S2 EP337 – The Pathology and Healing of Misogyny: An Inner Bonding Perspective

Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Inner Bonding Podcast. I’m Dr. Margaret Paul, and today we’re going to explore a difficult but critically important subject, which is the pathology and healing of misogyny.

Misogyny is often defined simply as the hatred of women. But from an Inner Bonding perspective, misogyny is much more than hatred. It is a pathology of disconnection—a profound disconnection from one’s own feelings, one’s own vulnerability, one’s own soul, which is your inner child, and ultimately from love itself.

While misogyny is most commonly expressed by men toward women, women can also internalize misogynistic beliefs and attitudes, directing them toward themselves or other women. So today, we’ll be examining misogyny as a psychological and spiritual phenomenon rather than simply as a characteristic of one gender.

This conversation is not about blaming men or idealizing women. Nor is it about excusing harmful behavior. Rather, it’s about understanding the inner dynamics that lead some people to devalue, dominate, exploit, or fear women—and how healing those dynamics benefits everyone.

Every human being possesses both masculine and feminine qualities. The healthy masculine brings clarity and problem solving, loving actions, protection, and integrity. The healthy feminine brings compassion, intuition, receptivity, creativity, tenderness, emotional openness, and spiritual connection.

Misogyny develops when the wounded self becomes frightened of these feminine qualities—both within oneself and in others.

What happens to a little boy that can eventually lead him to fear, resent, dominate, or even hate women? No infant is born a misogynist. Every baby enters the world longing to love and be loved. Every little boy longs to feel safe, cherished, emotionally connected, and accepted exactly as he is.

But something happens along the way. From an Inner Bonding perspective, misogyny begins long before a boy develops opinions about women.

It begins with disconnection from himself. Imagine a sensitive little boy who cries easily, wants affection, loves closeness with his mother and wants her reassurance when he’s scared.

But instead of being welcomed for himself, he hears: “Big boys don’t cry.” “Toughen up.” “Don’t be a sissy.” “You’re too sensitive.” “Stop acting like a girl.” “Man up.”

What happens? The very qualities that make deep love possible—tenderness, openness, emotional honesty, receptivity—are being shamed. The child concludes that part of himself is unacceptable. To survive emotionally, he disconnects from those parts. He begins abandoning his soul, his inner child. And this is where all pathology begins with the creation of the wounded self.

The wounded self of these boys might say things like, “I’ll never let anyone see my vulnerability again.” “I’ll become strong.” “I’ll become powerful.” “I’ll never feel helpless again.”

What’s being rejected with these messages? It’s not just emotion or vulnerability that’s being rejected. What’s being rejected are the very qualities traditionally associated with the feminine.

The wounded self concludes that vulnerability is dangerous and that emotional openness leads to humiliation or rejection. As a result, they disconnect from their own heart and soul.

Once someone has rejected these qualities within themselves, they often begin rejecting them in others as well. What cannot be accepted internally is often attacked externally.

Power becomes the substitute for love. Control becomes the illusion for safety, and dominance and even violence becomes the expression of a lack of inner self-worth.

The little boy who once wanted connection now, as an adult, wants invulnerability. But invulnerability is impossible. So the wounded self continually defends itself against anything that reminds it of its buried vulnerability.

The feminine—whether in women or in men—often represents qualities that the wounded self fears and has rejected, including compassion, tenderness, emotional openness, intuition, receptivity, and nurturance.

These qualities remind the wounded self of everything it worked so hard to suppress. Rather than grieving this loss, it attacks the reminder. This is psychological projection. The person isn’t actually attacking women. He is attacking the vulnerable parts of himself that women often symbolize.

The more disconnected he becomes from his own heart and soul, the more threatening emotionally healthy women may feel to him.

Women become dangerous because genuine intimacy exposes vulnerability. A loving woman may ask for empathy. She may ask for emotional honesty. She may challenge controlling behavior – and hope she does!

Before I move on, this is why I created my 30-Day Love Yourself video course. If you’re a man or a woman looking to heal a misogynist relationship system, this is something I walk you through step by step. You can learn more in the description below.”

Many misogynistic men display narcissistic traits. It’s important to understand that narcissism is not excessive self-love. It’s a defense against profound self-loathing. But beneath the grandiosity of narcissism often lies unbearable shame.

The narcissistic wounded self believes: “If I’m superior, I’ll never have to feel inferior.” “If I’m admired, I’ll never feel insignificant.” “If I control others, I’ll never be controlled.”

For someone organized around narcissistic defenses, request for openness and intimacy feel threatening rather than inviting. So rather than opening, he attacks. Rather than reflecting, he blames. Rather than becoming curious, he becomes defensive. This is not strength. It is fear disguised as power.

