Status: work in progress/noodles
It would not be an exaggeration to say that being a woman aware of misogyny and patriarchy in the world is being aware of evil, everywhere. Knowledge is a gift, but also a burden and a curse. When you're ignorant, it's easy to see something suspicious and give it the "benefit of the doubt." Something that seems like it might be sexist is reinterpreted, because surely only the worst people are sexist! Realizing the ancient sexist roots of phrases, customs, and beliefs that persist today means realizing that we have had an uninterrupted stream of woman-hating throughout Western society. We have had ups and downs in terms of women's status, but woman-hating has been persistent.
How does one deal with something like this? How do you deal with barbs from male colleagues about 'effeminacy' being a bad thing? Or female family members talking about how sad it is a relative hasn't had any sons? Or so-called feminist friends who support gender roles? What do you do when you try escapism, only to find that even fantasy media has sexism in it?
If you're prone to rumination as I am, this is even harder. One thing I've tried doing is focusing on female creators. But this can lead to its own problems. It's hard not to get angry reading about some women's lives, the structural challenges they faced. It's hard not to get angry at the people devaluing their work in a sexist way. And in a more nebulous way, it's hard not to get angry at seeing how the pantheon is still utterly male.
Ultimately, we need to deal with the harm that has been caused in the past. In my opinion, it is an unrepayable debt. There is nothing that could make up for the harm that has been done to women. Nothing can make up the harm that is continually done to women around the world at this very minute. Most likely, there will never be any sort of reckoning with this. There will only be a forgetting of a painful history.
The stoic in me says that this is the external world, not something I can control. It is surely better to focus on what you can control. It may also help to curb one's expectations. I believe people can be much better than they are, yet they disappoint consistently. I can lower my expectations and believe people just suck, and a certain amount of woman-hating is just going to happen. But if I do that, then why should I harbor any special affection for the human race, if it comes with both tremendous capacity to harm its females and incapacity to protect them? And then we simply find ourselves in the world of misanthropy, and now we have an entirely new problem to ruminate about.
On some level, the only solution I have found is to ignore it at all and focus on the present. We cannot do anything about the sordid path. Worrying about whether or not humans have the capacity and will to challenge and rid themselves of misogyny in the long term is nothing but a recipe for rumination. What can I do today, in the short term? What power do I really have? If you are not a politician or rich or a thought leader, then you do not have the power to affect large groups of people. Try to become one of those things or put it out of your mind.
Also, have fun. Improve your own life. Support other women around you who support you. Woman-hating grinds you down, makes you doubt yourself. There is a whole world out there to enjoy. To live a moral life without succumbing to the pressure to be part of the system that hates women (and other marginalized people) is a success and proof that there is an alternative.