Poll: "Benevolent Sexism"...Wait, what?!

[Crimson Cade]

If you treat a woman diffrently than you would a man, simply because she is a woman, that is, by the literal definition, sexism. Doesn't need a prefix like "benevolent". If you treat a gender as inferior and in need of help, that is, again by literal definition, chauvinism. Both of these can be done with good intentions, and a lot of people are fine with it. Lots of people like adhering to traditional gender roles.

I've got a solution to all this though: Take a minute to reflect on your own behavior, and then another to see the other person's perspective.

If everyone does this, rather than jerk knees all over the place like a rendition of Riverdance, we'll all be better off, and the trolls will go hungry. Of course, there are reasons why this doesn't happen. There is profit in peddling faux concern and moral outrage, and this has been the truth since the first sensationalist rag magazine.

 

[PirateRose]

Another problem is men are capable of being manipulative. Bad men will use all these "gentlemen-like" behaviors to abuse, lure their victims in, and/or view the acceptance of the behavior equivalent to the woman giving consent. It's a mind game many men like to play, because it should be a good deed only anyone can do it. It has become increasingly difficult to gauge whether the man opening the door for you is being just kind or if he has bad motives and is going to stalk you throughout the grocery store.

Bottom line, you should be opening the door for anyone coming up behind you. Man, woman, child, elderly, transsexual, gay, lesbian, black, white, whatever. It's not some special thing, it should be common, civilized decency to not let a door slam in someone's face behind you.

 

[Redryhno]

Another problem is men are capable of being manipulative. Bad men will use all these "gentlemen-like" behaviors to abuse, lure their victims in, and/or view the acceptance of the behavior equivalent to the woman giving consent. It's a mind game many men like to play, because it should be a good deed only anyone can do it. It has become increasingly difficult to gauge whether the man opening the door for you is being just kind or if he has bad motives and is going to stalk you throughout the grocery store.

Bottom line, you should be opening the door for anyone coming up behind you. Man, woman, child, elderly, transsexual, gay, lesbian, black, white, whatever. It's not some special thing, it should be common, civilized decency to not let a door slam in someone's face behind you.

Just replace all instances of "men" with people and "gentle-manly behaviors" with acting nice, and you've got it down to a twisted reality more close to the truth.

As for opening the door, eh, I'd say it's really up to whoever's at the door in the first place, everyone's perfectly capable of opening the door themselves as we've seen in this thread and some of it depends how far away someone is in the first place, if they're right behind me, they shouldn't have much trouble coming in behind, if they're far back, I'm not going to wait, and if they're a few steps behind, well, again it depends. Same goes for if I'm leaving and they're coming in, I'm not going to wait for them unless I've rummaging around looking for something in a bag I need, and if they're right there, I'll let them open it since the door's probably going to smack them in the face if I open it.

 

[Thaluikhain]

If you treat a woman diffrently than you would a man, simply because she is a woman, that is, by the literal definition, sexism. Doesn't need a prefix like "benevolent". If you treat a gender as inferior and in need of help, that is, again by literal definition, chauvinism. Both of these can be done with good intentions, and a lot of people are fine with it. Lots of people like adhering to traditional gender roles.

Eh, benevolent sexism is sexism, sure, but it is of a somewhat different nature than what most people generally think of sexism, so might be worth specifying.

 

[Pseudonym]

Ehm, the article linked is rather bad and misleading. It links to another article that at least explains the research slightly better but that gives a link to the journal where I cannot find the article regardless. To answer your question: yes benevolent sexism is a thing. Threating women like they need more help than other people is sexist. This is not about holding doors open for women (I'm sure some people on different sides of the discussion make it about that, but they are stupid) but about holding doors open for women that you would not hold open for men. I would argue this is a problem for different reasons than the usual given reasons. I'm not convinced that it 'perpetuates inequality', but it is sexist nonetheless which is enough reason not to do it.

The research itself is kind of creepy though. (well, I didn't read the actual study, because I could not find it, so I'll take the description in the articles I read) It apparently researched the body language of benevolent sexists and concluded they smiled more. It reminds me of 1984 where people's minutest twitches and movements were scrutinized to help detect thoughtcrime. Even if the methodology was flawless I would still wonder what sort of person thinks this should be researched. Do these people want to help the NSA become more capable and intrusive?

