Marilyn Frye's Sexism

Anita Williams
Marilyn Frye’s “Sexism”
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary sexism is the prejudice or discrimination based on sex; especially: discrimination against women or behavior, conditions, or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex. This concept of sexism is not something new; in fact it has been around, since the creation of human beings in the Holy Bible. This comes from the idea that Eve was created from the rib of Adam, which makes her a part of him. It seems as though al lot has changed from the creation of men and women, however sexism still remains in today’s society. In this paper, I will summarize Marilyn Frye’s view on the issue of sexism. In her book, The Politics of Reality, Frye includes
In her opinion, sex refers to the biological differences between a man and a woman, while gender refers to how society expects you to behave according to society’s definition of what a male or female should look like. She goes on to explain that in everything one does, one has only two complete repertoires of behavior; the first is for interacting with women and the second is for interactions with men. Frye also believes that people announce their sex in a thousand different ways, such as in one’s posture, speech, sense of humor, taste, perception, interest, clothing, hairdo and so on. Finally, Frye mentions how men have maleness and masculinity as positive attributes in society, while women’s femaleness and femininity are automatic disadvantages regardless of her social
While there are some anomalies, Frye would agree that women do tend to be weaker than men. She would respond to de Beauvoir by saying that biological differences do impact men and women; however, culture can greatly exaggerate biological differences. Frye’s response is that culture influence has more impact on sexism than any of the biological differences. Frye would say that by being pregnant, women are not complicate in being inferior to men. She would believe that the claim pregnant women revert back to their bodies is true, however by doing so women are not accepting their subjugation. Instead of approaching pregnancy in this manner, Frye would say that women revert back to their bodies due to natural instincts to protect, love, and care for her children. Frye would argue that women do not reinforce their dependency by drowning their selfhood into external objects. Instead she would say that women have been culturally conditioned to put themselves into external objects as well as men. Frye would completely oppose the statement that autonomy is found in the workplace. In fact in her essay Frye says that even at work, women are seen as inferior to men. This can be demonstrated by the fact that women get paid 77cents for every dollar a man makes and this is coming from the more generous states. Inequality in the workplace can also be confirmed by the lack of women in high-ranking