“Women are wonderful” effect

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women-are-wonderful_effect

by isomorph • 4 years ago

175 202 4 years ago

en.wikipedia.org

lucideer3• 4 years ago

If I read this correctly, it seems an oddly positive spin on what should actually be referred to as the "Men are awful" effect.

The authors supposed that the positive general evaluation of women might derive from the association between women and nurturing characteristics. This bias has been cited as an example of benevolent sexism.

Seems an unusually baseless conclusion when in the actual research:

a task was done to discover whether people associate pleasant words (good, happy, and sunshine) with women, and unpleasant words (bad, trouble, and pain) with men

(conclusions from the study seem to focus on the former positive indicators and ignore the latter negative indicators?)

men lack a mechanism that bolsters automatic preference for their own gender

I wonder why that might be?

Other experiments in this study found people [...] associated the male gender with violence or aggression
Rudman and Goodwin's suggested that [...] male intimidation influences gender attitudes.

I've clipped the positive attitude findings in the above quotes which seems like cherry picking but I'm not trying to negate the findings of positive attitudes toward women. Just pointing out that the clear findings around negative attitudes seem omitted from the conclusion.

The following quote is the clearest example:

mediation comes not from differences in attitudes towards women, but in attitudes towards men. In more egalitarian societies, people have more positive attitudes towards men than in less egalitarian societies

ajuc4• 4 years ago

Yep. And calling it "benevolent sexism" is absurd. By that same logic the bias that "men are smarter than women" is benevolent sexism.

denton-scratch4• 4 years ago

"That's right, the women are smarter, the women are smarter, that's right, that's right."

nilkn2• 4 years ago

Indeed, use of the phrase "benevolent sexism" for this is in fact an example of "benevolent sexism" (because nobody would use that phrase to refer to sexism in favor of men).

Goronmon2• 4 years ago

Yep. And calling it "benevolent sexism" is absurd. By that same logic the bias that "men are smarter than women" is benevolent sexism.

I don't see the logic there.

The "benevolent sexism" is in regards to equating women with "nurturing" characteristics (in this specific case, that's not the only example). My poor understanding of the subject is that the problem is that you are then saying that woman need to be nurturing or they are failing somehow or not meeting expectations, whereas you might not place the same expectation on a man. And that this expectation should guide the roles and opportunities women receive. But it isn't used as a put down against men, just that people don't have the same expectation that men need to be nurturing.

The stance "men are smarter than women" is just plain old sexism since the statement can easily be written as "women are dumber than men".

cochne2• 4 years ago

Yes, the association of men with intelligence more often than women would be benevolent sexism. I don't understand the issue you have with the terminology. Benevolent doesn't mean morally good here, it just means the person exhibiting the bias is assigning a positive attribute rather than negative. On the other hand, "women are dumber than men" would be hostile sexism. Yes, they are just different ways of saying the same thing, but they are framed differently.

tchaffee5• 4 years ago

Calling it "benevolent sexism" is using a technical term you seem to be unfamiliar with. Benevolent sexism towards women is considered harmful to women and equality. Likewise attributing something overly positive to men would be considered harmful to men.

By that same logic the bias that "men are smarter than women" is benevolent sexism.

Yes. Exactly. That's not the gotcha you think it is.

You can educate yourself on what the term means here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambivalent_sexism

soganess• 4 years ago

This issue with "men are smarter than women" as a form of benevolent prejudice stems from the fact that there are largely only two bio-sexes (vs. genders). That, plus the explicit relative value judgment, makes it clear who the "loser" of the statement is.

This is different from the phrase "Armenians are good at Chess." Many peoples exist worldwide, so there is no de-facto loser or relative judgment.

Those confounding issues don't somehow make the statement less of a form of benevolent prejudice toward men. It is just that the statement is also clearly prejudicial toward women. They don't have to be mutually exclusive.

UncleOxidant5• 4 years ago

> men lack a mechanism that bolsters automatic preference for their own gender
I wonder why that might be?

Familiarity breeds contempt?

tgflynn• 4 years ago

All the studies cited were performed on psychology students. Would the results be the same for physics or CS students ?

manuelabeledo• 4 years ago

We may never know, but I would think the results wouldn't be the same.

Mostly because there still is inherent bias against certain genders regarding a degree or a profession, e.g. men as nurses, women as programmers, and those would be way more pronounced back in the 90s.

Tangurena2• 4 years ago

I suspect that if physics and/or CS students were required to take part in at least one study per class per semester (like psychology students - this may have changed since I last took a psych course), then I suspect that the results of university psychology studies would have greater representation.

Technically, people participating in those studies are supposed to be volunteers. Although if part of your "class participation" grade is a result of "doing" a study, then it might not be totally voluntary. And if those studies are unpleasant enough, then you really don't want to be a senior or graduate psych student actually trying to run those experiments.

singularity2001• 4 years ago

"benevolent sexism"? there is always a flipside to -isms: If women are preferred, man are logically dispreferred.

