Misogyny

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Misogyny (/mɪˈsɒdʒɪni/) is the hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women or girls. Misogyny is manifest in numerous ways, including social exclusion, sex discrimination, hostility, androcentrism, patriarchy, male privilege, belittling of women, violence against women, and sexual objectification. Misogyny can be found within sacred texts of religions, mythologies, and Western philosophies.

Definitions

According to sociologist Allan G. Johnson, "misogyny is a cultural attitude of hatred for females because they are female". Johnson argues that:

Misogyny .... is a central part of sexist prejudice and ideology and, as such, is an important basis for the oppression of females in male-dominated societies. Misogyny is manifested in many different ways, from jokes to pornography to violence to the self-contempt women may be taught to feel toward their own bodies.

Sociologist Michael Flood at the University of Wollongong defines misogyny as the hatred of women, and notes:

Though most common in men, misogyny also exists in and is practiced by women against other women or even themselves. Misogyny functions as an ideology or belief system that has accompanied patriarchal, or male-dominated societies for thousands of years and continues to place women in subordinate positions with limited access to power and decision making. […] Aristotle contended that women exist as natural deformities or imperfect males […] Ever since, women in Western cultures have internalised their role as societal scapegoats, influenced in the twenty-first century by multimedia objectification of women with its culturally sanctioned self-loathing and fixations on plastic surgery, anorexia and bulimia.

Dictionaries define misogyny as "hatred of women" and as "hatred, dislike, or mistrust of women". In 2012, primarily in response to events occurring in the Australian Parliament, the Macquarie Dictionary (which documents Australian English and New Zealand English) expanded the definition to include not only hatred of women but also "entrenched prejudices against women". The counterpart of misogyny is misandry, the hatred or dislike of men; the antonym of misogyny is philogyny, the love or fondness of women.

Historical usage

Classical Greece

Euripides

In his book City of Sokrates: An Introduction to Classical Athens, J.W. Roberts argues that older than tragedy and comedy was a misogynistic tradition in Greek literature, reaching back at least as far as Hesiod. The term misogyny itself comes directly into English from the Ancient Greek word misogunia (μισογυνία), which survives in several passages.

The earlier, longer, and more complete passage comes from a moral tract known as On Marriage (c. 150 BC) by the stoic philosopher Antipater of Tarsus. Antipater argues that marriage is the foundation of the state, and considers it to be based on divine (polytheistic) decree. He uses misogunia to describe the sort of writing the tragedian Euripides eschews, stating that he "reject[s] the hatred of women in his writing" (ἀποθέμενος τὴν ἐν τῷ γράφειν μισογυνίαν). He then offers an example of this, quoting from a lost play of Euripides in which the merits of a dutiful wife are praised.

The other surviving use of the original Greek word is by Chrysippus, in a fragment from On affections, quoted by Galen in Hippocrates on Affections. Here, misogyny is the first in a short list of three "disaffections"—women (misogunia), wine (misoinia, μισοινία) and humanity (misanthrōpia, μισανθρωπία). Chrysippus' point is more abstract than Antipater's, and Galen quotes the passage as an example of an opinion contrary to his own. What is clear, however, is that he groups hatred of women with hatred of humanity generally, and even hatred of wine. "It was the prevailing medical opinion of his day that wine strengthens body and soul alike." So Chrysippus, like his fellow stoic Antipater, views misogyny negatively, as a disease; a dislike of something that is good. It is this issue of conflicted or alternating emotions that was philosophically contentious to the ancient writers. Ricardo Salles suggests that the general stoic view was that "[a] man may not only alternate between philogyny and misogyny, philanthropy and misanthropy, but be prompted to each by the other."

Aristotle has also been accused of being a misogynist; he has written that women were inferior to men. According to Cynthia Freeland (1994):

Aristotle says that the courage of a man lies in commanding, a woman's lies in obeying; that 'matter yearns for form, as the female for the male and the ugly for the beautiful'; that women have fewer teeth than men; that a female is an incomplete male or 'as it were, a deformity': which contributes only matter and not form to the generation of offspring; that in general 'a woman is perhaps an inferior being'; that female characters in a tragedy will be inappropriate if they are too brave or too clever[.]

In the Routledge philosophy guidebook to Plato and the Republic, Nickolas Pappas describes the "problem of misogyny" and states:

In the Apology, Socrates calls those who plead for their lives in court "no better than women" (35b)... The Timaeus warns men that if they live immorally they will be reincarnated as women (42b-c; cf. 75d-e). The Republic contains a number of comments in the same spirit (387e, 395d-e, 398e, 431b-c, 469d), evidence of nothing so much as of contempt toward women. Even Socrates' words for his bold new proposal about marriage... suggest that the women are to be "held in common" by men. He never says that the men might be held in common by the women... We also have to acknowledge Socrates' insistence that men surpass women at any task that both sexes attempt (455c, 456a), and his remark in Book 8 that one sign of democracy's moral failure is the sexual equality it promotes (563b).

Misogynist is also found in the Greek—misogunēs (μισογύνης)—in Deipnosophistae (above) and in Plutarch's Parallel Lives, where it is used as the title of Heracles in the history of Phocion. It was the title of a play by Menander, which we know of from book seven (concerning Alexandria) of Strabo's 17 volume Geography, and quotations of Menander by Clement of Alexandria and Stobaeus that relate to marriage. A Greek play with a similar name, Misogunos (Μισόγυνος) or Woman-hater, is reported by Marcus Tullius Cicero (in Latin) and attributed to the poet Marcus Atilius.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Cicero reports that Greek philosophers considered misogyny to be caused by gynophobia, a fear of women.

It is the same with other diseases; as the desire of glory, a passion for women, to which the Greeks give the name of philogyneia: and thus all other diseases and sicknesses are generated. But those feelings which are the contrary of these are supposed to have fear for their foundation, as a hatred of women, such as is displayed in the Woman-hater of Atilius; or the hatred of the whole human species, as Timon is reported to have done, whom they call the Misanthrope. Of the same kind is inhospitality. And all these diseases proceed from a certain dread of such things as they hate and avoid.

— Cicero, Tusculanae Quaestiones, 1st century BC.

In summary, Greek literature considered misogyny to be a disease—an anti-social condition—in that it ran contrary to their perceptions of the value of women as wives and of the family as the foundation of society. These points are widely noted in the secondary literature.

