Dianne, if allowed, I'd add 'fear of women', to the definition of misogyny. The uncomfortable twinge of fear, men may experience, when faced with the fact of female intelligence, abilities, and capabilities. Not so very long ago, in our society, women were thought of as being inherently inferior in the aforementioned categories. Today, proof to the contrary is incontrovertible, and thus, a possible reason for an increase, not only in this country, but worldwide, in the instances of violence perpetrated against women. The age-old efforts to ‘keep women in their place’, I believe, possibly has as its core beginning, fear. Simply put:

The fear of any controlling group of the group being controlled.

Anne,

My maternal grandmother was born in 1881, married in 1899. My mother was born in 1918, the ninth of my grandmother's eleven children. My mother made quite certain I was raised with an understanding of exactly how my women ancestors fared, their experiences, their conditions, the few choices they were presented with, in a society wherein they were viewed as less-than, by virtue of their gender. Because of her, I have the insights of women who lived during the Suffrage movement, who remember the introduction of birth control methods, and who experienced the bias demonstrated against women entering the work-force. No one could ever convince me, that misogyny, in some form, has not been responsible for what women have gone through, throughout human history.