Free Report - Benevolent Sexism: Embracing, Impact on Gender Inequality, and Societal Roles

Introduction

Sexism is described as discrimination or prejudice based on sex; it can also be categorized as benevolent seism, which is an instinctively positive alignment of guarding, supporting, and holding women with high moral regard in society (Shim, 2014). A woman is met with benevolence when she fits the stereotypical duty assigned to her gender. Benevolent sexism seems positive; therefore, it works with hostile sexism to uphold the current male dominance system in society. In the current society, benevolent sexism is the reward for "excellent" behavior. The tendency to embrace benevolent sexism in the social decline for most ages and male benevolent sexism experienced a positive linear increase across diverse ages in society over time. In the modern days, benevolent sexism is crucial in society and in the healthcare environment; hence it is considered a wonderful gift, but its existence might cause detrimental outcomes (Glick & Fiske, 2001). Based on benevolent sexism, women are stereotyped as delicate, affectionate, and sensitive; people with benevolent sexism believe that women are weak and supposed to be provided for and protected by men. The research will focus on the reasons why women should embrace benevolent sexism in society. Also, the relationship between gender inequality and benevolent sexism will be broadly discussed, and how it contributes to gender inequality as well as the role of benevolent sexism in gender inequality in society.

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Reasons to Embrace Benevolent Sexism by Women in the Society

Women should embrace benevolent sexism in society to uphold the economic, political, and social system's status quo. Benevolent sexism assists women who seek to rationalize their subordination to men in society; hence women should embrace it in society (Hammond et al., 2018). Benevolent sexism has positive impacts on women's work performance, but it also negatively influences women's performance outcomes at the workplace. Mainly women embrace benevolent sexism due to its positive appearance without considering its harmful impacts. Based on recent studies, women endorse benevolent sexism in society since they prefer benevolent sexism to men (BS), yet they are aware of the harmful effects. More so, women embrace BS since it entails positive attitudes where men protect women, and they are cherished and efforts to attain intimacy with women. Women embrace BS in society since it is associated with harmful impacts such as alarming women's approval of protective constraints implemented by a man, wives' acceptance of limitations on their behavior during courtship, increasing looking for dependency-oriented assistance from men, and finally women's interest in self-governing goals and thought pursuit (Smedley, Jeffries, Adelman, & Cheng, 2008). The existence of benevolent sexism in society has women fighting for black people through the slogan "Black Lives Matter," where they do not bend to the demands of respectability politics. Still, they carve out a position for black women to fight for their human rights and justice (Rickford, 2016. The movement of black lives matter has enlightened women to understand well what constitutes police brutality and racism as addressed from a benevolent sexism perspective (Glick & Fiske, 2001).

Black women experience police brutality in diverse gendered approaches like sexual assault and harassment. Women embrace benevolent sexism since it has led to an increased number of black women activists behind black lives matter, which aims to eradicate racism. The movement of black lives matter is new civil rights, which obscures how drastically the social landscape has shifted in current decades. The dominant perception of race relations and gender inequality posit interpersonal rapport or black American elites' visibility as key indexes of progress (Hammond et al., 2018). Therefore, enforcing racial hierarchy was the central task of policing since the slave patrol era.

Racism has led to health disparities. Therefore, to identify conceptions that have led to health disparities requires an in-depth consideration of epidemiology, determinants, disease dissemination, and its frequency, which is influenced partially by sexism. Epidemiology plays a vital function in shaping health disparities due to benevolent sexism and its variations in formulating public health policies (Shim, 2014). Epidemiology has contributed to systems of social classification in society by class, race, sex, and gender, thus motivating people to believe in benevolent sexism ideas. There is a significant difference by sex, which occurs in the epidemiology of cardiovascular disease. There are many women who develop heart disease more than men. The intersecting dynamics of social class cause this; gender, race, and age of white women and poor women appear to fundamentally attenuate and reverse most of this alleged "sex advantage."

Also, women embrace benevolent sexism in society, intending to end health disparities. Due to health disparities, women receive minimal comprehensive care than white men since stereotypes are used. A psychological factor such as benevolent sexism has contributed to health care disparities (Smedley et al., 2008). Therefore, it is essential to know whether medical experts and nurse professionals hold beliefs consistent with benevolent sexism, which influences women's healthcare recommendations. According to Glick and Fiske (2001), the embrace of benevolent sexism values in the social beliefs that women are pure, protected by men, and frail human beings who should be cherished and given equal care by men (Glick & Fiske, 2001).

