They're all assholes to us, but there's a difference, and Nicholas Kristoff of The New York Times would like to explain it to you.
...in the reporting for this column, I spoke to evolutionary psychologists who emphasized the distinct origins of racism and misogyny/sexism. Racism seems based in a hard-wired tendency of ancient humans to divide into groups to improve odds of survival, and it was an evolutionary advantage to be able to identify strongly with your own tribe and to fear or kill members of other tribes. That may be why even very small children — even infants — draw racial distinctions or other in-group/out-group distinctions.
In contrast, the evolutionary origins of attitudes toward women were based presumably less on hatred and more on desire to control them and impregnate them, so as to pass on one’s genes. Acquiring and enforcing a harem, so as to improve the odds of one’s own genes being passed on, might involve ruthlessness, enslavement and brutal beatings, but there was no evolutionary incentive for gender hatred as there was for hatred of different tribes. And of course much of the anti-women behavior around the world, from genital cutting to bride burnings to sex trafficking, is typically overseen by women themselves, and it’s easier to see their behavior as opportunism or deeply-embedded sexism than as hatred of fellow women. So that’s why I wonder if sexism, in the sense of discriminatory attitudes toward males and females, isn’t a better way of thinking about the issue than misogyny, in the sense of hatred toward women.
Wha? Wha? We said he'd like to, we didn't say he would.
This might help:
Misogyny
Sexism
Or maybe not. We're sure someone (ProfRobert?) can better explain the difference. (And yes, we realize women can be misogynistic and sexist, too, we're just generally not.. we're happy to explain the difference between feminism and sexism when we're typing with both hands again, but you already know.)
[NYT: Misogyny vs. Sexism]