Religion

Ancient Greek

In Misogyny: The World's Oldest Prejudice, Jack Holland argues that there is evidence of misogyny in the mythology of the ancient world. In Greek mythology according to Hesiod, the human race had already experienced a peaceful, autonomous existence as a companion to the gods before the creation of women. When Prometheus decides to steal the secret of fire from the gods, Zeus becomes infuriated and decides to punish humankind with an "evil thing for their delight". This "evil thing" is Pandora, the first woman, who carried a jar (usually described—incorrectly—as a box) which she was told to never open. Epimetheus (the brother of Prometheus) is overwhelmed by her beauty, disregards Prometheus' warnings about her, and marries her. Pandora cannot resist peeking into the jar, and by opening it she unleashes into the world all evil; labour, sickness, old age, and death.

Buddhism

In his book The Power of Denial: Buddhism, Purity, and Gender, professor Bernard Faure of Columbia University argued generally that "Buddhism is paradoxically neither as sexist nor as egalitarian as is usually thought." He remarked, "Many feminist scholars have emphasized the misogynistic (or at least androcentric) nature of Buddhism" and stated that Buddhism morally exalts its male monks while the mothers and wives of the monks also have important roles. Additionally, he wrote:

While some scholars see Buddhism as part of a movement of emancipation, others see it as a source of oppression. Perhaps this is only a distinction between optimists and pessimists, if not between idealists and realists... As we begin to realize, the term "Buddhism" does not designate a monolithic entity, but covers a number of doctrines, ideologies, and practices--some of which seem to invite, tolerate, and even cultivate "otherness" on their margins.

Christianity

Eve rides astride the Serpent on a capital in Laach Abbey church, 13th century

Differences in tradition and interpretations of scripture have caused sects of Christianity to differ in their beliefs with regard their treatment of women.

In The Troublesome Helpmate, Katharine M. Rogers argues that Christianity is misogynistic, and she lists what she says are specific examples of misogyny in the Pauline epistles. She states:

The foundations of early Christian misogyny — its guilt about sex, its insistence on female subjection, its dread of female seduction — are all in St. Paul's epistles.

In K. K. Ruthven's Feminist Literary Studies: An Introduction, Ruthven makes reference to Rogers' book and argues that the "legacy of Christian misogyny was consolidated by the so-called 'Fathers' of the Church, like Tertullian, who thought a woman was not only 'the gateway of the devil' but also 'a temple built over a sewer'."

However, some other scholars have argued that Christianity does not include misogynistic principles, or at least that a proper interpretation of Christianity would not include misogynistic principles. David M. Scholer, a biblical scholar at Fuller Theological Seminary, stated that the verse Galatians 3:28 ("There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus") is "the fundamental Pauline theological basis for the inclusion of women and men as equal and mutual partners in all of the ministries of the church." In his book Equality in Christ? Galatians 3:28 and the Gender Dispute, Richard Hove argues that—while Galatians 3:28 does mean that one's sex does not affect salvation—"there remains a pattern in which the wife is to emulate the church's submission to Christ (Eph 5:21-33) and the husband is to emulate Christ's love for the church."

In Christian Men Who Hate Women, clinical psychologist Margaret J. Rinck has written that Christian social culture often allows a misogynist "misuse of the biblical ideal of submission". However, she argues that this a distortion of the "healthy relationship of mutual submission" which is actually specified in Christian doctrine, where "[l]ove is based on a deep, mutual respect as the guiding principle behind all decisions, actions, and plans". Similarly, Catholic scholar Christopher West argues that "male domination violates God's plan and is the specific result of sin".

Islam

The fourth chapter (or sura) of the Quran is called "Women" (An-Nisa). The 34th verse is a key verse in feminist criticism of Islam. The verse reads: "Men are the maintainers of women because Allah has made some of them to excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High, Great."

In his book Popular Islam and Misogyny: A Case Study of Bangladesh, Taj Hashmi discusses misogyny in relation to Muslim culture (and to Bangladesh in particular), writing:

[T]hanks to the subjective interpretations of the Quran (almost exclusively by men), the preponderance of the misogynic mullahs and the regressive Shariah law in most "Muslim" countries, Islam is synonymously known as a promoter of misogyny in its worst form. Although there is no way of defending the so-called "great" traditions of Islam as libertarian and egalitarian with regard to women, we may draw a line between the Quranic texts and the corpus of avowedly misogynic writing and spoken words by the mullah having very little or no relevance to the Quran.

In his book No god but God, University of Southern California professor Reza Aslan wrote that "misogynistic interpretation" has been persistently attached to An-Nisa, 34 because commentary on the Quran "has been the exclusive domain of Muslim men".

Sikhism

Guru Nanak in the center, amongst other Sikh figures

Scholars William M. Reynolds and Julie A. Webber have written that Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh faith tradition, was a "fighter for women's rights" that was "in no way misogynistic" in contrast to some of his contemporaries.

Scientology

In his book Scientology: A New Slant on Life, L. Ron Hubbard wrote the following passage:

A society in which women are taught anything but the management of a family, the care of men, and the creation of the future generation is a society which is on its way out.

In the same book, he also wrote:

The historian can peg the point where a society begins its sharpest decline at the instant when women begin to take part, on an equal footing with men, in political and business affairs, since this means that the men are decadent and the women are no longer women. This is not a sermon on the role or position of women; it is a statement of bald and basic fact.

These passages, along with other ones of a similar nature from Hubbard, have been criticised by Alan Scherstuhl of The Village Voice as expressions of hatred towards women. However, Baylor University professor J. Gordon Melton has written that Hubbard later disregarded and abrogated much of his earlier views about women, which Melton views as merely echoes of common prejudices at the time. Melton has also stated that the Church of Scientology welcomes both genders equally at all levels—from leadership positions to auditing and so on—since Scientologists view people as spiritual beings.

Misogynistic ideas among prominent western thinkers

Numerous influential Western philosophers have been expressed ideas that can be characterized as misogynistic, including Aristotle, René Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, G. W. F. Hegel, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Otto Weininger, Oswald Spengler, and John Lucas. Because of the influence of these thinkers, feminist scholars trace misogyny in western culture to these philosophers and their ideas.

Aristotle

Aristotle believed women were inferior and described them as "deformed males". In his work Politics, he states

as regards the sexes, the male is by nature superior and the female inferior, the male ruler and the female subject 4 (1254b13-14).