(not complaining, just pointing it out)

Bakary5• 4 years ago

It depends. There's a practical and mechanical difference between one group being more liked than average, and one group being more disliked than average. Even though the situations can be equivalent in a purely logical sense, the nature of the difference changes

xani_• 4 years ago

Only if there are more than 2 groups.

If there are two groups (and in addition they are roughly equal size) those are entirely interchangeable as there is no logical "standard" to compare to except eachother

fundad4• 4 years ago

It doesn’t say women are preferred, more like the expectations are higher. It’s not benevolent.

DarkWiiPlayer6• 4 years ago

Replace the subject of your sentence with literally any other group

"men aren't considered more competent, more like expectations are higher"

"white people aren't considered superior, more like expectations are higher"

etc.

Do I need to point it out, or do you see it yourself?

nzach• 4 years ago

Ambivalent sexism is a theoretical framework which posits that sexism has two sub-components: "hostile sexism" (HS)[1] and "benevolent sexism" (BS). Hostile sexism reflects overtly negative evaluations and stereotypes about a gender (e.g., the ideas that women are incompetent and inferior to men). Benevolent sexism represents evaluations of gender that may appear subjectively positive (subjective to the person who is evaluating), but are actually damaging to people and gender equality more broadly (e.g., the ideas that women need to be protected by men).

To me 'benevolent sexism' seems just a misleading name. Something like 'positive eugenics'. According to its definition it makes sense to call it that, but you need some context to properly understand what the name actually means.

ajuc4• 4 years ago

The problem isn't that the name is misleading, the problem is that every instance of hostile sexism is also benevolent sexism and vice versa according to that definition. For example:

HS: women are incompetent and inferior to men BS: men are competent and superior to women

Both of these statements are equivalent. The only thing that changes is POV. So if you insist benevolent sexism and hostile sexism are different - you have to assume a POV (for example call the sexism that prefers women benevolent). Which to me seems obviously the wrong thing to do.

thomastjeffery6• 4 years ago

That's very literally the meaning of the phrase.

kurtreed• 4 years ago

There are studies showing bias against women, there are studies showing bias against men. This should remind us not to take any one reported bias and conclude that it represents the overall relationship between the sexes, even if politically convenient to do so.

webmobdev2• 4 years ago

Note though that even though this sounds like a positive and "well-meaning" bias, it can be dysfunctional too. Holding someone to a higher standard also has a "reverse" psychological effect that when they deviate or stray away from the expected standards, people are harsher on them than they usually would be. This is why, when coupled with regressive societal norms, "honour killing" of women happen (the extreme worst-case example).

(Related - The problem with putting someone on a pedestal - https://pairedlife.com/etiquette/onapedestal ).

DarkWiiPlayer6• 4 years ago

This is why, when coupled with regressive societal norms, "honour killing" of women happen (the extreme worst-case example).

Sounds a bit like the gender-swapped version of "deserters get shot"

fundad4• 4 years ago

Yes this isn’t benevolent sexism, it’s sexism sexism.

luckylion6• 4 years ago

Holding someone to a higher standard also has a "reverse" psychological effect that when they deviate or stray away from the expected standards, people are harsher on them than they usually would be.

That sounds strange. Women are held to a higher standard, yet when they commit crimes, we punish them less severely than men. How would that fit into your narrative?

denton-scratch4• 4 years ago

They say that female call-centre responders are preferred to male ones.

I'm less likely to kick-off at a female call-centre responder if the service is awful, than to a male responder. But the responders I'm happiest with are usually male responders (preferably with a lowlands scottish accent).

moe0912• 4 years ago

any sexism inherently has a counter-effect on the opposite sex. e.g women being viewed as homemakers and not being taken seriously in professional environments has the counter-effect that men are hoisted with the responsibility of making a living and creating a successful career and are judged more harshly for failing to do that.

men and women both have issues caused by sexism and it's okay to acknowledge both. I only think it's taken too far sometimes when either sex acts like they are the only ones with problems. Also, lets just be honest here, women have it worse as the ROOT of all these dual-edged sexist beliefs stems from a tendency to not view women as REAL people. Some cultures are worse than others with this but I'd argue that pretty much EVERY culture still has certain views on women that, consciously or not, restrict their personal freedom. There are certain benefits to this(e.g being judged less harshly in court, people being more likely to treat you nicely, do favors, etc) but all of those "benefits" are the result of others not viewing the woman in question as a full, independent person who is capable of making their own decisions and forming their own thoughts/beliefs outside the context of being a woman

azangru• 4 years ago

I'm trying to remember someone's words that if <politician(s)> were a woman, there wouldn't have been <bad things>. As if...

Google has so far suggested to me Boris Johnson's "if Putin were a woman...", Kaja Kallas' (Estonian PM) "If women were in charge...", and Sheryl Sandberg's "If women were in charge"; but I am sure I heard this sentiment before 2022.

