Malcolm X's Misogynistic Views

In life, Malcolm X was an extremely Misogynistic person with his degrading views of women starting during his teenage years up until a year before his assassination. Society's views of women in this time period allowed his misogyny to manifest because at the time it was considered the norm to think about and treat women with disrespect. Throughout his life his views drastically change based on events that happen and the influences of the people around him.

In the early stages of Malcolm Little's life he had initial high standing respect for women and treated them as equals. This is most likely because he was around his mother and sisters and women in his life that took care of him and cared for him deeply as a child. His mother, Louise Little

He believed that women were fragile and weak and wanted to be disregarded and treated like shit. I think that the shift between his boy hood love and respect for the women around him and becoming Detroit Red had to do a lot with moving to the big city and meeting people who were already corrupted with misogyny towards women. I feel that Malcolm thought that this behavior was completely normal and ok to do to another person. I think this notion was validated by the women that he would be romantically involved with such as Sophia and he would convince her to do things that i don't necessarily think that she wanted to do such as rob innocent people. I also think that this might have been a norm in this time period where women thought that is was ok to be degraded constantly and told what to do by Male friends and

He still thought that women were weak and dumb and were less than men due to the teachings in the Nation of Islam and that women should stay in there "rightful place" at home and keep house and take care of the children and be the perfect wife and mother. When he met his wife Betsy Shabazz, they did not have a romantic courtship and i think that he asked her to marry him purely based on the notion of making babies and needing someone to do it with and have her take care of them as well as the house while he was away teaching the practices of the NOI.

Although his change of view was still misogynistic, it was a step in the right direction that if alive today he would have been a feminist for sure. I think that his views started to change when he found out about Elijah Muhammad's sex scandal and the way he used women and how hypocritical he was. He found respect in those women when they spoke up about who was the actual father of there children and this was the start to the change of his views in a feminist