16 ms·

“Women are wonderful” effect

175 points by isomorph 4y ago

paulcole 4y ago
[flagged]
- cumshitpiss 4y ago
- spinlock 4y ago
  The study does show the bias is linked to actually having sex.
lucideer 4y ago
If I read this correctly, it seems an oddly positive spin on what should actually be referred to as the "Men are awful" effect. > The authors supposed that the positive general evaluation of women might derive from the association between women and nurturing characteristics. This bias has been cited as an example of benevolent sexism. Seems an unusually baseless conclusion when in the actual research: > a task was done to discover whether people associate pleasant words (good, happy, and sunshine) with women, and unpleasant words (bad, trouble, and pain) with men (conclusions from the study seem to focus on the former positive indicators and ignore the latter negative indicators?) > men lack a mechanism that bolsters automatic preference for their own gender I wonder why that might be? > Other experiments in this study found people [...] associated the male gender with violence or aggression > Rudman and Goodwin's suggested that [...] male intimidation influences gender attitudes. I've clipped the positive attitude findings in the above quotes which seems like cherry picking but I'm not trying to negate the findings of positive attitudes toward women. Just pointing out that the clear findings around negative attitudes seem omitted from the conclusion. The following quote is the clearest example: > mediation comes not from differences in attitudes towards women, but in attitudes towards men. In more egalitarian societies, people have more positive attitudes towards men than in less egalitarian societies
- ajuc 4y ago
  Yep. And calling it "benevolent sexism" is absurd. By that same logic the bias that "men are smarter than women" is benevolent sexism.
  - denton-scratch 4y ago
    "That's right, the women are smarter, the women are smarter, that's right, that's right."
    - falcolas 4y ago
      Attribution? The writing style seems interesting enough to follow up on.
      - dangerlibrary 4y ago
        https://genius.com/The-grateful-dead-women-are-smarter-lyrics https://genius.com/The-grateful-dead-women-are-smarter-lyric...
        falcolas 4y ago
        Not a song I'm familiar with. Thanks!
        kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago
        Here's the actual attribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Smart_(Woman_Smarter) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Smart_(Woman_Smarter) Look, I love the Dead, but this is a classic calypso tune. I prefer Harry Belefinte's rendition.
        dangerlibrary 4y ago
        TIL. I just googled the phrase in quotes - didn't actually know the song.
        4y ago
tgflynn 4y ago
All the studies cited were performed on psychology students. Would the results be the same for physics or CS students ?
- manuelabeledo 4y ago
  We may never know, but I would think the results wouldn't be the same. Mostly because there still is inherent bias against certain genders regarding a degree or a profession, e.g. men as nurses, women as programmers, and those would be way more pronounced back in the 90s.
- Tangurena2 4y ago
  I suspect that if physics and/or CS students were required to take part in at least one study per class per semester (like psychology students - this may have changed since I last took a psych course), then I suspect that the results of university psychology studies would have greater representation. Technically, people participating in those studies are supposed to be volunteers. Although if part of your "class participation" grade is a result of "doing" a study, then it might not be totally voluntary. And if those studies are unpleasant enough, then you really don't want to be a senior or graduate psych student actually trying to run those experiments.
singularity2001 4y ago
"benevolent sexism"? there is always a flipside to -isms: If women are preferred, man are logically dispreferred. (not complaining, just pointing it out)
- Bakary 4y ago
  It depends. There's a practical and mechanical difference between one group being more liked than average, and one group being more disliked than average. Even though the situations can be equivalent in a purely logical sense, the nature of the difference changes
  - xani_ 4y ago
    Only if there are more than 2 groups. If there are two groups (and in addition they are roughly equal size) those are entirely interchangeable as there is no logical "standard" to compare to except eachother
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      (Speaking only to the "liked more than average" and "disliked more than average", not the general opposition of preferred vs dis-preferred.) Imagine if there are 200 people, 100 of category A and 100 of category B. It's possible for members of category A to be simultaneously "liked more than average" and "disliked more than average". If 20 A's are liked and 20 A's are disliked, while only 10 B's are liked and 10 B's are disliked, then A's are liked 33% more than average and disliked 33% more than average.
      - DarkWiiPlayer 4y ago
        Yes, but that will either cancel out to the average in group B matching the total average, or it won't, meaning the average of B is significantly different from the total average.
        sokoloff 4y ago
kurtreed 4y ago
There are studies showing bias against women, there are studies showing bias against men. This should remind us not to take any one reported bias and conclude that it represents the overall relationship between the sexes, even if politically convenient to do so.
- webmobdev 4y ago
  Note though that even though this sounds like a positive and "well-meaning" bias, it can be dysfunctional too. Holding someone to a higher standard also has a "reverse" psychological effect that when they deviate or stray away from the expected standards, people are harsher on them than they usually would be. This is why, when coupled with regressive societal norms, "honour killing" of women happen (the extreme worst-case example). (Related - The problem with putting someone on a pedestal - https://pairedlife.com/etiquette/onapedestal https://pairedlife.com/etiquette/onapedestal ).
  - DarkWiiPlayer 4y ago
    > This is why, when coupled with regressive societal norms, "honour killing" of women happen (the extreme worst-case example). Sounds a bit like the gender-swapped version of "deserters get shot"
  - fundad 4y ago
    Yes this isn’t benevolent sexism, it’s sexism sexism.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    > Holding someone to a higher standard also has a "reverse" psychological effect that when they deviate or stray away from the expected standards, people are harsher on them than they usually would be. That sounds strange. Women are held to a higher standard, yet when they commit crimes, we punish them less severely than men. How would that fit into your narrative?
    - webmobdev 4y ago
azangru 4y ago
I'm trying to remember someone's words that if <politician(s)> were a woman, there wouldn't have been <bad things>. As if... Google has so far suggested to me Boris Johnson's "if Putin were a woman...", Kaja Kallas' (Estonian PM) "If women were in charge...", and Sheryl Sandberg's "If women were in charge"; but I am sure I heard this sentiment before 2022. Probably a good illustration of the effect :-)
- kgwgk 4y ago
  There would be no wars, only a bunch of countries not talking to each other (a joke I just found)
  - fundad 4y ago
    Maybe nothing would change but we would finally know.
    - shakow 4y ago
      We already know, it's not like if female rulers were an unknown quantity. And empirical examples (Thatcher, Catherine the Great, Maria-Theresa, Elisabeth I, ...) shows that it would basically be the same.
      - quesera 4y ago
        There's a reasonable argument that you'd need to exclude women from dynastic monarchies, and women who fought through a male-candidate-dominated democratic process for their prominence. The selection process weeds out the archetypical woman (or neurotypical, or stereotypically feminine in thought, or whatever you want to call it. The Iron Lady was not your Mum). Hilary Clinton is another example. Wellesley to warmonger? Something happened there, and my suspicion is that it has to do with "competing" in a male-dominated arena.
        kgwgk 4y ago
        Good ol’ true Scotswoman argument…
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
f1shy 4y ago
I assume this is for western societies. I can imagine in the middle east this is a little bit different...
jacknews 4y ago
'benevolent sexism'??? It sounds like newspeak to me. Surely this should just be called 'female privilege'.