Probably a good illustration of the effect :-)

kgwgk3• 4 years ago

There would be no wars, only a bunch of countries not talking to each other (a joke I just found)

fundad4• 4 years ago

Maybe nothing would change but we would finally know.

finikytou• 4 years ago

you can look at matriarchal societies, queens, famous women politician (tatcher, merkel - now that the aftermath unplayed I suppose she will have less fans- albright) to see that we at the end are all same. men and women. both awful when in power

themaninthedark• 4 years ago

A flawed analysis, all of those people are people who crave power.

I am unsure if shitty people crave power or power turns people shitty.

screye3• 4 years ago

Aah yes, famously benevolent democratic leaders like Aung Suu Kyi & Indira Gandhi.

f1shy• 4 years ago

I assume this is for western societies. I can imagine in the middle east this is a little bit different...

jacknews• 4 years ago

'benevolent sexism'??? It sounds like newspeak to me.

Surely this should just be called 'female privilege'.

ajuc4• 4 years ago

The definition of benevolent sexism makes no sense. If "women are cooler than men" is benevolent sexism, then either you admit sexism is defined subjectively from the female POV, or you have to admit that "men are better at math" is also "benevolent sexism".

socialismisok3• 4 years ago

That's probably because you haven't spent enough time trying to understand the intent of the expression.

Benevolent here refers to the intent, not the outcome.

If I say "women are so caring" and then use that as a justification for why I shouldn't hire them, the result is a sexist policy with a benevolent origin.

You see this all the time with stereotypes - queer men are so good at fashion, Asians are so good at math, Black folks are such good athletes, etc. We might think these are compliments, but when they are used to deny opportunities they can be as harmful as any other stereotype.

tchaffee5• 4 years ago

then either you admit sexism is defined subjectively

That is indeed right in the definition, which you should read:

Hostile sexism reflects overtly negative evaluations and stereotypes about a gender (e.g., the ideas that women are incompetent and inferior to men). Benevolent sexism represents evaluations of gender that may appear subjectively positive (subjective to the person who is evaluating) but are actually damaging to people and gender equality more broadly

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambivalent_sexism

delecti3• 4 years ago

Considering the term "privilege" (in that sense) was coined specifically in regard to male (and white) privilege, it is definitionally not "female privilege", though clearly that on its own isn't a very convincing argument.

The phrase "benevolent sexism" is not an oxymoron though. "Women should stay at home with the kids because they're so nurturing" is a belief that leads to reduced opportunities for women, despite ostensibly being praise of their inherent characteristics. At its simplest definition, "privilege" just means that a particular trait won't be the cause of things being harder for you, and by the example of women being nurturing, that's clearly not an example of privilege.

solids• 4 years ago

Sorry but common ideas like "privilege" cannot be coined by anyone.

oaktrout• 4 years ago

It looks like the term "privilege" was used in the 1200s, and even earlier in Latin, so restricting its use to male white privilege in the 2000s seems silly to me.

chucksta• 4 years ago

So its a bad argument you disagree with but don't present an alternative?

And doesn't women being viewed as more nurturing doesn't deny opportunities to nurturing men or men who would like to stay at home and raise their kids?

3np• 4 years ago

Where did you get that idea?

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/privilege

belorn5• 4 years ago

Considering the term "privilege" (in that sense) was coined specifically in regard to male (and white) privilege, it is definitionally not "female privilege", though clearly that on its own isn't a very convincing argument.

That is indeed not a very convincing argument. A derogatory word invented by a political advocacy group is rarely useful. In this context however it was not coined specifically in regard to male (and white) privilege. It was coined in the social class struggle in regard to the privilege held by the nobles vs the common folks. The meaning was people with legal immunity or exemption from the law that the rest of the people had to follow.

That definition of the word hasn't change much since the 15th century. It is also from this period that the negative connotation occurred with the word pravilege, "an evil law or privilege".

xwolfi2• 4 years ago

No it's a well known phenomenon. It's like opening the door only to women to simplify, but it will impact for instance a vote decision: "women are too precious to be dragged into political fights".

Another analogy I've seen used is that in countries where men violently force wifes, daughters and sisters to veil their entire body, they are all very surprised to be accused of misogyny: they love and admire women like we do dogs, and only aim at protecting them from dirty cavemen as much as possible. But, just like them, you wont ask you dog to vote and you ll give it a slap if it disobeys. Women in turn can then accept this fact of life and embrace their newfound respect for a masculine God protecting them from base men and would show proud humility and obedience, while men burn cars and foreign effigies at the first sign of minuscule disrespect.

tsol4• 4 years ago

Another analogy I've seen used is that in countries where men violently force wifes, daughters and sisters to veil their entire body, they are all very surprised to be accused of misogyny: they love and admire women like we do dogs, and only aim at protecting them from dirty cavemen as much as possible.

This is just a thinly veiled criticism of Iran(?) that has almost nothing to do with the parent comment.

thowaway11qwe12• 4 years ago

Maybe they are borrowing from the defintion that: racism = prejudice plus power [1]

I quite like the idea that prejudice becomes race/sex/whateverism when used to cause harm.

