Seeing Like a Feminist: The Role of Politicized Collective Identity in Perceiving and Resisting Sexism among College Students

Abstract

With women all over the world speaking up about their experiences with sexism, it is becoming increasingly important to understand what it takes for one to recognize and subsequently resist sexism. While hostile, overt forms of sexism may be obvious to detect and resist, the same cannot be said for benevolent sexism. Using a mixed-methods approach, involving the use of thematic and statistical analysis, it was found that politicized collective identity can enable women to perceive and resist both hostile and benevolent sexism and that there exist significant differences between women who identify as feminists and those who don’t vis-a-vis perceiving and resisting sexism, the perception of well-being after resisting sexism, and possessing a politicized collective identity.