't Wear Dresses. When she wants to insult a man she'll call him a "girl," "sissy," "bitch," "pussy," and so on. She also will make and laugh at overtly misogynistic jokes (possibly in a misguided bid for male approval, possibly because she actually feels that way). She likely also prefers traditionally masculine pursuits, and will denigrate women (and men) who don't enjoy the same. People will remind her that she's a girl herself, but she will deny it — or consider herself an "honorary dude" because she's Not Like Other Girls (i.e. she's "better" than the other girls, in her mind). She's also known as a "pick-me girl" when it's clear that she's doing all this for male approval.
  • The Reactionary — A woman who is very traditionally feminine and believes that women should Stay in the Kitchen. Often appearing as an extremely conservative housewife, she thinks that women are inferior to men and that she's "one of the good ones" who knows her proper place. She doesn't literally hate women, of course, since she fully identifies as one herself, but she will look down on women who try to "act like men" and will probably agree with the Madonna-Whore Complex. In Western media she is often The Fundamentalist who follows an extremely strict interpretation of her religion (especially where gender roles are concerned). In Asian media, this often intersects with My Beloved Smother — a mother of a daughter who believes that All Men Are Perverts and paedophiles who want to ruin her "little girl". So she denies her education and/or a career, isolates her from the world, and makes her believe that Sex Is Evil and that if she acts like a "good, submissive woman" she won't get raped. Ironically, expect her to force her daughter into an Arranged Marriage with the very kind of man she warned her daughter about all her life (often her cousin or uncle) when she reaches adulthood.
  • The Sex-Negative Nelly — A Straw Feminist who believes All Men Are Perverts and that male sexuality (if not sexuality in general) is inherently degrading to women, so she sees femininity and female sexual freedom itself as nothing but a detriment to women. Her views of what a "true" independent woman should be revolve around this mindset, and any woman who doesn't fit her narrow standards is, in her eyes, a deluded victim of the Patriarchy at best, or a pandering sellout who is only interested in male validation at worst. Expect Slut-Shaming and distaste for more traditionally feminine women.
  • The Nerdy Bully — A woman who leans towards more intellectual interests and hobbies (often in male-dominated fields), viewing herself as superior to other women for embracing intellectualism. Particularly prone to blanket black-and-white categorism — women who prefer more traditionally feminine pursuits are dumb Stepford robots; women who prefer the same kind of things that they do but also embrace feminine pursuits are fake and only superficially interested in what they like for the purposes of receiving male attention and validation; women who like more traditionally masculine pursuits (particularly athletic ones) are Dumb Jocks, and so on and so forth. May exhibit some Straw Feminist tendencies, but in a very immature and self-centered way — they claim to back female empowerment and breaking down gender-based barriers, but only in a way that does not make them feel threatened and allows them to continue to maintain their adolescent sense of superiority. Expect them to emit phrases such as "I'm not like other girls! Other girls are shallow bimbos, but I'm different because I like The Avengers!"
  • The Mean Girl — Female bullies who value "normalcy" and often hate girls that stand out. Their targets tend to be women who, in their minds, are Not Like Other Girls (often using this term verbatim as a pejorative). Usually, this means any woman who is gender-non-conforming, especially female nerds. However, the particularly cruel also do this to women with neurological conditions because they are less social and "don't behave like real women"note , so bullying them is okay because it is done to "correct" them into "embracing their femininity." In older works, they intersect with The Reactionary. However, nowadays, they often intersect with Straw Feminists — believing that gender-non-conforming women can't exist on their own, that they all must be Honorary Dudes or Nerdy Bullies, and that any woman who isn't stereotypically feminine must hate her own gender. They might intersect with Honorary Dudes as well if they also have some boyish interests and want to gain the privilege of being the "token girl" in male dominated groups. Depending on the depiction and the time period (especially anything pre-2010s), there may be homophobia involved, i.e., that any woman who is not sufficiently feminine must clearly be a "dyke" and will likely be bullied by these types for it. Despite the name, this variant isn't exclusive to young people — female authority figures who were former bullies in childhood also come under this bracket. Expect them to invoke Wanted a Gender-Conforming Child and/or Why Couldn't You Be Different?.
  • The Bigot — These women believe that only women from their race/ethnic group, sexual orientation, gender identity, or socioeconomic background are the "right" kind of women and the rest are inferior. Her bigotry may not overtly carry over to men; she may praise, admire (or even fetishize) men from other backgrounds, often seeking their approval to validate her superiority over women of the same origins. Her perception of a "real woman" is centered upon what is appropriate for her culture or ethnicity, and any others are "doing it wrong". When they are from "progressive" countries, they believe that foreign women are just too dang oppressed and "unliberated" to actually know what they really want (expect them to invoke Condescending Compassion or White Man's Burden). And on the opposite end, they may see women from more "progressive" countries as being ungrateful troublemakers who've lost sight of what "true womanhood" actually means. In short, when this sort of woman says that she seeks sisterhood and empowerment, she only means "for women like me".
  • The Yaoi Fangirl — They think Guy on Guy Is Hot and far more idealized than heterosexual relationships. May overlap with Nerdy Bully but the major differences between the two are their interests and their friends circle: the female nerd bullies are Insufferable Geniuses who only hang out with The Smart Guy and fandom culture isn't a major requirement, meanwhile the fangirls choose to hang out with gay guys (which may overlap with Effeminate Misogynistic Guy) or fellow fangirls with similar ships. Their view on femininity is varied from neutral to positive depending on their favorite ships, even glorify if it's done for The Woobie Uke Sensitive Guy, but on the other hand, women with stereotypically uke traits are portrayed negatively for ruining their Wish-Fulfillment of their perpetually single status. Even though they squeal over yaoi and gay guys, they are utterly repulsed by yuri and lesbians, and they believe that lesbians are predatory.

Subtrope of Boomerang Bigot. In the rare case that she also applies the misogyny to herself as well (through self-hatred and/or needless self-imposed limitations) it also becomes Internalized Categorism. Can overlap with Does Not Like Men, despite seemingly being mutually exclusive. As women holding bigoted views towards other women doesn't mean they can't hold (and in some cases, may even stem from) similarly bigoted views towards men as well. Compare and contrast with Effeminate Misogynistic Guy, except that the contradiction is much more direct. See also Territorial Smurfette, where the female lead will act antagonistic towards a new woman in the group.