Thus benevolent sexism (i.e. just prejudice and no power) and prejudice based on sex would essentially be synonyms.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prejudice_plus_power

Edit: this comment examplains it better: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33177570

BobbyJo2• 4 years ago

I quite like the idea that prejudice becomes race/sex/whateverism when used to cause harm.

That's bit icky, because "causes harm" is extremely relative. Any negative attitude (or the shadow of a positive one) causes harm to some degree. Wasn't "microagression" a buzzword not long ago?

Everyone has some degree of power, and ignoring that feels like just another kind of marginalization.

What's so wrong with leaving those words with their current meaning, and if you mean X + power, just say the extra word. Otherwise we wind up with heated arguments over nothing more than the sounds our throats make.

wing-_-nuts• 4 years ago

I don't like when people muddy the water here. *ism is judging people based on their inherent features they cannot change, be that ableism, sexism, or racism. I hold everyone, no matter their sex, color, or ability to the same standard of decency, and if I failed to do otherwise, I'd consider that, itself a form of *ism.

tchaffee5• 4 years ago

Or you haven't educated yourself on what the technical term actually means.

tl;dr: Benevolent sexism towards women is considered harmful to women. Benevolent sexism towards men is considered harmful to men.

You can read more about what it really means here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambivalent_sexism

Laaas2• 4 years ago

Is this a bad thing if it's accurate? Women are more well-behaved on average, no?

tarakat• 4 years ago

Try applying this to any other group. Truth is no defense for "bias".

Laaas2• 4 years ago

Deers and lions?

lucideer3• 4 years ago

I suspect it's accurate but tells us less than one might think. In that sense it may be a "bad thing" if the conclusions are taken at face value and applied out of context without being interrogated.

i.e.: saying "this shows people are predisposed to favour women, ergo the narrative of gender discrimination against women is disproven."

In actuality, this shows favourable sentiment toward women in quite narrow, specific ways: words quoted from the article are "good, happy, and sunshine" & not things like "competent, reliable, trustworthy, and cool". There's a hint of infantilisation within the words used. Yes they're positive, but it's worth looking at how those specific sentiments might exhibit in real world situations.

globular-toast• 4 years ago

Depends on your average. If you take mean then male averages are always skewed by outliers. The mean number of people murdered is going to be higher for men than for women. But the median and mode for both will be 0. Also note that such statistics have a lower limit (0) but no upper limit. It might be that there are men who are overwhelmingly "good" and prevent many murders, but this won't count as a negative contribution to male murder statistics.

DarkWiiPlayer6• 4 years ago

Is this a bad thing if it's accurate?

Yes. That's exactly how discrimination works. Stereotypes reinforce themselves through the ways we treat people.

denton-scratch4• 4 years ago

That's exactly how discrimination works.

Discrimination means treating things differently because they're different. You seem to be assuming that all discrimination is bad; but the "bad discrimination" is discriminating based on irrelevant differences.

Stereotypes reinforce themselves through the ways we treat people.

Whatever; I don't understand the sentence. Perhaps I should have studied sociology! But a "stereotype" is like a cardboard cutout; it's a super-simplified (ands therefore false) representation of a difference. I don't know what stereotypes have to do with discrimination, unless somehow we're suddenly talking about racial discrimination, or gender discrimination, or some other unjustified discrimination.

greg7582947• 4 years ago

Not on average, but I believe men do have a flatter Gaussian curve. We have more mass murderers but also more notable leaders, scientists, etc.

At any rate, this is interesting in the large but useless at the individual level. We should not allow fuzzy impressions over the entire human race change our impressions of an individual person.

When the book "The Bell Curve" came out it caused an uproar for this reason. We cannot discriminate against anyone on the basis of their broad studies of race, as the authors themselves noted.

eloisant• 4 years ago

The flatter Gaussian curve has also been observed at school results.

Both genders have a similar average, but you will find more extreme results in make students (very weak or very strong).

anonporridge3• 4 years ago

And the flatter curve exists because males are essentially the experimental units of a species.

Because eggs are scarce but sperm is abundant, males are largely disposable in the context of a species' or society's collective survival. Therefore, it is advantageous for males to engage in high risk, high reward behavior to keep prodding the environment they live in for changes that might require an adaptation from the group. The result is a flatter curve with more extreme failures and more extreme successes.

dleslie2• 4 years ago

Women are not better behaved on average, they're simply not prosecuted equally for their poor behaviour.

To get a full understanding of this, compare self reported spousal abuse data against police reported data. The difference is shocking.

RichardCNormos2• 4 years ago

My ex-wife used to physically abuse me (hitting, throwing things). An attorney friend told me to leave the house whenever that happened, because if anyone called the cops (including me), the police would arrest me instead of her. It's called the "Duluth Model" of domestic violence enforcement.

falcolas3• 4 years ago

There's no data to back up the assertion though. At least not in this article - all it says is that we attribute more positive attributes to women, not that women exhibit those attributes more often than men.

