PREVALENCE OF

BENEVOLENT SEXISM IN
INDIAN SOCIETY

SUBMITTED BY: SURBHI ROHATGI (190159) B.A.P ENGLISH GENERIC

ELECTIVE
5TH SEMESTER RESEARCH PAPER

SUBMITTED TO: Dr. ANEETA RAJENDRAN

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, GARGI COLLEGE
UNIVERSITY OF DELHI
NEW DELHI-110049
DATE: 15TH NOVEMBER 2021

DECLARATION
I hereby declare the research paper ‘Prevalence of Benevolent Sexism in Indian
Society’ submitted by me to the Department of English, Gargi College is my own
work. This paper is submitted as an internal assessment of BAP (ENGLISH
GENERIC ELECTIVE). I further declare that the work reported in this project has
not been submitted and will not be submitted, either in part or full for any other
degree or diploma of this university or any other university.

Dr. ANEETA RAJENDRAN (MENTOR)

SURBHI ROHATGI (STUDENT)

TABLE OF CONTENTS
 Introduction 2-5
Objective of the paper 5
Thesis statement 5
Literature review 5-6
Data and methodology 7
Result Analysis 7-14
Conclusion 15
Bibliography 15

PREVALENCE OF BENEVOLENT SEXISM IN INDIAN

SOCIETY
BY: SURBHI ROHATGI
ABSTRACT
Women all around the world have been marginalized since ages. They have been
treated as second class citizens who had no access to education, employment
opportunities or any major human rights which are essential for a dignified life.
They have been treated as a commodity whose major job was to look after the
household doing basic chores like cooking and cleaning giving birth to children
and raising them. Misogyny, patriarchy, and sexism have been structured in such
a way that even after 75 years of independence, India still lags in gender equality.

INTRODUCTION
1. UNDERSTANDING AMBIVALENT SEXISM THEORY
As per Glick and Fiske’s Ambivalent Sexism Theory, sexism is a complicated
construct which embodies 2 different and contrasting sets of sexist behavior.
These are hostile and benevolent. Earlier it was considered that these two are
entirely and related to each other. But researchers have shown that these two are
interconnected. While hostile sexism has been openly criticized and received
rejection from society, benevolent sexism continues to be pervasive in a closely
knit society like India. This theory states that male dominance in society and
intimate interdependence is what influences the relations between the genders and
elicits ambivalent nature of sexism. Existing male predominance in almost every
social sphere leads to hostile sexism where direct hate is shown to women who try
to enter the male dominated arenas and it portrays women as weak and
incompetent. On the other side, the reproductive capability of women makes both
interdependent on each other and gives rise to benevolent sexism where women
are treated as delicate and as someone who needs protection all the time.
These subjectively hostile and benevolent sexist attitudes coexist as separated
good and bad subgroups. This means that to avoid inconsistency, ambivalently
sexist men have divided women into two subgroups: good and bad. Bad women,
like career oriented, ambitious, outsmart, opinionated women should be dealt with
hostile attitudes whereas, good women like housewives and mothers should be
treated with benevolence. They should be treated like they always need to stand
behind men for protection and support, so that they remain safe.

