But what is an internalized sexism or misogyny? It is not hard to imagine that if the society is sexist, women won’t pick up or internalise those attitudes and definitions about their own gender on the basis of those beliefs. Internalized sexism happens when a woman is using the same sexist attitudes and beliefs about her gender towards herself and other women. Any woman can be subjected to sexist attitudes from two different sources: the opposite (e.g. men) and the same gender (e.g. women), so being a woman is like being caught between Scylla and Charybdis.

Reasons, which contribute to internalized sexism, are:

• A rule of hegemonic masculinity that is invisibly present and perpetuated on every level of Western society. Anything other than male/masculine is Othered – silenced, devalued and ignored. Women, as de Beauvoir has stated many moons ago, are Other by default, but gender intersects with other social factors, such are race, class, ability, sexuality; under the umbrella of Other can therefore fall low-wage people, trans persons, black, LGB+, people with disabilities etc. However, being a woman in a world of hegemonic masculinity is not a powerful social position.
• The lack of (women’s) power results in devaluation of femininity from any gender. Anything that is culturally conditioned and linked with femininity – for example colour pink, make-up, duckface, selfies, narcissism, frivolity, nipples, menstruation, sexual agency (or to put it more simple – women wanting sex and being slut-shamed for that), servile professions (low income, status and prestige, so-called feminized professions – waitressing), sex work (pornography, prostitution), entertainment (pop singers, dancers), self-care – is being perceived as not “serious” or “essential”. However, any woman who is transgressive from what is considered “proper femininity” (e.g. academic professions – women are still being perceived as second-class academics, having leadership skills, feminist values, being a cat lover, gender bending or sexually fluid), is also being subjected to same-sexist monitoring.
• Capitalism encourages competition and women are more than welcome to compete with each other in the “feminine areas” – fashion, beauty, fight for heterosexual men. The hybrid of allowed competitiveness and beauty is showcased in beauty pageants, where merely physical attributes of a woman are judged.

How is internalized sexism cultivated and perpetuated? Through external sources, such are early socialisation (learning of gender roles – boys like blue/are trustworthy, girls like pink/are flaky), media and advertising (women are either passive or evil/active characters); perceptions of women are being stereotyped and hence seen as less powerful. If women are perceived as “powerless”, then no wo/man wants to identify with powerlessness. Even though the latter is a result of an uneven power struggle, what is perceived as “powerful” is still associated with masculinity – rationality, emotional distance, physical strength, wealth etc.

How is internalized sexism manifested? Women, who have internalized sexism, suffer from self-hate, alienation from themselves and others, hate other women  sometimes just for being different (Othered for that matter – childfree women, educated women) and hence unrelatable, they do not believe/trust women, discredit them professionally, attack them personally, use victim-blaming strategies to shame women and unnecessary critique, they minimize the value of women, do not employ women, create hostile working environments, engage in passive aggression, but most importantly, believe in gender bias in favour of men. Sexist women rarely question or criticize the authority of men, their actions or behaviours or gender order of hegemonic masculinity in general. This deliberate gender blindness is just another aspect of their internalized sexism.

What to do? Firstly, this pattern has to be recognized and then deliberately unlearned. Internalized sexism is harmful to all women, because it positions them as primarily guilty until (or if) proven innocent. No woman should ever be put into a position to endlessly and constantly defend herself for being a woman.

The term “Smurfette principle” was coined by an American journalist Katha Pollitt in 1991, when she was analysing children’s programmes on television which led to the conclusion of children’s shows being highly gendered (“Boys are the norm, girls the variation; boys are central, girls peripheral; boys are individuals, girls types. Boys define the group, its story and its code of values. Girls exist only in relation to boys”, she stated). The Smurfette principle, named after The Smurfs and their living arrangement (one woman – plenty of men), describes a situation where “a group of male buddies are accompanied by a lone female, (usually) stereotypically defined.” However, a “Smurfette” can also be an exceptional (and only) woman in a man’s world, for example, the only woman in a company’s boardroom or the only credible female character among men in a film. When just one person of an underrepresented group is included in the otherwise gender-homogeneous environment, that one person is a token. Tokenism as a practice of how minorities should be included only imitates equality, because it usually accepts only one outstanding individual and not a group of average ones.

