Sexism

Sexism is prejudice, discrimination, or stereotyping based on a person's sex or gender. It has historically worked to subordinate women and girls and to enforce rigid ideas about how each gender should look and behave. Many advocates describe it as systemic, built into institutions and culture rather than limited to individual attitudes. Sexism overlaps closely with LGBTQ+ discrimination. Gay men are sometimes targeted for being seen as too feminine, lesbian and bisexual women face bias tied to both their gender and their sexuality, and transgender people confront hostility rooted in the same policing of gender norms. Because homophobia, transphobia, and sexism all rest on strict expectations about gender, work to dismantle one tends to support the others.