Gender Prejudice
Gender prejudice – a social attitude with negative and distorted content; a biased opinion toward representatives of another sex or gender.
Gender prejudice reflects widespread norms of sex-specific behavior. Therefore, prejudice arises toward those subjects who are perceived as violating the norms of traditional role behavior for women and men. Well-known examples include prejudice against women politicians, women scholars, women drivers, and men who perform the role of homemaker.
Gender prejudice is mediated by sex-differentiating practices within the normative system of social consciousness, which the subject assimilates and refracts in their own consciousness and behavior.
In the structure of gender prejudice, as in other forms of prejudice, three components may be distinguished, corresponding to the three components of other social attitudes:
- Cognitive – unfounded biased opinions about men or women in general, or about the ability of women or men to be successful in particular spheres of professional activity;
- Affective – rejection, belittlement, underestimation, disgust, or revulsion;
- Behavioral – negative behavior directed at members of a social group because of their membership in that group, for example insults, sexual harassment, rape, and so on.
Of these three components, the behavioral component is the most significant in gender prejudice, namely discriminatory practices and specific actions negatively directed toward a person and/or groups of people as objects of prejudice.
Prejudice is a destructive aspect of human social behavior. Therefore, it is precisely the behavioral component of prejudice, that is, real behavioral manifestations and practices, that indicates the presence of prejudice toward a particular group of people.
Let us consider the forms of gender prejudice. The degree of destructiveness of the impact on the object of prejudice may be used as the basis for classifying forms of prejudice.
The weakest form of prejudice is the nonverbal expression of antipathy – a contemptuous tone, frowning eyebrows, negative shaking of the head, tightly pressed lips, and similar reactions – demonstrated in situations where the behavior of women or men does not correspond to traditional norms of sex-specific behavior.
For example, in an experiment described in Elliot Aronson’s book, it was found that in a discussion involving participants of different sexes, women leaders, compared with men leaders, received fewer positive nonverbal reactions, such as smiles and approving nods, and more negative reactions, such as frowning eyebrows, tightly pressed lips, and disapproving head movements. At the same time, no differences were found between women and men in indicators of competence in the leadership role.
This fact is explained by the operation, during business discussion, of unspoken expectations according to which women should yield leadership positions to men when important group issues are being discussed. If this does not happen, women’s gender-atypical behavior provokes uncontrolled negative nonverbal reactions from both men and women. Such reactions reflect the phenomenon of the underestimation of women’s leadership.
Another relatively weak form of gender prejudice is the verbal expression of antipathy toward representatives of another sex or gender: sexist jokes that ridicule male and female personality traits and behavioral characteristics, such as jokes about blondes, women scholars, or women drivers; statements that diminish the dignity of women or men, such as “This is not a matter for a woman’s mind” or “Women/men cannot understand this”; and the tendency to interpret motives for behavior incorrectly, for example, “You men have only one thing on your mind.”
The third form of gender prejudice is avoidance of the group toward which prejudice exists. This form of prejudice manifests itself in various forms of misogyny and misandry. Situations of categorical rejection of women in some male communities still occur, for example in the prejudice that “a woman on a ship brings misfortune.” A distorted perception and avoidance of feminist women is also widespread: feminists are perceived as unattractive and unhappy in their personal lives, as women who hate men and from whom it is better to keep one’s distance.
The fourth form of gender prejudice involves behavior with a clearly destructive character. These are specific actions that lead to discrimination against members of a group. This form of prejudice is widespread toward those women and men who claim places in, or already work in, professional spheres that are not considered sex-typical. The phenomena of the glass ceiling, sticky floor, and glass walls as manifestations of discrimination against women have been repeatedly described in contemporary literature. Examples of differences in the wages of women and men, as well as existing inequality in their status positions, are also well known.
The strongest form of prejudice in terms of behavioral destructiveness is caused by aggressive prejudices that manifest themselves in acts of violence. Common manifestations of this form of behavior include rape and physical and psychological violence in the family, to which women are subjected more often than men.
It is important to emphasize that actions at each level facilitate the transition to a more intensive level. For this reason, special work with gender prejudice and gender biases is necessary.
Changes in the social climate of society lead to transformations in the intensity and forms of manifestation of prejudice. Prejudice persists, although it has taken more hidden forms. At present, in many European countries, classical sexism is giving way to neosexism.
Where does prejudice come from? How is it formed? Gender prejudice is characterized by multiple causality. In analyzing its emergence, one should take into account historical, cultural, socio-economic, social-psychological, and psychological factors (Kletsina, 2007).
Reference:
Kletsina, I. S. (2007). Razvitie gendernoi kompetentnosti gosudarstvennykh i munitsipalnykh sluzhashchikh v protsesse gendernogo obrazovaniia [Development of gender competence of state and municipal officials in the process of gender education]. Zhenshchina v rossiiskom obshchestve, 3(44), 60–65. [in Russian].
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