Reverse sexism

Sociological concept

For a definition of the term "reverse sexism", see the Wiktionary entry reverse sexism.

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Masculism

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* Fathers' rights movement
* Intactivism
* HimToo movement
* Men's movement
* Mythopoetic men's movement
* Men's liberation movement
* Men's rights movement

Topics and issues

|  Topics

* Sex differences in humans
* Human male sexuality
* Gender equality

* Misandry
* Hegemonic masculinity

* Effeminacy
* Gender roles
* Machismo

* Gender neutrality

* Men in feminism

* (Pro-feminism
* Anti-feminism)

Issues

* Discrimination against men
* Violence against men
* Male expendability

* Circumcision controversies

* (Genital mutilation
* Forced circumcision)

* Rape

* (Prison rape
* False accusation of rape
* Rape of males)

* Domestic violence (against men)
* Violence against LGBT people

* (Homophobia
* Gayphobia
* Gay bashing
* Transphobia)

* Conscription

* Reproductive rights
* Paternal rights and abortion
* No-fault divorce
* Sperm theft

* Reverse sexism
* Toxic masculinity

By country

|  Men's rights

* India

Fathers' rights

* Australia
* Italy
* United Kingdom
* United States

Lists and categories

* Index of masculism topics
* Masculism
* Masculists
* Men's movement
* Men's organizations

See also

* International Men's Day
* Minister for Men
* Movember
* Men's studies

* v
* t
* e

Reverse sexism is a controversial term for discrimination against men and boys, or for anti-male prejudice.[1][2][3] The term has been used to claim that men have become the primary victims of sexism.[4] Specifically, opponents of affirmative action argue that men and boys are systematically discriminated against in employment and school admissions.[5]

Reverse sexism has been compared by sociologists to the concepts of "reverse racism" and "reverse ethnocentrism" in that both are a form of backlash by members of dominant groups (e.g., men, whites, or Anglos).[6] Reverse sexism is rebutted by analogy with the criticism of reverse racism as a response to affirmative action policies that are designed to combat institutionalized sexism and racism.[7] In more rigid forms, this stance assumes that the historic power imbalance in favor of men has been reversed,[8] and that women are now viewed as the superior gender or sex.[9]

Feminist theorist Florence Rush characterizes the idea of reverse sexism specifically as a misogynist reaction to feminism; men's rights activists such as Warren Farrell promote the idea of reverse sexism to argue that the feminist movement has rearranged society in such a way that it now benefits women and harms men.[10] In the preamble to a study on internalized sexism, Steve Bearman, Neill Korobov and Avril Thorne describe reverse sexism as a "misinformed notion", stating that "while individual women or women as a whole may enact prejudicial biases towards specific men or toward men as a group, this is done without the backing of a societal system of institutional power".[11]

## See also

[edit]

* Antifeminism
* Feminist separatism
* Male privilege
* Masculism
* Misandry
* Reverse discrimination

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Suedfeld, Peter (2002). "Postmodernism, Identity Politics, and Other Political Influences in Political Psychology". In Monroe, Kristen R. (ed.). Political Psychology. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. p. 321\. ISBN 978-1-135-64661-5.
2. ^ Johnson, Allan G. (1997). The Gender Knot: Unraveling Our Patriarchal Legacy. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. p. 170\. ISBN 978-1-56639-518-2.
3. ^ Neely, Carol Thomas (1981). "Feminist Modes of Shakespearean Criticism: Compensatory, justificatory, transformational". Women's Studies. 9 (1): 3–15\. doi:10.1080/00497878.1981.9978551. ISSN 0049-7878.
4. ^ Roden, Jessica (2022). "#MeToo Movement Backlash: How Evaluations of Women Advocates as More 'Sexist' Weaken Movement Support". Media Psychology. 25 (6): 763–778\. doi:10.1080/15213269.2022.2064877. ISSN 1521-3269. "'Reverse sexism' is the notion that men have replaced women as the victims of gender discrimination, despite ample evidence showing otherwise."
5. ^

* Masequesmay, Gina (2008). "Sexism". In O′Brien, Jodi (ed.). Encyclopedia of Gender and Society, Volume 2. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE Publications. p. 750\. ISBN 978-1-4522-6602-2. "In a cultural backlash, the term reverse sexism also emerged to refocus on men and boys and their disadvantages, especially under affirmative action."
* Masequesmay, Gina (11 June 2014). "Sexism | Sexism and the men's movement". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 17 March 2025.