- ajuc 4y ago
  The definition of benevolent sexism makes no sense. If "women are cooler than men" is benevolent sexism, then either you admit sexism is defined subjectively from the female POV, or you have to admit that "men are better at math" is also "benevolent sexism".
  - socialismisok 4y ago
    That's probably because you haven't spent enough time trying to understand the intent of the expression. Benevolent here refers to the intent, not the outcome. If I say "women are so caring" and then use that as a justification for why I shouldn't hire them, the result is a sexist policy with a benevolent origin. You see this all the time with stereotypes - queer men are so good at fashion, Asians are so good at math, Black folks are such good athletes, etc. We might think these are compliments, but when they are used to deny opportunities they can be as harmful as any other stereotype.
    - wongarsu 4y ago
      If we are talking about a highly competitive situation, like hiring, then going by this line of thinking there can be no "benevolent sexism". Any sexist or racist prejudice will either be against one group (women are so weak), leading to a disadvantage for them; or benefit one group (Asians are so good at math), leading to a disadvantage for everyone else. Both are leading to discrimination based on gender or race. Calling one of the two benevolent is just a bad name.
      - socialismisok 4y ago
        You are misinterpreting the expression. It's about disambiguation in the source of the sexism, not the outcome. The whole point is that the outcome is not benevolent. But it's useful to have a nominative difference between sexism that has roots in hate ("women are hysterical") and sexism that has roots in a "positive" stereotype ("women are nurturing"). Those are two different types of sexism with two different root causes and need to different solutions.
Laaas 4y ago
Is this a bad thing if it's accurate? Women are more well-behaved on average, no?
- dleslie 4y ago
  Women are not better behaved on average, they're simply not prosecuted equally for their poor behaviour. To get a full understanding of this, compare self reported spousal abuse data against police reported data. The difference is shocking.
  - RichardCNormos 4y ago
    My ex-wife used to physically abuse me (hitting, throwing things). An attorney friend told me to leave the house whenever that happened, because if anyone called the cops (including me), the police would arrest me instead of her. It's called the "Duluth Model" of domestic violence enforcement.
    - dleslie 4y ago
      Here where I live, police are instructed to use a gendered lens in their responses, specifically to treat everything as though women are the victims, always, and never the aggressors. It's grotesquely sexist, but lauded by the NGOs.
- lucideer 4y ago
  I suspect it's accurate but tells us less than one might think. In that sense it may be a "bad thing" if the conclusions are taken at face value and applied out of context without being interrogated. i.e.: saying "this shows people are predisposed to favour women, ergo the narrative of gender discrimination against women is disproven." In actuality, this shows favourable sentiment toward women in quite narrow, specific ways: words quoted from the article are "good, happy, and sunshine" & not things like "competent, reliable, trustworthy, and cool". There's a hint of infantilisation within the words used. Yes they're positive, but it's worth looking at how those specific sentiments might exhibit in real world situations.
- 4y ago
SaintGhurka 4y ago
It seems like this explains, or perhaps is explained by "male expendability". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_expendability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_expendability
- llampx 4y ago
  Women create society, women ARE society. A few chosen men (rich, powerful, handsome) hold key positions in this society, meanwhile most men are just outside, looking for a way in. You can buy your way in by being productive and hard-working. Or by dying for the society. Note that in times of war, women were handing out white roses, not putting on their combat boots. The rich and powerful were likewise found nowhere near a battlefield. We try to get past our wild roots, the fact that we don't have harems in most of the world is how we became civilized.
  - rekabis 4y ago
    Forced monogamy is what gave most men “skin in the game” (a chance at having a family), and as such, encouraged them to go above and beyond in making society better and safer. So yes, a lack of harems is what makes society progressive, safe, and stable. Having large masses of men who will never have an opportunity for a wife and family is massively unstable for any society, because these men will either sod off and do their own thing (why should I contribute to society/civilization if it does nothing for me?), or they will forment unrest in an attempt to acquire wives of their own by any means possible.
    - anonporridge 4y ago
      More precisely, societies that enforced monogamy out competed and eliminated those that didn't. I think it is possible to have a self stable society without enforced monogamy, so long as you have a mechanism to eliminate the hoards of unnecessary males before they rise up in revolution, but it's not stable in a world where there are some societies that do enforce monogamy and therefore have more males with a stake to fight for.
    - tsol 4y ago
motohagiography 4y ago
While I was hesitant to comment on the topic at all, it's worth it for men to have words for the bias, because the entire moral code of a lot of men who tend toward agreeability is based on not-upsetting the women in their lives, or anywhere for that matter, and the effect is pernicious. There is a maturation stage for men that traditionally happened in late adolescence that doesn't seem as common these days. Now these men relate to women as though they expect women to supervise them, and expect other men to "behave," in a way that is acceptable to their percieved feminine supervisors, or they have some kind of hyper-conscientious responsibility to blunt themselves around women so as to seem "unthreatening" to them, because they are still fundamentally actuated by shame, even though it is just a harness our species uses to manage children. The anxiety originates from this unmatured Women are Wonderful bias, which boys are taught as children so they can be managed, but with the expectation that they grow out of it or leave it behind during a rite of passage. The result of not breaking men of this childhood harness is they grow up to be "nice guys" who are really just full of anxiety and resentment from navigating the absurd bind of believing their goodness and identity as a protagonist comes from being validated by the women they have placed in their supervisory pedastal roles, and because by treating women as better, they have implicitly made the women in their lives responsible for their feelings instead of taking complete ownership of their own emotions and lives. I meet these "happy wife happy life" guys all the time, and not only do they compete to debase themselves and accumulate sacrifices nobody asked for, but they take it out as resentment of other men whose freedom from that bias casts a light on that undocked lever of shame they wear around like a collar - and then ultimately the women in their lives. Women are people, and for any quality in a population, people tend to be on pretty long tailed distributions. When you refuse to see the worst examples because of some well meaning bias, it leaves the great ones unappreciated, which I think is the most harmful bias of all. Men and women can be wonderful, but nobody gets there without a lot of practice, imo. The question isn't whether women are wonderful or not, as that's a dumb dichotomy - it's whether guys have matured into men by ceasing to be controlled by this internalized language of shame that was only necessary to keep them physically safe as children. Part of that is recognizing women aren't symbols, but other people, who like men are responsible for their own actions and feelings, and above all, not a single one is responsible for yours either.
- 4y ago
markdog12 4y ago
Related, recent study: https://www.bps.org.uk/research-digest/people-are-more-sceptical-sex-difference-research-when-findings-favour-men https://www.bps.org.uk/research-digest/people-are-more-scept... > participants had a much less positive response to articles favouring men over women than those that favoured women over men – and, again, this effect was stronger in women, as well as in left-leaning participants > They also felt more strongly that male-favouring findings should be kept away from girls and not mentioned by teachers and the media.
