On Internalized Misogyny and NLOGs
Are we just about done with one of my favorite ways to be mean on the internet? I actually hope so
Internalized misogyny: it's an accusation I've had lobbed at me since I was in my early 20s, ironically beginning once I started my first feminist blog. I suppose I was asking for it by naming it “The Nice Feminist” with a tagline that stated “where the author isn’t a jerk,” but I liked pushing buttons, and I was new to feminism and wanted to be a bridge between the feminists and the MRAs in the ongoing gender wars conducted in the heyday of the 2000s blogosphere. I very naively believed I could somehow explain feminism to both the general public and to these MRA men in a way that other feminists I saw didn’t or wouldn’t: politely and, maybe most importantly, with men’s gender-based concerns in mind, as well. And then, upon hearing my most reasonable takes and sincere empathy, they’d call a truce and accept feminism as valid. (Spoiler: this did not happen.)
Feeling an urge to mediate and peace-keep is a recurring theme in my life, and at the time, I saw all the anti-male vitriol all over the feminist blogosphere and other feminist spaces that I considered myself a part of, and the rampant misogyny in response (or provoking it) and I didn’t like it. I didn’t see how it could possibly be helpful to the goal of gender equality, and I wanted to bring everyone together, moving forward with this shared goal in mind.
In my early twenties, before I started writing these blogs, this accusation of “internalized misogyny” may have been at least partly accurate: I was the kind of annoying NLOG that, frankly, a ton of us women are in our young adult lives, who made my preferences for male friendships and how I didn't like pop music or the color pink at least 85% of my personality.
But us NLOGs, former and present, we all get there from somewhere. And, often, those “somewheres” are painful experiences we've had with other women that make us fear allowing ourselves to be vulnerable with them again.
It's easy to understand why a woman routinely scorned and betrayed by men would begin to feel hesitation in getting close to other men again; we’d all — myself included, probably — tell her it was a perfectly understandable and valid fear for her to have, based on her past experiences. But the same understanding isn’t extended to women who have had these experiences with other women. Why are we accused, effectively, of being gender traitors for having such a normal reaction to repeated betrayal or broken trust? The misogyny is coming from inside the house.
of talked about this phenomenon recently:I am predisposed to being sympathetic to the plights of men because we can often bond quickly over intellectual interests and because no emotional or social status is jockeying involved between us. They also don’t bully me or ostracize me for wrongthink. I suspect that, ironically, the confidence many men carry around makes it possible to for them engage with me socially without feeling like they’re competing because it doesn’t even occur to them. Among women, I’m always on guard for saying or doing the wrong thing or being targeted for saying something too directly. I also cannot be myself; women have been angry at me for laughing too loudly and my boisterousness.
I carry many emotional scars from my relationships with women throughout my life in my family, among ‘friends,’ and at work. I won’t call it a trauma, but it’s cathartic to admit it out loud because it’s such a fraught subject. The list of harms is long, leading me to write this sort of thing in the first place. I’ve worked hard, however, to move past it and not be defined by these scars, which is a result of beating depression. I am probably obsessed at this moment with analyzing women’s behavior, modern feminism, and the collective consequences of individual behaviors. I’m conducting fieldwork to discern how humans behave in homo and hetero social groups and with each other individually.
I don’t know if I realized it at the time, but a lot of my feelings of not wanting to identify with “other girls” back in my twenties probably had a lot to do with many high school girl-group experiences of jealousy, boyfriend-stealing/cheating, talking shit behind each other’s backs, that kind of thing. And with my post-high school path going in a different direction than many of my old friends, it was easy to let most of them slip away and fall instead into a habit of befriending the new guys around me in the workplace and industry I worked in, people who shared my interests, and ignoring the women, many of whom I learned quickly were often meaner and would often favor the men, themselves, in interpersonal or professional conflicts and bully other women. It was easy to see how this malice, as before in high school, seemed to stem from jealousy.
