Glick and Fiskes (1996, The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory: Differentiating hostile and benevolent sexism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 70, pp. 491512) make a distinction between hostile and benevolent sexism. The hostile form can refer to how traditional gender roles are encouraged through condemning non-conforming women. The benevolent form, in contrast, rewards women who maintain dependent relationships with men. But which form can be used to really understand male attitudes to abortion? The hostile stance is about punishing women. A "you've had sex, take the consequences" aggressive reaction to disliked sexuality. The benevolent form, in contrast, celebrates motherhood as the 'ideal' and therefore something which should be unflinchingly followed.
What your argument improperly refers to as the "hostile" form is not about "punishing women," it's more about seeing justice served via causality rather than to continue to allow the legal "undo" option for actions for which the possible and probable results are clear long before said actions are done, while at the same time killing an innocent human life. Many males who oppose abortion oppose it for reasons which fit into both the "hostile" and "benevolent" categories of "sexism" which your argument absurdly references. None of this is about "sexism." The "sexism" card is overplayed in this debate and it is irrelevant and completely false. We don't oppose abortion out of a dislike of women, but we do think that just like everyone else in every other situation, they--and their sexual partners--should be held accountable for their actions rather than getting to "undo" their mistake and kill an innocent life in the process. If anything, we want them to be equal, because in pretty much every other situation I can think of, people are held accountable for their actions. Why should women get a free pass out of causality any more than any other group--whether race, creed or gender? For instance, as it stands right now, if a man impregnates a woman during consensual sex, and the woman gives birth, the man is legally burdened with child support payments. He does not get any legal opt out of his payments. He doesn't get to say "oh I'll take an undo on that, that was a mistake and I shouldn't be held accountable." That argument would get him laughed at by the courts, he wouldn't get to opt out of child support payments. But a woman who makes the same "mistake" is able to legally say "I don't want this burden and therefore I will take an undo on that." And at the same time, it results in the unnecessary death of an innocent human life. How is it "sexism" to fight for equal accountability in terms of the causality of what resulted in a pregnancy?
My argument? You've gone astray straight away. This is a reference to types of sexism. Is all anti-abortion attitude sexist? Of course not. However, that doesn't give you an excuse to avoid the thread's topic and the relative importance of the different forms of sexism. Try again and please put some thought into it this time!
While I agree that the "hostile" type is about punishment - and that is easily proven by many members of this forum - I am not too sure about the "benevolent" type. The benevolent form is still in some ways controlling delegating womanhood to virtually the sole role of motherhood
I did find the choice of vocab interesting. You could suggest that its about legitimising sexism in itself (with the variations allowing a greater proportion of the male population finding their preferred 'option'). Both aspects though have been empirically tested and, whilst the resulting anti-choice attitudes are consistent with the theory, I'm unsure over the relative 'popularity' of the sexism types. A lot of the analysis arguably confuses the two
My God, your style of argument is incredibly condescending and snarky. It's a wonder your threads receive any responses at all. I guess now I've learned my lesson and will no longer respond to your threads. Just FYI, If I was mistaken, the decent way to carry on would be to simply say something like "I believe your argument is mistaken, and here's why:_______" There's absolutely no need to make the outright asinine, foolish and insulting implication that I "wasn't putting any thought into it at all or looking for an excuse to avoid the thread's topic." That's just plain stupid and inconsiderate. Seriously, your style of debate could really use some lessons in decency and proper conduct.
You haven't responded, that was the point you deliberately avoided! The title gives it away somewhat so you have no excuse for going for the horribly predictable reply
It's a response to the thread, regardless of whether it's a proper one or not. But again, there's no need for the condescending bull(*)(*)(*)(*) and outright stupid assumptions you made about me "not putting any thought into it" and "avoiding the initial point." I wasn't avoiding anything, I made a simple mistake. And I will admit that when I look at the title and read the opening post again, my response was knee-jerk and it was a mistake. But that's all it is--a mistake. It doesn't give anyone else the excuse to be an outright (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*) about it. There's a little thing called dignity and proper decorum. Your style could use it.
