Top Conservative Author Endorses ‘Benevolent Sexism’ [View all]

[TomCADem]

Source: Think Progress

Charles Murray, a scholar at the leading conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute, may be the most influential populizer of racist views in the country. His book The Bell Curve, which posits that black people are genetically less intelligent than whites, practically spawned an entire field of scholarship devoted to debunking it. His most recent book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 even made an appearance on the campaign trial during the recent presidential election.

Murray, however, appears to have set aside his retrograde views about race in order to tout equally backwards views about gender. In a short piece on AEI’s website, Murray recently suggested that “benevolent sexism” might be “healthy.” The only problem is that he appears not to have read the research on which he bases this extraordinary conclusion, which cited strong evidence that “benevolent sexism” was itself linked to discrimination against women and rape victims.

The paper in question, by Kathleen Connelly and Martin Heesacker, studies why “benevolent sexism,” understood as “an ostensibly flattering ideology that idealizes women who conform to feminine norms,” is so commonly accepted by men and women around the world. The authors find that “although benevolent sexism perpetuates inequality at the structural level, it might offer some benefits at the personal level” by giving men and women a sense of order and structure in their lives.

Though the authors see this as a concern, given that so-called benevolent sexism is net-destructive for women, but Murray believes this is knee-jerk liberal prejudice. “When social scientists discover something that increases life satisfaction for both sexes, shouldn’t they at least consider the possibility that they have come across something that is positive? Healthy” he asks rhetorically. “Something that might even conceivably be grounded in the nature of Homo sapiens?”


Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/12/01/1262431/top-conservative-author-endorses-benevolent-sexism/

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From the same Conservative Thinker who used standardized test scores to argue that African Americans are genetically less intelligent than White people, comes a new theory that uses a similar approach to justify sexism toward women. I guess we can expect the House Republicans to roll out this research to explain why they only have one woman committee chair! Its "benevolent sexism!"