IB Philosophy 8.3.3 Gender Politics Notes

Sexism as a Philosophical Problem

1. This topic addresses the Unit 8 question, "Are the constructs of masculinity and femininity inherently oppressive?," by examining how gender categories become the basis for political domination. As established in 8.3.1, gender is socially constructed; as explored in 8.3.2, gender shapes identity through social conditioning.
   1. Here we examine how gender structures become instruments of political power.
2. Sexism operates at multiple levels simultaneously. At the individual level, sexism manifests as prejudice, stereotyping, and discriminatory behaviour.
   1. At the institutional level, it is embedded in laws, workplace practices, and educational systems. At the cultural level, it permeates language, media representation, and social norms.
3. Philosophical analysis distinguishes between hostile sexism (overt contempt for women who violate gender norms) and benevolent sexism (seemingly positive attitudes that nonetheless reinforce gender hierarchy, such as the belief that women are naturally more nurturing and therefore suited to caregiving). Benevolent sexism is philosophically significant because it disguises domination as protection.
4. Kate Manne drew an important distinction in Down Girl (2018) between sexism and misogyny. Sexism, in Manne's analysis, is the ideology that justifies gender hierarchy through beliefs about natural differences.
   1. Misogyny is the enforcement mechanism: the hostility directed at women who fail to conform to gendered expectations or who challenge male authority.
   2. On Manne's account, misogyny is not primarily about hating women as such, but about enforcing a patriarchal (that is, male-dominated) social order. Women who fulfil expected roles may receive rewards; women who refuse these roles, compete with men, or claim authority face punishment through hostility, ridicule, and exclusion.
   3. Women politicians who display ambition routinely face disproportionate hostility and scrutiny of their appearance rather than their policies. Manne's framework explains this as misogyny in action: not hatred of women as such, but enforcement of the expectation that women should be deferential, agreeable, and supportive rather than powerful.
5. As Beauvoir argued (explored fully in 8.3.1 and the prescribed text in 10.11), the subordination of women is a historical construction maintained by interlocking systems of law, economics, religion, and culture. Her insight that woman has been treated as "the Other" (defined only in relation to man, never as fully human in her own right) reveals that gender inequality is not a natural fact but a political achievement.
6. The political character of gender is evident in persistent structural inequalities: the gender pay gap, underrepresentation in political leadership, unequal distribution of domestic labour, and disproportionate exposure to sexual and domestic violence. These are not random outcomes but systematic patterns produced by gendered social structures.

Objectification and Its Philosophical Dimensions

1. Martha Nussbaum identified seven forms of objectification in her influential 1995 analysis: instrumentality (treating a person as a tool), denial of autonomy (treating them as lacking self-determination), inertness (treating them as lacking agency), fungibility (treating them as interchangeable), violability (treating them as permissible to damage), ownership (treating them as property), and denial of subjectivity (ignoring their experiences and feelings).
   1. Nussbaum's breakdown reveals that objectification is not a single thing but a cluster of related wrongs. Sexual objectification typically combines several of these at once: treating a person as a body to be evaluated (denial of subjectivity), as existing for others' pleasure (instrumentality), and as interchangeable (fungibility).
   2. Advertising that reduces women to their appearance (denial of subjectivity) and treats their bodies as interchangeable (fungibility) illustrates how multiple forms of objectification operate simultaneously rather than in isolation.
2. Rae Langton extended Nussbaum's analysis by adding three further dimensions: reduction to body, reduction to appearance, and silencing, treating a person as though they have nothing meaningful to say, particularly relevant to gendered objectification.
   1. The phenomenon of silencing, where a woman's testimony about harassment is dismissed or reinterpreted, illustrates Langton's point. The person is not merely ignored but denied the ability to even make her accusation count: her words are stripped of their meaning and power.