Hags, dogs, whores, bitches. It’s amazing how much hate you can pack into a few syllables. How do you spot a woman-hater? By the way they talk about women, treat women, react to women, represent women. Bitching about women, slagging off women – even the language used to describe such slander comes from misogyny. The ubiquitous verbal violence supports physical violence and nobody, male or female, minds. If I were called a Paki in the street, I would have some hope of it being taken seriously. If I were called a slag – as I was last summer by a man on a bicycle, in Stepney – nobody would consider it report-worthy.

Misogyny is such a strong substance that women have absorbed and internalised it. A female book editor and I looked over some press shots by a woman photographer. Fifty-nine were perfect, the 60th was blurred. “She’s been a bit of a silly tart, there,” said the editor. A female radio producer, frustrated at a press officer’s incompetence: “I’ve been speaking to their bitch PR.” Another radio producer, angry at a female guest who was two minutes late: “She’s a stupid bitch.” An extremely sophisticated and gifted British-African writer, when I asked if her novel had come out in time for the Orange prize, sneered openly: “Ha! The Orange prize.” No more words necessary, her contempt for the world of women was expressed in that immediately recognisable snort of disgust.

For men and women alike, casual misogyny is the climate and context of all their interactions. It is unconcealed and automatic. It affects the way women are received, portrayed and considered as colleagues, friends, workers, mothers, artists, thinkers, public figures and victims of male violence and discrimination. Apart from outright slander, jibes, names and insults there is: talking down a woman’s work, interrupting her, teasing her, mocking her, talking over her, patronising her, sighing or rolling one’s eyes when she talks, invading her personal space. The misogynists’ approach to women can be summed up thus: sneer, leer, exploit, ignore.