the.com/sexism
Judging someone's competence by their chromosomes instead of their résumé.
means Prejudice or discrimination against people based on their sex, usually women, baked into attitudes, jokes, laws, or who gets believed in a meeting.
from Coined in the mid-20th century, modeled directly on 'racism' — part of a wave of '-ism' words built to name systemic prejudice. It gained wide currency through 1960s–70s feminist writing and activism, which needed a precise word for bias that had always existed but had never been pinned down with its own name.
- origin
- term barely existed before 1968
- sneaky form
- often compliments disguised as limits, like protective
- pay gap
- persists even comparing identical jobs, hours
- two-way street
- can box in men too, like fatherhood