6. ^ Renfrow, Daniel G.; Howard, Judith A. (2013). "Social Psychology of Gender and Race". In DeLamater, John; Ward, Amanda (eds.). Handbook of Social Psychology. Springer Netherlands. p. 496\. doi:10.1007/978-94-007-6772-0_17. ISBN 978-94-007-6772-0.
7. ^ Garcia, J. L. A. (1997). "Racism as a Model for Understanding Sexism". In Zack, Naomi (ed.). Race/Sex: Their Sameness, Difference and Interplay (1st ed.). Routledge. p. 46\. doi:10.4324/9780203760604. ISBN 978-0-203-76060-4.
8. ^ "Sociological Abstracts: Supplement — Issues 67-77". International Review of Publications in Sociology: 202. 1977. ISSN 0038-0202.[full citation needed]
9. ^ Collins, Georgia; Sandell, Renee (1984). Women, art, and education. Reston, Va.: National Art Education Association. p. 14\. ISBN 978-0-9376-5233-6.
10. ^ Rush, Florence (1990). "The Many Faces of Backlash". In Leidholdt, Dorchen; Raymond, Janice G. (eds.). The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism. Pergamon Press. pp. 168–169\. ISBN 978-0-0803-7458-1.
11. ^ Bearman, Steve; Korobov, Neill; Thorne, Avril (2009). "The Fabric of Internalized Sexism" (PDF). Journal of Integrated Social Sciences. 1 (1): 10–47\. ISSN 1942-1052.

* v
* t
* e

Discrimination

Forms|

* Institutional
* Reverse
* Structural
* Statistical
* Systemic
* Taste-based

Attributes|

* Age
* Caste
* Class
* Dialect
* Disability
* Economic
* Genetic
* Hair texture
* Height
* Language
* Looks
* Mental disorder
* Nationality or citizenship
* Race / Ethnicity
* Reverse
* Skin color
* Scientific racism
* Rank
* Sex
* Reverse
* Sexual orientation
* Species
* Size
* Viewpoint

Social|

* Arophobia
* Anti-albinism
* Acephobia
* Adultism
* Anti-altruistic
* Anti-autism
* Anti-homelessness
* Anti-drug addicts
* Anti-intellectualism
* Anti-intersex
* Anti-left handedness
* Anti-Masonry
* Aporophobia
* Audism
* Biphobia
* Fear of children
* Clannism
* Elitism
* Ephebiphobia
* Health
* mental
* in poverty
* Fatphobia
* Gayphobia
* Gerontophobia
* Heterosexism
* HIV/AIDS stigma
* Hypergamy
* Homophobia
* In-group
* Leprosy stigma
* Lesbophobia
* Against men
* Misandry
* Misogyny
* Misogynoir
* Nepotism
* Outgroup
* Perpetual foreigner
* Pregnancy
* Sectarianism
* Supremacism
* Aryanism
* Black
* Hutu
* Chauvinism
* Han
* Female
* Human
* Nordicism
* Male
* Ultranationalism
* White
* Transphobia
* Non-binary
* Transmisogyny
* Trans men
* Vegaphobia
* Xenophobia

Religious|

* Persecution of non-believers
* Atheism
* Blasphemy law
* Religious censorship
* In Islam
* Apostasy
* Religious police
* Jizya
* Religious persecution
* In China
* Exclusivism
* Baháʼí Faith
* Buddhism
* Christianity
* Persecution
* Catholicism
* Eastern Orthodoxy
* Coptic Christianity
* Jehovah's Witnesses
* LDS or Mormon
* Protestantism
* Tewahedo Orthodoxy
* post–Cold War era
* Falun Gong
* Hinduism
* Persecution
* Untouchability
* Islam
* Persecution
* Ahmadiyya
* Shi'ism
* Sufism
* Sunnism
* minority Muslim
* Judaism
* Persecution
* Neopaganism
* Rastafari
* Serers
* Sikhism
* Yazidism
* Zoroastrianism

Race / Ethnicity|

* Afghan
* Pashtun
* Hazara
* African
* Fulani
* Igbo
* Serers
* Albanian
* Arab
* Armenian
* Asian
* France
* South Africa
* United States
* Assyrian
* Australian
* Austrian
* Azerbaijani
* Black people
* African Americans
* China
* South Africa
* Bengali
* Catalan
* Chechen
* Chinese
* Han people
* Colombian
* Croat
* Dutch
* English
* Estonian
* Filipino
* French
* Finnish
* Georgian
* German
* Greek
* Haitian
* Hazara
* Hungarian
* Indian
* Indonesian
* Indigenous people
* Australia
* Canada
* United States
* Iranian
* Irish
* Italian
* Japanese
* Jewish
* Eliminationist
* New
* Religious
* Anti-Yiddish
* Zionist
* Korean
* Kurdish
* Lithuanian
* Malay
* Māori
* Mexican
* Middle Eastern
* Mongolian
* Montenegrin
* Nigerian
* Pakistani
* Palestinians
* Pashtun
* Polish
* Portuguese
* Quebec
* Romani
* Romanian
* Russian
* Scottish
* Serb
* Slavic
* Somali
* Spanish
* Taiwanese
* Tatar
* Thai
* Tibetan
* Turkish
* Ukrainian
* Uyghur
* Venezuelan
* Vietnamese
* Welsh
* White people

