Hostile Sexism
This portion that focuses on hostile sexism will once again provide a working definition of what it is, an example of how it may occur throughout life, and how its application may change with age and appear in different parts of life.
As previously defined, hostile sexism is the negative side of the coin that is the Ambivalent Sexism Theory. Sexists that would fall onto this side of the coin tend to view women as seeking to harm men. Along with that, gender equality is looked upon as an attack on men or traditional values. Sexists that align more so with hostile sexism also tend to be more of a threat to women.
Hostile sexism is felt in a variety of places in life. First, begin with a look at a case study involving the youth of our society. The research from the article “Wonderful but Weak”: Children’s Ambivalent Attitudes Toward Women” looked to see if children from ages 5 to 11 exhibited ambivalent sexism. They looked at two different places of society in the United States, New York(a more gender-egalitarian region) and Illinois(less gender-egalitarian). They found that there was a stronger agreement with both hostile and benevolent sexism in the younger children. Whereas the older children in the study would have less of an agreement with hostile sexism[4].
Sexism also occurs in the workplace with both hostile and benevolent sexism. In the workplace, hostile sexism comes about in various ways ranging from poor evaluations of women who violate traditional gender roles to not being recommended for leadership roles to being punished for thriving in a traditionally male role[5]. The kinds of treatment mentioned are the more subtle ways hostile sexism occurs in the workplace. While they may be fixed with time they are not held in the same regard as if someone is directly causing physical harm to the woman, though in the end, it may affect her mental health and self-image of her placement in the workplace.
This example of hostile sexism pertains to sexists who fall within this category and their rape proclivity. In this study, they aimed to find out if a man's potential victim type correlated with hostile sexism. They found that hostile sexism and rape proclivity were positively related however, victim type did not affect that relationship. This study led to the researchers suggesting that when it comes to rape, hostile sexists do not differentiate their targets between those who do not fit traditional gender stereotypes and those who do[6].
References:
[4] Hammond, Matthew D. and Cimpian Andrei. "“Wonderful but Weak”: Children’s Ambivalent Attitudes Toward Women." Sex Roles 84, no. 1-2 (01, 2021): 76-90. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11199-020-01150-0. http://mutex.gmu.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/wonderful-weak-children-s-ambivalent-attitudes/docview/2474583045/se-2?accountid=14541.
[5]Chawla, Nitya, Elena M. Wong, and Allison S. Gabriel. "Expanding the Discourse Surrounding Sexual Harassment: The Case for Considering Experienced and Observed Hostile Sexism, Benevolent Sexism, and Gendered Incivility." Industrial and Organizational Psychology 12, no. 1 (03, 2019): 79-83. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/iop.2019.13. http://mutex.gmu.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/expanding-discourse-surrounding-sexual-harassment/docview/2225056217/se-2?accountid=14541.
[6] Barbara MasserG Tendayi, VikiClair Power. "Hostile Sexism and Rape Proclivity Amongst Men." Sex Roles 54, no. 7-8 (04, 2006): 565-574. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11199-006-9022-2. http://mutex.gmu.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/hostile-sexism-rape-proclivity-amongst-men/docview/225370229/se-2?accountid=14541.