Internalized misogyny and feminist consciousness among College students

Abstract

Internalized misogyny refers to the unconscious acknowledgement of sexist ideas by women, the subliminal projection of sexist ideas onto themselves or other women, such as undermining other women or themselves, and expressing immense distaste for characteristics that are deemed to be feminine, while feminist consciousness is the awareness and criticism of patriarchy and gender inequalities; feminist consciousness also refers to feminist self-identification. There is still a gap in the literature on internalized misogyny and feminist consciousness within educational settings, despite the increase in public awareness and academic studies. Therefore, as a group of female researchers who have experienced our fair share of challenges as women, our desire for social change and societal relevance are just two of the many motivators that have driven us to conduct this study. This research paper explores the concept of internalized misogyny as well as the significance of feminist consciousness. The purpose of this study is to understand the relationship between internalized misogyny and feminist consciousness among female college students when grouped according to sexual orientation and year level. A quantitative approach was used. A survey method is used to obtain data from the selected respondents. A probability sampling method, specifically stratified random sampling, was utilized to select 305 respondents based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. The Feminist Consciousness Scale (FCS; Duncan et al., 2020), the Internalized Misogyny Scale (IMS; Pigott. 2004). and a demographic questionnaire were administered for the purposes of this study. As a whole, the respondents showed a low level of internalized misogyny. When determined by sexual orientation, both the queer and heterosexual female students' levels of internalized misogyny were low. In its entirety, the respondents showed a moderate level of feminist consciousness. Moreover, across all categories, the respondents maintained the same level of feminist consciousness—sexual orientation and year level alike. There is a significant relationship between the levels of internalized misogyny and feminist consciousness among female college students. The Pearson's coefficient of -.238 indicates that there is a weak negative correlation (LaMorte, 2021; Miyamoto et al., 2017; Meghanathan, 2016). The study concludes that female college students who have lower levels of feminist consciousness might be more vulnerable to internalizing misogyny from their personal experiences with sexist comments and encounters in their personal lives.