Therefore, women might be less privileged when receiving medication from male or female professionals who have beliefs consistent with benevolent sexism. This is because medical experts with this belief might consider women less able to tolerate similar aggressive and proactive procedures provided to men physically. For instance, practice patterns recommending benevolent sexism in care treatment are mainly knee and hip arthroplasty medication for several types of cancer and heart disease (Shim, 2014). Benevolent sexism also influences cardiovascular procedures since it's common mainly for men compared to women. Therefore, when women are subjected to cardiovascular procedures, they do not receive more invasive procedures.

The Role of Benevolent Sexism in Gender Inequality

Society frequently fails to acknowledge that gender inequality or healthcare disparity in power and status among women and men exists continuously due to sexism. Therefore, due to gender inequality, women are under-represented in higher-level positions and the workplace. According to Glick and Fiske (2001), most government offices and corporations are dominated by men due to the endorsement of benevolent sexism in society, making them more powerful (Glick & Fiske, 2001). Therefore, a woman striving against a man for a high-rank position will face hostile sexism since she is considered a threat to men's authority's status quo. In the current society, benevolent sexism prevails mainly; hence it contributes mainly to gender inequality in the society (Shim, 2014). In society, benevolent sexism is witnessed in the interpersonal relations between women and men, thus accepting this ideology will make women excuse acts of hostile sexism committed by the intimate males in their lives. The embrace of benevolent sexism in society is associated with setting blame on women victims of rape and domestic conflicts and dismissing the attempts of men perpetrators.

There is a destructive interpersonal exhibition of benevolent sexism since those who accept benevolent sexist values mainly perceive females as incompetent outside of domestic duties; therefore, males will consider themselves as powerful to women, hence treating women in a patronizing approach (Smedley et al., 2008). A woman does not understand these patronizing behaviors as acts of partiality but as caring and protective actions, and on the other hand, males have failed to consider their benevolent sexist actions as oppressive (Yi, 2015). Thus, both male and female actions within the benevolent sexism perspective influence each other; women rely on men to provide for them, and men take care of females to an extent where the inspiration to re-work an unreasonable system is diminished. From an employment perspective, benevolent sexism attitudes, females disbelieve their cognitive capabilities and perform extremely worse on executive tasks (Braun, 2014). Since benevolent sexist beliefs are misunderstood as harmless, people accept these opinions more readily, leading them to become more complacent about gender discrimination. Benevolent sexism is displayed in many approaches, and it is vital to understand how his predominant ideology spreads the existing gender gap.

Stereotyping plays a vital role in benevolent sexism towards gender inequality. Within the context of benevolent sexism, women and men are stereotyped with opposing weaknesses and strengths, thus men are provided with argentic stereotypes like being ambitious, independent, and competitive. People with sexist values beliefs that men are competent; hence they fit well for high positions in the workplace. Women face stereotypes such as interdependent, nurturing, and considerate features that fit the responsibilities of a proper mother and wife (Yi, 2015). However, domestic functions are vital to society; they enforce the opinion that women are subservient to men, and are incompetent and powerless without their money support. Despite that the content of female communal stereotypes is perceived to be positive, it is challenging to identify how they prove oppressive gender roles in society (Rickford, 2016). However, males are unlikely to consider women's communal stereotypes as sexist since it is not common for a sexist perpetrator to embrace women's positive stereotypes. Both genders, males, and females indeed play a vital role in promoting gender inequality in society by endorsing benevolent sexism values of corresponding gender roles.

More so, benevolent sexism causes gender inequality in society through system justifications, which is a cognitive procedure that happens in response to a system threat. Therefore, to stabilize the angry and unpleasant feelings the system warning elicits, people may try to accomplish their psychological desires for structure and probability by aggressively endorsing beliefs that legitimize the status quo (Yi, 2015). Thus, justifying prevailing systems is also an approach for people to consider a society where they live as fair. Specified gender system rationalization is an instantiation of benevolent sexism, implying that females justify the male-controlled social systems they belong to despite fundamentally assisting their community's disadvantages. Thus, helping the current forms of sexism, women are adaptively able to persuade themselves that the community they are part of is acceptable and desirable and ultimately mitigate the emotional distress of being oppressed.

Conclusions

The significant determinants of racial and ethnic health disparities caused by sexism are segregation and unequal living scenarios in most white and minority groups; thus housing mobility techniques are promising strategies to eradicate health inequalities and expand privileges of equitable healthcare services in society. Future research should be carried out in the future to determine the roles played by gender recognition in how non-western women's performance is influenced by sexism. Benevolent sexism has a negative influence on female performance across diverse cultures.