When it first appeared in 1989, Misogynies caused a quiet shock in literary and political circles.

In this sharp and wide-ranging work, Joan Smith examines the persistence of misogyny in modern culture, not as a relic of the past but as a living structure embedded in literature, media, and everyday attitudes. Drawing on history, criticism, and cultural analysis, she traces how hostility toward women continues to shape the stories societies tell about gender, power, sexuality, and violence.

Smith moves between literary criticism and social commentary, unpacking how misogyny operates subtly as well as overtly — through myth, narrative, and intellectual tradition. The result is a book that reads both as a cultural diagnosis and a challenge to accepted assumptions about equality in late-twentieth-century Western society.

Clear, forceful, and still unsettlingly relevant, Misogynies remains a landmark text in feminist cultural criticism.