Likewise, at the core of misogyny is generally profound shame.

Core shame from the wounded self says: “I’m not enough.” “I’m weak.” “I’m powerless.” “I’m unlovable.”

The wounded self desperately seeks relief from these painful beliefs. One strategy is domination. The wounded self says, “If I can dominate someone else, if I can control someone, if I can make someone feel smaller, perhaps I won’t have to feel my own inadequacy.”

Misogyny falsely promises: “If women are beneath me, then I must be above them.” But superiority never heals shame. It just masks it temporarily, but because shame is an internal wound, no amount of external domination can heal an internal disconnection.

This is why domination often escalates. The wounded self needs increasing control because genuine self-worth never comes from domination. In fact, the more a misogynist acts out, the worse they feel about themselves. What they believe is working for them only causes more shame.

Empathy and compassion require openness. These feelings require allowing another person’s experience to matter. But empathy and compassion also require being connected with one’s own feelings. If someone has spent years suppressing vulnerability, empathy and compassion may actually feel threatening because another person’s pain awakens feelings that have long been buried.

Instead of opening, the ego wounded self defends, dismisses, ridicules, minimizes, or it becomes hostile. This is why misogynistic attitudes often include statements that invalidate the feminine gifts.

The issue isn’t merely disagreement. It’s the inability—or unwillingness—to tolerate, learn from, and take responsibility for their own emotions, rather than taking their feelings out on trying to control women.

While the loving adult welcomes truth, even when it’s uncomfortable, the wounded self fears truth because truth threatens its defensive structure. A man who fears his own feelings is threatened by the feelings and inner knowing of most women. The more emotionally intelligent and intuitive a woman is, the more the misogynist is threatened. Remember all the women who were burned at the stake as being witches because of their inner knowing and intuition?

Men who have learned to suppress their own feminine side are therefore threatened by women and need to diminish them to feel safe. I find this to be so very sad. Instead of learning from women to embrace their feminine side, misogynists reject this whole aspect of themselves, which ultimately serves to disconnect them from their soul and perpetuates their core shame.

Many women today have learned to balance their masculine side, such as working in the world, with their feminine side – their feelings, and their empathy, compassion, and intuition. Unless a man does the inner work of embracing his feminine side and his true spiritual connection, he will continue to feel threatened by women.

One hallmark of misogyny is objectification.

When women are viewed primarily as bodies, possessions, conquests, or roles rather than as whole human beings, authentic relationship becomes impossible.

Why does objectification occur? Because genuine intimacy requires mutuality. It requires vulnerability, respect, and seeing another person’s humanity. For someone terrified of emotional intimacy, objectification is psychologically safer, because objects don’t make emotional demands. Objects don’t reveal our vulnerabilities, and objects don’t require empathy and compassion. Objectification allows the wounded self to avoid authentic relationship while maintaining an illusion of connection.

But this comes at a tremendous cost. Not only to women, but also to the person doing the objectifying, who becomes increasingly disconnected from genuine love.

Misogyny does not arise in a vacuum. As I previously said, children absorb countless messages from families, peers, media, institutions, and culture. Some boys learn that dominance equals masculinity. Some girls learn that their worth depends on pleasing others or diminishing themselves.

These messages shape false beliefs, but conditioning is not destiny. At some point, every adult becomes able to be responsible for examining their inherited false beliefs. Whether or not a person does this depends on their intent. Those people who have chosen to try to control others, outcomes, and their own feelings will not open to doing their inner work to heal their core shame and learn to define their own worth.

Inner Bonding teaches that healing begins when we choose to open to learning about our false beliefs and become willing to ask:

“What have I learned that isn’t true about me and about others?” “How am I abandoning myself that’s leading me to feel threatened by women?” “How have I participated in systems of domination, consciously or unconsciously?” Other questions that are helpful are “What am I afraid of regarding women?” “What vulnerability am I avoiding?” “What beliefs about masculinity, femininity, power, or worth am I carrying?”

This requires humility rather than defensiveness. Healing begins with curiosity – a deep intention to learn about false beliefs, about what’s true, and about what’s loving to you and to others. When the intent is to control, the wounded self is in charge coming from fear and false beliefs. When the intent is to learn about your beliefs and about the truth and what’s loving to you and to others, then the loving adult is in charge.

It’s important to recognize that misogyny is not just harmful to woman. It harms men as well.

A man disconnected from his own heart and soul often experiences emotional isolation, difficulty with intimacy, chronic anger, fear of dependency, loneliness, inability to give and receive love, and pressure to constantly prove himself. The wounded self promises power but delivers fear and isolation.

Many men raised to reject tenderness also lose access to joy, wonder, playfulness, and deep connection with themselves and with others. They may achieve success while feeling profoundly alone. This is one of the tragedies of misogyny. It imprisons not only those it targets but also those who embrace it.

