"Benevolent sexism" refers to attitudes or actions that appear to be positive or well-intentioned toward women, but actually reinforce traditional gender roles and inequality. It may involve overprotective behavior, patronizing compliments, or assumptions that women are weaker or need special treatment. While it may seem kind, it can limit women's opportunities and perpetuate gender stereotypes.
Full definition
Controlling for the effects of age, relationship experience predicted increased hostile sexism in girls and increased
benevolent sexism in boys.
On the surface,
benevolent sexism doesn't sound so bad; who among us doesn't want to be cherished or protected or both?
Therefore, participants might
endorse benevolent sexism on the surface but at a deeper level agree with hostile sexism and in turn male dominance.
A part of me wonders if Sexy Man Levine's masculinity is coming less from a place of power, like Sentell, and more from a place of believing that as a man, he should protect and cherish his wife — what's known
as benevolent sexism.
Studies 1 (N = 62) and 2 (N = 100) show, with slightly different paradigms and measures, that compared to exposure to hostile sexism, exposure to
benevolent sexism increases the extent to which female Dutch college students define themselves in relational terms and decreases the extent to which they emphasize their task - related characteristics.
Benevolent sexism also mediated the relationship between hostile sexism and male dominance, which is an unexpected finding.
[Benevolent sexism] did relate to rape myth acceptance in cases of acquaintance rape (Abrams et al., 2003), which accounts for about two thirds of all rapes committed (U.S. Department of Justice, 2005; RAINN 2012).
Hart's study found that anxiously attached men tend to be ambivalent sexists — both hostile and benevolent — whereas avoidantly attached men typically endorse hostile sexism, while
rejecting benevolent sexism.
I recognize that the
term benevolent sexism can seem quite the affront to men who learned that valuing women involves putting them first.
Although the two forms of sexism were highly related to each other, hostility seems to give rise to
benevolent sexism among masculine individuals.
Therefore, since our participants were mostly female, they might also agree
with benevolent sexism without being aware of its hostile component and relationship with male dominance.
In summary, as the theory posits men's dependence on women in close relationships, this might have
fostered benevolent sexism in our sample (Curun, 2001; Glick & Fiske, 1996, 1997, 1998; Glick et al., 2000; Kilianski & Rudman, 1998; Travaglia et al., 2009).
Hostile sexism involves negative affect, such as antipathy and anger, and
benevolent sexism involves positive feelings, such as affection and caring.
Model 2: Hostile sexism variables entered first, followed by benevolent sexism variables
Consistent findings in both groups showed that entitlement related to
benevolent sexism in women and hostile sexism in men.
The idea
of benevolent sexism is essentially that while trying to appear overly kind or generous, someone actually views the other person as incapable or incompetent because of their gender.
As expected in the initial model,
benevolent sexism mediated between the femininity personality trait and male assertiveness as well as between the femininity trait and male dominance.
In a cross-cultural study, Glick et al. (2000) showed that while women generally tend to reject hostile sexism, they tend to
endorse benevolent sexism to the same or a greater extent than men.
People who ranked high in
benevolent sexism were more likely to pass blame onto victims because they saw victims as transgressing traditional feminine gender roles (Abrams et al., 2003)[See Table 1].
Two components of both hostile and
benevolent sexism — dehumanization and traditional gender roles — especially contribute to unhealthy attitudes surrounding rape and rape victims.
Which sounds a lot like perpetuating
the benevolent sexism model — some women tend to be «soft, delicate, and receptive» therefore women who aren't are seen as the problem.
Tags: «The New I Do» book,
benevolent sexism, Expectations, Happiness, Life, Losing yourself, Marriage, Men, Women
Finally, I think the «
benevolent sexism» Moyer indicates that pornography produces hardly compensates for the «more negative attitudes toward women» that she concedes it brings about.
Furthermore, given that
benevolent sexism can also produce gender inequality, these findings for women are also concerning.»
There were also relationships, to smaller degrees, in the relationships between entitlement and hostile sexism in women and
benevolent sexism in men.
Study 3 (N = 79) demonstrates that
benevolent sexism has more pernicious effects when it is expressed by someone with whom women expect to collaborate than when no collaboration is expected with the source of sexism.
Hart and his co-authors, Jacqueline Hung» 11, a former student of Hart's, and psychology professors Peter Glick of Lawrence University and Rachel Dinero of Cazenovia College, surveyed more than 400 heterosexual men to gauge their responses to questions about their attachment style, hostile and
benevolent sexism, and views on romance.
This research demonstrates how women assimilate to
benevolent sexism by emphasizing their relational qualities and de-emphasizing their task - related characteristics when exposed to benevolent sexism.
They coined the phrase «
benevolent sexism» to describe a more subtle type of interactions that reinforce the stereotype that men have power.
Benevolent sexism might sound like a fancy academic word but it can have profound consequences in relationships.
Hostile and
benevolent sexism: Measuring ambivalent sexist attitudes toward women.
As mentioned earlier, although the association between hostile and
benevolent sexism and gender stereotypes in romantic relationships — specifically male dominance and male assertiveness factors — is demonstrated in some studies (e.g., Sakallı & Curun, 2001), no research has yet investigated the potential mediating effect of ambivalent sexism on sex role orientation and gender stereotypes.
Consistent with Sibley and Wilson's (2004) research, the present study showed the link between hostile and
benevolent sexism, and it also defined the direction of the path between these two forms of sexism.
Moreover, the present study offers empirical information about the association of hostile and
benevolent sexism in close relationships.
This study was also the first showing the indirect relation between masculinity and
benevolent sexism.
An ambivalent alliance: Hostile and
benevolent sexism as complementary justifications for gender inequality.
To summarize, our aim is to analyze the associations between masculinity and femininity, hostile and
benevolent sexism, and gender stereotypes of male dominance and male assertiveness in romantic relationships.