I also don't think the research was very persuasive. From the description I found of the paper and the way the journal it appeared in describes itself it seems that questionable assumptions about morality and sociology are made and subsequently poorly argued, and this is combined with statistical research on a small group of 54 American college students. So I am not convinced about anything here, nor do I see why this should be researched, other than for rather sinister reasons.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

I really don't care about things of this nature. I was raised the way I was raised and taught that there is value in manners and being polite to a lady. I hold doors open for women longer than I would for men. A man might get 2 mississippi, 4 mississippi for a woman and 6-7 for someone in a wheelchair or crutches. The elderly get as long it takes. I open the car door for women usually, at least if I'm approaching from the side where they'll be sitting, tho I admit I occasionally forget. On the Tube, I give up my seat for the elderly or pregnant women.

I couldn't care less if being polite to women offends them or anyone. Should they choose to be offended that's their problem, not mine. If a lady infers that my gesture suggests she's incapable (or anything else for that matter), that too is her problem. Saying that, I've never had an issue like this in over 30 years of life.

 

[Crimsom Storm]

Think of it this way then. When a woman is a villain, usually she can be "saved" by passion and love and whatever other groovy thing. This trope is rarely pushed forward for men, though most famous would be Loki and Thor from the Marvel universe. When it comes to Men however, most are left to stay on the side of evil. Women, however, are clearly savable and redeemable.

I have no idea what you're talking about here. A male villain can't be redeemed? Have you even seen a movie?

I have, but consider how most comic book fair tends to run. 9 times out of 10, you cannot save the men. They are pure evil and psychotic, but when a woman stands on the enemy team, there's a high likelihood that she can be saved, be it the power of love or some other magical power. I'm not saying that men can't be saved, just that most of the time, either no one bothers, or the character is so stock and bland that they literally have no driving force beyond being evil, while somehow the woman in question is usually treated with kid gloves, and later, given the chance to turn good, or at least "not so evil".

 

[chikusho]

Think of it this way then. When a woman is a villain, usually she can be "saved" by passion and love and whatever other groovy thing. This trope is rarely pushed forward for men, though most famous would be Loki and Thor from the Marvel universe. When it comes to Men however, most are left to stay on the side of evil. Women, however, are clearly savable and redeemable.

I have no idea what you're talking about here. A male villain can't be redeemed? Have you even seen a movie?

I have, but consider how most comic book fair tends to run. 9 times out of 10, you cannot save the men. They are pure evil and psychotic, but when a woman stands on the enemy team, there's a high likelihood that she can be saved, be it the power of love or some other magical power. I'm not saying that men can't be saved, just that most of the time, either no one bothers, or the character is so stock and bland that they literally have no driving force beyond being evil, while somehow the woman in question is usually treated with kid gloves, and later, given the chance to turn good, or at least "not so evil".

I don't really have the time to count, but I'm guessing that at least some of these 4.190 redeemed villains are male.
http://villains.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Redeemed_Villains

 

[Charli]

Benevolent sexism is indeed a thing, but you are caricaturing it. Many feminists caricature it too, actually.

But as a concept I don't see why people have such a problem with it. MRAs constantly complain about what others would consider "benevolent sexism", which is essentially the preferential treatment of women by men. "Women and children first" was benevolent sexism. Women getting lighter prison sentences is benevolent sexism. The abuse of women being taken seriously and the abuse of men being treated like a joke is, again, benevolent sexism.

It's not, as you are suggesting, the same thing as "being polite". If you are polite to women in the same way you'd be polite to men (I'm assuming you'd hold the door open for anyone) that is by definition not "benevolent sexism".

And any feminist that does call that specific act of politeness "benevolent sexism" needs to chill the hell out. But I am unconvinced that many of them do that.

Well exampled and explained. That holding the door thing has become a buzz phrase for people who want to dismiss any kind of feminism/sexist behaviour and I'm rather tired of it.

You cannot use contextless buzz phrases and words to explain behaviour. It just does not work, which is why I rather detest these studies that focus more on attention grabbing.

 

[pearcinator]

Reminds me pretty much of this;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ogw1NN0Fb0[/youtube]

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I tend to just ignore the debate entirely.

