Sexism
Sexism – from the Latin “sexus”, meaning “sex” – is a form of prejudice or discrimination against a person on the basis of sex, gender, or gender identity. It may also be understood as a form of gender-based discrimination.
In society, sexism may take the form of stereotypes, formally established norms, institutional rules, cultural practices, or even ideology. At its core lies the belief that one sex or gender is superior to another. Feminism has historically been one of the main intellectual, political, and social forces opposing sexism.
In gender theory, three levels of sexism are commonly distinguished: institutional sexism, which operates at the level of society and its institutions; interpersonal sexism, which appears in discriminatory attitudes or actions of one person toward another; and internalized sexism, which occurs when individuals adopt and reproduce discriminatory beliefs about their own sex or gender as if these beliefs were natural or true.
Peter Glick and Susan Fiske distinguish three forms of sexism: hostile sexism, benevolent sexism, and ambivalent sexism (Glick & Fiske, 1996).
Hostile sexism is a negative attitude based on the belief that women are inferior to men, including assumptions about women’s supposedly lower intellectual abilities.
Benevolent sexism refers to a system of stereotypical beliefs about women that may appear subjectively positive and may encourage behavior usually perceived as prosocial, such as help, protection, or care. However, this form of sexism remains discriminatory because it is based on assumptions about male superiority and on the idea that women are the “weaker sex.”
Hostile and benevolent sexism tend to be correlated because both rely on similar gender stereotypes about women. Both forms represent women as weaker than men and associate them with domestic, supportive, or dependent social roles. Benevolent sexists may seek to protect women, respect and idealize them as mothers and wives, or view them as romantic objects of love. Hostile sexists, by contrast, tend to perceive women as unfit for positions of power and authority.
Men and women may simultaneously express hostile and benevolent sexism toward different groups of women; this combination is known as ambivalent sexism. Ambivalent sexists respond stereotypically negatively to some women and stereotypically positively to others, whereas non-sexist individuals do not divide women into such categories and do not support these gender stereotypes.
References:
Glick, P., & Fiske, S. T. (1996). The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory: Differentiating hostile and benevolent sexism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 491–512.
Nelson, T. (2003). Psikhologiia predubezhdenii: Sekrety shablonov myshleniia, vospriiatiia i povedeniia [The psychology of prejudice: The secrets of patterns of thinking, perception, and behavior]. Saint Petersburg: Praim-EVROZNAK. [in Russian].
Shevchenko, Z. V. (Comp.). (2016). Seksizm [Sexism]. Slovnyk gendernykh terminiv [Dictionary of gender terms]. Retrieved from http://a-z-gender.net/seksizm.html [in Ukrainian].
Leave a Reply