Content warning: Mentions of sexual assault and violent language
Deviant women are a natural byproduct of a patriarchal society. Deviancy is not one-size-fits-all; instead, a woman can stray away from normality in a plethora of unique ways. By definition, “gender deviance” is any stray away from gendered and sexual social norms. Most often, deviancy in women is prescribed as a result of sexuality, emotionality, egoism, autonomy and demanding personhood. Essentially, having a personality and body that is anything other than submissive, small and docile holds an innate unruliness per the ideals held by the patriarchy. Additionally, any identity or behavior not approved by the homogeneity of power in the United States is at risk of deviancy. So at its very heart, America hates its women — especially women who dabble in deviancy.
Rather depressingly, a large portion of girlhood is dedicated to avoiding the perils of deviousness. Girls, including my younger self, are taught how to center male attention, idolize emaciated bodies and enter competitions with any other girl in our vicinity. The link between this social education and misogyny is undeniable — girls are indoctrinated into patriarchy as early as possible. From the very beginning, we are taught by our environment to ostracize deviant girls, even if it just starts as refusing to invite a girl who strays away from gender norms to an elementary school sleepover. As a young girl, only aged around 10 or 11, I already had a steady stream of this beginner’s misogyny directed my way. Friendly scraped knees on the blacktop and harmless playground taunts turned into gendered insults and the precursors of taught objectification. By middle school, I gravitated away from nearly all of my male friends, and the final few had only seemed to stick around to practice their prepubescent flirting. When I refused, I became just a bitch to them.
My own bitchiness is just one of the many categories that deviant women can fall into — others include, but aren’t limited to, sluts, prudes and attention-whores. Each category has a unique blend of sexuality, autonomy and vulnerability, and acts more as a sliding-scale axis than strictly defined categories. Descriptors like crazy, stupid, ugly, dramatic and feminist can all be distasteful add-ons; after all, even misogynists can acknowledge some of the uniqueness in each woman. It is crucial to note, too, how racism, homophobia and transphobia contribute to the idea of female deviance. Women of intersecting marginalized identities are punished quicker and harder than their counterparts. And, like all moral panics, women who deviate from heteropatriarchal ideals receive every potential form of interpersonal, social and cultural punishment.
In both the media and daily life, this type of language-based punishment is one of the most normalized types of social sanctioning for deviant women. In many ways, it seems elementary, but this language is historical in its ability to remove a woman’s credibility while reducing her to a hysterical stereotype. This type of harassment is especially thrust at famous women, since it is often a punishment for their success and fortune. The exploitation of women for entertainment is nothing new, however: the tabloid culture of the ’90s and the 2000s found deviant women to be its very life source. Concerningly, this emphasis was all-consuming in this era of culture — from lowbrow publications like TMZ to well-reputed media outlets like the New York Times, the use of misogynistic smear campaigns toward women seemingly dominated media. In one of the most notable instances of this, The New York Post famously referred to Brittney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton as the “Bimbo Summit” and the “Three Bimbos of the Apocalypse.” This shocking example is reflective of the very culture that broke Spears, who was turned into a cultural pariah once she moved on from her innocent persona and into a woman with autonomy over her sexuality and open struggles with mental health. The broadness of these sources shows the ease at which women turn into deviant women. By existing as complex humans, tabloids punished and abused these women for deviating from the narrow view of womanhood in which they’re expected to exist and succeed.
During this time, Americans complacently watched and even encouraged the mistreatment of Spears, and turned her life into a household joke. At one peak of media abuse and tabloid misogyny, she shaved her head in the midst of a breakdown. This was in 2007 — only four years after Spears released “Toxic” and was catapulted into fame. I wasn’t old enough at this point to be a fan of her music or brand, but I was old enough to listen to adults berate every aspect of her life and character. Popular media declared she wasn’t a woman deserving of empathy, she was just a crazy bitch to the American public. A few months after her hairstyle turned into a nationwide joke, I sat in a salon cutting my waist-length hair into a bob. To my hairstylists, this brought on a hysterical comparison to Spears and a subsequent banter over her failings as a role model to young girls like myself. But here the problem lies: Brittney Spears was never supposed to be the paradigm of female perfection, she was just a woman trying to follow her passions while being abused for existing in the limelight.