Sadly, this is sometimes Truth in Television, but that's all we're going to say about the subject.

noreallife


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • Kei's mom from The Beautiful Skies of Houou High, especially because she sends her lesbian daughter to an all-guys' school to "fix" her. Made worse because the story seems to take her side.
  • BeautyPop has several characters and stories dealing with how internalized misogyny affects women and their relationships with each other but only one Female Misogynist, Chisami. Her cuteness makes her popular among the boys in her class, who then dismiss or berate the other girls for not being more like her. Rather than blame the boys for their bad attitude, the girls blame Chisami for making them look bad, leading to a boycott (girlcott?) of her birthday party and to bullying her for "seducing" their crushes. Chisami responds by swearing off female company altogether, being rude and insulting to girls and women and sweet when given attention by boys and men. She starts to get over this after developing a crush on Kiri (who she first mistakes for a boy) but even then she refers to Kiri as a "prince" and avoids acknowledging her womanhood.
  • Downplayed in Farewell, My Dear Cramer: Onda initially wants to play on a boys' soccer team because she regards girls' soccer as being too low-skilled to be worth her time. She changes her mind after meeting other girls who are as talented and passionate as she is.
  • In the original Fruits Basket manga and 2019 anime, Akito Sohma despises women, and says they are "sneaky". A good part of this is because she was raised as a man and presents as one. The trope is discussed and possibly deconstructed through her, since Akito's hatred of women seems to focus less on the female gender itself, and more specifically on a specific group of women who are romantically involved with the Zodiac men, thus potentially stealing them away (Kisa, Rin, Kana, Tohru, etc - only Kagura seems to be unharmed). This was also showcased by Akito's very bad relationship with her mother Ren, the person who ordered to have Akito raised and presented as a man out of petty jealousy because Akito was a Daddy's Girl, and then constantly poisoned her with her own hatred until Akito completely lost it. The character herself has a pretty good relationship with the female maids, particularly one who comforted her after her father's death; not to mention, after the Zodiac curse ends and the now Heel Face Turned Akito comes to terms with the Zodiac members separating, she is far less aggressive towards the women she previously hated, while also being clearly aware that she has hurt them thoroughly and at least one of them (Rin) will never be able to forgive her. This doesn't apply in the 2001 anime, since Akito was accidentally Gender Flipped into a man, due to the 2001 anime airing long before the manga revealed she's actually female.
  • In Genkaku Picasso, Kotone Ogura idealizes yaoi relationships explicitly because they are relationships without women because she was cruelly bullied by her female classmates in grade school for being seen as a slut.
  • In Innocent, the main character's grandmother is a strong-willed and confident Iron Lady but is also eventually revealed to be firmly accepting and believing in the era's status quo, to the point that she becomes furious at her granddaughter stepping onto the execution platform to aid her brother because she doesn't believe that men and women are equals.
  • In No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular! Tomoko initially regards her female classmates as "sissies", "sluts", and "bimbos" to ease her inferiority complex. It's toned down as the series goes on, though she still doesn't think highly of other girls besides her best friend.

    Comic Books 
  • Animosity: The Headmistress of the Walled City, who has all women of child-bearing age put into a permanent state of sedation and then inseminates them. "Whoever controls the women controls the world."
  • Casual Fling eventually reveals that Alex Miles is married to a woman named Brooke who is part of his plans to seduce successful women, film them while having sex and then blackmail them for money before posting the video online anyway just to ruin their lives. It's also shown that both enjoy drugging women and raping them, and it's even implied that this is mostly Brooke's idea which Miles is just happy to go along with.
  • Emma Frost is a downplayed one but she still bullies, demeans, and patronizes many of the adult female members of the X-Men such as Jean Grey (even after she dies), Rogue and Kitty Pryde whenever the opportunity arises and gets little more than slight admonishment from Scott for it. The women Emma probably treats the best are the Stepford Cuckoos who just so happen to be clones of herself... yeah you work that one out.
  • Fem-Paragon, the alternate universe equivalent of Captain Paragon who tries to conquer the Earth in Femforce, has an extremely low opinion of all women other than herself.
  • In Powers, Walker asks his partner, Deena, whether she hates other policewomen. She disagrees and says she just doesn't like other women, period.
  • Teen Titans villain Angelica Smith (a.k.a Disruptor II) hated other women who she saw as being in the way of whatever she wanted. She would break other girls' teeth for candy and snapped her foster mother's neck when she thought she was an obstacle for her step father's love.
  • Alter from Y: The Last Man turns out to be one. She wants to die a soldier's death and is vocal about her belief that it would be dishonorable to do so at the hands of a woman.
  • Wonder Woman (1987): Kreel women in the Sangtee Empire have to prove themselves capable of passing as men and spewing the official misogynistic rhetoric of the empire before being allowed into society. There are signs however that only the nobles really care about this given that the revolution gets popular support and the Emperor is popular with the masses—not the nobles—despite the somewhat open secret among the kreel that she's a girl, who like other girls was raised in seclusion until she could pass as a man