I’m not saying I didn’t suffer from this same jealous behavior at times or that I’m better than these other women because of it — I’m certain I did, because we all do at some point or another, but I don’t recall ever feeling a natural inclination or even serious desire to be mean to someone because they had something I didn’t have, or because they might threaten my position in whichever place in the hierarchy we’re supposed to be vying for. To be honest, I’ve never been all that competitive in any way that isn’t just goofy or for fun, being much more the type to just take my ball and leave if people take their games too seriously, so I don’t imagine I really did exhibit many of those behaviors, at least to the extent I’m complaining about with other women. But then again, NLOGness suggests a sort of inherent superiority complex which I think also stems from jealousy or envy, so there’s that.
After I’d started learning that I was acting pretty obnoxiously and that declaring “I’m not like other girls” wasn’t a compliment to myself, nor was it truly a compliment from men when they said it to me (even when they sincerely meant it as such), but only really disguised a generalized insult to women as a group, I’d tried to be more neutral for the latter half of my twenties when it came to analyzing why I was friends predominantly with men. I stopped simply declaring things like women are just too dramatic or guys are more chill or even I don’t like girly shit because, honestly, aside from my hatred of the color pink, that last part wasn’t even all that true, anyway — I just preferred to express my femininity in more “alternative” ways at the time. But even as I started to recognize the inherent sexism in my specific NLOG thought process, I continued feeling more comfortable talking to and being close with men than women for a long time. Even to this day, I’ve only had male therapists because of what I assume is an underlying fear of being judged more harshly by women (my current therapist says this is very common for women like me, natch).
All that said, Anuradha is not the first woman I’ve heard (or read) who complains about the bullying and mistreatment she’s received from other women that has been notably absent in her friendships with men. This is common, especially in my social circles over the years, and the fact that so many feminist-identified women balk at the notion of female bullying and mistreatment of one another being uttered aloud really only proves the point.
I’ve personally done a lot of work to eliminate my inner NLOG over the years, and I have a lot more female friends now than I did in my 20s when I was fresh from the wounds of high school girl-group betrayals and had decided to write off most female friendships as inevitably temporary, superficial, and ultimately probably pointless. That part just sort of changed sometime in my early 30s, maybe because we’d mostly all paired off or started families or otherwise settled down, matured, and didn’t have the urge to compete anymore? I don’t know. But being friends with women suddenly stopped being so difficult as I entered my 30s. For awhile, anyway.
A young woman in her NLOG phase probably hates being associated with the negative stereotypes of women and femininity in the media and her life and chooses to reject them in favor of something perhaps more countercultural or even simply less stereotypically feminine. She hates the color pink and she only listens to hard rock or metal. She is probably considered attractive, at least in the kind of circles she hangs out in, because even though she won’t admit it, she knows that if she wasn’t, all her best dude friends wouldn’t prioritize hanging out with her as much as they do. Many likely harbor unrequited feelings for her that, once revealed, will cause him to end their friendship because “it hurts too much,” leaving her “girlfriend-zoned” while he complains to his friends (mostly other guys) that he’s been “friend-zoned.” She has now lost yet another friend, only now it’s the men she’s losing instead of the women she expected. The men she thought she could trust not to ditch or betray her the way women had.
This repeated type of experience throughout my 20s is one of the things that pulled me fully out of the NLOG mentality. It had become difficult to discern the true intentions of any new male friend unless they had a serious girlfriend or wife, the latter of which wouldn’t happen often until later in my twenties and early thirties when, unsurprisingly, it subsequently became easier to be friends with men again, and also easier to become friends with women.
In the video above, Adella Afadi explains what an NLOG or a “pickme” is, and, starting around 4:30, what’s wrong with the term now that it’s become part of the general lexicon and used and abused into incoherence like so many other good words and phrases (RIP gaslighting, narcissist, and Nazi). That is to say, it’s lobbed both gleefully and blindly at any woman who disagrees with (or about) another woman.
But there is more to it. No one can really deny that there are different dynamics between women and men, and the frequency with which young women turn their backs on their gender in this more annoying NLOG sort of way is extremely common among teen girls and young women; so common, in fact, that almost everyone who writes about the phenomenon admits to having been exactly the same way at some point. In “Defending the ‘pick-me’ girl,” Ianna Martinez Barrientos says:
The girl’s girl is meant to oppose the pick-me girl. She supports and uplifts other women rather than degrades them. However, in my opinion, the concept of a girl’s girl is contradictory. The pick-me girl is ridiculed because, through language and behaviour, she is trying to set herself apart from other women. Yet, women who call other women “pick-me girls” while implying that they are girls’ girls are doing the same thing; they too are setting themselves apart from a collective group.
