Modern Sexism

Sexism consists of attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and practices at the individual, institutional, and societal level that involve negative evaluations of people or promote unequal treatment based on gender. Modern sexism, which represents current manifestations of sexism, includes both older, overt forms of sexism and more subtle and less often recognized expressions. By definition, sexism can be directed against both women and men. However, most psychological research focuses on antifemale sexism.

Although gender relations have, as a consequence of cultural, political, and social movements, shifted away from considerable inequality to emerging egalitarianism, particularly in economically wealthier countries, egalitarian norms have not resulted in full gender equality. On a societal level, this is reflected, for instance, by the frequency of interpersonal violence against women, the ongoing genderspecific division of labor, and the overrepresentation of men in decision-making positions. On an individual level, women report more experiences with interpersonal forms of sexism than do men, with women reporting about one to two sexist incidents per week traceable to traditional gender stereotypes (e.g., expectations about women's and men's behaviors and expressions of traditional gender stereotypes) and unwanted sexual attention (e.g., staring at body parts or unwanted sexual touching).

Rather than appearing in blatant forms of sexist behaviors or open endorsement of sexist beliefs, sexism has changed its appearance to covert and subtle manifestations. Modern sexism is expressed by a new language and new strategies. These changes are reflected in researchers' development of concepts that mirror contemporary forms of sexism. The most important developments during the past 15 years have been the concepts of modern sexist behaviors, modern sexist and neosexist beliefs, and the concept of ambivalent sexist beliefs, which will be outlined below. Characteristics of current manifestations of sexist behaviors are described, and then current manifestations of sexist beliefs are discussed.