    Fan Works 
  • In One Year, one of Yu Narukami's old friends, Hitomi Ayanokouji, has a mother who's like this. Mrs. Ayanokouji, who married into an extremely conservative and traditional family, strongly believes that women should Stay in the Kitchen and that her daughter should accept her Arranged Marriage, and so looks down on ambitious young women like Yu and Hitomi's mutual friend Sakura.
  • The females among The Prayer Warriors agree without hesitation with the men's belief that women are weaker than men and should be submissive to their husbands. Even worse, the canon female characters who become Prayer Warriors agree with them, even if it wouldn't be in character for them to do so.
  • The reason why Rosabella - heir to the Vongola and Decima candidate in Sky Rose refuses to admire her great-grandmother Daniela Vongola, who served as the Eight Boss to a Mafia Famiglia. As the Mafia is full of sexist jerks thinking female equates weakness, Daniela spent her entire reign trying to not be feminine, and that included treating other women as dirty sluts because she was better.
  • Every female Christian in Pokémon: Gospel Version is one of these, Misty being an especially bad one compared to her canonical counterpart.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • "She" of Antichrist performed research on misogyny throughout the centuries, and came to believe that women were tortured and killed because female nature is evil.
  • In Batman Returns, Selina Kyle's "Catwoman" rescues a woman from being assaulted in an alleyway only to admonish her for "Always waiting for some batman to save you". She does, however, coldly rebuke Penguin for killing a ditzy female hostage in their scheme to frame Batman.
  • Black Christmas (2019)
    • The patriarchal Professor Gelson reads a patriarchal-sounding quote from an author who turns out to be Dr. Camille Paglia. Paglia is actually a very controversial feminist author whom many other feminists consider to be the opposite of a feminist.
    • Helena turns out to be a traitor for the DKO frat, saying she'd rather live subservient to men.
  • The film Courage Under Fire Colonel Nat Serling is investigating whether helicopter pilot Captain Emma Walden deserves the Medal of Honor for her actions in the first Gulf War. When he interviews the members of Walden's crew, the wife of one crew member repeatedly insults Walden, making comments about her being "too butch", taking them into danger because she needed to be a hero, and starts to make a comment about "those women who want to be officers..." before her husband cuts her off, tells her to shut up and that she doesn't know what she's talking about.
  • Deranged: Ezra's domineering mother Amanda believes all other women to be sinful and perverted, with the exception of their neighbor Maureen, if only because she is fat and not conventionally attractive. When she dies, Maureen ends up becoming her son's first victim.
  • Enola Holmes: Ms. Harrison the boarding school owner thinks women are only good for getting married and raising children, insulting and slapping Enola for talking back to her.
  • Lori Spengler in Happy Death Day outright despises and slut-shames Tree for her affair with Dr. Butler because that's what she wanted to do.
  • House of Whipcord - a cult British film from the '70s - revolves around a disgraced former prison officer setting up an illegal prison to house women they don't think are being punished severely enough. The protagonist for example is a model who accidentally got a photo taken while she was nude in public. Notably the only male of the prison staff is a senile judge who seems to sincerely want the girls to reform.
  • Late Night (2019): The (female) host of the titular late-night show is accused of this. She's so offended by the accusation that she fires the person who said it and hires her only female writer, kicking off the plot of the movie.
  • The Phantom of Crestwood has Aunt Faith, who believes that a woman's sole purpose is to bear healthy sons for her husband and keep his family name alive.
  • In Psycho, Mrs. Bates raised Norman to hate and fear women who weren't her.
  • Claire Wellington from the remake of The Stepford Wives turns out to be responsible for the whole mess, blaming feminism for emasculating men.
  • Holly in They Live! supports the aliens who view human women as merely sex slaves and child-bearing cattle because the aliens give her plenty of money to sell out her own kind.