Emphasis mine.
While I used to be the dreaded pickme, I have reframed my perspective since then:
It’s not that I don’t like “other girls”; it’s that I don’t really like spending time with superficial, mean, or proudly incurious people. Men can be, and are, many of these things, and I don’t like, hang out with, or date the men with those traits, either. Women, in my experience, tend to grow into ourselves as we age and develop actual personalities that keep us from continuing our patterns of adopting men as our only hobbies or goals, whether we were doing it as a pickme, NLOG, or a girly girl — because all of them are vying for attention, from men or other women, just in different ways and using different methods. And that, I think, is why most of us tend to outgrow the pickme behavior and eventually find ourselves either in more mature female friendships, or wanting to be and beginning to actively seek them out again. While it may not seem like there are many girls out there like you, there actually are. You just have to get rid of the idea that you’re so special. Lots of other people are, too, unfortunately for us Elder Millennials who were raised to believe we were the most special (I’m still working on that one).
All that to say: I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being feminine, whatever that looks like this decade or century. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with stereotypically feminine traits like sensitivity, emotional intelligence, and agreeableness. I think they balance well with stereotypically masculine traits, and the world needs it all. Sometimes I crave the company of women simply because I want to be able to express emotions without the man I’m usually talking to looking bewildered or going directly into fix-it mode. Sometimes I just want the kind of empathy that comes with sharing similar bodies, and the life experiences we often share because of those bodies. Sometimes I just want to talk about my hair or outfit to someone whose eyes aren’t glazed over in absolute boredom before I’ve finished my first sentence. Sometimes it’s that simple, honestly. And I know many men feel exactly the same way about needing guy time.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve leaned more deeply into my femininity — both inward and outward — more than I used to. I’m not sure why, exactly; maybe I just got bored of my more “alternative” look that usually included short, dyed hair and mohawks or undercuts; perhaps I’m simply insecure and afraid that if I don’t present myself in a more feminized manner, I won’t be considered attractive as I ease into middle age; maybe it’s because I’m just in my long hair era. I don’t deny being vain and wanting to stay as conventionally attractive as I can for as long as possible for whatever age bracket I am in, and I will be sad when people stop telling me I look so much younger than I am. It is what it is. I’m sure I’ll get over it. It is another of those near-universal female experiences that I’m not going to beat myself up for sharing, and right now I’m enjoying the more feminine and natural version of myself.
It’s not that I don’t like “other girls”; it’s that I don’t really like superficial, mean, or proudly incurious people.
While I may not be interested in hanging out with the kinds of people I described earlier, I’m no longer outwardly insulting to women who clearly have different priorities or interests than I have, especially when I wouldn’t be to the men with similar personality types; I’m just probably not going to hang out with them much, if at all. It’s not like those people have any interest in hanging out with someone like me, anyway, let’s be real. But there is nothing stopping me from keeping any judgments to myself and simply being kind. There’s nothing stopping you from doing the same, either!
There is also nothing stopping me from arguing with you if you happen to also be a woman and say something that I disagree with, even if it is about our shared gender. Call me a “pickme” for it if you want, but that kind of insult doesn’t bother me anymore. I already got “picked,” ages ago, I have a mind of my own, and I can say whatever I want. Just like you can!
Just do it better, maybe. Like Adelle says in her video, “it’s the hypocrisy for me.”
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I'm very late but this one spoke to me a lot, and very well written as usual. There's so much writing here that's of low quality that seems to exist for the sake of content generation, and everything you write is so thoughtful.
1. I definitely was a NLOG, and I see that there is a distinction between that behavior and an honest assessment of the shortcomings among both men and women in terms of anti-social behavior. It is a plain fact for many of us that we're stifled in women's spaces and less stifled in male spaces. I think the comfort we feel, however, in male spaces also leads other women to be suspicious.
