Hostile Sexism Score: 3.09
Benevolent Sexism Score: 0.45
 

I'm sort of similar to you Pineapple... I'm higher than the average woman or man for hostile, but wayyy lower for benevolent. Ok, so the second part means that I reject traditional gender roles, which is generally true for me. But my high hostile sexism score means that I loathe career women? That doesn't make much sense, since I pretty much am a career woman. I just don't think it's fair to make special concessions for people based on whether they have a penis or vagina. Somehow that translates into being against women in the workplace? I wonder if there's maybe a more thorough explanation somewhere on the site...

 I couldn't take the test, either. It was asking me questions that I couldn't answer on a scale. Some of them didn't even make any sense. How am I supposed to know if "all women" do one thing or another. As Hamby said, there are certainly women who try to gain power by manipulating men, but that statement applies to people in general. There are also men who do that to men, and women who do that to women.

I realize that it's an opinion poll, not a legitimate study, but that shit makes my skin crawl.

 Shades of David Brent from the UK version of The Office, in the "formally prescribed acceptable thinking for the modern workplace" sense of the thing.  I couldn't finish the quiz.

CHEATER CHEATER PUMPKIN EATER!!!

Hostile Sexism Score: 1.91
Benevolent Sexism Score: 0.36

I'm in an absolutely awful mood, so I was probably a little more hostile than I normally am.

That's exactly what bothered me about the test. Wow, I got the lowest scores.

 I had to jump through some remarkable hoops to answer those questions.  For each one, I had to think, "If I were a less informed version of myself, what would I think about this question?"  I was trying honestly to get to "the real me" but it was just too much pretzel logic on some of the questions, so I just answered 3 on them in the vain hope that 3 means ambivalence.

Hostile Sexism Score: 5.00
Benevolent Sexism Score: 0.45

What do I win?

Sensetivity Seminar?

edit; i know, i know... im one to talk, right? >.>

Yeah, it might as well ask

"Are you aware you're a sexist pig?"

I don't think you can say anything without being labeled a sexist, racist, homophobic bigot these days

Anyway, I'll be in the kitchen.

 I think one of the problems with sexism is that there are real differences between the sexes, and they can never be truly equal in many ways.

For example, when I owned a bar, I always put a good looking male bartender behind the bar that was visible from outside.  Why?  Because good looking male bartenders attract females, and a bar with more females than malesattracts more customers, both male and female.  Women keep coming in because the bartender's hot, and men keep coming in because there are lots of girls.  On the other hand, if you put a hot female bartender near the door, a dozen men come in and turn the bar into a giant sausage party.  Groups of girls aren't interested in going into a bar with just men.  They don't want to immediately be hit on because they're the only girls.  Men are also not interested in going into bars with just men.  So, your crowd stops building on itself, and you have a shitty sales day.

That policy is clearly sexist, as I was favoring one sex over the other for a particular job, and it was to my advantage to do so.  But isn't it also to the advantage of all the bartenders that the bar be as full as possible?  The placement of the male near the door is a positive move for all the employees, but it is based on gender inequality.  Am I a sexist for that?

Is it sexist to promote a male to regional sales manager because I know that the only qualified female is planning on having a baby soon and won't be able to work for several months, and won't have as flexible a schedule after the baby is born?  Maybe it is, but is it unreasonable?

That's the thing.  Many feminists treat the word sexism as if it a universal bad word.  It's not.  Differentiating between sexes and treating them differently can be good, neutral, or bad.  If I'm walking down a sidewalk with my frail petite girlfriend, and she is consistently getting jostled about by people walking the opposite direction, is it wrong for me to switch places with her so that she is walking next to the wall, and I am now in a position of shielding her from physical harm?  Should I refuse to be sexist and insist that she continue walking where she is and just suck it up?  Doesn't the answer to this question depend on what she thinks is appropriate, and not what some feminist ideology proclaims?

Make me a sandwich while you're in there, and get me a beer.

It would be... umm... sexist... wouldn't it, to presume that the male boss didn't talk to his female employee before making the decision, would it not?

I know you're just playing devil's advocate, and I'm not trying to give you a hard time.  I'm just trying to show you that we're all sexist.  Consider the impact that feminism has had on the scenario I mentioned.  Suppose I am the boss of a small company, and I need to promote someone to regional manager.  I have only two candidates who have the qualifications -- a man and a woman.  I have heard from her own lips that the woman plans on becoming a parent very soon, and since she's worked for me for a long time, I also know that she loves the idea of raising children, and that her husband is a workaholic.

