Sexism refers to prejudice or discrimination based on one’s sex or gender, especially against women and girls. It involves limiting opportunities, rights, and freedoms based on gendered beliefs and stereotypes. Sexism upholds patriarchal social structures that disadvantage women.
Though originally centered on female oppression, the concept of sexism today encompasses discrimination against any gender. It intersects with other biases like racism, classism, and homophobia. Dismantling sexism requires changing cultural attitudes, achieving equal legal rights, and ending violence and exploitation.
Defining Sexism: What It Is and Isn’t
Sexism means judging someone’s abilities, intelligence, or worth based on their biological sex. Sexist attitudes paint women as irrational, weak, overly emotional, and unfit for leadership. They portray men as independent, logical, and naturally authoritative.
Such stereotypes normalize the restriction of women’s rights and roles. Sexism justifies male dominance in politics, business, and the family structure. It makes gender inequality seem fair and natural rather than socially constructed.
Sexism falls under the broader category of gender discrimination alongside issues like:
- Traditional gender role expectations
- Unequal educational opportunities
- Double standards and biases in law and policy
- Restricted healthcare access, like abortion rights
- Normalization of violence against women
Sexism specifically refers to oppression based on gender, not merely difference. For example, acknowledging that males and females have distinct reproductive systems is not sexist. Implying that women’s biology makes them irrational is sexist.
Furthermore, sexism does not mean any view that men and women tend to differ psychologically or behaviorally on average. While debates persist in the scientific literature, reasonable people can disagree about the research without being sexist.
Rather, sexism describes systematic subordination, not simply generalized differences between genders. Eliminating sexism means dismantling unjust social structures, not ignoring biological realities.
Origins of the Concept
The term “sexism” emerged in the 1960s women’s liberation movement, also called second-wave feminism. Activists modeled it after “racism” to critique the systematic oppression of women in modern Western societies.
Early feminist theorizing focused on how culturally constructed gender roles limited women’s freedom and personhood. Sexism described an all-encompassing ideology that deemed women inferior to men in reason, morality, and humanity.
This ideology served to rationalize women’s exclusion from power and confinement to domestic roles. 1960s feminists exposed sexism in the family, workforce, education, politics, and culture. They launched consciousness-raising efforts to challenge internalized misogyny.
By the 1970s, feminist analysis extended to international development issues. Global feminists highlighted economic exploitation, violence, and health impacts harming women in postcolonial nations.
Academic fields like sociology, history, and anthropology institutionalized the study of gender relations and women’s status cross-culturally. Dismantling sexism became a central goal of policymakers and activists worldwide.
Forms of Sexism Against Women and Girls
Though originally focused on women’s oppression, over time the concept of sexism expanded to address discrimination against men, sexual minorities, and gender-nonconforming people. However, women and girls remain the primary targets of sexist attitudes and treatment globally.
Sexism constrains women’s freedom and wellbeing in numerous interlocking ways:
Traditional Gender Roles
Rigid gender role expectations confine women primarily to domestic labor and motherhood. Devaluation of homemaking and child-rearing as “women’s work” bars women from public leadership. Segregation into feminine careers like teaching and nursing depresses wages.
Educational Barriers
Sexist norms keep girls out of school in many developing nations. Globally, women’s academic choices get funneled into lower-paying humanities and caregiving fields. Sexual harassment from peers and authority figures obstructs women’s education.
Economic Discrimination
The gender pay gap leaves women earning lower wages for the same work. Hiring biases favor men for high-paying jobs, leadership roles, and promotions. Pregnancy discrimination sidetracks women’s careers. Women face poverty at higher rates, especially in old age.
Violence
Rape, domestic violence, honor killings, acid attacks, female genital mutilation, and femicide target women and girls. Sexist myths blame victims. Light sentencing for gender-based violence denies justice.
Healthcare Bias
Restricted reproductive services, like abortion and contraception access, endanger women’s health. Medical research centers men’s bodies. Women’s pain reports get dismissed or misdiagnosed.
Political Underrepresentation
Men dominate positions of political leadership across cultures. Sexist attitudes undermine women candidates. Legislative bodies fail to prioritize women’s concerns, from family policy to sexual violence.
Cultural Stereotypes
Sexist portrayals in media, art, language, and humor normalize the idea that women are less competent, rational, and human than men are. Everyday sexism conditions biases.
Entrenched economic, social, and political barriers prevent women’s full equality in private and public life. However, legal reforms, female empowerment initiatives, and changing attitudes have progressively combatted explicit forms of sexism. Overt exclusion has given way to subtler modern biases.
Modern Forms of Benevolent Sexism
Thanks to 20th century feminist activism, most nations formally grant women equal rights. However, full equality has not yet translated into practice. Persistent disparities result from embedded cultural biases and ongoing discrimination.
Modern sexism often takes less overt, more ostensibly “benevolent” forms. Sexist ideas get cloaked under claims of scientific objectivity and benevolent concern for women’s well-being.
Scientific Sexism
Fields like evolutionary psychology and sociobiology argue that gender differences reflect innate dispositions shaped by evolution. Critics warn these theories often rely on shaky evidence and logic to rationalize the status quo.
Hostile vs. Benevolent Sexism
Sociologists differentiate between “hostile sexism” that directly denigrates women and “benevolent sexism” that relies on patronizing affection and protection. Both ultimately justify gender inequality.