Glad to see you admit that you didn't achieve proper. Have another attempt if you want. It will be more interesting than your huffing
The reason I did that is because I have something called humility. Another trait your "style" could use. Neither form can be accurately used to "really understand male attitudes to abortion" because there are more variables to consider in a scientific attempt to understand the attitude of an entire group of people than TWO forms of SEXISM. Try posing an actually valid question which accurately assesses what it is that you're trying--and failing miserably--to "understand."
They've been investigated in empirical study. See, for example, Osborne and Davies (2012, When Benevolence Backfires: Benevolent Sexists' Opposition to Elective and Traumatic Abortion; Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Vol. 42 Issue 2, pp. 291-307): 2004), past research has treated gender-role attitudes as a unidimensional construct. The theory of ambivalent sexism (Glick & Fiske, 1996) holds that attitudes toward women form 2 distinct ideologies; namely, benevolent and hostile sexism. The current study examined the relationship between these ideologies and attitudes toward elective and traumatic abortion in a sample of Internet users (N = 529). As expected, both benevolent and hostile sexism predicted attitudes toward elective abortion, but only benevolent sexism predicted attitudes toward traumatic abortion. These results remained robust after controlling for important demographic factors. Such findings highlight the importance of differentiating between hostile and benevolent sexism when predicting attitudes toward complex issues. You're lacking objectivity, allowing your opinion to skew comment away from the available scientific study
Their so-called "investigation" was flawed and not objective. You're lacking objectivity, allowing your opinion to be dominated by the available scientific study which has been shown to be inherently flawed due to the lack of variables considered. Your argument is no more objective than the failure of a study you've regurgitated here, expecting people to automatically revere it as "accurate" when it is clearly not and lacks consideration of all available variables.
I've referred to published empirical evidence, with further reference to theoretical analysis. You've just stamped your foot and said its flawed. We both know that you can't actually refer to any flaws. Sorry chum, can't be bothered with such immature argument. Bye
I've shown how your so-called "empirical evidence with further reference to theoretical analysis" is inherently flawed and utterly fails to account for all--or even a reasonable number of--available variables. It's a failure of an investigation. You've just stamped your foot and said "my study is correct and you're wrong to say it isn't." We both know that your study is actually flawed, as it does not account for all variables related to its primary study group--which is the flaw I referred to (imagine that! ), but you're going to continue to stick by your study despite its inherent flaws, because that's what you do. Sorry, bub, can't be bothered with such immature argument. See you later.
Where did you show his study is flawed? I don't see how any study can take into account every variable. Is that ever possible? Nor do I see how you speak for everyman, although that seems to be what you are trying to imply. Regarding flawed studies which don't take account of every variable a person lacking in objectivity would like them to, your own "study", i.e. your view, is nowhere near objective or realistic. You appear to have constructed your opinions and are not open to the possibility of any other view. The law governs people. Their views have to be taken into account. Women and men have different roles regarding abortion. That can't be ignored. The woman owns her body. The man owns his. It is barbaric and unrealistic to ignore the rights of the woman over her own body, if you are suggesting abortion should be forced on her. No law is ever going to authorise that. The rights of the child also have bearing, if life can be saved it should be. It is incumbent on the male to consider his options in a realistic light. As you pointed out, he is fully aware of the possible outcome of his actions beforehand. He should act appropriately to avoid putting himself in that situation. His time for control is before the act, as he has no physical ability to change the outcome and he knows that well in advance. Why is he not to be accountable for his own actions? If you think this is unfair on the male, consider it as exactly the position men have put women in since the beginning of time by irresponsibly creating life and refusing to stand up to their responsibilities. They have always had the option to sow the seed and walk away, leaving the female responsible for the child. That has never been fair or equal toward women. The tables have turned and men are now being required to take responsibility for their own actions...forgive me if I don't feel that is a great injustice against men.
I don't want to think about either of those. They are both abhorrent. However, they are both relevant and overlapping IMHO.
