Sexism

Sexism is commonly considered to be discrimination and/or hatred against people based on their sex rather than their individual merits, but can also refer to any and all systemic differentiations based on the sex of the individuals.

Sexism can refer to subtly different beliefs or attitudes:

The belief that one sex is superior to or more valuable than the other;
The attitude of misogyny (hatred of females) or misandry (hatred of males); as well as
The attitude of imposing a limited notion of masculinity (gender) on males (sex) and a limited notion of femininity (gender) on females (sex).

Generalization and partition

Sexism can be generalized as a subtype of essentialism. Sexism can be partitioned as consisting of sexism against the female sex, sexism against the male sex, sexism against the intersex (hermaphrodite and pseudohermaphrodite), and sexism against the transsex (transmale and transfemale). Each type of sexism has its own history and form of intolerance to counter.

Sexist beliefs, as a species of essentialism, holds that individuals can be understood or be judged simply based on the characteristics of the group to which they belong—in this case, their sexual group, as males or females. This assumes that all individuals "fit" into the category of "males" or "females" and does not take into account of intersexed people who are born with both sexual characteristics. This also assumes a homogeneous characteristics of all males in the "male group" and all females in the "female group" and does not take into account the huge differences within a group. There are also XX males and XY females who are genetically one sex but has developed the sexual characteristics of another sex at fetal stage.

Certain forms of sexual discrimination are illegal in many countries, but nearly all countries have laws that give special rights, privileges, or responsibilities to one sex or two sexes.

Sexism against females

Sexism against females in its extreme form is known as "misogyny", which means "hatred of females". The term 'sexism', in common usage, usually implies "sexism against females", since this is the first form of sexism that has been commonly identified. This form of sexism is also often called chauvinism, though chauvinism is actually a wider term for any extreme and unreasoning partisanship with malice and hatred towards a rival group. A mildly related term is "gynophobia", which refers to fears of females or feminity.

Historically, in many patriarchal societies, females were viewed as the "weaker sex". The combination of hostile and subjectively benevolent (but patronizing) attitudes toward women is known as ambivalent sexism, which has its origins in the fact that while women have lower status than men, heterosexual men depend on women as wives, mothers, and lovers. Women's lower status is evident in cases in which females were not even recognized as "people" under the law of the land. The feminist movement promotes women's rights to stop sexism against females by addressing issues such as equality under the law, political representation of females, access to education and employment, female victims of domestic violence, and self-ownership of the female body.

Sexism against males

Sexism against males in its extreme form is known as "misandry", which means "hatred of males". Since this is the second form of sexism that has been commonly identified, it is often known as "reverse sexism". A mildly related term is "androphobia", which refers to the fear of males or masculinity. While the view that women are superior to men is also sexism, only in recent years has such awareness begun to develop in public discourse.

Another source of sexism is the "old patriarchy" and "old matriarchy", which has historically restricted and limited the role of males in other parts of society and has looked down upon male homemakers. The masculinist movement promotes men's rights and Father's Rights to stop sexism against males by addressing issues such as equality under the law, "maternity leave" for males, male victims of domestic violence, and equal access to children.

Sexism against intersexes

Sexism against intersexes has only been recently identified, but it has yet to be aware of by the general public. Historically, most cultures (with a few exceptions) hold that males and females are separate and distinct entities with separate gender roles and responsibilities. Infants that are born with both (or with ambiguous) sexual characteristics are either killed or have one of their sexual characteristics surgically removed. The unnecessary surgery has often been carried out without the knowledge or consent of the parents and some view this as "genital mutilation" and criticized the perceived need by modern western medicine to "correct" the occurrences of intersexuality, which is just a natural probability.

'Intersexuality' refers to the condition of being intersexed and the LGBTIQ movement has actively fought sexism against intersexes. From birth, intersexed individuals are neither in the male "box" or the female "box" and the classification used by most policies and laws of government fails to reflect this. Intersexed people are also often the target of hate crimes since the traditional notion of male (XY) and female (XX) is perceived to be threathened by the existence of atypical sexes such as Turner (X0), Metafemale (XXX), Klinefelter (XXY), de la Chapelle (XX male), and Swyer (XY female) syndrome.

Sexism against transsexes

Sexism against transsexes has also only been recently identified, and it has also yet to enter into the public discourse. Traditionally, transsexes are viewed as having psychological problem with "gender identity disorder". Recent medical research of transsexed brains, however, indicates that the composition of a transsexed brain often display the composition of the identity sex and not the composition of the birth sex. This supports the theory that the brain of an individual can develop in a different path from the genitalia of an individual and thus is birth-related and not psychological. The research also gave rise to the phrase "men trapped in women's body" and the phrase "women trapped in men's body".

'Transexuality' refers to the condition of being self-identified with opposite sex from birth and the LGBT movement has actively fought sexism against transexes. Many "women-only" events and organizations have been criticized for rejecting transfemales; similar situations have occurred for "men-only" events and organizations for rejecting transmales. Transsexed people are also often the target of hate crimes, as the traditional notion of masculinity and femininity is often perceived to be threatened by those who have chosen to adopt a different sex later in life.