New Chivalry
Some men adopt a chivalrous stance that venerates womanhood. However, positioning women as delicate flowers needing male protection infantilizes women and curtails their agency.
Complementarianism
This religious view argues men and women naturally excel in separate spheres per God’s design. Wifely submission and male headship aim to strike “complementary” roles but limit women.
Pink Collar Ghettoization
Though women increasingly participate in the workforce, hiring biases funnel them into lower-paying administrative, domestic, and caregiving occupations.
Mommy Tracking
Motherhood triggers workplace penalties like lost promotions and lower wages. Cultural pressures prod women to reduce hours or drop out rather than juggle both parenting and career.
Pretty Privilege
Attractive women gain social and economic advantages, fueling beliefs that female worth stems from appearance and sexual desirability over competence.
Damaging Gender Norms
Restrictive standards for male toughness and female delicacy foster harm, from aggression in boys to body shame in girls.
These examples illustrate how sexism adapts to cultural shifts toward gender equality. Recognizing subtler forms of bias is key to promoting equal rights and opportunities in reality, not just in principle.
Intersectional Forms of Sexism
Crucially, sexism intersects with other systems of oppression like racism, classism, and heterosexism. These overlapping biases multiply discrimination against women from marginalized groups.
Black women face racist stereotypes, like the “Jezebel” trope hypersexualizing them. Low-income women get exploited as cheap domestic and care laborers. Lesbian and bisexual women contend with homophobic harassment and denial of family rights.
Likewise, trans women encounter discrimination both as women and as transgender people. Expectations of feminine beauty and behavior oppress trans women, nonbinary people, and gender-nonconforming folks in distinct ways.
No woman experiences sexism uniformly. Elements like race, class, sexual orientation, gender identity, immigration status, disability, and age all mediate sexism’s impacts. Integrating these perspectives remains vital for feminist and anti-sexist efforts.
Sexism Against Men and Boys
Originally, activists conceived sexism as a system of female subjugation benefitting men as a class. However, over time academic men’s studies argued that gender norms also damage men.
Rigid masculine expectations pressure boys and men to be tough, hide vulnerability, avoid feminine pursuits, and gain status through sexual conquests. Violence gets normalized as a manly rite of passage. Homophobia polices gender boundaries.
Like women, men suffer under these confining gender role dictates. Scholarship on masculinities now analyzes men’s experiences of power and powerlessness in patriarchal cultures.
However, structural oppression flows downward from male to female. Women face substantially more sexual violence, economic hardship, and political marginalization across cultures. Concepts like misandry, discrimination against men, minimize this power difference.
Neither sex escapes the harms of rigid gender binaries altogether. But feminist scholars stress that ending women’s oppression requires centering women’s concerns and analyzing relations of dominance. Addressing sexism means tackling systemic male privilege and violence first and foremost.
Countering Sexism in Modern Society
Despite major legal and cultural advances, sexist biases subtly persist worldwide. Ongoing activism targets sexism through four major avenues:
Legal Reform
Laws and policies must consistently uphold equal rights and punish gender-based violence. Parental leave, reproductive rights, equal pay, anti-discrimination rules, and affirmative action programs counter structural barriers.
Female Empowerment
Education, job training, microfinance, reproductive healthcare, and political participation equip women to attain economic and interpersonal autonomy.
Cultural Change
Media, education, and parenting should promote positive gender narratives that break down stereotypes and teach mutual respect. Advocacy campaigns like #MeToo raise awareness of everyday sexism.
Social Justice
Intersectional feminist analysis highlights how sexism interlocks with other injustices. Integrated social movements are required to meet the needs of marginalized women.
Sexist biases have proven deeply entrenched across history. But growing awareness and coordinated activism provides hope for achieving real gender equity in the future.
Key Takeaways and Points
- Sexism refers to prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination that systematically oppress women and girls in society.
- Originally focused on female experiences, the concept today includes bias against men and LGBTQ+ people as well.
- However, women globally remain disproportionately impacted by gender inequality, violence, and discrimination.
- Sexism justifies male dominance and confines women to undervalued domestic roles.
- Feminists introduced the concept of sexism in the 1960s-70s to critique structural barriers facing women.
- Women still face discrimination in education, the economy, politics, law, healthcare, and culture.
- Violence against women remains pervasive across the globe.
- Reforms require legal equality, female empowerment initiatives, cultural change, and social justice.
- Subtler modern biases claim scientific backing or benevolent concern for women.
- All women experience sexism differently based on race, class, and other identity factors.
- Ending sexism ultimately requires dismantling unjust patriarchal power structures worldwide.
Sexism remains a pressing global issue limiting human rights and potential. Ongoing activism and research continues to move societies toward greater gender justice and equality.
Reference
- Global Fund for Women. “#MeToo Movement.” Global Fund for Women, 2018, https://www.globalfundforwomen.org/movements/me-too/.
- Wikipedia contributors. “Jezebel.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 9 Sep. 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jezebel.
- Wikipedia contributors. “Second-wave feminism.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 15 Sep. 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-wave_feminism.
- Black RJ. “Abortion Rights.” Black RJ, 2021, https://blackrj.org/our-causes/abortion-rights/.