The Smurfette principle, used in the cinematic surrounding, is not a monolithic trope; it is an adaptable one, depended on its context. In the television or film storyline, the “chosen” woman can be either (1) a part of the all-male team; (2) a lonely antagonist against the male team or (3) a decorative and unessential-to-the-story sidekick, created to dilute the possible homoerotic subtext of the narrative.

The “one of the guys” version appears in films, such are Gone in Sixty Seconds (Angelina Jolie/Sway), Inception (Ellen Page/Ariadne), Ocean’s 11 (Julia Roberts/Tess Ocean), The Imitation Game (Keira Knightley/Joan Clarke), Flatliners (Julia Roberts/Rachel Manus) and Michael Clayton (Tilda Swinton/Karen Crowder). Sway, Ariadne, Tess Ocean, Joan Clarke, Rachel Manus and Karen Crowder are the only women, allowed to be in the all-male ensemble and they function as antisexist tokens. The TV sitcom Seinfeld had this syndrome, too – Elaine Baines (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) was the only woman in the cast.

Seinfeld cast (Credits: NBC)

The reversed type of the Smurfette principle is a lonely female antagonist, set against the male team, which treats her as a threat. This trope can be found in film characters; such are Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver in Alien 3), Selina Kyle/Catwoman (Anne Hathaway in The Dark Knight Rises), Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter in Fight Club), Ginger McKenna (Sharon Stone in Casino), Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams in Sherlock Holmes) and The Lady (Sharon Stone in The Quick and the Dead). Jodie Foster was quite often cast as a proponent of this cinematic trope; she was dr. Eleanor Arroway in Contact, Annabelle Bransford in Maverick and Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs. All those characters were outsiders for not fitting into the masculine concept of good (or domesticated) femininity; they were lone warriors for justice or truth (Ripley, The Lady, Eleanor and Clarice) or self-reliant grifters (Selina, Marla, Irene, Ginger and Annabelle).

Jodie Foster in Contact (Credits: Warner Bros.)

The last version of the Smurfette trope is an unessential sidekick, who is introduced into the homosocial storyline only to remove any potential homoerotic subtexts. These are some of the examples: Skylar (Minnie Driver in Good Will Hunting), Miss Piggy in The Muppet Show and Penny (Kaley Cuoco in The Big Bang Theory).

However, the image of the only woman among men was predominantly present in the 90s alternative and rock music (pop music is considered to be too “feminine”), where she would usually be a front(wo)man (i.e. singer), but less often a band founder or a leader. The “one-woman-in-all-men-band” trope is also a variable principle of femininity that must be aligned with the band’s masculine vision of how to represent themselves as unique artists, but also how to be appealing to the public (media, consumers and record labels). The visual appearance of the only woman in a man band still upholds the common signifiers of femininity (e.g. beautiful face, thin body, young/ish, embellished clothing, creative fashion choices), but it is done with an alternative twist to fit into the masculine conception of rock performance. Here are some illustrations of alternative femininities within one-woman-in-all-male-band contexts.

Garbage’s Shirley Manson sported an edgy alternative beauty, No Doubt’s Gwen Stefani was a blonde, stylish femme-tomboy and Skunk Anansie’s Skin was presented as a black androgynous handsomeness, while The Cardigan’s Nina Persson embodied a blonde fragile femininity. Sonic Youth’s bassist/singer Kim Gordon shared the same blond coolness with Smashing Pumpkin’s bassist D’arcy Wretzky, while The Cranberries’ Dolores O’Riordan and Texas’ Sharleen Spiteri were symbols of casual androgyny. Katrina and the Waves’ Katrina Leskanich exhibited the queer femininity, Joan Jett and the Black Hearts’ Joan Jett toyed herself with the femme-masculine brashness, while Sade’s Sade Adu exuded the modelesque beauty. Blondie’s Debbie Harry was synonymous for what a sensual and daring blonde should behave and look like, Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O radiates an artistic aloofness and Scissor Sisters’ Ana Matronic campy seductiveness is hidden in her stage persona, while The Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde was just all about her ambivalent coolness.

The Pretenders (Credits: Rolling Stone)

Regardless of its location (entertainment, politics or every-day life), the main problem with the Smurfette principle  is that it reinforces the idea that there is only enough room for one (exceptional) woman to be engaging and profiting from male (or female) professions which leads to the misguided belief of who the enemy is. Well, it is not anOther woman.