samhuk 4y ago
A study finds that women are viewed more positively than men, then researchers coin phrases like "women-are-wonderful" (equally "men are bad") and "benevolent sexism" (no, it's just sexism). Hmm, almost like it's ironic. or something. So blatantly obviously ironic, in fact, that I begin to wonder whether they were aware of their own joke. Any by joke, I don't mean social science in general or anything.
- bobkazamakis 4y ago
  > "benevolent sexism" (no, it's just sexism). Huh? "Asians are good at math" is still racial stereotyping, even if it's not negative. >(equally "men are bad") No, read the wiki again. >mm, almost like it's ironic. or something. So blatantly obviously ironic, mfw 4chan so irun.
  - samhuk 4y ago
    From experience, "Asians are good at math" is often related to the wider (and very wrong, from my own experience) stereotype of "Asians are awkward" or "Asians are shallow" or "Asians are only good for math/work". And even then, "are good at math", by definition of the word "good", means that others are worse (otherwise "good" wouldn't mean anything). > No, read the wiki again. My point is that, still, they coined (therefore popularising) only one side (women good), and not the other (men bad). > mfw 4chan so irun. ;)
  - mikrl 4y ago
    It’s a positive stereotype but still negative. I’ve had a few E Asian buddies who were about as successful as me in that life stage with similar interests (some not wholesome) and their home/social lives seemed so stressful. They’re ‘failures’ or ‘disappointments’ in their circles despite just being a normal Canadian guy studying what they want, and having some beers and smokes. Meanwhile I’m cool, easygoing and edgy because as long as you aren’t fucking up your life completely, poor white people think you’re doing great.
    - thomastjeffery 4y ago
tchaffee 4y ago
Folks are rushing to criticize the term "benevolent sexism" without knowing what the technical term means. It's not the gotcha you think it is. tl;dr Benevolent sexism towards women is damaging to women. Likewise for benevolent sexism towards men. And yes, it is subjective. That's in the definition. "Ambivalent sexism is a theoretical framework which posits that sexism has two sub-components: "hostile sexism" (HS)and "benevolent sexism" (BS). Hostile sexism reflects overtly negative evaluations and stereotypes about a gender (e.g., the ideas that women are incompetent and inferior to men). Benevolent sexism represents evaluations of gender that may appear subjectively positive (subjective to the person who is evaluating), but are actually damaging to people and gender equality more broadly" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambivalent_sexism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambivalent_sexism
crackercrews 4y ago
Reminds me of kid shirts that say "the future is female".
brent_noorda 4y ago
Is that why Alexa, Siri, and OK Google, which are all wonderful, default to female voices?
- cookieswumchorr 4y ago
  this is just catering to the predominantly male audience of early tech adopters. I remember hearing that the landing assistant in soviet fighter jets has a female voice, because it has a soothing effect on the male pilots.
  - dymk 4y ago
    Sounds like bunk armchair psychology to me
  - iwillbenice 4y ago
    Not just the USSR! The UK and US did the same too! For more info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_warning_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_warning_system https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx7-yvXf6f8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx7-yvXf6f8 My personal opinion is the "Bitching Betty" voice with its crisp instructions and authoritative tone makes us subliminally think of our mother giving us guidance or reprimand at an early age. It is a great design; it has saved a TON of pilot lives who otherwise would have accidentally perished.
  - tsol 4y ago
    No, it's because both sexes rate female voices as more soothing and trustworthy[1]. 1-- https://www.debbiegrattan.com/blog/why-trust-female-voice-over-male-voice/#:~:text=Soothing%20and%20Comforting%20Nature,re%20more%20inclined%20to%20trust https://www.debbiegrattan.com/blog/why-trust-female-voice-ov....
lhorie 4y ago
> Benevolent sexism I mean, when attending a birthday or christmas party, who buys the presents? Bias means that judgment about a topic doesn't match reality. But is it really bias (or even more loadedly "sexism") to think that stereotypical women do more likable things if we were to assume that was perhaps actually true? Imagine, for example, saying that it's "benevonent species-ism" to think that animals are on average more likely to be quadrupedal than humans. That'd be a silly assertion, because we know for a fact that this is true, and because the idea of more legs being better is weird for human standards. This thought exercise then begs the question: if we do think that thinking "women are nicer" is a form of bias, then what is the reality? Is the implication that they are not? That niceness should account for things other than nurturing attributes? According to who? IMHO, the more interesting aspect of the observation of this effect is what it says about the people talking about it.
- dymk 4y ago
  > I mean, when attending a birthday or christmas party, who buys the presents? This one confuses me, are you saying that it's a given that women are the one buying presents and men aren't? I've not seen that, nor heard that be the stereotype.
- yamazakiwi 4y ago
  I don't know if more legs being better is weird or that it's just likely to be untrue past quadrupedal in this instance. That being said, Octopi are known to bond with humans and I find them pretty neat.
UncleOxidant 4y ago
Out of curiosity I googled "percentage of US prison population that's female" and it's ~10%. So is this partly why we have the "women are wonderful" bias (because women are apparently much less likely to commit violent crime)? Or is it that because of this bias fewer women end up in prison?
- ALittleLight 4y ago
  Another take - perhaps there is a "women are wonderful" sentiment because they are less likely to commit violent crime (and things like that).
  - UncleOxidant 4y ago
    You can look at mass shootings in the US (no sentencing bias) and ~98% have been committed by men.
- scotty79 4y ago
  Probably both.
- rekabis 4y ago
  A quote I saw somewhere, and backed up with links to research that I (unfortunately) did not save, went something like this: “For the exact same crime with the exact same damages, the gender sentencing gap is three times larger than the wealth sentencing gap, and seven times larger than the racial sentencing gap. Having been born female is the single largest get-out-of-jail-free card you could possibly possess.” This hesitancy by police, prosecutors, judges, and juries to properly charge, prosecute, and sentence women to the same degree as men are treated, is certainly sounding a lot like the “women are wonderful, they couldn’t possibly be responsible or capable of this” effect in action.
- luckylion 4y ago
  > Or is it that because of this bias fewer women end up in prison? That's well documented [0]. Money quote: "In the United States men are most adversely affected by sentencing disparity being twice as likely to be sentenced to jail after conviction than women and receiving on average 63% longer jail sentences." An interesting side-note: the effect shrinks when the judge is a woman. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentencing_disparity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentencing_disparity
theprincess 4y ago
Meta comment: Yesterday it was the old OKCupid blogs today it's WAW. I spent some time a few years ago exploring the incel wiki after one of the mass shootings that happened and saw these concepts popping up again and again. I feel like maybe these ideas are reaching a critical mass of young men lately and it will be interesting to see what the ramification of that are.... Looking at how men are doing in terms of life expectancy, educational attainment, career prospects, etc... does make it obvious something has gone very wrong for them as a group but I think there's a real lack of any sort of positive vision going forward. Mostly I see lamentations of how much better women seem to have it or angry calls for a return to the status quo ante. Is there someone with a positive vision for men? Jordan Peterson spews a bunch of nonsense about fighting dragons and embracing suffering but that's not going to get men into universities or opening up emotionally with one another so that they stop drowning in lonely misery. The one positive proposal I've seen lately was the suggestion that boys should start school at 6 instead of 5 since girls mature a bit more quickly which gives them a leg up in terms of academic achievement. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/10/boys-delayed-entry-school-start-redshirting/671238/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/10/boys-de...
