In the aftermath of the election some people have interpreted Trump’s win as a license to hate openly. We can applaud conservatives and others who have come out and said they are against bigotry; but I have yet to hear many voices state they are against misogyny. Why? Is it too vague a thing to be against?

Do people not believe misogyny is as big a problem as racism or hate against the LGBTQ community? (Not to compare – it’s all despicable and all deserves to be struggled against). As some have pointed out, the defeat of Hillary was in part due to misogyny. There is no getting around it. She was ridiculed for being female (or as I put it, “running for public office while female”), and Trump was elected despite (and for some, in part bc of) his horrible treatment of women and his awful, woman-denigrating words.

There are multiple reasons women are still vastly underrepresented as elected representatives (19% in US Congress), and even fewer (5% of CEOS) in the boardroom. In part it is because it still seems acceptable to denigrate women just for being female; and public misogynist speech acts hurt, personally and professionally, individually and collectively.

Groups like Emily’s List have helped women in politics; the huge “secret” Facebook group Pantsuit Nation is a popular upwelling of support for our female presidential candidate who did win the popular vote. I long for the day that groups like Pantsuit Nation no longer have to be “secret”. I think Hillary would like it not to be (as she alluded in her concession speech, when she referred to “secret” groups she hoped could stop being secret).

So many of us across the political spectrum are out of the closet in supporting gay marriage, and we are out of the closet in opposing racism; can we please be out of the closet in opposing misogyny? As one who has herself been a target of public anti-woman stereotyping and scapegoating in the media, I long for this day, and I want to see us fight, as a nation, against hate speech against women!