    Literature 
  • Angela Nicely: In “Girls United!”, Miss Boot is taken aback by a girl (Angela) joining the football team.
  • Anita Blake could be the Trope Namer for this one. Usually dresses in jeans and polo shirt, completely eschews makeup (but somehow always looks gorgeous), carries guns with an increasingly casual attitude towards shooting people who try to kill her/threaten her life/insult her in public/look at her funny, is surrounded by a male harem who are all forbidden to touch any other female so long as they are with her... after one of her early friendships is ended on a bizarre strawman incident, Anita is left with absolutely no female friends who are not subordinate to her in her massive multi-Pack/Coven hierarchy. Special props goes to her adventure in Las Vegas, where a female member of LVPD paves the way for a potentially lucrative sexual harassment for absolutely no reason at all. Entire online reviews have been devoted to Anita's blatant distaste for her own gender.
    • She will also remind anyone who listens that she's One of the Boys and insists that no one call her "girl" or "ma'am" and is actually happy when someone calls her a guy or a "son of a bitch." To even begin unpeeling the problems with this mentality would take years.
    • What makes this especially sad is that the early books of the series were widely applauded for featuring an incredibly strong female protagonist who could hold her own with tough, violent men. Unfortunately, one of the running themes now since Narcissus in Chains, the tenth book, is that anything feminine is weak and despicable and it's better to be seen as masculine.
  • Odile von Rothbart in The Black Swan has No Sympathy for the women her father keeps captive on the manor grounds, thinking they deserve it for being fickle and faithless. She believes that her loyalty, obedience, and unswerving devotion to her father makes her 'one of the good ones' in his eyes; she doesn't realize that to him she is just another swan until she’s forced to betray Odette; this leads to her Heel–Face Turn.
  • In Carrie, the title character's mother, Margaret White, is a loony religious fanatic who believes that all women are sinful and processes such as puberty, physical maturation, and menstruation are all signs that a woman has sinned and needs to repent. She abuses Carrie and locks her in a prayer closet frequently to pray for forgiveness, citing delusional interpretations of the Bible to justify her belief that Carrie is evil.
  • Ana of Fifty Shades of Grey hates more or less all women, as she suspects them of planning to steal her man. She acts as if her one friend, Kate, who is very kind to her, is a nuisance for being concerned about her relationship with the abusive Mr. Grey.
  • In Gone with the Wind it's often remarked upon that Scarlett O'Hara hates all other women except her mother, perceiving them as stupid creatures who exist as nothing but competition for male attention.
    If she knew little about men's minds, she knew even less about the minds of women, for they interested her less. She had never had a girlfriend, and never felt any lack on that account. To her, all women, including her two sisters, were natural enemies in pursuit of the same prey — man.
  • Gor:
    • Panther Girls despise female slaves and free women, seeing them as weak and inferior.
    • Free women hate female slaves out of jealousy, since free women typically must live in seclusion and cover their bodies and faces when out in public so that they don't get enslaved, while slave women aren't restricted in such a manner and aren't sexually and emotionally suppressed.
  • The Handmaid's Tale:
    • Serena Joy made a living as an advocate before Gilead took over, claiming that women should refrain from taking up careers and fighting for equal rights, and instead seek a life of blissful peace in servitude to their husbands. Of course, now that she has (or rather, has been forced into) everything she preached about, she's pissed. This is probably a Take That! against Phyllis Schlafly, who famously campaigned against the Equal Rights Amendment on the grounds that women should Stay in the Kitchen while herself being a lawyer and activist who didn't follow her own dictum.
    • Aunts, whose job is to train and indoctrinate the Handmaids. One incident has them Slut-Shaming a 14-year-old girl for being gang-raped, saying she led the rapists on.
  • Grace Winter, Villain Protagonist of The Lifeboat, is an interesting case. In theory, she's in favour of women's rights issues like universal suffrage (the book is set in 1914), but in practice, she holds every other female character she comes across in disgust and/or contempt... which becomes a plot point (and a serious problem) as the little group of survivors she's part of begins to divide itself into warring camps by gender.
  • Patricia Highsmith was famous for this: she even has a short story compilation titled Little Tales of Misogyny.
  • In Masques, Aralorn seems to be a mild case, judging by this one book. She looks down on women who "hate men", ignoring the fact that she lives in a patriarchy where women are forced into subservient roles, a fate she only escaped because her father, a nobleman, decided to let her run free. Aralorn seems blind to the privilege that both her unusually tolerant father and her noble birth gave to her. She interacts with only one female character in a meaningful way, a little girl whom she helps with a doll. Other than that, she seeks out men for company.
  • Agatha Trunchbull of Matilda is a butch Evil Headmistress who hates all children, but she is particularly repulsed by little girls.
    "I have discovered...that a bad girl is a far more dangerous creature than a bad boy. What's more, they're much harder to squash. Nasty dirty things, little girls are. Glad I never was one."
  • In the science fiction short story The Monsters, the females of the village are thrilled to be given no more than twenty-five days to live before being killed by their husbands. Because the birth rate of the tribe is always eight females to one male, and killing is used to curb the population.
  • In Monstrous Regiment, this trope is used to subvert and discuss Women Are Wiser. Polly mentions early on that about half the elders of her village are women and they tend to enforce Borogravia's extremely misogynistic culture, if anything, even more enthusiastically than the men. Later on in the book, we learn that about a third to half of the Borogravian army's high command are made up of women pretending to be men, and the only thing they've done is kept up the country's misogynistic traditions that restricts the army only to men and continued the Hopeless War — Jackrum mentions that "the army's made men out of them". The book ends on a Bittersweet Ending as that same high command are about to start another war.
  • In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Julia says that she hates women because, under the Party's rule, they've pretty much all been brainwashed into being obedient, submissive idiots. Shame that the same applies to everyone in the book. Mostly.
  • Violet Blake or Remnants, of the self-applied variety; she is a Proper Lady who always wears dresses, and believes that women should Stay in the Kitchen, including herself. She always defers to the male leaders of the group and has contempt for Action Girls like 2Face.
  • Jane Rizzoli of the Rizzoli & Isles series. Maura Isles seems to be the only woman she has any respect or affection for. All others earn nothing but contempt from her for being beautiful (making her friendship with Maura almost shocking, as Maura is an attractive woman), or daring to display a hint of weakness, fear, or any (supposedly) other typical female trait, or conversely, for refusing to show any vulnerability at all—in the first book, she takes an instant dislike to Dr. Catherine Cordell not only because she's pretty, but because she refuses to break down while recounting the night she was raped and nearly killed and she later makes an inexcusably crude comment regarding her partner's relationship with her—"falling for the same thing every guy falls for. Tits and ass." She would have raised hell with a man who said that, but somehow, it's acceptable for her to act this way. This character trait was tossed for the TV series. Not surprising, given that Rizzoli is played by the gorgeous Angie Harmon.
  • Camille Preaker, the narrator of Sharp Objects, has an intense suspicion and dislike toward any woman or teenage girl that is traditionally feminine and insists that young girls all hate each other while also calling her only maternal figure "catty and shallow." On the flip side, she gets along much better with men despite being a victim of sexual violence and assault by her male peers while she was still a girl and heavily disassociates herself from what happened to her. One of her most notable moments is when she meets John Keene for the first time and the narration waxes on about how pretty she finds him while it's sandwiched between insulting his girlfriend and wondering if she can find a way to get rid of her so they can be alone.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire: Even in as deeply a patriarchal setting as Westeros, Cersei Lannister wins the gold medal. Utterly convinced that women in general are inferior, she believes herself to be the sole exception to the rule. Cersei often attributes men's lack of approval to simple misogyny and women's incompetence to their gender, even blaming her own flaws on her gender. Yet for all of Cersei's posturing, she is sadly the closest thing to a Hysterical Woman the setting has to offer, and as her father bluntly points out, is not nearly as smart as she likes to think she is. Tellingly, the only female Cersei truly loves is her daughter Myrcella, who she perceives as a younger version of herself.
  • Bella of Twilight fame is very much this - she loathes any women who ever acts on her emotions (despite acting almost exclusively on her own emotions) but excuses any inappropriate male behavior with the "he was angry/upset/overwhelmed" excuse. Women are expected to act rationally every single time, but men are allowed to indulge in their emotions. The only female characters who escape this are ones who worship her (and even then, only female vampires).
  • Yoruka in Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle starts out as this, due to serving the will of the Old Arcadia Empire (in which women were treated as second-class citizens). She prioritises Lux over Lux's sister Airi, despite both being survivors of the Empire. Ironically, she shows herself to be vastly more competent than her previous masters (the Arcadian emperor and Dobar, both men) and slightly superior to her current master Lux in combat. She grows out of this with time.
  • The politically radicalized post-apocalyptic world of Victoria includes both versions.
    • First, there is Azania, ruled by techno-progressive Amazons who hate and fear men, but also despise traditional women for being weak and submissive. They even have a law banning the wearing of dresses, which they consider a symbol of female slavery under the old patriarchy they revolted against.
    • And then there is the Northern Confederation, their enemies, whose Women's Auxiliary troops (who guard the Azanian prisoners) are the "Conservative Housewife" type and waver between pitying the Azanians as poor, deluded victims of feminism and castigating them as vile, unnatural hussies.
  • In The Wasp Factory, Frank, a girl raised as a boy, despises women and sees them as powerless. If only Frank could realise she's also a girl...
  • In Wolf Hall, there's a scene where Thomas Cromwell is talking to Anne Boleyn about his dining with Thomas More the previous night, and when she asks if she was mentioned, Cromwell slyly tells her that she wasn't, since the topic of conversation was "The Vices and follies of women" (More is a Straw Misogynist which is one of several traits Cromwell dislikes about him). Anne responds, "I suppose you joined it? It's true anyway. Most women are foolish and vicious. I have seen it. I have lived among the women too long."
  • His Dark Materials: In The Golden Compass, Lyra is scornful of women Scholars, calling them sad and dowdy and comparing them to dogs walking on their hind legs (not considering that there might be a reason other than male superiority for why men's Colleges are grander and more prestigious). By The Amber Spyglass, her perspective has changed and she's willing to go to a women's College herself.

