Enough with the doors!
I've opened doors for people my whole life. I've never been scowled at, or fussed at, for it. Never. N-E-V-E-R. I've known feminists, and postfeminists, and socialists, and communists, and every "ist" you can think of. There's only been a fraction of a percent who didn't smile and say "thank you" when I opened a door. The idea that someone would get outraged over it is, frankly, apocryphal nonsense. If you want to argue the merits of something like "benevolent sexism," please find something else.
Like this: "benevolent sexism" seems to be based on the idea that agency can be taken from women by men who don't necessarily mean to be sexist/misogynist. In my opinion, different women are going to have different ideas of what constitutes having power/agency taken from them (it's not like you're all in lockstep, right?). If that's the case, then it really is a highly individualized concept. If it's to be pursued or researched - or utilized as a tool for social learning - in any meaningful fashion, then, in my opinion, it will have to expand beyond "something I personally think takes my agency away" to a more standardized set of definitions.
I also didn't like the way the research worked; from one abstract by Kathleen Wakefield:
There are two things that I find insidious about the concept of "benevolent sexism."
First, by placing the "dependency stereotype" completely in the eye of the beholder, you completely ignore the intent of the man in question. Certainly, there's a possibility that it's some dipstick whose attitude is "lemme hep you, you poor l'il helpless woman." Those are usually pretty obvious. There's also a distinct possibility that a man is just simply trying to help another individual, and hasn't considered gender at all. In that case, are you a mind reader, to think you know my motivation in trying to help? Thing is, you aren't, and you don't.
Second, "awareness" of the "dependency stereotype" made women feel bad about asking for help. This is supposed to be improving your quality of life somehow? I'd tell a woman who was worried about the "dependency stereotype" the same thing I'd tell another guy who wouldn't ask for help because he thought it made him look weak, and here it is: if you need help, don't be a dumbass and worry about what some asshole thinks about it. Get help.
= new reply since forum marked as read
hasn't there been enough 'door' posts yet? And it's not about friggen 'doors' anyway.
holy mudder of gawd.
On a more serious note.... "I think the best thing you can do is provide all with equality of opportunity. "
Perhaps the problem with this whole dialogue people are having is that something someone does as a positive is being portrayed as a negative and only the enlightened few can see it and need to educate the rest about it.
Doing something for the opposite gender you don't do for you own gender is not always bad but can be labeled as sexist in a negative way. I do a lot of things different for women then I do for men but then I like me some women
If I hold the door (since that example is used a lot of late....) for any person carrying a lot that is a common courtesy, BUT I might hold the door open for a woman carrying nothing because I like women more than men. Not that I think they will ask me out if I do, not that I think they are too weak to open it, etc.
But there is also 'general knowledge' that could be construed as sexism - example: When I worked as a data center manager at chase our big HR director was coming in to town as well as a few others. The HR person was a lady and I was the guy who had to order food for the meeting.
We were getting pizzas and such but I ordered several different salads mainly for her (none of my engineers would have wanted them) because so many women I knew at the time preferred such. She was actually quite happy that I did and I joked with her about it all "I didn't want to seem sexist given all our training but I know many women like salads, and you being the HR lady I was not sure what the heck to do" We laughed about it and as predicted no one else (all men) wanted one. She took the rest back to her hotel with her.
I acted based on experience and general stats (salad ads are often targeted at women for a reason). Could it be categorized as sexist? Yep. Was it bad? Not in my view.
