• JoBo
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    1 year ago

    People make decisions with constrained choices. If you’re a woman livng in a patriarchal society which limits your ability to earn an income, and will demonise you for not staying home with your children, then you need to reliably attach yourself to a man who can earn the income you can’t. That’s how the marriage bar was justified. (Middle-class) married women were denied (white collar) employment to make more room for men to advance their careers. And why there are mixed feelings about divorce. Being trapped in marriage is no fun but neither is being abandoned with limited ability to earn a living alone.

    Hostile sexism tends to co-exist with benevolent sexism. In places where there is a lot of anti-woman sexism, the women tend to hold more hostile and more benevolent views of men (eg men are violent therefore I need a big strong man to protect me).