    Live-Action TV 
  • 30 Rock: Colleen Donaghy, Jack's mother, has shades of this, she constantly criticizes the feminist movement, and holds it responsible for the destruction of western society.
  • In an episode of 227 where Lester needs an appendectomy, a young woman comes to talk to his wife Mary and get her signature on the consent form. She soon reveals that she is the surgeon who will be operating on him, prompting all five of the women—Mary, Rose, Sandra, Pearl, and Brenda—to have a downright horrified reaction—"SURGEON!"—as if the idea of a female doctor is utterly shocking and abhorrent to them. Even worse, an already apprehensive Mary is clearly even more reluctant to sign the consent form now that she knows his doctor is a woman. It's pretty bad considering that they've never been portrayed as women who hate other women, yet their reaction to a female doctor is just as sexist as any man.
  • Agent Carter: Miriam Fry, the landlord of the Griffith Hotel where Peggy stays. Her number one rule is that men are not allowed above the first floor, because she believes young women to be naive virgins who are too emotional to control their urges. One tenant who is caught breaking that rule is promptly shamed in front of the others the next morning and then evicted from the hotel. As the series is set in The '40s, it shows that misogynistic men weren't the only ones holding back women socially.
  • The Big Bang Theory: Penny in the earlier seasons, who was a Territorial Smurfette who made disparaging and slut-shaming remarks about other women despite being no virgin herself. It has been gradually toned down ever since she was given female friends in the form of Bernadette and Amy, but it still pops up on rare occasions.
  • Big Love: Nicki is a ''woman's place is in the home" type, having been raised in a fundamentalist Mormon sect that marries off girls as young as thirteen to adult men, bringing her into conflict with her more liberal "sister-wife" Barb.
  • Crank Yankers: Katie Kimmel's fictionalized persona in puppet form shows signs of being this, insulting other women for their genitalia. Cammie is an even bigger one though than Katie, as Cammie believes she's the most beautiful woman and calls other women just to tell (or bully) them about how ugly she thinks they are without even meeting/seeing them.
  • Criminal Minds The Serial Killer in the episode "The Perfect Storm".
  • The Crown: Margaret Thatcher tells a surprised Queen Elizabeth II that she won't be hiring any female cabinet ministers because women are in general too emotional to hold high office (Truth in Television; Thatcher was staunchly anti-feminist).
  • Game of Thrones:
    • Cersei Lannister has as much of a distaste for other women as her book counterpart, which she showed most clearly in the episode “Blackwater”: Obliged to sit in the dark and wait out a siege with the rest of the fearful women, she does nothing but drink wine and mock Sansa and other women for their helplessness. She sickeningly jokes what will happen to them if the city gets raided, all while not acknowledging she’s in the same boat as them. However, her father Tywin later shoots her down when she thinks that he's not giving her a greater part in the Lannister regime because of her gender.
      Tywin: I don't distrust you because you're a woman. I distrust you because you're not as smart as you think you are. You've allowed that boy to ride roughshod over you and everyone else in this city.
    • Arya Stark also qualifies, though in her case it's less outright "misogyny" and more a clear statement that she does not like traditionally feminine pursuits, or girls who set a lot of store by such things.
      Tywin: Aren't most girls interested in the pretty maidens from the songs? Jonquil, flowers in her hair?
      Arya: Most girls are idiots.
      Tywin: [laughs] You remind me of my daughter.
    • Brienne of Tarth is in a similar mold to Arya, and after she and Jaime Lannister are captured she accuses him of whining like a woman (though this is partially out of her own aggravation at their circumstances, and in Jaime's defense he had just gotten his right hand cut off by a disgruntled soldier).
    • House of the Dragon: Alicent Hightower is an interesting internalized version of "The Reactionary". Although she and Rhaenyra Targaryen - her childhood friend and later stepdaughter - both must navigate their positions in a male-dominated political structure, over time she resents the fact that Rhaenyra constantly flouts their society's expectations of female behavior and is seemingly rewarded for it. Meanwhile, everything Alicent does from being married to King Viserys (Rhaenyra's father) onward is in service to the men around her, be it her husband, her father Otto, or her son Aegon, who is Rhaenyra's rival for the throne. Acting the Proper Lady, she constantly debases herself and puts herself in deliberately vulnerable positions, allowing her male cohorts to take advantage.
  • Father Ted: Played for Laughs with housemaid Mrs Doyle, notably in the earlier episodes. Being an evangelical Catholic woman (albeit one who can boss Bishops around) she shows annoyance bordering on contempt for women who aren’t nuns or married. In “And God Created Woman” she openly dislikes Polly Clarke a novelist who writes erotic fiction and in “Grant Unto Him Eternal Rest" she spitefully announces visitor businesswoman Laura Sweeney to Ted and Dougal as “a woman in a skirt” and is the first one to start laughing disbelievingly when Laura states she’s the solicitor. Averted in later episodes such as “Rock a Hula Ted” where Mrs Doyle gets along with other women including feminist musician Niamh Connolly.
  • The Handmaid's Tale:
    • Serena Joy is a hardcore fundamentalist who believes women's primary function is in the home and to make babies, and held a key role in shaping the deeply oppressive society of Gilead.
    • Aunt Lydia also qualifies as she seems keen on Slut-Shaming, Victim-Blaming women who've been raped. and breaking down other women to become obedient and submissive to the commanders.
  • Homicide: Life on the Street:
    • Detective Kay Howard is unable to relate to other women from a lifetime of suppressing her femininity to be one of the guys, and is the squad member most openly bigoted against female cops.
    • Played darkly with Pamela Wilgis, a Serial Killer who murders female, Catholic activists because she feels that their attempts to help the community are a slight against God because Wilgis believes that all women should Stay in the Kitchen.
  • How I Met Your Mother: Robin Scherbatsky definitely fits into this trope, there is a whole episode in the final season about Lily being Robin's only female friend because Robin can't stand the company of other women.
  • iCarly (2021): Argentina Woolridge from the episode "iNeed Space". She presents herself as a feminist icon who uses her LeapIn club to propel women into business. In reality, she's a cult leader who collects data from her customers and sells it to big corporations. She calls Carly a "little bitch" and goes on a rant about how stupid and gullible women are. Carly even refers to her as a "woman-hating fraud".
  • The IT Crowd: In "The Internet is Coming", a complicated series of events results in Jen being labelled a female misogynist. Her every attempt to correct this misapprehension only compounds the problem. Hilarity Ensues.
  • It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: The only friends Dee Reynolds seems to have are the Gang (all of which are men who constantly beat her down), and any attempt at making friends with women usually is either built off of a means to an end or quickly devolves into Comically Lopsided Rivalry due to her Hair-Trigger Temper and envy towards them for their own successes. Artemis and the Waitress are the only women in the series who could be seen as anything resembling friends to Dee, and even then, Artemis associates with her largely out of convenience and will gladly screw her over at the drop of a hat, while the Waitress is largely a matter of proximity and can barely hide her contempt for Dee most days.
  • Last Man Standing: Downplayed by Eve Baxter. She is a feminist and has female friends, but she gets annoyed by her Girly Girl mother and sisters and hates most stereotypical feminine things.
  • Law & Order: Criminal Intent: Downplayed with Bobby Goren's Archenemy Nicole Wallace. His Sherlock Scan of her pegs Wallace as hating other women as an extension of hating her mother for turning a blind eye to her childhood abuse; Goren then reflects that said abuse means she doesn't think much of men, making her a case of Hates Everyone Equally.
  • The Office (US): Phyllis, who at one point claims that she does not want a female manager for numerous offensive reasons, all the while repeatedly claiming that she is not sexist. This one is actually Truth in Television, as many studies have shown that women generally would rather not work for a female boss.
  • Royal Pains: Emily Peck accuses Divya of being "one of those women who doesn't like other women". Divya is disturbed by this, but eventually concludes that actually, "I'm one of those women who doesn't like you."
  • Rumpole of the Bailey: During one of his complaints about the various unreasonable judges he has to work with, Rumpole singles out a female judge as a worse male chauvinist than any of the men.
  • The Sopranos: Carmela Soprano can't stand seeing other women achieve professional and personal success and will tear them down to make her feel better about herself. Meadow's friend Hunter got kicked out of college and Carmela silently mocked her for it. Then Hunter tells Carmela she straightened up and got into med school and you can see the light go out of Carmela's eyes.
  • Squid Game: Han Mi-nyeo tends to belittle the other women while sucking up to male players, claiming to be better at games than the "bony" Sae-byeok.
  • Star Trek
    • Janice Lester in the original series episode, "Turnabout Intruder".
    • In a real-life meta example, the strong, female second-in-command from the original pilot didn't make the series because the women in the 1964 test audience viewed her as "pushy" and said she shouldn't be trying so hard to fit in with the men. When her personality and position were given to a male alien, however, said character became one of the most beloved in television history.
  • Veep: Selina Meyer is one of these, especially as she starts her comeback presidential bid in season 7. She has very few female friends and is nicer to the men who work for her than the women. She even tells another female politician on the debate stage to, "Man up!" She’s ostensibly a parody of female politicians who use feminism as a tool for their own ends but don’t actually mean it. Her party was never outright stated in all seven seasons but she's heavily implied to be a Democrat which furthers the parody.

