Why Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned is sexist

[LWolf]

171. I agree with your comments about misogyny on DU.

I have to say, though, that until this situation, I'd never considered the "hell hath no fury" cliche to be sexist.

I'm pondering it now, holding up others' perception to my own, and, so far, here's what I've got:

My perception of that phrase has always been that it's correct, or should be. That a woman's anger is deeper, stronger, and more long lasting than male anger in general. That in itself seems sexist. I think it comes from noticing that male anger seems to be more frequent, and resolved more easily. Or maybe it's just a recognition of one woman's anger...mine.

I've sometimes thought about it in terms of nature: the male displaying, competing, and, usually, the loser backing down. The female as quieter, less flamboyant, but more likely to follow through. The peacock vs the offended mother grizzly.

Then I realize that, while human males DO engage in that kind of physical display/competition, so do most females; just not me. So maybe that doesn't really work.
As a matter of fact, human culture is so twisted that females are valued based on that display. Which is sexist.

That leads me back to the anger of women, and how misogyny has led to that anger to begin with, and has kept it repressed, and expressed in usually less violent, but no less destructive ways; that a collective ancestral rage could very well FIT the phrase. There is some part of me that has wanted the power of that rage to rain down on those who have propagated misogyny.

Finally, I realize that the way I've perceived that phrase has more to do with my own personal anger than with women as a gender, and that I've spent a lifetime trying to figure out how to live with the sources of that anger, and that, finally, while I have done a decent job, I don't think I've done well enough to consider women's anger from an objective place. I still carry too much of it. So I don't have a foundation from which to judge whether or not that phrase is misogynistic.

Except that some women perceive it that way, which means that it's real for them, and therefore possible to at least some degree.

I know that I'll never hear that phrase again without feeling conflict about it, anyway.