SEXISM

SEXISM

                                       -By Shivani Sangwan

 What is Sexism?

It imposes limits on what men and boys can and should do and what women and girls can and should do. The concept of sexism was originally formulated to raise consciousness about the oppression of girls and women, although by the early 21st century it had sometimes been expanded to include the oppression of any sex, including men and boys, intersex people, and transgender people.

Sexism in a society is most commonly applied against women and girls. It functions to maintain patriarchy, or male domination, through ideological and material practices of individuals, collectives, and institutions that oppress women and girls on the basis of sex or gender. Such oppression usually takes the forms of economic exploitation and social domination. Sexist behaviours, conditions, and attitudes perpetuate stereotypes of social (gender) roles based on one’s biological sex. A common form of socialisation that is based in sexist concepts teaches particular narratives about traditional gender roles for males and females. According to such a view, women and men are opposite, with widely different and complementary roles: women are the weaker sex and less capable than men, especially in the realm of logic and rational reasoning. Women are relegated to the domestic realm of nurturance and emotions and, therefore, according to that reasoning, cannot be good leaders in business, politics, and academia. Although women are seen as naturally fit for domestic work and are superb at being caretakers, their roles are devalued or not valued at all when compared with men’s work.

The extreme form of sexist ideology is misogyny, the hatred of women. A society in which misogyny is prevalent has high rates of brutality against women—for example, in the forms of domestic violence, rape, and the commodification of women and their bodies. Where they are seen as property or as second-class citizens, women are often mistreated at the individual as well as the institutional level. For example, a woman who is a victim of rape (the individual or personal level) might be told by a judge and jury (the institutional level) that she was culpable because of the way she was dressed.

Sexism with Feminism:

A feminist study of gender in society needs concepts to differentiate and analyse social inequalities between girls and boys and between women and men that do not reduce differences to the notion of biology as destiny. The concept of sexism explains that prejudice and discrimination based on sex or gender, not biological inferiority, are the social barriers to women’s and girls’ success in various arenas. To overcome patriarchy in society is, then, to dismantle sexism in society. The study of sexism has suggested that the solution to gender inequity is in changing sexist culture and institutions.

Examples:

According to some, sexism can be found in many aspects of daily life. Education, for example, has often attracted particular attention. Sexual harassment and gender-biased treatment—male students are often encouraged to take classes in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), while females are not—are seen as widespread problems. Furthermore, in many parts of the world, women are barred or discouraged from attending school. It is estimated that two-thirds of illiterate people worldwide are females. This inequality in education contributes to gender disparities in the workplace, which has also drawn claims of sexism. Activists often note discrepancies in salaries and occupations between genders. For example, in the early 21st century in the United States, women typically earned about 84 percent of what men received. Moreover, women were often excluded from certain jobs, especially those of leadership; as of 2019 less than 10 percent of CEOs of S&P 500 companies were female.

In addition, sexism has been seen as contributing to violence against women. Such violence, whether sexual or otherwise physical, is widely viewed as a global problem; indeed, an estimated one in three women experiences it at some point during her lifetime. It is often the product of societal norms based on sexist beliefs, including the idea that males have the right to discipline females and the idea that women often encourage the violence, which is frequently blamed on their wearing so-called provocative clothing.

Gender Wage Gap:

One of the most important economic trends of the late 20th century was the dramatic increase in the number of women entering the paid labour force. As more women took jobs, the difference between the average wages or salaries of men and those of women decreased. However, men as a group continued to earn significantly more than women, a difference referred to as the gender wage gap. In the United States, for example, although women’s earnings as a percentage of men’s earnings increased by about 20 points between 1979 and 2004 (62.3 percent to 80.4 percent), they increased by only 1.5 points between 2004 and 2016 (80.4 percent to 81.9 percent).

Occupational Segregation:

Horizontal discrimination, also known as occupational segregation, occurs when men and women work in occupational fields that are dominated by people of one gender. Among professional occupations, for example, accountants, architects, and engineers tend to be mostly men, while nurses, social workers, and primary- and secondary-school teachers tend to be mostly women. Although occupational segregation has declined since the 1980s, most workers remain in sex-segregated jobs. Occupational discrimination fuels the gender wage gap because men’s occupations tend to pay better and have greater advancement opportunities.

Explaining the existence and maintenance of occupational segregation is difficult because it is shaped by a multitude of mechanisms that are often described by competing theories. Some of these mechanisms concern “supply” factors that have to do with the qualifications and abilities of individuals, gender-role socialisation, workers’ values, the range of opportunities available to workers, and the size of the labour supply. Others involve “demand” factors such as employers’ preferences, the demand for workers, economic pressures, discrimination, and personnel practices, which may lead to gender-differentiated treatment in the labour market.

Hierarchical Segregation:

Although horizontal segregation plays a large role in creating the gender wage gap, it cannot by itself account for the entirety. A second process that also fuels the gender wage gap is vertical segregation. Vertical segregation, also known as hierarchical segregation, or the “authority gap,” refers to the fact that men are much more likely than women to be in positions of authority. A number of researchers have found a significant pro-male bias in promotion decisions that is not attributable to differences in seniority (length of service), education, or non work responsibilities.

Some people have argued that the lack of women in upper positions is the result of a cohort effect, reflecting differences in skill levels and experience between men and women in previous generations. Logically, if a cohort effect were the cause of vertical discrimination, then it would naturally decrease as older women leave the workforce and younger women (who are more similar to their male coworkers) become predominant. Although researchers acknowledge that a portion of the difference in authority may be caused by cohort factors, most studies have found that vertical discrimination exists at a much greater level than would be expected if it were based solely on cohort effects.

Sexism is any expression (act, word, image, gesture) based on the idea that some persons, most often women, are inferior because of their sex.

Sexism is any expression (act, word, image, gesture) based on the idea that some persons, most often women, are inferior because of their sex.Sexism is any expression (act, word, image, gesture) based on the idea that some persons, most often women, are inferior because of their sex.Sexism is any expression (act, word, image, gesture) based on the idea that some persons, most often women, are inferior because of their sex.Sexism is any expression (act, word, image, gesture) based on the idea that some persons, most often women, are inferior because of their sex.Sexism is any expression (act, word, image, gesture) based on the idea that some persons, most often women, are inferior because of their sex.