2. BENEVOLENT SEXISM
It is a form of sexism which is expressed subtly, and it is often seen in a positive
way. Benevolent sexism lays emphasis on men’s role of protecting and providing
for women by keeping them hidden in their homes in a chivalrous way. In
exchange, men demand compliance and obedience from women to traditional
gender norms. Benevolent sexism has three major characteristics on which it is
based. The first among them is protective paternalism. As the name suggests, this
is the belief that women need protection from men (fathers need to protect their
daughters, brothers need to protect their sisters, husbands need to protect their
wives and sons need to protect their mothers). This belief arises because women
are considered weak, pure, delicate, warm, and maternal. In Indian culture this
can be seen in various rituals like the festival of Raksha Bandhan where brothers
promise their sisters protection for lifetime. The second component is
Complimentary Gender Differentiation which means that biologically women and
men have attributes which are contrasting but complementary to each other. For
example, women are docile, submissive, graceful, and nurturing, thus they should
look after the family; men are competent, independent, morally corruptible, and
strong, thus they should go outside the house and work and take important
decisions. Both these roles are necessary for a healthy and happy family life, thus
they both should stick to their prescribed gender norms and complement each
other. The third component is heterosexual intimacy which means that men and
women are dependent on each other for emotional support and for reproduction.
Thus, it can be said without fail that benevolent sexism is a socially accepted form
of sexism and is endorsed by both men and women. It is a hidden mechanism
which is used to perpetuate the gender divide between men and women.
Benevolent sexism in fact is more damaging than hostile sexism because the cases
of hostile sexism can be explained as a reflection of the perpetrator, but same
cannot be done with cases of benevolent sexism. Benevolent sexism forces women
to act as per the expectations of society otherwise they would be labelled as “bad
women” and dealt with hostile sexist attitudes. Benevolent sexism is used for
those women who aren’t considered a threat to patriarchy like orthodox and
traditional women who follow prescribed gender norms blindly without raising any
questions. Benevolent sexism rewards those women who follow stereotypical roles
and punishes those who go against them. Women who are considered a threat to
patriarchy like those defying gender norms are treated with hostility.

3. CONSEQUENCES OF BENEVOLENT SEXISM

As per research conducted by Benoit Dardenne, women who were exposed to
benevolent sexist attitudes performed poorly in job interview and test. This
happened because benevolent sexist attitudes cause internal damage to the
psyche of women and makes them believe that they are less competent and lack
the required cognitive abilities. Laurie Rudman and Peter Glick stated that
benevolent sexist attitudes at workplace can hamper the productivity of women as
it prevents women from being offered high risk and challenging tasks. Women are
often offered low risk profiles which usually have slow career growth and are more
related to the traditional gender norms. For example, women are often asked to
decorate the office for some party since it is believed that women are better at it
than men. Glick and Fiske wrote in their paper, “We do not consider benevolent
sexism a good thing, for despite the positive feelings it may indicate for the
perceiver, its underpinnings lie in traditional stereotyping and masculine
dominance (e.g., the man as the provider and woman as his dependent), and its
consequences are often damaging. Benevolent sexism is not necessarily
experienced as benevolent by the recipient. For example, a man’s comment to a
female coworker on how ‘cute’ she looks, however well intentioned, may
undermine her feelings of being taken seriously as a professional. (Glick and Fiske,
1996, p.491-492). Glick and Fiske also noticed that the scale of benevolent sexism
had direct correlation with the extent of gender inequality in a particular nation. In
nations where the level of benevolent sexism was high above average, men lived
longer, had more access to education and other resources and actively
participated in social, economic, political spheres more than women. Thus,
benevolent sexism comes at the cost of gender equality. This direct correlation
between benevolent sexism and gender equality can be seen in India too.
According to World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index, India has been ranked
140th among 156 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Report
2021. India has fallen down 28 places this year. Women’s labor force participation
rate has also come down to 22.3% from the earlier 24.8%. The representation of
women in top management roles is also quite low: 14.6%. The total income earned
by women is only 1/5th of that earned by men.
Benevolent sexism creates a divide not only at workplace but in intimate
relationships as well. In heterosexual dating and marriage, one major traditional
norm is that men have a dominant status and are thus responsible for protecting
and providing for the family whereas women should be obedient and dependent.
Benevolent sexism creates a power imbalance in marriages and these differences
have become even more pronounced in today’s world as both men and women are
becoming career oriented. Benevolent sexist people accept the norm that wife
should support her husband’s career at any cost, even if it means sacrificing her
own while husband doesn’t need to do the same since he is the main provider of
the family as per society.

