Sexist people: these 8 beliefs characterize them

Virtually everyone has internalized certain macho beliefs. From feminists with the longest militancy to the kindest doctors, through to the philosophers with more academic experience behind their backs. However, this is not strange: keep in mind that for most of history, the human being has lived without questioning sexism.

However, when we speak of macho people we are not referring to the entire human species, but to those individuals who still conserve schemes of thought in which beliefs anchored in sexism are not only very evident, but are also rarely questioned.

We'll see now what are the defining characteristics of macho people and your thinking.

• Related article: "Sexist women exist, and these 5 attitudes define them"

8 typical beliefs of macho people

It is clear that machismo gets out of hand, and that the concept of "macho person" does not have to refer to the unalterable essence of a man or woman. Although it is difficult, it is perfectly possible to go from embracing totally macho behaviors to reinforcing a much more egalitarian type of relationship.

However, to achieve this it is necessary, first of all, to know detect what are the signs of machismo that are seen in the day to day and on the basis of which are the beliefs linked to sexism. Below you will find a list of the main ones.

1. A woman is not complete if she is not a mother

Motherhood is understood as the culminating point in which femininity expresses itself. That is why women who decide to be mothers are viewed either with disbelief or with bad eyes by macho people.

It is because of this belief that in some extremely conservative families young women are under great pressure to have children as soon as possible, before the danger of spending their fertile life stage without offspring.

2. The woman is made to stay at home

This is one of the most deeply rooted beliefs in the mentality of macho people. Usually it is not expressed literally, but it is the idea that underlies another class of affirmations.

For example, it is common to assume that any woman, by virtue of being one, will prefer to abandon her professional career when she has children, or that she knows how to cook well, or that she knows how to decorate any home.

3. Women have no leadership skills

Many people have so internalized the idea that women are submissive who view female leadership with disbelief, the possibility that it is not a man who is in charge of in front of a work team, especially if it belongs to the professional field with high value added. Paradoxically, this belief impairs women's ability to lead.

• You may be interested: "The 10 personality traits of a leader"

4. Justification of street harassment

Under the belief that women like to receive compliments or feel desired, macho people take it as good that some people make approaches that are not only unwanted or requested, but are often clear cases of harassment Street map.

5. Defense of traditional roles due to the fact that they are tradition

The simple fact that gender roles have existed for centuries is no reason to object to their questioning when it arises. However, macho people have an essentialist view of what it means to be a man or a woman, and questioning these concepts generates anger and frustration in them.

• Related article: "The 7 differences between liberals and conservatives"

6. Justifications of gender violence

Blaming the victim in cases of gender violence it is the definitive expression of machismo, since it reveals that not even in cases in which it is clear that a woman suffers simply because she is, the attacker is right and she not.

Comments such as "he knew what he was exposing himself to" or "not having dressed like that", very common in cases of sexual abuse, are paradigmatic examples of how you try to turn the situation around to put the spotlight on who has been attacked.

• Related article: "The 7 types of gender violence (and characteristics)"

7. The feminine belongs to the family

Another of the typical attitudes of sexist people links the latter to the family, as if they were an extension of the family nucleus. The idea that there are independent women with their own ability to generate the income they need to survive causes rejection.

This characteristic is, once again, a consequence of the fact that for millennia women have been confined to the domestic, the place where the family lives and reproduces. That is why it is naturally seen that some parents want to decide the future of their daughters by deciding for them.

8. Disapproval of female sexuality

From the perspective of macho people, the only way in which a woman can be linked to the sexual is as an object, not as a subject. Women are rewarded for accepting their role as a sexual object for the consumption of others, but it seems bad that they live their own sexuality as subjects, that is, people who perform an action instead of receiving it from others.

• You may be interested: "The mathematics of sexual pleasure in men and women"

The source of sexism is patriarchy

It must be clear that machismo is neither a political position nor anything similar to a mental disorder. Why? Because on the one hand, if we talk about machismo in individual people, we refer to habits and beliefs that go far beyond the political ideology they may have, and on the other hand, it is too broad and complex a phenomenon to be reduced to mental problems of patients.

Sexist people are not spontaneous, nor because they have decided on political goals that from a rational perspective convince them more than the rest. They are so because they have inherited a culture and a political, social and economic context that reinforces sexism and the supremacy of the masculine gender over the feminine. This context that reinforces sexist discrimination is called patriarchy.

Patriarchy is a set of material, relational and psychological conditions that make women victims of discrimination because of the sex to which they belong. It is the root of the existence of sexist people, and the reason why advances in favor of women's rights cost so much.

Ultimately, believing that someone becomes a macho just like that is like assuming that the place where one is born is not has nothing to do with the possibilities of following one religion or another: it is necessary to take into account the context in which it is it lives.