“If you wear makeup and dresses, you’re trying too hard to get boys to notice you.

Girls play video games to get boys’ attention, they don’t even like it. A girl who listens to
rock is doing it so boys like her.” These are actual thoughts I’ve had. It was like there was
also a man inside my brain, telling me what to do and what not to do. Then, the
realization finally came to me. Women face external misogyny from men being
entrenched in positions of power, we internalize misogyny from the media and culture,
and we even betray ourselves to try to break free from it. Everything women do is
subconsciously for men, whether we like it or not. Misogyny, both internal and external,
is a challenge for women of all cultures. While it is certainly worse in some more than
others, misogyny is present in all cultures and remains a challenge for all of us to
overcome.

Entertainment, STEM, and political science are all male dominated fields that are
extremely prevalent in our life. This misogyny from these three industries forces women
to believe thoughts that are not true. For example, making women accept the idea that
“they are far worse than men, far more aggressive…” (Donald Trump, The Art of the
Comeback, 1997), or they’re too emotional, "...every other position that exists, I think a
woman could do well. But the president? It’s kinda like, I just know that women make
rash decisions emotionally. They make very permanent, cemented decisions, and then
later, it’s kind of like it didn’t happen, or they didn’t mean for it to happen.” (T.I., American
rapper, 2015).

Internalized misogyny is the hatred of women, by other women. We are constantly

bombarded with subliminal messages in entertainment telling us women what we need
to do to gain male approval. My favorite show in middle school was How I Met Your
Mother, and I loved the character Robin. She would drink like the guys and talk like the
guys. Since the men liked her so much, this taught me I should be like Robin. Exist for
male approval. If the guys didn’t like me, what was the use? Through this character, I
started to feel as if girly girls were annoying. All those types of girls wanted was attention
from guys, even though subconsciously, I was doing the same thing. No matter how I
acted, I would be placed into a box.

“She’s an actress, whoa! She’s better known for the things that she does on the
mattress, whoa!” My best friend’s red radio sang these Taylor Swift lyrics in 2010. Seven
year old me saw nothing wrong with this. It was good for Taylor for sticking her ground,
and calling out this imaginary girl, right? Likewise, it was okay that I wouldn’t tell anyone
I listened to Taylor Swift besides my best friend because I wanted to be different, right?
Taylor Swift is for girls, and I’m not like other girls. This idea of being a different type of
girl forced me to rarely wear pink or skirts, try my hardest to be mysterious by reading
constantly, and pressure myself into listening to classic rock bands. My elementary
school years were consumed by the belief that I should be different than other girls. As I
grew older, I noticed this approach was not working anymore.
 Now, I do my best to not listen to men telling me who I am or what I can do. I’ve
learned women have separate identities from men and they need to cultivate those. I lift
up other women for being their authentic selves and being who they want to be. I do my
own thing, whether it be girly or not, because it makes me happy. As Taylor Swift once
said, “I got smarter, I got harder in the nick of time.”