Differential Perceptions of Sexism

Abstract

Given the amount of discussion and debate surrounding issues relating to sexism, it is clear that individuals disagree over what particular aspects of life are approprialely labelled sexist. The present study was designed to assess the nature of disagreement among individuals about what constitutes sexism and to show that such disagreement can be detrimentalto the success of therapy. Sexism perceived in a series of hypothetical scenarios correlated positively with sexism experienced in one's own life. This suggests that individuals differ in the extent to which they perceive sexism in identical incidents. Men scored significantly lower than did women in the amount of sexism perceived in the scenarios. This difference should be detrimental to malelfemale interactions since women made sexist attributions about men's behaviors which, to men, were innocuous. The data are also indicative of the lack of awareness among men of sexism, as compared to women. Therapists will benefit by being sensitive to such perceptual biases in themselves and in their clients.Although much research in recent years has investigated the presence of sexism in U.S. society (e.g., Cash & Kilcullen, 1985;Eleanor R. Smith recently received her PhD in sociaVpersonality psychology from the State University of New York at Albany. Currently she is an instructor at the University of Texas at Dallas. Her research interests include sex roles, sexism, and int~penonal attractionThe author would like to hank Donn Byrne for his comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

Value-based standards guide sexism inferences for self and others

“…Several studies showed, for example, that women are more likely than men to view the same behaviors as sexist and people lower in self-reported levels of sexism are more likely to conclude that specific behaviors are sexist (Blodorn, O’Brien, & Kordys, 2012; Inman & Baron, 1996; Smith, 1992; Swim et al, 2005). Although examining sexism inferences as a function of gender and attitudes describes who is more or less likely to infer sexism, these approaches do not fully account for why these people see more sexism in others’ behavior and they do not directly identify the psychological processes involved in reaching a conclusion of sexism.…”

“…The scientific literature, which is replete with examples of disagreements about the extent to which any given behavior is sexist or innocuous, adds to the confusion (Brant, Mynatt, & Doherty, 1999; Smith, 1992; Swim, Mallett, Russo-Devosa, & Stangor, 2005; Trenholm & Manciallas, 1978). Indeed, the ambiguities surrounding “sexism” are reminiscent of the ambiguity surrounding the definition of “obscenity” when Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously stated, “ I know it when I see it ....” regarding potential obscenity in Louis Malle’s film The Lovers (Jacobellis v. Ohio, 1964).…”

Neural Processing of Sexist Comments: Associations between Perceptions of Sexism and Prefrontal Activity

“…Firstly, the extent of the emotional response and the emotion regulation strategy employed may differ between genders in response to sexism. This may be due to experiences of sexism since females are more likely to be targets of sexist acts compared to their male counterparts in their everyday lives [ 88 ]. In addition, previous findings from [ 30 ] have suggested that males may be more efficient in terms of neural activity during negative emotion regulation as less prefrontal activity during regulation was observed in males.…”