Can rudeness hide sexism?

Article here. Excerpt:

'In a new study that appears in Psychological Science, researchers from the Universities of Virginia and Texas have revealed that by being equally rude to men and women, some men can hide sexist attitudes.

The authors of the study refer to this as the “equal-opportunity jerk defense.”
...
The study had several parts. In the first, researchers asked 1,100 employed men to self-report their rudeness toward male and female colleagues, as well as their attitudes and beliefs about women.

Men who held sexist beliefs about women were also more likely to be rude to men.

The second part of the study tested how observers judged others. Did people regard a man who was rude to men and women as less sexist than a man who was rude only to women? First, the researchers asked the participants to read tweets by Donald Trump.

They showed the participants two of Trump’s tweets about women, which they followed with varying numbers of tweets aimed at men. All of the tweets were denigrating the woman or man in question.'