Subtle sexism common at work, experts say

Submitted by anthony on Thu, 2012-03-15 21:07

Article here. Excerpt:

'If a guy offers to carry a box for a female co-worker, help her with Google Analytics or compliments her for what a good mom she seems to be, she may be better off turning down the help and deflecting the compliments. These seemingly nice gestures and complimentary comments towards women may be a form of subtle sexism, experts say.

Chivalrous acts and compliments on female qualities, like mothering or nurturing, studies show, can be just as damaging to women as more blatant sexism and catcalls. Offering to assist women in traditionally male tasks, which experts call benevolent sexism, reinforces the notion that men are more competent than women, and women are weak and fragile.

One study found that when women were led to expect help from men, they became unsure of themselves, got distracted, and consequently performed poorly, creating a self-fulfilling prophesy. Women don’t usually recognize benevolent sexism, and they start to doubt their ability to do the job, which makes them less able to do the job, the study’s co-author Peter Glick said in a podcast.
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Researchers found when women were made aware of subtle sexism and how to spot it, they no longer had self doubts and their performance didn’t suffer.

Men, though appear to be slower at getting the message and had to be more actively educated that any kind of sexism harms women.'

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Comments

Fox does it again! Can anyone beat them for sensationalist mind-fracking when it comes to gender stereotyping and convoluting value structures? Reading their stuff can make one positively dysphoric!

Actually the whole thing is quite simple. Fox peddles old-fashioned chivalrous crap when it comes to these matters and in this case they do a mind-f*ck by condemning chivalry in the name of 'protecting women' which is in itself a chivalrous act. Follow? That's the mind-f*ck. Once you identify it, you can't be vulnerable to it anymore.

And they are not alone. They just excel at it.

In any case the 'subtle sexism' the article talks about is actually a good point. But I'd argue it's a dual kind of sexism. The other kind is the sexism the man is inflicting upon himself. He is assuming the burden, because he is male, of helping out the female, either by helping her in her job duties (which she should be doing for herself) or in carrying boxes at work (again, likewise). He is indulging in the "slave's happiness" as Esther Vilar described it in "The Manipulated Man" (good read - can't say I was down with everything in it but all in all, it made very good points). That is self-directed sexism which men have internalized, in action. And it's good old fashioned chivalry, also in action-- just like what we see from Fox's editorial dept!

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Submitted by Matt on Fri, 2012-03-16 01:34