Chivalry Must Die: Recognizing Benevolent Sexism
“Women can paint at an easel, but physically they are quite unfit to work at a large drawing board,” an editorial in London’s The Building News opined in 1908. The Western Architect reprinted this opinion from across the pond, apparently finding the idea that reaching over a large drawing board “is physically more than any woman should be called upon to bear” compelling enough to share with its readers. It is unclear who these gentlemen thought operated laundry-wringers, labored with men in the fields, worked in the chain factory, or performed all manner of other physically demanding tasks.
While historically gender was generally not seen as a barrier to supervising construction, it was another matter if climbing a ladder or scaffolding was required of the female architect. “As far as I can gather, it is not the climbing that is objected to, but the fact that she may be seen climbing a ladder,” architect Ethel Charles wrote in 1902. “Climbing a ladder is seen as unwomanly.” The issue was not owing to attire since bloomers and divided skirts had been available to women for years.
The concern of these male architects for women’s physical comfort and womanliness is an example of benevolent sexism. Unlike hostile or overt sexism, benevolent sexism is couched in terms that seem courteous, protective, or gallant: Women shouldn’t have to lean over drawing boards or climb ladders (so they shouldn’t be architects); women are experts at domesticity (so they should only design homes); men should take care of women (so women don’t need to earn as much as men). At performance reviews, benevolent sexism can lead employers to evaluate the warmth of their female employees instead of their competence.
Psychologists Peter Glick and Susan Fiske first wrote about benevolent sexism. There is some correlation between benevolent and hostile sexism. “The hostile sexist nations are also the benevolently sexist nations,” Glick said in an interview with Jay Dixit. “But if you compare men’s and women’s scores on benevolent sexism, we don’t find as big a gap. Because benevolent sexism sounds really nice.”
However, “Benevolent sexism harms women in multiple ways by: (a) justifying and reinforcing hostile sexism, (b) fostering often unrecognized discrimination that limits women’s opportunities and diminishes their performance, (c) eliciting backlash when resisted, and (d) sapping women’s personal ambitions and resistance to inequality,” Glick writes.
Benevolent sexism harms women. It also reinforces stereotypes for all genders. We need to learn to identify benevolent sexism so we can stop it.
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This 1901 stereograph of a man doing the wash while a woman watches illustrates the threat to the social order some feared owing to the women’s suffrage movement. Underwood & Underwood, ©1901.
Sources
Charles, Ethel, “A Plea for Women Practising Architecture,” The Builder, February 22, 1902.
Glick, Peter, “BS at Work: How Benevolent Sexism Undermines Women and Justifies Backlash,” Gender & Work: Backlash and the Double Bind, Harvard Business School: n/d.
Dixit, Jay, “The Science of How ‘Benevolent Sexism’ Undermines Women: A Summit Q&A with Peter Glick.” Your Brain At Work, Sept. 5, 2018.
“Women as Architects,” The Western Architect, June 1908: 67 – 69.