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Power and Bias: Unpacking Sexism and the Structures of Patriarchy
Advanced Social Psychology · Chapter 6: Gender, Race, and Reducing PrejudiceSection 6.2 · lesson 34 of 8511 min · free with a free account
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In this lesson
Why the flattering half of a prejudice is part of the same system.
- Distinguish interpersonal, institutional, and structural sexism
- Articulate the hostile and benevolent components of ambivalent sexism
- Outline Walby's six structural sites and hegemonic masculinity
- Explain the double bind and the backlash effect
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Gender, Race, and Reducing Prejudice
Power and Bias
This section makes one argument that is easy to state and hard to accept. The flattering half of a prejudice belongs to the same system as the hostile half. Praise that specifies what a group is for does the same work as an insult. We build that claim through Glick and Fiske's ambivalent sexism framework. Then we move from attitudes to structures. Walby's six sites of patriarchy, and Connell's hegemonic masculinity. Then to the documented patterns in work and public life. And finally to backlash, which shows that succeeding against a stereotype has a price. The overall move is from sexism as an attitude to sexism as a system.
Three Levels
Defining Sexism
Sexism refers to prejudice, stereotyping, discrimination, or structural disadvantage. On the basis of sex or gender. Typically directed against women and gender-diverse people. Like other forms of group-based bias, it operates at multiple levels. Interpersonal sexism is attitudes and behavior between individuals. That is the level most people picture when they hear the word. Institutional sexism is policies and practices within organizations. Practices that produce unequal outcomes, with or without anyone intending them. Structural sexism is the cumulative pattern across institutions over historical time. And advanced analysis treats these three as mutually reinforcing. Not as independent problems you could address one at a time. An institutional practice normalizes an interpersonal attitude. And that attitude then defends the practice.
Glick And Fiske, 1996
Sexism Is Not a Single Attitude
Glick and Fiske built the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory in nineteen ninety-six. What it showed changed how the construct is measured. Contemporary sexism is not a single hostile attitude. It is a structured ambivalence, with two components that travel together. Hostile sexism expresses antipathy toward a specific set of women. Women perceived as challenging male dominance. Feminists, and career-oriented women, are the source's examples. They are framed as manipulative, competitive, and seeking unfair advantage. Benevolent sexism expresses subjectively positive attitudes instead. Positive but patronizing, toward women who conform to traditional roles. They are framed as pure, nurturing, and in need of protection. That second component is superficially flattering. And it legitimizes restricted roles, which is the point.
The Evidence
Why It Is Not a Counterweight
The tempting reading is that the benevolent half offsets the hostile half. That one is a counterweight to the other. The data says the opposite, and it says so at two levels. At the individual level, the two are closely associated. The same people tend to hold both attitudes. And at the national level, which is the more striking finding. Glick and colleagues showed this across countries, in the year two thousand. Higher benevolent sexism correlates with greater gender inequality. Measured on national indices, not on self-report. So the conclusion is forced by the correlation. Positive stereotypes are part of a coherent system of control. They are not a benign counterweight to the hostile ones. The carrot and the stick are held in the same hand.
Walby, 1990
Patriarchy, Made Empirical
Now move from attitudes to structures. Patriarchy, in contemporary sociological usage, refers to a social system. A system in which power is disproportionately held by men. And by male-dominated institutions. With corresponding constraints on the autonomy of women and gender-diverse people. Sylvia Walby made that claim empirical in nineteen ninety. She identified six structural sites through which patriarchy operates. Paid work. Household production. The state. Male violence against women. Sexuality. And cultural institutions. The strength of patriarchy in any society reflects the configuration across those sites. And here is the crucial property. The sites can change independently. That replaces patriarchy as a single monolithic claim. It replaces it with a structured analysis you can test site by site.
Connell
Hegemonic Masculinity
Raewyn Connell's work on the gender order added a second structural concept. Published across nineteen eighty-seven and nineteen ninety-five. She called it hegemonic masculinity. It is the configuration of masculine practice that, at a given historical moment. Legitimizes men's dominant position over women. And over subordinated masculinities. That second clause is important, and often dropped. The concept explicitly includes gay men. And men of color in racially stratified societies. Masculinity, on this account, is internally ranked. Now the property that makes the concept useful. Hegemonic masculinity is held by relatively few individuals. But it operates as a cultural ideal against which other masculinities are measured. Which explains how patriarchy is maintained even though most men do not embody it. You do not have to occupy the standard for the standard to govern you.
