Benevolent Sexism

I was reviewing a paper recently and was faced with the notion of “benevolent sexism”, which refers to the idea that the relationships between men and women are interdependent and therefore gender roles are complementary to each other. This framework highlights and celebrates men and women who play separate parts in their domestic and sexual relationships, expecting women to be “naturally” warm and nurturing, whereas men naturally strong and independent.

Benevolent sexism differs from hostile sexism by presenting a seemingly positive, paternalistic view of women, idealizing their traditional roles and viewing them as needing protection, even while reinforcing gender inequalities. Hostile sexism is overt and negative, reflecting a belief in male superiority and an antipathy towards women, often viewing them as threats.

In other words, if adopting benevolent sexism expectations and rules, women are expected and thought to be best suited to take on caregiving and homemaking roles in the family, while men’s qualities of protector and provider make them better suited for paid work outside the home, praising those who adhere to such norms.

What does the research say about this?

Women who score higher in benevolent sexism, that is, hold more traditional gender role attitudes, do more household labor. And you might be thinking now, I don’t adhere to such view of the world, and I too do more domestic labor. Well, the difference is that those women who endorse benevolent sexism feel it’s only fair that they do more household tasks. In fact, they feel this is fairer than having chores more equally distributed.

What are the consequences of benevolent sexism?

Interestingly, women high on benevolent sexism do not experience higher conflict or lower satisfaction in their relationships when they do more of the labor. Because they do not view the unequal division of labor as unfair, they are buffered from experiencing the negative relationship outcomes typically associated with doing more of the household labor. Contrary to hostile sexism, that promotes distrusting relations between men and women and is associated with more dysfunctional and dissatisfying relationship dynamics and outcomes

So, in theory, women who endorse benevolent sexism, might be happier in their relationships with men than women who endorse feminism.

Oh well, should we stop being feminists and become good housewives?

Obviously not. Not only benevolent sexism is not a cure for relationship difficulties, but also worsens gender inequities, by undermining women’s well-being, competence, power, and leisure! So even if there are some relationship benefits of benevolent sexism, they don’t outweigh the costs.

References

Bareket, O., & Fiske, S. T. (2023). A systematic review of the ambivalent sexism literature: Hostile sexism protects men’s power; benevolent sexism guards traditional gender roles. Psychological Bulletin, 149(11–12), 637–698.

Brown, M. (2013). Benevolent Sexism, Perceived Fairness, Decision-Making, and Marital Satisfaction: Covert Power Influences, 76(6)

Gerst, K., Reifman, A., Niehuis, S., & Weiser, D. (2021). How Do Spouses’ Levels of Ambivalent Sexism Predict Allocations of Household Chores? Probing Why Women Still Perform Most of the Work in the U.S. Interpersona: An International Journal on Personal Relationships, 15(2), Article 2.

Glick, P., & Fiske, S. T. (1996). The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory: Differentiating hostile and benevolent sexism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(3), 491–512.

Lavee, Y., & Katz, R. (2002). Divison of Labor, Perceived Fairness, and Marital Quality: The Effect of Gender Ideology. Journal of Marriage and Family, 64(1), 27–39.

Trübner, M. (2022). Conflicts over the division of domestic work: A matter of gender-specific expectations and needs. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 39(9), 2825–2846.