Sexist people: these are the 8 beliefs that characterize them

Sexism can be seen in the smallest details of what we do or say on a daily basis.

Practically everyone has internalized certain sexist beliefs. From the feminists with the most years of militancy to the nicest doctors, to the philosophers with the most academic experience behind them. However, this is not strange: it must be taken into account that for most of history, human beings have lived without questioning their beliefs, human beings have lived without questioning sexism..

However, when we speak of sexist people, we are not referring to the entire human species, but rather to those individuals who still retain patterns of thought in which beliefs anchored in sexism are not only very evident, but are also rarely questioned.

In the following we will see which are the defining characteristics of sexist people and their thinking.

8 typical beliefs of macho people

It is clear that machismo can be overcome, and that the concept of "macho person" does not have to refer to the unalterable essence of a man or woman. Although it is difficult, it is perfectly possible to go from embracing totally macho behavior to reinforcing a much more egalitarian type of relationship.

However, in order to achieve this, it is necessary, first of all, to know how to to detect the signs of machismo that can be seen in everyday life and in whose and whose basis are the beliefs linked to sexism. Below you will find a list of the main ones.

A woman is not complete if she is not a mother.

Motherhood is understood as the culminating point at which femininity is expressed. That is why women who decide to become mothers are viewed either with disbelief or with bad eyes by macho people.

It is because of this belief that in some extremely conservative families young women are under great pressure to have children as soon as possible. are under great pressure to have children as soon as possiblebecause of the danger of passing their fertile life stage without offspring.

2. Women are made to stay at home

This is one of the most deeply rooted beliefs in the mentality of macho people. It is usually not expressed literally, but is the idea that underlies other kinds of statements.

For example, it is common to assume that any woman, just because she is a woman, will prefer to abandon her professional career when she has children, or that she knows how to cook well, or that she knows how to decorate any home..

3. Women do not have leadership skills

Many people have so internalized the idea that women are submissive who view female leadership with incredulity, the possibility that it is not a man who is at the head of a work team, especially if it belongs to the professional field with high added value. Paradoxically, this belief causes women's ability to lead to be damaged.

4. Justification of street harassment

Under the belief that women like to receive compliments or feel desired, macho people take for granted that some people make approaches that are not only unwanted and unsolicited, but are often clear cases of street harassment.

5. Defense of traditional roles on the grounds that they are a tradition

The simple fact that gender roles have existed for centuries is no reason to oppose their questioning when it arises. However, macho people have an essentialist view of what it means to be a man or a woman, and questioning these concepts generates anger and frustration in them.and questioning these concepts generates anger and frustration in them.

6. Justifications of gender violence

Victim-blaming in cases of gender violence in cases of gender violence is the ultimate expression of machismo, since it reveals that not even in cases where it is clear that a woman suffers simply because she is a woman, the attacker is right and she is wrong.

Comments such as "she knew what she was exposed to" or "she shouldn't have dressed like that", very common in cases of sexual abuse, are paradigmatic examples of how they try to turn the situation around to put the spotlight on the one who has been attacked.

7. The feminine belongs to the family

Another typical attitude of macho people links the latter to the family, as if they were an extension of the nuclear family.. The idea that there are independent women with their own capacity to generate the income they need to subsist causes rejection.

This characteristic is, once again, a consequence of the fact that for millennia women have been confined to the domestic sphere, the place where the family lives and reproduces itself. It is therefore natural that some fathers want to decide the future of their daughters by deciding for them.

8. Disapproval of female sexuality

From the perspective of macho people, the only way in which a woman can be linked to sexuality is as an object, not as a subject. Women are rewarded for accepting their role as sexual objects for the consumption of others, but it is seen as wrong for them to live their own sexuality. it is seen as wrong for them to live their own sexuality as subjects.that is, people who perform an action instead of receiving it from others.

The source of sexism is patriarchy.

We must be clear that machismo is neither a political positioning nor anything like a mental disorder. Why? Because on the one hand, if we talk about machismo in individuals, we are referring to habits and beliefs that go far beyond the political ideology they may have, and on the other hand, it is too broad and complex a phenomenon to reduce it to mental problems of patients.

Macho people are not sexist spontaneously, nor because they have decided on political goals.They are not because they have decided on political goals that, from a rational perspective, convince them more than the rest. They are so because they have inherited a culture and a political, social and economic context that reinforces sexism and the supremacy of the male gender over the female. This context that reinforces sexist discrimination is called patriarchy.

Patriarchy is a set of material, relational and psychological conditions that make women victims of discrimination on the basis of their sex. that make women victims of discrimination because of the sex to which they belong. It is the root of the existence of sexist people, and the reason why advances in favor of women's rights cost so much.

In short, believing that someone becomes a chauvinist just like that is like assuming that the place where one is born has nothing to do with the possibilities of following one religion or another: it is necessary to take into account the context in which one lives.