On Benevolent Sexism

I.

Even sexism, it seems, isn't as unambiguous a term as one might have previously believed. For according to some theorists, sexism has two components: hostile sexism on the one hand and benevolent sexism on the other.

The first is an overtly negative - often violent - form of misogyny that deals in untenable evaluations and stereotypes based on a strict binary model of gender. I think we might all agree that it's not something to be very proud of, or that there's much to be said about such stupidity.     

But sexism in its more benevolent form is, I think, worthy of further reflection ...


II.

Just to be clear from the outset: I'm perfectly happy to concede that sexism - even at its most benevolent - involves prejudice and may have negative consequences, whatever the motivation or intent of the male agent. But I think it might also be conceded that often the things we're told are harmful actually make us feel good, whilst the things we're supposed to value often make us miserable in practice.

As the author and journalist Ed West notes:

"Sexual freedom, for example, makes people depressed much of the time [...] A money-obsessed culture, with its intense competition, stress and inequality, also causes us to be miserable [...] Ethnic diversity we know makes people unhappy because they vote with their feet. Likewise sexual equality, or at least sexual equality that refuses to acknowledge the biological reality of sex; and I can't imagine the idea of 'microaggressions', in which people are encouraged to see slights in every experience, is very good for one's mental health."

That's a conservative-cum-reactionary viewpoint (unsurprisingly perhaps from the deputy editor of The Catholic Herald who blogs for The Spectator), but West is touching on something important here; particularly when it comes to microaggressions (or sins) which only the righteous and the woke whose eyes are fully open can perceive.   

III.

One of the fields where we can witness gender politics being played out is etiquette; for some feminists, it's manners that maketh the benevolently sexist man and they consider it insulting if a chap holds a door open for them, or offers to help carry their luggage up a flight of stairs.

The gent in question might regard his actions as simply a form of kindness, but his polite actions are part of a tradition founded upon cultural representations of women as the weaker (and less competent) sex and thus problematic from the perspective of feminism. For those who base their sexual politics upon such a perspective, chivalry is simply a disguised form of oppression that entrenches gender inequality.       

But most (heterosexual) women seem not to think like this; in fact, the evidence is that they like to be shown a little courtesy by members of the opposite sex - be they loved ones, work colleagues, or simply strangers on a train. Interestingly, there is also evidence to suggest that men like making these small gestures; that civility - as a playful exercise of power - makes everyone happy.   

Unfortunately, contemporary culture seems to be more concerned with political correctness rather than joie de vivre ... 

See: Ed West, 'Don’t knock 'benevolent sexism'  - it makes us happy', The Spectator, (25 March 2014): click here.

At the Gym with D. H. Lawrence

Natural born pedagogue and former Croydon school teacher, D. H. Lawrence, was keenly interested in the subject of education and spilt a great deal of ink addressing the question of what its purpose is and how it might be reformed upon non-idealistic lines. That is to say, turned from an intellectual pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, into an activity that awakens the primary affective centres.

Perhaps not surprisingly therefore, Lawrence was a passionate advocate of games and physical instruction and valued the sports hall or gym as a place of vital learning as much as the science lab or art class: "Let us have a gymnasium as the Greeks had it, and for the same purpose: the purpose of pure, perilous delight in contest, and profound, mystic delight in unified motion." [158]

Lawrence wants boys to learn how to fight - "like young bantam cocks"- with fists and with foils: "Teach fencing, teach wrestling, teach jiu-jitsu, every form of fierce hand to hand contest." [159] Football, however, would be taken off the curriculum - as would self-conscious body building or any wilful attempt to keep fit. Lawrence loathes the thought of someone sweating and grunting in the gym merely to develop muscles and perversely flaunt their healthy physique. He writes:

"The modern athlete parading the self-conscious mechanism of his body, reeking with a degraded physical, muscular self-consciousness ... is one of the most stupid phenomena mankind has ever witnessed. The physique is alright in itself. But to have your physique in your head, like having sex in the head, is unspeakably repulsive. To have your own physique on your mind all the time: why, it is a semi-pathological state, the exact counterpoise to the querulous peevish invalid." [157-58]

Clearly, for Lawrence, who subscribes to a system of dualism in which mind and body are forever distinct in polarised opposition, the problem is that modern athletes and keep-fit fanatics mix the two modes of consciousness; they prostitute the primary self to the secondary idea (which, of course, is Lawrence’s definition of masturbation).

What, then, are we to make of this? I suppose, in reply, I would wish to make three points:

Firstly, not all invalids are querulous or peevish and most do not wish for others to define, categorise, or stereotype them by their disability or illness, let alone allow it to obsessively dominate their own thoughts and behaviour. Lawrence, who spent a good deal of time in bed either ill or recovering from illness, may be speaking for himself and from his own experience here, but he shouldn’t generalise in such a manner.

Secondly, I’m sensitive also to Lawrence’s problematic gender politics and the fact that he only considers the physical education of boys in the above. The girls, presumably, will be too busy making their own dresses "and delicately unfolding the skirts and bodices, or the loose Turkish trousers and little vests, or whatever else they like to wear" [152-53]. They needn’t concern themselves with contest and naked wrestling, because, according to Lawrence, the soul of woman resides in fashion not fighting: "She puts on her clothes as a flower unfolds its petals, as an utterance from her own nature, instinctive and individual." [153]

Finally, despite referring his own model of a physical training facility back to ancient Greece, I’m not sure Lawrence fully appreciates to what extent the γυμνάσιον also functioned as a place for socializing, communal bathing and, crucially, engaging in intellectual pursuits. The nakedness of the athletes encouraged an aesthetic appreciation of the male body glistening with oil, and lectures and discussions on philosophy and the arts were frequently held at the gymnasia.

The Greeks certainly didn’t suspend all moralizing and put off all idea when they stripped for exercise as Lawrence likes to imagine; provisions were made not only for physical training, but ethical instruction. Plato’s Academy was, first and foremost, a gymnasium. As was the Lyceum, at which Aristotle established his school.

In sum: agon is a wider, more complex, and more ideal concept than Lawrence seems to realise ...

See: D. H. Lawrence, 'Education of the People', in Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays, ed. Michael Herbert, (Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 85-166.