Are you aware of the hidden danger?
Benevolent and Implicit Sexism
Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one’s sex or gender. What is hostile sexism, how it affects who and how, and the consequences are clearly visible. What about sexist attitudes that are difficult to see at first glance but likely to be encountered?
While Benevolent sexism seems to be positive, it secretly contains sexist discourses towards women. To notice the underlying sexist discourse is difficult because it looks kind and positive. In cases where this is not seen as a problem, the statement “Woman is flower, delicate, sensitive and fragile” gradually turns into “Woman is weak and in need of protection”. At a more advanced level, men see women as a property and think that they have the right to own women, and they begin to pressure them under the name of protectionism.
Implicit sexism happens unconsciously towards any gender. Someone who thinks they are against sexism and discrimination can develop similar biases without realizing it. The things we see, hear and learn from infancy create stereotypes in our minds about the sexes and their roles, even if we don’t realize it. For example, if the word “mother” comes to mind with affectionate women doing childcare and housework, while “father” means strong and dominant men who work and earn money, all these are examples of stereotypes that we have learned from infancy. Although we defend that we are against discrimination, having these stereotypes shows that we have unconscious prejudices. These stereotypes are examples of implicit sexism, although we are not aware that we are making a sexist discrimination.
In short, benevolent sexism is hidden because it hides its sexism under positive discourse, but it can be conscious and deliberate. Implicit sexism is almost completely unconscious. Benevolent sexism is an attitude towards women, while implicit sexism can be directed at any gender.
Both of them can cause gender discrimination in many cases. I would like to mention some of them.
When employers hire workers, they ask women if they are married, have children, and if so, how old they are, and the answer is important to them, but the same is not true for men. Because women are potential wife, mothers and housewives in the eyes of employers and they think that their career plans will come after them. They also think they will have to give maternity leave, and some employers make it clear that they don’t want this to happen. Often times, women find work harder than men and are more left behind than men in business. This is a result of implicit sexism. On the other hand, there is a stereotype as “The best job for a woman is being teacher.” It may seem positive that the teacher suits women very well, but the view that high-level positions such as administration are suitable for men and more gentle professions are suitable for women contains a sexist approach in contrast to its positive discourse. Benevolent sexism can cause professions to be classified according to gender. While this discrimination causes women to feel restricted in choosing a profession, it also causes them to have less chance than men in business life.
“Football is a male sport.” Women may be interested in football, but seeing football as a male sport may cause women to turn to different alternatives. It causes a woman who can be a happy and successful football player to prefer sports such as volleyball or pilates just because the sport is classified according to gender. The view that women are naive and vulnerable can even cause women not to do the sport they want to do. It is the result of Benevolent sexism. Some women ignore these stereotypes and go after what they want and prove to everyone that professions and sports have no gender. We are proud of them. However, unfortunately, due to the dominant view, successful sportswomen are less frequently mentioned than sportsmen.
Dance is another example of being gendered. Dancing is about interest, skill, and education. I would like to focus on ballet as a kind of dance. While it is thought that ballet is suitable for women who are considered to be naive and kind, they are not ascribed to men who are seen as strong. This is an example of Benevolent sexism. On the other hand, ballerina women are welcomed to wear colorful tutu skirts, while ballet men are not welcome to wear colorful tights. It means that colors and clothes are also gendered. This is an example of implicit sexism.
Finally, I want to give the example of virginity. Under the name of honor, women are expected to remain virgins until they get married, and in some societies women’s virgins are sold by their fathers under the name of “bride price”. If the woman is not a virgin, the woman is depreciated or not paid. Of course, this is a good possibility. It is generally thought that women who lost their virginity were dishonoring both themselves and their families. There are two ways to clean honor: first, the woman is forced to marry that person, and the second is the murder of the woman. We can call this “honor killing”. Honor killings have survived for many years, and even in some societies, it continues and bride price too. Honor killings are now described by many people as horrible, brutal, and backward. However, many men want the woman they marry to be a virgin and see women who are not virgins as easy and worthless. While women’s virginity is seen as important, men’s is not. Some families even enjoy talking to their sons about it and even support it, while strongly opposing even having a boyfriend for their daughter. This is an example of implicit sexism.
We all know that education starts in the family. From infancy, we learn that the color blue is attributed to boys and pink to girls. We call boys “my lion”, while we call girls “my princess”. There are many more examples like this. Families need to teach their children that genders are equal and that professions, sports and colors have no gender. But first, families and potential expectant mothers and fathers need to learn about this. So, the first way to prevent sexism is to teach people what sexism is, how it happens and what causes it. And it should not be forgotten that if education starts in the family, it continues at school. Gender should enter textbooks and every child needs to learn about gender equality, discrimination, sexism and racism.
Benevolent sexist discourses such as “Women are flower.” and “The best job for women is being teacher.” are seen as normal and welcomed by most people. They do not see the sexism under these discourses because they do not know what benevolent sexism is. In fact, even what sexism is not known. These issues should be discussed by experts in television programs. Also, advertisements and social media can be quite successful in appealing to large crowd of people. Society should be made aware of these issues. I believe that the most necessary thing to solve a problem is awareness because you cannot do something right that you do not realize is wrong.
Finally, I would like to give an example of media influence that I also supported. In 2020, women directed the sexist discourses of society, especially men, to men with the hashtag “#Erkekyerinibilsin” on Twitter for a day. Hundreds of thousands of tweets were shared with this hashtag, supported by men, celebrities and even official twitter accounts of municipalities as well as women. I would like to give a few examples of these tweets: “The man’s place is the right seat.”, “He beats the knee that does not beat his son.”, “If my husband wants, he can work.”, “The man should not laugh.”, ”Pink Bus, we produce to protect men from all kinds of dangers, will be in Şişli very soon(by Şişli Belediyesi)!”… Before the end of the day, some people stated that women exaggerate this situation, that these statements can only be valid for women, and some are tired of these tweets. On the other hand, some said that these tweets had been told to women for years and they had not realized how these discourses could affect women before, and they apologized and supported this trend, too. I think that it was a movement that could raise awareness in the society, but these should be done every day, not just one day. They may help to change attitudes.
As you can see, awareness is the key word in this matter. Now that you realize that some things may not be as innocent as they seem, it’s time to tell others!