    Manhwa 
  • In Boy of the Female Wolf the cross-dressing (straight) female protagonist dislikes females because her mom left her when she remarried and her female classmates are shallow airheads. The only woman she sort of respected was her grandma, and she "left" her by dying, forcing her to move in with her mom.

    Music 
  • Marina Diamandis was accused of being this when she dropped the song "Girls", in which Marina states that women are intellectually inferior to men and that they are all shallow, gossiping, weight-obsessed bimbos. Marina seems to forget she's a woman herself, with the first line proudly proclaiming "Look like a girl, but I think like a guy."

    Subverted when Marina realised how fucked up that was and apologized for the song, confessing that it "made her cringe listening to it" and that any chauvinistic interpretations were "Not what I meant at all". She claimed that she has a "definite feminist side" and actually was trying to write an empowering song for women, but Executive Meddling warped it into something else entirely. While she still likes to play the "air-headed, man-eating female" POV in songwriting and in her music videos, she's become a lot more girl positive, even penning some songs which highlight the problems of objectification and Slut-Shaming in her music.
  • The P!nk song "Stupid Girls" merely encourages young girls and women to cultivate their minds more. The video on the other hand has an angel associating stupidity with anything girly or traditionally feminine - while smartness is associated with things like playing football (traditionally masculine). The row of 'stupid' objects at the end are all symbols of femininity such as dolls, make-up, and pink things.
  • Taylor Swift:

    Myths & Religion 
  • Greek Mythology: Athena can occasionally act like one of these ("The Honorary Dude" mostly). She tends to help male humans over female ones, and once transformed her priestess Medusa into a monster for getting rapednote . She is not as vindictive as some of the other goddesses, towards men. Artemis once fed a guy to his own hounds because he accidentally saw her naked: Athena pardoned Tiresias for the same thing, granting him the gift of prophecy as compensation for having been blinded by the sight of her body.note  Depending on which version of the Arachne myth you know, Athena either supports the Double Standard (men can sleep around women should be chaste) or can't stand the idea of another woman being as skilled as she is (both behaviors typical of The Honorary Dude). In the Oresteia, she argues that killing a father is a worse sin than killing a mother. Yikes!
    • That being said of course, Athena's characterization is inextricably tied to the cultural practices of the city which bears her name: Athens. Athens was definitely the most repressive towards women out of all the major Greek city-states, even among the famously repressed Attic and Ionian states. Classical Athens had literal Fashion Police (the priests of Aphrodite), who could actually arrest immodestly dressed women on suspicion of being prostitutes (it was illegal for prostitutes to do business on the streets). This level of misogyny was in no way normal for Ancient Greece. Thus, Athena's depiction as a Female Misogynist in The Oresteia: a play written by an Athenian (Aeschylus), for an Athenian audience. In Ajax she also appears as a version of The Honorary Dude: she tortures Ajax, but on behalf of Odysseus. This is also probably the reason that Homer depicts her upholding the Double Standard in the Odyssey: even though this author goes out of his (or possibly her) way to point out Odysseus's immorality.