- AnnikaL 4y ago
  I think encouraging healthy emotional relationships among men is probably a better idea for society than the "the world is harsh and unpleasant so you must be strong" sort of rhetoric that I hear men tell each other on this website a lot.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    What if that's the truth? It's useful to know what to expect and what not to, even if you'd be much happier if you only expect good things ... at least until your expectations don't match reality and you're swept off your feet because you never knew that might happen.
    - theprincess 4y ago
      I don't understand how men operate among themselves to be honest but I do know that my ability to share my feelings and struggles with my friends and family has helped me grow and survive a lot of hardships in my life. My husband has me for that now, but he only has me for that and didn't have that with anyone in the past and I think it hurt him and he is still recovering. I go out of my way to talk to his family when he is hurting about something for instance because he is too proud to do it himself, and we all don't tell him that we've been worried about him and instead just try to lift him up. It works, but only because he has a woman in his life. When he was single he says he would just sink into depression and engross himself in work and hobbies alone all day. That's so unhealthy to be that lonely and disconnected from others. I think my husband is a pretty typical guy and I wonder what he would be like now 7 years since we met if he had remained single. What kind of dark place would he have found himself in? It makes me worried for a lot of young guys. It's like they live in a self enforced solitary confinement.... Solitary confinement drives people nuts. Should male culture become a copy of female culture? That wouldn't work I don't think because I think men have different personality types and tastes on average but it doesn't mean that they can't learn to express their emotions and build friendships with people where they feel comfortable confiding their hurts and fears to each other. Just a basic support network really.... And speaking of friendship, that's another area where me and my girlfriends have noticed that pretty much every man in our lives struggles. It seems like once a guy leaves college his ability to make close friends drops to almost zero. Meanwhile I've made some of my best friendships in my 30s at women's meetups.
thomastjeffery 4y ago
So many of the comments in this thread are misinterpreting the phrase, "benevolent sexism". "Benevolent" is describing the context of the sexism, not judging that the sexism itself is morally good. The context of the term still heavily implies that "benevolent sexism" is a moral/social failure. To call out an idea as "benevolent sexism" is just shorthand to say, "despite this idea being framed as a positive affirmation, it reinforces the structure of traditional gender roles and sexism."
- sekai 4y ago
  > "Benevolent" is describing the context of the sexism, not judging that the sexism itself is morally good. > The context of the term still heavily implies that "benevolent sexism" is a moral/social failure. So...let's just call it sexism?
  - thomastjeffery 4y ago
    https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/adverbially-2 https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/adverbially-2 Personally, I prefer using the adjective. It's descriptive.
fallingfrog 4y ago
The most interesting part of this -besides the obvious absurdity of "benevolent sexism"- is this line: "In more egalitarian societies, people have more positive attitudes towards men than in less egalitarian societies." This makes sense to me- the person you're going to fear the most is someone who has power over you. In the absence of toxic power dynamics, there would probably be a lot more social and sexual openness between the sexes. Probably a big part of what's going on here is that men are seen as threatening in a way that women aren't. And I don't think there's any biological reason that men should be seen as threatening. Cultural reasons, maybe, but those can be fixed. By the way- please read what I actually wrote, not what you assume I meant, before downvoting. I'm not accusing anyone of anything, in fact I specifically said that men are not bad or any worse than women. If you didn't catch that, read it again. Thank you.
- seti0Cha 4y ago
  > And I don't think there's any biological reason that men should be seen as threatening. Cultural reasons, maybe, but those can be fixed. Take a look at this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3693622/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3693622/
adolph 4y ago
I thought the phenomena was called the "Althouse Rule," from the below blog post observation. November 8, 2005 Scientists: remember to portray whatever you find to be true of women as superior. I've said it before, and I must repeat, the rule is: If you do scientific research into the differences between men and women, you must portray whatever you find to be true of women as superior. And when you read reports about scientific research into the differences between men and women, use the hypothesis that the scientists are following that rule. It makes reading the reports quite humorous. https://althouse.blogspot.com/2005/11/scientists-remember-to-portray.html https://althouse.blogspot.com/2005/11/scientists-remember-to...
moe091 4y ago
I think Carl Jung did a great job of describing the origin of this effect with the concept of the underdeveloped anima - which is an especially common condition among modern men(technically it's common among all men before they reach emotional maturity, but this specific type of maturation is often stunted nowadays). At different levels of underdevelopment, it can cause women to be perceived negatively; evil, duplicitous, manipulative, etc. At other levels it causes a person to put women on a pedestal, thinking they can do no wrong, viewing them as these perfect, almost numinous beings who are a source of comfort and love. The common symptom is not viewing women as PEOPLE, as instead of seeing women as they are, all women are viewed through the projection of the persons own "anima"(think of it as an internal construct that represents a persons mother, or more generally, as the archetypal "woman"), and whatever unrecognized complexes or ideas are tied up with that image are projected into the real world. These complexes are developed naturally during early stages of life when a persons mother is perceived as some all-powerful and all-loving source of life, and as a person matures they are supposed to adapt a more and more realistic view of their mother figure and of women in general, but there is a tendency nowadays, especially for men, to not want to give up the comfort and support of their mother(literally or psychologically), and this can cause the immature mother image to persist throughout their life, which then gets projected onto women as a whole
addicted 4y ago
All this research appears to be from the 80s and 90s. When women were still largely confined to being homemakers and soft jobs. Since then research has shown that people tend to have far more negative views of women in power than equivalent men. I suspect this derives more from the fact that women were simply not allowed positions of power and so if you guessed a woman was a homemaker and/or in a caretaking job like a nurse or teacher you would almost certainly be right.
dgudkov 4y ago
I'm curious to what extent the effect is country-specific.
readthenotes1 4y ago
Fitting that in an article like this author Alice has a wiki page but author Antonio does not.
simonblack 4y ago
- annyeonghada 4y ago
  This is just sexism and if you swapped "man" with "women" you would be rightfully cancelled. Your age is not a justification for suggesting such absurdities. As an example, the majority of teachers are female and so many of them are useless slobs who should have never been allowed near a school. A really disgusting comment.
  - simonblack 4y ago
    the majority of teachers are female and so many of them are useless slobs who should have never been allowed near a school. A really disgusting comment. Yes. Very true.

