Blog #4: Ay, Papi!

In efforts to identify ourselves and others, sex is one of the most readily available classifications we can make. Sexism occurs when a person's gender is used as the basis for prejudice and discrimination; essentially an easily-made negative judgment of or response to another's sex (Stangor et al., 1992). According to Glick and Fiske (2001a), ambivalent sexism is a concept used to characterize two forms of sexism: hostile sexism (negativity and resentment of women) and benevolent sexism (affection for and protection of women). The occurence of sexism is certainly not unique to Mexico, however, due to a tendency to exhibit ambivalent sexism in countries with greater degrees of political and economic inequality, ambivalent sexism is more prevalent in Mexico than in the United States (Glick, Fiske, et al., 2000).

Two summers ago, I spent 6 weeks in Mexico to study both the language and the culture. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my time there, but the experience was not without a few memorable situations. Sexist behaviors occurred daily, in almost any public place my friends (a large group of girls) and I went. The benevolent sexism of our host fathers, specifically when they protectively walked us to and from the university during our first days in the city, were not resented. Unfortunately, hostile sexism also reared its ugly head in the form of "cat calls," gesturing, and other degrading acts from an overwhelmingly large portion of the male population. Although not always blatantly hostile, the reduction of a woman to a sexual object is not a friendly thing to do in my book! On more than one occasion, younger men whipped out their camera phones and took pictures of us simply walking down the street.

My friends and I certainly don't consider ourselves sex icons or super models, and were often taken aback by the responses we elicited. Although we had all been warned of the possibility that blatant sexism would be a part of daily life, it was helpful to sit down in our culture class one day and discuss the objectifying manner in which many of us were treated. It was helpful to be reminded that popular culture consistently sexualizes and objectifies women in ways that perpetuate sexist behaviors. One of our professors at the university illustrated this by having each of us simply watch at least 5 minutes of a local television program. During this time, it was easy to observe the objectification and sexualization of women in the ways in which they dressed, spoke, and interacted with men. Although not every man in Mexico behaves in such explicitly sexist ways, it is easy to see how the media can promote and perpetuate hostile sexism (Rudman & Borgida, 1995).

*P.S. - As I tend to do, I took matters into my own hands toward the end of our trip. It seems I reached my capacity for objectification. Consequently, I began to respond to the cat calls, such as "ay, mami!" Although this made quite a few of my friends nervous, the expression on the caller's face when I yelled back "ay, papi!" was priceless and worth breaking social norms.


Glick, P., & Fiske, S. T. (2001a). Ambivalent sexism. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 33, pp. 115-188). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Glick, P., Fiske, S. T., et al. (2000). Beyond prejudice as simple antipathy: Hostile and benevolent sexism across cultures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 763-775.

Rudman, L. A., & Borgida, E. (1995). The afterglow of construct accessibility: The behavioral consequences of priming men to view women as sexual objects. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 31, 493-517.

Stangor, C., Lynch, L., Changming, D., & Glass, B. (1992). Categorization of individuals on the basis of multiple social features. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 207-218.