Explaining Misogyny to My Husband

How I unearthed hope from the ruins of toxic masculinity

A few months before we got married, someone said to me, “I guess you need to get rid of that pink pot in your kitchen now.”

If you’re uninitiated on the inner workings of gender-based nonsense, like my now-husband is, this person was implying that I shouldn’t have anything “girly” in common areas since I’d soon be sharing a house with a man.

I replied with something along the lines of, “If his masculinity were so fragile that he’d be upset about a pot being pink, I can assure you, I wouldn’t be marrying him.” (Today, I’d say something like, “Who says only women can have pink things?” and prepare for battle.)

When I told my husband this story years later, as we were scooping out that night’s dinner from the same pink pot, he was baffled. “What? Why would it matter what color the pot is?” he asked.

I launched into a “Misogyny 101” lesson, one of many I’ve shared with him over the course of our marriage. We discussed how some people see the color pink as a symbol of weakness and femininity at its most superficial and stereotypical, how, thanks to internalized misogyny, women sometimes grow to hate pink because of what society has taught them it represents, and how the sexist “pink is for girls” myth is more pervasive than many of us realize.

As usual, he thought it was all stupid. I think it’s stupid, too, but as someone who was socialized the way women typically are, I’m not surprised when silly (and commonly unspoken) gender rules pop up in the form of well-intentioned relationship advice or behavior expectations that someone assumes we adhere to.

His confusion tells me he managed to escape some (hopefully most, if not all) of the typical misogynistic programming that so many men I’ve met seemed to soak up like a sponge. So, puzzled and fascinated, I explain that his responses and experiences aren’t typical or universal, and how much harm men who believe the opposite continue to cause.

While my explanations resemble a type of emotional labor that women are often tasked with, his initial confusion is always welcome proof that misogyny is not innate—it’s learned.

And, by marrying a writer, he becomes a case study.

Multiple times, I’ve told my husband about a popular Christian figure’s latest scandal and watched him say, “Who?” These are often the people trying to keep toxic beliefs about gender roles alive, and he has no idea who they are. I’m happy for him.

I was in my early 20s when a few churches introduced me to their theological views and rules about cross-gender dynamics. While presented to me subtly, they were insidious, and they ultimately painted women as inherently tempting, threatening, and subservient to men.

One night, when I was almost in my mid-30s and far removed from those churches, I told my husband that I wanted to check on a mutual friend we hadn’t heard from in a while. But he should text the friend instead of me, I said. He asked, “Why don’t you just…text him?”

And so I explain that it “looks bad” to some people for a woman (especially a married one like me) to text a man, even in a context as platonic and straightforward as this one. I shared how this played out with male bosses and coworkers when I worked at a church: we couldn’t have one-on-one meetings or conversations without someone making it weird, and even riding to lunch together wasn’t allowed.

We both recognized a familiar thread running through these beliefs and rules, but our conversation revealed blind spots in the male experience. The obvious thread was misogynistic control and an allegiance to patriarchal systems, which taught men and women something different about modesty and purity, sold women a type of “separate but equal” theology about their roles in the home and church, and declared leadership as a male-only trait.

We talked about how some sects of Christianity bar women from pastoral positions simply on the basis of being women, and affirm men as the head of everything just because they’re men. I shared how many women grow up learning that it’s our responsibility to enforce the rules that were created to oppress and control us, which is why, in the contexts where I received my programming before my frontal lobe developed, it would come back on me for texting our friend.

I watched my husband’s jaw drop and heard him say, “I hate this. Burn it all down. Text him.”

Misogyny lazily writes women off as dangerous and unworthy, removing the need to exercise discernment, common decency, and nuance in things like cross-gender friendships and work relationships. It robs women of connection and multifaceted love by insisting we’re nothing more than a temptation to be avoided. It can also stall our professional growth, especially in ministry, as we watch our male colleagues being mentored by the male boss because no one is making their one-on-one time weird.

Aimee Byrd

, who is all too familiar with misogyny in the Church, tackled this topic in her book, Why Can’t We Be Friends?, writing:

“When instead we regard one another as temptations, as means merely of gratifying sexual desires, or as threats to our image, and we do not regard one another honorably as brothers and sisters, we are not loving deeply.

