Experiences of Sexism against Nativism - Research Proposal Example

Experiences of Sexism vs. Nativism Experiences of Sexism vs. Nativism Nativism in earlier times brought with it hatred and love in equal measures for Americans in 1800s after some individuals succeeded in breaking the restrictive legislations of immigration in the 1920s. Anti-immigration forces made their cases blatant by enhancing racism, chauvinism, and bigoted manner against Asians. Besides gender-based disparities, stigmatization experiences are still vast in the contemporary Asian society. Studies enquiring into views of individuals experiencing stigmatization have also explored general processes that relate to prejudice experience. Research conducted over the previous years, however, aroused assumptions that different individuals or groups experience prejudice in a similar manner. By examining three different studies comparing experiences of sexism and nativism that exists among minority females, it is evident that affected persons respond differently to various kinds of prejudice. The first study, conducted by Wong and Lee (2013), revealed an explored quality of character that Asian women invoke in relation to prejudice. From the study, it is evident that participants explained nativism with stronger internal attributions than they did to sexism. The second research by Steele (2009), aided in learning emotional responses to prejudice by Asian women. The study discovered that more Asian women experienced depression from race-based rejection than the same women did with gender-based rejection (Steele, 2009). A third study revealed that there were more cases of nativism perception than sexism in their working, political, social or cultural environments. Introduction In contemporary world, there are challenges of varied kinds in the political, economic, social, and religious setups. Among the most outstanding global challenges presently is the abuse of the human race in places of work, worship, learning institutions and places of residence among other sectors. Women face stigmatization and prejudice from men who perceive the female gender as inferior with less intelligence and incapability. In addition, gender, males and females, face prejudice and stigmatization from races that perceives themselves as superior and most preferred. Asian women are among the victims of nativism and sexism from both Asian men and the white race especially in places of work and learning institutions. Such experiences leave the Asian women highly demoralized, hopeless and with a feeling of rejection and loss of self-esteem. Literature Review Whitely and Kite (2010), describe race as any group of people who have several characteristics to share. They further emphasize that race is not a biological category, but a social one. The two authors emphasize on the need for understanding culture of people before focusing into the influence of cultural belief on perception and reaction towards a particular social group (Nettles & Balter, 2012). Culture has a big influence on prejudice and stereotyping because of the common set beliefs that members of the group have. Remedies et al., (2011,) define Chinese women in the context of Chinese culture, and they define race to be embodied in the blood of an individual. Every Chinese woman has profound information about their race culture and how their belongingness affect emotions, attitudes, and experiences. Crocker and Major (2003), further elaborate that the effects of belonging to a prejudiced and stigmatized group are so adverse that they influence the way people negotiate their relationship. The definition acknowledges insignificant role gender plays in the lives of Asian women. Even though women find themselves in groups that face stigmatization and encounter nativism and sexism, race-related abuses appear to be more spectacular according to Tan’s character than gender-related experiences. It, therefore, raises curiosity whether race-related experiences and gender differently have impacts on female minorities (Banaji, 2011). People express different categories of prejudice towards target groups of a different nature. Asians, for instance, face furious prejudice because other races enviously perceive them as highly competitive and competent. However, a big contrast is evident in Asian women. Paternalistic prejudice faces them because men perceive them as unskilled and passive in the manner they perform all aspects of their obligations as emphasized by Cuddy, Glick, and Fiske, (2010). In their research, compare race and gender-based rejection experienced by Asian Canadian women. In the study, Remedios et al. (2011), examine potential individual differences in emotional reactions to, perceptions of racism and sexism and in individual’s explanations to, and highlight these experiences and their divergence. The first research focused on Attributions, emotions, and perceptions in target of prejudice. Crocker and Major sparked off massive concern in examining people’s perspectives that are the target of prejudice. Many researchers have documented various responses to prejudice. They offer explanation and perception of