Sexism - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

Various levels of the sexism

One can define various levels of sexism:

the fact of thinking that a sexual kind is higher than another;
the fact of thinking that the men and the women are different by nature, and that this must be strongly reflected in the company.

The majority of the dictionaries regard these two cases as sexism, but some consider that there are variable and many forms. Certain people, in particular of the opponents to the Féminisme, support that only the first case concerns the sexism. Contrary, the feminist think that the encyclopedias or the school handbooks are themselves sexists owing to the fact that the history or the literature conveys discriminatory values towards the women.

The majority of the companies have reserved roles strongly differentiated for the men and the women, by assigning functions different with the individuals from each sex. If this differentiation only little were called in question for a long time, it is nowadays less relevant, particularly in the industrialized countries (except for tasks where an important physical force is necessary, primarily reserved for the male individuals).

The concept of sexism is thus used to determine this differentiation with uneven tendency which can lead to the domination of a sex on the other and is used by its opponents for fighting best.

The men as the women can be sexists: for example, in a patriarchal company , one tends to educate the children of the two sexes in a vision genrée and hierarchical world.

As the kinds are defined one compared to the other, there is no sexism which is not at the same time applicable to the two sexes. But insofar as the sexism east generally perceived like resulting most of the time in inequalities with the detriment of the women, it became current to indicate by this word the differences and inequalities undergone by the women.

Use of this concept

The combat against the ideologies, traditions or behaviors sexists is in the beginning mainly that of the Féministe S. This combat, the anti-sexism, affirms that one can refuse the hierarchisation of the kinds and the sexes; it supports that there exists a right to the individual differences, and calls in question the social and cultural construction of each kind, in what it can lead to the sexism. In addition, the theories Queer leave the refusal of the inequalities according to the sex, to deny any relevance with the category of sex.

Close concepts

The sexism is often brought closer to concept such as the Machisme, the Misogynie or the Misandrie, but the direction of these words differs: the misogyny or the misandrie indicates the contempt or the hatred of the opposite sex; these feelings bring to reject the equality of statute between women and men in the company. A “macho” (or machist) is a type of man behaving with the women in a coarse way or flatterer, using in their connection the psychological lever of the Double constraint. He refuses in the daily newspaper the tasks traditionally allotted to the women, like the house work, because that would undermine the idea that he is made his Virilité.

The sexism, as for him, indicates in a more general way one design of the company supporting than the differences in conditions in the traditional companies are a constant natural and necessary resulting from the empirical differences or a difference of gasoline between the men and the women. From this point of view, these empirical differences or this difference of gasoline have major implications on the various structures of the company, like the family, the Entreprise or the State.

Essentialism

This sexism can be based on an alternative of the Essentialisme. The essentialism is a term which recovers the doctrines which are pursued the study of the gasoline (with the result that a being is what it is), in opposition to the contingencies (what is accidental, whose absence does not call into question the nature of this being). An alternative of the essentialism which could be used to justify the sexism is that which supports that individuals can be defined, included/understood and evaluated while being based mainly on the characteristics of the sexual kind to which they belong.

Kinds in the ancient Greece

The most typical example perhaps of the essentialism can be found in Greece, where the woman is considered to be less perfect than the man; this hierarchy can be understood according to the idea that the Greeks were made be it, who full and is completed. The woman, according to this idea, is hollow; she is a kind of less being, and relative with the man, in the scale of the beings, she is a missed being (cf Aristote for example). The man is on the contrary an accomplished and full being. This opposition of full and the vacuum is also found, according to Luc Brisson (foreword with the Banquet of Plato) in the relationship between men made and young people. What one could call the Greek sexism thus does not recover exactly the modern sexual categories, but relates to the formation of some kind that it is. Thus, when a man marries an young girl, it is an imperfect being which it is a question for the husband of forming in order to achieve all the virtues attached to the image of the woman; Hésiode thus advises: Marry a virgin, in order to form her character with the sagesse.

