Macho People: These Are The 8 Beliefs That Characterize Them
Virtually everyone has internalized certain sexist beliefs. From the feminists with the longest years of activism to the kindest 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, the human being has lived without questioning sexism
However, when we talk about sexist people, we are not referring to the entire human species, but rather to those individuals who still retain thought patterns in which beliefs anchored in sexism are not only very evident, but are also rarely questioned.
We’ll see now What are the defining characteristics of sexist people? and of his thinking.
It is clear that machismo leaves us, and that the concept of “machista 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 sexist behaviors to reinforcing much more egalitarian types of relationships.
However, to achieve this it is necessary, first of all, to know detect the signs of machismo that are visible in everyday life and at the base of which are beliefs linked to sexism. Below you will find a list of the main ones.
Motherhood is understood as the culminating point at which femininity is expressed. That is why women who decide to be mothers are viewed either with disbelief or with bad eyes by sexist people.
It is because of this belief that in some extremely conservative families young women They suffer great pressure to have children as soon as possible faced with the danger of spending their fertile life stage without offspring.
2. Women are made to stay at home
This is one of the beliefs most deeply rooted in the mentality of sexist people. Normally it is not expressed literally, but is the idea that underlies other types 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 who knows how to cook well, or who 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 disbelief, the possibility that it is not a man who is in charge of a work team, especially if it belongs to the professional field with high added value. Paradoxically, this belief damages women’s ability to lead.
4. Justification of street harassment
Under the belief that women like to receive compliments or feel desired, sexist people accept that some people make approaches that not only are not desired or have been requested, but are often clear cases of street harassment.
5. Defense of traditional roles because they are tradition
The simple fact that gender roles have existed for centuries is no reason to oppose their questioning when it arises. However, sexist people They 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.
6. Justifications for gender violence
Blaming the victim In cases of gender violence, it is the definitive expression of machismo, since it reveals that even in cases in which it is clear that a woman suffers for the simple fact of being one, the attacker is right and she is wrong.
Comments such as “he knew what he was exposing himself to” or “he didn’t dress like that”, very common in cases of sexual abuse, are paradigmatic examples of how an attempt is made to turn the situation around to put the spotlight on whoever has done it. been attacked.
7. The feminine belongs to the family
Another of the typical attitudes of sexist people links the latter to the family, as if they were an extension of the family nucleus The idea that there are independent women with their own capacity to generate the income they need to survive 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. That is why it is natural that some parents want to decide the future of their daughters by deciding for them.
8. Disapproval of female sexuality
From the perspective of sexist people, the only way in which a woman can be linked to sexuality is as an object, not as a subject. It is rewarded for women to accept their role as sexual objects for the consumption of others, but It seems bad that they live their own sexuality as subjects that is, people who perform an action instead of receiving it from others.
It must be clear that machismo is neither a political position nor anything similar to a mental disorder. Because? Because on the one hand, if we talk about machismo in individual people, we are referring to habits and beliefs that go far beyond the political ideology they may have, and on the other, it is a phenomenon that is too broad and complex to be reduced to mental problems. of patients.
Sexist people are not spontaneously so, nor because they have decided on political goals that from a rational perspective convince them more than the rest. They are 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 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 sexist just like that is like assuming that the place in which 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 is born. lives.
