1. You participate in the appearance scam about women, talking about how other women got it wrong, how Madonna “looks terrible” after her plastic surgery, about how that dress makes her look trashy, about the “work” a woman may or may not have gotten done. A very wise man once said to me: “Women are easy to oppress and control; just say something about their appearance. Women are now the keepers of that form of oppression.”
2. I’ll get 50 comments for this one which just tells me how entrenched the inner warden is, so save your breath. You espouse the “woman as property” model that suggests we transact without sexuality, turning down the power to snatch a man. Honey, if you have to look chaste to get a man, plan to spend the rest of your life in a girdle. You will only be keeping the cartel of ‘woman-hatred’ in business.
3. You play the part of a composed woman on TV—the world of public face—and behind the scenes, even in your own head, you are bawdy and bitchy and feisty. Mindful speech has been so weaponized in the case of women. They took our existing fear that we are catty and mean (caused, by the way, by the backlog of saying what we feel) and added a gag. Fuck that shit. You harm every woman on the planet when you don’t say what you feel (hopefully in an artful way) by being a place where the world does not have to face the real interior world of ‘woman.’
4. When you barter in the world of “she can’t,’” or “couldn’t,” with respect to women’s choices, volition, and agency. “Oh, poor little thing made a decision she regrets.” No, it was not her trauma or her “not finding her voice.” She made a shitty decision and regrets it, and either faces the consequences of that decision and becomes a badass, or she gets locked up in the great sisterhood cartel that keeps her feeble and disabled.
5. Stop already with the colluding for women to take on diagnoses for what is perfectly healthy. A woman who has power in a powerless world is seen as malfunctioning. A woman who won’t color inside the lines according to the masculine model, ends up in the DSM-6. Be the reason they have to rewrite that ridiculous book.
6. Never put a woman down. Just do not do it. Don’t be a coward. If you have something to say, say it to her face, or if you are really stuck, get a therapist. Division equals death.
7. Don’t hide behind powerlessness, “I couldn’t say it to her or him.” Honey, we all know you could, but you feared you would lose the benefits of your silence, or your resentment might get put in its place, and you might have to admit—god forbid—that you were jealous or felt like an outcast.
8. Don’t be the reason that another woman feels she has to settle. Meaning, don’t be the ass-kissing sweetie pie who sets the bar so low that women have to crawl to get under it. Yes, powerfully, profoundly, truly uplift men. They are good and could use some upliftment, but that is in direct opposition to kissing ass to get a crumb of attention.
9. Focus on ‘yo-self.’ Just do it. Take your own inventory.
10. You refuse to be associated with a woman. Don’t be a damned crab in a barrel. Did we not learn from the Scarlet Letter? The outcasts are pushing the margins. Help them push. Don’t push them out to get more scraps thrown your way.
11. This one will surprise some, but man-hating is Wo-misogyny, or at a bare minimum, a result of it. Because real women love, love hard, and love enduringly. Here, every woman will say, “But what about abuse?” I will say go deeper. Find the cause and condition of abuse, in yourself, in the abuser, and in the world. Eradicate that. End that shit. And be smart enough to know that hate never drove out hate (It was a great MAN who said that).
12. You mistake the arousal of praise and attention for the arousal of true expression and so try to grab attention and praise.
13. Lastly, if you are not a ride-or-die with every woman you meet—especially with those you disagree with—if you bow out of the game like a debutante rather than staying in the conversation, the debate, the fight. If you are not part of the no-matter-what club of sisterhood—not the one that de-platforms and with a certain smugness ousts from your life or from the public eye—who has a lot of “sisterhood empowerment checks” that they write, but don’t cash with their ass—then you are likely infected with Wo-misogyny. Hatred is relying on your cowardice, your self-preservation, and your willingness to drop a sister. You decide where you want to play.