    Professional Wrestling 
  • Tasha Simone was of the opinion women didn't belong in pro wrestling. As in plural, she wanted to be the only woman wrestler and wrestle men until she retired. Simone softened on this stance sometimes, such as when she found she hated Su Yung enough to tag with other women against Yung, and when she thought MsChif could be molded into a minion, but Simone never let go of all her negative prejudices towards her own gender.
  • Ashley America, a reactionary "journalist" who became a professional wrestler in order to "expose" and end women's wrestling, or at least return to "American tradition" of only one women's match a card. She called promotions like Valkyrie Women's Pro immoral for depriving young starving male wrestlers of work and exposure.
  • Paige occasionally flirts with this, having disdain for anything too girly and claiming that the Girly Girl Bella Twins weren't "real women".
  • Brandi Lauren had this gimmick in EVOLVE, wanting to remove all women besides herself. This was a little confusing because WWN was still using the rest of its "family" shows to promote EVOLVE, including the all-women shows of SHINE. Lenny Leonard tried to reconcile continuity by describing Lauren as the least likeable woman in SHINE. Also, then SHINE Nova Champion Shotzi Blackheart took personal issue with Lauren's EVOLVE behavior, but we just heard about it from Leonard on SHINE shows, where Lauren was still beneath notice to titleholders.
  • Deceiving, exploiting, and abusing other women is one of Salina de la Renta's favorite pastimes, which she claims is morally justified because all women are lying bitches who would do the same to her if given the chance.
  • A.J. Lee even as a face defined herself as Not Like Other Girls, and upon a heel turn, described most of her opponents as "graceless mannequins". She had particular disdain for Total Divas, and repeatedly slut shamed the cast members.
  • Ronda Rousey when put against Nikki Bella. She described how the 'Diva Era' (in which the WWE product forced its women to have a Girliness Upgrade) as making "me sick to my stomach" - also slut shaming Nikki for her relationship with John Cena.

    Tabletop Games 
  • In Pathfinder, due to being a Darker and Edgier setting of Dungeons & Dragons, this is called out as one of the reasons why orcs and gnolls remain brutishly patriarchal in their cultures: in classic Stupid Evil fashion, when a female orc or gnoll manages to acquire power for herself by exploiting loopholes in their culture or simply being strong enough to bully her way to the top, she tends to immediately come down in support of the laws exploiting other females, in order to minimize the risk of being challenged, as would be the case if females had more freedom.

    Theatre 
  • In The Comedy of Errors, Luciana tells her sister that wives should be obedient to and not complain about their husbands. The sister has none of it, calling her a hypocrite for being unmarried, a cuckold for advocating obeying unfaithful husband, and so servile that no man would marry her anyway.
  • Prima Facie: It's considered ironic that Tessa is a female lawyer who has a tendency to defend men accused of sexual assault. Her colleague asks if she's hired not for her competence, but because she's a woman and it looks better. It's clear that Tessa is very blithe about the women she may be hurting as both a coping mechanism and so her male colleagues will take her seriously.

    Video Games 
  • Hard West: Flynn. A dudette example who hangs around bloodthirsty men - because her abusive childhood in a zealous nunnery soured her to the idea that 'other' women would protect her, as they were the ones who hurt her the most.
Flynn: I'm really liking this 'suffrage' thing... we can shoot women.
  • Petra, an optional character in Exitfate, is a dyed-in-the-wool feminist who passionately fights for women's rights, and joins your army specifically to show what a real woman can do. However, if you let Meiko (a war correspondent and seasoned fighter in her own right) interview her, she questions if Petra isn't taking the whole thing a bit too far... and Petra outright attacks her for being a gender traitor.
  • Daniella from Haunting Ground has shades of this. She's literally the only other woman in the castle besides Fiona, but instead of being a source of comfort, she spites and mocks Fiona, calling her a "precious little princess" who apparently lures men into her "filthy body". The reason for her cruelty is actually jealousy, as Daniella was created to be the perfect woman, yet is unable to give birth like Fiona; thus, she hates Fiona for being a "real woman" and covets Fiona's womb, which she tries to take by force.
  • Alice from Persona 5 Strikers was bullied by other girls in high school for supposedly seducing a man she was in love with. Since then, she considers every girl in Shibuya to be just like them and just one of them being happy is enough motivation to steal the guy they love. She's especially hostile toward Ann, one of the more attractive female members of the party, and specifically taunts Ann when the Phantom Thieves face Alice's Shadow as a boss.
  • Obersturmbanfuhrer Frau Engel in Wolfenstein: The New Order is a classic "hypocrite" example. Although a highly successful Nazi official herself, as well as an extremely sexual aggressive Dirty Old Woman who keeps a much younger, more submissive Camp Straight guard as her boy toy, she can be overheard chastising women who seek to pursue a career instead of Küche, Kirche und Kinder like a "good Aryan Woman" should. When her boyfriend subtly points out the hypocrisy, she defends it as different, since she's "done her duty" by rearing six children and is so "entitled" to have her fun now that they are mature and she's past her childbearing years.

    Visual Novels 

    Web Comics 
  • 'The Stay at Home Mommy' in The Adventures of Gyno-Star is a Boomerang Bigot villain wants to turn all women on earth into brainless zombies.
  • In The Remarried Empress, Rashta has shown shades of this, despite genuinely admiring and copying everything Navier does. She definitely prefers male company due to the fact that she is used to manipulating them with her looks and fake attitude, to the point of excluding noblewomen from her parties as an empress. In the game, she thinks to herself that she likes spending time with men more, since women are jealous of her beauty. When her second child turns out to be a girl, she initially wishes it was a boy, though this has more to do with Heir Club for Men issues than her own views, and she is very happy when Glorym is declared the crown princess. Ironically, every person responsible for her final fate is a man.