RichardCNormos2• 4 years ago

What does it mean to be "well-behaved"?

llampx5• 4 years ago

Heh, another example of the bias in action. I'm sure people tend to more easily forget instances where a woman was not well-behaved. Take a look at /r/PublicFreakout. Also note the Karen meme is not about a man.

Also, similar to bullying in childhood, women's bad behavior often doesn't manifest in physical displays of aggression, but psychologically manipulative and emotional ones. Obviously men can be psychologically manipulative too, yada yada... I'm not a woman hater.

SaintGhurka• 4 years ago

It seems like this explains, or perhaps is explained by "male expendability".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_expendability

llampx5• 4 years ago

Women create society, women ARE society. A few chosen men (rich, powerful, handsome) hold key positions in this society, meanwhile most men are just outside, looking for a way in. You can buy your way in by being productive and hard-working. Or by dying for the society. Note that in times of war, women were handing out white roses, not putting on their combat boots. The rich and powerful were likewise found nowhere near a battlefield.

We try to get past our wild roots, the fact that we don't have harems in most of the world is how we became civilized.

rekabis2• 4 years ago

Forced monogamy is what gave most men “skin in the game” (a chance at having a family), and as such, encouraged them to go above and beyond in making society better and safer. So yes, a lack of harems is what makes society progressive, safe, and stable.

Having large masses of men who will never have an opportunity for a wife and family is massively unstable for any society, because these men will either sod off and do their own thing (why should I contribute to society/civilization if it does nothing for me?), or they will forment unrest in an attempt to acquire wives of their own by any means possible.

TMWNN• 4 years ago

Note that in times of war, women were handing out white roses, not putting on their combat boots.

True.

The rich and powerful were likewise found nowhere near a battlefield.

False; see the traditional sorting of European aristocrats' sons (oldest is heir, second joins military, third joins clergy). To a first approximation, every single member family in Britain's landed gentry and peerage lost someone in WW1.

leobg• 4 years ago

Is that your world view, or satire?

Every child also needs a father. Not just his semen or his money.

To believe that you are expendable is just your mind providing a token explanation for deflecting intimacy. That’s the believe that others can only need, but never love you. Such thinking is a symptom for an avoidant attachment style. Those “explanations” tell you nothing about the world. Though they do tell you something about yourself.

ip26• 4 years ago

It’s definitely in the same orbit, but I would connect it more closely to the high risk, high variance strategies taken by males, which drive mentioned traits such as aggression, disagreeableness, & danger.

dandare• 4 years ago

If you are interested in men's issues, but hate misogyny or red-pill, check out r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates

motohagiography• 4 years ago

While I was hesitant to comment on the topic at all, it's worth it for men to have words for the bias, because the entire moral code of a lot of men who tend toward agreeability is based on not-upsetting the women in their lives, or anywhere for that matter, and the effect is pernicious.

There is a maturation stage for men that traditionally happened in late adolescence that doesn't seem as common these days. Now these men relate to women as though they expect women to supervise them, and expect other men to "behave," in a way that is acceptable to their percieved feminine supervisors, or they have some kind of hyper-conscientious responsibility to blunt themselves around women so as to seem "unthreatening" to them, because they are still fundamentally actuated by shame, even though it is just a harness our species uses to manage children.

The anxiety originates from this unmatured Women are Wonderful bias, which boys are taught as children so they can be managed, but with the expectation that they grow out of it or leave it behind during a rite of passage. The result of not breaking men of this childhood harness is they grow up to be "nice guys" who are really just full of anxiety and resentment from navigating the absurd bind of believing their goodness and identity as a protagonist comes from being validated by the women they have placed in their supervisory pedastal roles, and because by treating women as better, they have implicitly made the women in their lives responsible for their feelings instead of taking complete ownership of their own emotions and lives. I meet these "happy wife happy life" guys all the time, and not only do they compete to debase themselves and accumulate sacrifices nobody asked for, but they take it out as resentment of other men whose freedom from that bias casts a light on that undocked lever of shame they wear around like a collar - and then ultimately the women in their lives.

Women are people, and for any quality in a population, people tend to be on pretty long tailed distributions. When you refuse to see the worst examples because of some well meaning bias, it leaves the great ones unappreciated, which I think is the most harmful bias of all. Men and women can be wonderful, but nobody gets there without a lot of practice, imo.

The question isn't whether women are wonderful or not, as that's a dumb dichotomy - it's whether guys have matured into men by ceasing to be controlled by this internalized language of shame that was only necessary to keep them physically safe as children. Part of that is recognizing women aren't symbols, but other people, who like men are responsible for their own actions and feelings, and above all, not a single one is responsible for yours either.

pitaj• 4 years ago

I think much of it really comes down to how schools treat boys.

markdog12• 4 years ago

participants had a much less positive response to articles favouring men over women than those that favoured women over men – and, again, this effect was stronger in women, as well as in left-leaning participants
They also felt more strongly that male-favouring findings should be kept away from girls and not mentioned by teachers and the media.

samhuk3• 4 years ago

A study finds that women are viewed more positively than men, then researchers coin phrases like "women-are-wonderful" (equally "men are bad") and "benevolent sexism" (no, it's just sexism).