…Table fellowship doesn’t cause affairs. Sexual impropriety arises from affections that are not rightly ordered. When this is the case, then yes, ordinary activities such as lunch, texting, and traveling in the same car can be avenues for bad behavior. But the table isn’t the problem. The problem is the heart.”

Misogyny perverts these “ordinary activities,” and this can be heavily reinforced and justified in churches. It’s not only Christians, and it’s not all Christians, but it’s in Christian spaces where I’ve witnessed the most cognitive dissonance about gender dynamics.

It’s where many can somehow see sexism in general as bad, but view patriarchy as good. It’s where many have convinced themselves that they can claim to love and honor women while relegating them to a lower station in their homes, churches, and society.

Some might say, “It’s not misogyny, it’s biblical,” and claim that the men doing harm are doing so as a twisted misapplication of proper theology, a theology that still places women under men. But their theology is what gives them the idea and often gives them a pass. They’re not harming women despite their theology, but because of it.

When I read the book A Well-Trained Wife earlier this year, the main thing that struck me was how the abuser’s beliefs were not a far cry from the sneaky, misogyny-laced theology that is still common in many churches.

I couldn’t help calling it out in my review, where I wrote, in part:

I have seen a small subset of reviewers trying to separate their rigid religious beliefs from the outcomes [the author] experienced and having to employ the "no true Scotsman" fallacy to do so. It's true that most Christians don't believe or behave in exactly this way. Still, this memoir reminded me that it's not a far leap from theological positions that say women must be submissive and subservient to men to abusive and oppressive situations like the author's.

Her story presents the patriarchy, which is often still upheld in some branches of Christianity today, as the clear problem. It's what allowed and emboldened men in authority to do the types of things described in her memoir…

…I don't want anyone going into this memoir writing it off too quickly as an extreme case without recognizing how destructive certain theologies can be and how much closer their own beliefs may be to patriarchal fundamentalism than they realize.

In stark contrast, my husband has long-term friendships with women who clearly felt safe with him (he was the “Man of Honor” in one of their weddings, standing on the bride’s side). Without prompting, he uses words like “agency” and “autonomy” when discussing our relationship.

We’re both thankful we can still have a faith that rejects the misogyny that Jesus never taught. I don’t know how he learned to be this way (maybe out of love and respect for the women in his life, his natural empathy, or his dedication to consent and compassion?), but I know it wasn’t from the American/evangelical/conservative Christianity we both know and have had different experiences within.

When he reacts to my experiences, it’s a mirror reflecting the absurdity of normalized sexism back to me.

I tend to attract men who buck against masculinity expectations and stereotypes, and whenever a “macho man” has somehow snuck into my orbit, it’s typically been a disaster. I once dated an Enneagram 8 oldest son, and it was a chaotic misadventure for both of us.

But the reason anyone for whom the “Enneagram 8 oldest son” description means something might have a negative reaction to it is because of the stereotype that a man like this would be excessively aggressive and dominant, rejecting vulnerability and embodying toxic masculinity. In many ways, that was true, and I believe it’s because of what cultural conditioning taught him about what made him a man and what role I was supposed to play in his life.

I don’t believe that emotional unavailability, objectification of women, and being domineering are inevitable characteristics of masculinity. That’s another lie that misogyny tells. I believe my generation can nurture a different kind of awareness in boys and men, one that preserves their capacity for genuine empathy, curiosity, and kindness.

In other words, it doesn’t have to be this way. When women like Katie Fillmore, the wife behind Pinkpill RX (which I discovered while writing this), and I spend time explaining our lived experiences to our husbands, we’re taking a swing that we hope will shatter any notion they might have had about our experiences being equal or even acceptable.

We can support men’s growth without taking full responsibility for it, and push our shared desire for a world without misogyny forward (because, let’s face it, misogyny and patriarchy are bad for men, too). We can do more than hope for a world where explanations like these become less and less necessary—we can make misogynistic attitudes and belief systems unwelcome today.

It feels like a privilege to love someone who makes misogyny feel foreign, but I want a world where all men have turned their backs on it. We have a very long way to go.

My husband isn’t a perfect man (and I’m not a perfect woman), but his existence proves that male socialization toward misogyny is something men can opt out of. The fact that he doesn’t get it fills me with a strange kind of hope. His questions are a window into what’s possible.