Manifestations|

* Algorithmic bias
* Anti-LGBTQ rhetoric
* SPLC-designated list of anti-LGBTQ hate groups
* Blood libel
* Bullying
* Cancel culture
* Capital punishment for homosexuality
* Carnism
* Cognitive
* Compulsory sterilization
* Corrective rape
* Counter-jihad
* Cultural genocide
* Defamation
* Democide
* Dog whistle
* Domicide
* Economic
* Education
* Academic
* In curricula
* Sexism
* Eliminationism
* Eliminationist antisemitism
* Employment
* Enemy of the people
* Environmental racism
* Ethnic cleansing
* Ethnic conflict
* Ethnic hatred
* Ethnic joke
* Ethnocide
* Excellence
* Gender-based dress codes
* Cosmetics policy
* High heel policy
* Forced conversion
* Freak show
* Funding
* Gay bashing
* Gendercide
* Transgender genocide
* Genital modification and mutilation
* Circumcision
* Female genital mutilation
* Intersex medical interventions
* Genocide
* examples
* Glass ceiling
* Hate crime
* Disability hate crime
* Violence against LGBTQ people
* Violence against transgender people
* Hate group
* Hate speech
* Institutional
* Abuse
* Discrimination
* Racism
* Homeless dumping
* Housing
* Hypergamy
* Age disparity
* Indian rolling
* International inequality
* Kill Haole Day
* Lavender scare
* LGBTQ+
* grooming conspiracy theory
* Linguicide
* Lynching
* Media
* Minority stress
* Moral exclusion
* Mortgage
* Murder music
* Native American mascots
* Braves
* Blackhawks
* Chiefs
* Occupational
* Apartheid
* Inequality
* Injustice
* Segregation
* Opposition to immigration
* Paper genocide
* Persecution
* Pogrom
* Political
* Political repression
* Ideological repression
* Purge
* Racialization
* Religious persecution
* Religious terrorism
* Religious violence
* Religious war
* Scapegoating
* Selective enforcement
* Selective prosecution
* Sentencing disparity
* Sexual harassment
* Sex-selective abortion
* Slut-shaming
* Structural abuse
* Structural discrimination
* Structural evil
* Structural inequality
* Structural violence
* Suicide
* Untermensch
* Trans bashing
* Victimisation
* Violence against women
* White flight
* White genocide conspiracy theory
* Wife selling
* Witch hunt

Discriminatory
policies|

* Algorithmic wage discrimination
* Age of candidacy
* Apartheid
* in South Africa
* in Israel
* Blood purity
* Blood quantum
* Breadwinner model
* Conscription and sexism
* Disabilities
* Catholic
* Jewish
* Disparate impact
* Fagging
* Gender pay gap
* Gender roles
* Protecting Women's Private Spaces Act
* Gerontocracy
* Gerrymandering
* Ghetto benches
* Internment
* Jewish quota
* Opposition to LGBTQ rights
* MSM blood donation restrictions
* No kid zone
* Numerus clausus (as religious or racial quota)
* One-drop rule
* Racial quota
* Racial steering
* Redlining
* Same-sex marriage (laws and issues prohibiting)
* Segregation
* age
* racial
* Jim Crow laws
* Nuremberg Laws
* Segregation academy
* religious
* sexual
* in Islam
* Social exclusion
* Sodomy law
* State atheism
* State religion
* Ugly law
* Voter suppression
* White Australia policy

Countermeasures|

* Affirmative action
* Anti-discrimination law
* Anti-racism
* Audit study
* Autism rights movement
* Blind audition
* Constitutional colorblindness
* Cross-sex friendship
* Cultural assimilation
* Cultural pluralism
* Diversity, equity, and inclusion
* Diversity training
* Empowerment
* Fat acceptance movement
* Feminism
* Fighting Discrimination
* Golden Rule
* Hate speech laws by country
* Human rights
* Intersex human rights
* Korenizatsiia
* LGBTQ rights
* Music in the movement against apartheid
* Nonviolence
* Racial integration
* Reappropriation
* Rock Against Sexism
* Self-determination
* Social integration
* Toleration
* Transgender rights movement
* Universal suffrage
* Women's rights

Related topics|

* Allophilia
* Alterity
* Amatonormativity
* Bias
* Cisnormativity
* Civil liberties
* Criminalization of homosexuality
* Dehumanization
* Diseases of despair
* Diversity
* Multiculturalism
* Neurodiversity
* Ethnic penalty
* Figleaf
* Gender-blind
* Heteronormativity
* Historical eugenics
* Internalized oppression
* Intersectionality
* Mad pride
* Masculism
* Medical model of disability
* autism
* Net bias
* Oikophobia
* Oppression
* Police brutality
* Respect
* Polyculturalism
* Power distance
* Prejudice
* Prisoner abuse
* Racial bias in criminal news in the United States
* Racism by country
* Racial color blindness
* Religious intolerance
* Second-generation gender bias
* Snobbery
* Social equity
* Social exclusion
* Social identity threat
* Social model of disability
* Social privilege
* Christian
* male
* white
* Social stigma
* Speciesism
* Stereotype
* threat
* The talk

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* Commons

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