Another example is Cynthia's catalog where Cynthia states "Aristotle says that the courage of a man lies in commanding, a woman's lies in obeying; that 'matter yearns for form, as the female for the male and the ugly for the beautiful'; that women have fewer teeth than men; that a female is an incomplete male or 'as it were, a deformity'. Aristotle believed that men and women naturally differed both physically and mentally. He claimed that women are "more mischievous, less simple, more impulsive ... more compassionate[,] ... more easily moved to tears[,] ... more jealous, more querulous, more apt to scold and to strike[,] ... more prone to despondency and less hopeful[,] ... more void of shame or self-respect, more false of speech, more deceptive, of more retentive memory [and] ... also more wakeful; more shrinking [and] more difficult to rouse to action" than men.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau is well known for his views against equal rights for women for example in his treatise Emile, he writes: "Always justify the burdens you impose upon girls but impose them anyway... . They must be thwarted from an early age... . They must be exercised to constraint, so that it costs them nothing to stifle all their fantasies to submit them to the will of others." Other quotes consist of "closed up in their houses", "must receive the decisions of fathers and husbands like that of the church".

Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin wrote on the subject female inferiority through the lens of human evolution. He noted in his book The Descent of Men: "young of both sexes resembled the adult female in most species" which he extrapolated and further reasoned "males were more evolutionarily advanced than females". Darwin believed all savages, children and women had smaller brains and therefore led more by instinct and less by reason. Such ideas quickly spread to other scientists such as Professor Carl Vogt of natural sciences at the University of Geneva who argued "the child, the female, and the senile white" had the mental traits of a "grown up Negro", that the female is similar in intellectual capacity and personality traits to both infants and the "lower races" such as blacks while drawing conclusion that women are closely related to lower animals than men and "hence we should discover a greater apelike resemblance if we were to take a female as our standard". Darwin's beliefs about women were also reflective of his attitudes towards women in general for example his views towards marriage as a young man in which he was quoted ""how should I manage all my business if obligated to go everyday walking with my wife – Ehau!" and that being married was "worse than being a Negro". Or in other instances his concern of his son marrying a woman named Martineau about which he wrote "... he shall be not much better than her "nigger." Imagine poor Erasmus a nigger to so philosophical and energetic a lady ... Martineau had just returned from a whirlwind tour of America, and was full of married women's property rights ... Perfect equality of rights is part of her doctrine...We must pray for our poor "nigger.""

Arthur Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer has been noted as a misogynist by many such as the philosopher, critic, and author Tom Grimwood. In a 2008 article Grimwood wrote published in the philosophical journal of Kritique, Grimwood argues that Schopenhauer's misogynistic works have largely escaped attention despite being more noticeable than those of other philosophers such as Nietzsche. For example, he noted Schopenhauer's works where the latter had argued women only have "meagre" reason comparable that of "the animal" "who lives in the present". Other works he noted consisted of Schopenhauer's argument that women's only role in nature is to further the species through childbirth and hence is equipped with the power to seduce and "capture" men. He goes on to state that women's cheerfulness is chaotic and disruptive which is why it is crucial to exercise obedience to those with rationality. For her to function beyond her rational subjugator is a threat against men as well as other women, he notes. Schopenhauer also thought women's cheerfulness is an expression of her lack of morality and incapability to understand abstract or objective meaning such as art. This is followed up by his quote "have never been able to produce a single, really great, genuine and original achievement in the fine arts, or bring to anywhere into the world a work of permanent value". Arthur Schopenhauer also blamed women for the fall of King Louis XIII and triggering the French Revolution, in which he was later quoted as saying:

"At all events, a false position of the female sex, such as has its most acute symptom in our lady-business, is a fundamental defect of the state of society. Proceeding from the heart of this, it is bound to spread its noxious influence to all parts."

Schopenhauer has also been accused of misogyny for his essay "On Women" (Über die Weiber), in which he expressed his opposition to what he called "Teutonico-Christian stupidity" on female affairs. He argued that women are "by nature meant to obey" as they are "childish, frivolous, and short sighted". He claimed that no woman had ever produced great art or "any work of permanent value". He also argued that women did not possess any real beauty:

It is only a man whose intellect is clouded by his sexual impulse that could give the name of the fair sex to that under-sized, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped, and short-legged race; for the whole beauty of the sex is bound up with this impulse. Instead of calling them beautiful there would be more warrant for describing women as the unaesthetic sex.

Nietzsche

In Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche stated that stricter controls on women was a condition of "every elevation of culture". In his Thus Spoke Zarathustra, he has a female character say "You are going to women? Do not forget the whip!" In Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche writes "Women are considered profound. Why? Because we never fathom their depths. But women aren't even shallow." There is controversy over the questions of whether or not this amounts to misogyny, whether his polemic against women is meant to be taken literally, and the exact nature of his opinions of women.

Hegel

Hegel's view of women can be characterized as misogynistic. Passages from Hegel's Elements of the Philosophy of Right illustrate the criticism:

Women are capable of education, but they are not made for activities which demand a universal faculty such as the more advanced sciences, philosophy and certain forms of artistic production... Women regulate their actions not by the demands of universality, but by arbitrary inclinations and opinions.

Academics who study misogyny

Kate Manne

Kate Manne is an analytic philosopher, assistant professor of philosophy at Cornell University, and author of Down Girl, the Logic of Misogyny. In her book, she argues that the tendency to treat misogyny as an individual character flaw is a "naive conception". She writes that misogyny is a cultural phenomenon that enforces gender norms and the policing of women's behavior. Moira Weigel writes of Manne's book:

Manne goes on to elaborate the gender norms that misogyny enforces. We exist in a gendered economy in which women are assumed to owe men. The rules are: first, we must give men moral goods – such as sex, care and unpaid housework. Second, we must not ask men for the kinds of goods we give. Finally, women are not supposed to take masculine coded perks and privileges. (The presidency, for instance.) Manne proposes that sexism and misogyny are distinct. Sexism is an ideology, a set of beliefs, holding that it is natural, and therefore desirable, for men and women to perform these taking and giving roles. Misogyny functions like a "police force", punishing women who deviate from them. Generally, this police force also rewards obedience – elevating women who advance patriarchal interests. But because it defines women in terms of a giving function, misogyny also tends to treat women as interchangeable. In order to take revenge on female classmates he felt had spurned him, Rodger set out to kill strangers – most of them sexually active males.

In other words, misogyny is not an individual character flaw. It is the way in which cultures keep women in subservient stations and positions within any given society.

Online misogyny

Misogynistic rhetoric is prevalent online and has grown rhetorically more aggressive. The public debate over gender-based attacks has increased significantly, leading to calls for policy interventions and better responses by social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

A 2016 study conducted by the think tank Demos concluded that 50% of all misogynistic tweets on Twitter come from women themselves.

Most targets are women who are visible in the public sphere, women who speak out about the threats they receive, and women who are perceived to be associated with feminism or feminist gains. Authors of misogynistic messages are usually anonymous or otherwise difficult to identify. Their rhetoric involves misogynistic epithets and graphic and sexualized imagery, centers on the women's physical appearance, and prescribes sexual violence as a corrective for the targeted women. Examples of famous women who spoke out about misogynistic attacks are Anita Sarkeesian, Laurie Penny, Caroline Criado Perez, Stella Creasy, and Lindy West.

