Top Conservative Author Endorses ‘Benevolent Sexism’
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/
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!"
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It's right there in the dictionary.
...not 2012.
'compassionate conservatism'. 
Another oxymoron from the reality-challenged Fundy Fanatics. 
If he has a certain preference in women, and the attributes that he perceives as "feminine" parallel the social norm, that doesn't mean he has any ground for expecting anyone else to fulfill that norm.
What makes up the concepts "feminine" and "masculine" is inductively learned, based on instances of observing others. Some of those observed behaviors may actually be derived from the gender, but others may be based on society/culture and the environment.
For example, just because he observes many women being as mentally submissive as possible, that doesn't mean it defines the gender, or that any particular woman should develop herself around that norm. Same goes for men who think they need to be aggressive to be men. That observation doesn't mean that complete submissiveness is pertaining to the gender("feminine"
, and not a cultural exaggeration. That exaggeration certainly may have roots in a general physiological tendency towards being more submissive than men. But the degree observed in women, compared to the degree observed in men, can easily be the result of tendencies snowballing in both directions, through the culture over time. The observations we make can't control for cultural influences. The inability to control for cultural influences and environment is also a large crack in his Bell Curve.
Last edited Sun Dec 2, 2012, 05:34 AM - Edit history (1)
I mean, seriously, who gives a fuck what else someone like that has to say? 
(but who could blame them if they did?)
and that chair was forced on them and it's chair of the actual 'housecleaning' committee. 
Even that is a slap in the face.
That's not sexist!! Why can't everybody see that??
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