( Work and the Days, 699)

From this design, it rises several types of discriminations. For example, when Aristote writes an ethical ( Éthique in Nicomaque ), he writes it while distinguishing within the human beings from the virtues specific to “natural” categories: men, children, women, slaves, do not have the same virtues, i.e. they do not have the same capacities, the same duties, same qualities, the same rights, etc the distinction of the kinds thus forms part of a broader series of discriminations, which includes all the aspects of the human life. In the Economic , it distinguishes the kinds according to their virtues natural and complementary, thus the man and the woman would be essential one with the other: Nature has creates a stronger sex and a weaker sex, so that one is ready to be held on its guards because of its tendency to fear, and that the other because of its virility is able to push back the attacker; that one can bring the goods of the outside, that the other day before on what is at the house

(Book I, § III., 4)

The Greek sexism defines as much the role of woman (good wife), that of the man (the man must be courageous, find beautiful to be made massacre on a battle field, etc)

Modern sexism

In modern philosophy, Schopenhauer includes the ancient design partially, while adding to it of the misogyny: the Woman being for him a being whose weak constitution justifies that it is held by nature for lower than the man: The woman is an animal with the long hair and the short ideas. Such a design is found, with more or less virulence, in several artists and philosophical Western. Thus, for Baudelaire, the woman is a natural being, i.e. abominable , judgment which expresses an opposition between nature and the ideal, the woman being placed negative side of this ontological distinction .

For these examples of the Antiquity and modern time, one sees that the essentialism differs in these bases according to whether one considers nature immanente beings (hierarchy aristotelician of the human beings, and thus of the kinds), or their transcendent nature, beyond the experiment (defining a sexual kind of metaphysics of the kinds). The consequences are not the same ones; whereas for Aristote, each kind has virtues which are clean for him, thus defining a hierarchy which, if it makes consider the woman lower than the man, does not make any less conceive like probable and reality which the woman can rank above the man in some manners. On the other hand, a metaphysical hardening of the kinds, as one notices it at Schopenhauer and Baudelaire, seems to inevitably lead to a devalorization without nuance of the women, until their refusing the quality of human being with whole share.

Another consequence of this modern sexism is that he is regarded as ashamed for an individual of having the qualities allotted to the opposite sex: he is thus considered infâmant for a man to be effeminate. The sexism, however, tends to change camp: the man who does not adopt the values and of the female behaviors can also be considered patient or late in his personal development.

Nuances and criticisms of the essentialism

Against this essentialist point of view of steady to the sexual kinds, several objections were formulated. These objections relate to presupposed metaphysics of the essentialism, presupposed which were gradually shaken by the various developments of the thought and civilization modern Western, for example in the humanism, the Lumières and at Kant.

One can first of all consider that there is in this design of the essentialism a misconception, and that in any rigor the essentialism cannot justify any difference necessary between the woman and the man, insofar as these characteristics result not from the gasoline but from the experiment. Indeed, from moment when it is admitted that the woman and the man are also human beings, essentialisme to maintain can is to conclude with identity from gasoline from all human beings, under the terms of this principle metaphysical that the gasoline does not divide (principle Scolastique taken again by Descartes, to render comprehensible that the Humanité of a being could not include/understand more and at least, which must thus apply in right to any human being), that is to say, in the final analysis and in contradiction with the premise, to refuse with the woman or the man the quality of human being. Western metaphysics, although dominated since the origin by the men, would be, according to this thesis, basically egalitarian as for the gasoline, and would not make any real distinction between man and woman, distinction which is not worth in the plan of the Métaphysique: from this point of view, the concept of kind would not have validity.

The characteristics presumedly different from the women and the men would come then contrary to the only existence, in opposition to the metaphysical field. However, if this design supposes a clear separation between the masculinity and femininity, the daily experiment shows however that these characteristics are often present unit to differing degree in the same individual. The cases of the effeminatized men, the male women or the Transsexuel S show that the borders are flexible and that the anatomical kind is not enough to determine the personality. Nevertheless, the call to the experiment cannot refute the essentialism, which is of a metaphysical nature, and one often preserves this manner the sexual categories to determine the sexual existence of an human being (which is said, as in the examples, effeminatized above or male). One thus preserves implicitly a hierarchy of the sexual kinds, or, at least, the essential possibility of such a scale of values.

Another objection is that, if one regards the kinds contingencies of nature or as human conventions, one cannot find there an identity founder of our personality: the identity is indeed a relation necessary, which does not admit the contingency. This is why, since Locke, it is with the conscience that one grants the capacity to constitute the identity of the human being, conscience which makes it possible to deduce from the Droit S and the duties. According to this design, one can thus base in no manner morals qualities and legal of an individual on his sexual kind supposed, because there would be a contradiction to want to characterize a person according to what is not fundamental, and which cannot consequently found any value. The kind could not thus be a true determination. It would be then, at least from this point of view, unjustified to say that a man is effeminate, or a male woman, because these accidental qualities do not belong primarily from this point of view to any kind, but only to one individual.

