The first thing to note is that there is no single, standard usage of the term “sexism.” It is used in many different ways, even by those who are united in opposing it. For example, Janet Radcliffe Richards defines it, albeit in passing, as counting “sex as relevant in contexts in which it is not.”10 Mary Anne Warren says that sexism “is usually defined as wrongful discrimination on the basis of sex”11 and that discrimination “based on sex may be wrong either because it is based on false and invidious beliefs about persons of one sex or the other, or because it unjustly harms those discriminated against.”12
Others think that a definition of this kind is inadequate and that sexism involves at least one further element, which is variably described as the subordination of one sex to the other, the domination of one sex by another or the oppression of one sex.13 Those who think that some such additional element is required for sexism to exist typically think that sexism must be a systemic phenomenon, because subordination, domination or oppression could not exist without systemic discrimination. They also think that such additional conditions for sexism preclude the possibility that males could be the victims of sexism. This is because they deny that males suffer from subordination or being dominated or oppressed. In addition they might deny that discrimination against males, even if it exists, is systemic in some other way.
There are innumerable versions and combinations of these views and I obviously cannot consider them all. However, I shall consider a few examples.
Richard Wasserstrom says that “racism and sexism should not be thought of as phenomena that consist simply in taking a person’s race into account… in an arbitrary way.”14 It must also be the case that this occur
in the context of a specific set of institutional arrangements and a specific ideology which together create and maintain a specific system of institutions, role assignments, beliefs and attitudes. That system is one, and has been one, in which political, economic, and social power and advantage is concentrated in the hands of those who are white and male.15
According to this understanding of sexism, it must be systemic and the system must favor those who enjoy overall power.16 Marilyn Frye is another who thinks that sexism must be systemic and to the overall advantage of some. She says that “the locus of sexism is primarily in the system or framework, not in the particular act”17 and that the “term ‘sexist’ characterizes cultural and economic structures which create and enforce the elaborate and rigid patterns of sex-marking and sex-announcing which divide the species, along lines of sex, into dominators and subordinates.”18
These definitions of sexism are, in one sense, broader than mine, but in another sense they are narrower. It will be recalled that I have defined “sexism” as wrongful discrimination on the basis of a person’s sex. The definitions of Professors Frye and Wasserstrom are broader in the sense that they focus not on an individual act, but a system into which the act does (or does not) feed. However, their definitions are narrower than mine in another sense. If we follow their lead, fewer actions will count as sexist. This is because it is only a subset of actions that wrongly discriminate against people on the basis of their sex that creates or contributes to hegemonies.
What can be said in favor of the definitions that compete with mine? Professor Frye asks us to consider the following case:
If a company is hiring a supervisor who will supervise a group of male workers who have always worked for male supervisors, it can scarcely be denied that the sex of a candidate for the job is relevant to the candidate’s prospects of moving smoothly and successfully into an effective working relationship with the supervisees.19
This case is intended to show that unfair discrimination cannot consist merely in treating people differently on the basis of an arbitrary or irrelevant attribute such as their sex. This is because, it is said, sex is not irrelevant in this case to the ability to perform the job. What Professor Frye finds problematic about the case is that if a woman is not hired, this will feed into a broader system in which females are disempowered.
I agree that systems can be sexist and I agree that systematic exclusion of women from particular positions is sexist. However, I deny that unfair discrimination must reach the systemic level in order to constitute sexism. I shall say more about this later, but now I shall indicate why the “irrelevant characteristic” view is able to account for Professor Frye’s case. First, we should note that the relevance of the applicant’s sex in her case is dependent on the attitudes of those workers who will be supervised. If they had different attitudes to women or to female supervisors then a female supervisor would be able to function as effectively as a male one. Thus we need to ask whether the differential attitude that the workers have toward male and female supervisors was based on an irrelevant characteristic. The answer to that question is affirmative and thus we could conclude, following the view that Professor Frye rejects, that the workers have sexist attitudes.
There is now a secondary question whether the people hiring the supervisor should take those sexist attitudes as a given or whether they should override them. While I doubt that a categorical answer can be given to this question, I strongly suspect that much more often than not, they should not pander to the sexist views. For example, historical experience suggests that pandering to such views only reinforces them (which is problematic, independent of systemic concerns). By contrast, resisting prejudice by opening positions to people irrespective of their sex (or race), although it can have teething problems, helps to break down prejudicial attitudes. In all cases where those hiring should hire the woman despite the workers’ attitudes, pandering to sexism could be said to be derivatively sexist.
Professor Wasserstrom provides a different case. He says that what was primarily wrong with human slavery was “not that the particular individuals who were assigned the place of slaves were assigned there arbitrarily because the assignment was made in virtue of an irrelevant characteristic, i.e., their race.”20 Instead, he says, the primary problem is with the practice itself — “the fact of some individuals being able to own other individuals and all that goes with that practice.”21
Does the case of human slavery really show that the “irrelevant characteristic” account of racism or sexism fails? I do not think so. There are at least two possible alternative reasons. According to the first, it is precisely because what is primarily wrong about slavery is that people are treated as chattel that the wrong is not primarily one of discrimination. Given this, it should be unsurprising that racism fails to provide an exhaustive account of what is wrong with slavery. Of course, where race is the criterion for who may be enslaved, then racist discrimination is a further wrongful feature of slavery, but there is no reason to think that the underlying wrong of slavery must be explained in terms of racism and thus in terms of the “irrelevant characteristic” account of racism. What this nicely illustrates is that some actions may be wrong for more than one reason and that discrimination may sometimes be a compounding wrong rather than the primary wrong.
10
Janet Radcliffe Richards,
13
See, for example, Marilyn Frye,
14
Richard Wasserstrom, “On racism and sexism,” in Carol Gould (ed.),
16
The “systemic” requirement is not sufficient. Discrimination against males may well be systemic. Those who deny the existence of a second sexism thus also require the condition that the system favors those who hold overall power. (This assumes that males hold overall power. I shall return to this assumption later.)
18
Ibid., p. 38. The precise wording of Professors Frye’s and Wasserstrom’s definition allows the possibility that males could be victims of sexism if discrimination against them were part of a system that concentrates power and advantage in the hands of (other?) males. However, it does not seem that either of them intended this loophole in their definitions.