Likely stemming from the tabloid culture that the newest generation of internet users was raised on, online misogyny is even more commonplace and personal than any other previous form of media-wide misogyny. Now, there is no precursor of fame, popularity or success required in order to be the target of a widespread misogynistic smear campaign. Average women now bear this brunt — not just celebrities. This, in many ways, is more violent than tabloid culture due to its innate accessibility. Now, any woman online can be abused and any user online can abuse. A digital profile is under constant surveillance and under the constant threat of being targeted. Furthermore, this is not to say that average women have not been abused in the same way celebrities have been; rather, it’s just been less public and more enclosed within their community.
After a career spent battling harassment, misogynistically-charged infantilization and sexualization, Taylor Swift spent the entirety of 2016 as one of the most hated celebrities online. The catalyst of this was Kanye West’s “Famous” music video and the subsequent confusion and mistruths surrounding Swift’s consent on both her name and likeness. The video is a clear attempt at violently objectifying Swift: it portrays a completely naked wax figure intentionally designed to look like her lain amongst a naked West and other public figures, including past girlfriends and Vogue Editor in Chief Anna Wintour. Accompanying this, and as the center of confused discourse, West sings the line “I made that bitch famous.” Together and in the context of their history, this video plays as the creation of objectification and violation of the women in West’s life. This piece of borderline revenge porn and edited phone calls with Swift worked together to create the largest harassment she received — one that kickstarted her complete removal from the public eye for over a entire year. Watching one of the patron saints of girlhood fall from her success in a misogynistic shroud was simply surreal. Being barely a teenager at the time, I got the message early: if a famous woman surrounded by wealth, privilege and beauty could buckle under misogyny, so could I and every other girl I know.
Even more violent, rape culture’s “perfect victim” mentality is both a contributor and byproduct of the dichotomy of deviant and good women. Even a woman who is perceived as perfect falls into the trap of deviancy when she refuses to play into patriarchy revoking her autonomy. When a woman’s clothing, behavior and every expression of personhood are used to excuse the violence she faces, there is an impossibly narrow trustability for her to achieve. In public opinion, if she has been deviant in any form, she is no longer respectable. This is a stark contrast to the man’s role; rather than being guilty from the start, his innocence is almost impossible to revoke. A man who assaults, degrades and abuses the women he encounters will always be less deviant than a woman who attempts to assert her autonomy or share her story.
Victims are often blacklisted from their communities, family and friends. In contrast, their abusers often see little to no difference in how they are treated — in some cases, there is an even uptick in popularity or a horrifying, cult-like following. Roman Polanksi received an Oscar after fleeing the United States after assaulting a minor. After accusing Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault in a tweet, Rose McGowan’s Twitter was suspended for “violating community guidelines.” This, naturally, sparked a day-long boycott of Twitter. This is not just limited to public figures — women who report predators in their schools, offices and families also do not receive the care and validation that they deserve. In 2015, Stanford student Channel Miller watched as her rapist, Brock Turner, was sentenced to only six months in county jail after being found guilty of sexually assaulting her on their college campus because he had “good behavior.” Closer to home, the University of Michigan received “530 total reports of possible sexual and gender-based misconduct” and only conducted 59 investigations. Being assaulted or abused is a life-long wound for the victim, but culture and legal systems do not want to harm the male perpetrator in the same way they’ve caused harm. In this way, an abuser’s ability to hurt women and still have their reputation remain intact will always be more culturally valuable than a woman’s life and dignity.
Even in the rare case that a woman — celebrity or otherwise — gains widespread approval, the threat of turning into a deviant woman is ever-looming. In just one swift motion, a woman can be pushed down from her pedestal and back onto her well-hated knees.
Statement Columnist Ava Burzycki can be reached at burzycki@umich.edu.