Misogyny isn’t just personal. It’s systemic, strategic, and often subtle. It operates like a rigged game, full of unspoken rules designed to keep wome
Misogyny isn’t just personal. It’s systemic, strategic, and often subtle. It operates like a rigged game, full of unspoken rules designed to keep women in check, silence truth, and punish power.
Years ago, a second-wave feminist known as Rose, or “TheBewilderness,” began to name these rules with the help of other women who were tired of being told to smile, to shrink, to sit in silence. The result is what’s now known as The Rules of Misogyny—a list that women around the world recognize instantly, because we’ve lived it.
These rules don’t need to be explained to us. We feel them. We’ve fought them. We’ve survived them.
But survival is just the beginning.
Now, we examine the rules to break the cycle—so the game ends with us.
Here are the Rules of Misogyny:
1. Women are responsible for what men do.
2. Women saying no to men is a hate crime.
3. Women speaking for themselves are exclusionary and selfish.
4. Women’s opinions are violence against men, thus male violence against women is justified.
5. Women and Feminism must be useful to men or they are worthless.
6. Women who go around being female AT men by menstruating and breastfeeding babies deserve punishment.
7. Women should always be grateful to men for everything.
8. Men are whatever men say they are and women are whatever men say they are.
9. Men always know the “real reasons” for everything women do and say.
10. The worst thing about male violence is that it makes men look bad.
11. Whatever women suffer from, it is worse when it happens to men.
12. Women’s ability to recognize male behavior patterns is misandry.
13. Angry women are crazy. Angry men have trouble expressing themselves.
14. Women have all the rights they need: The right to remain silent.
15. Men are the default human. Women are strange subhuman others.
16. Everyone owns and controls women’s bodies except the women themselves.
We are ever grateful for Rose, a second wave feminist, who wrote this out so plainly. Thank you!
Reflection Questions: Making the Rules Real to Your Life
Use these questions in your journal, in quiet reflection, or in sister circles. They are meant to be uncomfortable—because breaking free often is.
When did you first realize that being a woman came with “rules” not written for your protection, but your containment?
Which of these rules have you obeyed in the past to stay safe or accepted? How did it affect your spirit?
How does the pressure to “not be angry” show up in your life? What are you really feeling underneath that?
Have you ever been told you were “too much”? Who said it—and what were you doing at that moment?
What do you know about yourself today that no rule can erase, deny, or diminish?
Which rule do you refuse to follow anymore, no matter the cost?
If you were raising or mentoring a young girl, how would you help her name and reject these rules before they break her?
Closing Affirmation:
You are not bitter. You are not broken.
You are a woman living in truth, shaking the foundations of a world that would rather see you silenced.
Let it shake.
And know this:
As you live—day by day, breath by breath—you have the power to change.
Change what you accept.
Change what you believe.
Change the story you’ve been handed.
You don’t have to live by rules that were never made for your freedom.
You were made to be free.
The 17 Rules of Misogyny Video
