The Second Sexism Discrimination Against Men and Boys

by Benatar, David

• ISBN13: 9781118192337
• ISBN10: 1118192338
• Edition: 1st
• Format: eBook
• Copyright: 2012-07-03
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

Does sexism against men exist? What it looks like and why we need to take it seriously This book draws attention to the "second sexism," where it exists, how it works and what it looks like, and responds to those who would deny that it exists. Challenging conventional ways of thinking, it examines controversial issues such as sex-based affirmative action, gender roles, and charges of anti-feminism. The book offers an academically rigorous argument in an accessible style, including the careful use of empirical data, and includes examples and engages in a discussion of how sex discrimination against men and boys also undermines the cause for female equality.

Author Biography

David Benatar is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cape Town. He is the author of Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence (2006).

Table of Contents

Preface x

1 Introduction 1

What Is the Second Sexism? 1

Disadvantage 2

Discrimination 3

Wrongful discrimination 3

Sexism 5

The First Sexism 12

Two Kinds of Denialist 13

Forestalling Some Fallacies 16

Structure and Method of the Book 18

2 Male Disadvantage 25

Conscription and Combat 26

Violence 30

Corporal Punishment 33

Sexual Assault 36

Circumcision 41

Education 46

Family and Other Relationships 50

Custody 50

Paternity 51

Paternity leave 53

Homosexuals 54

Bodily Privacy 54

Life Expectancy 57

Imprisonment and Capital Punishment 59

Conclusion 61

3 Explaining Male Disadvantage and Thinking about Sex Differences 77

Beliefs about Males 77

Questions about the Beliefs 84

To what extent, if at all, are the beliefs true? 85

What makes the beliefs true? 89

What, if any, implications are there? 93

Conclusion 96

4 From Disadvantage to Wrongful Discrimination 101

Conscription and Combat 102

Kingsley Browne’s basic argument 103

“Slippage” 104

Military effectiveness 106

Dangers of conservatism 109

Statistical differences 113

Final thoughts on combat and conscription 121

Violence 122

“The perpetrators are men” 123

“Men are better able to defend themselves” 124

“Men pose a greater threat” 125

Two kinds of discrimination 127

Corporal Punishment 128

“Males are more badly behaved” 128

“Corporal punishment is not as damaging to males” 129

Sexual Assault 132

Circumcision 134

Education 135

Family and Other Relationships 137

Bodily Privacy 142

“Women have a greater interest in bodily privacy than do men” 143

“The conditions are different” 145

Equal employment opportunity 148

Life Expectancy 152

Imprisonment and Capital Punishment 155

Conclusion 163

5 Responding to Objections 173

The Inversion Argument 174

Conscription and combat 175

Violence 179

Circumcision 182

Education 183

Sexual assault 185

Bodily privacy 186

Custody 188

Life expectancy 189

Imprisonment 193

The Costs-of-Dominance Argument 194

The Distraction Argument 199

Defining Discrimination 202

6 Affirmative Action 212

Rectifying Injustice 215

The past discrimination argument 216

The present discrimination argument 218

Lessons from “Summers School” 225

Consequentialist Arguments 228

The viewpoint diversity argument 228

The role-model argument 229

The legitimate-sex-preference argument 231

The ideal argument 232

Conclusion 233

7 Conclusion 239

Does Feminism Discriminate against Men? 239

Are Men Worse off than Women? 246

Taking the Second Sexism Seriously 254

Conclusion 259

Bibliography 266

Index 285