The insults and threats directed at different women tend to be very similar. Sady Doyle who has been the target of online threats noted the "overwhelmingly impersonal, repetitive, stereotyped quality" of the abuse, the fact that "all of us are being called the same things, in the same tone".

Evolutionary theory

A 2015 study published in the journal PLOS ONE by researchers Michael M. Kasomovic and Jefferey S. Kuznekoff found that male status mediates sexist behavior towards women. The study found that women tend to experience hostile and sexist behavior in a male dominated field by lower status men. According to the theory proposed by the authors, since male dominated groups tend to be organized in hierarchies, the entry of women re-arranges the hierarchy in their favor by attracting the attention of higher status men. This, the theory goes, enables women automatic higher status over lower rank men, which is responded to by lower status men using sexist hostility in order to control for status loss. This study was one of the first notable pieces of evidence of inter-gender competition and has possible evolutionary implications for the origin of sexism.

Psychological impact

Internalized misogyny

Internalized sexism is when an individual enacts sexist actions and attitudes towards themselves and people of their own sex. On a larger scale, internalized sexism falls under the broad topic of internalized oppression, which "consists of oppressive practices that continue to make the rounds even when members of the oppressor group are not present". Women who experience internalized misogyny may express it through minimizing the value of women, mistrusting women, and believing gender bias in favor of men. Women, after hearing men demean the value and skills of women repeatedly, eventually internalize their beliefs and apply the misogynistic beliefs to themselves and other women. A common manifestation of internalized misogyny is lateral violence.

As a hate crime

The Nottinghamshire Police in 2016 was "the first force in the country to recognize misogyny as a hate crime", applying to "incidents ranging from street harassment to physical intrusions on women's space." "In the first year, 97 incidents were recorded. This milestone achievement arose from work by Nottingham Women's Centre and Nottingham Citizens. Thanks to [Nottinghamshire's] police force listening to local women's organisations, women and girls in Nottingham will receive the message that this kind of behaviour isn't normal or acceptable, that support is available, and that the problem will be taken seriously." —Laura Bates, The Everyday Sexism Project.

On 7 March 2018 a debate that had the title "misogyny as a hate crime" was held in Westminster Hall and at the end of the debate hansard states that: "Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered misogyny as a hate crime."

A research briefing paper was placed in the House of Commons library on 6 March 2018 and two parts of it, "police recording practices" and "recent calls for change", are quoted in the following paragraphs:

"Police recording practices: For example, in 2016 Nottinghamshire Police began recording misogynistic hate crime. The change, which was initially a two month experiment in July and August 2016, is still in place at Nottinghamshire Police, with the success of the trial drawing national interest from other police forces. Giving evidence to the Home Affairs Committee in February 2017, Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton, National Policing Lead for Hate Crime, said that five police forces tracked misogyny-based hate crime, but that no national consensus had yet been reached. In December 2017, ACC Mark Hamilton gave evidence to the Women and Equalities Committee in which he provided a further update. He said that the police are still looking nationally at the idea of recording misogyny as a hate crime, but that if the police move forward with this they will be looking for it to be supported by legislative action on enhanced sentencing."

"Recent calls for change: At a meeting in March 2017, the APPG, all-party parliamentary group, on Domestic Violence looked at misogyny as a hate crime, with a particular focus on police recording practices. There was a 'clear consensus' from those present that the Nottinghamshire Police policy had been 'an important step forward for tackling street harassment and abuse, and challenging wider sexism and objectification of women in society'. However, the meeting acknowledged that there were barriers to adopting the policy within police forces, 'including rising demand and decreasing resources, the increasing complexity of tackling modern crime, and reputational and public relations issues'. There was also some concern that if the policy were to be adopted nationally, it might need to be framed as "gender based hate crime" rather than misogyny because of 'a view that men should be treated equally under the law'. The APPG considered that this might be problematic, as it would 'fail to address misogyny as a structural problem, and could lead to widespread reporting of misandry, when in reality it is very rare indeed for men to be victims of hate crime because of their gender specifically'."

"In January 2017 the Fawcett Society launched a Sex Discrimination Law Review, which involved an expert panel reviewing a number of sex discrimination issues including hate crime. The Panel published its final report in January 2018, which included the following recommendations on hate crime:

• Hate crime should be 'misogyny' hate crime, not gender hate crime, recognising 'the direction of the power imbalance within society'. The Fawcett Society said that this would be 'consistent with the one-directional nature of transgender or disability hate crime'.
• All police forces should be required to recognise misogyny as a hate crime for recording purposes.
• Legislation should be introduced to establish misogyny as a hate crime for enhanced sentencing purposes."

Criticism of the concept

Camille Paglia, a self-described "dissident feminist" who has often been at odds with other academic feminists, argues that there are serious flaws in the Marxism-inspired interpretation of misogyny that is prevalent in second-wave feminism. In contrast, Paglia argues that a close reading of historical texts reveals that men do not hate women but fear them. Christian Groes-Green has argued that misogyny must be seen in relation to its opposite which he terms philogyny. Criticizing R.W. Connell's theory of hegemonic masculinities he shows how philogynous masculinities play out among youth in Maputo, Mozambique.

Social alienation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Social alienation is "a condition in social relationships reflected by a low degree of integration or common values and a high degree of distance or isolation between individuals, or between an individual and a group of people in a community or work environment". It is a sociological concept developed by several classical and contemporary theorists. The concept has many discipline-specific uses, and can refer both to a personal psychological state (subjectively) and to a type of social relationship (objectively).

History

The term alienation has been used over the ages with varied and sometimes contradictory meanings. In ancient history it could mean a metaphysical sense of achieving a higher state of contemplation, ecstasy or union—becoming alienated from a limited existence in the world, in a positive sense. Examples of this usage have been traced to neoplatonic philosophers such as Plotinus (in the Greek alloiosis). There have also long been religious concepts of being separated or cut off from God and the faithful, alienated in a negative sense. The New Testament mentions the term apallotrioomai in Greek—"being alienated from". Ideas of estrangement from a Golden Age, or due to a fall of man, or approximate equivalents in differing cultures or religions, have also been described as concepts of alienation. A double positive and negative sense of alienation is broadly shown in the spiritual beliefs referred to as Gnosticism.

