Sexism

What is Sexism?


Sex?  It is better known as gender discrimination.


It is actually a form of discrimination based on a person's sex. It can also be said as stereotyping of gender roles.


Sexism is usually used in relation with gender discrimination especially against women, to be exact in the context of patriarchy (Wikipedia.org, 2011), where the society thinks that men have higher status compared to women. 


The picture below is an illustration of how women are treated:

Source: Google

There's a definite line between 'blatant' sexism and 'benevolent' sexism. However, the distinct between these two types of sexism and chivalry are not clear.

There was once a study done by to female psychologists in order to see how often people would recognize daily sexism. A male and a female college students were asked to keep a record of every time they see both the forms of sexism mentioned. They have to observe a guy opening a door for a woman or getting up as she enters or leaves a room.

After observation, the female students started to see what considered as chvalrous sexist, where men were not able to observe the problem (Chatel, 2011).

Even in movies, women were also often being stereotyped being the weak ones and has to suffer all the time. Taking 'Sex and the City' as an example, a study that came out this week finding that the image of the “selfish” woman who only wants to focus on her job and therefore looks at the idea of settling down and having children as an automatic career derailment, is false. As Meghan Casserly of Forbes wrote the stereotype of the “selfish, single, Sex & The City-style women was knocked on its head” by these findings, which is why I chose the quote from above. It turns out women who have successful careers are not actually choosing their careers over children but may not be having children for a number of reasons, one of which is they haven’t found a suitable partner for this task. There are also other factors like job security and money impacting these women. This blows away the assumption that it’s a voluntary thing for women, that they can choose when and how many children they have. 

A female PR Executive also said that people also look at them as selfish. They are in the late 20s and trying to build their own careers.  They could not find the right person, work and life ambitions.Thank goodness for advances in medicine women can have children safely into their late 30′s if not longer (Lepore, 2011).

Hence, women were always the victim of gender stereotyping. Even though we have come into the 21st century but there are still people who think conservatively and thinks that men are always at a higher status compared to women. Some people even think that women's place are only at home, taking care of the family. Women at working place are often being looked down.

Are you a sexist? You know that!




References List:


Chatel, A 2011, Poll: Do You Find Chivalry To Be Sexist?, The Grind Stone, viewed 13 November 2011, <http://thegrindstone.com/relationships/poll-do-you-find-chivalry-to-be-sexist/>.


Lepore, M 2011, The 'Sex and The City' Stereotype: Why Successful Childless Women Have To Fight The Hardest, The Grind Stone, viewed 13 November 2011, <http://thegrindstone.com/strategy/the-sex-and-the-city-stereotype-why-successful-childless-women-have-to-fight-the-hardest-786/>.