Undermining Others: The Truth About Benevolent Sexism
Tags: Human Behavior, Feminism, Psychology, Sexuality, Friendship

Image courtesy of FemInEM.org

You may have heard the phrase “Toxic masculinity” a lot recently and rightfully so. It’s a reference to culturally-constructed ideals that highlight the violent, emotionally and sexually aggressive behavior perpetrated by male identified people. In my opinion this is a gendered behavior encompassing masculinity on a whole. It’s a cult mentality and it needs to stop.

Breaching into the realm of BDSM I’ve taken note on what I would describe as a mirror to that behavior among female identified kinksters, especially dominants. Patriarchy is also harmful. Just as a pendulum swings from one extreme to other, so can decorum. This is referred to as “Benevolent sexism” and it only hurts other same gendered people when exhibited by their gender peers, in this case, other females. Psychologists have even suggested that benevolent sexism is more harmful than overtly hostile sexism because it is insidious, acting like “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

What do I mean?

Let’s take a look at the following…

Have you found as a female submissive, female dominants cannot truly understand you, and vice versa? I have found true friendship is hard to manage between female submissives and female dominants or tops.

Do you believe most women should be passive, submissive or even if they are dominant follow the lead of male dominants in order to learn more? The more willful, strong attitude and ideas I express, the more I find my fellow female identified kinksters shy away. I’ve even heard someone flat out say, “I don’t trust female dominants because they haven’t been doing this as long.”

When presented with the notion that a female dominant could also be a victim of abuse or having their consent violated do you agree that is not a possibility? It is often assumed as a top or dominant, your consent cannot be violated — ever!

Have you ever felt like other women were in competition versus cooperation with you? I see this often at FemDom themed events.

Do you like gossiping about other females and their choice of dressing, current partner choice, sexual freedoms, or more? I have been slut shamed repeatedly, by females within and outside of the kink community.

Are you someone who has thought at one time, “Well she was asking for it,” when hearing about someone’s negative experience to something? I am guilty of some of these as well but continually work hard to break out of my gender heavy conditioning because this mindset is problematic .

I can only speak for myself, but as a child, growing up as a female and even now, media, print, society and real life heavy-handedly attempted to show me what the expectation was for me as a woman in the world, BDSM or otherwise. Females were meant to be meek, followers, leaving certain activities to “men”, dress a certain way, be overly emotional, form attachments easily, laser focus on creating a home and picture perfect family, and of course default to subservience when possible. Within the community, this is even more damaging as it’s supposed to be a safe space where everyone can express any part of themselves as they please. This translates into men who wear dresses proudly, women who enjoy displaying their very phallic strap-ons, females who prefer combat boots to heels, or even those who request to be called ‘Master’. In my opinion all of these are well within the scope of how anyone regardless of gender can act.

Personally I revel in straddling the blurry lines of gender expectations/expressions and can be found growling deeply while in play, sporting boots and a skirt, demanding to be called Mistress (or Daddy) as my 10-inch cock is sucked, all the while still being able to host a High Protocol Afternoon tea party. I, like many others, am just me, and don’t enjoy being presumed to represent myself in any one way. I am comfortable being viewed as a masculine female who loves something from both of those particular personality trait columns.

What is the feminine equivalent of emasculation? De-feminization? Finding a term that explains that has been hard because I honestly believe it’s a conversation that isn’t happening enough. When other females paint their fellow females with a broad brush all you get is a messy picture.

Dominant, submissive, in between, neither? It’s all a part of the lovely complexity that is femininity if a female identified person is doing it and should be honored as such.