In a perfect world, I would feel morally compelled to talk to her, tell her that she was in line for the promotion, and ask her thoughtful questions about whether or not her parenting would interfere with her ability to do the job precisely as effectively as the other candidate, who is childless and unmarried (or at the very least, has never shown any compulsion for putting family over work).

In the real world, I realize that if I even mention her as a candidate, and then for whatever reason opt for the man instead, I am potentially setting myself up for a discrimination lawsuit, and with the economy like it is, I can't afford to even consult a lawyer, much less engage in a lengthy suit and pay back wages to someone I didn't want to promote in the first place for a reason other than the one I'm being sued for!  (Remember, bringing a suit is easy.  Tying it up in court is easy.  Winning, maybe not, but just the threat of it is a major deterrent for bosses.)

The safe thing, of course, is for me not to even consider her as a candidate.  If I simply manipulate the work environment so that the man has the best qualifications by the time I make the decision, I'm in the clear.  Sure, the woman will probably notice what I've been doing, but there will be no way to prove that I did it preemptively to prevent her being considered for promotion.  She'll know I'm discriminating, and I'll know I'm discriminating, but legally, she will have no recourse.

So, the legal system, by putting measures in place to prevent discrimination, has encouraged it in at least some cases.  (Be careful not to read too much into what I'm saying.  I'm not suggesting that we do away with laws promoting equality in the work place.  I'm pointing out the problems with the ones we have.)

The thing is, and this is what I was saying earlier, there are sex differences.  It's fine to talk about what an awesome world it would be if men and women were equally willing and equally expected by society to raise children in a utopian frenzy of love and happiness, but that's not the way humans work.  Men's brains really are different than women's brains.  No matter how much you promote the concept of equality, if you show me a group of a thousand twenty five year old childless women and a group of a thousand twenty five year old childless men, I'll show you a group of nine hundred ninety men who are going to be working full time at thirty five, and perhaps six hundred or so women who will be balancing a scaled down career against motherhood.

You read my piece on designing arms races, right, Anniet?  You know that the human workplace is part of the arms race, where men compete with each other for status so they can impress females.  If we are to have a hope of creating as much equality as possible (I really can't fathom how total equality is possible) we must find a way of acknowledging that businesses themselves are competitors, and if you're going to enforce anything less than open market competition, you must account for the fact that the overall effect on individual businesses will be negative!

(Again, don't call me a capitalist pig.  I'm not advocating unregulated market economies.  I'm elucidating the problem with trying to enforce regulated economies.)  Listen, I'm the first to admit that I'd love to work twenty hours a week and have plenty of leisure time.  Hey, if I'm able to do that, and still have enough money to live comfortably, what a catch I'll be for the ladies, right? (See... competition.  Arms races.)  The thing is, ladies get tired of eating at the Olive Garden when their men are only working twenty hours a week.  "Gee, honey, why don't you put in another few hours so we can get that new car, or we can take a trip to New York and eat at Anthony Bourdain's old restaurant?"  Good enough isn't good enough because we're not logical creatures.  We're competitors in an evolutionary landscape, and any attempt to regulate this fact is an attempt to regulate evolution.  It's not impossible, of course.  It's just an uphill battle all the way, and if we lie to ourselves about what we're really regulating, we have little or no hope of getting it right.

Actually, I think that would be along the lines of classist more than anything.  At least that's what I was going for.  I am glad you could see that I'm just going for a devil's advocate situation here. 

You do make valid points regarding how sexism can actually be a rational position in some situations.  What I am trying to note is how a portion of the negative aspects of capitalism can turn rational sexism into something irrational in the workplace.  While I think that you personally probably are not going to make decisions regarding your employees based purely on assumptions, plenty of business owners and managers do.  In those cases there are unreasonable decisions being made due to sexism.  And this is something that occurs in the real world far too often still. 

I purposely did not use a strong term like "capitalist pig" as it was not my intention to insult you, just to show some of the limits and pitfalls of the argument you gave.  Please do reread my previous post with a friendly, smiling, slightly chiding tone as that is what I was trying for.  Sorry for what made you think otherwise.

 0.82 on both scores, but the questions seriously need improvement and more gradation.

Hostile Sexism Score: 4.55
Benevolent Sexism Score: 2.64

Is that good or bad? Or is it just veeeeeery funky?

Hostile 1.55

Benevolent 2.64

I got around some of my problems by strongly agreeing men could be complete without women and strongly agreeing men couldn't be complete without women.