“There are a number of related but distinct explanations for why America has been sexist.
One is Coontz’s analysis discussed in lecture that America has used women to compensate for its cultural problems of extreme individualism.
Another explanation is a broad social group concept that people’s ideas about gender roles are based on informal socialization with other people. With this socialization, people make sense of the world by validating their points of view from each other and arriving at a shared group agreement about what’s right, typical, true, or good regarding gender roles. In this way, people can be socially and emotionally persuaded into believing something.
A third explanation is an individual psychological concept that sexism is a psychopathology, which is represented in an article by George Albee (1981; a former president of the American Psychological Association) on the prevention of sexism:
This approach considers sexist prejudice, sexist attitudes, and sexist behavior in individuals and groups to be a form of psychopathology. Sexism, like other forms of prejudice, can validly be regarded as a species of delusion – false beliefs rooted in emotional and personal needs.
Traditionally, a major criterion of mental disorders is the judgment that the person is so irrational and emotionally out of control as to be dangerous to others. According to this definition, sexists (along with anti-Semites, antigays, racists, and bigots of all kinds) should be defined as emotionally disturbed.
Prompt: How do you think sexism in America might be explained based on these ideas (or another explanation you may have that’s not listed here)? Although they all can make sense as parts of an explanation for a complex phenomenon, is one idea more or less useful or persuasive than another? Why, or what examples can you think of that fit with the ideas?
Write about two paragraphs of reflection of five sentences each for a complete response.”