The rejection of the categorization of the human beings by kind should also lead to the rejection of the idea that values Morale ideological S, policies and/or, Esthétique S, etc can have their essential origin in a sexual identity. Point of this design of the human being, the properly human values, if they exist, would be infinitely above the question of knowing to which kind one belongs. Thus Kant excludes it from the field legal, moral and Esthétique all that milked with the inclinations of our sensitivity (in which one can include what we call today the sexual inclinations). The sexual kind thus cannot legitimate to found any policy, any moral value, etc From this point of view, it does not have there, for example, of specifically male or female policy, and what one names domination in the history of the men on the women would be more one issue of fact that of right; i.e. they are a question natural contingency or conventions resting on the force and the interests that classes of human beings have to dominate of other human beings, rather than a question essentialist or ontological of superiority of a kind about the other.

Historical evolution

Matriarchy and patriarchate

The traditional companies are being often built on one or the other of these models which are the Matriarcat and the patriarchate, with a very clear prevalence for this last. The Parenté S matrilinéaires are on the other hand more frequent than the matriarchy, but, although in these companies with relationship matrilinéaire, the women can have a more important place with regard to for example the management of the goods and the religion, their political power is not more important.

In a company matriarcale and the patriarchal companies with relationship matrilinéaire, they are the women who are in the center of the family, from various points of view, for example legal (property right, right on the children, etc). It is considered that a certain number of primitive cultures were of this type, perhaps because the causal bond between the sex act and procreation was not made. In the old China, the women kept the hearth and the children, they were thus guarantors of the continuity of the family and the preservation of the assets (in the form of grains), which seems to indicate the Chinese character for the family name, which contains the radical of the woman. The men worked with the fields, often far, and returned only after harvest. In this country, one still finds some ethnos groups minority of which the family structure is matriarcale and where the uncles hold place of father.

We know only few companies which were not of patriarchal type; the woman is there often recluse at the house (as in ancient Greece) and cannot intervene directly in the public affairs, although the play of the relationships enables him to exert a certain influence sometimes. In the majority of the traditional companies that we know, the woman is regarded as a property and it is of this fact the object of commercial transactions.

The Western companies knew all and know still a patriarchal mode (with important variations, the Celtic companies are not the Mediterranean companies) relegating the women to domestic activities considered as less noble than the activities of the men, lower, even méprisables. Figures like those of Virgin Marie or of Jeanne of Arc, which could develop an ideal of femininity to the Moyen-âge that only those could reach, just as the play of royal alliances, intrigues of court and the behavior of literary living rooms occasionally could give to some women privileged classes some very relative and modest influence on the course of the History or the development of the culture. These examples are however only the counterpoint of the principal tendency of these companies, which was patriarchal, and thus sexist, and remain it with many regards.

The 19th century

After one century and half of relative liberalization for the women of the privileged classes, the Révolution shows a failure of the female claims and the return to the Tradition with the Code Napoleon. The educational theory Rousseauiste (its Sophie is only one under-Emile, and finds herself infinitely less educated than its elder of the 18th century) mark this regression and the new one enfermement of the women in the domestic sphere in the name of the Nature. It is however, always more opposite a Emilie that of a Sophie that Emile will be at the 20th century. Two centuries after the Revolution, the Conversations of Emilie of Madam d' Épinay largely carried it on the Emile of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

At the 20th century

The place of the women in the modern societies became increasingly important during last century. The two world wars, in particular, had a dominating influence on this evolution. Valid men being with the face, they one due to deal with all, to work outside in fields which were not traditionally reserved for them, to manage the family goods, to play an economic part determinant which made them become aware of their capacities, their force and their importance. Much of them, not agreeing to be again confined in the only domestic sphere, was implied in the vast movement of emancipation of the women of the Années 1950 and 1960, whose Féminisme is one of the resultants.

These movements of emancipation obtained concrete results against the sexism of the company of the time until now, like the right to vote, the right to work out of the house, the right to the Divorce or the right to choose the moment of the Procréation by the control of their Fécondité thanks to the access authorized to the various methods of Contraception and to the right to the Avortement.

Today

In addition to the companies which have structures very strongly marked by the sexism and the patriarchate, as in India for example, the situation of the modern societies is complex and variable according to the countries. The Latin countries present a table in general where the position of the women in the company is differentiated from that of the men, and the feminist movements obtained there less success than in the companies Anglo-Saxon or Germanic, in spite of that it is in the Latin countries, than birth rate drops, in spite of the exhortations of the Catholic church, at the point to be lowest of the world.

Wage difference and “female” professions

All the statistics relating to the Pauvreté announce a Net female disadvantage, in particular for those which remain alone with their children. The wages of the women are often lower, at identical station, and the exercise of the capacity in company is the prerogative of the men. Lastly, in policy, the women are definitely less present, except in the Scandinavian Pays. This imbalance gave place to the concept of parity.

