Let's Talk About Sex..ism!

A general rule of thumb for conversations with people you don’t know is to avoid –ism’s. Racism, Buddhism, Communism, Antidisestablishmentarianism – they’re all out. Despite not being well acquainted with many of you reading this, I’m going to break the rule anyhow. Tonight’s topic is SEXISM!

Sexism is discrimination based on one’s gender. Usually when people think of sexism, they think of obvious things like giving a little boy model cars to play with and giving a little girl a doll, or paying women less than men to do the same job.

I, however, would like to tell you a story involving a sneakier kind of sexism, one we don’t always pick up on when it happens. Ambivalent sexism is comprised of two parts: (1) hostile sexism, which concerns negative feelings about females abilities and worth and (2) benevolent sexism, which concerns affectionate but possibly condescending feelings (Glick & Fiske, 2001a).

What I’ve experienced most in my life is benevolent sexism – guys opening doors for you, offering to carry heavy objects, getting things off of the top shelf. Sure it seems sweet on the surface, but underneath all this chivalry often lurks the patronizing idea that we ladies need protecting.

Interestingly, my most recent experience with this form of sexism actually came from a woman. This summer at my monotonous job as an office assistant, when I wasn’t scanning medical charts, I was taking old ones to the storage room to be shredded.

I rather relished this task as it was my only opportunity to get away from the computer, but one afternoon my supervisor of sorts stopped me as I was carrying a box full of charts.

“Honey, you shouldn’t be lifting that. Let Ethan do it,” Kathy said.

I spun on my heel and said, “I’ve lived on a farm my whole life; I was bred for heavy lifting,” while doing my best not to glare at her, and silently thinking to myself, “Besides, that 95-pound twig of a kid couldn’t lift this anyhow.” (I couldn’t actually say that aloud, because Ethan is the boss’s son, and insulting the offspring of the person who signs your paychecks is never a good idea.)
It’s this kind of sexism that has irked me since elementary school – when Blake and Michael got to leave class to help Mrs. Smith carry old books off to storage and I had to sit in my seat working on my vocabulary assignment, because I was a just a little girl and girls can’t possibly be expected to sweat and lift things for fear that they might break a nail.

This same thing still goes on today, but in a more awkward way. I’ve actually had someone tell me, “You shouldn’t be lifting heavy stuff; you’ll crush your uterus.” To which I could not stop myself from responding with, “Good. I hate kids.”

Because benevolent sexism generally presents itself in the form of a caring, considerate gesture or comment, it often isn’t seen for what is really is: sexism, plain and simple.

Additionally, it is important to note that benevolent and hostile sexism go hand in hand. The two are positively correlated (Glick et al., 2000), so it’s likely that if you feel one way (i.e., that women deserve protecting) you also feel the other way as well (i.e., that women have less value than men).
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Glick, P., & Fiske, S. T. (2001a). Ambivalent sexism. In M.P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 33, pp. 115-188). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Glick, P., Fiske, S., Mladinic, A., Saiz, J., Abrams, D., Masser, B., et al. (2000). Beyond prejudice as simple antipathy: Hostile and benevolent sexism across cultures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 763-775.