Sexism is the act of placing a belief that there are certain characteristics based on ones gender that affect one ability or capabilities in other unrelated life issues. This is manifested in discrimination of people basing on their sexes. In more clear language basing on traditionally assumed gender roles. The term is mostly applied in reference to discrimination against women however; it involves discriminating and holding into low regard a certain gender or rather discriminative skepticism. The following examples shed more light on the topic with clarity.
The most common belief is that among both sexes man is believed to be active, competitive, and aggressive than their female counterpart. On the same note, this leads to the belief that some tasks can only be performed to perfection gender. An example is leadership roles which the males are favored and as a result discriminating the female who have the same ability or better as demonstrated in today’s governance. On the other hand the belief by some people that men can never be good cooks can lead to discriminative sexism.
It is documented that rape perpetrators reveals hatred for women and have strong belief that males are dominant and can thus degrade women without remorse. It has been shown that these individuals target women and it is not coincidental. In other cases like in the developing world the belief that women are the weaker sex is very rampant. This is demonstrated by even eating habits where women are barred from eating certain delicacies reserved for men.
In other instances women may not prefer men cooks and have lead to discrimination. This is due to traditional belief that women were the ones entrusted with cooking and thus any man cooking may not be good to do the job or it is certain that the result will be pathetic. This can be proved wrong as men make top chefs.
It can be concluded that sexism is attaching specific attributes of weakness to certain gender leading to discrimination against such. However, this is not the case and it is a mere belief and a myth based on only traditional stereotypes.
