The Origin of Misogyny II: Men’s Inability to become Pregnant is a Source of both Superiority and Inferiority
In a previous post, I argued that the origin of misogyny is men’s ability to impregnate (and their inability to be impregnated). This gives them a unique ability to harm women in a way that women cannot harm men–and this ability, if exploited, gives them a unique power over women that women can never impose on them.
However, I think women’s ability to be pregnant, while an obvious vulnerability, is also a great source of power. Women have the ability to create a human eye, a human brain, human consciousness; the ones naturally endowed with the ability to decide who lives and who dies. So while the ability to become pregnant is a vulnerability, it is also a great power.
And men know that. So to “steal” the power of life and death from women, they rape women and pass abortion bans. By doing so, they can wrestle control over women’s bodies and thus control over the production of humanity itself.
In other words, men’s inability to be impregnated is a source of both superiority and inferiority. Their inability gives them a unique protection that women do not have, and so they can never face a particular kind of horror that women face; however, their inability to become pregnant also means they are biologically less significant than women. The human race would continue if there was just one man on earth, but not if there was just one woman. In other words, men are disposable; women are not.
Men’s feelings of inferiority to women are just as powerful as men’s feelings of superiority. They are two sides of the same coin, and both drive men to attempt to assert dominance over women.
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