OBJECTIVE
Gender inequality is embedded in nearly all civilizations which have existed in the
world. The biological differences of the sexes were made the basis of different
social standards for both men and women. Such biases are not limited to domestic
sphere alone. They are also seen in social and economic spheres. Such biases have
led to deep internalized stereotypes which are affecting women in every domain.
The objective of this paper is to understand the extent of internalized benevolent
sexism in Indian Society. India is still a developing nation whose half of the
population consists of women. If their potential is realized and used, then India
will progress not only in economic terms but social terms as well. But the shackles
of centuries old patriarchy, misogyny and sexism especially benevolent sexism has
held women back and denied them opportunities of betterment. The main goal of
this paper is to understand how deep the roots of benevolent sexism are and how
badly it affects women.

THESIS STATEMENT
The prevalence of benevolent sexism in Indian society is a great cause of concern
as it is a barrier in the social, economic and political progress of women and in
eradicating gender equality in India.

LITERATURE REVIEW
The term benevolent sexism was first coined by Glick and Fiske in 1996. Susan
Fiske and Michael North, in Measures of Personality and Social Psychological
Constructs noted that benevolent sexism contributes to gender inequality by
giving more value to feminine stereotyped roles and confining women to the
traditional gender roles. Researchers Abrams, Viki, Masser and Bohner found that
people who exhibited benevolent sexist behavior placed the blame of rape and
harassment upon the female victims of the crime. They dismissed the intentions of
male perpetrators and subscribed to the notions of good girls and bad girls. As per
such people those who violated traditional sexual norms associated with an ideal
woman provoke the perpetrators and get raped. As per Glick and Fiske,
benevolent sexist attitudes negatively impact the internal thought process of
women. Women start doubting their own cognitive abilities and perform lower
than their potential. One interesting thing which was noted by Connelly and
Heesacker was that benevolent sexism in many cases has positively affected life
satisfaction in people. This may have happened due to its subtle nature. Since
benevolent sexist attitudes are not violent and seen as harmless, they gain more
acceptance than hostile sexism. Amanda E. Mosier in her research paper, The
Effects of Benevolent Sexism and Its Implications in the Workplace, conducted an
extensive study to find out how benevolent sexism impacts bystanders who are
not direct victims of sexism. The study examined how witnessing benevolent and
hostile sexism impacted women’s working memory capacity, task specific self-
efficacy, mental intrusions of competence and negative effect. Contrary to the
prediction, her study could not establish any direct connection between the two
which can be seen as a limitation of this research but it did raise some important
questions which need to be addressed in future researches; is it possible that
bystander’s reaction to the sexism in the workplace may vary if the person
endorsing such attitudes was someone whom the bystander knows personally.
Furthermore, the differences in the experience of bystanders and someone who
has lived such experience also need to be accounted for a detailed understanding
of the matter. Alina Salmen and Kristof Dhont have taken an interesting take on
the idea of benevolent sexism by connecting its roots with nature and beliefs
associated with it. In this paper, they have discussed the idea of humans
considering themselves superior than animals and nature and using the same idea
they have tried to highlight the beliefs of men considering themselves above
women. Women are considered closer to nature than men because of their
reproductive capabilities. Since nature is considered to be calm, fragile, delicate
and pure, same adjectives have been used to describe women too since centuries.
And since men consider themselves above nature, they apply the same idea to
women as well.
It can be concluded that benevolent sexism coerces women to perpetually remain
in a boundary of traditional roles which have been prescribed for them since the
dawn of the settled human civilization.
 DATA AND METHODOLOGY
DATA
The information collected is primary in nature. Indirect interviews have been
conducted through google forms wherein the respondents were required to record
their responses. The set of questions had certain objective questions wherein
multiple choices were provided to them and they would have to choose as per
their opinions. There were certain subjective questions as well wherein they had
type long or short answers as per their beliefs and practices.

METHODOLOGY
The data is qualitative in nature. The responses of objective questions have been
organized in pie charts. The judgements have been made on the basis of basic
theory of benevolent sexism and what characterizes it. The subjective answers
have been categorically divided and an analysis has been made keeping in
consideration the previous researches as well.