Hmm, almost like it's ironic. or something. So blatantly obviously ironic, in fact, that I begin to wonder whether they were aware of their own joke. Any by joke, I don't mean social science in general or anything.

xwolfi2• 4 years ago

Maybe unvolontary sexism ? There s a difference between the base macho sexism, embracing the gender divide, degrading women as sexual consumption near-objects, and the simp putting women on a pedestal so high he d even rather they don't speak so they dont break his illusion.

It's sexism in both ways, but there's an interesting difference in how to tackle them I think.

Raising a daughter myself, I'm sometimes lost: should I tell her so often she's cute, should I instead vindicate her physical strength, should she do karate or dancing or both ? It's hard to navigate when you know there's a problem, that you're probably part of it and you have a responsibility to try to fix it for your daughter.

samhuk3• 4 years ago

I would somewhat agree with you, but the definition of sexism, like many things, do not depend whatsoever on the solution for it.

For example, if I robbed a bank or stole money from my parents, the solution for those are very different, however they are still both theft.

A bit tangential, but I always dislike this new trendy phenomenon of assigning whether forms of discrimination are "voluntary" or not. I find that it misses the point, and is mostly irrelevant to the conversation. "Oh my manager is totally sexist but nobody else sees it because everyone's been conditioned by society". Just like that, I find that it's a slippery slope into explaining why one is always right or wrong.

bobkazamakis• 4 years ago

"benevolent sexism" (no, it's just sexism).

Huh? "Asians are good at math" is still racial stereotyping, even if it's not negative.

(equally "men are bad")

No, read the wiki again.

mm, almost like it's ironic. or something. So blatantly obviously ironic,

mfw 4chan so irun.

samhuk3• 4 years ago

From experience, "Asians are good at math" is often related to the wider (and very wrong, from my own experience) stereotype of "Asians are awkward" or "Asians are shallow" or "Asians are only good for math/work". And even then, "are good at math", by definition of the word "good", means that others are worse (otherwise "good" wouldn't mean anything).

No, read the wiki again.

My point is that, still, they coined (therefore popularising) only one side (women good), and not the other (men bad).

mfw 4chan so irun.

;)

mikrl• 4 years ago

It’s a positive stereotype but still negative. I’ve had a few E Asian buddies who were about as successful as me in that life stage with similar interests (some not wholesome) and their home/social lives seemed so stressful.

They’re ‘failures’ or ‘disappointments’ in their circles despite just being a normal Canadian guy studying what they want, and having some beers and smokes. Meanwhile I’m cool, easygoing and edgy because as long as you aren’t fucking up your life completely, poor white people think you’re doing great.

thomastjeffery6• 4 years ago

Like many others on this thread, you are misinterpreting the term, "benevolent sexism".

"Benevolent" in this case is defining the category, not the morality of the sexism.

Indeed, sexism is inherently immoral, even when it is framed as benevolence.

blueprint2• 4 years ago

Why, because sexes are not different from each other?

What's immoral is to state things that exist differently than what they really are, as if you know.

The real problem is most people don't have the understanding (or, otherwise, safe conditions) to accurately state the differences, but they clearly exist. Otherwise none of us would be here.

tchaffee5• 4 years ago

Folks are rushing to criticize the term "benevolent sexism" without knowing what the technical term means. It's not the gotcha you think it is.

tl;dr Benevolent sexism towards women is damaging to women. Likewise for benevolent sexism towards men. And yes, it is subjective. That's in the definition.

"Ambivalent sexism is a theoretical framework which posits that sexism has two sub-components: "hostile sexism" (HS)and "benevolent sexism" (BS). Hostile sexism reflects overtly negative evaluations and stereotypes about a gender (e.g., the ideas that women are incompetent and inferior to men). Benevolent sexism represents evaluations of gender that may appear subjectively positive (subjective to the person who is evaluating), but are actually damaging to people and gender equality more broadly"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambivalent_sexism

crackercrews• 4 years ago

Reminds me of kid shirts that say "the future is female".

brent_noorda• 4 years ago

Is that why Alexa, Siri, and OK Google, which are all wonderful, default to female voices?

cookieswumchorr• 4 years ago

this is just catering to the predominantly male audience of early tech adopters. I remember hearing that the landing assistant in soviet fighter jets has a female voice, because it has a soothing effect on the male pilots.

dymk2• 4 years ago

Sounds like bunk armchair psychology to me

iwillbenice• 4 years ago

Not just the USSR! The UK and US did the same too!

For more info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_warning_system

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx7-yvXf6f8

My personal opinion is the "Bitching Betty" voice with its crisp instructions and authoritative tone makes us subliminally think of our mother giving us guidance or reprimand at an early age. It is a great design; it has saved a TON of pilot lives who otherwise would have accidentally perished.

tsol4• 4 years ago

No, it's because both sexes rate female voices as more soothing and trustworthy[1].

1-- https://www.debbiegrattan.com/blog/why-trust-female-voice-ov....

lhorie• 4 years ago

Benevolent sexism

I mean, when attending a birthday or christmas party, who buys the presents?

