Hostile Sexism: A Psychological Analysis

Sexism is a prejudice against individuals due to their biological sex. Benevolent sexism “is a subjectively favorable, chivalrous ideology that offers protections and affection to women who embrace conventional roles” (Fiske and Glick 1996). It takes positive, yet considerably stereotypical traits of women to further justify women’s inferiority to men. Hostile sexism uses the negative stereotypes of women to rationalize the injustices they face. “Benevolent sexism rewards women who perform a degree of subservience with protection and support from men (sometimes called “chivalry”), but if women fall or jump from their pedestal, hostile sexism takes its place” (Ferree and Wade 2014:148). There are many different systems that contribute to how

We distinguish genders at a very early age in order to understand and categorize the people around us (Ridgeway 2011). Once gender is deciphered, we attach meanings to what it means to be a male or female. It has taken centuries of social movements and ideal changes to push equality, although it still has not been reached. When constructing gender roles, societies latch on to the past and what has been to justify who should take what role and how to carry them out (Lindsey 2010). According to Ridgeway (2011), “people’s continual use of gender as a primary frame for organizing social relations results in the background activation of gender status

Although society is seeking to fight an array of inequalities, “gender inequality is shown to be reproduced by a culture that denies, discounts, or justifies these inequalities” (Rhode 1997). Susan Fiske and Peter Glick conducted a study to measure sexist attitudes (1996). The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory takes benevolent and hostile sexism and measures the degree to which people carry out these prejudices. Ambivalent sexism combines hostile and benevolent sexism to further understand the prejudices women face (Fiske and Glick 1996). They found that sexist ambivalence is “composed of three shared components: paternalism, gender differentiation, and heterosexuality” (Fiske and Glick 1996).

Benevolent sexism makes “women more dependent on men by the virtue of expressing positive characteristics” (Ferree and Wade 2104:148). The roles women have obtained, such as the support system; as loving and patient have indirectly caused women to take the inferior role. Men however, are too dependent on women. Men need women for reproduction purposes and support systems, such as caregivers and wives (Fiske and Glick 1996). With this, women are put in a vulnerable position to need protection, not as the protector. Paternalism solidifies the ambivalent attitudes toward