RESULT ANALYSIS
The surveys were conducted in two sets. There were two questionnaires, one for
males and one for females. The surveys were made separate to assess the
response of both on various trivial and day to day behavior and happenings.
The questionnaire made for females had 24 questions some of which were
compulsory while some of them were specific to salaried and married women. The
questionnaire was made to assess the opinion of women on norms prescribed by
the Indian society. The questionnaire covered a range of topics from motherhood,
career, chores to marriage. About 43% of the respondents are in the age group of
18-20 years and the same percentage of respondents are pursuing graduation.
About 21% of the female respondents are in the age group of 21-25 years and
maximum of them are pursuing post-graduation and few of them are employed.
14% respondents are in the age group of 26-30 and same is the percentage of
women in the age group of 31-35 years. About 7% of the respondents are in the
age group of 41-45 years. The qualification of respondents in the age group of 26-
45 years is either graduation or post-graduation but the employment status is not
prominent. 60% of the respondents in this age group are homemakers. Only 40%
of the female respondents in the age group of 26-45 years employed. In Indian
society this age group is considered ideal for marriage and family planning. Lesser
number of working women in this age group can be considered an indicator of
their importance being attached to domestic and household life.
When women were asked who is responsible for domestic chores like cooking and
cleaning, the response received was not surprising.

Division of Household Chores

7.14%
14.28%

house helpers 2
women respondent 6
35.70%
mother of respondent 35.7%
equally shared

42.85%

Maximum of the respondents told us that the domestic work was either done by
them, their mothers or house helps. This is not surprising because in our Indian
society, girls are told from their childhood that serving, cooking and cleaning is
their duty. From bringing kitchen sets and doll houses for girls in their childhood
to asking them to help their mother, girls always have to benevolent sexist
attitudes in their families. This is one of the major reasons behind negligible
female labor force participation rate.

Another interesting result can be seen in the division of financial burden. When
women were asked about the responsibilities of finance, we got to observe some
interesting trend.
 Division of Financial Responsibility

29%

71%

Equal Division 29% Father/Brother/Husband

The division of financial responsibility shows us that till today the major earning
for the household is done by men. Though there has been has a slight shift where
29% of the women are earning and are sharing the financial burden. But if we look
at the lifestyle of these women, then we would come to know that the burden of
these women has only increased. These women are first slogging in the office and
then also doing household chores. In the above chart we noticed how only 7% of
the respondents share the domestic work with their male counterparts and only
14% had a house help. This brings us to the conclusion that they have been raised
to nurture their families. Calling such women ‘supermoms or wonder women’ is
one way how salaried women face benevolent sexism. Such apparent heroic
praises are made to remind women that even if they work, they cannot get away
from the regular household duties.
Another finding of prevalent benevolent sexism can be seen in the answers of
women respondents when they were asked about their “Natural responsibility of
looking after family and kids”.
 DO YOU THINK IT IS YOUR NATURAL RESPONSIBILITY TO
NURTURE CHILDREN?