Alienation has also had a particular legal-political meaning since at least Ancient Roman times, where to alienate property (alienato) is to transfer ownership of it to someone else. The term alienation itself comes from the Latin alienus which meant 'of another place or person', which in turn came from alius, meaning "other" or "another". An alienus in ancient Roman times could refer to someone else's slave. Another usage of the term in Ancient Greco-Roman times was by physicians referring to disturbed, difficult or abnormal states of mind, generally attributed to imbalanced physiology. In Latin alienatio mentis (mental alienation), this usage has been dated to Asclepiades. Once translations of such works had resurfaced in the West in the 17th century, physicians again began using the term, which is typically attributed to Felix Platter.

In medieval times, a relationship between alienation and social order has been described, mediated in part by mysticism and monasticism. The Crusades and witch-hunts have been described as forms of mass alienation.^[4]

17th century

In the 17th century, Hugo Grotius put forward the concept that everyone has 'sovereign authority' over themselves but that they could alienate that natural right to the common good, an early social contract theory. In the 18th century, Hutcheson introduced a distinction between alienable and unalienable rights in the legal sense of the term. Rousseau published influential works on the same theme, and is also seen as having popularized a more psychological-social concept relating to alienation from a state of nature due to the expansion of civil society or the nation state.

In the same century a law of alienation of affection was introduced for men to seek compensation from other men accused of taking away 'their' woman.

In the history of literature, the German Romantics appear to be the first group of writers and poets in whose work the concept of alienation is regularly found. Around the start of the 19th century, Hegel popularized a Christian (Lutheran) and Idealist philosophy of alienation. He used German terms in partially different senses, referring to a psychological state and an objective process, and in general posited that the self was an historical and social creation, which becomes alienated from itself via a perceived objective world, but can become de-alienated again when that world is seen as just another aspect of the self-consciousness, which may be achieved by self-sacrifice to the common good.

Around the same time, Pinel was popularizing a new understanding of mental alienation, particularly through his 'medical-philosophical treatise'. He argued that people could be disturbed (alienated) by emotional states and social conditions, without necessarily having lost (become alienated from) their reason, as had generally been assumed. Hegel praised Pinel for his 'moral treatment' approach, and developed related theories. Nevertheless, as Foucault would later write, '...in an obscure, shared origin, the 'alienation' of physicians and the 'alienation' of philosophers started to take shape — two configurations in which man in any case corrupts his truth, but between which, after Hegel, the nineteenth century stopped seeing any trace of resemblance.'

Two camps formed following Hegel, the 'young' or 'left' Hegelians who developed his philosophy to support innovations in politics or religion, and the 'old' or 'right' Hegelians who took his philosophy in a politically and religiously conservative direction. The former camp has had a more lasting influence and, among them, Feuerbach differed from Hegel in arguing that worship of God is itself a form of alienation, because it projects human qualities on to an external idea, rather than realising them as part of the self.

Marx

Marx was initially in the Young Hegelian camp and, like Feuerbach, rejected the spiritual basis, and adapted Hegel's dialectic model to a theory of (historical) materialism. Marx's theory of alienation is articulated most clearly in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and The German Ideology (1846). The 'young' Marx wrote more often and directly of alienation than the 'mature' Marx, which some regard as an ideological break while others maintain that the concept remained central. There is generally held to be a transition from a philosophical-anthropological (Marxist humanism) concept (e.g. internal alienation from the self) to a structural-historical interpretation (e.g. external alienation by appropriation of labor), accompanied by a change in terminology from alienation to exploitation to commodity fetishism and reification. Marx's concepts of alienation have been classed into four types by Kostas Axelos: economic and social alienation, political alienation, human alienation, and ideological alienation.

In the concept's most prominent use, it refers to the economic and social alienation aspect in which workers are disconnected from what they produce and why they produce. Marx believed that alienation is a systematic result of capitalism. Essentially, there is an "exploitation of men by men" where the division of labor creates an economic hierarchy (Axelos, 1976: 58). His theory of alienation was based upon his observation that in emerging industrial production under capitalism, workers inevitably lose control of their lives and selves by not having any control of their work. Workers never become autonomous, self-realized human beings in any significant sense, except in the way the bourgeoisie wants the worker to be realized. His theory relies on Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity (1841), which argues that the idea of God has alienated the characteristics of the human being. Stirner would take the analysis further in The Ego and Its Own (1844), declaring that even 'humanity' is an alienating ideal for the individual, to which Marx and Engels responded in The German Ideology (1845). Alienation in capitalist societies occurs because in work each contributes to the common wealth but they can only express this fundamentally social aspect of individuality through a production system that is not publicly social but privately owned, for which each individual functions as an instrument, not as a social being. Kostas Axelos summarizes that for Marx, in capitalism "work renders man an alien to himself and to his own products." "The malaise of this alienation from the self means that the worker does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy....The worker only feels himself outside his work, and in his work he feels outside himself....Its alien character emerges clearly in the fact as soon as no physical or other compulsion exists, it is avoided like the plague.". Marx also wrote, in a curtailed manner, that capitalist owners also experience alienation, through benefiting from the economic machine by endlessly competing, exploiting others and maintaining mass alienation in society.

The idea of Political Alienation refers to the idea that "politics is the form that organizes the productive forces of the economy" in a way that is alienating because it "distorts the logic of economic development".

In Human Alienation, individuals become estranged to themselves in the quest to stay alive, where "they lose their true existence in the struggle for subsistence" (Axelos, 1976: 111). Marx focuses on two aspects of human nature which he calls "historical conditions." The first aspect refers to the necessity of food, clothes, shelter, and more. Secondly, Marx believes that after satisfying these basic needs people have the tendency to develop more "needs" or desires that they will work towards satisfying, hence, humans become stuck in a cycle of never ending wants which makes them strangers to each other.

When referring to ideological alienation, Axelos proposes that Marx believes that all religions divert people away from "their true happiness" and instead turn them towards "illusory happiness".

There is a commonly noted problem of translation in grappling with ideas of alienation derived from German-language philosophical texts: the word alienation, and similar words such as estrangement, are often used interchangeably to translate two distinct German words, Entfremdung and Entäußerung. The former means specifically interpersonal estrangement, while the latter can have a broader and more active meaning that might refer also to externalization, relinquishment, or sale (alienation) of property. In general, and contrary to his predecessors, Marx may have used the terms interchangeably, though he also wrote "Entfremdung...constitutes the real interest of this Entäußerung."

Late 1800s to 1900s

Many sociologists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were concerned about alienating effects of modernization. German sociologists Georg Simmel and Ferdinand Tönnies wrote critical works on individualization and urbanization. Simmel's The Philosophy of Money describes how relationships become more and more mediated by money. Tönnies' Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft (Community and Society) is about the loss of primary relationships such as familial bonds in favour of goal-oriented, secondary relationships. This idea of alienation can be observed in some other contexts, although the term may not be as frequently used. In the context of an individual's relationships within society, alienation can mean the unresponsiveness of society as a whole to the individuality of each member of the society. When collective decisions are made, it is usually impossible for the unique needs of each person to be taken into account.