Warmth And Competence
The Double Bind, Predicted
Return to the stereotype content model from section five point six. Warmth and competence, from Fiske and colleagues in two thousand two. Applied to gender, it makes a direct prediction. Women, especially traditional women, are stereotyped as high in warmth. And low in competence. That is the paternalistic quadrant, the same one applied to the elderly. Career women and feminists are stereotyped in the opposite corner. Competent, but cold. That is the envious stereotype, applied to outgroups perceived as threatening status. Now put those two together and you get the double bind. Professional women are penalized for warmth deficits if they are assertive. And for competence deficits if they are communal. There is no position on that axis that avoids a penalty. And note the status of that claim. It is a prediction of the model. It is not an anecdote assembled after the fact.
In Work And Public Life
Four Documented Patterns
Structural sexism shows up in several well-documented patterns. The gender pay gap is women's median earnings as a share of men's. It persists across nearly all economies. Even after controlling for hours, occupation, and experience. Goldin's twenty fourteen research traces a substantial remaining gap to job structure. Specifically to greedy jobs, which reward long and inflexible hours. That is a structural account, not an attitudinal one. The glass ceiling describes a different pattern. The disproportionate scarcity of women in the highest leadership positions. Despite equivalent qualifications. The sticky floor describes the other end of the distribution. The concentration of women in the lowest-paid and least-mobile occupational tiers. And then there is the glass cliff, which deserves its own slide.
Ryan And Haslam
Why the Glass Cliff Is So Hard to See
Ryan and Haslam identified the glass cliff in two thousand five. It is the tendency to appoint women to precarious leadership positions. Positions right before a predictable failure. This one deserves separate attention because it inverts the signature of bias. The observable event is an appointment, not a rejection. So at the moment it happens, it looks like the opposite of discrimination. It looks like progress, and it is reported that way. The disadvantage is in the conditions, not in the decision. The position is precarious, and predictably so. And then the subsequent failure becomes available as evidence. Evidence about the appointee, rather than about the position. Now recall the ultimate attribution error, from section five point seven. A failure under these conditions gets attributed dispositionally. So it becomes further evidence for the stereotype that produced the appointment.
Rudman And Glick, 2001
The Backlash Effect
Rudman and Glick documented the backlash effect in two thousand one. It concerns what happens when women successfully behave agentically. Assertiveness, ambition, self-promotion. Note the word successfully. This is not about failing at it. Such women are judged competent, but disliked. And consequently penalized in hiring, promotion, and evaluation. There is an asymmetry here that the research is careful about. Men are not penalized for communal behavior with the same severity. Though they do face penalties for behavior coded as feminine. Specifically in high-masculinity contexts. What the backlash literature establishes is the important part. Prejudice operates not only through expectations of inferiority. It also operates through the punishment of counter-stereotypic conduct. Which reframes the counter-example strategy from section five point six. Succeeding against a stereotype does not disarm it. It triggers a second penalty.
Refinements
Three Complications Worth Holding
Three contemporary refinements complicate the picture, and all three matter. The first is intersectional analysis, following Crenshaw in nineteen eighty-nine. Patriarchal and racial systems interact rather than adding up. Black women, Latina women, and women of the global majority face distinct bias. Constellations of bias that cannot be reduced to either axis alone. The second concerns men, and it complicates the simple version of the story. Evidence on narrow precarious-manhood norms. Vandello and Bosson documented these in twenty thirteen. They complicate a picture in which patriarchy benefits men uniformly. The third is that the structures themselves have moved. Women's labor force participation and educational attainment expanded rapidly. That reshaped Walby's structural sites, without eliminating them. And it motivates continued theoretical revision. Which is exactly what a configuration model should require.
Consolidate
A System, Not a Set of Attitudes
The through-line of this section is worth stating once more. The flattering and hostile halves of gender prejudice are parts of one system. And that system is held in place structurally, not only attitudinally. Which means attitude-change interventions alone will underperform. Five terms to carry forward. Sexism, and its three mutually reinforcing levels. Ambivalent sexism, with its hostile and benevolent components. Patriarchy, analyzed across Walby's six structural sites. Hegemonic masculinity, held by few and governing many. And the glass ceiling and glass cliff, which are different failures. One question to carry into the next section. If gender roles are culturally supplied, what happens when the culture changes?
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