A certain number of professional sectors or professions remains almost exclusively the field of a sex or other. In the work world, the disparity remains immense: the employment opportunities are less for the women and larger precariousness for them.

The men are clearly favoured in the access to certain professions, and more generally in the development of career. In this field, the Maternité is for the women a handicap, whereas the fact of being father constitutes for the man an asset in the career, in particular for the senior officers.

The ILO recommends an equal remuneration between the men and the women (principle With equal work, equal wages ).

The inequality of the sexes in the house work

This disparity exists as much in the family and domestic world. The report/ratio of UNO for the Conférence of Beijing in 1995 showed that the women are largely victims of the “double day”. On average, they pass a much greater number of weekly hours than the men in family and domestic work “invisible” and not remunerated: by cumulating work outside and the house work, the women work on average 13 % more than the men. The world mass of the only female house work, free work, essential to the operation of a company, represented, in 1995,11 billion dollars and the 2/3 the only female work. The women thus work more and gain less than the men. In the Western post-industrial companies, at the “double day” comes to be added it “triples presence”, since in addition to with their work and their hearth the women must undertake the stripped elderly. The tendency of the last decade seems to have worsened with unemployment and precariousness.

Inequalities in education

Many stereotypes concerning the education of the young girls remained the same ones during the last decades and evolved/moved a little only rather recently as for the domestic task sharing: more half of the girls of more than 11 years dedicate at least an hour to it, whereas only 30 % of the boys take part in it, and only less than one half an hour.

The electronic game is more offered to the boys, which tends to inculcate a certain reserve among women who they will become in front of the techniques such as data processing for example.

More marked is the fact that the “sets of boys” are developed and encouraged for the girls, while the “sets of girls” remain devalued: one makes fun or worries about a boy playing headstock.

Inequalities in the various cultures throughout the world

In countries of different culture, often those very attached to Religion S or strong traditions (which can for example legitimate the Violence against the wife, or its Répudiation without justification), the fight anti-sexist seems to have had quite thin results. In certain countries of Asia of the aggressions by acid Attaque is even observed. Elsewhere in the Far East, the means of contraception and modern technologies of abortion are employed to privilege the birth of boys to the detriment of the girls, so that start to create imbalances in the population.

Illegality of the sexism

The Discrimination founded on the sex is illegal in many countries. But even in the countries having established the equality of the sexes in the law, there can remain laws conferring of the rights or the duties to a kind rather than on the other, for example concerning:

transmission of the name;
military obligations;
the retirement age;
rights of revenues or guard in the event of divorce and widowhood.
or the existance of service, place to reserve for one of the sex or the other

Sexism towards the men

The discrimination of the men by the women is marginal compared to the reverse. She is however denounced, including by women, in particular when the legal institutions of the Western countries decide as regards Divorce. The right of the fathers, in particular with regard to the guard of the children, would be insufficiently recognized there. Thus, until in 2002, the child was entrusted in 90% of the cases to its mère.
In a more universal way, the obligatory character of the Military service for the men was for a long time a distinction sexist in discredit of the latter.

The sexism towards the men comes generally not from the feminists, since the Féminisme fight against a system which, by imposing behavioral qualities and injunctions for each sex, also persecutes the men in their desires of paternity or expression of their emotions, but on the contrary by the defenders of this system. Thus, it is because the company sexist allots to the women exclusive competence care with the children that in the judgments of divorce justice tends to entrust the guard of those to their mother. It is because it is considered that the man profits, when it is married, from a help domesticates devoted, that the company will be allowed to impose late meetings or many displacements to him, etc

The sexism towards the men can however also come from feminists, but its demonstrations are different. The idealization of the contrary female values to those of the traditional patriarchal company and the refusal of the difference of the sexes push the men with having to behave like women. Those which have difficulties are not regarded inferiors but as " malades" or late. Elisabeth Badinter entitles the second part of XY of the male identity : " Towards the cure of the man malade" and it adds: “it will be always a little longer and a little more difficult to make a man than a woman”. Thus the sexism does not come here any more from a inferiorisation of the difference but from a denial of this one. Not to be marked of sexism, certain feminists do not say who the men are lower but that “individuals” are “late” or “patients”.

The existence of services strictly prohibited to the men is a form sexism to institutionalize. In England, a service of pink taxis led and intended to women (and thus prohibited to the men) is an initiative installation to limit the risks of sexual assaults the evening. In Tokyo, the company tokyu proposes a coach prohibited to the men. Certain places are also reserved to the women, like the island of Arezou in Iran.

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