175 points by isomorph 4y ago

paulcole 4y ago

[flagged]

cumshitpiss 4y ago
spinlock 4y ago
The study does show the bias is linked to actually having sex.

lucideer 4y ago

If I read this correctly, it seems an oddly positive spin on what should actually be referred to as the "Men are awful" effect. > The authors supposed that the positive general evaluation of women might derive from the association between women and nurturing characteristics. This bias has been cited as an example of benevolent sexism. Seems an unusually baseless conclusion when in the actual research: > a task was done to discover whether people associate pleasant words (good, happy, and sunshine) with women, and unpleasant words (bad, trouble, and pain) with men (conclusions from the study seem to focus on the former positive indicators and ignore the latter negative indicators?) > men lack a mechanism that bolsters automatic preference for their own gender I wonder why that might be? > Other experiments in this study found people [...] associated the male gender with violence or aggression > Rudman and Goodwin's suggested that [...] male intimidation influences gender attitudes. I've clipped the positive attitude findings in the above quotes which seems like cherry picking but I'm not trying to negate the findings of positive attitudes toward women. Just pointing out that the clear findings around negative attitudes seem omitted from the conclusion. The following quote is the clearest example: > mediation comes not from differences in attitudes towards women, but in attitudes towards men. In more egalitarian societies, people have more positive attitudes towards men than in less egalitarian societies

ajuc 4y ago
Yep. And calling it "benevolent sexism" is absurd. By that same logic the bias that "men are smarter than women" is benevolent sexism.
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  "That's right, the women are smarter, the women are smarter, that's right, that's right."
  - falcolas 4y ago
    Attribution? The writing style seems interesting enough to follow up on.
    - dangerlibrary 4y ago
      https://genius.com/The-grateful-dead-women-are-smarter-lyrics https://genius.com/The-grateful-dead-women-are-smarter-lyric...
      - falcolas 4y ago
        Not a song I'm familiar with. Thanks!
      - kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y ago
        Here's the actual attribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Smart_(Woman_Smarter) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Smart_(Woman_Smarter) Look, I love the Dead, but this is a classic calypso tune. I prefer Harry Belefinte's rendition.
        dangerlibrary 4y ago
        TIL. I just googled the phrase in quotes - didn't actually know the song.
      - 4y ago

tgflynn 4y ago

All the studies cited were performed on psychology students. Would the results be the same for physics or CS students ?

manuelabeledo 4y ago
We may never know, but I would think the results wouldn't be the same. Mostly because there still is inherent bias against certain genders regarding a degree or a profession, e.g. men as nurses, women as programmers, and those would be way more pronounced back in the 90s.
Tangurena2 4y ago
I suspect that if physics and/or CS students were required to take part in at least one study per class per semester (like psychology students - this may have changed since I last took a psych course), then I suspect that the results of university psychology studies would have greater representation. Technically, people participating in those studies are supposed to be volunteers. Although if part of your "class participation" grade is a result of "doing" a study, then it might not be totally voluntary. And if those studies are unpleasant enough, then you really don't want to be a senior or graduate psych student actually trying to run those experiments.

singularity2001 4y ago

"benevolent sexism"? there is always a flipside to -isms: If women are preferred, man are logically dispreferred. (not complaining, just pointing it out)

Bakary 4y ago
It depends. There's a practical and mechanical difference between one group being more liked than average, and one group being more disliked than average. Even though the situations can be equivalent in a purely logical sense, the nature of the difference changes
- xani_ 4y ago
  Only if there are more than 2 groups. If there are two groups (and in addition they are roughly equal size) those are entirely interchangeable as there is no logical "standard" to compare to except eachother
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    (Speaking only to the "liked more than average" and "disliked more than average", not the general opposition of preferred vs dis-preferred.) Imagine if there are 200 people, 100 of category A and 100 of category B. It's possible for members of category A to be simultaneously "liked more than average" and "disliked more than average". If 20 A's are liked and 20 A's are disliked, while only 10 B's are liked and 10 B's are disliked, then A's are liked 33% more than average and disliked 33% more than average.
    - DarkWiiPlayer 4y ago
      Yes, but that will either cancel out to the average in group B matching the total average, or it won't, meaning the average of B is significantly different from the total average.
      - sokoloff 4y ago

kurtreed 4y ago

There are studies showing bias against women, there are studies showing bias against men. This should remind us not to take any one reported bias and conclude that it represents the overall relationship between the sexes, even if politically convenient to do so.

webmobdev 4y ago
Note though that even though this sounds like a positive and "well-meaning" bias, it can be dysfunctional too. Holding someone to a higher standard also has a "reverse" psychological effect that when they deviate or stray away from the expected standards, people are harsher on them than they usually would be. This is why, when coupled with regressive societal norms, "honour killing" of women happen (the extreme worst-case example). (Related - The problem with putting someone on a pedestal - https://pairedlife.com/etiquette/onapedestal https://pairedlife.com/etiquette/onapedestal ).
- DarkWiiPlayer 4y ago
  > This is why, when coupled with regressive societal norms, "honour killing" of women happen (the extreme worst-case example). Sounds a bit like the gender-swapped version of "deserters get shot"
- fundad 4y ago
  Yes this isn’t benevolent sexism, it’s sexism sexism.
- luckylion 4y ago
  > Holding someone to a higher standard also has a "reverse" psychological effect that when they deviate or stray away from the expected standards, people are harsher on them than they usually would be. That sounds strange. Women are held to a higher standard, yet when they commit crimes, we punish them less severely than men. How would that fit into your narrative?
  - webmobdev 4y ago

azangru 4y ago

I'm trying to remember someone's words that if <politician(s)> were a woman, there wouldn't have been <bad things>. As if... Google has so far suggested to me Boris Johnson's "if Putin were a woman...", Kaja Kallas' (Estonian PM) "If women were in charge...", and Sheryl Sandberg's "If women were in charge"; but I am sure I heard this sentiment before 2022. Probably a good illustration of the effect :-)

kgwgk 4y ago
There would be no wars, only a bunch of countries not talking to each other (a joke I just found)
- fundad 4y ago
  Maybe nothing would change but we would finally know.
  - shakow 4y ago
    We already know, it's not like if female rulers were an unknown quantity. And empirical examples (Thatcher, Catherine the Great, Maria-Theresa, Elisabeth I, ...) shows that it would basically be the same.
    - quesera 4y ago
      There's a reasonable argument that you'd need to exclude women from dynastic monarchies, and women who fought through a male-candidate-dominated democratic process for their prominence. The selection process weeds out the archetypical woman (or neurotypical, or stereotypically feminine in thought, or whatever you want to call it. The Iron Lady was not your Mum). Hilary Clinton is another example. Wellesley to warmonger? Something happened there, and my suspicion is that it has to do with "competing" in a male-dominated arena.
      - kgwgk 4y ago
        Good ol’ true Scotswoman argument…