Bias means that judgment about a topic doesn't match reality. But is it really bias (or even more loadedly "sexism") to think that stereotypical women do more likable things if we were to assume that was perhaps actually true?

Imagine, for example, saying that it's "benevonent species-ism" to think that animals are on average more likely to be quadrupedal than humans. That'd be a silly assertion, because we know for a fact that this is true, and because the idea of more legs being better is weird for human standards. This thought exercise then begs the question: if we do think that thinking "women are nicer" is a form of bias, then what is the reality? Is the implication that they are not? That niceness should account for things other than nurturing attributes? According to who?

IMHO, the more interesting aspect of the observation of this effect is what it says about the people talking about it.

dymk2• 4 years ago

I mean, when attending a birthday or christmas party, who buys the presents?

This one confuses me, are you saying that it's a given that women are the one buying presents and men aren't? I've not seen that, nor heard that be the stereotype.

yamazakiwi• 4 years ago

I don't know if more legs being better is weird or that it's just likely to be untrue past quadrupedal in this instance.

That being said, Octopi are known to bond with humans and I find them pretty neat.

UncleOxidant5• 4 years ago

Out of curiosity I googled "percentage of US prison population that's female" and it's ~10%. So is this partly why we have the "women are wonderful" bias (because women are apparently much less likely to commit violent crime)? Or is it that because of this bias fewer women end up in prison?

ALittleLight• 4 years ago

Another take - perhaps there is a "women are wonderful" sentiment because they are less likely to commit violent crime (and things like that).

UncleOxidant5• 4 years ago

You can look at mass shootings in the US (no sentencing bias) and ~98% have been committed by men.

scotty79• 4 years ago

Probably both.

rekabis2• 4 years ago

A quote I saw somewhere, and backed up with links to research that I (unfortunately) did not save, went something like this:

“For the exact same crime with the exact same damages, the gender sentencing gap is three times larger than the wealth sentencing gap, and seven times larger than the racial sentencing gap. Having been born female is the single largest get-out-of-jail-free card you could possibly possess.”

This hesitancy by police, prosecutors, judges, and juries to properly charge, prosecute, and sentence women to the same degree as men are treated, is certainly sounding a lot like the “women are wonderful, they couldn’t possibly be responsible or capable of this” effect in action.

luckylion6• 4 years ago

Or is it that because of this bias fewer women end up in prison?

That's well documented [0]. Money quote: "In the United States men are most adversely affected by sentencing disparity being twice as likely to be sentenced to jail after conviction than women and receiving on average 63% longer jail sentences."

An interesting side-note: the effect shrinks when the judge is a woman.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentencing_disparity

UncleOxidant5• 4 years ago

twice as likely to be sentenced to jail

But this doesn't seem to account for all of that 10:1 ratio.

addingadimensio• 4 years ago

Women cannot even commit violent crime against half the population.

dmurdoch• 4 years ago

Excuse me, what? Elaborate?

theprincess4• 4 years ago

Meta comment:

Yesterday it was the old OKCupid blogs today it's WAW. I spent some time a few years ago exploring the incel wiki after one of the mass shootings that happened and saw these concepts popping up again and again. I feel like maybe these ideas are reaching a critical mass of young men lately and it will be interesting to see what the ramification of that are....

Looking at how men are doing in terms of life expectancy, educational attainment, career prospects, etc... does make it obvious something has gone very wrong for them as a group but I think there's a real lack of any sort of positive vision going forward. Mostly I see lamentations of how much better women seem to have it or angry calls for a return to the status quo ante.

Is there someone with a positive vision for men? Jordan Peterson spews a bunch of nonsense about fighting dragons and embracing suffering but that's not going to get men into universities or opening up emotionally with one another so that they stop drowning in lonely misery.

The one positive proposal I've seen lately was the suggestion that boys should start school at 6 instead of 5 since girls mature a bit more quickly which gives them a leg up in terms of academic achievement.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/10/boys-de...

AnnikaL• 4 years ago

I think encouraging healthy emotional relationships among men is probably a better idea for society than the "the world is harsh and unpleasant so you must be strong" sort of rhetoric that I hear men tell each other on this website a lot.

luckylion6• 4 years ago

What if that's the truth? It's useful to know what to expect and what not to, even if you'd be much happier if you only expect good things ... at least until your expectations don't match reality and you're swept off your feet because you never knew that might happen.

screye3• 4 years ago

Jordan Peterson spews a bunch of nonsense about fighting dragons and embracing suffering

Fighting dragons - Buy into the hero's journey / have big aspirations / reject inertia.

Embrace suffering - delayed gratification / you're entitled to nothing / hedonism doesn't work.

Really, at its very core it drives home ideas of male expendability. You will be loved if you can provide, so 'clean up your room', start providing and if still no women want to be with you, then we can talk about it.

