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Reverse sexism is a controversial term for discrimination against men and boys, or for anti-male prejudice. [1] [2] [3]
Reverse sexism has been compared by sociologists to reverse racism and "reverse ethnocentrism" in that both are a form of backlash by members of dominant groups (e.g., men, whites, or Anglos). [4] Reverse sexism is rebutted by analogy with the criticism of reverse racism as a response to affirmative action policies that are designed to combat institutionalized sexism and racism. [5] In more rigid forms, this stance assumes that the historic power imbalance in favor of men has been reversed, [6] and that women are now viewed as the superior gender or sex. [7]
Feminist theorist Florence Rush characterizes the idea of reverse sexism specifically as a misogynist reaction to feminism; men's rights activists such as Warren Farrell promote the idea of reverse sexism to argue that the feminist movement has rearranged society in such a way that it now benefits women and harms men. [8] In the preamble to a study on internalized sexism, Steve Bearman, Neill Korobov and Avril Thorne describe reverse sexism as a "misinformed notion", stating that "while individual women or women as a whole may enact prejudicial biases towards specific men or toward men as a group, this is done without the backing of a societal system of institutional power". [9]