That fic I wrote reminded me of how unnerving (and fascinating) I find Norman’s misogyny to be. In the comics, Norman’s murder of Gwen definitely has a misogynistic edge to it – he refers to her as a ‘worthless female’ and a ‘simpering girl’ and implies that her life wasn’t worth much anyway. (Which is another reason I’m so mad that the movies made Harry Gwen’s killer instead. Harry doesn’t have that same attitude, not at all.) Then, of course, much much later he slept with Lily purely to make her a pawn in his plans, slept with Gwen herself at one point (yeah, sorry, Sins Past is still in continuity, alas)…etc etc, I’d have to look for more examples. I think it’s probably one of those things that evolved as time went on, but I really want to know how and why and when.
Raimi-verse Norman, on the other hand, is definitely a misogynist from the get-go. He leers at MJ (that, and her reaction shot, was in there for a reason), he tells Harry that women -‘a pack of ravening wolves’- are only after his money, also tells him to sleep with MJ and then ditch her, later tells Peter he’ll kill MJ ‘nice and slow’ and just generally…yeah, I get a woman-hating vibe from him. Which I also find unnerving and fascinating. I mean, I loathe Norman as a person, but I love him as a character and villain, and him being (depending on the universe) at least somewhat of a misogynist is probably one of the reasons why – Green Goblins don’t exist in real life, but Norman Osborns definitely do.