Attachment research teaches us that children develop internal expectations about relationships based on early caregiving. If a boy experiences inconsistent love, emotional neglect, humiliation, abandonment, or frightening caregiving, he may develop insecure attachment.

He longs for closeness but closeness also feels dangerous, which creates a painful paradox.

As an adult, he may desperately want intimacy while simultaneously fearing it. Women become both desired and feared. He wants connection. But he fears needing anyone. If a woman becomes emotionally important, she gains the power to hurt him. The wounded self solves this dilemma by trying to maintain control, because control feels safer than mutuality. Domination feels safer than vulnerability, and objectification feels safer than intimacy.

But these strategies prevent genuine love from ever developing.

When we think about patriarchy, it’s easy to think only about its effects on women. But patriarchy first wounds boys. It teaches them that their worth depends on performance, and that love must be earned. That tenderness is weakness and that emotions are dangerous. They learn that asking for help is shameful, and that dominance equals masculinity. This creates generations of emotionally abandoned boys who become emotionally disconnected men.

One of the strongest reactions from misogynistic men is often toward women who know their own worth, because emotionally healthy women cannot easily be controlled. For someone whose identity depends on control, this feels intolerable. Rather than seeing strength as beautiful, the wounded self experiences it as threatening.

One of the beautiful things about Inner Bonding is that it does not require us to force ourselves to believe in equality. Equality naturally emerges as healing occurs. When you know you own worth, you no longer need to prove it. When you love yourself, you don’t need to dominate others. When you embrace your own vulnerability, others’ openness and vulnerability no longer frightens you.

When you reconnect with your own heart and soul, you recognize others’ heart and soul, not dependent on gender, or on race, ethnicity, status, or sexual identity.

The loving adult understands that love is never hierarchical. Love does not rank human value. Love doesn’t need superiority. Love recognizes that every person carries both gifts and wounds, and that every person deserves dignity. Every person is an expression of the same divine life.

Healing begins by turning inward and recognizing that the wounded self has been running the system. Instead of trying to control others, the loving adult becomes willing to understand and care for the frightened inner child.

Misogyny cannot be healed merely through argument or education, nor can it be healed through shame. People rarely transform because they are humiliated.

They transform when they become willing to grieve the childhood they never had and grieve the tenderness they abandoned, and grieve the love they longed for but didn’t receive, and grieve the years spent hiding behind control. Only when those tears are allowed can the heart reopen, and when the heart reopens, domination is no longer necessary because love has finally become stronger than fear.

That is the true path of healing—not only for misogyny, but for every form of hatred and domination that grows out of the wounded self.

As we practice Inner Bonding and learn how to open to our higher guidance, we begin discovering an internal source of identity. Our worth no longer depends on dominance and control and superiority. It comes from our relationship with our soul, our inner child, and with spirit. You discover that you are a spark of the Divine, a unique expression of the love that is God. You discover the unique gifts we’ve each been given.

As genuine self-worth develops, compassion and empathy have a chance to grow – unless the person is a narcissist or sociopath, in which case they are not capable of empathy.

By learning to respect yourself, respect toward other becomes so much easier. Curiosity and listening replace anger and defending. Personal power replaces the need for power over others as you embrace your innate power to love yourself and others.

The loving adult recognizes that strength and tenderness are not opposites, that real strength includes tenderness and real courage includes vulnerability, and real love includes equality.

The problem is that most misogynists do not recognize that they need help. They think they are right, and when people think they are right, they don’t believe they need help. Perhaps it’s going to be up to women learning to more deeply value themselves for things to change.

The more we learn to love and value ourselves, the less need we have to control, diminish, or fear anyone else. Inner Bonding reminds us that every act of self-abandonment contributes to fear, and every act of self-love contributes to peace.

Every time we choose compassion over domination, respect over contempt, and connection over control, we help create a world in which all people can flourish.

I think this developmental perspective is central to Inner Bonding because it shifts the focus from condemning misogyny to understanding how self-abandonment, attachment wounds, shame, and the fear of vulnerability create the conditions in which misogyny can take root. It also makes clear that healing misogyny is not simply about changing beliefs—it is about reconnecting with the abandoned inner child, grieving what was lost, and developing a loving adult who no longer needs power over others in order to feel worthy.

Remember that the deepest healing is never found in power over another. It is found in the courage to open your own heart and soul.

Thank you for joining me today on the Inner Bonding Podcast. If today’s episode resonated with you and you’re ready to do your inner healing work, I invite you to check out my 30-Day Love Yourself video course. You’ll find the link in the description.

I’m sending you my love and my blessings on your healing journey.