I don't see why you'd call it a "bunch of nonsense" when his messages are merely digestible morsels of the most prevalent traditional thought. The metaphors are obvious enough really. It is adult versions of Aesop's fables & Panchatantra. It is the exact opposite of 'a bunch of nonsense'. They are the most well understood civilizational cliches of humanity.

theprincess4• 4 years ago

Really, at its very core it drives home ideas of male expendability.

Do you think it's healthy for boys to be taught that they are expendable and that their lives only have conditional value that can go away at any time if they are unable to work?

Or do you just think "that's the way things have always been so we should embrace it?"

I think probably most manosphere guys think the former which is why I say that there's no positive vision of a future for men. Just this very dreary outlook that life is some sort of hopeless struggle. No wonder so many men are violent and angry if that's the message they get their whole lives. :(

I actually love the men in my life and I want better for them and this slaying dragons stuff doesn't help them as far as I can see. They need to feel like they are valued and loved so that they can open themselves up to more possibilities beyond trying to act tough by building walls around them.

llampx5• 4 years ago

Thank you for that article, it was a thought-provoking read.

thomastjeffery6• 4 years ago

So many of the comments in this thread are misinterpreting the phrase, "benevolent sexism".

"Benevolent" is describing the context of the sexism, not judging that the sexism itself is morally good.

The context of the term still heavily implies that "benevolent sexism" is a moral/social failure.

To call out an idea as "benevolent sexism" is just shorthand to say, "despite this idea being framed as a positive affirmation, it reinforces the structure of traditional gender roles and sexism."

sekai• 4 years ago

"Benevolent" is describing the context of the sexism, not judging that the sexism itself is morally good.
The context of the term still heavily implies that "benevolent sexism" is a moral/social failure.

So...let's just call it sexism?

thomastjeffery6• 4 years ago

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/adverbially-2

Personally, I prefer using the adjective. It's descriptive.

fallingfrog• 4 years ago

The most interesting part of this -besides the obvious absurdity of "benevolent sexism"- is this line:

"In more egalitarian societies, people have more positive attitudes towards men than in less egalitarian societies."

This makes sense to me- the person you're going to fear the most is someone who has power over you. In the absence of toxic power dynamics, there would probably be a lot more social and sexual openness between the sexes. Probably a big part of what's going on here is that men are seen as threatening in a way that women aren't. And I don't think there's any biological reason that men should be seen as threatening. Cultural reasons, maybe, but those can be fixed.

By the way- please read what I actually wrote, not what you assume I meant, before downvoting. I'm not accusing anyone of anything, in fact I specifically said that men are not bad or any worse than women. If you didn't catch that, read it again. Thank you.

seti0Cha• 4 years ago

And I don't think there's any biological reason that men should be seen as threatening. Cultural reasons, maybe, but those can be fixed.

Take a look at this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3693622/

adolph• 4 years ago

I thought the phenomena was called the "Althouse Rule," from the below blog post observation.

November 8, 2005

Scientists: remember to portray whatever you find to be true of women as superior.

I've said it before, and I must repeat, the rule is: If you do scientific research into the differences between men and women, you must portray whatever you find to be true of women as superior. And when you read reports about scientific research into the differences between men and women, use the hypothesis that the scientists are following that rule. It makes reading the reports quite humorous.

https://althouse.blogspot.com/2005/11/scientists-remember-to...

moe0912• 4 years ago

I think Carl Jung did a great job of describing the origin of this effect with the concept of the underdeveloped anima - which is an especially common condition among modern men(technically it's common among all men before they reach emotional maturity, but this specific type of maturation is often stunted nowadays).

At different levels of underdevelopment, it can cause women to be perceived negatively; evil, duplicitous, manipulative, etc. At other levels it causes a person to put women on a pedestal, thinking they can do no wrong, viewing them as these perfect, almost numinous beings who are a source of comfort and love.

The common symptom is not viewing women as PEOPLE, as instead of seeing women as they are, all women are viewed through the projection of the persons own "anima"(think of it as an internal construct that represents a persons mother, or more generally, as the archetypal "woman"), and whatever unrecognized complexes or ideas are tied up with that image are projected into the real world. These complexes are developed naturally during early stages of life when a persons mother is perceived as some all-powerful and all-loving source of life, and as a person matures they are supposed to adapt a more and more realistic view of their mother figure and of women in general, but there is a tendency nowadays, especially for men, to not want to give up the comfort and support of their mother(literally or psychologically), and this can cause the immature mother image to persist throughout their life, which then gets projected onto women as a whole

addicted• 4 years ago

All this research appears to be from the 80s and 90s. When women were still largely confined to being homemakers and soft jobs.

Since then research has shown that people tend to have far more negative views of women in power than equivalent men.

I suspect this derives more from the fact that women were simply not allowed positions of power and so if you guessed a woman was a homemaker and/or in a caretaking job like a nurse or teacher you would almost certainly be right.

dgudkov• 4 years ago

I'm curious to what extent the effect is country-specific.

readthenotes1• 4 years ago

Fitting that in an article like this author Alice has a wiki page but author Antonio does not.

“Women are wonderful” effect

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