> The stance "men are smarter than women" is just plain old sexism since the statement can easily be written as "women are dumber than men".
Let me rewrite 'equating women with "nurturing" characteristics' into "women are more caring than men". Or alternatively "men are less caring than women". Do you see the problem now?
I would say you are adding information that wasn't stated, and you are also missing the important part of the issue. Which is types of issues that result from stances like "women are nurturing".
Such as removing woman from consideration from management positions because you feel that their "nurturing" nature would make them unable to make decisions like firing people or taking a stance that is unpopular with their subordinates.
And honestly, I'm going to be blunt here. I feel like people are reacting defensively to the surface level words rather than what the words actually mean.
Or:
"benevolent for A" = "malevolent for B"
So, it's both "benevolent sexism" and "malevolent sexism" at the same time, just depending on your framing.
Using a logically-equivalent description gives you a different outcome, therefore it's an "absurd" (or meaningless, really) term to use.
How is that any less "problematic" than inverting the above to say that ' men are uncaring or mean'?
Casting all men as uncaring can't possibly be viewed as a good thing.
I don't see the logic there.
The "benevolent sexism" is in regards to equating women with "nurturing" characteristics. My poor understanding of the subject is that the problem is that you are then saying that woman need to be nurturing or they are failing somehow or not meeting expectations, whereas you might not place the same expectation on a man. But it isn't used as a put down against men, just that people don't have the same expectation that men need to be nurturing.
The stance "men are smarter than women" is just plain old sexism since the statement can easily be written as "women are dumber than men".