Table of Contents
Sexism is prejudice, discrimination, or unequal treatment based on a person’s sex. It includes beliefs, attitudes, rules, customs, and institutional practices that treat males and females differently in ways that unfairly limit their opportunities, rights, freedoms, or dignity.
Sexism can operate through individual behavior, but it can also be built into institutions, laws, workplaces, schools, and social expectations.
And here’s an important distinction: Sexism does not always require hatred.
A person can believe they are protecting women and girls while supporting policies that unfairly restrict their choices .Sexism has a way of becoming so familiar that people stop recognizing it. Some of the most powerful words about sexism challenge us to examine what society calls normal, reasonable, traditional, or simply the way things are.
Sexism does not need every man to hate women. It only needs enough people to believe women should accept less……
Five ways sexism operates
1. Sexist beliefs
Assumptions about what someone can or should do because they are male or female.
For example, believing girls are naturally less capable of understanding mathematics or boys are incapable of nurturing children.
2. Sexist discrimination
Treating people unequally because of their sex.
For example, allowing boys to enroll in advanced technical courses while preventing girls from taking those same classes.
3. Sexist double standards
Judging the same behavior differently depending on whether a male or female does it.
A boy who speaks confidently is called a leader. A girl who does the same is called bossy.
4. Benevolent sexism
Sexism presented as kindness, admiration, protection, or respect.
For example, telling girls they should avoid demanding physical activities because they are delicate and need protecting.
The intention may sound caring. The result can still be a restriction on girls’ opportunities.
There was a leader in the work of women who once told about her experience of shopping at big-box hardware stores to work on updating the home she just purchased. She talked about the sales people constantly cautioning her and treating her as if the tasks were too difficult for her. I didn’t get her annoyance at that time.
Safety tips are one thing; assumptions about her ability to handle DIY projects were another.
And as time went on and I had my own experiences with being underestimated in the area tackling home improvement projects, I got it.
5. Institutional sexism
When an organization’s policies, practices, or distribution of resources systematically disadvantage people because of their sex.
A school may have no individual teacher who openly dislikes girls, yet consistently spend more money on boys’ athletics, provide boys with better facilities, and offer girls fewer opportunities.
The discrimination exists in how the institution operates.
What sexism is not
Not every difference between males and females is sexism.
Recognizing biological differences is not inherently sexist. Neither is every sex-specific policy.
The important questions concern whether a distinction has a legitimate purpose, whether it is supported by relevant evidence, and whether it unfairly denies people opportunities or rights.
For example, acknowledging physical differences relevant to athletic competition is different from claiming girls are incapable of becoming excellent athletes.
Likewise, teaching girls cooking is not sexist.
Teaching girls cooking while denying them access to mechanics because they are girls is sexist.
Why sexism can be difficult to recognize
When unfair treatment becomes tradition, questioning the tradition becomes an act of courage
One reason sexism survives is that people become accustomed to it.
A discriminatory rule may have existed for decades. People may regard it as normal simply because they grew up with it.
Girls were told to wear skirts. Boys wore pants.
Girls studied homemaking. Boys studied industrial arts.
Boys were encouraged to compete in sports. Girls sometimes had to fight for the opportunity.
The adults defending these arrangements did not necessarily describe themselves as discriminating against girls.
They might have called the arrangements traditional, appropriate, practical, or protective.
But calling a restriction traditional does not establish that it is fair.
And that’s one of the most important lessons in the historical record.
Sexism can have consequences long after the discriminatory act
A girl should not have to become extraordinary before adults recognize that she deserves ordinary fairness.
Imagine a girl who was discouraged from pursuing engineering in 1955.
She might have become a brilliant engineer. She might have discovered she preferred something else.
But she deserved the opportunity to find out.
Sexism can affect much more than how someone feels in the moment. It can influence education, earnings, employment, independence, safety, and the opportunities available throughout a lifetime.
That is why examining historical discrimination requires us to ask not only what happened, but what opportunities people were denied.