 

[Lupine]

I'm sorry, but this particular fallacy has always been stupid to me. Humanity isn't a hive mind and we sure as heck aren't all working on the same sorts of problems all the time.

Maybe we should - it might mean we actually get something done about them.

I get what you're saying, but the problem is that too many people are focusing attention on little things like this, making them their whole worlds, and when confronted with bigger issues, they just respond with a shrug. It'd be nice if more people could focus on more than one thing at a time with stuff like this voluntarily and have a better sense of priorities and perspective, but they don't. So maybe in that case an effort should be made to make the high-priority issues bigger in the public imagination.

The important part is that we shouldn't be demonizing anyone. What we should be doing however is trying to not only understand and accept one another....

On this, we agree.

If you want to argue mountain out of a molehill that's fine, but if you've ever seen enough molehills together you start to realize that something doesn't need to be a bloody mountain to ruin your yard.

Maybe so, but if the mountain next door is spewing fire, maybe you should be more worried about that than a possible sprained ankle or hurt feelings.

Except that isn't true. Sure no one person has all the answers to any of humanity's problems and even the ones we do have, there are always people that are going to have differing ideals and thus ideas when it comes to said answers. But in short there is absolutely no proof at all that people are spending more time on small problems than big. Heck if anything it seems quite the opposite, all the money and focus tends to be on the rather big problems humanity faces on average and even then, I utterly despise your decision to judge people's priorities and perspectives with so little in the way of knowing what they might be or simply straight up ignoring the inherent relativity of this whole thing honestly.

You talked about a fire spewing mountain and well, why that is dramatic and all, I'm going to say that said mountain doesn't mean much if you're naked in the snow at the base of it. Sure the fire is a big deal, but if you aren't going to live long enough for it to matter it suddenly isn't that big of a fixture in your world.

You see that's the problem with people in general; there are a lot of them, so many so in fact that you could never in your life meet every single one. Seven billion on the planet my friend and you nor I nor anyone else has the position to judge any of them outside of the authority given to the law to do just that by those same people in the first place. Don't get me wrong, I understand that it is hard to have a non-selfcentric view of the world and the people in it, but all of your complaints seem not only culturally specific and I'd point out that even if they are actually valid ones at that, you are more than likely just selling your own culture short based on what you see or don't see in your area. And don't get me started on something like the media which is pretty laughable when you take the time to realize that most media outlets have become about ratings and thus they are obviously pushing an agenda toward that end. An agenda that usually involves conflict, whatever the variety.

In short there are lots of people and lots of problems. No one just chooses one and just because you take the moment to discuss a small one doesn't magically steal all your care for the bigger ones. Honestly the world has enough horror and enough beauty for all of us and no matter what I feel like we'll all eventually have eaten at both those tables in our lifetime. The only choice really to be had is which one you'll invite people to with your invite...er...life.

... I had a guy slam a door in my face and call me a pussy for trying to hold the door open for him...

Holy shit, I hope you knew the guy. If not, that man will get far in life :/

He was a random guy I encountered when I did nightclub security in college.

I was walking out of the Casino after shift and I go the door to open it for him to let him through as he was right behind me. I turn around to look at him so I can smile and wish him a good night, I was out of uniform at the time, and he just grabs the handle, pushes the door into my face then closes and reopens it himself, as he walks off he says, and I'm paraphrasing from memory here as it was years ago, "ya fucking pussy, I ain't your ***** bro" then storms off. He didn't seem drunk or anything, I didn't want to confront him since he had just left the property and didn't really hurt me or anything. I remember being absolutely pissed most of the next day though, trying to think of all these witty comebacks I should have thrown back at him but was too shocked to do so at the moment it happened.

If there's one thing working security around so many people taught me back then, it's that somebody is going to get pissed at you for something, no matter what you do, it could be for a completely stupid reason, or a real mistake on your own or their part, but it will happen, even the most innocuous gestures could set someone off for some reason or another.

Bro you are preaching to the choir here. I've worked customer service and let me just say, yeah on the large people are going to be asshats no matter the situation (at least the person will) but as you said before, being a good person isn't letting assholes dictate your behavior but rather doing what's right in spite of and sometimes to spite the assholes because it is right and you'd like to see a bit more right in the world than there was a moment before.