Reverse sexism

For a definition of the term "reverse sexism", see the Wiktionary entry reverse sexism.
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Reverse sexism is a controversial term for discrimination against men and boys, or for anti-male prejudice.[1][2][3]

Reverse sexism has been compared by sociologists to reverse racism and "reverse ethnocentrism," in that both can be a response to affirmative action policies that are designed to combat institutionalized sexism and racism, and are a form of backlash, through which members of dominant groups (e.g., men, whites, or Anglos) assert that they are being discriminated against.[4][5] In more rigid forms, this stance assumes that the historic power imbalance in favor of men has been reversed,[6] and that women are now viewed as the superior gender or sex.[7]

Feminist theorist Florence Rush characterizes the idea of reverse sexism specifically as a misogynist reaction to feminism; men's rights activists such as Warren Farrell promote the idea of reverse sexism to argue that the feminist movement has rearranged society in such a way that it now benefits women and harms men.[8] In the preamble to a study on internalized sexism, Steve Bearman, Neill Korobov and Avril Thorne describe reverse sexism as a "misinformed notion", stating that "while individual women or women as a whole may enact prejudicial biases towards specific men or toward men as a group, this is done without the backing of a societal system of institutional power".[9]

  1. ^ Suedfeld, Peter (2002). "Postmodernism, Identity Politics, and Other Political Influences in Political Psychology". In Monroe, Kristen R. (ed.). Political Psychology. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. p. 321. ISBN 978-1-135-64661-5.
  2. ^ Johnson, Allan G. (1997). The Gender Knot: Unraveling Our Patriarchal Legacy. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. p. 170. ISBN 978-1-56639-518-2.
  3. ^ Neely, Carol Thomas (1981). "Feminist Modes of Shakespearean Criticism: Compensatory, justificatory, transformational". Women's Studies. 9 (1): 3–15. doi:10.1080/00497878.1981.9978551. ISSN 0049-7878.
  4. ^ Garcia, J. L. A. (1997). "Racism as a Model for Understanding Sexism". In Zack, Naomi (ed.). Race/Sex: Their Sameness, Difference and Interplay (1st ed.). Routledge. p. 46. doi:10.4324/9780203760604. ISBN 978-0-203-76060-4.
  5. ^ Renfrow, Daniel G.; Howard, Judith A. (2013). "Social Psychology of Gender and Race". In DeLamater, John; Ward, Amanda (eds.). Handbook of Social Psychology. Springer Netherlands. p. 496. doi:10.1007/978-94-007-6772-0_17. ISBN 978-94-007-6772-0.
  6. ^ "Sociological Abstracts: Supplement — Issues 67-77". International Review of Publications in Sociology: 202. 1977. ISSN 0038-0202.[full citation needed]
  7. ^ Collins, Georgia; Sandell, Renee (1984). Women, art, and education. Reston, Va.: National Art Education Association. p. 14. ISBN 978-0-9376-5233-6.
  8. ^ Rush, Florence (1990). "The Many Faces of Backlash". In Leidholdt, Dorchen; Raymond, Janice G. (eds.). The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism. Pergamon Press. pp. 168–169. ISBN 978-0-0803-7458-1.
  9. ^ Bearman, Steve; Korobov, Neill; Thorne, Avril (2009). "The Fabric of Internalized Sexism" (PDF). Journal of Integrated Social Sciences. 1 (1): 10–47. ISSN 1942-1052.