people in the event that they face abuses. In the event of stigmatization, Major and Crocker (2003) explain that people who suffer stigmatization and prejudice mainly blame it on external causes rather than the internal ones when explaining discrimination. The Major and Crock acknowledge that an individual gets upset when he or she perceives prejudice. Glick, & Rudman, 2012, propose that self-esteem of prejudice perpetrators remain protected because stigmatized groups shift blames from real perpetrators to external excuses. Research also reveals that people view themselves differently on important outcome measures depending on factors of contemplating their race or gender. Kaba, 2009, outlined that perceivers react in varied ways to the Asian women depending on whether the salient target category is race or gender. In a different study, Lowery, Sinclair and Hardin made a serious observation when they noted that Asian women primed with their gender had a favorable evaluation in their verbal abilities than their counterparts primed in race who showed advancement in mathematical abilities. Gender and race influence self-perception among Asian women in varied measures, depending on whether they focus on race or sex. The two factors also have considerable impacts on variability of prejudice and emotional reactions prejudice. Prejudice that Asian women undergo attracts great interests because frameworks of intergroup stereotyping people expose Asian women to contradicting forms of bias (Fiske et al., 2010). Further, people perceive Asian women to be incompetent with low status, though very friendly and, have great display of friendship. Consequently, Asian women receive harmful, though passive and actively helpful treatment from others. It is, therefore, evident that Asian women face open and observable harmful racism as well as negative behavior from others (Glick & Fiske, 2012). Remedies et al. (2011), ascertain that recent researches also reveal that Asian women face more explicitly negative prejudice. Asian women, therefore, react more intensively to race-based rejection than they do to situations related to sex-based rejection. The authors claim that they used the hypothesis that any Asian woman who contemplates racism has higher possibilities of demonstrating massive awareness leaving sexism as the major source of abuse. Major et al., gave further predictions with their hypothesis that Asian women emotionally react differently to sexism and racism. In addition, they also argued that more negative effects emerged from race-based rejection than the manner it manipulated in sex-based rejection. The two authors gave the reason that the overt negativity that is inherent in the anti-Asian bias is behind the variation (Kaba, 2009). Racism from these researches is emerging to be the most salient compared to sexism. Further, racism is an easier vice to detect among Asian women than the way they do to sexism in their daily lives. Stigmatization, according to results of the studies, causes prejudice and consequently and an attempt to find ways of explaining their experiences. Present Study Study 1: We conducted a study to examine whether Asian women arouse varied patterns of attributions to explain different types of prejudice. A research team conducted a study to ascertain the attributions that can explain racism and sexism. In the research, we developed a condition in which the respondents imagined that they were subjects of rejection because of their race. In another study, participants imagined that that they faced rejection and discrimination from the important university course in which they sought admission. The study also sought to study the third aspect that focused on whether the Asian women invoked varied rationalization to describe racism in comparison with sexism. There was contemplation on whether the women faced rejection due to their gender or just mere lack of intelligence. Method The research mainly utilized participants and recruitment method in which female students presented their Asian descent on a questionnaire completed before the actual study. The research team recruited participants through telephone asking them to participate in the study. Research team asked the participants to agree to provide details of their ethnicities and their ages, as well as their academic specifications. The key interest was in their ethnicity, but the other supplementary questions simply helped to avoid unnecessary suspicion among the participants about the intention of the study. We gave a token of ten dollars to the participants the study (Remedies et al., 2011). Of the 67 participants, 52 were Chinese, nine were Koreans, Vietnamese comprised of three, two, and one were Japanese and Taiwanese respectively. The average age was between 20.1 years. Procedure Research focused on studying and examining whether Asian women arouse varied patterns of attributions to explain different types of prejudice. Research team provided each participant with an individual computer after they had given an informed consent. Researchers elaborated the purpose of the experiment as that intended to examine the judgment in situations