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

f1shy 4y ago

I assume this is for western societies. I can imagine in the middle east this is a little bit different...

jacknews 4y ago

'benevolent sexism'??? It sounds like newspeak to me. Surely this should just be called 'female privilege'.

ajuc 4y ago
The definition of benevolent sexism makes no sense. If "women are cooler than men" is benevolent sexism, then either you admit sexism is defined subjectively from the female POV, or you have to admit that "men are better at math" is also "benevolent sexism".
- socialismisok 4y ago
  That's probably because you haven't spent enough time trying to understand the intent of the expression. Benevolent here refers to the intent, not the outcome. If I say "women are so caring" and then use that as a justification for why I shouldn't hire them, the result is a sexist policy with a benevolent origin. You see this all the time with stereotypes - queer men are so good at fashion, Asians are so good at math, Black folks are such good athletes, etc. We might think these are compliments, but when they are used to deny opportunities they can be as harmful as any other stereotype.
  - wongarsu 4y ago
    If we are talking about a highly competitive situation, like hiring, then going by this line of thinking there can be no "benevolent sexism". Any sexist or racist prejudice will either be against one group (women are so weak), leading to a disadvantage for them; or benefit one group (Asians are so good at math), leading to a disadvantage for everyone else. Both are leading to discrimination based on gender or race. Calling one of the two benevolent is just a bad name.
    - socialismisok 4y ago
      You are misinterpreting the expression. It's about disambiguation in the source of the sexism, not the outcome. The whole point is that the outcome is not benevolent. But it's useful to have a nominative difference between sexism that has roots in hate ("women are hysterical") and sexism that has roots in a "positive" stereotype ("women are nurturing"). Those are two different types of sexism with two different root causes and need to different solutions.

Laaas 4y ago

Is this a bad thing if it's accurate? Women are more well-behaved on average, no?

dleslie 4y ago
Women are not better behaved on average, they're simply not prosecuted equally for their poor behaviour. To get a full understanding of this, compare self reported spousal abuse data against police reported data. The difference is shocking.
- RichardCNormos 4y ago
  My ex-wife used to physically abuse me (hitting, throwing things). An attorney friend told me to leave the house whenever that happened, because if anyone called the cops (including me), the police would arrest me instead of her. It's called the "Duluth Model" of domestic violence enforcement.
  - dleslie 4y ago
    Here where I live, police are instructed to use a gendered lens in their responses, specifically to treat everything as though women are the victims, always, and never the aggressors. It's grotesquely sexist, but lauded by the NGOs.
lucideer 4y ago
I suspect it's accurate but tells us less than one might think. In that sense it may be a "bad thing" if the conclusions are taken at face value and applied out of context without being interrogated. i.e.: saying "this shows people are predisposed to favour women, ergo the narrative of gender discrimination against women is disproven." In actuality, this shows favourable sentiment toward women in quite narrow, specific ways: words quoted from the article are "good, happy, and sunshine" & not things like "competent, reliable, trustworthy, and cool". There's a hint of infantilisation within the words used. Yes they're positive, but it's worth looking at how those specific sentiments might exhibit in real world situations.
4y ago

SaintGhurka 4y ago

It seems like this explains, or perhaps is explained by "male expendability". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_expendability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_expendability

llampx 4y ago
Women create society, women ARE society. A few chosen men (rich, powerful, handsome) hold key positions in this society, meanwhile most men are just outside, looking for a way in. You can buy your way in by being productive and hard-working. Or by dying for the society. Note that in times of war, women were handing out white roses, not putting on their combat boots. The rich and powerful were likewise found nowhere near a battlefield. We try to get past our wild roots, the fact that we don't have harems in most of the world is how we became civilized.
- rekabis 4y ago
  Forced monogamy is what gave most men “skin in the game” (a chance at having a family), and as such, encouraged them to go above and beyond in making society better and safer. So yes, a lack of harems is what makes society progressive, safe, and stable. Having large masses of men who will never have an opportunity for a wife and family is massively unstable for any society, because these men will either sod off and do their own thing (why should I contribute to society/civilization if it does nothing for me?), or they will forment unrest in an attempt to acquire wives of their own by any means possible.
  - anonporridge 4y ago
    More precisely, societies that enforced monogamy out competed and eliminated those that didn't. I think it is possible to have a self stable society without enforced monogamy, so long as you have a mechanism to eliminate the hoards of unnecessary males before they rise up in revolution, but it's not stable in a world where there are some societies that do enforce monogamy and therefore have more males with a stake to fight for.
  - tsol 4y ago

motohagiography 4y ago

While I was hesitant to comment on the topic at all, it's worth it for men to have words for the bias, because the entire moral code of a lot of men who tend toward agreeability is based on not-upsetting the women in their lives, or anywhere for that matter, and the effect is pernicious. There is a maturation stage for men that traditionally happened in late adolescence that doesn't seem as common these days. Now these men relate to women as though they expect women to supervise them, and expect other men to "behave," in a way that is acceptable to their percieved feminine supervisors, or they have some kind of hyper-conscientious responsibility to blunt themselves around women so as to seem "unthreatening" to them, because they are still fundamentally actuated by shame, even though it is just a harness our species uses to manage children. The anxiety originates from this unmatured Women are Wonderful bias, which boys are taught as children so they can be managed, but with the expectation that they grow out of it or leave it behind during a rite of passage. The result of not breaking men of this childhood harness is they grow up to be "nice guys" who are really just full of anxiety and resentment from navigating the absurd bind of believing their goodness and identity as a protagonist comes from being validated by the women they have placed in their supervisory pedastal roles, and because by treating women as better, they have implicitly made the women in their lives responsible for their feelings instead of taking complete ownership of their own emotions and lives. I meet these "happy wife happy life" guys all the time, and not only do they compete to debase themselves and accumulate sacrifices nobody asked for, but they take it out as resentment of other men whose freedom from that bias casts a light on that undocked lever of shame they wear around like a collar - and then ultimately the women in their lives. Women are people, and for any quality in a population, people tend to be on pretty long tailed distributions. When you refuse to see the worst examples because of some well meaning bias, it leaves the great ones unappreciated, which I think is the most harmful bias of all. Men and women can be wonderful, but nobody gets there without a lot of practice, imo. The question isn't whether women are wonderful or not, as that's a dumb dichotomy - it's whether guys have matured into men by ceasing to be controlled by this internalized language of shame that was only necessary to keep them physically safe as children. Part of that is recognizing women aren't symbols, but other people, who like men are responsible for their own actions and feelings, and above all, not a single one is responsible for yours either.

