Reverse sexism

Reverse sexism is a controversial term for discrimination against men and boys, or for anti-male prejudice.^[1][2][3] The term has been used to claim that men have become the primary victims of sexism.^[4] Specifically, opponents of affirmative action argue that men and boys are systematically discriminated against in employment and school admissions.^[5]

Reverse sexism has been compared by sociologists to the concepts of "reverse racism" and "reverse ethnocentrism" in that both are a form of backlash by members of dominant groups (e.g., men, whites, or Anglos).^[6] Reverse sexism is rebutted by analogy with the criticism of reverse racism as a response to affirmative action policies that are designed to combat institutionalized sexism and racism.^[7] In more rigid forms, this stance assumes that the historic power imbalance in favor of men has been reversed,^[8] and that women are now viewed as the superior gender or sex.^[9]

Feminist theorist Florence Rush characterizes the idea of reverse sexism specifically as a misogynist reaction to feminism; men's rights activists such as Warren Farrell promote the idea of reverse sexism to argue that the feminist movement has rearranged society in such a way that it now benefits women and harms men.^[10] In the preamble to a study on internalized sexism, Steve Bearman, Neill Korobov and Avril Thorne describe reverse sexism as a "misinformed notion", stating that "while individual women or women as a whole may enact prejudicial biases towards specific men or toward men as a group, this is done without the backing of a societal system of institutional power".^[11]