No
14%

Yes
86%

The biggest evidence of rampant benevolent sexism can be seen in the answer of
this question. One of the major and most important characteristics of benevolent
sexism is that it portrays women and her reproductive capacity as something
divine, pure and natural. It has attached women and her biological capability with
her social status. In Indian society women are raised with the notion that their
main objective is to focus on their family after marriage. Women have internalized
this thought that it is their responsibility, that nature have created have them to
look after the household. This is why many women who are salaried are having
extra pressure on them for taking care of their kids and household. When women
were asked about the factor which shaped their belief, 64.3% of the respondents
sited family and friends as a major factor. This means that benevolent sexism like
every other system (patriarchy, misogyny) is based on the institution of family and
thus, is deep rooted in society. Social institutions and religion are another
important factor in shaping such beliefs of women.
In order to assess the awareness of the respondents towards benevolent sexism,
they were asked if common compliments like women are soft, gentle and polite
have any negative connotations or not. 60% of the respondents gave answer in
affirmative. This shows that women in urban cities are quite aware about the fact
that such positive looking statements are actually negative in sense. 40% of the
female respondents were not sure whether these statements have a negative
meaning or not. But none of the respondents said no which means maximum
population of women is aware about this subtle and indirect sexism. Such
statements are made to coerce women into behaving like the stereotypical woman
and not raise their voice against the deeply rooted structures of gender inequality.
Since we know that benevolent sexism negatively affects the self esteem of women
and makes them doubt their own capabilities, women were asked if their gender in
any way influences their talent or cognitive abilities or not. About 40% of the
respondents said that their gender does influence their abilities which is actually
quite shocking since almost all of them are either graduates or post graduates.
This also shows that 40% of the respondents have faced benevolent sexism in
either educational institutions or workplace.
In Indian society, a classic example of benevolent sexism can be seen in its
obsession for marriage, especially if that person is a girl. As soon as a girl
completes her higher education or gets a job parents start looking for a well settled
groom with cultured family background. In some cases, the girl is married off even
before her education gets completed or she gets a job. The major focus of a girl’s
parents is mostly on getting the right match for daughter at right age because as
per Indian people late marriages can create complications in having a baby and
the most important function of marriage in India is procreation. To understand the
extent of such benevolent sexist attitudes, we asked the respondents if the focus of
their families is/was on their marriage or not.

Focus of the family is marriage at right age

20%
Strongly agree 40%
40%
Agree
Neutral
20%
Disagree

20%

Not surprisingly, only 20% of the respondents disagreed, 40% strongly agreed, 20%
agreed and 20% were neutral (maybe they wanted to agree but didn’t want to
show their families in a bad light). It can be said without any doubt that major
characteristics of benevolent sexism are widely prevalent in our society.
Another example of benevolent sexism in India can be seen in its glorification of
motherhood and shaming those women who either can’t have children or don’t
want to have them. Indian society, marriage and motherhood are compulsory for
women. Those who try to defy such norms are shamed and outcasted. They are
labelled as ‘bad or uncultured women’ with no respect for their religion or culture.
To understand the relevance of this ideology we asked our respondents if they
believed motherhood is a compulsion in Indian society or not.

Motherhood is a compulsion in Indian Society

7%
13%
33% Strongly Agree 33.3%
Agree
Neutral
Disagree

47%

This survey again shows us that not much has changed about the mentality of
Indian society. Attaching a woman’s biological capability to her social status and
using that to confine her within four walls of the house is a common practice in
Indian society and is being practiced since centuries. Even Mahatma Gandhi
during Civil Disobedience Movement, was convinced that it was the duty of
women to look after home and hearth, be good wives and mothers. For a long
time, our freedom fighters who were predominantly male, were reluctant to
include women. And the results of this survey are disheartening for sure but not
surprising because even today we rank quite low on gender development and
gender equality index. Benevolent sexism is one of the major barriers in
eradicating the structure of patriarchy and in turn gender equality.
The questionnaire designed for males had 23 questions in total, some them were
compulsory and some were made specifically for married and salaried males. The
questions were both objective and subjective. 47.1% of our respondents were in
the age group of 21-25 years. 23.5% were in the age group of 18-20 years and
23.5% were in the age group of 26-30 years. 41.2% were undergraduates, 29.4%
were pursuing graduation and 23.5% were post-graduates.
We asked the same question regarding the division of household work to
understand the basic scenario of their families.
 Division of household work

23%
Mother/sister/wife 70.5%
Househelp 5.8%
6% Sharing

71%

We can conclude that in Indian households the major responsibility of taking care
of the family is upon women. Only in exceptional cases we can see the work being
shared by the males of the house as well.
The second question was related to financial responsibility of the household.