4y ago

markdog12 4y ago

Related, recent study: https://www.bps.org.uk/research-digest/people-are-more-sceptical-sex-difference-research-when-findings-favour-men https://www.bps.org.uk/research-digest/people-are-more-scept... > participants had a much less positive response to articles favouring men over women than those that favoured women over men – and, again, this effect was stronger in women, as well as in left-leaning participants > They also felt more strongly that male-favouring findings should be kept away from girls and not mentioned by teachers and the media.

samhuk 4y ago

A study finds that women are viewed more positively than men, then researchers coin phrases like "women-are-wonderful" (equally "men are bad") and "benevolent sexism" (no, it's just sexism). Hmm, almost like it's ironic. or something. So blatantly obviously ironic, in fact, that I begin to wonder whether they were aware of their own joke. Any by joke, I don't mean social science in general or anything.

bobkazamakis 4y ago
> "benevolent sexism" (no, it's just sexism). Huh? "Asians are good at math" is still racial stereotyping, even if it's not negative. >(equally "men are bad") No, read the wiki again. >mm, almost like it's ironic. or something. So blatantly obviously ironic, mfw 4chan so irun.
- samhuk 4y ago
  From experience, "Asians are good at math" is often related to the wider (and very wrong, from my own experience) stereotype of "Asians are awkward" or "Asians are shallow" or "Asians are only good for math/work". And even then, "are good at math", by definition of the word "good", means that others are worse (otherwise "good" wouldn't mean anything). > No, read the wiki again. My point is that, still, they coined (therefore popularising) only one side (women good), and not the other (men bad). > mfw 4chan so irun. ;)
- mikrl 4y ago
  It’s a positive stereotype but still negative. I’ve had a few E Asian buddies who were about as successful as me in that life stage with similar interests (some not wholesome) and their home/social lives seemed so stressful. They’re ‘failures’ or ‘disappointments’ in their circles despite just being a normal Canadian guy studying what they want, and having some beers and smokes. Meanwhile I’m cool, easygoing and edgy because as long as you aren’t fucking up your life completely, poor white people think you’re doing great.
  - thomastjeffery 4y ago

tchaffee 4y ago

Folks are rushing to criticize the term "benevolent sexism" without knowing what the technical term means. It's not the gotcha you think it is. tl;dr Benevolent sexism towards women is damaging to women. Likewise for benevolent sexism towards men. And yes, it is subjective. That's in the definition. "Ambivalent sexism is a theoretical framework which posits that sexism has two sub-components: "hostile sexism" (HS)and "benevolent sexism" (BS). Hostile sexism reflects overtly negative evaluations and stereotypes about a gender (e.g., the ideas that women are incompetent and inferior to men). Benevolent sexism represents evaluations of gender that may appear subjectively positive (subjective to the person who is evaluating), but are actually damaging to people and gender equality more broadly" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambivalent_sexism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambivalent_sexism

crackercrews 4y ago

Reminds me of kid shirts that say "the future is female".

brent_noorda 4y ago

Is that why Alexa, Siri, and OK Google, which are all wonderful, default to female voices?

cookieswumchorr 4y ago
this is just catering to the predominantly male audience of early tech adopters. I remember hearing that the landing assistant in soviet fighter jets has a female voice, because it has a soothing effect on the male pilots.
- dymk 4y ago
  Sounds like bunk armchair psychology to me
- iwillbenice 4y ago
  Not just the USSR! The UK and US did the same too! For more info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_warning_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_warning_system https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx7-yvXf6f8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx7-yvXf6f8 My personal opinion is the "Bitching Betty" voice with its crisp instructions and authoritative tone makes us subliminally think of our mother giving us guidance or reprimand at an early age. It is a great design; it has saved a TON of pilot lives who otherwise would have accidentally perished.
- tsol 4y ago
  No, it's because both sexes rate female voices as more soothing and trustworthy[1]. 1-- https://www.debbiegrattan.com/blog/why-trust-female-voice-over-male-voice/#:~:text=Soothing%20and%20Comforting%20Nature,re%20more%20inclined%20to%20trust https://www.debbiegrattan.com/blog/why-trust-female-voice-ov....

lhorie 4y ago

> Benevolent sexism I mean, when attending a birthday or christmas party, who buys the presents? Bias means that judgment about a topic doesn't match reality. But is it really bias (or even more loadedly "sexism") to think that stereotypical women do more likable things if we were to assume that was perhaps actually true? Imagine, for example, saying that it's "benevonent species-ism" to think that animals are on average more likely to be quadrupedal than humans. That'd be a silly assertion, because we know for a fact that this is true, and because the idea of more legs being better is weird for human standards. This thought exercise then begs the question: if we do think that thinking "women are nicer" is a form of bias, then what is the reality? Is the implication that they are not? That niceness should account for things other than nurturing attributes? According to who? IMHO, the more interesting aspect of the observation of this effect is what it says about the people talking about it.

dymk 4y ago
> I mean, when attending a birthday or christmas party, who buys the presents? This one confuses me, are you saying that it's a given that women are the one buying presents and men aren't? I've not seen that, nor heard that be the stereotype.
yamazakiwi 4y ago
I don't know if more legs being better is weird or that it's just likely to be untrue past quadrupedal in this instance. That being said, Octopi are known to bond with humans and I find them pretty neat.

UncleOxidant 4y ago

Out of curiosity I googled "percentage of US prison population that's female" and it's ~10%. So is this partly why we have the "women are wonderful" bias (because women are apparently much less likely to commit violent crime)? Or is it that because of this bias fewer women end up in prison?

ALittleLight 4y ago
Another take - perhaps there is a "women are wonderful" sentiment because they are less likely to commit violent crime (and things like that).
- UncleOxidant 4y ago
  You can look at mass shootings in the US (no sentencing bias) and ~98% have been committed by men.
scotty79 4y ago
Probably both.
rekabis 4y ago
A quote I saw somewhere, and backed up with links to research that I (unfortunately) did not save, went something like this: “For the exact same crime with the exact same damages, the gender sentencing gap is three times larger than the wealth sentencing gap, and seven times larger than the racial sentencing gap. Having been born female is the single largest get-out-of-jail-free card you could possibly possess.” This hesitancy by police, prosecutors, judges, and juries to properly charge, prosecute, and sentence women to the same degree as men are treated, is certainly sounding a lot like the “women are wonderful, they couldn’t possibly be responsible or capable of this” effect in action.
luckylion 4y ago
> Or is it that because of this bias fewer women end up in prison? That's well documented [0]. Money quote: "In the United States men are most adversely affected by sentencing disparity being twice as likely to be sentenced to jail after conviction than women and receiving on average 63% longer jail sentences." An interesting side-note: the effect shrinks when the judge is a woman. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentencing_disparity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentencing_disparity

theprincess 4y ago

Meta comment: Yesterday it was the old OKCupid blogs today it's WAW. I spent some time a few years ago exploring the incel wiki after one of the mass shootings that happened and saw these concepts popping up again and again. I feel like maybe these ideas are reaching a critical mass of young men lately and it will be interesting to see what the ramification of that are.... Looking at how men are doing in terms of life expectancy, educational attainment, career prospects, etc... does make it obvious something has gone very wrong for them as a group but I think there's a real lack of any sort of positive vision going forward. Mostly I see lamentations of how much better women seem to have it or angry calls for a return to the status quo ante. Is there someone with a positive vision for men? Jordan Peterson spews a bunch of nonsense about fighting dragons and embracing suffering but that's not going to get men into universities or opening up emotionally with one another so that they stop drowning in lonely misery. The one positive proposal I've seen lately was the suggestion that boys should start school at 6 instead of 5 since girls mature a bit more quickly which gives them a leg up in terms of academic achievement. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/10/boys-delayed-entry-school-start-redshirting/671238/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/10/boys-de...

