Dictionary

genderism en · NOUN

Etymology

From gender + -ism.

Meanings

1. (uncountable, usually) A belief that gender is rigid, usually a belief that it is binary, comprising male and female, and that the aspects of a person's gender are inherently linked to their sex at birth.
   • Genderism is the ideology that there are, and should be, only two genders and that all or most aspects of one's gender are inevitably tied to the gender assigned at birth. Genderism reinforces negative attitudes toward gender nonconformity,[…] 2011, Genny Beemyn, Susan Rankin, The Lives of Transgender People, Columbia University Press, →ISBN, page 89:
2. (countable, uncountable) Belief that one gender is superior; discrimination on the basis of gender. (Compare sexism.)
   • But what is missing from these lists are the names and deeds of the everyday heros^([sic]), those queer activists who, though suffering from depression, have tackled the homophobia and racism and genderism that are the roots of the blues. 2001, Kimeron N. Hardin, Marny Hall, Queer Blues: The Lesbian & Gay Guide to Overcoming Depression, page 201:
   • He [Keat] points out that attacks on sexism in philosophy are often tacitly genderist, for example in denying the claim that men are more rational than women, one is likely to be accepting the claim that rationality (which is commonly regarded as the male alternative) is superior to its alternative. […] An attack on genderism in philosophy would of course involve a much more radical re-assessment of the history of […] 1990, Andrew Collier, Socialist Reasoning: An Inquiry in the Political Philosophy of Scientific Socialism, page 167:
   • We learn that racism, sexism, genderism, and [each of] the isms feeds on itself, and the “superior” group truly damages their inner characters. The "inferior" group, which also suffers […] 2019, Audrye S. Arbe, Raising Race Consciousness: Healing Racism, Sexism and Other Isms, →ISBN, page 54:
   • Rebecca Stotzer (2008) suggests that people who are transgender are "rarely attacked solely because of their gender identity" but rather are typically targeted because of the intersection of different identities. […] This finding suggests that the intersection of racism and genderism may increase bias cries against transgender people of color. 2011, Genny Beemyn, Susan Rankin, The Lives of Transgender People, Columbia University Press, →ISBN, page 93:
   • One of the worst [erroneous interpretations of Darwinism] constitutes the fundamental basis for racism, genderism, and other individual superiority-inferiority conceptions. 2012, Arthur W. Staats, The Marvelous Learning Animal: What Makes Human Behavior Unique, Prometheus Books, →ISBN:
3. (countable, derogatory, in right-wing usage, uncountable) Opposition to traditional gender roles; belief that gender exists separate from sex; "gender ideology"; a variously-defined catch-all for things like transgender rights and feminism to which antigenderism is opposed.
   • The letter reads: 'Gender ideology results from many decades of ideological and cultural changes rooted in Marxism and neomarxism promoted by some feminist movements and from sexual revolution. Genderism [...] claims that biological sex does not have any social significance and what matters is gender, cultural sex, […] According to this ideology, one can freely choose whether to be a man or a woman; one may also select their own sexual orientation' (List Pasterski 2013). 2020, Suzanne Clisby, Mark Johnson, Jimmy Turner, Theorising Cultures of Equality, Routledge, →ISBN:
   • [pages 108-109:] Virtually all networks and platforms mobilizing against more pluralistic and non-heteronormative (and less biologistic), sexual education at schools systematically equal gender with "genderism", that is with "gender ideology". [page 183:] [...] in Poland examples of women made famous by their opposition to "genderism" include [...] 2017, Roman Kuhar, David Paternotte, Anti-Gender Campaigns in Europe: Mobilizing against Equality, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN:
4. (countable) A gendered or gender-stereotyped behaviour, activity or statement.
   • However, the main drawback of Goffman's theory is that it fails to account for certain asymmetries in the performance of these "genderisms". The most important of these is the fact that men seem to be much more instrumental in initiating the performance of these genderisms than women are. 1986, Christine Louise Williams, Women Marines and Male Nurses:
   • Cross-cultural studies of sex-differences, sex roles, and genderisms have long been recognized as a method of identifying women in traditional roles. 1980, Carol Esparza Champion, “Face-ism in Texas and Mexico”, in The Borderlands Journal:
   • One of the ways that "femininity" of the beauty myth is promoted is through the display of genderisms in advertisements. Essentially, the purpose of a print ad is to get the message across at a glance; thus, considerable control is exercised [...] 1998, Ann C. Hall, Delights, Desires, and Dilemmas, →ISBN, page 23:

Forms

Deriveds

bigenderism

Relateds

genderist