Sexism
Pauline M. Leet spoke the word sexism for the first time on the 18th of November 1965 during a Student-Faculty Forum at Franklin and Marshall College. She used the term to describe discrimination based on gender while comparing it directly to racism in her contribution titled Women and the Undergraduate. Caroline Bird later published the phrase in print within her speech On Being Born Female before the Episcopal Church Executive Council in Greenwich, Connecticut in 1968. Sociologists like Richard Schaefer argue that all major social institutions perpetuate this form of inequality today. Early female sociologists Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ida B. Wells, and Harriet Martineau described systems of gender inequality without using the specific word sexism itself. Peter Glick and Susan Fiske coined the term ambivalent sexism to explain how stereotypes about women can be both positive and negative simultaneously. Feminist author bell hooks defines sexism as a system of oppression that results in disadvantages for women across society.
Historians note that many pre-agricultural societies afforded women roughly equal social power to men despite lacking evidence supporting higher status claims. After the adoption of agriculture and sedentary cultures, the concept that one gender was inferior became established most often imposed upon women and girls. Ancient Egypt allowed women property rights and court attendance yet their status still depended heavily on fathers or husbands. Written laws prevented women from participating in the political process in ancient Rome where they could not vote or hold office. Scholarly texts indoctrinated children in female inferiority throughout ancient China by teaching Confucian principles requiring obedience to father husband and son. Women of the Anglo-Saxon era commonly enjoyed equal status compared to other regions during that historical period. Witch hunts between the 15th and 18th centuries may have been fueled by sexism acting as an impetus for persecution. Heinrich Kramer wrote in Malleus Maleficarum that all wickedness is but little to the wickedness of a woman while calling her a necessary evil. In Saudi Arabia witchcraft remains illegal today with punishments including death for those accused.
U.S. and English law observed the system of coverture until the 20th century where the legal existence of a woman was suspended during marriage. U.S. women were not legally defined as persons until Minor v. Happersett ruled in 1875. French married women obtained the right to work without their husband's permission only in 1965 after decades of restriction. West Germany granted this same employment freedom to women in 1977 following similar long-standing barriers. During the Franco era in Spain a married woman required permiso marital consent from her husband for employment property ownership or travel away from home. The permission requirement remained in place until it was abolished in 1975. Australian passport applications for married women had to be authorized by husbands until 1983. Yemeni marriage regulations state that a wife must obey her husband and cannot leave home without his permission today. Iraq allows husbands to legally punish wives under current laws. The Democratic Republic of Congo Family Code declares the husband head of household requiring wives to live wherever he chooses. Afghanistan imprisons wives who leave their marital homes for running away under de facto separation laws. India maintains restitution of conjugal rights ordering wives to return to husbands if they fail to do so.
New Zealand became the first country to grant women the right to vote in 1893 marking a pivotal moment in global suffrage history. Saudi Arabia extended voting rights to women as recently as August 2015 making it the most recent nation to achieve this milestone. Swiss women gained federal voting rights in 1971 while Appenzell Innerrhoden forced local voting access on women only in 1991 through Federal Supreme Court intervention. French women received the right to vote in 1944 after decades of exclusion from political processes. Greek women obtained voting rights in 1952 following similar struggles across Europe. Liechtenstein held a women's suffrage referendum in 1984 granting women the ballot. Studies show that women remain represented using gender stereotypes in press coverage within democracies like Australia Canada and the United States today. Female candidates face more emphasis on personal qualities such as appearance and personality compared to male counterparts. The ratio of women to men in legislatures serves as a measure of gender equality used by the United Nations Gender Empowerment Measure. Lanyan Chen noted that since men serve as gatekeepers of policy making women's needs often go unrepresented in China.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found in 2008 that women earn 17% less than men globally despite expanded employment rates. OECD data indicates about 30 percent of the variation in gender wage gaps across countries can be explained by discriminatory practices in labor markets. Women who enter predominantly male work groups experience tokenism leading to performance pressures social isolation and role encapsulation. Research shows mothers in the United States are less likely to be hired than equally qualified fathers if they receive offers they get lower salaries. Joan C. Williams raised issues with methodology in studies claiming female applicants were favored due to unusually well-qualified fictional candidates. Eurostat estimated an average gender pay gap of 27.5% in 27 EU member states in 2008 after accounting for characteristics. In the United States female full-time year-round workers earned 77% as much as male counterparts in 2009. When the Equal Pay Act passed in 1963 female full-time workers earned only 48.9% as much as male full-time workers. South Korea maintains a long-established practice of laying off female employees upon marriage within its corporate sector. Professor Linda C. Babcock's book Women Don't Ask reveals men are eight times more likely to ask for pay raises than women.
Feminist writer Joy Goh-Mah argues that objectified persons are denied agency through treatment as tools or things lacking autonomy. Philosopher Martha Nussbaum defined seven properties of objectification including instrumentality denial of autonomy inertness fungibility violability ownership and denial of subjectivity. Rae Helen Langton added reduction to body reduction to appearance and silencing to this philosophical framework. Norway and Denmark enacted laws against sexual objectification in advertising allowing nudity but banning bikinis draped across cars. Israel bans billboards depicting sexual humiliation or presenting humans as objects available for sexual use. Catharine MacKinnon argues pornography contributes to sexism by reducing women to mere tools and portraying them in submissive roles. She defines pornography as graphic sexually explicit subordination of women through pictures and words showing dehumanization or pain. Robin Morgan and Catharine MacKinnon suggest certain types of pornography contribute to violence against women by eroticizing scenes where women are dominated coerced humiliated or assaulted. Sex workers face higher rates of violence and sexual assault often dismissed ignored or not taken seriously by authorities globally. Prostitution is condemned by the European Women's Lobby as an intolerable form of male violence according to Carole Pateman.
The United States Supreme Court ruled in June 2020 that federal civil rights law protects gay lesbian and transgender workers from firing based on gender identity. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that employers fire individuals for traits they would not question in members of a different sex under Title VII. The ruling did not protect LGBT employees in businesses with fewer than 15 workers from being fired based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Kimberly Nixon filed a complaint with the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal in August 1995 after Vancouver Rape Relief & Women's Shelter denied her volunteer counseling role due to trans status. The shelter argued she could not provide effective counseling because she had been socialized as male during formative years. The Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear Nixon's case regarding illegal discrimination under Section 41 of the British Columbia Human Rights Code. The 2008, 09 National Transgender Discrimination Survey showed Black transgender people in the United States live in extreme poverty more than twice the rate for all transgender people. The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey published in December 2016 updated findings on discrimination rates across communities. Only nine countries conscript women into armed forces including China Eritrea Israel Libya Malaysia North Korea Norway Peru and Taiwan today.
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Common questions
When did Pauline M. Leet first use the word sexism?
Pauline M. Leet spoke the word sexism for the first time on the 18th of November 1965 during a Student-Faculty Forum at Franklin and Marshall College.
Which countries granted women voting rights in 1971 and 1991 respectively?
Swiss women gained federal voting rights in 1971 while Appenzell Innerrhoden forced local voting access on women only in 1991 through Federal Supreme Court intervention.
What percentage wage gap existed between female and male full-time workers in the United States in 2009?
In the United States female full-time year-round workers earned 77% as much as male counterparts in 2009.
How many countries currently conscript women into armed forces today?
Only nine countries conscript women into armed forces including China Eritrea Israel Libya Malaysia North Korea Norway Peru and Taiwan today.
When was the Equal Pay Act passed and what was the initial wage ratio for female workers?
When the Equal Pay Act passed in 1963 female full-time workers earned only 48.9% as much as male full-time workers.