AnnikaL 4y ago
I think encouraging healthy emotional relationships among men is probably a better idea for society than the "the world is harsh and unpleasant so you must be strong" sort of rhetoric that I hear men tell each other on this website a lot.
- luckylion 4y ago
  What if that's the truth? It's useful to know what to expect and what not to, even if you'd be much happier if you only expect good things ... at least until your expectations don't match reality and you're swept off your feet because you never knew that might happen.
  - theprincess 4y ago
    I don't understand how men operate among themselves to be honest but I do know that my ability to share my feelings and struggles with my friends and family has helped me grow and survive a lot of hardships in my life. My husband has me for that now, but he only has me for that and didn't have that with anyone in the past and I think it hurt him and he is still recovering. I go out of my way to talk to his family when he is hurting about something for instance because he is too proud to do it himself, and we all don't tell him that we've been worried about him and instead just try to lift him up. It works, but only because he has a woman in his life. When he was single he says he would just sink into depression and engross himself in work and hobbies alone all day. That's so unhealthy to be that lonely and disconnected from others. I think my husband is a pretty typical guy and I wonder what he would be like now 7 years since we met if he had remained single. What kind of dark place would he have found himself in? It makes me worried for a lot of young guys. It's like they live in a self enforced solitary confinement.... Solitary confinement drives people nuts. Should male culture become a copy of female culture? That wouldn't work I don't think because I think men have different personality types and tastes on average but it doesn't mean that they can't learn to express their emotions and build friendships with people where they feel comfortable confiding their hurts and fears to each other. Just a basic support network really.... And speaking of friendship, that's another area where me and my girlfriends have noticed that pretty much every man in our lives struggles. It seems like once a guy leaves college his ability to make close friends drops to almost zero. Meanwhile I've made some of my best friendships in my 30s at women's meetups.

thomastjeffery 4y ago

So many of the comments in this thread are misinterpreting the phrase, "benevolent sexism". "Benevolent" is describing the context of the sexism, not judging that the sexism itself is morally good. The context of the term still heavily implies that "benevolent sexism" is a moral/social failure. To call out an idea as "benevolent sexism" is just shorthand to say, "despite this idea being framed as a positive affirmation, it reinforces the structure of traditional gender roles and sexism."

sekai 4y ago
> "Benevolent" is describing the context of the sexism, not judging that the sexism itself is morally good. > The context of the term still heavily implies that "benevolent sexism" is a moral/social failure. So...let's just call it sexism?
- thomastjeffery 4y ago
  https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/adverbially-2 https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/adverbially-2 Personally, I prefer using the adjective. It's descriptive.

fallingfrog 4y ago

The most interesting part of this -besides the obvious absurdity of "benevolent sexism"- is this line: "In more egalitarian societies, people have more positive attitudes towards men than in less egalitarian societies." This makes sense to me- the person you're going to fear the most is someone who has power over you. In the absence of toxic power dynamics, there would probably be a lot more social and sexual openness between the sexes. Probably a big part of what's going on here is that men are seen as threatening in a way that women aren't. And I don't think there's any biological reason that men should be seen as threatening. Cultural reasons, maybe, but those can be fixed. By the way- please read what I actually wrote, not what you assume I meant, before downvoting. I'm not accusing anyone of anything, in fact I specifically said that men are not bad or any worse than women. If you didn't catch that, read it again. Thank you.

seti0Cha 4y ago
> And I don't think there's any biological reason that men should be seen as threatening. Cultural reasons, maybe, but those can be fixed. Take a look at this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3693622/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3693622/

adolph 4y ago

I thought the phenomena was called the "Althouse Rule," from the below blog post observation. November 8, 2005 Scientists: remember to portray whatever you find to be true of women as superior. I've said it before, and I must repeat, the rule is: If you do scientific research into the differences between men and women, you must portray whatever you find to be true of women as superior. And when you read reports about scientific research into the differences between men and women, use the hypothesis that the scientists are following that rule. It makes reading the reports quite humorous. https://althouse.blogspot.com/2005/11/scientists-remember-to-portray.html https://althouse.blogspot.com/2005/11/scientists-remember-to...

moe091 4y ago

I think Carl Jung did a great job of describing the origin of this effect with the concept of the underdeveloped anima - which is an especially common condition among modern men(technically it's common among all men before they reach emotional maturity, but this specific type of maturation is often stunted nowadays). At different levels of underdevelopment, it can cause women to be perceived negatively; evil, duplicitous, manipulative, etc. At other levels it causes a person to put women on a pedestal, thinking they can do no wrong, viewing them as these perfect, almost numinous beings who are a source of comfort and love. The common symptom is not viewing women as PEOPLE, as instead of seeing women as they are, all women are viewed through the projection of the persons own "anima"(think of it as an internal construct that represents a persons mother, or more generally, as the archetypal "woman"), and whatever unrecognized complexes or ideas are tied up with that image are projected into the real world. These complexes are developed naturally during early stages of life when a persons mother is perceived as some all-powerful and all-loving source of life, and as a person matures they are supposed to adapt a more and more realistic view of their mother figure and of women in general, but there is a tendency nowadays, especially for men, to not want to give up the comfort and support of their mother(literally or psychologically), and this can cause the immature mother image to persist throughout their life, which then gets projected onto women as a whole

addicted 4y ago

All this research appears to be from the 80s and 90s. When women were still largely confined to being homemakers and soft jobs. Since then research has shown that people tend to have far more negative views of women in power than equivalent men. I suspect this derives more from the fact that women were simply not allowed positions of power and so if you guessed a woman was a homemaker and/or in a caretaking job like a nurse or teacher you would almost certainly be right.

dgudkov 4y ago

I'm curious to what extent the effect is country-specific.

readthenotes1 4y ago

Fitting that in an article like this author Alice has a wiki page but author Antonio does not.

simonblack 4y ago

annyeonghada 4y ago
This is just sexism and if you swapped "man" with "women" you would be rightfully cancelled. Your age is not a justification for suggesting such absurdities. As an example, the majority of teachers are female and so many of them are useless slobs who should have never been allowed near a school. A really disgusting comment.
- simonblack 4y ago
  the majority of teachers are female and so many of them are useless slobs who should have never been allowed near a school. A really disgusting comment. Yes. Very true.