2. I 100% had an unhealthy relationship with the male gaze during this period - my self worth, I must admit, did tie into male attention, without realizing. I did a lot of self work and this became evident as a result. I actually was unfaithful in my relationship and that was a radical break for me. After the regret stemming from that event, I never sought male attention again, and it now has nothing to do with my self worth. However, I still find men far easier to get along with socially, and to be more fun overall. Maybe it's because I have some stereotypically male inclinations in my personality, but I still find my preference for male company to be strong.
3. I have a LOT more women friends these days like you and all my male friends are largely married, making the friendship either strained or non-existent. This is, of course, because, when men get married, women friends are put at a distance because their partners are often jealous of female friends if they're attractive. I've seen this so often, and it sucks to lose friends.
4. I think that despite having been NLOGs, I don't know if I would accept the accusation of internalized misogyny. E.g., my earliest identity was that of feminist. Before puberty even I knew that women were treated unfairly because I saw it in my own family and culture. That is the opposite of misogyny. I remained this way until college, even though I had experienced nothing but rejection from girls throughout until college, even from girls I thought were my friends. In college, I made female friends. But I also noticed that no matter the friend group, if all women, I was almost always the butt of a joke - I was the one they made fun of, and this was pretty hurtful at the time because it was about the ways in which I didn't fit in. That kept a low level of distrust bubbling within me that then became molten lava as I experienced all sorts of humiliation and job loss and reputational destruction because a woman didn't like me. Women have helped my career, but of those who have hurt it, women are the majority. Is this not justified distrust of women as a class? Maybe not, but if one starts out trusting and repeatedly has that trust broken, would a person not be distrustful of those people as a class? I don't think this observation is internalized misogyny but I have constantly been accused of it. The word misogyny has little meaning to me.
5. "...and the fact that so many feminist-identified women balk at the notion of female bullying and mistreatment of one another being uttered aloud really only proves the point."
This right here proves that there's no sisterhood; there's only the inclination of bullying accompanied by a stricture on talking about it. That is self-serving bs, as we both know. And this vicious cycle about observing shitty female behavior and calling is a death spiral for me - I have fully gone in the direction of operating from a place of distrust unless it's someone like you - curious women.
6. I, too, find incurious people tiring. I noticed though that intellectual conversation about abstract topics is absent in women's spaces. I find this sort of conversation easier and more common in male company, not least because men tend to be more interested in these topics and because women's groups seem to default to discussing celebs, entertainment, other people, and events, and I just find it excruciating to be in these conversations. Many women would call this statement internalized misogyny, but my eyes and ears show me that the concerns of college educated women are largely shallow and self-centered. I can't help but conclude this from the myriad experiences I've had in women-only spaces. I run away from them now.
Finally, the pick me girl: I find this, too, to be a problematic moniker. It refuses to recognize that maybe the pick me girl is just making the point that women treat her badly. Why would a woman dubbed a pick me for having deviant opinions or behavior not feel shitty for being called this? I've been called a pick me girl not because I'm going after some guy but because of my deviating opinions about the shitty ways in which women behave. The point isn't to be picked, it's to speak a plain fact that women actively suppress through the enforcement of groupthink and authoritarian tendencies in our spaces. There is always a hierarchy, always a queen bee, and always a butt of the joke.
I was an archetypal NLOG *despite* being fairly low on the hotness. I did have choice female friends, but I heavily divested from "young femininity". In hindsight, it was 80% at least driven by my being "sexually weird", which only many years later I realised meant being dominant (and toppy). But the arc this post describes still roughly fits.
The most striking thing I have observed is that as I got older (I'm definitely at the "it's all downhill from here or will be very soon" stage now), the women got SO MUCH BETTER, and the men got SO MUCH WORSE -- and I'm not even sure if its just relative effect caused by women's "improving with age" described in this post. This is an entirely real life observation and doesn't apply to media and public people, among those I still see a disparity of reason, emotional processing and appeals to sympathy that I saw in my late teens / early 20s in favour of men. But in my actual meatspace existence women my age come across as more interesting and more enjoyable to interact with and more emotionally together than men. I've not unpacked that (could be entirely circumstantial) but it's definitely a thing in my life.