T4. Contemporary forms of sexism: Ambivalent Sexism

Question 1

what is sexism?

Answer 1

“Sexism refers to individuals attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours, and organizational, institutional, and cultural practices that either reflect negative evaluations of individuals based on their gender or support unequal status of women and men.”

Question 2

what is ambivalent sexism?

Answer 2

• Sexism is a multidimensional construct that encompasses two sets of sexist attitudes: hostile and benevolent sexism.
• Each component reflects a set of beliefs in which ambivalence toward women is inherent and which serves to justify or explain the underlying social and biological conditions that characterize relationships between sexes
• Ambivalent sexism = two constructs subjectively entail opposite evaluative feeling tones toward women
• Even if the beliefs about women that generate hostile and benevolent sexism are positively related, they have opposing evaluative implications, fulfilling the literal meaning of ambivalence
• (1) E.g., a man may hold two beliefs about women that he views as entirely consistent with each other (“women are incompetent at work” & “women must be protected”). Yet these beliefs could yield opposing evaluations.
• (2) sexist ambivalence may generally take the form of dividing women into favoured ingroups (e.g., homemakers) who embrace traditional roles versus disliked outgroups consisting of women (e.g., feminists) who challenge or threaten these needs and desires.

Question 3

what is hostile sexism and what are its components?

Answer 3

Hostile sexism: misogyny (i.e., the hatred of women by men) and the expression of blatant negative evaluations of women
- Dominative paternalism: justify patriarchy by viewing women as not fully competent adults.
“The world would be a better place if women supported men more and criticized them less”.
- Competitive gender differentiation: only men are perceived as having the traits necessary to govern important social institutions.
“A wife should not be significantly more successful in her career then her husband”.
- Heterosexual hostility: the belief that women use their sexual allure to gain dominance over men.
“There are many women who get a kick out of teasing men by seeming sexually available and then refusing male advances.”
- Hostile sexism as unidimensional: all the different kind of forms result in the same impulse: a desire to dominate women.

Question 4

what is benevolent sexism?

Answer 4

Benevolent sexism: a set of interrelated attitudes toward women that are sexist in terms of viewing women stereotypically and in restricted roles but that are subjectively positive in feeling tone (for the perceiver) and tend to elicit behaviours typically categorized as prosocial (e.g., helping) or intimacy-seeking (e.g., self-disclosure).
- Protective paternalism: women are to be loved, cherished, and protected (Their “weakness” require that men fulfil the protector-and-provider role)
“Every woman should have a man to whom she can turn for help in times of trouble”.
- Complementary gender differentiation: the dyadic dependency of men on women (as romantic objects, as wives and mothers) fosters notions that women have many positive traits that complement those of men.
“Many women have a quality of purity that few men possess.”
- Heterosexual intimacy: the belief that men need women to be complete.
“People are not truly happy in life unless they are romantically involved with a member of the other sex.”

Question 5

what are sexism against men forms?

Answer 5

Benevolent beliefs
- Maternalism (e.g., “women ought to take care of their men at home, because men would fall apart if they had to fend for themselves”)
- Complementary gender differentiation (e.g., “men are less likely to fall apart in emergencies than women are”)
- Heterosexual intimacy (e.g., every woman needs a male partner who will cherish her”)
Hostile beliefs
- Resentment of paternalism (e.g., “men will always fight to have greater control in society than women”)
- Compensatory gender differentiation (e.g., “men would be lost in this world if women weren’t there to guide them”)
- Heterosexual hostility (e.g., “a man who is sexually attracted to a woman typically has no morals about doing whatever it takes to get her in bed”)

Question 6

What are the four sexist categories?

Answer 6

1. Behavioural expectations
2. stereotypes & comparison
3. endorsement of inequality
4. denying inequality & rejection of feminism