The American sociologist C. Wright Mills conducted a major study of alienation in modern society with White Collar in 1951, describing how modern consumption-capitalism has shaped a society where you have to sell your personality in addition to your work. Melvin Seeman was part of a surge in alienation research during the mid-20th century when he published his paper, "On the Meaning of Alienation", in 1959 (Senekal, 2010b: 7–8). Seeman used the insights of Marx, Emile Durkheim and others to construct what is often considered a model to recognize the five prominent features of alienation: powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, isolation and self-estrangement (Seeman, 1959). Seeman later added a sixth element (cultural estrangement), although this element does not feature prominently in later discussions of his work.

In a broader philosophical context, especially in existentialism and phenomenology, alienation describes the inadequacy of the human being (or the mind) in relation to the world. The human mind (as the subject who perceives) sees the world as an object of perception, and is distanced from the world, rather than living within it. This line of thought is generally traced to the works of Søren Kierkegaard in the 19th century, who, from a Christian viewpoint, saw alienation as separation from God, and also examined the emotions and feelings of individuals when faced with life choices. Many 20th-century philosophers (both theistic and atheistic) and theologians were influenced by Kierkegaard's notions of angst, despair and the importance of the individual. Martin Heidegger's concepts of anxiety (angst) and mortality drew from Kierkegaard; he is indebted to the way Kierkegaard lays out the importance of our subjective relation to truth, our existence in the face of death, the temporality of existence and the importance of passionately affirming one's being-in-the-world. Jean-Paul Sartre described the "thing-in-itself" which is infinite and overflowing, and claimed that any attempt to describe or understand the thing-in-itself is "reflective consciousness". Since there is no way for the reflective consciousness to subsume the pre-reflective, Sartre argued that all reflection is fated to a form of anxiety (i.e. the human condition). As well, Sartre argued that when a person tries to gain knowledge of the "Other" (meaning beings or objects that are not the self), their self-consciousness has a "masochistic desire" to be limited. This is expressed metaphorically in the line from the play No Exit, "Hell is other people".

In the theory of psychoanalysis developed around the start of the 20th century, Sigmund Freud did not explicitly address the concept of alienation, but other analysts subsequently have. It is a theory of divisions and conflicts between the conscious and unconscious mind, between different parts of a hypothetical psychic apparatus, and between the self and civilization. It postulates defense mechanisms, including splitting, in both normal and disturbed functioning. The concept of repression has been described as having functionally equivalent effects as the idea of false consciousness associated with Marxist theory.

A form of Western Marxism developed during the century, which included influential analyses of false consciousness by György Lukács. Critics of bureaucracy and the Protestant Ethic also drew on the works of Max Weber.

Figures associated with critical theory, in particular with the Frankfurt School, such as Theodor Adorno and Erich Fromm, also developed theories of alienation, drawing on neo-Marxist ideas as well as other influences including neo-Freudian and sociological theories. One approach applies Marxist theories of commodification to the cultural, educational and party-political spheres. Links are drawn between socioeconomic structures, psychological states of alienation, and personal human relationships. In the 1960s the revolutionary group Situationist International came to some prominence, staging 'situations' intended to highlight an alternative way of life to advanced capitalism, the latter conceptualized as a diffuse 'spectacle', a fake reality masking a degradation of human life. The Theory of Communicative Action associated with Jürgen Habermas emphasizes the essential role of language in public life, suggesting that alienation stems from the distortion of reasoned moral debate by the strategic dominance of market forces and state power.

This critical program can be contrasted with traditions that attempt to extract problems of alienation from the broader socioeconomic context, or which at least accept the broader context on its own terms, and which often attribute problems to individual abnormality or failures to adjust.

After the boom in alienation research that characterized the 1950s and 1960s, interest in alienation research subsided (Geyer, 1996: xii), although in sociology it was maintained by the Research Committee on Alienation of the International Sociological Association (ISA). In the 1990s, there was again an upsurge of interest in alienation prompted by the fall of the Soviet Union, globalization, the information explosion, increasing awareness of ethnic conflicts, and post-modernism (see Geyer, 1996). Geyer believes the growing complexity of the contemporary world and post-modernism prompted a reinterpretation of alienation that suits the contemporary living environment. In late 20th and early 21st century sociology, it has been particularly the works of Felix Geyer, Lauren Langman and Devorah Kalekin-Fishman that address the issue of alienation in the contemporary western world.

Powerlessness

Alienation in the sense of a lack of power has been technically defined by Seeman as "the expectancy or probability held by the individual that his own behaviour cannot determine the occurrence of the outcomes, or reinforcements, he seeks." Seeman argues that this is "the notion of alienation as it originated in the Marxian view of the worker's condition in capitalist society: the worker is alienated to the extent that the prerogative and means of decision are expropriated by the ruling entrepreneurs". Put more succinctly, Kalekin-Fishman (1996: 97) says, "A person suffers from alienation in the form of 'powerlessness' when she is conscious of the gap between what she would like to do and what she feels capable of doing".

In discussing powerlessness, Seeman also incorporated the insights of the psychologist Julian Rotter. Rotter distinguishes between internal control and external locus of control, which means "differences (among persons or situations) in the degree to which success or failure is attributable to external factors (e.g. luck, chance, or powerful others), as against success or failure that is seen as the outcome of one's personal skills or characteristics". Powerlessness, therefore, is the perception that the individual does not have the means to achieve his goals.

More recently, Geyer remarks that "a new type of powerlessness has emerged, where the core problem is no longer being unfree but rather being unable to select from among an overchoice of alternatives for action, whose consequences one often cannot even fathom". Geyer adapts cybernetics to alienation theory, and writes (1996: xxiv) that powerlessness is the result of delayed feedback: "The more complex one's environment, the later one is confronted with the latent, and often unintended, consequences of one's actions. Consequently, in view of this causality-obscuring time lag, both the 'rewards' and 'punishments' for one's actions increasingly tend to be viewed as random, often with apathy and alienation as a result".

Meaninglessness

A sense of meaning has been defined by Seeman as "the individual's sense of understanding events in which he is engaged". Seeman (1959: 786) writes that meaninglessness "is characterized by a low expectancy that satisfactory predictions about the future outcomes of behaviour can be made." Whereas powerlessness refers to the sensed ability to control outcomes, this refers to the sensed ability to predict outcomes. In this respect, meaninglessness is closely tied to powerlessness; Seeman (Ibid.) argues, "the view that one lives in an intelligible world might be a prerequisite to expectancies for control; and the unintelligibility of complex affairs is presumably conducive to the development of high expectancies for external control (that is, high powerlessness)".