Sexism and sexual expression

The expression of sexual intimacy is a part of the human condition. However, various aspects of human sexuality have been argued as having contributed to sexism.

The Sexual Revolution

During the "sexual revolution", there was a change in the cultural perception of sexual morality and sexual behavior. The sexual revolution has been known as the "sexual liberation" by feminists since some saw this new development in the West as a leveling ground for females to have as many choices concerning their sexuality as males--hoping to elliminate the problematic virgin/whore dichotomy of traditional Western society.

Modern feminists like "Ariel Levy" have warned that the current state of commercial sexuality has created a "Raunch Culture". This cultural development, (which has largely occurred in the West) the commercialization of the sexual objectification of females, has been criticized as being limiting for men and women. Rather than being liberating, some feminists argue that the "pornification" of Western society has reduced and equated the scope of feminine power to sexual power only. Some feminists argue that females are themselves objectifying other females by becoming producers and promoters of the "Raunch Culture".

Some "masculinist" theorists posit that prior to the sexual revolution the idealized male was expected to be virile while the idealized female was expected to be modest. They note that after the sexual revolution, females were given more liberty to express virility while the reverse has not been true for males, who have yet to be given a choice to be non-virile. They argued that the dual identity of hypersexuality and asexuality is a luxury and special status that only exists for females. However, many feminists believe that this so-called "dual identity" rather allows males to condemn a female for her sexuality for being either modest or virile (see double standard).

Sexual intercourse

Several published articles have either hinted at or stated explicitly that sexual intercourse, as it has most often been practised, has been for the sole purpose of sexual satisfaction of the male through positions and motions that are more pleasurable to the male and through motions he perceives, from the perspective of his male ego, that flatter his virility or abilities as a lover. Only in recent times have a significant number of heterosexual couples begun to practise positions (for example, women on top) and motions (for example, grinding motions that stimulate the clitoris) during sexual intercourse that are for the pleasure of the female.^{[citation needed]} Another suggested contribution to the lack of potential enjoyment of females is the notion that sexual intercourse had traditionally been a tabooed subject.

Pornography

Some express the view that pornography is contributing to sexism, because in usual pornographic performances for male spectators the actresses are limited to and presented as "pleasure-objects". The German feminist Alice Schwarzer is one representative of this point of view. She has brought this topic up repeatedly since the 1970s, in particular in the feminist magazine "Emma". The reverse, where female spectators are objectifying male actors, has also been identified as sexism.

On the other hand, some famous pornographic actresses such as Teresa Orlowski and Tímea Vágvölgyi have publicly stated that they do not feel themselves to be victims of sexism against females. In fact, many female pornographic stars and sex-positive feminists view pornography to be progressive, since they are paid immense amounts of money for performing consensual acts, and also since many directors and managers of the industry are women as well. Sex positive feminists often support their position by pointing out the situation of women in countries with strict pornography laws (ie Saudi Arabia) versus women in countries with liberal pornography laws (ie the Netherlands).

Still other feminists, outside of the sex-positive feminism and anti-pornography feminism, feared that censoring profit-oriented pornography would lead to censoring legitimate non-profit female expression of their sexual experience. This is because historically, indecency acts in various countries had, in the past, been used to censor sexual educations, which are vital to the sexual independence of females and females taking ownership of the decisions over their bodies.

Sexism and linguistics

It has been argued that sexual dichotomies exist in language, though it is disputed whether certain language causes sexism or sexism causes certain language (see the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis).

"Sexist language" and Gender-neutral language

Nearing the end of the 20th century, there is a rise in the use of gender-neutral language in western worlds. This is often attributed to the rise of feminism. Gender-neutral language, as a part of political correctness, is the avoidance of gender-specific job titles, non-parallel usage, and other usage that is felt by some to be sexist. Supportors feel that having gender-specific titles and gender-specific pronouns implies a system bias to exclude individuals based on their sex. Opponents question whether such avoidance campaign is themselves engaging in semantics injection. Some opponents dismiss this trend as "political correctness gone mad" and protest against what they see as censorship.

Anthropological linguistics and gender-specific language

In contradistinction to languages with a Germanic origin such as English, Western European Romance languages require grammatical gender agreement for the construction of a sentance. Modernization Theory is often conflated with attempts to explain linguistic changes and developments within language systems.

Reappropriation and reclamation

Reappropriation (aka reclamation projects) describe a cultural process by which certain groups reclaim or re-appropriate terms, symbols, and artifacts that were previously used to discriminate. Within the English language, terms like 'bitch' and 'slut', which had been historically used as pejorative sexist remarks against females, have since been used to refer to "strong, independent, unattached "female" and "sexually liberal, hypersexual female". Similarly, terms like 'girlie men' and 'tranny', which has been historically used as pejorative sexist remarks against transsexes, have since been used to refer to the varying degree of transexuality for "pre-operation" and "non-operation" as whether they had undergone or will undergo sex-reassignment or not. The success of these cultural process has been disputed.

On the flip side, the word 'dude' as a pejorative has crossed the sexes and is being applied to males. In politics, the term 'girlie men' has also been used by Governor Schwarzenegger to attack his political opponents, who are not transsexes. This has lead to Schwarzenegger being accused of being sexist.

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