Division of financial responsibility

Sharing

47% Father/brother 52.94%

53%

When we asked males about the division of financial responsibility, the results
were quite surprising. In about 47% of the respondent’s households the burden of
earning was being shared by the females along with the males but same is not the
case in sharing domestic household chores with men. This makes us think about
the pressures the women of such households have to face. Their ambition of
making a good career and the pressure of being an ideal wife/mother/daughter-in-
law forced upon them by the society through benevolent sexist attitudes have left
them with no time for themselves. No wonder why so many women are negligent
towards their health and end up suffering from chronic illnesses like cancer in later
part of their lives.
In order to understand the intrinsic impact of benevolent sexism, male
respondents were asked about their views on the notion of men being the provider
and protector of the family. 94% of the male respondents answered that they think
it is their natural duty to provide for and protect their family. The top factors
which shaped their belief were family and friends (53%), and social institutions
(47%). As a result, we can say that benevolent sexism is a well-structured form of
sexism in our Indian society which has successfully spread its roots in the
institution of family and society. By making people believe that the roles are
segregated by nature, society ensures obedience and also that they are not
questioned or opposed.
In order to understand the perception of men towards women at workplace, they
were asked who is more competent in handling challenging tasks at work,
according to them. 70.6% of the male respondents answered that men are better
than women in handling in challenging and difficult task at work. When they were
asked to explain their answer, most of the answers were related to the general
stereotypes associated with women like women are emotional, they are caring and
hence cannot take stern decisions, they are busy with household work, they are
less efficient in technical aspects etc. When such people would become employers
or get a senior position in a company, they would use the same ideology while
allotting work to their employees and thus women under them would not get any
task which would utilize their maximum potential. Such endorsement of
benevolent sexism makes it even more difficult for women to perform better at
workplace because such stereotypes damage their self-esteem and badly impacts
mental health. But what people forget is that being emotional is one of the greatest
strengths of a leader. An empathetic leader makes better decisions and choices,
choices which are better for the people at large and do not just serve the self -
interest. Countries like Denmark, Finland, Iceland, New Zealand, Germany and
Slovakia have women as the head of the state and have gained recognition and
praise from the entire world for dealing with the pandemic effectively. These
countries are also at the top of gender equality index and the global gender gap
index. These countries also have a higher Human Development Score in Human
Development Index. Still people believing that women are not suitable for
leaderships roles is nothing but the outcome of benevolent sexism which has
coerced people in believing that women are fragile, delicate and need to be
protected.

CONCLUSION
Prevalence of benevolent sexism in Indian society has not been paid enough
attention. The lawmakers have made and tried to implement the laws against
crimes which are a direct result of hostile sexism, but benevolent sexism needs
welfare measures and awareness programs since it does not directly influence the
crime and hostility against women but it does perpetuate the circumstances in
which such hostility occurs. It is one of the greatest barriers holding back women
in the name of culture, tradition and natural responsibility. The citizens of India
need to contribute from their side as well. They need to unlearn all the positive
appearing but toxic statements ingrained in their minds and relearn the concept of
equality and equality of opportunity. Just making laws or providing rights is not
enough, it is also important that such environment be created where women can
exercise their rights and freedom of choice without any internal or external
coercion and without any guilt.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Amanda E. Mosier (2019). The Effects of Ambient Benevolent Sexism and Its
Implications at Workplace.
Suparna Jain, Manpreet Kaur & Shradha Jain (2020). Hostile and Benevolent
Sexism in India: Analysis Across Cultures.
Alina Salmen & Kristof Dhont (2020). Hostile and Benevolent Sexism: The
Differential Roles of Human Supremacy Beliefs, Women’s Connection to Nature
and Dehumanization of Women.
World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index
Debra L. Oswald, Baalbaki & S. Kirkman (2019). Experiences with Benevolent
Sexism: Scale Development and Associations with Women’s Well-Being.
Eden B. King, Whitney Botsford & R. Hebl (2012). Benevolent Sexism at Work:
Gender Differences in the Distribution of Challenging Developmental Experiences.