Geyer (1996: xxiii) believes meaninglessness should be reinterpreted for postmodern times: "With the accelerating throughput of information [...] meaningless is not a matter anymore of whether one can assign meaning to incoming information, but of whether one can develop adequate new scanning mechanisms to gather the goal-relevant information one needs, as well as more efficient selection procedures to prevent being overburdened by the information one does not need, but is bombarded with on a regular basis." "Information overload" or the so-called "data tsunami" are well-known information problems confronting contemporary man, and Geyer thus argues that meaninglessness is turned on its head.

Normlessness

Normlessness (or what Durkheim referred to as anomie) "denotes the situation in which the social norms regulating individual conduct have broken down or are no longer effective as rules for behaviour". This aspect refers to the inability to identify with the dominant values of society or rather, with what are perceived to be the dominant values of society. Seeman (1959: 788) adds that this aspect can manifest in a particularly negative manner, "The anomic situation [...] may be defined as one in which there is a high expectancy that socially unapproved behaviours are required to achieve given goals". This negative manifestation is dealt with in detail by Catherine Ross and John Mirowski in a series of publications on mistrust, powerlessness, normlessness and crime.

Neal & Collas (2000: 122) write, "Normlessness derives partly from conditions of complexity and conflict in which individuals become unclear about the composition and enforcement of social norms. Sudden and abrupt changes occur in life conditions, and the norms that usually operate may no longer seem adequate as guidelines for conduct". This is a particular issue after the fall of the Soviet Union, mass migrations from developing to developed countries, and the general sense of disillusionment that characterized the 1990s (Senekal, 2011). Traditional values that had already been questioned (especially during the 1960s) were met with further scepticism in the 1990s, resulting in a situation where individuals rely more often on their own judgement than on institutions of authority: "The individual not only has become more independent of the churches, but from other social institutions as well. The individual can make more personal choices in far more life situations than before" (Halman, 1998: 100). These choices are not necessarily "negative": Halman's study found that Europeans remain relatively conservative morally, even though the authority of the Church and other institutions has eroded.

Relationships

One concept used in regard to specific relationships is that of parental alienation, where a child is distanced from and expresses a general dislike for one of their parents (who may have divorced or separated). The term is not applied where there is child abuse. The parental alienation might be due to specific influences from either parent or could result from the social dynamics of the family as a whole. It can also be understood in terms of attachment, the social and emotional process of bonding between child and caregiver. Adoptees can feel alienated from both adoptive parents and birth parents.

Familial estrangement between parents and adult children "is attributed to a number of biological, psychological, social, and structural factors affecting the family, including attachment disorders, incompatible values and beliefs, unfulfilled expectations, critical life events and transitions, parental alienation, and ineffective communication patterns." The degree of alienation has been positively correlated with decreased emotional functioning in the parent who feels a loss of identity and stigma.

Attachment relationships in adults can also involve feelings of alienation. Indeed, emotional alienation is said to be a common way of life for many, whether it is experienced as overwhelming, or is not admitted to in the midst of a socioeconomic race, or contributes to seemingly unrelated problems.

Social isolation

Social isolation refers to "The feeling of being segregated from one's community". Neal and Collas (2000: 114) emphasize the centrality of social isolation in the modern world: "While social isolation is typically experienced as a form of personal stress, its sources are deeply embedded in the social organization of the modern world. With increased isolation and atomization, much of our daily interactions are with those who are strangers to us and with whom we lack any ongoing social relationships."

Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, migrants from Eastern Europe and the developing countries have flocked to developed countries in search of a better living standard. This has led to entire communities becoming uprooted: no longer fully part of their homelands, but neither integrated into their adopted communities. Diaspora literature depicts the plights of these migrants, such as Hafid Bouazza in Paravion. Senekal (2010b: 41) argues, "Low-income communities or religious minorities may feel separated from mainstream society, leading to backlashes such as the civil unrest that occurred in French cities in October 2005. The fact that the riots subsequently spread to Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Greece, and Switzerland, illustrates that not only did these communities feel segregated from mainstream society, but also that they found a community in their isolation; they regarded themselves as kindred spirits".

Among returning war veterans

Because of intense group solidarity and unique daily hardships brought by combat, many veterans feel alienated from citizens, family, and friends when they return. They often feel they have little in common with civilian peers; issues that concern friends and family seem trivial after combat. There is a clarity of focus and purpose that comes with war that few in civilian life will ever know. Afghanistan veteran Brendon O'Byrne says, "We were really close. Physically and emotionally close. It's kind of terrifying being in such an emotionally safe environment and then suddenly be expelled into an alienated, fractured society." The challenges of re-entering a civilian life where few people have experienced combat may contribute to the sense of loneliness. As filmmaker and war correspondent Sebastian Junger says, "They didn't want to go back because it was traumatic, but because it was a place where they understood what they were supposed to do. They understood who they were. They had a sense of purpose. They were necessary. All these things that young people strive for are answered in combat." Veterans often see their wartime experience as the most selfless and meaningful period of their lives. Some veterans have expressed the sentiment that "even in the quiet moments, war is brighter, louder, brasher, more fun, more tragic, more wasteful. More. More of everything."

The experience of the Vietnam veteran was distinctly different from that of veterans of other American wars. Once he completed his tour of duty, he usually severed all bonds with his unit and comrades. It was extremely rare for a veteran to write to his buddies who were still in combat, and (in strong contrast to the endless reunions of World War II veterans) for more than a decade it was even rarer for more than two or more of them to get together after the war. Korean War veterans had no memorial and precious few parades, but they fought an invading army and they left behind them the free, healthy, thriving, and grateful nation of South Korea. No one spat on them or called them murderers or baby killers when they returned. Only the veterans of Vietnam have endured a concerted, organized, psychological attack by its own people. Never in American history, perhaps never in all of Western civilization, has an army suffered such an agony from its own people. The Vietnam War was a long, contentious conflict (1955–75) which in the mid to late 1960s started to lose political and domestic support, most notably in academia and film that often portrayed soldiers of this conflict as ignoble adding to their social alienation. That the Vietnam War was ultimately lost on April 30, 1975, furthered the sense of meaninglessness and malaise. It has been demonstrated that as the perception of community alienation increases, an individual's sense of confidence or mastery in decision making will decrease, and so too their motivation to socially engage.

