How Entitlement Shapes Social Life
Public life often protects powerful men by treating status as something they are owed. During the 2018 Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Brett Kavanaugh’s anger and indignation were widely excused, while Christine Blasey Ford’s careful testimony was weighed against his future and reputation. The reaction showed how easily concern shifts away from the person reporting harm and toward the man who might face consequences. A prestigious job, a public platform, and sympathy can all be treated as his due, even after credible accusations.
This pattern rests on what Kate Manne calls himpathy, the excessive sympathy often given to powerful men accused of wrongdoing. Instead of asking what happened to the victim, many people focus on whether the accused man’s life will be damaged too much. Accountability starts to look like cruelty, while the original harm fades into the background. The victim’s pain becomes secondary to the possibility that a privileged man might lose something he expected to keep.
A useful distinction runs through the rest of these cases. Sexism supplies the beliefs that make male dominance seem natural or justified, while misogyny enforces those beliefs by punishing women who resist them. Hatred is not always required. What matters is the social pressure that pushes women to give care, patience, admiration, and emotional labor, while discouraging them from claiming authority, power, and freedom for themselves.
These demands do not fall on everyone in the same way. Race, class, disability, and trans identity change how punishment works and who is treated as disposable. Black women and trans women often face sharper forms of hostility because gender bias combines with other systems of control. Once that broader pattern is visible, the many examples that follow start to fit together: the same sense of entitlement appears in romance, sex, medicine, politics, family life, and everyday conversation.
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