    Web Original 
  • Discussed in this video by Anita Kapoor.
  • Hazbin Hotel: The character Niffty shows signs of this, as she seems to think that women should be good at cleaning. It's justified and downplayed as she died in the 1950s (a decade infamous for Stay in the Kitchen views), and she apologizes for if her comments offended the others.
  • Laci Green heavily despises this trope and often deconstructs it as harmful and oppressive, most notably in "Girl-on-Girl Hate".
  • The Red Panda Adventures overflow with this. If it's not female villains belittling "other girls", it's heroine Kit Baxter being jealous of every woman within Toronto's city limits and talking about how hard it is to "take them seriously." In "Girl's Night Out", the thing that de-escalates her initially hostile meeting with female superhero the Grey Fox is that Foxy also can't take other women very seriously.
  • Zarkazaan of Bossfight manages to be both this and a Straw Feminist. She has special disdain for Princess Sparkle Muffin's unashamed girliness, and even calls her a slut when she tries to befriend her.
  • In karu's I Swear A 13-Year-Old Wrote This Terrible Anime video, a review of Kingdoms of Ruin, he points out how not only are the witch executions a case of Fantastic Racism, but also misogyny, as Goethe gloats that a witch who cannot use magic is "a mere woman." After showing the crowd, which has women among them, taking photos of Chloe's Shameful Strip, he accuses one woman, who is clearly enjoying it, of belonging to this trope by saying "Bitch! You're a woman too! You are half the problem they're mad at!

    Western Animation 
  • American Dad!: Hayley Smith dipped into this while also being a Straw Feminist. Her idea of "feminism" in the show's early seasons involved her creating an entire film that was just an excuse to mock her own mother for being a housewife instead of doing "more important things" like famous women in history. She's also mocked Francine for being overly concerned about winning a blue ribbon for her baking at the county fair, only to then be exposed as Francine's award-winning rival "Carlotta Monteray" and a total hypocrite.
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender: Toph Beifong has shades of The Honorary Dude variation, particularly in her "Blind Bandit" wrestling persona (which is barely an act), but also in general. Though, instead of targeting other females directly, she displays it mainly via her interactions with male characters. She's quick to toss out "girly" as an insult, putting them in place by demonstrating that she's more traditionally manly.
  • Louise Belcher on Bob's Burgers doesn't get on with most of the girls her age, and finds her mother and older sister boring and annoying. Oddly enough, this seems to be more out of immaturity than her usual malice and notably in later seasons, she does start spending more time with Tina and Linda and even has moments where she isn't so different from them. Her brother Gene is a milder gender-flipped example. He gets along with the guys in their group and admires his dad, but has stated he prefers being friends with women and likes to see himself as one of the girls.
  • In the Bojack Horseman episode "The Old Sugarman Place", we are introduced to Joseph and Honey Sugarman, the parents of BoJack's mother, Beatrice, who grew up in the 1940s. In Honey's case, Internalized Categorism is in full effect, as she shares her husband's beliefs that women are only good for being good little housewives who have children. As a result, she forbids Beatrice from eating foods like pancakes and ice cream, and even tells her daughter she'll "rupture her uterus" when she tries to lift a heavy suitcase. And this is all before her older child CrackerJack died in WWII, and then everything really went to hell...
  • In The Boondocks, a drunken Sarah justifies her Celeb Crush Pretty Boy Flizzy hitting another woman, claiming that "bitches step out of line." She also says it's okay to hit women if they hit first or "talk about your Momma."
  • Carmilla from Castlevania is "The Bigot" variant. Although claiming to hate men and only want the best for her "sisters", she patronisingly mocks the gentle feminine traits of Lenore, apparently has a harem of slave men that she sleeps with and views Dracula’s loving marriage with his human wife Lisa as him “keeping a pet”, saying to Hector if Dracula really loved her, he would’ve turned her into a vampire. She eventually shows that she has no patience for anyone who isn't a female vampire who is actively aiding her Forever War against humans and/or men. Ultimately even her own vampire sisters become horrified by Carmilla’s schemes and antics, and, when Styria falls, choose their respective lovers over saving her.
  • Family Guy:
    • Lois Griffin has her moments. From the time in the feature-length Direct-to-DVD movie where she agrees with Peter after he claims Lindsay Lohan and all other women are a bunch of teases leading her to claim that's why she went back to men to the time in Family Guy Presents: Laugh It Up, Fuzzball where she was dismayed at no longer being the token woman in the parodies of the Star Wars films. She also has made nasty comments about other women, especially about their appearances. She even has this attitude towards her own daughter Meg, as she enjoys bullying and belittling her every chance she gets.
    • The show parodies the "Ladette trying way too hard to win male approval" variety in a cutaway gag to Joan of Arc smugly describing all the ways she's "not like other girls"...while men are burning her to death.
  • In Gravity Falls, .GIFfany views human women as judgmental and unpredictable and believes that they will just make fun of Soos. She will also kill any girl that comes between her and Soos.
  • Rugrats has Aunt Miriam. She's already unpleasant to begin with, but she makes it clear to Didi that she wants the latter to quit her job and become a full-time mom.
  • On The Simpsons, Marge can become this Depending on the Writer. As can a number of other characters, also Depending on the Writer (Helen Lovejoy, Agnes Skinner, and Maude Flanders come to mind).
    • Ms. Hoover especially fits this in "Lisa the Iconoclast." After giving Lisa a failing grade on her essay proclaiming town founder Jebediah Springfield was a fraud, she goes on to call it "Dead white male bashing" and adds it's girls like Lisa who make it impossible for women to get husbands.


 
Feedback

Video Example(s):

Top

We've All Had Much Worse

Another female officer let's PC Tate knows how she feels about the sexual assault allegation she's made against their colleague, Sergeant Jones.

How well does it match the trope?

Example of:

Main / BlamingTheVictim

Media sources:

Report