Can we actually say they're both abhorrent? Reinforcing gender roles can be consistent with the preferences structure for all those involved. We see that with religion. And when we struggle to understand (e.g. the current series of 'My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding") are we just restricted by our inability to fully appreciate cultural effects?
I think you are attempting to identify a motive that fails to properly explain opposition to abortion rights. The focus is the life of the unborn, not the sex of the mother. Men cannot have babies. That's just a fact and those who are 'proife' cannot change the basic facts of reproduction.
As I've already said. The empirical evidence confirms the validity of these explanations for anti-choice attitudes. We of course know that there are other explanations, but even then we have possible cross-overs (as suggested by the previous reference to religion and how that can impact on perceived gender roles)
There are clearly more variables to take into account to attempt to understand male opposition to abortion than just two forms of sexism. Reiver himself admitted that not all anti-abortion attitudes are sexist. This includes male attitudes. His study is based on the false premise that male anti-abortion attitude can be understood based on two factors--two types of sexism. That's entirely false. If nothing else, many people here can prove that false, because their views on this topic have nothing to do with sexism. Again, like I said and have shown, this study is stacked and based on false premise. It does not allow for the contingency (or rather the fact) that there are males who oppose abortion whose views do not fall under either category of sexism offered by the study. Does that explain it for you? Or do I need to go into even further detail? Because I'm not entirely sure that's even possible. No, but when they deliberately confine a stacked study to two variables when there are clearly more than two to consider, it shows that the investigation is not following standards of empirical fact-finding. Well what may "seem" to you is quite obviously not the case. But ironically, the concept of me seeming to imply that I speak for "everyman" didn't stop your argument from continuing to go on and elaborate as if you're speaking for "every woman." That's false. You clearly have not been following along in other debates. I am not one who covers my ears and screams at the opposition for an indefinite period of time. When I'm faced with reasonable opposition and the debate ends up coming to subjective view--which it always inevitably does in the abortion debate--I bow out after respectfully acknowledging the opposition for a courteous enjoyable debate. This has happened on multiple occasions. The difference here being that Reiver's style--rather than having the previously mentioned standards of courtesy--is condescending, snarky, one-sided, not open for actual discussion and entirely dependent on ridiculous studies he links to and claims up and down that they're fact, regardless of how inherently flawed they are. Then, when faced with examples of flaws in his studies, he simply resorts to denial and calls the opposition immature while refusing to discuss any further. None of this has anything to do with the topic and is all hyperbole.
As I've already said and shown, your so-called "empirical evidence" is false and seems to be deliberately stacked against males who are anti-abortion. There is clearly more to consider than just two forms of sexism when attempting to understand the male attitude on abortion. But you, of course, are going to continue your huffing and banging your fist on the table, saying "I posted a link to a study, so you're wrong!" It just doesn't work that way.
You've shown nothing. You've just said "its wrong cos it doesn't agree with me". Sorry mate, not interested! If you can't be bothered with constructing a sound critique then I can't be bothered wasting my keyboard on you. Put that right and then I'll react accordingly...
And you continue to stew and bang your fist on the table. Sorry chap, but I've now pointed out multiple times how there are clearly more variables to consider in a study attempting to understand male opposition to abortion than just the two forms of sexism, but that your "so-called" investigative study fails to account for any other variables than those two. You yourself acknowledged that not all opposition to abortion is sexist, despite that your study limits the variables to two very inaccurate possibilities--when they don't even begin to fully explain the motive for male opposition to abortion, like Object227 pointed out. Your study is simply not an accurate investigation. If you can't be bothered with accepting sound critique of your study, then I can't be bothered wasting my keyboard on you either. Get over the denial you're going through and then you'll get discussion--which, ironically, is clearly not what you were going for when you created this topic.
I despise these form of fibbing tactics. It shows a complete disrespect for debate. The paper uses numerous control variables within an appropriate regression methodology. They include educational background, religiosity, political ideology and experience with abortion. Despite these controls, the measures of sexism behave as expected