Political alienation

One manifestation of the above dimensions of alienation can be a feeling of estrangement from, and a lack of engagement in, the political system. Such political alienation could result from not identifying with any particular political party or message, and could result in revolution, reforming behavior, or abstention from the political process, possibly due to voter apathy.

A similar concept is policy alienation, where workers experience a state of psychological disconnection from a policy programme being implemented.

Self-estrangement

Self-estrangement is an elusive concept in sociology, as recognized by Seeman (1959), although he included it as an aspect in his model of alienation. Some, with Marx, consider self-estrangement to be the end result and thus the heart of social alienation. Self-estrangement can be defined as "the psychological state of denying one's own interests – of seeking out extrinsically satisfying, rather than intrinsically satisfying, activities...". It could be characterized as a feeling of having become a stranger to oneself, or to some parts of oneself, or alternatively as a problem of self-knowledge, or authenticity.

Seeman (1959) recognized the problems inherent in defining the "self", while post-modernism in particular has questioned the very possibility of pin-pointing what precisely "self" constitutes. Gergen (1996: 125) argues that: "the traditional view of self versus society is deeply problematic and should be replaced by a conception of the self as always already immersed in relatedness. On this account, the individual's lament of 'not belonging' is partially a by-product of traditional discourses themselves". If the self is relationally constituted, does it make sense to speak of "self-estrangement" rather than "social isolation"? Costas and Fleming (2009: 354) suggest that although the concept of self-estrangement "has not weathered postmodern criticisms of essentialism and economic determinism well", the concept still has value if a Lacanian reading of the self is adopted. This can be seen as part of a wider debate on the concept of self between humanism and antihumanism, structuralism and post-structuralism, or nature and nurture.

Mental disturbance

Until early in the 20th century, psychological problems were referred to in psychiatry as states of mental alienation, implying that a person had become separated from themselves, their reason or the world. From the 1960s alienation was again considered in regard to clinical states of disturbance, typically using a broad concept of a 'schizoid' ('splitting') process taken from psychoanalytic theory. The splitting was said to occur within regular child development and in everyday life, as well as in more extreme or dysfunctional form in conditions such as schizoid personality and schizophrenia. Varied concepts of alienation and self-estrangement were used to link internal schizoid states with observable symptoms and with external socioeconomic divisions, without necessarily explaining or evidencing underlying causation. R. D. Laing was particularly influential in arguing that dysfunctional families and socioeconomic oppression caused states of alienation and ontological insecurity in people, which could be considered adaptations but which were diagnosed as disorders by mainstream psychiatry and society.(Laing,[1967] 1959). The specific theories associated with Laing and others at that time are not widely accepted, but work from other theoretical perspectives sometimes addresses the same theme.

In a related vein, for Ian Parker, psychology normalizes conditions of social alienation. While it could help groups of individuals emancipate themselves, it serves the role of reproducing existing conditions.(Parker, 2007). This view can be seen as part of a broader tradition sometimes referred to as critical psychology or liberation psychology, which emphasizes that an individual is enmeshed within a social-political framework, and so therefore are psychological problems. Similarly, some psychoanalysts suggest that while psychoanalysis emphasizes environmental causes and reactions, it also attributes the problems of individuals to internal conflicts stemming from early psychosocial development, effectively divorcing them from the wider ongoing context. Slavoj Zizek (drawing on Herbert Marcuse, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Lacan's psychoanalysis) argues that in today's capitalist society, the individual is estranged from their self through the repressive injunction to "enjoy!" Such an injunction does not allow room for the recognition of alienation and, indeed, could itself be seen as an expression of alienation.(Zizek, 1994).

Frantz Fanon, an early writer on postcolonialism, studied the conditions of objectification and violent oppression (lack of autonomy) believed to have led to mental disorders among the colonized in the Third World (in particular Africans) (Fanon, ([2004] 1961).

A process of 'malignant alienation' has been observed in regard to some psychiatric patients, especially in forensic units and for individuals labeled 'difficult' or who aren't liked by at least some staff, which involves a breakdown of the therapeutic relationship between staff and patients, and which may end in the suicide of the patient. Individuals with long-term mental disorders, which may have originally stemmed from social alienation, can experience particular social and existential alienation within their communities due to other people's and potentially their own negative attitudes towards themselves and 'odd' behavior.

Disability

Differences between persons with disabilities and individuals in relative abilities, or perceived abilities, can be a cause of alienation. One study, "Social Alienation and Peer Identification: A Study of the Social Construction of Deafness", found that among deaf adults one theme emerged consistently across all categories of life experience: social rejection by, and alienation from, the larger hearing community. Only when the respondents described interactions with deaf people did the theme of isolation give way to comments about participation and meaningful interaction. This appeared to be related to specific needs, for example for real conversation, for information, the opportunity to develop close friendships and a sense of family. It was suggested that the social meaning of deafness is established by interaction between deaf and hearing people, sometimes resulting in marginalization of the deaf, which is sometimes challenged. It has also led to the creation of alternatives and the deaf community is described as one such alternative.

Physicians and nurses often deal with people who are temporarily or permanently alienated from communities, which could be a result or a cause of medical conditions and suffering, and it has been suggested that therefore attention should be paid to learning from experiences of the special pain that alienation can bring.

In art

Alienation is most often represented in literature as the psychological isolation of an individual from society or community. In a volume of Bloom's Literary Themes, Shakespeare's Hamlet is described as the 'supreme literary portrait' of alienation, while noting that some may argue for Achilles in the Iliad. In addition, Bartleby, the Scrivener is introduced as a perfect example because so many senses of alienation are present. Other literary works described as dealing with the theme of alienation are: The Bell Jar, Black Boy, Brave New World, The Catcher in the Rye, The Chosen, Dubliners, Othello, Fahrenheit 451, Invisible Man, Mrs Dalloway, Notes from Underground, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus, The Trial, The Castle, Waiting for Godot, The Waste Land, and Young Goodman Brown. Contemporary British works noted for their perspective on alienation include The Child in Time, London Fields, Trainspotting, and Regeneration (Senekal, 2008 & 2010b: 102–123).

Sociologist Harry Dahms has analysed The Matrix Trilogy of films in the context of theories of alienation in modern society. He suggests that the central theme of The Matrix is the "all-pervasive yet increasingly invisible prevalence of alienation in the world today, and difficulties that accompany attempts to overcome it".

See also Langman's study of punk, porn, and resistance (2008) and Senekal's (2011) study of Afrikaans extreme metal.

British progressive rock band Pink Floyd's concept album The Wall (1979) and British alternative rock band Radiohead's album OK Computer (1997), both deal with the subject of alienation in their lyrics.