that are hypothetical. The participants revealed that professors denied them access to take certain courses even after seeking permission to do so. Sadly, most of them revealed shocking news that those denied the opportunity faced the wrath, not because of incompetence, but it was based on either their race or gender (Holoien, 2010). Women of Chinese origin reveal that professors would rather let in even more than ten white students but not one of a Chinese origin. The nativism condition under the study revealed that the nationality of every student who the professor excluded from the course matched participant’s Chinese nationality. Participants from Korea confirmed their consent to the assertion. Surprisingly, students who the research team had assigned to sexism also gave the same scenario. All the same, the sexism participants noticed with deep concern that for every situation where the professor allowed at least 10 men into the classroom, not even a single woman got the same chance. That was an indication of gender-based rejection to an Asian woman. The control measure came when our participants attributed discrimination, external causes, and internal causes to rejection. The students also rated the extent to which they remain to blame for the prejudice and discrimination outcome described in the experiment. Discussion The result of the study gave a comprehensive account that describes Asian women as more likely to construct attributions for describing and explaining racism than how they would do it in sexism. However, the study did not establish that participants had themselves more to blame for rejections that are race-based than those that are personal or sex-based rejections. In addition, the research illustrated Asian women who comprehensively understand the reasons behind racism have managed to recognize that they are victims of moral injustice in the society (Holoien, 2010). Findings revealed that participants had an equal likelihood of attributing sexism and nativism to factors that are external. The research team again went ahead to carry out another experiment to establish the veracity of findings in study 1. Summary of Results The table shows a summary of mean internal attribution, external attribution ratings and self-blame as a fraction type in study 1 and 2. Measure Study 1 Results Nativism Sexism Personal Internal attributions 4.48 3.36 3.10 Self-blame 1.87 2.43 2.64 External attributions 5. 08 4.81 4.63 Note that all the represent an average respondents out 10 women (Adapted from Remedies et al., 2011) Research limitation The research met limitations because it only involved female Asian undergraduate students making it difficult to generalize. Conclusion Asian women evidently experience more challenges when it comes to nativism than the experience they meet in sexism. Research also suggests that Asian women come to contact with different types of prejudice and discrimination. Research also reveals that Asian women display negative reaction to nativism than in sexism. It is unfortunate that human beings still face abuse based on their race and gender. It is time that equality should be the guiding principle in distributing opportunities to every gender, race, religious group, culture or any other human personality globally. Any form of rejection, prejudice, or stigmatization is detrimental to an individual’s self-esteem and satisfaction. Institutions mandated to advocate the rights of women in Asian societies should upgrade their measures to avoid instances of prejudice. References Banaji, S. (2011). South Asian Media Cultures: Audiences, Representations, Contexts. New York: Anthem Press. Fiske, S. T., Gilbert, D. T., & Lindzey, G. (2010). Handbook of Social Psychology. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. Glick, P. & Rudman, L. (2012). Social Psychology of Gender. New York: Guilford Press. Holoien, D. (2010).Social Stigma and Disadvantage: Current Themes and Future Prospects. Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 66, No. 3, 2010, pp. 618--633 Kaba, A. J. (2009). Race, Gender and Progress: Are Black American Women the New Model Minority?. Journal Of African American Studies, 12(4), 309-335. doi:10.1007/s12111-008-9043-8 Major, B. & Crocker, J. (2003). Social Stigma and Self-Esteem: The Self Protective Properties of Stigma. Psychological review, 96, 608-630. Nettles, R., & Balter, R. (2012). Multiple Minority Identities: Applications For Practice, Research, And Training. New York: Springer Pub. Remedios, J., Chasteen, A. and Paek, J. (17 June, 2011). Not All Prejudices Are Experienced Equally: Comparing Experiences Of Racism And Sexism In Female Minorities. Group Processes Intergroup Relations. Sage. Steele, C. M. (2009). A Threat In The Air: How Stereotypes Shape Intellectual Identity And Performance. American Psychologist, 52(6), 613. Whitley, B. E., & Kite, M. E. (2010). The Psychology of Prejudice and Discrimination. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Wong, S. & Lee, R. (2013). Asian America.Net: Ethnicity Nationalism and Cyberspace: Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Cyberspace. New York: Routledge. Read More